Dover Beach (22 page)

"It's my life!" Winfield screamed. And he leaped upon Cornwall, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and shaking. "It's my life, it's my life," he kept repeating, his voice hoarse and desperate.

The allegory of Time had become jumbled and weird. Since when did Youth attack Age? Since when did—

"Walter!" Kathy was calling to me. "For God's sake!"

Private eyes are men of action. I jumped on top of Winfield and pulled him off the old man. We tumbled to the floor, and I managed to pin him beneath me. Winfield struggled for a moment, and then lay quiet in my grasp. Eventually I let him go and stood up. He stayed there on the floor, his eyes closed, gasping for breath.

Cornwall got shakily to his feet. He went over and stood looking into the fire.

Kathy joined her father by the fire. She put a hand tentatively on his back. "Are you all right, Daddy?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he murmured. He didn't turn to look at his daughter.

Winfield slowly got up from the floor. His eyes blazed at me, a convenient focus for his anger, but then he turned away. I was too unimportant. He spoke to Cornwall's back. "All right," he said. "I can't force the truth out of you. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm not going to rest until I find out the truth, one way or another. And that means you're not going to rest either. I've got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, so you'd better prepare yourself. Understand?"

No one replied. Winfield spun around and left the room, elbowing me aside as he strode past. The outer door slammed, and then there was silence.

Boy, that was one swell reunion,
I thought.
Glad I came.
And now what was I supposed to do? Rush after my boss? I had a feeling I wouldn't be very welcome. On the other hand, I sure didn't belong here. I straightened Cornwall's chair, which had moved in the ruckus, and retreated to a corner of the room, hoping someone would give me an order.

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Kathy murmured.

"It's all right. No matter." His voice was distant, tired. He went over to the sideboard and poured himself a large drink. Then he noticed me. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"He's a friend of Winfield's," Kathy explained. "I mentioned him on the phone last night."

"Oh." Cornwall swallowed most of his Scotch. That seemed to give him some strength. "I think you'd better go," he said to me.

He was right. "I'm sorry we bothered you," I said. "Doctor Winfield was very sure about—about everything."

Cornwall stared at his Scotch and didn't reply. I turned and left the library.

Kathy caught up with me at the front door. "What will you do?" she asked me.

"Go back to London, I guess. Thanks for the round-trip ticket."

"I'm sorry about this," she said.

"Why should you be apologizing?" I asked, a little puzzled. "Winfield and I were the ones—"

"Yes. But I should have known—I should have understood my father better. Oh, never mind. I expect I'm rather confused."

"That's okay." She looked lovely in the dim light of the vestibule. I sighed. "See you around, Kathy."

"Yes. See you around."

I walked out of Professor Cornwall's house.

* * *

It was dark. It was cold. I hadn't paid much attention to our route from the railway station, and I was afraid I would become lost. What was I doing here?

This wasn't the way cases are supposed to end—in anger and confusion, with the private eye groping through the night in a strange city. There must have been some clue I had overlooked, some spectacular deduction I could make to explain everything. Cornwall was hiding something. But what? Winfield had been mistaken. But it didn't
look
as if he had been mistaken. The government was to blame. The aliens who had landed in Washington were to blame. There was a massive conspiracy: everyone was to blame. What did I know?

Maybe that's the way things were, in real life: confusing, messy. I had had enough of real life.

I found the railway station eventually, and learned that I had just missed the train for London. Real life again.

Maybe Winfield had been on that train; if so, it was just as well I had missed it. But I had a feeling Winfield was more likely to have found a pub than the railway station. He probably needed a drink as much as Cornwall, and I doubted he could wait till London to get it.

I sat on the platform and waited for the next train. People came and went. A wizened mutant with one eye pushed a broom desultorily along the floor. Two professorial-looking men were arguing about Arthur Schopenhauer, or maybe it was Arnold Schonberg. The PA squawked incomprehensibly. A fat old lady with a shopping bag kept nodding her head and muttering to some invisible companion.

I hadn't felt this lonely in years.

What was I doing here?
Why was I sitting in this cold, crumby place? There were cold, crumby places in Boston where I could be sitting. And in Boston I would not be sitting alone.

The train was late, of course. I sat and sat, and I felt my feet freeze and tears tug at my eyes. This was not the way the dream was supposed to turn out. Something had to—

"Walter!"

It was Kathy, calling to me from beyond the entrance to the platform. She was wild-eyed and breathless.

I went over to the gate. The old black ticket taker gazed at us with vague curiosity. "Um, hi," I said cleverly.

"Oh, Walter," she gasped, "I think something terrible is happening."

One terrible thing sprang immediately to mind. "Did Winfield come back?"

"No—I'm not sure. Probably. There was a phone call, and my father—I've never seen him like this. He told me to get out. I argued with him, but he wouldn't listen. I had to leave. And—and—I didn't know what to do. I'm so scared. So I came here, hoping maybe—"

She started to cry. Tearful beauty asks for help. That's what the job is all about. "Let's go," I said.

