Touchstone (38 page)

He was talking about Laura, Stuyvesant could hear it in his voice. He was saying that he understood Laura’s commitment to the man, understood it with all his mind.

And it was true: Bunsen’s blazing charisma and intelligence made him a man either to follow absolutely, or to rise up and murder; few people would respond to him with any lesser emotions. Even Stuyvesant had felt the man’s magnetism, although he’d spent so much of his life in the company of one charismatic crook or politician after another, he would have thought himself immune.

“No, er, turmoil? Dissonance?”

“The little time I spent with him, he felt as true as a bell.”

Which, Stuyvesant reminded himself, didn’t mean Bunsen wasn’t bad through; it merely meant that his nature was not at war with itself. Having met the man, he’d have said the same thing himself.

“Okay, well, thanks. And, Bennett? Thank you, for all your help. I know this trip has been tough on you, and I’m grateful.”

Bennett Grey nodded, then said, “There’s one more thing you need to see, here at Hurleigh. One more exquisite Hurleigh treasure.”

He led Stuyvesant out of the chapel and deeper into the woods. There were more of the blue flowers, but unlike near the Peak, where they had been scattered among trees, here they filled a clearing, brighter than the sky. “The Hurleigh bluebell wood.”

Before them was half an acre of solid, intense blue: summer’s day blue; high-mountain-lake blue. Helen’s eyes blue.

No, thought Stuyvesant: the Hurleigh unicorn doesn’t live under the white rose, or even in the chapel. It lives here, with the elves.

The two men stood there for a long time, listening to the rain dripping off the trees and the umbrella over their heads.

“That girl I knew,” Stuyvesant said. “Her name was Helen. Her favorite flower was the larkspur, that same color. She’d have loved this. And yeah, you were right,” he told Grey. “She was a blonde.”

Stuyvesant flipped open the hidden compartment of his cigarette case and took out the picture with the lock of hair pinned to its corner. The pin had gone rusty, he noticed as he unfolded the photograph. He gave it to Grey.

“You loved her,” Grey said, studying her face.

“Yeah. And all the other stuff you said, too.”

Grey handed the picture back. “What happened to her?”

Stuyvesant concentrated on putting the photograph away, tucking in a straying golden hair. When it was safely away in his breast pocket he looked at the blue-bells, the trees rising out of them. “Summer of 1920. Guy drives a cart and horse up to the front door of J. P. Morgan’s bank, corner of Wall and Broad streets, walks away. A few minutes later, on the stroke of noon, a hundred pounds of dynamite packed inside five hundred pounds of scrap metal goes off in the cart. Nothing left of the horse but his feet. Thirty-some people dead then and there, hundreds bleeding, maimed. Only explanation given was a circular dropped into a nearby mailbox, talking about political prisoners and signed by the ‘American Anarchist Fighters.’ This was five days after Sacco and Vanzetti were indicted, and we still haven’t arrested anyone for it.”

He cleared his throat, staring at sky-blue but seeing an acre of scarlet and flesh, floating scraps of white paper and a shimmering frost of broken glass over everything. “Helen,” he began, and had to clear his throat again. “Helen was a secretary, worked across the street from Morgan’s bank. I was meeting her for lunch, but I was running late. Five minutes. Just five minutes. She was waiting for me in the foyer. Big glass walls. She bled to death before I got there.”

The two men stood and listened to the rain. After a while, they made their way back down the rain-soaked path to the house, their arms occasionally brushing under the sheltering umbrella. They ate lunch, then took their leave of Hurleigh.

To Stuyvesant, the high part of the day, better even than the blue-bells, was knowing that he was not saying good-bye to Grey’s sister.

Chapter Fifty-One

T
HE DRIVE TO
L
ONDON
was long and hard, coming on top of a number of long, hard days. In the car outside Hurleigh House, with Stuyvesant’s hand on the key, he’d glanced over at Grey and asked, “I don’t suppose you want to drive?”

“I don’t suppose you want to end up in the ditch?” Grey replied.

Stuyvesant pressed the starter and put the Ford into gear.

It rained hard the whole way, and one of the side-curtains dripped no matter what adjustments he made to it. Oncoming traffic loomed up at him from the gloom, and on the far side of Oxford, he got tangled in a convoy of Army lorries bearing down on London. Darkness fell early, and the head-lamps turned the sheet of raindrops into a tunnel, hypnotic to a man with as little sleep as Stuyvesant had managed; he fought it by driving faster than he should, to keep himself on edge.

Grey slept, murmuring and twitching.

Stuyvesant made it as far as London before he got lost. After casting back and forth for the main road and failing to come across it, he pulled to the side of a silent row of warehouses and took out his map and flash-light.

“You want directions?” Grey’s voice came.

“You have them?” Stuyvesant snapped.

“If you go two or three streets up, you’ll find a big road. Go right.”

Stuyvesant threw the map into the back and ground the gears.

Three streets ahead he found the main road, and turned right.

Traffic was light this rainy Sunday evening, although they came through inexplicable knots of cars and taxis, separated by dark emptiness.

