Past Imperative [Round One of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  Alice headed for the desk to collect her room key. She could see it dangling on the board with the others, well out of reach. There was no message in her pigeonhole, and no news was good news because the only people who knew where she was staying were the hospital and the police.

  She hoped D'Arcy had found the note she had left for him in the sitting room—at times he could be quite astonishingly unperceptive, blind as a mole. She teased him about that. She had left another note on the pillow: “See note on mantelpiece. She wondered what he had done this morning without her. Perhaps this Sunday he had actually gone to church! She would send a telegram to his chambers in the morning. Unless Edward took a grave turn for the worse, she absolutely must get back to town tomorrow.

  The clerk was not in evidence. Before she could lift the little brass bell thoughtfully placed on the desk for just such an emergency, a man spoke from the far end of the hall.

  "Miss Prescott?"

  She jumped and turned.

  He must have been sitting in the corner armchair. Now he had risen. He was large, portly, dressed like a banker in his Sunday best, waistcoat and gold watch chain.

  "I am she."

  He nodded and walked over to her, taking his time, carrying his bowler. She closed her fingers on the bell. His hair was thinning, his graying mustache turned up in points like the Kaiser's.

  "Inspector Leatherdale of the County Constabulary, Miss Prescott. Wonder if I might have a word with you?"

  Alice released the bell. Her heart was behaving disgracefully. “Of course, Inspector. I hope you can inform me what has transpired. I did inquire at the station, but the officer there was most uncommunicative."

  The policeman nodded, as if that was to be expected. He gestured to the heavy sofas by the fireplace. “There are some gentlemen in the Residents’ Lounge, ma'am. This should be private enough."

  She led the way over there and perched carefully on an edge, keeping her back straight as a musket. The cushion sagged so low that her knees tilted uncomfortably to the side. She stood her parasol upright against the arm and removed her gloves. Leatherdale pulled up the creases of his trouser legs at the knees in thrifty middle-class fashion, then settled deeply into the sofa beside hers. He produced a notebook and fountain pen.

  He looked annoyingly comfortable. She hoped she appeared more composed than she felt, because she felt like a felon caught red-handed, which was ridiculous. Dear Uncle Roland would consider her sense of guilt very fitting if he knew of it and knew what caused it. He could not know, of course, but absence of evidence would never lead him to doubt. He had been convinced of her depravity as soon as she moved out on her own, and that had been long before she met D'Arcy. Immorality was not a criminal offense. It just felt like it at the moment.

  "Now, Inspector! I understand that—"

  "Your full name, please, ma'am. For the record."

  He took charge of the conversation so effectively that she found herself waiting in obsequious silence while he wrote down every answer. What did her age have to do with Edward's accident? Or her address? Or that she had been born in India, raised in British East Africa, was self-supporting, taught piano?

  "Edward George Exeter is your first cousin?"

  "He is. He is also seriously injured, Inspector. I was told he fell down some stairs, but I have yet to learn—"

  The inspector looked up with eyes as cold and penetrating as the iceberg that sank the Titanic. “We do not know how he came to fall down those stairs, Miss Prescott. That is something we hope to establish when he is well enough to answer questions."

  "You mean it was not an accident?"

  "What happened to Exeter may or may not have been an accident. The other young man involved was stabbed to death. I can tell you, though, that there seems to have been no one else present at the time. As of this date your cousin has not been charged, but he is an obvious suspect in a clear case of murder."

  The ensuing silence had the impact of bells. Stabbed to death? Murder?

  Edward? She felt herself opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

  The questions began to roll again. She did not hear them, and yet she could hear her voice answering them.

  "Anything I can do to help ... caught the first train ... uncle's housekeeper sent me a telegram ... very fond, extremely fond of Edward ... more like brother and sister..."

  It was unbelievable. Edward would never murder anyone! Murder was something that happened in the slums of Limehouse. Murder was Jack the Ripper or Dr. Crippen, not Edward! There had been some horrible mistake.

