Touchstone (49 page)

Chapter Sixty-One

A
LDOUS
C
ARSTAIRS SAT IN
G
REY’S
dark and empty room at the clinic. He had sent all the others away, so he could think, and he now could feel the absence of life in the building.

Yes, he had badly underestimated the American. Not just the gloves the man had worn to search Bunsen’s motorcar, nor the slick way he had managed to ingratiate himself behind the wheel of that very motor: Those might be expected of any experienced agent.

And it wasn’t just that he had managed to spirit Grey away. Carstairs had thought he might. In fact, he’d anticipated some considerably more daring rescue operation, appropriate to a penny-dreadful novel.

But to walk in here in broad daylight, then lay out Grey’s rescue with the brutal subtlety of a chess master, that was unexpected.

Still, the deed was done. And because neither man could be certain that their agreement would hold, Stuyvesant would not take Grey to Hurleigh House. By tonight, Carstairs would know where they had secreted him, but it hardly mattered, just so it was not at Hurleigh. He had his own plans for Hurleigh.

All in all, Aldous Carstairs was satisfied with how things were going, as they moved towards the final hours of play. He felt the absence of Grey, but Stuyvesant had seen the problem: The amusement had gone out of handling Grey, once the man withdrew from competition. What fun was there in setting oneself against a man who had given up? And the very real benefits of Grey’s willing cooperation—thank you, Mr. Stuyvesant!—went far to mitigate any personal disappointment. After all, one could always lay hands on the man again: kidnapping, threat, blackmail. Or something more comple, given the leisure to create.

Now, however, was time to concentrate on the larger affairs of Aldous Carstairs, and of his country. The Carstairs Proposal had made its rounds; it was on the minds of the powerful. It required but a single audacious—one might even say Machiavellian—demonstration for it to be seized and woven into the fabric of British law.

No more slips, no time for hesitation. The country needed an
uomo crudele ed espedito,
a cruel and efficient man.

Who had little more than twenty-four hours to get it right.

Snow was glad for the instructions Carstairs had been able to give him concerning the maps. He had been right, the American had hidden his motor in the back road; on a fast motor-cycle, there was no problem overtaking him.

He had a bad moment when he saw the driver was not the big American, but a small woman with hair the same color as Grey’s. However, when he shot past the motor, he spotted a large object in the back, and knew it to be the man.

Changing his coat, turning it inside out, removing his goggles, adding a scarf, and keeping his distance along stretches of road where there could be no turning off let him follow the motor to the fringes of Hurleigh. He’d stopped at that last turning, which was just as well: a glance at the map had assured him that they could only be headed for one place, a tiny dot without so much as a name.

He settled his goggles, tucked away the maps, and circled his motor-cycle back in the direction he’d come from.

Chapter Sixty-Two

T
HIS TIME
Stuyvesant managed to not shove a gun in the face of the person shaking him awake. Which was just as well, that person being Sarah Grey.

“We’re here,” she told him. “At the Dog and Pony?”

“You two go ahead.”

It took him a while to extricate himself from the cramped bed, since one leg was asleep and his neck was frozen at an odd angle, but he made it to the ground without landing on his face. Once out, he stamped his feet and tried to crack the discomfort from his spine, which attracted the frank interest of two small barefooted children and a quizzical dog, who settled into a row to watch.

“Not a whole lot in the way of entertainment out here, huh?” he asked them. The kids giggled; the dog grinned.

Giving a final loud and satisfying crack to his neck, he left his audience to their bare stage, walked around the same bicycle propped against the wall, and ducked inside the Dog and Pony.

Grey and Sarah were just concluding business with the innkeeper’s wife, who, it seemed, did have two nice, light, upstairs rooms, both with adjoining baths that could be considered private baths, since there were no other guests just at present, although the rooms weren’t next to each other, she hoped the lady and gentleman didn’t mind that? They were ever so nice, especially the one at the far end that had a view over the hills, although come to think of it, its most recent occupant had been a year before, or perhaps it was 1924, in any case it was the year the river flooded, but it hardly mattered because both rooms could be set to rights in just a shake, fresh sheets and all, if the gentleman and lady would like to sit in the garden for a while?