“What street is the hotel on?” Grey asked.

Stuyvesant told him, adding its nearest large cross-street; he felt Grey nod.

They came through the fog to another build-up of street-lamps and traffic, with a few fast-walking pedestrians under umbrellas. Was it just his imagination, or had London’s tensions ratcheted up a few notches since he’d driven away on Friday? It might have been simply the contrast between the bucolic setting of Hurleigh House and this cold, ugly labyrinth of stone and brick, but the people scurrying under umbrellas and folded newspapers all seemed about to go for one another’s throats. He glanced to his side and found that Grey had shut his eyes again, although he was not sleeping: Under the noise of the rain and the engine, Stuyvesant could hear his passenger humming tunelessly, as if attempting to drown out the echoes inside his skull.

“I really think I ought to take you straight to Paddington,” he said.

Grey’s eyes opened, then jerked wide and Stuyvesant looked back at the road with his foot already stamping at the brakes, nearly sending them both through the wind-screen. A taxi ahead had clipped the fender of a private motorcar, and the two drivers were standing chest to chest, drenched and screaming, given wide berth by the other inhabitants. The taxi driver was wearing a cloth cap and an oil-cloth slicker; his opponent wore a bowler, a thick black overcoat, and leather gloves; both had bellies mounding their disparate clothing.

All of a sudden the two men tangled, a burst of fury as vicious as a dog-fight. Stuyvesant cursed and fumbled with the door-latch, but just as suddenly they separated, stalking off to their separate cars and pulling away with much racing of engines and spinning of tires.

“A classic illustration of the meeting of worker and management,” Stuyvesant commented, an uneasy joke.

Grey said nothing.

They found the hotel, just short of four hours after leaving Hurleigh House. Stuyvesant turned the final corner, pulled over to the entrance, and dragged up the hand-brake. His hands vibrated with fatigue and tension, and he nearly fell onto the street when the doorman opened the car door.

“Good evening, sir,” the desk man said.

“Not a damned thing good about it, except we made it in one piece.”

“A terrible night indeed, sir. Would you like me to have your coat hung in the drying room overnight?”

Stuyvesant stripped off the garment, the right half of which was sodden through from the drip, and turned to see Grey coming through the door, moving as if he wasn’t at all certain about the relationship between his feet and the ground.

“Do you by any chance have a room for my friend here?” he asked the desk man. The man’s face brightened.

“Certainly, sir. We can put your friend in the room next to yours.”

“That’s very convenient.”

“Yes, well, people seem to be keeping away from London just at present.” The man held out the pen for Grey to sign. “The dining room will be open shortly, if you two gentlemen would care for dinner.”

“Mostly I need a drink.” Stuyvesant didn’t need to consult Grey about the matter—he’d emptied his flask long before.

“The saloon parlor is open as well,” the man said, “and there’s a fire.”

“Show us the way,” Stuyvesant said, and they followed a bell boy into the quiet warm cave.

They asked for a bottle, and pulled their chairs close to the hot fire. Both men slugged down the first glass. Slowly, life returned. The vibrating sensation faded in Stuyvesant’s arms; Grey’s color improved until it no longer matched his name.

Half an hour later, with less than a dozen words exchanged, a man Stuyvesant recognized as one of the waiters came in and offered to set up a table for them there before the fire.

The waiter said, “There’s a piping hot cockaleekie soup, if you’re so inclined.”

“Bring us a couple bowls of that.” Stuyvesant was not particularly interested in food, but it might help settle their nerves.

An hour later, the two men were dry, fed, comforted, and half drunk. Stuyvesant led the way upstairs, stripped off his clothes, upended his valise in the middle of the floor and dug out his revolver, sticking it under the pillow, then crawled into bed after it.

He was asleep in seconds.

The telephone beside his bed rang at six o’clock in the morning. He fumbled around, picked it up, and immediately broke the connection, without speaking.

Some time later, he heard a rustle from the doorway. He roused just enough to be sure no one was actually coming in, then put his head back on the pillow and took his hand out from under it.

At seven-thirty, one eye came open. No bells, no rustles, no rain, just the sound of traffic two streets over. He squinted at the clock sitting on the bedside table, scrubbed at his face, and pulled the bed-clothes back up to his ears.

Then he recalled the rustle at the doorway in the early hours of the morning, and he threw back the covers and went to see.

The hotel envelope contained a piece of hotel stationery, on which was written:

Mr Carstairs requests that you telephone
him at your earliest convenience.

Stuyvesant sat down on the bed, picked up the phone, and gave Carstairs’ number.

“Carstairs,” came the familiar smooth voice—the man himself, not his assistant.

“You wanted me to call?”

“Perhaps this afternoon, if that is convenient. I should have some information for you by then.”

“But why—oh. I mean, you asked me to ’phone you?” Stuyvesant said irritably. This damned language:
Call
here meant to show up.

“Yes. Did it go well in Gloucestershire?”

“Progress was made. You really want me to go into it on the telephone?”

“I merely need to know if the proposal you made to me still stands.”

“So far.”

