A noise was coming from the drawing room so he nudged the door open slowly with his gun. Across the room with her back to him was Racine. Jim cleared his throat and she whirled around in shock.
They stared at each other for maybe five seconds and then she rushed across the room and hugged him, making him wince in pain. ‘Jim! Jim! They told me you were dead. Thank the Gods you’re still alive!’
She let him go and stared down at the gun, ‘Jim … is that for me?’ she asked in a horrified tone.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what was going on, it was just a precaution in case you were in trouble, sorry I didn’t mean to scare you. Look here, I’ll put it down.’ He put the gun down on the drinks cabinet and put his hat next to it. ‘There you see, all safe now.’
He approached her and took her hands, ‘Thank the Gods that you’re safe too. What happened, how did you escape? What happened to Lassiter?’
She took her hands back from his and began wringing them as she slowly walked around the drawing room, gathering her thoughts.
‘They were holding me prisoner at Vincent’s house all the time. They said if I co-operated they would let you live but then later they told me that Bolan had killed you, down in the basement.
‘I was heartbroken, my life was shattered. They locked me in a room and then a short while later there was a lot of shouting and running about and some gunshots, then it all went silent. I picked the lock on the door and found the place empty. I stole the bust and escaped.
‘I have it here,’ she showed him the bust in the leather case. ‘We should take it and get away, Vincent or Bolan might show up at any time.’ She continued her circuit of the room, ending up by the drinks cabinet.
‘You don’t have to worry about Bolan, I killed him … but what do you know about Lassiter?’ asked Jim.
‘Bolan’s dead? That probably explains why Vincent hasn’t come here yet, too scared without Bolan to back him up.’
‘So you didn’t shoot Lassiter? Somebody killed him.’
‘Of course not … I didn’t even know he was dead,’ she asserted.
Jim cursed under his breath and looked down at his feet. Then he took something out of his jacket pocket.
‘Then how do you explain this?’ he said, holding up her handkerchief. ‘Lassiter was clutching it when I found him. It’s got your perfume on it.’
‘Well, there’s only one answer that I can give you,’ she said raising Jim’s gun that she had picked up from the drinks cabinet and pointing it at him. ‘This …’
She fired the gun at Jim, again and again. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
He stood there unmoving, he didn’t fall, in fact he didn’t even flinch. She had given him all six rounds and he just stood there. There weren’t even any wounds on him.
As the echo of the gunshots died away and the smoke cleared, their eyes met and they stared into each other’s souls. Neither of them spoke, the room was deathly quiet.
But if you listened very carefully, you could just hear the sound of Jim’s heart, breaking.
She looked at him in astonishment and then the gun. ‘Blanks!’ she said disgustedly and threw the gun to the floor between them.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It was the only way I could be sure, give you the chance and see if you took it. And sadly … you did.’
‘Look Jim, we could start again, a clean slate. You ran out on me in Cannes, I tried to cheat you here, so we’re even. What do you say we give it another go?’ she pleaded.
Jim picked up his gun and went over to her. He leaned close to her ear and briefly whispered something. Now, you’d have to be pretty close to hear the conversation, and none of us were, so we don’t know exactly what he said but I’m pretty certain the second word was “off!”.
‘I abandoned you in Cannes, but you just tried to kill me! I’d hardly call that even. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ he asked her. ‘What your vicious little plan was all about?’
‘Hell, why not?’ she went to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a whisky then sat in one of the armchairs.
Jim also helped himself to a drink but stayed well away from her. Who knew what other surprises she had up her sleeve?
‘You really hurt me when you left, you know,’ she began. ‘I barely survived for a long time but then a year or two ago I took up with Vincent. But it was always there at the back of my mind, how I’d pay you back if I ever got the chance. Vincent and I travelled around Europe and I always hoped that I’d run into you again. When we had the chance to come to Londum I jumped at it as I hoped you might be here.
