Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  But why hadn't they cleaned up the blood on the floor? Or replaced the pillow?

  The answer came to him in a rolling wave: Because they knew the fire was coming.

  And whoever had died in this cell, it wasn't Mr. X.

  Hal strode to the bed and tore open the pillow. Balls of hardened foam spilled out. Then he stripped the sheet off the bed. He opened the rolled blanket and then lifted the thin mattress.

  There was a book underneath it, resting on top of the flimsy springs.

  Hal picked it up and fanned through the pages. No loose paper. From the card in the front pocket, it looked like a library book. It was written in a language he could not read. He stuck it in the waistband of his trousers and continued searching the room, but there was little else in the cell that could conceal anything. He wished he'd brought a knife to slit open the mattress but had to settle for a check of the seams. They appeared to be intact, and there were no hard lumps inside.

  Just as he was finishing up, another rumble sounded from down the corridor. Hal looked over to see the dust rising from another section of fallen ceiling. After the heavy rain, the weight of the crumbled plaster, now soaked with water, was too much for the frail, fire-damaged structure to support. Before long it would all come down, and if Hal wasn't lucky, he was going to go down with it.

  He left the cell and followed the corridor around another bend, only to find that it ended in what seemed to be an impenetrable barrier of rubble, twisted wood, plaster, lathwork, and sharp shards of roof slate. His way was blocked, but to his left, the rubble sloped up at a forty-five-degree grade. He could not see any sky at the end of the ramp, but if he got there he might be able to push his way out through the debris.

  He dug into broken strips of plaster and slate and began to scramble up the incline. He seemed to slide back as far and as fast as he moved forward, and around him he could hear the creaking of boards and beams, sounding almost angry for having been disturbed.

  Trying to swallow his panic, he climbed harder, digging his feet into the shifting debris to push himself upward. He could feel his fingers bleeding as he forced them into the loose rubble.

  But he was moving forward. Moving upward.

  And then he was at the top of the grade and could move no more. Something solid had closed the escape route.

  He twisted his body around so that he was jammed into the small area in a sitting position, supported by his back and his legs, then reached over his head and tried to work the obstruction loose.

  It was a large section of plastered wall, and it was too heavy to move. He was trapped again.

  He paused and took a deep breath.

  Not so damned fast. He looked around and found a yard-long chunk of wood, possibly a broken two-by-four from a wall stud.

  He held it with both hands and then began hammering upward on the plaster itself. First it creaked, sending choking powder down into his upturned face. He spat it out, squinted hard, and kept hammering at the plaster above his head.

  Suddenly the wooden post broke through. The gray light of the cloudy sky dazzled Hal's sore eyes, which had adapted to the dark. "Emily!" he shouted.

  "Hal?"

  "I'm over here."

  Before he could tell her to stay out of the way, her hands had reached through the hole and were clawing at the loose stones from the top.

  "Watch it. You'll fall through."

  "I'm not as stupid as you are, damn it!" she shouted.

  Hal grinned. Her shock at Arthur's disappearance was giving way to anger. Good. People could live with anger. When they were good and mad at the world, they didn't shrivel up and die like worms in the sun. She was going to make it now, he knew. "Well, clear the area for a second, anyway, so I can loosen some more of this crap," he shouted up to her.

  He hammered at the white sheet of the fallen wall until he chipped away another chunk. "All clear," he shouted, and Emily's hands once again appeared, bleeding but working frantically above him as he pulled the loose plaster down.

  "Once more," he said.

  Another voice answered him. "Hold on, Yank. Move clear if you can."

  "Candy?"

  The big Englishman responded with a grunt as he hoisted a huge piece of sheetrock and threw it like a giant discus onto the grass. Hal shielded his head with his arms while debris poured down on him. When it stopped, there was a hole big enough for him to drag his body through.

  Emily threw her arms around him. "Thank God you're all right," she said.

  Hal smiled. "I was just thinking the same thing about you."

  "And I was thinking what a horse's arse you are," Candy said, slapping the dust from his suit.