“Because I am led to believe that our friend had some considerable difficulties getting back to Town yesterday.”

“What a pity,” Stuyvesant said cheerfully.

“As you say. So, will you come to my office this afternoon? Say, two o’clock?”

“I’d like my list back as soon as possible.”

“I have a meeting this morning. If you want the list before that, you can come to the office at your convenience and get it from Mr. Lakely.”

“That’s your assistant?” Pasty face, nervous eyes.

“My secretary, yes.”

“Tell him I’ll be there.”

Carstairs simply hung up. Stuyvesant held the earpiece out and stared at it for a minute, then laid it in the hooks. Rude bastard.

He picked up the telephone again to ask for a pot of coffee. “Maybe you should send two cups,” he added. “And could you bring me up the morning papers? Thanks.”

He dry-washed his face again, walked next door to use the toilet, then bent over the heap of clothes he’d dumped out of the valise the night before. He found his pajama bottoms and put those on, then his robe, and a knock came at the door.

He dropped the armful of clothing on the bed, glanced to make sure the Colt wasn’t lying in plain view, and opened the door to a man with a tray. The man greeted him with the news that it should be a pretty day, put the tray on the desk, laid the newspapers out beside it, accepted Stuyvesant’s coin, and left. The door was caught before it shut, and Grey came in, fully dressed and shaved, the dark circles under his eyes slightly less exaggerated than the night before.

“I got you some coffee,” Stuyvesant told him. Grey poured two cups and settled in a chair by the window with the papers while Stuyvesant made a rapid sort of his clothes, hanging up two unworn shirts, bundling most of the others into a bag to be cleaned, and tossing the empty valise on top of the wardrobe.

He took his cup and the other chair, glancing over the headlines, but they were much as before: the
Times
controlled in its reporting of impending doom and chaos, the other papers in varying degrees of panic.

“You’re seeing the Major today?” Grey asked.

Stuyvesant looked into the green eyes, as calm as a
Times
headline. “Yeah, this afternoon. This morning I have to go look up some names in the library.”

“Anything I can help you with?”

“Thanks for the offer. If I get stuck, I’ll call on you.”

“Feel free. I plan to spend the day lost in the stacks of book-sellers—it’s the one thing I crave, in Cornwall. We’ll both need alcohol by late afternoon. Shall we meet back here and go for a drink? I’d suggest a place, but between the bombing and natural attrition, those I knew may no longer be in existence.”

“Here is good. Leave a message at the desk if there’s a change.”

“Fine. And, Harris?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell the Major that the price of my assistance is that no innocents are hurt.”

“Innocents? You mean the driver? I told you, we’re not going to touch him. The most that happens is he gets fired.”

“The Major may have other ideas. But if ever he requires my help again, this is my price.”

“You sure you want to make that offer?”

Grey fixed him with a pitying look. “The Major controls my sister’s fate. Do you honestly think I have any choice?”

“Shit. Look, Grey, I…” What was there to say? “God, you must hate me.”

“I did, at first. And then you said you had only just met the Major, and I could see that you meant well.”

Most damning of phrases: He meant well. And Grey knew, that first day—five minutes after they’d met, and Grey had seen it all coming. Felt the trap closing on him.

No wonder the poor bastard looked twice his age.

“Sarah’s not to know,” Grey said. “She must never suspect that her actions brought the Major back onto me.”

Stuyvesant swallowed, and nodded.

Grey picked up his cup and drank the last of his coffee, folded the newspapers, and went to the door.

“Grey?” The small man stopped, his hand on the knob. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’d never have agreed to any of this, if I’d known.”

The green eyes met his. “That is why I don’t hate you.” And he left.

Hell and damnation, thought Stuyvesant. I sail across here with my nice tidy problem and end up putting that poor bastard’s nuts in Aldous Carstairs’ hand. Oh, Carstairs would have found a way at Grey sooner or later, but still, here he was, caught between his sister and that snake-pit of a Project.

And the only solution he could see to Grey’s dilemma was the Gordian one: Grey could always cut his own throat.

Or Carstairs’…

Stuyvesant poured the last of the coffee into his cup, rescued his cigarette case from his jacket pocket, and went to the small window-seat overlooking the street, where he sat smoking and thinking about life, love, work, and the man who’d just left. Bunsen and Laura, Grey and Carstairs, and Sarah: Things were getting just a bit complicated for his taste, but he couldn’t for the life of him see how to strip them down to a controllable level, not at the moment.

First things first. Number one, get Bunsen’s driver out of the picture.

Number two, get Grey on the train to Cornwall, and hope Carstairs was too busy to go after him.

Three, figure out just how closely Sarah Grey was involved with Bunsen’s criminal activities. Which meant figuring out Bunsen’s criminal activities, as well.

And four, sometime today—maybe after his meeting with Aldous Carstairs, to take the bad taste out of his mouth—ring Sarah Grey and ask her for dinner later in the week, trying to pull Laura Hurleigh into it as well.

But of absolute priority, before anything else, he thought, scowling at the disgusting fag-end in his hand: Locate some decent American cigarettes in this benighted war zone of a city.