‘I wasn’t sure what I would do when I found you, how I would bring you down but when we met I just let it flow along until you gave me the clue I needed. When we went to the British Museum and you told me how much you wanted to steal the snake statue, I knew I could use that. I got you to believe you were in a scam to get Vincent imprisoned but actually it was all about making you steal that snake statue and then letting Bolan kill you. The irony of having you do all the dirty work and then paying the ultimate price while we profited by it was too good to believe.
‘Once you’d stolen the statue I was going to have Bolan kill Vincent and bring it to me. I promised the fool that we would run away together. But when I saw the opportunity to grab it for myself, I took it, Vincent just … got in the way,’ she said, without any sign of remorse.
‘I’ve been waiting for Bolan to turn up so I could take care of him too, I didn’t want him chasing me around Europe to take his revenge, but I never for a minute imagined that you would get the better of him and make it out of that cellar alive. You were supposed to be dead!’ she said bitterly.
He took a deep breath to calm his temper. ‘And all that stuff about wanting revenge because of Lady Ralston?’
‘It was true … mostly, I was a stooge for Vincent, getting to know targets and giving the information to Vincent. Then I met Lady Ralston. I did befriend her as you taught me to, as a way of gathering information. It was me that told Vincent about the letters from her lover. Then Vincent blackmailed her and when he released the letters the stupid woman went and killed herself. How was I to know she’d do that? So this whole caper was a revenge thing but it was about revenge on you.’
‘Do you really hate me that much?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘You’ll never know how much.’
Hell hath no fury … thought Jim ‘Oh, I think I’m getting a pretty good idea.’
Jim broke open his revolver and emptied the cartridges out. Reaching into his jacket pocket he pulled out more bullets and refilled the gun. ‘This time they’re real,’ he told her.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘this is how it is going to be … I’m going to take the Snake-head statue with me. You have one day to get out of Albion. If you haven’t left by tomorrow night, I’ll have you kidnapped and you’ll spend the rest of your life working in a brothel in Algiers.’
She tried to stand up to argue with him but he put the muzzle of his gun into her chest and pushed her back down again, none too gently. He waved the gun in her face, ‘But of course there is another option, so don’t push your luck.’
He picked up the case containing the statue. ‘The irony of all this is that the Snake-head isn’t even real,’ he told her. ‘I have a little man who makes things like this for me. The original idea was that I would swap it for the original and no one would know for years but because of your little scheme I had to steal it for real, so Lassiter would believe the one I gave him was genuine. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing that if I didn’t make it through this caper, whoever he tried to sell it to wouldn’t have been happy at him trying to fob them off with a fake.’
‘So that isn’t the real one?’ she said nodding towards the case.
‘No. I stashed the real one somewhere safe. I’ve left a letter to the British Museum on my coffee-table. In case I never made it home from Lassiter’s that night, it would tell them where to find it.’<
br />
He opened the case and put his gun inside. Picking up his hat he headed for the door.
‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘For your own sake, make sure I never see you again.’
‘Did I hurt your feelings?’ she asked, trying to goad him.
‘I never had any to hurt,’ he lied.
But she couldn’t let it go. ‘I only slept with you to pull you into my little scheme, you know. I hated every minute in bed with you, the truth is you made my skin crawl,’ she called after him in one last effort to wound him.
‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Well for your information, I faked all my orgasms!’ and shut the door behind him.
As he rode home in a cab, Jim mused about how callous and vindictive women can be sometimes. He remembered his time in the British Army serving in Bharat. One of his fellow junior officers had received a ‘Dear John’ from his fiancé telling him that she was going to marry someone else. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was even petty enough to ask for her picture back. This broke the poor guy’s heart, adding insult to injury like that.
Jim came up with an idea to pay her back. All the other officers in the Mess rallied around and gave the young officer spare pictures of their own wives and girlfriends. Then he gathered them all together and sent them off to her with a note saying, ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I can’t remember which one you are. Would you be good enough to claim your picture and send the others back to me?’