She bustled off. The wizened innkeeper and his three customers (who appeared the same trio who had been in residence when Stuyvesant had been here a week before, in the same seats, wearing the same clothes) gazed in silence at the foreigners. Sarah beamed at them and led her brother out. Stuyvesant asked if there might be a public telephone box in the village.

The gnome gave a jerk of the head, which turned out to be a remarkably efficient means of communication: The gesture indicated that yes, there was a phone box; the angle of the jerk said it lay to the north, and the slight simultaneous tip to the chin suggested that Stuyvesant should go out of the door before turning north. Stuyvesant thanked him, and found the box just where the man had indicated. Unfortunately, the gesture had failed to communicate that the instrument was not working. He went back into the inn.

“It doesn’t seem to be working,” he told the innkeeper.

“Goat chewed t’line. Two week back.”

“I see. Is there another?”

“Hurleigh village.”

“That’s the closest public telephone?” The man just looked at him, which Stuyvesant took for a yes. “What about a private one I might use?”

“Hurleigh House.”

Clearly, the twentieth century was not in huge demand in this part of the world.

Outside, he found the Greys sitting in the sun.

“I need to be getting back,” he told them. “Will you be all right here, for a day or two?”

“A door that latches on the inside and a pub downstairs; what else could I ask for? I’ll be fine.”

Sarah laughed, taking his words as a jest.

Stuyvesant told him, “I’ll come by first thing tomorrow, when they’ve settled to breakfast.”

Grey scratched the hair on his chin, which was nearly enough to qualify as a beard. “You think the landlord would have a razor I could borrow?”

Sarah said, “Thank goodness, I wondered if you were growing a beaver. While you’re doing that, let me motor Harris over to Hurleigh House.”

“Oh no, that’d mean going clear into Hurleigh village and back. It would take you longer to drive than it would for me to walk it.”

“Not much longer, and I need to see Laura for a minute. I’ll stop in the village on the way back and pick up a few things. I hadn’t planned on spending the night away, and Bennett’s come away without his suitcase.”

“But—” He caught himself, before he could introduce Laura’s problems into the conversation, and changed it to, “In that case, I’m happy to save my shoe leather. If you need anything, Grey, maybe you could ask one of those urchins out front to bring a message to Hurleigh House.”

Sarah stood up and kissed her brother’s cheek. “I’ll pick up a tooth-brush and a fresh shirt for you in Hurleigh. Anything else?”

“Cigarettes.”

“Fine. Come, Harris.”

“You go on, I’ll be right there.”

When she was out of earshot, he said to Grey, “Would you feel better about things if you had the gun?”

“I can’t spend my life with a revolver in my pocket. And if I need to commit murder, I’m sure the innkeeper has a shotgun.”

The touch of humor in the suggestion cheered Stuyvesant no end.

“Carstairs isn’t finished, you know,” Grey said. “He has his eyes on a larger prize. He felt as much relief as he did frustration, when you offered your compromise. As if he was glad to have an unexpectedly difficult problem taken off his hands.”

“Any idea what the larger prize might be?”

“No.”

Stuyvesant sighed. “Well, we’re sure to hear eventually.” He started to put out his hand, then hesitated, but Grey reached out and grasped it.

“Thank you,” the small man said.

“You’re welcome.”

“And, Harris? In the absence of a father in my family, you have my permission to pay court to Sarah.”

Stuyvesant laughed aloud.

As Bennett Grey watched the American stride off to Sarah’s motor, he treasured the tiny pulse of bright optimism the man had given him.

As Stuyvesant had thought, the road circled well away from Hurleigh House before returning in the direction of Hurleigh village. On foot, he would have been passing the chapel about the same time they came in view of the village church spire.

“Look,” he said. “You don’t need to take me to Hurleigh House, just drop me here and do your shopping.”

“Harris, I need to go there anyway, as I said, to have a word with Laura.”