  Emily laughed. It was the first time Hal had ever heard her laugh.

  It sounded beautiful.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The inspector was laughing too. "You look like Frosty the Snowman," he said.

  "When did you get here?" Hal panted, trying to catch his breath.

  "I arrived just in time to see you buried alive. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but you didn't tell me you were going spelunking. I went back to the inn, but you'd gone. Fortunately, the perceptive Mrs. Sloan guessed your destination."

  Hal saw that the door of Candy's Ford was wide open. The inspector had probably come at a dead run. Hal might have felt some semblance of gratitude toward the man if he weren't so annoyed with him.

  "Why didn't you tell me the place had been sabotaged?" he said accusingly. He took the piece of plastique out of his pocket and slapped it into Candy's hand.

  "What difference would that have made?"

  "We might have known from the beginning who we were dealing with. This building was destroyed from inside. By an inmate. Your Mr. X never died in that fire." He told Candy about the bloodstains in the cell. "Someone carried a seven-foot-tall man into that cell and killed him there. What I can't understand is, why didn't anyone notice that the corpse had been shot or stabbed?"

  "He wasn't," the Inspector said. "He died of asphyxiation. According to the report, the body showed all the right signs."

  "Then how did the blood get all over the pillow?"

  Candy looked at the ground. "His teeth were broken."

  "His teeth?"

  Candy nodded. "After I left you, I called headquarters for a check on the body's morgue report. Seems all the fellow's teeth had been broken."

  "To prevent an identification."

  The inspector sighed. "I doubt if much effort had been made in that case, anyway," he said. "There was only one inmate in the basement, and he was seven feet tall. A seven-foot-tall body was recovered from the inmate's locked cell. That was probably enough, under the circumstances."

  "No one noticed the blood leading into the cell?"

  Candy shook his head. "The place was filled with smoke when the bodies were retrieved."

  "And no one from Scotland Yard thought to go into the basement since the fire?" Hal asked angrily.

  "We're not a national police force," Candy said evenly. "We only come into most cases when are requested. Apparently the local investigators on this case saw no need."

  He had been careful, Hal noticed, to indicate that he himself had not been involved with that investigation. "Well, they should have seen the need," Hal said.

  Candy looked ashamed, as if any lapse of judgment on the part of British people anywhere reflected poorly on his own reputation.

  "I found this under his mattress," Hal said, handing Candy the book.

  The inspector leafed through it, frowning in bewilderment. "It's from the library in Bournemouth. That's the nearest big city. But what the blazes is the language?"

  "Urdu," Emily said.

  Both men turned to her at once. They had nearly forgotten she was there. "I beg your pardon?" Candy said.

  "Urdu," Emily repeated. "It's a dialect of Hindi, with an essentially identical grammar, although it's written from right to left in the Perso-Arabic script, whereas of course Hindi is written from lef
t to right, in the Devanagari style—"

  "Excuse me, Miss Blessing," Candy interrupted. "Can you read this?"

  "I think so," Emily said. "It was one of the languages I studied in graduate school." She squinted at the title. "Social Movements of the Punjab During the Late Nineteenth Century. That's a rough translation."

  Both men looked at each other. "It'll do," Candy said, handing the book to her.

  "All right," Hal said. "Now that we're officially involved in this investigation, I'd like to see a picture of Mr. X. Do you have one?"

  "We could arrange to get one. As to your being a part of the investigation . . ."

  "Would you rather deal with Constable Nubbit? Come on. I'm a civilian here, but you know I'm trained. I can help. And I'm going to be involved with you or without you. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to work together?"

  Candy thought about it for a moment. "I suppose you make a case," he said finally.

  "Good."

  "As long as you remember who's in charge around here."

  "You're the boss, Inspector."

  Emily closed the book and looked up at both of them. "Just find Arthur," she said quietly.

  Arthur awoke with the setting sun splashing into his eyes. A tall man as thin and angular as a spider was standing at of the window, looking out.

  The boy leaped up from the sofa, blinking wildly. The tall man turned, smiled, then turned back to the window. "English sunsets are lovely," he said.

