Murder in the Queen's Armes (24 page)

Once past the formidable hindrance, however, they walked to the meadow and found the big log they had sat on before, damp now in the evening dew. All that was left of the day was a thin, ruddy streak in the west, against which a rolling shoulder of hillside and the ravage silhouette of an ancient stone barn stood out as crisply as an artificial horizon in a planetarium. The rest of the sky was black and as yet moonless, with only a few dim stars, so that they could see little of the meadow around them. A knee-high fog hung over the ground, wispy and vaporous, like mist onstage in a play. The only sounds were the thin plashing of an unseen stream and the soughing of breeze-stirred branches.

In a few minutes the northern sky grew lighter, and then the top of a stupendous orange moon rose behind distant trees and swam up with marvelous speed. At the first sight of it, Julie gasped and reached for Gideon’s hand. He put his other arm around her and pulled her closer, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. He could smell the clean fragrance of her hair and, more faintly, that sweet, damp, grassy bouquet of rural England. How adolescent this was, he thought, and how heart-wrenching perfect. He sat as still as he could, wanting nothing to change, and watched the moon, as three-dimensional as an enormous golf ball, float upward, paling to a cool alabaster and shrinking as it rose.

When he first heard the sound, he hardly noticed it—a distant, deep tolling like the pealing of a great, faraway bell. And then, when it finally did register, it was not in the neatly organized, orderly convolutions of the cortex, but somewhere deep in the dark and brutish brain stem that he perceived it. Before he even knew what it was he heard, the skin on the back of his neck raised itself, in obedience to primeval laws, and sent a long shiver crawling down his spine. He leaped to his feet, turning in the direction of the sound.

Julie jumped up too. "What
is
it?" she said, her voice hollow. "Oh, my God—the
dog?
"

For it was unquestionably the dog, and he was unquestionably loose and closing on them, his frenzied baying nearer now. Speechless, they stared toward the tortured, echoing howl. The moon was behind them, throwing some light; they could see before them about a hundred feet of misty meadow, and beyond that the edge of a beech spinney through which the path from Barr’s Lane came.

Paralyzed, his blood like cold sludge in his veins, Gideon stood stupefied, mindlessly waiting. Now, in addition to the wild, swelling howl, there was a rapid, rustling patter, and with the new sound Gideon suddenly found he could move again. He bent, looking desperately for anything that would serve as a weapon, and picked up the weathered stub of a thick branch, as big around as a loaf of bread. Gripping the damp, heavy wood, he turned toward the awful sounds and moved in front of Julie, who stood as if petrified.

Remembering that he still held the flashlight in his other hand, he flicked it on, aiming at the gap in the trees. In the foreground the low-lying mist hung like a bed of cotton candy and reflected back the light. In the gap itself, nothing showed but blackness. The baying had stopped, but the pattering was much louder, and now a ragged panting could be heard. Gideon fought down the trembling of his hand and held the flashlight steady on the opening through which the thing must emerge.

"Here it comes," he said, through a painfully tight throat, meaning it as a comfort to her, a sign that he was alert and in command of himself. Actually, he was far from it; he was as teeth-chatteringly scared as he’d ever been, and impotently raging as well—there was no way to get Julie to safety; no tree to lift her into, no place for her to run….

The monstrous animal shot out of the foliage, brilliant in the hard glare of the flashlight, and bounded toward them with loping, dreamlike strides that tore the fog into whirling tatters and ate up the ground. The panting was horrible, and Gideon imagined he could already feel its hot breath.
It really is like the Hound of the Baskervilles,
he thought.
All it needs is a glowing coat of phosphorus on its muzzle….

He kept the beam on the charging animal and got a firmer grip on the branch. It seemed to him that his muscles responded with the gluey inertia of nightmare, and that the dog would have him in shreds before he could mobilize himself. Still, he crouched and lifted his arms, dumbly ready to take the animal’s leap.

Julie suddenly came to life and showed more presence of mind. Bending quickly, she picked up a stone and hurled it. Astonishingly, it hit home. Gideon saw it leap into the light beam, thwack against the massive skull, and bounce off into darkness. The dog shrieked with pain and stopped abruptly, fifteen feet from them, growling deep within its chest. There was a smear of blood, black in the flashlight beam, on its forehead where the stone had struck. It seemed to know it was Julie who had thrown it, for its eyes, milkily luminous, were focused behind Gideon, on her. With a quick, smooth movement it tensed itself to spring. In the harsh glare, its muscles cut shadowed furrows in the loose, tawny pelt and slid over each other like plates of oiled steel.