“But you told me you didn’t want to distract her.”

“That was when I didn’t know where Bennett was. Now, if she doesn’t hear from me, she might start to wonder, if I’d found him after I talked with her on Friday.”

“I could just pass on the message, if you’d rather.”

“Oh no, it’ll just take a few minutes to motor you there, and walking it takes a half-hour.”

Stuyvesant couldn’t think of any reason to keep Sarah from delivering her reassurance in person. However, he did want to stop in the village for his own reasons.

“Okay, but can we stop here and you do your shopping first? I need to use the telephone, and that one in Hurleigh House is kind of public.”

“Of course,” she said, and pulled over in front of the village store.

“Oh,” he added casually, “do you by any chance know the number of that clinic? I forgot to tell them to send your brother’s suitcase to Cornwall, and I might as well do that, too.”

She reached into the back for her handbag and took out an old, worn address book, copying down the number and exchange on a scrap of blue envelope.

They agreed to meet in twenty minutes, and went off in separate directions.

The secretary Lakely answered at the clinic number, but Carstairs was still there, and came on the line.

“That unfinished business,” Stuyvesant said without preamble.

“Yes, Mr. Stuyvesant. I trust you have had a good trip, and all is well?”

“It’s going fine, we just stopped for lunch. Have you done anything at all the past three days other than sitting on Grey?”

“Further information concerning our, hmm, mutual dilemma seems thin on the ground. It would appear that none of the…participants were informed concerning the ultimate purpose of the material, and without the missing man, we cannot be certain that…your friend was the purchaser.” In other words, the man who’d stolen the explosive didn’t know if Bunsen was the ultimate buyer or not.

“You can’t find Shiffley?”

“Names, Mr. Stuyvesant.” As if the exchange operator might be listening in for mention of a missing Communist.

“You’ve lost him?”

“He has thus far eluded us, yes.”

“Lots of boats in an island country,” Stuyvesant commented. “Has anyone thought to look for…peripheral materials…in ‘our friend’s places of business?” Snippets of wire, the odd detonator.

“Thus far, we have found nothing.”

“Great.”

“You will, however, remain vigilant?”

“Yeah, vigilant, that’s me. If you mean am I going back to keep an eye on things at…at the meeting, then yeah, I’m headed there in a while.”

“And you have found no indications there of…”

“Not a thing.”

“That is probably for the best.”

Was it Stuyvesant’s imagination, or was there a trace of disappointment in Carstairs’ voice, at the thought of no bomb at Hurleigh House?

“If it’s there, we’ll find it,” he said, and told Carstairs he’d talk to him Monday in London.

He stood, looking unseeing at the village War memorial.
If it’s there, we’ll find it.

One way or another…

He shook off the thought, and went to help Sarah carry her parcels to the car.

This time, the entrance to Hurleigh House was not blocked by a neatly fallen tree, but the Duke’s man was there, swinging his heels over the pedestrian bridge. He recognized Stuyvesant and tugged his cap; Stuyvesant thought the guise would be more effective if the man had been given a fishing pole.

At the house, they separated, Stuyvesant going in the direction of the servants’ hall to change his rumpled clothes, Sarah to the house for a word with Laura. They happened to return to the drive at the same time.

“Much better,” she said, approving his unwrinkled shirt, shaved face, and fresh tie.

“Did you see Laura?”

“She’s looking a little harried. I’m glad I came, that’s one thing off her mind.”

“I better get in there and see if there’s anything I can do.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, Harris.”

With servants looking on, she did not kiss him, but the touch of her hand made him smile.

What man needed sleep, when he had Sarah Grey?

Chapter Sixty-Three

S
TUYVESANT FOUND THE HOUSE FULL
of wandering men, cups of tea and glasses of punch in their hands, so he took it that he’d hit the break between the afternoon sessions. He asked one of the mine owners’ assistants if he knew where Lady Laura was, and the man told him he thought she’d been headed to her rooms.