  "Who are you?" Arthur demanded.

  "An old friend," Saladin said, touching the lace edge of the draperies. "No doubt you don't remember me."

  Arthur ran for the door, but it was locked. "Why'd you bring me here? Where's Hal? Did you kill him too, the way you killed Mr. Taliesin?"

  "Taliesin? Is that what the old fox is calling himself these days?" He laughed.

  It occurred to Arthur that this madman who had grabbed him on horseback must have confused him with someone else. "Look. My name's Arthur Blessing. I'm from Chicago—"

  "Yes, yes," Saladin said. "I know exactly who you are. Do you have to use the toilet? If you do, it's over there." He pointed to a corner of the large, elegantly appointed room. "If not, please calm yourself. I assure you there is no way for you to leave this room."

  Arthur sat down. Suddenly his head seemed to be crammed painfully full of memories—the horsemen in the meadow, the shining sword that sliced through the old man's head, the bolt of lightning that washed everything in its dazzling light and seemed to sweep Taliesin away with it . . .

  And before that, the other memories, the nightmare memories of the man in the bus and the others who had followed Arthur and Emily from Illinois.

  All for the cup. Emily had wanted him to give it up, but he'd insisted on keeping it. And now the old man was dead, and Hal and Emily, too, for all he knew.

  "I don't have it," he said quietly.

  "Don't mumble, Arthur."

  Arthur scowled at the remark, but spoke up clearly: "The cup. The metal ball. I don't have it."

  "Yes, I'm aware of that. The man you refer to as Taliesin took it."

  "He's dead," Arthur said angrily. "You guys killed him."

  Saladin only smiled. "One doesn't kill a wizard, boy. Especially not that one. He'll be back."

  "A wizard? Mr. Taliesin?"

  "Cornflower," Saladin said.

  "What?"

  "The color of your eyes. I'd almost forgotten. They're cornflower blue." He sighed. "It's been so long."

  "You're crazy," Arthur said.

  Saladin sat down in a straight-backed chair opposite him. "I suppose it must seem that way. But you'll understand. We have some time."

  "Some time before what?" he asked with as bad an attitude as he could muster.

  The tall man shrugged. "I'd prefer not to talk about that just now, Arthur. Tell me, when did you meet this Mr. Taliesin?"

  Arthur looked at him sideways. He didn't want to give the impression that he was willing to be friendly to the man who had kidnapped him.

  "Long ago?" Saladin prodded.

  "Yesterday," Arthur said sullenly. "On the bus."

  "Ah. And did he remind you of anyone else?"

  "No. Well . . ." Arthur waffled.

  "Who?" Saladin leaned forward in his chair.

  "Just Mr. Goldberg. Sometimes."

  The tall man sank back into a slouch.

  "He used to live in my building back in Riverside. He didn't really look like Mr. Taliesin, and he didn't talk like him either. But once in a while Mr. Taliesin reminded me of him. I don't know why. Mr. Goldberg was Jewish. I think he was born in Germany."

  "I'm not interested in Mr. Goldberg," Saladin said acidly. "Was there nothing at all familiar about the old fool? Nothing that . . . called to you?"

  Arthur frowned. "Why should he call to me? I just met him."

  "Fascinating," Saladin said. "You're a completely new person. Yet you look exactly the same."

  "The same as what?"

  "The same as you were, you little twit! You don't have any idea who you were, do you?"

  Arthur struggled to understand for a moment, then gave up. "Nuts," he muttered.

  Outside, the sun settled into a warm red line on the horizon, nearly flat except for the rise of one hill on which a partial wall stood among piles of rock. Arthur's heart beat faster.

  The castle. So the horsemen hadn't taken him far. If he could escape, he could walk to the castle, and from there he could find his way back to the inn.

  The tall man went to the door and spoke to someone outside, in the hallway.

  He's got the room under guard, Arthur thought. Escaping might not be so easy.

  "Are you hungry?" Saladin asked.

  "No," Arthur lied. He was ravenous.

  Saladin laughed. "Perhaps you could force yourself."

