Deal with the Devil

by J. Gunnar Grey

  Hackney stroked the photographic face with his forefinger, a gentle smile lighting his eyes. Stoner’s heart warmed. He had little in common with the gruff copper and hadn’t yet achieved a psychological touch, but this appreciation of Harriet they shared. From the look on his face, he believed Harriet’s image could tell him what he needed to know if he could only animate her — as if she was important to him, too, and solving her murder was the only thing which mattered in the world. A compassionate Watson questioning him was far preferable to a cold and analytical Holmes.

  “Jennifer, how much did Harriet know of this operation?” Stoner asked.

  She scoffed. “Nothing and she didn’t want to know. Unless it had to do with a film star or a pilot, she wasn’t interested.”

  Nevertheless, a lack of knowledge wouldn’t protect her. Stoner sighed. “She did love men so.”

  Hackney glanced up from the photo. “Has she ever gone off with a man she didn’t know well?”

  “No.” Stoner tried to work up energy for outrage but found the effort beyond him. “I believe I taught her better, at least.”

  Still standing beside Hackney’s chair, Jennifer shifted. “Dad, I just don’t know. If the man in question was a pilot — ”

  Hackney and Arnussen exchanged glances. “Lengthens the suspect list a bit,” the sergeant said, and returned to his notes.

  Again the room fell quiet. Hackney stared at the photo cradled in his hands. Stoner wondered if he’d hold a séance where he sat, willing Harriet to speak. But when Hackney glanced up and smiled at Jennifer, he only asked, “Did she always wear flowers in her hair?”

  “Whenever she could.” Her voice broke. “Dad, there’s still a lot of typing to finish. Excuse me.”

  “Of course, my dear.” But she was halfway across the room before he spoke.

  “Axel will talk with her later,” Hackney said as the door closed behind her. “He’s good with the ladies, he is.”

  Arnussen barely glanced up from his notes.

  “There’s something else I must mention.” Stoner looked down at his fingers, once long and elegant, now gnarled and translucent as if covered with rice paper. They were the hands of an old man and didn’t look like his at all. When he glanced up into Hackney’s solid brown gaze, he wondered if the detective ever had such inapropos thoughts regarding his changing anatomy. “The murderer may already be in custody.”

  Arnussen looked up. Hackney lifted his chin. “Oh?”

  “This operation deals with,” Stoner paused, searching for words which would not reveal too much, “interned German citizens.”

  “Oh?” Hackney said again.

  “However, currently we also have a German military officer in residence here. This man was shot down the night of the dance and was captured the Sunday morning following, just as he exited the forest near the farmhouse back door.”

  Arnussen grimaced. “This could get complicated.”

  Hackney pursed his lips and leaned back. “Did you confront him, by any chance?”

  “I did. I don’t know if it’s helpful or not.” It certainly wasn’t going to help the interrogation.

  “Don’t know whether it matters. How did he react?”

  “He vehemently denied any involvement. But possibly he’s lying.”

  “I don’t know,” Hackney said slowly. “That’s more the reaction we’d expect from a man telling the truth. The guilty ones, now, they often slip up and give themselves away when confronted. There was a case in the United States where the detective told a suspect the victim had been raped, and stabbed, and shot. The suspect came back and denied she’d been shot, and how was he to know that unless he did it himself?”

  Stoner paused. The detective displayed no interest in the man everyone else considered the prime suspect. Was Hackney merely attempting to shift attention away from Faust? “This prisoner didn’t ask what happened to her. He merely denied any responsibility.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t make sense, would it?” Hackney said. “Man on the run wouldn’t likely stop to assault a woman unless she got in his way, and then he’d just kill her quick and get out.”

  It was logical. But Stoner realized he didn’t want logic. He wanted a salve for his rage and pain, and if it meant vengeance rather than justice, so be it. It was a humiliating moment. He looked back at his hands and tried the last shot to his bow. “It’s also possible this man is here as an espionage agent.”

  “Makes even less sense. Why would a man who’s trying to melt into society cause trouble for himself?” Hackney shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right. I’ll want to speak with him, of course — if that’s allowed? Does he speak English at all?”