  She must have said so, because the inspector was nodding understandably. “I know how you must feel,” he said, and suddenly he seemed avuncular and less intimidating. “Between ourselves, I am much inclined to agree with you, Miss Prescott. Your cousin seems like a very promising young man, well thought of, of good family..."

  He must have asked, or she had volunteered, because she discovered that she was telling him all about their family, and about herself.

  "...other sahibs fled town when the cholera arrived. My parents were both doctors, though ... sent me away and they stayed ... I don't remember them at all ... mother had two brothers. I was sent off to Kenya on the mail boat, like a parcel. Uncle Cameron, Aunt Rona ... like parents to me..."

  She was telling of Africa, the only childhood she could recall ... Why should the policeman care about that? Yet he was still making notes, apparently managing to keep up with the story pouring out of her.

  "And you came Home when exactly?"

  "In 1906. Edward followed in ‘08, when he was twelve."

  "You do not live with your uncle now, though?"

  "I am of age, Inspector."

  "But you have lived on your own for some time?” he asked, watching her shrewdly under bushy gray brows.

  She took a deep breath. She knew the conclusions men drew when a woman lived on her own. That those conclusions were now true in her case made them no less unfair. They would have been there had she never met D'Arcy. There had been no one before D'Arcy.

  "Uncle Roland is not an easy man to live with."

  "Your cousin shares that opinion?"

  To describe Edward's opinions of Holy Roly could not help, although they were starting to look appallingly accurate. “The relationship is cool on both sides. It was all right at first, but since Aunt Griselda died, my uncle has become ... well, difficult."

  The inspector nodded thoughtfully and studied his notebook for a moment. Hooves and wheels clattered past the windows.

  "Exeter rarely stayed with his uncle, even in holiday time?"

  "My uncle goes out of town a lot. He ... He tends to distrust young people. He preferred not to leave us in the care of the servants. I was more fortunate. My father was survived by two elderly maiden aunts. I mostly spent my summers with them in Bournemouth.” The Misses Prescott had been reluctant to put up with their great-niece. They had had no use for an adolescent boy about the house, a boy unrelated to them.

  "So he lived year-round at Fallow?"

  "Not completely. Friends would often invite him to visit during the holidays. He has been to the Continent several times, France and Germany, staying with families to learn the language. The school arranges such things."

  The more she could tell about Edward the better, surely? Then the police would see how absurd it was to suspect him of anything.

  "You know, I don't believe Edward has ever told a lie in his life, Inspector? He—"

  The policeman donned his fatherly smile. “Your family seems to have been very dedicated to the Empire, Miss Prescott. Let me see if I have them pegged correctly. Mr. Cameron Exeter, Edward's father, was a district officer in British East Africa. Dr. Roland Exeter was a missionary in the South Pacific for the Lighthouse Missionary Society, of which he is now director. Your mother, Mrs. Mildred Prescott, was a doctor in India?"

  Alice laughed for the first time. “I think we all have guilty consciences. My great-grandfather was a
nabob. He made a fortune in India. Loot, Edward calls it."

  Leatherdale made another note. “Your family has money still, then?"

  "Some, Inspector. We are by no means wealthy, though."

  That might be more true than she meant it to be. More and more it looked as if Edward was right and Holy Roly had poured the whole lot into his blessed Missionary Society. She had not seen a penny of her inheritance yet. But surely that scrap of dirty family laundry was irrelevant? Surely this whole family history was irrelevant?

  The policeman did not seem to think so. Was he truly on Edward's side as he had claimed, or was he somehow trying to trap her into saying something she should not? But what on earth could she reveal that would be damaging? Nothing!

  "Your uncle, the Reverend Roland Exeter, is an elderly man?"

  "In his seventies, yes."

  "Seventy-two, actually,” Leatherdale said offhandedly. “Born in 1842. And your mother?"