On the stairs, he passed Herbert Smith and Stanley Baldwin coming down. Baldwin had a pipe in his hand, and was saying something about Utopian ideals in the poetry of Coleridge. If Stuyvesant hadn’t known better, he would have thought the men were old school chums.

He hesitated in the corridor outside the private rooms, then tapped quietly on Laura’s door. He heard footsteps, and she opened the door, looking so weary, he immediately regretted having disturbed her.

“Mr. Stuyvesant—Harris. Do come in.”

“No, you should be resting.”

“I’ll rest tomorrow. Come.”

“Are you sure I should—”

“We’re grown-ups here, dear fellow, and during this week-end, this room is my office. Besides, I need to sit and I don’t want to shout at you in the corridor.” He stepped in, and she shut the door behind him.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get more of a rest,” she said, dropping into the chair before the fire. “Sit down, please. Sarah told me you helped her find Bennett. Silly man, what’s he thinking, not to tell anyone that he’d gone to visit friends?”

“I don’t suppose he was thinking too straight,” Stuyvesant agreed, thinking that he’d have to kick Sarah for not warning him of their story. “The sooner he gets back to Cornwall, the better.”

“Very true. He’s all right at the Dog and Pony?”

“He seemed comfortable enough. But Miss Hur—”

“Laura, please.”

“Laura, then. It might be a good idea not to mention where he is to anyone.”

“Of course,” she said, a touch stiff. She thought he meant, she shouldn’t mention it to Bunsen, but he wasn’t going to argue.

There was a knock at the door, and she excused herself. It was Gallagher, who needed clarification as to the evening’s seating arrangements. While she was going over the details with the butler, Stuyvesant picked up the day’s newspaper from the low table, accidentally knocking the envelope beneath it to the floor. He bent to retrieve the contents, half a dozen photographs, and was pushing them back inside when Laura returned.

“Sorry,” he said. “I knocked these off the table. I wasn’t snooping.”

“Which—? Oh, those. I used them this morning when one of the mine owners lost his temper, just to remind him that we were talking about the livelihoods of two million men, their wives, and their children. I find that photographs help put a personal face on the issues. Take a look.”

Stuyvesant pulled out the pictures. The first showed a weeping woman at a funeral. “That is Maisie Collins,” she said, her voice taking on the rhythm of an oft-repeated liturgy. “Maisie is burying her eldest son following a cave-in at a pit in Yorkshire, a mine whose owner is known for his disregard for safety—Mr. Branning knows him, is aware of his reputation: I didn’t have to tell him anything but the name of the mine. Maisie’s husband died in the same mine, under similar circumstances, seven years ago. Two of her other sons currently work in the mine, with a third due to go down next month, when he comes of legal age.”

The next photograph showed a family of six seated down to a meal. The bowl in the middle of the table was not much larger than a porridge bowl, and looked like potatoes and carrots swimming in a pale broth. “Sunday dinner, after the miner has been out of work for two months following an injury. What meat they have is given them by their neighbors.”

The other photographs were similar: happy children playing barefooted in a muddy road; a near-naked child smeared with black and standing beside a cart of coal, which the boy had been pulling through a tunnel too small for a grown man; a man with pale eyes looking at the camera, cradling his truncated right arm.

“I asked him to bear in mind that Richard and Mr. Smith are here as the spokesmen for those men and their families, who take pride in their labor. I reminded him that we had less than forty-eight hours together, and that the health and security of the entire country depended on what we did here. He may not agree with them, he may even think them greedy and unreasonable, but we all owe them the dignity of respect.”

Stuyvesant slid the photographs back into the envelope.

“Now, Harris Stuyvesant, what can I do for you?”

“Nothing. I just needed to let you know I was back, and see if there was anything I could do.”

“Oh, no, thank you…well, actually, there is something.” She sounded uncomfortable.

“Name it.”

“Keep Richard occupied? It’s just, he’s rather used to being the center of everything, and is apt to become irritable if he feels pushed to one side. And unfortunately, the only way I could see to handle this was to, as it were, become the center myself. If you see what I mean?”