  Stoner drew a deep breath. The longing for revenge remained. But beside it yawned a deep, empty space which he doubted could ever be filled again. “Of course you may and his English is excellent.”

  Hackney grunted. “Stands to reason, doesn’t it? If he’s maybe here as an agent — ”

  There was another knock on the door. Jennifer leaned inside. “They’re back and they’ve got him.” The telephone in the work area jangled. She withdrew and closed the door, a wordless exclamation hanging in air behind her.

  Thank goodness. Stoner blew out his breath. Why hadn’t Bruckmann radioed in a report and let him know?

  Hackney and Arnussen rose together.

  “If you think of anything else,” Arnussen said, “you can reach us through Constable Mercer or at the pub. We’re setting up headquarters there.”

  “Thank you,” Stoner said. “And if there’s anything we can do to assist your investigation, anything at all, please do let us know. We’re most anxious.”

  “Of course.”

  The door opened again. Stoner glanced over.

  Jennifer stood framed in the doorway. Her eyes were huge, her skin grey and damp, and she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. “Dad. Oh, Dad — ”

  The world fell away from beneath his feet, leaving him dangling unsupported in the midst of a cold and angry world. “My dear, what is it?”

  Hackney froze. Arnussen closed his notepad and slid it into his breast pocket, as if clearing his decks for action.

  “Grace.” Her voice cracked on the word. “Little Grace Alcock. They just found her. He’s done it again.” She turned to Hackney. “They’re looking for you.”

  Hackney hurried out, leaving the door open. Stoner heard his voice, calm and steady, from the work area.

  “I see. Well, I’m glad you’re there to take charge, Major Kettering. Keep everyone away from her — yes, her mother especially — and we’ll be there as fast as we can.”

  It could not be real. Stoner reached behind him for his chair and eased into it. This was too horrifying, too morbid, to be allowed; the fact it was all too real only made it worse.

  He looked up as Hackney returned, pausing near the doorway.

  “Not again?” Stoner asked.

  “I’m afraid so.” Hackney glanced at Arnussen. “Her mother just found her, dead in her bedroom. But at least this lets your German officer off the hook.”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

  Arnussen, halfway to the door, stopped and turned back around. Hackney stiffened.

  “You see, he just escaped by running through Pamela Alcock’s chicken farm.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  the same afternoon

  Margeaux Hall

  When Faust arrived back at the Hall, the sullen-faced woman sat at the switchboard.

  Bruckmann took a deep breath and smiled at her. “Mrs. Wainwright, thanks again for your help.”

  Her stare, long and smoldering beneath lowered brows, pushed him back a step. “You’re here. Finally.” Mrs. Wainwright yanked the headphones over her ears, a crease already marking her sculpted dark waves, swung to the switchboard, and crushed a plug into one socket.

  Bruckmann retreated further. Even Tanyon’s impassivity was wide-eyed. As one, the two men eased away from the desk and escorted
Faust through the open door into the ballroom.

  “When you find Carmichael,” Bruckmann murmured to Tanyon, “slaughter him.”

  Tanyon nodded.

  “Privates are great fricasseed,” Faust said. “I learned a recipe in Poland, if you’re interested.”

  Bruckmann ignored him. Tanyon grunted.

  The console radio was silent, the sitting area abandoned. The typists’ pool was frigid enough to shatter with an ice pick. The wispy clerk, Wainwright, huddled over a pile of papers, supporting his chin in both hands, his gaze fastened onto the top sheet as if glued there. At the next desk, Jennifer sat with her back to them. Her shoulders were hunched and the ends of her auburn bob cascaded down to hide her face.

  Tanyon and Bruckmann hesitated. Faust stopped between them. His smile slipped at the edges and he found himself staring at the auburn cascade, the lowered head, the neglected typewriter. Delicate blue veins and bones lined the back of her hand, lying atop her desk, but there was strength in the forearm before it vanished into the crumpled sleeve of her pale yellow blouse. If a man stroked the tiny hairs on her skin, how would she respond?

