Maggie Bright

by Tracy Groot

  She laid her hand on his arm. “I do, actually.”

  “Hitler’s ways are new and bold and powerful. Ours are old and traditional and plodding. And not one of us will go down without a fight for those plodding ways.” He blinked quickly. “I know in my heart that is not bully-boy rhetoric. We will not have him here. Not him, or his ways.” He gave a curt nod.

  When the ache in Clare’s throat passed, she ventured, “How did Arthur Vance die?”

  Butterfield realized he held a half-eaten biscuit. He laid it down, and looked out the window longingly, as if searching for a better day, a day long gone or a day far in the future.

  “I’m not sure how much you want to tell Murray. His father was tortured, you see. I’ll not give those details. We made it to the hospital just before he went into surgery. He told us Klein didn’t get the packet, but that’s it—never said where it was, because he saved his final bit of strength to pass on last words to his son.”

  “What were they?”

  “Do you know,” Butterfield mused, as if discovering something new, “his face was so white, he had no strength to even lift his head, but what struck me was that the man was dying, and he knew it, yet he was so calm. No panic. No desperation. There was some sort of rueful serenity about it, as if yes, the game was up, and he’d been caught as he knew he would be, but he also knew he’d done what he was supposed to do, as long as he could, best as he could, right to the end. No stout defiance about it. Just . . . rueful serenity.” A faint smile, and he focused on Clare. “It was the last we saw him alive. His final words were, ‘Tell Murray I’m sorry it all went to bilge.’ Sailor speak, I suppose, for ‘I’m sorry I left you and your mother.’”

  “Bilge is awful,” Clare agreed, pressing the tissue to her nose. “It’s foul and nasty and part of my boat I pretend doesn’t exist. Look, are you quite sure he didn’t say something like ‘Tell him I love him’? Can’t I please pass along something a little more . . . ?”

  “I’m sure those words were as good as, my dear,” Butterfield said soothingly. “They felt so. It’s how men talk, you see. We came to learn that leaving his wife and child was Vance’s lifelong regret. ‘I’m sorry it all went to bilge’ meant ‘I’ve been an ass and if I had a chance to do it over, I’d do it differently. And PS—I love you with all my heart, and I’m ever so proud of you.’ Yes, it meant all that.” He let the words lie for a time, and then, mustering a transitionary show of cheerfulness, which came off as something rather brave and sad, “So what is Murray Vance like, then? Arthur was proud of him. Certainly a clever lad. Love to get his autograph for my son.”

  Clare fussed with her tissue. “I don’t know, really. Only met him yesterday.” She half smiled. “I feel as though I know you and your William better.”

  If I can go down like Arthur Vance, warning others—well, that’s something, isn’t it?

  Such an intense man. His boyish face positively deceived.

  She found that she had fussed the tissue to shreds.

  Sounding very much like the Shrew, she collected the shreds and herself at the same time. You will take hold of your courage and your vision and your singularity of purpose and you will divert them to join ranks with men such as these and you will go down warning others. You will go down for ways that are plodding and good. That’s something, isn’t it?

  For today, this day of days, her sailing dream had ended.

  She suddenly said, “Mr. Percy said, ‘Don’t tell her all. Not that.’ What did he mean?”

  “Oh . . . sometimes William is a little hard to read.”

  “That sounds evasive, Mr. Butterfield.”

  “He could have been referring to the nature of Vance’s death. It was quite brutal. Affected us deeply, since we’d come to know the man. It’s one thing to investigate a murder of a stranger, another when the victim is known to you . . . and known as a hero. But let’s set that aside for now.” He brandished a finger. “Right! You tell Murray Vance it’s time to get back on the bike. We must keep on with whatever we’ve been given to do. We shall all of us go down in harness. I plan to go out ruefully serene, myself.” He flashed a quick smile, then took his hat and secured it on his head, rose from the table, and shook her hand. “Thank you for your time, Miss Childs. Here’s my card. Do ring us up if Waldemar Klein pops in for tea, though as I said, I’m sure he’s thoroughly searched the boat and is long gone. Nothing to worry about. Good day, Miss Childs.”