  "I wouldn't bet on it."

  In another few minutes a servant appeared with a tray. Arthur was startled to see the man's eyes. They were same as the tall man's. And then all the memories came into focus:

  All the men had had the same eyes. All the men who had chased him and Emily, who had tried to kill them so often.

  "What do you want from me?" he asked quietly.

  "From you? Nothing." He had the servant uncover the tray. On it were a steak, a heap of French fried potatoes, sliced tomatoes, a few stalks of green asparagus, a hard roll, a glass of milk, and an enormous piece of chocolate cake. "Please," Saladin said, gesturing toward the plate.

  "I want to know why you've got me here."

  "For the cup, of course. It belongs to me, and I intend to get it back."

  "I told you, I don't have it. It disappeared with Mr. Taliesin."

  "And it will reappear with him when he comes to trade it for you."

  "What makes you so sure he's not dead?" Arthur asked.

  "That would be difficult to explain just now. But take my word for it. He's alive. Do eat, Arthur. Keep up your strength."

  Arthur smelled the aroma of the steaming steak. "I don't want it," he said.

  Saladin smiled. "You always were stubborn. Very well." He rose and knocked on the door. Immediately the same servant appeared to remove the tray. Arthur felt like weeping to see it go, but he kept his face impassive.

  "What if he doesn't come?" the boy asked. "I only met him yesterday."

  "And he may have figured out what the cup can do?" Saladin finished for him.

  Reluctantly, Arthur nodded.

  "Do you really know what it can do, Arthur?"

  "It can heal wounds."

  "And therefore . . ." He gestured for Arthur to continue.

  Therefore what? "Whoever owns it won't ever get hurt."

  "Or?"

  "Or what? I don't know what you're getting at."

  "Don't you? Don't you really?"

  The boy only stared, puzzled.

  "Come, Arthur." Saladin led him to a small table inlaid with an onyx and mother-of-pearl chess board on which sat two armies of playing
pieces, one silver and one deep gold. "Do you play?"

  Arthur was silent for a moment. Then he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  "I thought you might," Saladin said. He took the seat opposite the boy, on the gold side of the board.

  "What happens if you don't get the cup back?" Arthur asked. He pushed a pawn forward.

  Saladin countered his move. "I'll kill you," he said pleasantly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Hal dropped Emily off at the inn, where she could concentrate on the translation of the book, then followed Inspector Candy back to the constable's office. The team from Scotland Yard had set up its own headquarters, using both the office and a big unmarked van parked behind the station. In deference to Constable Nubbit, Candy's two assistants tried to do most of their work from the mobile unit.

  Their names were Higgins and Chastain. Higgins was a young, scholarly type with shaggy hair, an aristocratic jaw, and big, unspeakably filthy glasses. Hal wondered how he could see anything through those nearly opaque lenses.

  Chastain, on the other hand, was clean as a new kewpie doll. Well past the retirement age for regulation gumshoe detectives, he obviously held onto his job by being the best on-the-scene analyst on the force. He had the abstracted air of someone who'd had very little to do with the everyday world for a long, long time.

  Neither seemed to Hal much like policemen. They hardly batted an eye when Candy announced that Mr. Woczniak, formerly of the FBI and the principal witness in the Blessing kidnapping case, would be working closely with them. Most cops Hal knew would have bristled and complained immediately that an outsider was going to mess with their work, but these two seemed beyond such pettiness.

  Looking at their equipment, Hal could guess why. Most of the materials they worked with were too exotic for Hal to name, let alone discuss. These two were like creatures from another planet, content to observe the inanimate evidence of the sweating, suffering, dying species called human beings from the confines of their tiny technological cell.

  They made Hal wonder at the changes in police work since he'd first entered the Bureau's training camp. But then, he thought, why not? The personnel in every other business was just as specialized these days. True, Higgins and Chastain didn't look as if they could hit the broad side of a barn with a stack of tommy guns between them, but the machines and chemicals and fine tools they used with such casual mastery would be far beyond the ken of most field investigators, including himself and probably Brian Candy.