***
Jim was standing at his front window a day or so later, sipping an after lunch glass of whisky, just watching the world go by when he saw Inspector Corner and Constable Peabody approaching his house. He put his glass down on the drinks cabinet and went to meet them.
‘It’s Corner of the Yard,’ he opened the door and greeted them cheerfully. ‘What a pleasant surprise! Do come in, gentlemen.’ He led them through into the drawing room where he had been standing, watching out of the window. ‘Please, have a seat Inspector, Constable.’
Inspector Corner did take a seat but Peabody remained standing at the door, blocking the exit.
Jim went to the drinks cabinet and picked up the whisky decanter, ‘Drink gentlemen?’
‘No thank you sir, we’re on duty,’ replied the inspector. Constable Peabody seemed disappointed and looked at the floor.
Right thought Jim, taking his time filling his glass, I’m involved in two murders, one of which I committed, and a robbery at the British Museum. That’s obviously why they are here. I can probably get the inspector with the decanter and if I can reach the poker I should be able to take down the constable, he’s tall but he’s thin. I just need to get through the door then they’ll never catch me. Pick up my secret, emergency stash and then it’s off to Europe.
Jim put down his glass, tightened his grip on the decanter and was just about to swing into action when Inspector Corner surprised him by saying, ‘We’ve just come to inform you that you have been cleared of any involvement in the Bachman robbery.’
Jim stood there stunned, heart racing as the adrenaline coursed through his body. ‘Excuse me?’ was all he could manage.
‘We have concluded our investigation and we can find no evidence that you were involved in the robbery, your alibi checks out. I just thought I’d let you know you were off the hook and all restrictions on your movements have been lifted. You may leave town if you wish,’ explained Inspector Corner.
‘That is good news,’ said Jim. ‘Not that I had anything to worry about you understand. So, the case is closed then?’
‘Cases are never closed until we have apprehended the culprit. They stay open and we revisit them occasionally. So we always have hopes that one day the guilty party will be brought to justice.’ He seemed to be looking a little too directly at Jim for his liking.
‘I looked into your background Mr. Darby. Apparently you’ve never been in manufacturing. So why buy property that can be turned into a factory if you don’t manufacture anything? That’s what been puzzling me,’ asked Corner.
Careful, thought Jim. ‘I was thinking of going into manufacturing, that’s all, diversify my interests you know. A whim but when I looked into it, it all seemed too messy an affair. Interfere with my leisure time, you know,’ replied Jim. ‘So I gave up the idea and sold the property on.’
‘So I understand. To all the residents of Suffolk St. apparently. That’s very generous of you.’
‘Like to do my little bit for charity, Inspector. Give something back to the community, that’s what I always say. Is there anything wrong with that?’
‘No … nothing wrong Mr. Darby but there’s a lot of things that don’t add up in this case, mainly your actions, to be frank. But as there’s nothing illegal in any of them, then I’ll have to let it go but just be aware, I’ll be taking an interest in you in the future Mr. Darby, as something smells fishy to me about this whole business and I don’t like being hoodwinked.’ He jammed his hat on his head. ‘Good day to you Mr. Darby. Come on Peabody, let’s be going. We’ll see ourselves out.’
Jim waited until he heard the street door close and then began to laugh, uncontrollably. Despite the threat from Corner, it was the release from tension and the relief that they hadn’t come to arrest him for murder, or robbing the British Museum, not even robbing Bachman’s safe! A moment ago he thought he was facing a hanging, now he wasn’t even going to get a couple of years for robbing Bachman. Justice had been served, he felt.
He couldn’t help himself; he just fell onto his couch and roared hilariously.
Something Blue
Jim sat on the bed, reading a fairy story to Sarah. She sat beside him clutching the teddy bear that he had given her and watched, fascinated, as he spoke, her eyes flicking between his face and the words on the page of the book. She knew that those markings on the page meant something, she understood the concept of reading, but she didn’t know exactly what they meant, no one had ever taught her to read. She was determined that one day she would master that art until she could read as well as Jim.
