“I am an old man, my dear. I cannot grab a rifle and defend my country’s shores from an invading army. Yet I must contribute something to our defense. If the only task I can perform is crushing an enemy officer’s resistance, then I must do so.” The depth of his need for her to understand frightened him. She was all he had and he could not bear for this disagreement to wedge itself between them. That indeed would give Faust the final victory. “If our neighbors can offer their lives in the Home Guard, the least I can offer is my honor.”
“It’s not Major Faust you’re crushing.” She hefted the pot and met his gaze. Surprisingly, her eyes and face were dry. “It’s your own humanity. You’re not dehumanizing him — just yourself.”
She carried the pot to the door, her cold dinner balanced precariously on top. At the threshold she paused. “I love you.” Her voice was soft as eiderdown, as soft as the noise she made closing the door behind her.
His old heart threatened to break. He flipped on the table lamp, blew out the candles, and pulled his unfinished report toward him.
He resumed work.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
evening
the Abbey Arms in Patchley Abbey
He’d accomplished something meaningful and his headache had gone, washed away by the delightful pouring rain as sweetly as if by a mother’s hand. Hackney slipped inside the Abbey Arms and stripped off Homer Owen’s sodden greatcoat, humming Tea for Two as he hung it on a hook in the entry. Carolyn had been so delighted the first time she’d heard that, her favorite tune, on the wireless. They’d danced about the parlor and he’d waltzed right to the sofa, pulling her down on top of him and stealing a kiss while she laughed and tickled back, and Arthur walked in on their silliness and at least pretended teenaged outrage. Hackney laughed as he hung up his dripping hat. As if parents didn’t carry on behind their children’s backs, or in front of their faces, for that matter, whenever they liked. Little David had learned to laugh at them, but Arthur never had.
Now little David served aboard HMS Ark Royal, flying planes in the middle of the ocean, of all things. Arthur was up north at Scapa Flow, doing something hush-hush with submarines, and all Hackney had to go home to was a cold, lonely flat in Islington, crowded with Carolyn’s favorite bits and bobs of furniture and what-not. The stuff he couldn’t crowd in during the move, he’d let go to the dealers on the Tottenham Court Row. Sometimes at night, after he left the pub, he’d take his after-dinner stroll down that way and look at the pieces in the shop windows, then like as not he’d head back to the pub.
How could anyone pick up and go on after something as devastating as Carolyn’s cancer? He shook his head, droplets trickling down his forehead, crossed the entry in two long strides, and burst into the pub. Among the few hardy villagers who’d braved the weather for a brew, Arnussen sat at the window table, papers spread before him. He’d worked his way through more of the statements, but many more remained.
Arnussen’s face seemed tight, as if pulled back at the edges, and that couldn’t be good. Hackney sloshed across the uneven floor and joined him at the table.
“Homer just told me the Home Guard’s on alert,” Arnussen said. “Faust has escaped again.”
The murky pub, the sodden people, even the rumbling thunder seemed to freeze about them. Hackney gasped.
“I just told him not to do that.” He leaned onto the table. It tilted beneath him, tumbling statements and the tankard onto the floor. But he didn’t look away from Arnussen’s sharpening expression. “I told him, it’s going to take time to sort out all this evidence and prove he didn’t kill those girls. I told him to stay put and give us the time.”
Arnussen rebalanced the table and snatched up the statements. His foot knocked the tankard and sent it spinning, his intentional action having an unintended consequence. “Did you say that in so many words?”
“He’s an enemy officer, Axel. I can’t lay him open to a charge of collaboration, now, can I?”
Another swooping scoop, and Arnussen nabbed the tankard, setting it back atop his stack of overturned statements. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What’s occurred to you about Major Stoner’s wandering German?”
Hackney scoffed. “It’s not the wandering German who concerns me. He’s got the wrong bootprints and blood type, and he can wander right on back to Berlin or wherever he came from for all I care. It’s the men out searching for him who will keep me up all night.”
Arnussen grabbed his forearm and held on. “Just spell it out.”