  He started to go, but hesitated.

  He looked through the window to the police station across the street. A softening came to his face. A troubled affection.

  “My associate is the oldest of six children. His parents had their final child late in life, a sister whom he quite adores. Cecelia, six years old—little Cecy. Darling thing. Calls me Uncle Fred. Cecy has Down syndrome. And William used a word the other day, one I don’t believe I’ve heard spoken in conversation; he said when he first saw the picture of Erich von Wechsler, and learned what had happened to him, he felt eviscerated.”

  Clare followed his gaze.

  “He’s carried a picture of her in his wallet since that day.”

  Home is invaded.

  “You’ll forgive him if catching Klein, and retrieving that packet, has become something of—as they say—a magnificent obsession.” He touched the brim of his hat and left.

  Percy’s hand, flat upon the envelope, had contracted to a white fist.

  Clare snatched her hat and coat.

  “YOU’RE QUITE SURE?” asked William Percy of the desk sergeant. The photograph of Waldemar Klein lay on the desk blotter in front of him.

  “I don’t forget faces, lad. That’s him—the ratty one, not the younger bloke.”

  “But yesterday you said he was American.”

  “Half a mo.” He held up his finger, and answered the telephone. “This is Sergeant Blake.”

  William remained composed for about five seconds, then banged the counter ledge with his fist. Klein, at last! The newspaper ruse worked! Flushed him out!

  He could feel that neck in his fist, and it had nothing to do with justice. It was pure vengeance, and if vengeance was supposed to belong to God, then William was God’s agent. He would kill Waldemar Klein for killing Arthur Vance. He would kill him for Erich von Wechsler. He would kill him for even thinking the barest nuance of thought that he could breathe in that hell-born doctrine and exhale its fumes upon his little sister.

  He laughed, gave a little hop in place, smiled expansively at the woman in line behind him and even chucked her baby under its sticky chin, though he couldn’t stand babies. But the surge of elation had no sooner crested than a thought came to crush it entirely.

  The baby’s eyes welled with tears, and it began to wail.

  He strode to the bank of windows and stared across the street to the restaurant. Single-handedly circumnavigate the globe—what nonsense. And now she was in trouble before she ever left the dock.

  His fingers closed over the bandage.

  “What have we got?” said Butterfield, coming alongside.

  “Ah! There you are! You’ll never believe it. I’ll lord it over you for the rest of your life.” He took Butterfield’s arm and hurried him to the counter.

  Butterfield took in the photograph in front of the desk sergeant.

  He took in William’s agitated state. “Great scott,” he breathed. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “He came to see the vicar. Just yesterday.” They stared at one another until William laughed, and thumped Butterfield’s back. “Our man thought he was American.”

  “Well, he didn’t say much, you see,” said the sergeant defensively, hanging up the phone. “How could I tell? When I told him the vicar had got his quota of visits for the day, he left in a hurry. Not like that one, who pitched a right jolly fit.” Following his nod, they turned around.

  “I do like that girl,” Butterfield said.

  “Another lamb to adore?” William said dryly.

&nbs
p; “Well, she doesn’t look very lamblike now, does she?”

  Clare Childs came straight for William. She took up position under his nose, and his heart gave a strange little skip at this assault of sorts.

  “Look here,” she said, brown eyes in a fine dangerous blaze, “if you think for one moment—”

  “Funny,” said William calmly. “I was just coming back for you.”

  Her surprise was comical. He could almost smile, but the next thought took away any desire to do so.

  She noticed, and demanded, “Well? What is it?”

  “Waldemar Klein has surfaced. He tried to see the vicar.”

  “Oh,” she said. She realized she was standing a bit close, and took a step back. Then she said, “Oh!” and clutched William’s arm. “Someone was watching my boat!”