In other words, Bunsen’s getting jealous and is apt to spoil everything with a tantrum. But not to say that to his loyal lady. “I’ll be happy to let him chew on me for a while, although it may give him indigestion.”

She laughed, her weariness lifting for a moment. Then there came another knock at the door. This time it was Julian Exeter, asking if they might arrange for another room in the servants’ hall for his men.

Stuyvesant made his escape.

The afternoon session went well. Although no agreements were signed, no handshakes made, the air of cooperation, even friendliness, that came out with the delegates was marked, and it carried them through tea-time with the Canaletto, the Constable, and the eighth Duke’s curry puffs.

Laura Hurleigh was the first in the room when the delegates reassembled, dressed for dinner. Any second thoughts that might have risen as they threaded their studs and wrestled with their bow ties had no chance to develop: Lady Laura Hurleigh believed that every man there was working towards the same goal, and they found that they agreed. When everyone was there and the orchestra of voices were being tuned to her satisfaction, Stuyvesant slipped away to the Great Hall, and peeped under the table-linen and in the flower arrangements for anything more explosive than words—just in case.

When he heard voices from the stairs, he left, and as soon as the first course was in front of the diners, he went upstairs for a closer look at Bunsen’s room.

It took an hour, lifting every piece of furniture, checking under every carpet, opening every book, but at the end he was certain: There was no place in the room where Bunsen could have hidden anything more deadly than an exploding cigarette.

Of course, the man had the house at his disposal, and he could have tucked it on top of a toilet cistern, into one of the myriad vases, or behind any of a dozen life-sized sculptures that dotted the house and grounds.

Doing so would suggest that Bunsen thought someone was onto him, and he hadn’t been acting that way.

Which in turn suggested that there wasn’t any bomb to begin with.

Still…He went down the corridor to Laura Hurleigh’s room and conducted a more cursory search. This room had been lived in for many years, and the accumulation of objects was considerable. He searched the more obvious places where a woman would be apt to hide a packet for her lover, and other than a decidedly non-working-class collection of undergarments, he found little of interest.

He walked down the corridor to the toilet (where by habit he looked on top of the cistern), checked his tie in the looking-glass, and went to join the others.

Again, Laura permitted the men very little time on their own before she returned. Stuyvesant watched her move through the room, noting how her beauty, after thirty hours of intensely delicate maneuvering among the sharks, had become ethereal with fatigue. Every man there was aware of the tall, slender body moving inside its blue-silver gown.

Including Richard Bunsen. Who was, as Laura had implied but not quite said, not well pleased with the increasingly obvious authority held by his mistress.

Up to now, Bunsen had kept his irritation under control, doing little more than shooting her the occasional glance when her laugh rang out, or scowling when her hand rested too long on another’s wrist.

Alcohol, however, encouraged a man’s control to slip. Twice, he made sharp remarks aimed in Laura’s direction. The first time, Laura shot him a glance of apprehension; the second, her eyes sought out Stuyvesant.

He picked up his half-smoked cigar and moved over to where Bunsen stood, propped against the brass fender around the fireplace, his conversation with the Prime Minister temporarily forgotten as he watched Laura attend to something Lord Stalfield was saying about his daughter. Stuyvesant moved casually in front of Bunsen until he was blocking the man’s view of Laura, and said, “So, Mr. Bunsen, what’s your game?”

Bunsen was far from drunk, but he had taken enough to lend a slight exaggeration to his speech. “What do you mean, my game?”

“I mean to say, a man in your position, the Army and politics and all, I imagine you’ve done a bit of everything—billiards, snooker, darts, chess, checkers—no, you don’t call it that here. Draughts, is it?”

“So?”

“So, what’s the game you’re best at? What’s the one where you always have to be careful to lose a few points when you’re playing with someone you don’t want to humiliate too badly?”

“What makes you think there is one?”

“Because I’ve known you for a week now, long enough to be sure that you don’t settle for second best, in anything. And I know also that you don’t need to advertise, that you’re happy enough keeping quiet about some things. It’s enough to know you’ve got something, without having to shout about it.”