  She gasped, one sharp inhalation as if she burst from deep water, and swung her chair about. Her hazel gaze swept over him, stopped, focused. He’d been caught staring again but he couldn’t look away. Her face was damp and red choked her eyes, rims and whites. His smile faded further; such a doughty fighter shouldn’t cry.

  She didn’t look away, either, and her focus intensified. Green sparks flashed behind her hazel stare like electricity shimmering through the ballroom, and Faust remembered the woman running from the farmhouse, screaming, her hands clawing empty air. A curious cold sensation began in his stomach and seeped outward until his fingers tingled. Something — no, something else — had happened.

  He wanted to offer condolences on her sister. But before he could decide how to phrase it without risking a ferocious snub, Jennifer erupted from her chair like a recoiling mortar and charged him. Faust froze. The chill wrapped all the way about his body, slowed his thoughts, kept him frozen. Surely Bruckmann or Tanyon would deflect her trajectory. But they seemed as shocked as he, not meeting his glance about.

  Suddenly she was right in front of him, her light floral scent an intimate anomaly. Out of options, he gave ground, backing away from Bruckmann and Tanyon, astonished at the fury twisting her face. Then his heel hit the oak paneling behind him, she hit his chest in front, and her closed fist cracked into his mouth with stunning force.

  Tanyon finally moved, gripping her arm and hauling her away. “Miss Stoner, no.”

  She wrenched in his grasp. Bruckmann shook himself awake and reached for her other arm. But she shoved both of them off. Her fury stayed focused and her stare never left him.

  “Murderer!”

  Faust kept his back to the wall. He steeled himself for another onslaught — Bruckmann had abandoned them and stood murmuring with Wainwright, and good as Tanyon was, he couldn’t hold her alone. But she whirled and ran toward Stoner’s office.

  The old man stood outside his doorway, two other men behind him. She ran into his arms and he closed them about her. For a gentle moment she was still while something moved in Faust’s soul. Then she stepped back, turned, and fixed him with another ferocious glare.

  “She was only fifteen. You murderer.”

  Faust’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. No words came out and not a single thought coalesced in his head. The auburn bob had blown back from her heart-shaped face and red blotches flared in her cheeks. Her chest expanded, lifted her breasts, contracted, lowered them, but he couldn’t look away from her face. She wasn’t beautiful. Her features didn’t match, her hairstyle didn’t suit, and her name didn’t rhyme with anything.

  But she was stunning. She left Campaspe in the dust. And she did something to him he didn’t understand. Besides assaulting him.

  She turned her back, stepped through Stoner’s office door, and soundlessly closed it.

  His lip seemed swollen and a trickle of something warm slipped down his chin. He touched the spot with his grubby left hand. It came away bloody, of course. As usual, her exit broke the spell. He didn’t know what to think of that contradictory, aggravating, ferocious woman. But what she’d said had to be addressed.

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” he yelled into the shocked hush of the ballroom.

  Tanyon stepped closer, one hand dropping to his Webley. Faust shoved past him. Stoner seemed transfixed, staring with his eyebrows aloof. The two unfamiliar men, a walrus and a grey ghost, watched with interest and made no move to intervene.

  “Mr. Stoner, I’m a patient man.” Faust forced his voice down. Still it vibrated through the ballroom. “But I don’t think anyone is this patient. Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  For the first time, Stoner glanced at the two strangers. The walrus, in his mid-fifties and sporting an absurd handlebar mustache, shook his head.

  Faust rolled his eyes. “All right, fine — don’t tell me.” His voice wasn’t so quiet any more. He turned and strode back to Tanyon. “Get me out of here.”

  “Herr Major.”

  Finally. He wheeled about. “Sir?”

  Stoner had noiselessly crossed half the ballroom while Faust’s back was turned. At first glance, icy tingles watered down his rage. From this closer vantage point, Stoner’s labored breathing was impossible to miss. His parchment-thin skin seemed grey and his hands trembled. The signs were unmistakable; Faust had seen them, mere days before Father Matthias collapsed at prayers and slipped from Faust’s boyhood life. And this was the second time in the past two days Stoner had displayed those symptoms.