  “When?” William and Butterfield said sharply.

  “The other day.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yesterday!”

  “Was Clemens there yesterday?” William asked Butterfield.

  “No. I pulled him off last week and put him on the Grosvenor case.”

  “Mrs. Shrew saw someone around the corner of the boathouse. She’s not the sort to imagine things.” Her gaze went blank and she started for the door, but William caught her back.

  “Where are you going, Miss Childs?”

  “Well, I’ve got to get home! It’s all unraveling!” She clutched her head. “Captain John’s son is in the BEF, and I’ve left Murray alone, and they’re all quite unguarded without me. If Klein came to see the BV, then obviously his next move is—”

  “He won’t try anything in broad daylight,” William said quickly.

  “Well, he visited the BV in broad daylight,” she said, rather shrill.

  “William is quite right, Miss Childs,” Butterfield said soothingly. “Klein won’t risk it. Come, now—my associate will take you back to the boatyard, and check things out thoroughly. You will be quite reassured. We will repost a man on watch immediately.” To William, he said, “Drop me at the office. I’ll pull Clemens from—”

  “Post me.”

  Butterfield studied William for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, all right. But I can’t spare you too long, with the current uncertainties. No more than a few days. Any longer, and we’ll put Clemens back on it.” He turned to the desk sergeant. “My good fellow.” He stabbed the photograph on the desk with his finger. “If this man returns, you are to—”

  “Shoot him,” declared Miss Childs.

  They looked at her, and William said to the sergeant with a raised brow, “You heard the lady.”

  On the way to Elliott’s Boatyard, they had stopped at Percy’s flat in Merton to collect a few things. A very different William Percy got into the car. Gone was the suit, replaced with deck shoes, deck trousers, a cotton shirt, and a light jacket.

  “You look as though you’re ready to repel boarders,” Clare said.

  “Rather yachtie of me, but it’s all I could scramble for now. I’d sooner have a fisherman’s look.”

  “Perhaps Captain John has something a bit dirtier. What do you plan to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have a talk with Elliott and we’ll sort something out. I’ll need a place where I can observe the boat without being observed. At least Klein doesn’t know my face.” He shifted gears, and turned a corner. “What were you going to say to me when you came into the station?”

  Clare watched shops and neighborhoods flash past. Was Murray awake by now?

  “Murray seems so alone,” she murmured. “There’s something very childlike about him, though he’s got to be at least twenty. I feel very protective of him. He’s a guest, you know.”

  Was the Shrew still with Captain John at the boathouse, and Murray all alone, and there comes from above a peculiar creak which he does not know is peculiar? Just how desperate was Waldemar Klein?

  He murdered Arthur Vance. Tortured him to death. That’s how desperate. Of course he’d try something in broad daylight. They just didn’t want her to panic. She clutched the passenger-seat armrest.

  “What were you going to say to me—?”

  “I’ve forgotten it. I’m sure it was quite a good speech.”

  “Looked like it promised to be.” He took another corner. He adjusted the rearview mirror.

  He was far too calm. As much as he wanted Klein, he wasn’t even driving fast.

  Maybe she was overreacting. She loosened her grip on the armrest.

  “Perhaps I feel protective of Murray because apparently he’s America’s national treasure.” She hesitated. “It’s the Shrew, you see. And Captain John. They’re all the family I have.”

  “What about your uncle and aunt?”

  “How very strange that you should know me,” she said a bit indignantly. “It feels very odd.”

  “That’s about all I know,” Percy admitted. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to unnerve you any more than that.”

  “Well, my uncle and aunt don’t count.” She lifted her chin.

  He looked at her sideways. “They took you in when your parents died.”

  She looked out the window.

  “Well, I didn’t like your uncle,” he offered cheerfully.

  She glanced at him, startled.

  “We dropped by to ask him about the relationship between your father and Arthur Vance. He’d never heard of Vance. He said your father was much younger and ran with different friends.”