He’d dripped rainwater all over the suspect chart, ink and words running together as the trees had run together outside the Dark. “Major Faust is the connecting point here. It’s his wandering that’s setting the murderer off and spurring him to kill. If Major Faust has escaped again, then I’m afraid there’s going to be a third murder.” It was another intended action with a looming unintended consequence, and Arnussen’s growing horror fed his own. “And I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Use it,” Arnussen said without a pause. “Let’s ring the Home Guard, Major Kettering, Major Stoner, and put them on alert. If they can keep an eye on some of the suspects, at worst we can narrow down the list and at best we can prevent the killer from striking.”
It could work. “Where’s your list, Axel?”
“I’ve been concentrating on blood type eliminations.” Arnussen’s soft voice hid a razor within its edges. “But I haven’t finished and there’s at least fifty men.” He lifted his eyebrows. “You realize, based upon what we have right now, we can’t eliminate Sergeant Tanyon from this list?”
Hackney paused. Of course with Tanyon walking sentry duty on Saturday night, he’d had no alibi for much of his time, but — “I thought Lieutenant Bruckmann could alibi the sergeant for the search on Tuesday.”
“After he arrived on the scene, yes, he could.” Arnussen straightened his papers. “But before then, we only have Sergeant Tanyon’s word that he stood atop the rise and watched the road. He has the right blood type, he has dark hair, and we know his boots approached the house, albeit toward the front door. But once he stepped onto the lawn, he could have gone anywhere, including around back to Grace’s open window.”
Hackney stared at the tabletop, where old stains formed interlocking circles, connecting points within connecting points. “So what do we make of the boots that approached the house from the Dark?”
Arnussen shrugged. “If Tanyon turns out to be the killer, why must we make anything of them?”
He squeezed the lip of the table. The chill of his wet clothing, or something, made him shiver. “There are too many on the list. How can we find enough people to watch them all?”
“It’s what we’ve got.” Arnussen dabbed the suspect chart with his handkerchief. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Sixty
evening
Margeaux Hall
Stoner held the receiver to his ear. His heart pounded a slow, intense rhythm, a stuttering engine in the evening of his life. Hackney’s deductions and suppositions made frightening sense. “Is there any way we can assist you and counteract the damage we have inadvertently caused?”
The storm static crackled. “Some of your soldiers have the killer’s blood type and their alibis aren’t straight,” Hackney said. “Is it possible to keep them indoors under observation until Major Faust is caught?”
Those young men — boys, truly — he’d considered them too young to fight a war. He’d been glad they’d been assigned to his care, far from the front lines and in relative safety, where they could learn their duties with as little danger as possible. For one of them to be the killer, Harriet’s killer, was unthinkable. “I’m afraid most of them are already participating in the manhunt.”
Hackney paused. “Which are still there?”
“Whiteside and Carmichael.”
Paper rustled, audible over the line in a stretch of quiet. “Carmichael’s clear but Whiteside isn’t, so that’s all right. How ab
out Tanyon, Ellington, Norris, Peckham, Pym, and Reynolds? Understand, I don’t suspect anyone in particular and don’t mean to cast aspersions. But we haven’t been able to scientifically eliminate them based upon the evidence we currently have. Can they be recalled?”
His engine stuttered. So many; and the sergeant as well? “I will try.”
“Thank you.” Hackney paused again. “One more thing. Your clerk, Wainwright. Can an eye be kept on him?”
The door opened. Stoner glanced up.
Jennifer slipped into his office, easing the door to behind her without a sound. Her forced smile seemed more determined than happy. But then her gaze met his and her smile faded as the true meaning of Hackney’s warning exploded in Stoner’s soul.
“Oh, yes,” he said, sudden energy vibrating in his voice, “I can most certainly do something about him. Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
He replaced the receiver. He’d do anything necessary. It was too late to help Harriet. He would not lose Jennifer, too.
“Dad?” Her voice trembled and even across the dim sitting room he could see her eyes widening. “Is something else wrong?”