Whatever sort of semi-trance Gideon had been in, it finally ended. As the dog launched itself at Julie, he threw himself at it, thrusting the branch before him like an épée. It caught the huge animal full in the chest, but it was Gideon who was knocked backward, his entire frame shuddering with the impact. The dog screamed and twisted in the air, and landed tumbling on its side, but was up the moment it hit the ground. And now it knew Gideon for its enemy. Snarling, with black lips pulled back along its teeth, it spun to face him. He flung the flashlight at it, catching it a glancing blow on the shoulder. The animal howled and came for him again, harder to see now in the moonlight.

Gideon thrust the thick branch at it again and stepped back, once more managing to deflect the hurtling body. Again, with unbelievable rapidity, it writhed to face him and sprang, fiercely snapping at the air—bites that could have taken off his entire hand and more. Somehow, he shoved it off to one side, this time with a forearm, but he smelled the stink of its breath, saw the dreadful teeth snap shut a few inches from his face, heard the agonized, strangled, clicking noises in its gullet.

He was shaking with strain.
This animal,
he thought with wonder,
will eat me if it can.
From the corner of his eye he saw Julie bending, searching for more rocks.

"Julie, run!" he managed to say as the dog came for him again, but she stood her ground and, sobbing, flung a handful of stones wildly at it.

This time, when it came, Gideon swung the branch like a club, aiming for the savage head. As if it were leaping for a Frisbee, it gyrated in midair and caught the wood between its jaws, wrenching Gideon to his knees as if he were a child. Gideon clung to the branch with both hands, but the massive neck muscles were too much; the branch was jerked from his grasp and tossed spinning to the grass.

The dog sprang immediately, bowling him over, so that he saw the moon beyond the tawny shoulders, and they rolled together in the grass, both of them snarling. Gideon felt the dog’s back legs digging convulsively for his vitals. He twisted, feeling the claws rip open a hip pocket, unsure whether or not his hip had been laid open as well. The animal’s snout, very near his own, was all teeth, snapping and clacking, and ropy threads of hot saliva dripped onto his cheeks. Punching, kicking with his knees, and trying to keep his body away from the dog's flailing claws, Gideon jerked his head away, and the dog strained after him, frantically seeking the man’s soft throat. Gideon managed to get hold of the slimy snout and tried to clamp the jaws closed and force the huge head backward, but the animal twitched and writhed, and he wound up underneath it on his back. He punched the throat, and the dog coughed hoarsely but pressed in. Gideon’s head was rammed sharply against a rock. The pain was blinding, bringing with it a rolling billow of nausea. He still held the fierce jaws closed, but his fingers slipped in the saliva, and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.

Again his head was smashed against the rock, and this time he saw stars and began to tip and fall slowly over a precipice into nothing.
That’s it,
he thought hazily,
I can’t fight this thing off. I’m going to die.
He was dimly aware of Julie above him, hammering on the dog’s back. "Get off, get off," she seemed to be saying.

"Julie," he said, or thought he said, "will you please get the hell out of here?" He was pleased to be speaking so calmly under the circumstances. If, that is, he was really speaking. It was hard to say.

"Bad show, Bowser!" she responded in a crisp English accent. "Get down, damn it! Down! Bad show!"

While he puzzled over this odd turn of events, he felt the great weight of the beast lift from his chest. He inhaled gratefully, closed his eyes, and continued to float peacefully down into the void.

   "I can’t tell you how sorry I am," Colonel Conley said. "Of course you’ll let me reimburse you for your clothing, and if there are any medical costs—"

"No," Gideon said. "Thanks, but I’m fine." This was a notable overstatement; his head pounded, his stomach churned, his multitude of miraculously minor scratches and abrasions were beginning to sting, his clothes were ruined, and most of his joints felt as if they’d been pulled on by teams of stallions. But, all things considered, he was glad to be alive.