  “Why would you ask that about my father?” She frowned, concentrating. “Hang on—I do remember someone asking, not long after I signed the papers for Maggie . . .”

  “That was our man, Clemens.”

  Shocked, she said, “I thought he worked for Mr. Hillary, our family’s solicitor. Not Scotland Yard.”

  Percy shrugged. “Then he was doing his job.”

  “He showed up one day, said he worked for Mr. Hillary, and asked if I’d found anything on the boat. Said he was clearing up loose ends for the distribution of the will. I showed him a box full of newspapers and bric-a-brac, which he carefully examined, but left behind. He asked how well did I know Mr. Vance, and I said I didn’t know him at all. Never met him. My father died when I was eleven, and I don’t remember him mentioning a Vance. But then, how much do eleven-year-olds really know of their parents?” She smoothed the pleats on her skirt. “They don’t observe things, then. They would, if they knew it would all be taken.”

  “Arthur Vance had many friends abroad, but not in Britain. That was the curious thing. Once you had inherited the boat—”

  “It was bequeathed to me. There’s a difference,” Clare said with feeling. “It should belong to Murray. I don’t know how to feel about it. If I allow myself to feel anything at all, I’m quite terrified I will lose her.” She felt for the locket.

  “Yes, well, once you had . . . received . . . the boat, and when we’d spoken with your uncle, he didn’t seem happy at all with your good fortune. Hinted that he had spent a great deal of money raising you, and that the boat should be his in recompense. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had produced a ledger to that effect.”

  “But he did keep a ledger! Every nick I made on a bit of wood, every meal I ate, every article of clothing—it all went into the ledger. He took it out of what my parents left me when I turned twenty-one. Not a penny more, not a penny less.”

  Percy was silent, but she noticed that his hands had tightened on the steering wheel. “I wasn’t with the man five minutes and he made my skin crawl,” he said. “Ten, and I wanted to kill him.”

  She studied him. “He usually fools people.”

  “Not as much as you’d think. I know his sort. I’ll take an honest criminal over him any day. Most pathetic man I’ve ever met. Strange, really, how he provoked such a reaction in me. I truly wanted to throttle him.”

  Rather electric, to hear such truth spoken aloud.

  Her heart beating faster, she ventured, “It’s as though he has a force about him.”

  “Ye
s. Exactly.” He said it so matter-of-factly.

  She absorbed herself in passing scenery. “I thought it was me.”

  “Oh, he wanted you to believe so. Manipulative tyrant. And his wife!” Percy barked a cold laugh. “What a pathetic woman.”

  She stared at him. “There’s nothing left of her.”

  He gave her a glance. “My precise assessment. Good thing you got out in time. She may as well have been a piece of wallpaper. Rather horrifying, how he took her over.”

  “Yes,” Clare whispered.

  His hands tightened fractionally on the wheel. After a moment, he said, “Can’t imagine if that had happened to you.”

  “It did, for a time.”

  “Why do you always grab hold of that necklace?” he said sharply.

  Her hand flew from her neck, but didn’t know where else to go, and went to the locket again. Then she got angry, with herself or with him, and could think of nothing to say.

  “That is to say . . . what does it mean to you?” His tone had softened. “Did it belong to your mother?”

  “No.” Then, “Well . . . sort of.” She’d never told anyone this, not even the Shrew. “A few years ago, I went to see if my parents even existed. It was such an idyllic childhood. Oh, I was an only child and dearly wished for brothers and sisters, but nonetheless, we were quite happy, just me and Mum and Dad. When they died, I went to my uncle and aunt’s the same day—never returned to my home. I wasn’t allowed to retrieve any of my belongings. Not my clothes, or my books. My uncle had the home sealed off, and later he had an estate sale—sold everything. There was nothing left of my mum and dad. Not a dish or a vase. Not my mother’s knitting, or her songbooks. Not my father’s glasses, or his pipe. How I loved the smell of that pipe on his jacket. The jacket was gone. It was all gone.”