Nurse Phipps walked past the dormitory and glanced in. Seeing Jim and Sarah she froze for an instant then made a dash for the Ladies lavatory, which was on that floor. She quickly checked her hair in the mirror. Dr. Barnato’s forbade the nurses to wear makeup on duty, so Phipps pinched her cheeks to make them red. When she looked the best she could, she dashed along the corridor, skidding to a halt outside the dormitory. Controlling her breathing, she casually sauntered into the dormitory.
‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ Jim finished and closed the book.
Sarah took the book from him and ran her fingers over the letters as if she could absorb their meaning, magickally, through her skin. ‘Do people always live happily ever after?’ she asked him.
‘I won’t lie to you Sarah, no, they don’t always.’
She looked at him and nodded. This one is smart, he thought.
‘May I call you … Uncle Jim?’ she asked, hesitantly.
‘Well, I … er …’ He shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’
‘Will I see you again, Uncle Jim?’
‘Of course you will. Tell you what, why don’t we go for a picnic in the park?’
‘Yes, a picnic, great,’ she said. ‘What’s a picnic?’
‘Well, it’s when you sit in the park and eat food.’
‘What, like having your dinner outdoors?’
‘Well, more like lunch actually.’
‘When, when, when?’ she asked, excitedly.
He noticed the pretty nurse who he had met when he brought Sarah to Dr. Barnato’s. She was standing nearby watching them. ‘Why don’t we ask Nurse Phipps when she has a day off? Maybe she’d like to accompany us.’
‘Tuesday,’ replied Nurse Phipps. ‘I have Tuesdays off.’
‘Would you do us the honour of joining us for a picnic on Tuesday?’ he asked her. ‘I’ll bring the food.’
‘Why yes,’ she said blushing, ‘I’d be delighted.’
‘Well there you go then
, Sarah. I’ll come back next Tuesday and the three of us will go for a picnic in the park. Now, run along and play with the other children, I’ll see you on Tuesday.’
Sarah stood up, kissed him on the cheek and said, ‘Bye Uncle Jim. See you on Tuesday.’ Then she ran off to join the rest of the children, who were playing in the garden.
Jim watched her go and then turned to Nurse Phipps. ‘Thanks for agreeing to come with us; I’d feel a bit awkward on my own. What was all that stuff about calling me Uncle Jim?’
‘It’s quite common with orphans; they often have a desperate need to belong to a family. As long as she feels that she has an “Uncle” out there, then she won’t feel so alone. She dotes on you so it’s not surprising that she asked you. She never lets that toy bear out of her sight.’
‘I see, well it won’t do any harm I suppose.’ He stood up and she helped him on with his overcoat. He reached into his pocket and took out a thickly stuffed envelope. ‘Here’s something extra for the Doctor’s funds, I’m sure he can always use a little more.’
‘Oh thank you, I don’t know what to say. I’m sure the Doctor will want to thank you himself.’
‘Oh don’t worry about that. Just tell him to keep up the good work.’
Jim reached into his pocket again and took out a bank note. He tucked it into her breast pocket. ‘Do you think you could buy a new dress for Sarah for Tuesday? Something in blue perhaps, it’ll go with her eyes.’
She walked him to the front door and with a, ‘See you about eleven o’clock on Tuesday then,’ he walked down the steps and into the bright sunshine.
People don’t always live happily ever after, he had told Sarah. As he walked down the street, he thought of Racine, he knew that he had been foolish to get involved with her again, he should have trusted his initial instincts that had made him leave her in Cannes, but sometimes … “The heart wants what the heart wants”. No, there aren’t always happy endings.
Then he looked at the sunny day, listened to the birds singing and the face of Nurse Phipps came into his mind and he smiled.
The Londum Omnibus Volume Two (The Londum Series Book 12) Page 13