  If the old geezer had lied to him, it was good riddance.

  “Please forgive my granddaughter’s behavior.” Stoner’s stiff voice matched his formal words. But like the hands, it trembled. “She is distraught.”

  “Really.” He touched his lip again, tasted blood and dirt. “This isn’t just her way of saying hello?”

  “Such sarcasm is unnecessary.”

  “I disagree. I’m in a madhouse and normal standards of polite communication don’t seem to apply.”

  Stoner lowered his chin and advanced further. A gentle flush of color grew in his face. The puzzle pieces clicked into place and Faust’s breath caught. Stoner was an old warrior and he fed off the fight.

  “You understand escape attempts are discouraged.”

  By arguing, he was helping his enemy. If he refused to fight, could he reverse it? He sucked in a deep breath to slow his pulse, but couldn’t stop his mouth.

  “You’re one to talk, Mr. Stoner. You know I have my duty.”

  Stoner’s eyes narrowed. “A reliable authority informs me, when English officers imprisoned in Germany attempt escape and are recaptured, they are punished with thirty days of solitary confinement.”

  His breath caught. “In that bedroom, I’m already in solitary confinement.”

  “A point. I do have a punishment cell at my disposal; however, as it is equipped with neither plumbing, ventilation, nor lighting, I consider it inhumane and prefer not to use it.”

  Faust considered the horrible prospect of stewing in his own juices — literally. The curious cold sensation again invaded his stomach and this time he recognized it as raw fear. His experiment, he knew, was over; he’d never been any good at hiding his emotions and Stoner had to know he was nailed. “Decent of you.”

  Stoner’s expression didn’t change but something flickered in the background of his keen blue stare. At least he wasn’t crowing, which was also decent of him.

  “Therefore,” he continued, “I believe two weeks’ confinement in the guardroom cell are indicated. Sergeant Tanyon, perhaps our Bläser contingency would also be appropriate. Lieutenant Bruckmann, please assist the sergeant in securing the prisoner within his temporary quarters.” He turned to the two civilians. “I’ll send Dr. Harris along immediately.”

  It was a rout but Faust didn�
�t care; his skin remained intact and attached, and that conversation would only have gotten uglier. He waited until they were on the stairs before he spoke again. “So what’s this contingency?”

  Bruckmann and Tanyon walked close to his sides. Even if he took Tanyon out first, he couldn’t take them both.

  “Wait,” Tanyon said. “We’ll talk in a minute.”

  The guardroom on the second floor was a long open space, less than a third the size of the ballroom beneath it. On the opposite wall, Lee Enfield rifles were aligned in a vertical case, a stout table and a dozen wooden chairs between them and the door. Two more rifles, both coated with plaster dust, one with a bent barrel, were laid on the table, and eight young British Army soldiers sat around it, rising awkwardly as they entered.

  On the right-hand wall, another hefty table supported the transmitter-receiver. Carmichael, seated before it as if he’d never left a post in his life, pulled the headphones off one ear and swiveled on his chair to face into the room. At his left elbow, the unbarred window, bordered with rumpled blackout curtains, poured the only light into the room.

  At the end of the room farthest from the door, a cell was formed of the classic vertical iron bars and swinging gate. It contained a cot, a blanket, a flimsy table, and one chair, and if they actually locked him up for two weeks in there, he was going to be ripping his hair out before tomorrow.

  Tanyon pushed him into the center of the room, beside the table. The young soldiers scattered about to line the walls, surrounding him. His pulse picked up speed. Stoner’s unknown contingency had some ugly possibilities, and he still hadn’t countermanded Tanyon’s threat of using rifles as clubs.

  “Lieutenant, come on in and close the door,” Tanyon said. “Sloane’s still at the front gate? Whiteside, you watch the door; Reynolds, you listen for the phone; Carmichael, you stay on the radio. And you and I will have a good long talk in a few minutes.”