He and Julie were at the colonel’s kitchen table. His wounds had been ministered to by Julie, with the colonel’s supplies and competent assistance, and they had before them three cups of ferociously strong black tea sweetened almost to syrup. Bowser was somewhere behind the house, locked into a pen within a pen—and, Gideon hoped, bound with chain, bolt, and iron stake sunk into concrete.

"I simply can’t understand it," Colonel Conley said, and pulled angrily at his short mustache. "Simply can’t."

"Colonel," Gideon said without animosity, "you’re going to have to do something about Bowser. If it had been a child he’d come after…"

"A child?" the colonel repeated. "Oh, no, I don’t think so; certainly not. Here, I want to show you something." He left the room muttering, "Certainly not a child."

Julie moved closer to Gideon and put her hand on his arm. She was still wan and tousled, and her black eyes were very bright. "You’re really all right?"

"Sure, honestly.
You
are, aren’t you?"

"Uh-huh." She smiled tentatively. "You were…magnificent."

He laughed. "Told you I had him in the palm of my hand." But he had to close his eyes to fight down a wave of giddiness.

Conley returned and put two objects on the table. "That," he said, "is the chain that holds the back gate shut. It’s been cut through, as you can see. And that," he said, indicating the second object, "is a canvas shoe—yours, I should guess."

Gideon picked it up. "Where did you find it?"

"It was in the bushes, not far from the stile. I was lucky to see it. Obviously, someone used it to set the Beast on your scent."

"Is that possible? Can you just walk up to a dog and let it sniff someone’s shoes—and then it goes tearing off after him?"

"A hound like Bowser? Most certainly. And with the ground as damp as it is, the dog wouldn’t have a problem in the world. They do better in moist weather, you know."

"Someone
wanted
Bowser to kill you?" Julie asked incredulously. "But who? Why would anyone want you dead?"

The answers couldn’t have been more obvious. Gideon stood up—a little too suddenly; his vision blurred and a hundred places in his body twinged and burned, as if he’d been rubbed all over with heavy-grade sandpaper. But he was anxious to get going. There were still plenty of things he didn’t understand, but now he had a personal score to settle and he wanted to get on with it.

"Let’s go," he said to Julie. "It’s after eight."

Conley looked startled. "But …you can’t simply go like that….You must let me—here, let me write down my name and address." He pulled over a notepad that had been near the telephone and began scribbling. "I absolutely insist that all bills be sent to me. And—here—I’ll write a little statement that wholly accepts responsibility: "I, Grahame Baldwin Conley…"

Gideon stood there, swaying slightly, his mind still hazy.

"No, that isn’t necessary…." Standing up so suddenly had been a mistake. He was dizzy as well as muddled. He steadied himself with both hands on the table and made himself focus on the crisp, white pad of paper against the purple check of the plastic tablecloth. Conley’s square hand moved purposefully over it.

"You write like a left-hander," Gideon murmured.

"What?" Conley looked up. "I
am
left-handed. Look here, are you sure you’re all right? Would you like to stay the night? I can have a bed made up in no time."

Gideon shook his head, smiling. The motion actually seemed to clear his thoughts. "No, thanks." He gestured at Conley’s writing hand. "I just seem to have a one-track mind."

"Oh, I see," the colonel said, clearly failing to see.

"And, please, don’t worry about any bills. It wasn’t your fault."

"I’m afraid I must insist. And shouldn’t we call the police?"

"I’ll take care of it. Thanks for getting there when you did. You saved our lives."

"Well, of course, old fellow. I’m awfully sorry about all this. I hope you’re not too terribly angry."

"Not at you, Colonel." And then, as a rumbling woof from in back shook the house, "And not at Bowser, either."

Not really.

HE strode so quickly down Barr’s Lane that Julie had to

trot to keep up.

"Who wanted to kill you?" she demanded.

"Leon Hillyer. That bastard."

It had to be. And how unbelievably stupid he, Gideon, had been. He’d trustingly promised to tell no one about the skull before eight o’clock—giving Leon a full five hours to figure out a way of getting rid of him. Then, to make it easier, he’d announced in front of all of them that he would be in the dark and deserted Dyne Meadow at precisely 7:04 p.m. And now, with 8:00 come and gone, Leon was no doubt sitting in the Tudor Room, munching Danish pastries, wondering with the rest of them where in the world Gideon Oliver was, and looking as befuddled as anyone else about the reason for the meeting.