  Puzzled and oddly uneasy now, Alice said, “I'd have to work it out. She was thirty-eight when I was born. I can't recall why I know even that much."

  Leatherdale scribbled. “So 1855 or “56. And Roland in “42. How about Cameron?"

  "I don't know. I never saw them after I left Africa, remember. But he must have been much younger."

  The bushy brows flickered upward. “According to Who's Who, your uncle Roland was the second son—meaning Cameron was the oldest child."

  She smiled and shook her head. “I'm quite sure he wasn't! I remember how shocked I was at how old Uncle Roland was when I met him. Perhaps it's a misprint?"

  "Possibly.” The inspector seemed to change the subject. “It seems odd that your adoptive parents never came Home on leave. District officers are usually granted leave every two years or so, aren't they?"

  "I don't know. Yes, I suppose so. Nyagatha is very remote. It was even more remote in those days.” That seemed irrelevant, somehow. All the Empire was remote.

  "Your cousin Edward. Last week he was on his way to Crete. When he had to cancel his plans—when he came back to England—why did he come to Greyfriars?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Did he get in touch with you?"

  Alice shook her head. “He dropped me a postcard on his way through London. I am not on the telephone, you know. He just said the trip was off and he was coming here, to stay with General and Mrs. Bodgley."

  "He did not wish to stay with his uncle,” Leatherdale said. “Why not with you?"

  She felt herself blushing, but it would not matter. “I could not put him up!"

  "Why not?"

  Her cheeks felt warmer yet. “Really, Inspector! If the highly respectable ladies who employ me were to hear that a young man had been seen entering and leaving my flat, then they would never allow me across their doorsteps again! They would not let me near their pianos, let alone their children!"

  Which was true, but not the real reason. What if Edward had stumbled on something of D'Arcy's lying around? His dressing gown, for example? Edward was a romantic. It would kill him.

  "You are on good terms, though?"

  "Oh, yes! I told you, I regard him as a brother."

  "And what are his feelings toward you?"

  She turned and stared at the empty fireplace. “You had best direct that question to him, Inspector."

  "Murder is no respecter of privacy, Miss Prescott!"

  She turned to him in horror. “Heavens! You don't mean I am going to find myself pilloried in the gutter press? The News of the World?” If the reporters ever scented a scandal as well as a murder and dragged D'Arcy in, his career would be completely ruined. His wife was a vindictive bitch.

  The big man shrugged. “In normal times I expect you would. I believe the Kaiser will save you in this instance."

  "Well, that is certainly a relief!"

  "So will you answer my question, ma'am?"

  "My cousin believes he is in love with me."

  "Believes?"

  She turned again to the fireplace. “Edward has led a very sheltered life, and in many ways an extremely lonely one. He last saw his parents when he was twelve. They died in very horrible circumstances four years later. I was the only person he could turn to. I am three years older, which is a lot at that age. Some of his letters were heartbreaking!"

  And just when the pain was easing, Cameron's reputation had been stamped into the mud by the board of inquiry. For Edward, that had been a toboggan trip through Hell.

  She forced herself to meet the policeman's steady stare. “I am literally the only girl he knows! Can't you see? Edward has a romantic Celtic streak to him. He believes he is in love with me. Now he has left school ... in a few months ... when he has had a chance to meet other girls..."

  Edward would not meet many girls if he had to spend those next few months in jail.

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  14

  ABOUT THE ONLY GOOD THING AMBRIA IMPRESARIO EVER found to say about Narsh—and Eleal agreed with her on this—was that it had a very good hostel. True, it was shabby and none too clean, like the rest of the city, but it was located conveniently close to the shearing barn where the plays were performed. It provided innumerable poky rooms, and it was never busy so early in the spring, when the troupe needed it. There was no embarrassing pretending to be asleep when the troupe played Narsh.

  Snow was starting to pile up in alleys and the light was failing when Eleal at last found her way back there—thinking gloomily that they should all be down in warm Filoby by now, getting ready for the evening's performance.