He rose and held his hand across the desktop. She hurried to take it and he tugged her behind the desk into Bruckmann’s secretarial chair, where he could protect her as he hadn’t protected Harriet. With his other hand, he lifted the receiver and dialed upstairs to the guardroom.
But again, Carmichael didn’t pick up. Finally Stoner dropped the receiver into its cradle, his rage growing.
“It is time for that young man to learn a bitter lesson.” He paused. As usual, there were too many jobs and not enough people to do them. If he kept Jennifer with him and protected her, some other young woman could die. Hackney assured him Carmichael had been cleared, but he would not bet Jennifer’s safety on that assurance. Stoner hauled open his desk drawer, scrabbled amongst office paraphernalia, and found his old Colt service revolver. He handed it to her butt-first. “You have fired this weapon before.”
Her glorious hazel eyes widened until they were almost as big as the revolver. “Um, yes, I have.”
“Take it, girl, take it.” He rose, clasped her shoulders, and tugged her closer. Beneath her flowered housedress, so feminine and fragile, her bones and muscle were solid and strong, stronger than he felt. She’d accused him of being too protective, claimed she was tougher than he’d implied. He’d have to trust her words and not the panic screaming in the background of his soul. He had to be a soldier and trust her to be the same.
Her eyes darkened with confusion and apprehension. But her trust in him shone through undimmed and he loved her more than ever.
“I want you to go upstairs, locate that recalcitrant young hoodlum, return him to his post forthwith, and have him recall our forces to base.”
“Recall our forces to base.” She repeated it mechanically, as if memorizing the words.
“Precisely.” He squeezed her shoulders and chose his words with care. “Chief Inspector Hackney has informed me the murderer may be one of our own soldiers.”
She shivered beneath his hands.
“Allow no one near you.” He nodded at the revolver in her hand. “Use it if necessary.”
Understanding and then anger hardened her expression. She nodded.
“When you have finished, report back to me. You’ll find me at the residential wing’s front door.”
She nodded again. Then her forehead puckered. “Why on earth will you be there?”
He ignored the question. “If I am not there, the door will be unlocked. Wait for me.”
She glanced aside. When she turned back, her anger had been replaced with amused affection. “All right, Dad. I will.”
He kissed her cheek, standing close to fill his soul with her presence, then grabbed his hat and coat and guided her from the sitting room. “And I love you, as well, despite your negative assessment of my performance during our current assignment.”
“On your way, sir.” She gave him a gentle push and vanished into the darkness toward the western, wrought-iron stairs.
He hurried in the other direction, toward Margeaux Hall’s residential wing.
Chapter Sixty-One
evening
Margeaux Hall
“Carmichael! You miscreant, where have you gone to?”
Jennifer paused at the head of the guardroom corridor. The sofa and chairs in the westward-facing sitting area — the sunset room, they called it — loomed about her like crouching threats. Rain poured over the glass entry behind her but more gently now, as if sobbing rather than screaming. Beneath the drumming noise, the silence stretched into long seconds. Stoner had seemed so calm and yet so frightened, warning her to be careful as he denounced possibly one of their own soldiers. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder into the lurking blackness.
Then a toilet flushed. She slumped.
Down the corridor, a door opened crookedly, as if damaged or poorly hung. A shadow stumbled forth, blacker than the blackness about him, arranging his clothing.
“A man steps out just for a moment and look what happens.” It was Carmichael’s voice and he sounded embarrassed.
She nearly relaxed. But it could be one of their own. Let no one near you, Stoner had said. She stiffened again and waited until the lumbering form ducked through the doorway, then followed him into the guardroom’s shadows.
Carmichael settled behind the radio as she entered, glancing over his shoulder. His gaze dropped to her hand and his eyes bulged. Oops; she was pointing the revolver at him. She lowered it.
“Dad is furious.”
“Just don’t shoot me.” Carmichael leaned back away from her as she advanced into the guardroom. “Honest, Miss Stoner, I had to go — ”
“Get on the radio and recall our forces to base.” She stopped out of his reach, her hand tightening about the butt of the revolver. No matter what Stoner said, it was impossible to be frightened of someone with that haircut.