* * *

We took a cab—my first cab ride. Kathy leaned forward in the back seat, her hands covering her face, trembling. I laid a hand awkwardly on her arm. "It'll be all right," I said. "I have a feeling Winfield's bark is worse than his bite. He probably just wanted to argue some more." I wasn't at all sure I had that feeling, but it seemed like a good thing to say. It didn't have much effect, however.

We heard the sirens before we reached the house. Kathy stiffened. The cab slowed down. We turned a corner, and I saw the flames.

"Seems to be a bit of a problem there, mate," the cabdriver said.

Kathy did not look up.

Chapter 20

I leaped out of the cab. The firemen were already starting to do their work. There was a small knot of onlookers. Neither Cornwall nor Winfield was among them. I rushed up to a bobby who was standing next to a firetruck. "Did they find anyone inside there?" I asked.

"I don't know that they've looked yet, sir," the bobby replied. "Still rather hot, I expect."

I thought for a moment. "Listen," I said. "I know something about this fire, and I think it might be arson. The person who set the fire is probably trying to get out of town. Can you take me to the railway station?"

The bobby gave me a stern look. "What is it that you know, sir?"

"There was a—a dispute earlier. Two people were quite upset. I was here, but I left. That girl in the cab back there—it's her father's house. She can tell you what happened too."

"Let's go and have a talk with her then, shall we?"

The bobby led the way back to the cab. Kathy was still sitting in the back seat, her hands covering her face. The driver was standing next to the cab, probably trying to figure out how to ask for his fare.

"Kathy," I said gently, "we've got to try and find Winfield. Can you tell this officer what happened?"

She looked up.

"Please try to help, miss," the bobby said. Tearful beauty gazes at policeman. It was easy to see he was more prepared to believe her than me.

She told him the story—quickly, numbly.

The bobby nodded when she had finished. "Very well," he said. "I'll just report back, and then we can go." He strode off to his car.

"Do you want to come with us or stay?" I asked her. "They still haven't—you know—"

"I think I'd like to stay," she said.

"All right. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Kathy attempted a smile, and then her gaze moved, for the first time, to the burning house.

I joined the bobby at his little three-wheel police car. "All right, then," he said. "Hop in."

I hopped in, and we sped off to the railway station.

At the station, we rushed upstairs and over to the old black ticket taker. The platform behind him was empty. He looked nervously at the two of us. "Did you notice a man get on the train to London just now?" I asked. "Tall, black-haired, about my age?"

"No, sir," the ticket taker whispered. His eyes went down to his tickets.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any other trains leave in the past few minutes?"

"No, sir."

I don't think he enjoyed being interrogated. I rushed around the station then, looking on the other platforms, in the tea shop, the news shop, the men's room. The bobby kept pace with me, looking stern. No sign of Winfield. "Is there any other way out of the city?" I asked the bobby finally.

"Coach station," he suggested.

"Can we give it a try?"

"Righto."

We raced through the city streets to the coach station. The woman at the ticket window seemed pleased to see us: a little excitement for her evening. "We're looking for someone," I said. "Did you sell a ticket a short while ago to a tall, black-haired man, about my age, American accent?"

She shook her head. "No, dear, I'm sorry, no one like that's been here." She thought for a moment, trying to be helpful. "I did sell a ticket to an older man with an American accent—don't see many Americans nowadays. Seemed in a bit of a hurry."

An older man? That stopped me cold. What was going on? "Could you describe him?" I asked.

"Oh, he was tallish—gray hair—rather distinguished, actually. And, let's see, tweed jacket, gray sweater—he was carrying his overcoat. He was quite out of breath."

"Where was he going?"

"He booked a single to London."

"Has the bus—er, coach—left?"

"Oh, I'm afraid so. Gone twenty minutes." The woman leaned forward. "Did he commit a crime?" she asked conspiratorially.

I shrugged. "Beats me." I turned to the policeman. "Can we follow that coach?" I asked.

"We could, sir, but we'd never catch it. Besides, that doesn't sound like the man we're looking for, does it?"

"No, I guess it doesn't." I searched my mind for a spectacular deduction. Couldn't find any. "Any other way out of town?" I asked.

"One could have a car, of course," the bobby replied. "Or one could hitchhike. People tend to pick up hitchhikers around here. Lots of students, you know."

"Of course." I couldn't think of anything else to do. "Well, I guess we can go back. Sorry, um, you know—"

"Quite all right, sir."

We got back in the car, and the bobby radioed the station, telling them what he was up to.

"Archie," a polite voice responded, "Miss Cornwall is here with us at the moment. I wonder if Mr. Sands would mind coming in himself?"

Archie looked at me. I shrugged my assent. I didn't have anything else on my engagement calendar. We drove to the station.

It was a dismal-looking low modern building. Inside, it was quiet, except for a drunk somewhere who was singing "Good King Wenceslas." Archie conferred with the officer at the desk, and then escorted me to a glassed-in office. He rapped sharply on the door.

"Come," a voice responded.

Archie opened the door. Behind a cluttered desk sat a young man with a neat mustache and a florid face. On the other side of the desk was Kathy, sipping a cup of tea. "Ah, Mr. Sands. My name is Inspector Grimby. Sit down, please. Would you like some tea?"