Stuyvesant was very glad to see the light of awareness creep into Bunsen’s eyes: He’d been afraid the man might be too far into his cups to read the hidden meaning behind his words. Instead, Bunsen studied the American’s face, then shifted his cigar to the hand that held the glass, clapping Stuyvesant on the arm. “You’re absolutely right, Stuyvesant. I don’t advertise. And it’s darts.”

“Ha! I thought so. I don’t suppose they’d have a dart board here?” Stuyvesant looked around at the walls, none of which held the tell-tale circle of punctures.

“Darts!” the cry rose, as Baldwin’s assistant caught the word.

The long-suffering Gallagher was dispatched to the distant room where passions past were stored away, returning with a handful of beautifully shaped if somewhat tarnished darts, and a lesser servant carrying the heavy board. In sympathy for the four-hundred-year-old linenfold walls, Stuyvesant suggested that they tack a heavy throw-rug behind the board; the butler shot him a glance of gratitude.

As it happened, the enthusiastic civil servant fell out of competition early, leaving the field to Bunsen, Stuyvesant, and one of Mr. Branning’s assistants. Stuyvesant was eliminated next, and Bunsen and the mine owner’s man played with increasingly forced joviality. Competition was in their blood, after all, and Stuyvesant began to wonder if this had been a very good idea. Clearly, Laura thought it was not, as she stood with her hands wrapped white-knuckled around her glass, envisioning all her work coming undone in a childish contest.

Bunsen and the assistant were neck and neck, with Bunsen looking to edge the other man out with his final throw, when Stuyvesant sidled near Bunsen to murmur, “What was that we were saying about advertising?”

The hand clenched down hard; Stuyvesant thought for an instant that he was about to have the dart in his neck. But Bunsen stood still for a count of three, then reached down for his glass, took a final swallow, and readied the last throw. It hit just outside the bull’s-eye, leaving him one point down.

The game went to the mine owners, but with Bunsen’s good-natured congratulations, the tension leaked out of the room. The evening broke up twenty minutes later, with expressions of goodwill riding them up the stairs.

Tomorrow would be Sunday. They would go to the chapel, pray together, then return to the house, filled with holy purpose, for a final vote on the proposals made during Saturday’s meetings.

Stuyvesant trotted to the servants’ hall and threw off his formal dress, donning clothes more suited for lounging on guard duty all night, then hurried back to resume his chair in the corridor. He had scarcely taken up his position when the door to Bunsen’s room came open. Bunsen saw Stuyvesant sitting there, and stopped.

“Can I get you something, sir?” Stuyvesant asked.

“I, um.” Bunsen’s eyes flicked briefly down the hallway, then came back to Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant held his gaze evenly, thinking the words he’d have liked to say aloud:
The poor woman is absolutely shattered with fatigue. If she wants you, she’ll send for you; if she doesn’t, you’d be a real shit to inflict yourself on her, just to reassert your importance.

Something of the non-verbal message must have gotten through. Bunsen glanced down the hall in the other direction, where there was absolutely nothing to see, and said to his watch-dog, “No, I was just checking if you were here.”

“All night,” Stuyvesant answered implacably.

“Good,” Bunsen said. “Well, good night, Stuyvesant.”

He closed the door and locked it; Stuyvesant was amused at the clear thread of hate beneath the joviality.

But to his disappointment, shortly after that the door to Laura Hurleigh’s room opened and she came out. Her hair had been combed, her make-up refreshed, and she was wearing a pair of walking shoes and her overcoat. Perhaps she’d forgotten to bring a dressing gown, Stuyvesant thought as he got to his feet. Or maybe she thought it too revealing a garment for a country house corridor peopled by guards, and she’d put on her coat over it.

In any case, she was loveliness in a cloth coat, pale but undaunted: She’d never looked more like her ancestress in the painting, the human equivalent of the husband’s sword. His heart went out to her gallant self.

She closed the door without a sound and came over to where he stood, whispering, “Good evening, Mr. Stuyvesant.”