His forehead crinkled. “Recall — ”
“ — our forces to base. That’s what he said.”
He turned to the radio. “Whatever you say.” He settled the headphones aslant over one ear. “Where’d you get the gat?”
“Dad gave it to me.”
“Huh.” He flipped a switch and picked up the microphone. “You’re scary enough without it. Wildflower Base to Wildflower Two. Come in.”
It took three tries, while her stomach churned. Then Tanyon’s baritone answered.
“Wildflower Three to Wildflower Base. Go ahead.”
“Wildflower Three, all Wildflower forces are recalled to base on order of Wildflower One. Over.”
Static hissed. “Wildflower Base, repeat your last transmission. Over.”
Carmichael glanced at her. “Wildflower Base to Wildflower Three, repeating. All Wildflower forces are recalled to base on order of Wildflower One. Over.”
The hissing stretched for seconds. Then, clearer than clear, Bruckmann swore as if he’d never attended a church service in his life. His words were suddenly cut off. She giggled. Carmichael glanced at her and grinned. Perhaps she wasn’t as frightening as all that, either.
“Acknowledge, Wildflower Three,” Carmichael said.
Tanyon’s voice sounded grudging. “Wildflower Three to Wildflower Base. Orders acknowledged. Wildflower Three out.”
Carmichael removed the headphones. “Satisfied?”
“Perfectly, but you still must answer to Dad. I mean it; he’s furious.”
He sighed and rattled the headphones on the table. “It’s Sally I’m worried about.”
“You don’t believe she’s actually out there in the rain, do you?” Jennifer scoffed. “Sally has more sense.”
“She said she would be and she’s never let me down before.” He glanced sideways, his expression somewhere between charming and scheming. “I just wish someone would check for me, that’s all.”
No arguing with love. She
rolled her eyes. “Where do you two meet?”
“Out by the main entry, behind the gatehouse where there aren’t any windows.” The words poured from him in a rush. “I’ll take what’s coming to me, honest, I will. But I don’t like to think of Sally out in the rain when I’m not coming.”
“I tell you she’s not out there. But someone will check.”
“Thank you.” His eyes gleamed again. “He’s seriously angry?”
“Oh, get on with you.” She retreated before he could charm her further.
At the top of the eastern stairs she hesitated. Had she actually heard someone behind her, or just rain cascading from the skylight? She froze and listened. But the uneasy tripping of her pulse overwhelmed anything else. She hurried downstairs as fast as she could in the dark, listening for footfalls behind her.
Chapter Sixty-Two
evening
Margeaux Hall
Stoner donned his coat and Homburg in the dark of the corridor, then stepped through the door into Margeaux Hall’s residential wing. The formal entry hall stretched about him, dark paneling and staring portraits faceless in the dark, the stairs sweeping past into the rarefied air of the upper floors. Rain splashed against the stained glass panels bracketing the bronze-bound oak door, and as he approached, he saw it was unbolted and only on the latch. Someone had exited and hadn’t returned.
He paused. He’d given Jennifer the Colt revolver; there was no other weapon closer than the shotguns in Woodrow or the remaining Lee Enfield in the guardroom. He should have instructed her to fetch it down upon her return. But he hadn’t, so any action he took carried a calculated risk. Stoner took a deep breath, ignored his thumping heart, and stepped out, unarmed, into the rain.
It pattered onto his coat and down his collar, no longer the drenching downpour he’d earlier shunned but a steady thrumming that nevertheless hosed his trouser legs, socks, and shoes within steps. He swept the arc of the light about, checking the gravel walkway ahead, the windows of the gatehouse, the looming beeches near the road, and the mortared-stone wall stretching to either side until it was lost in the impenetrable night. But nothing moved; no one, it seemed, had lost his reason sufficiently to venture forth in such weather, except Hackney and Faust. Stoner sighed, drips coursing down the back of his neck: and, of course, by necessity his soldiers and himself.
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