  She was still very shaky from her narrow escape, but no terrible gods had come after her. Dolm Actor himself might have bled to death, if his rites had failed. He would have been in too much pain to notice any noise she had made in leaving, and the snow had not been lying then, so she should have left no tracks.

  Now that she had recovered from her fright, she felt angry, which was strange. Perhaps she should feel sorry for Dolm, who served so terrible a god, but she couldn't feel sorry. Murdering people was wrong, no matter what old Sister Ahn might say. Dolm had deceived her all her life, and she just felt angry.

  She wondered what T'lin Dragontrader would say when she told him about that bizarre performance. He would believe her. To mention it to anyone else was unthinkable—even if Dolm Actor never returned, the troupe would not credit her story. She would be the only one who would ever know what had happened to him.

  The hostel was a welcome sight in the dusk. There was no smoke rising from the chimney, though, as she had hoped there would be by now. She found the key in its usual cranny under the step. The door opened into the big communal kitchen that took up most of the ground floor, big enough and high enough to house a family of mammoths. Another door led out to toilets and washrooms; a wooden stair against one wall led up to sleeping rooms above.

  She stood for a while, sniffing the familiar smells of ancient cooking and old tallow, listening to wind rattling the casements and whining in the eaves. There seemed to be no one else in the familiar old warren. She decided she would take off her coat first, comb her hair, and then kindle a fire to heat up wash water. She felt limp and sore from a long day. Only a llama should be expected to spend so long inside a heavy fleece.

  She set off up the staircase that clung to the high, raw-stone wall. From long habit, she stepped on the ends of the treads. Ambria was always accusing her of sneaking, but she hated the sound of her uneven gait and had learned to move quietly in consequence. Our Lady Mouse, Golfren called her sometimes.

  In some cities the troupe slept in one big room, while in Jurg they stayed in the king's house. The Narsh hostel lay somewhere between those two extremes. It was so large and so empty at this time of year that Eleal had a room all to herself, not having to share with Olimmiar. She walked down the long corridor, turned the corner, and saw her pack lying abandoned by Klip Trumpeter's door. Muscle building only went so far, obviously.

  As she stooped to lift it, she det
ected a faint rasping coming from the room itself. The door was ajar, but whatever was making that odd noise was not visible through the crack.

  One of the really nice things about the Narsh hostel was the size of its keyholes. Trumpeter was standing with his back to her, stripped to his breechclout as Dolm Actor had been. But Klip was not engaged in any arcane holy ritual. The cloth was white, anyway, although not as white as it should have been. He had a brick in each hand, and he was swinging them up and down, up and down. His bony back and shoulders gleamed with sweat, and the noise was his panting. He sounded almost ready to collapse.

  He was really serious about those muscles! Perhaps he had believed her little lie after all? She sensed interesting opportunities for teasing—she might mention bricks at supper and smile at him innocently. That would make Trumpeter's face glow like one big all-over pimple.

  Amused, Eleal took up her pack and tiptoed off along the corridor. Then she came to another open door, and her heart jumped into her mouth and stayed there.

  This was Yama and Dolm's room. Like the others, it contained no furniture except a straw pallet, but their packs were lying there. Someone must have brought all the baggage back. Shivering with a sort of sick excitement, Eleal stared at this deadly opportunity.

  When she had been little, she had found people's packs absolutely irresistible. There was always something interesting in them! Once she had found a hand-tinted print of a naked woman in K'linpor Actor's, and had produced it at lunch for everyone to admire. That had been a painful experience all round.

  She had grown more discreet after that, but about two years ago Ambria had caught her going through Trong's pack and had taken a belt to her. That had really hurt. And then Ambria had said that Eleal Singer was nothing but a stray fledgling and the troupe had no duty to care for her and feed her and if she was ever caught prying like that again, she would be thrown out on the street where she belonged. That had hurt even more.

  Since then, she had mostly managed to resist personal packs. They were a bad habit.