Escapade (9 page)

And a good pair of shoulders under her head.

“As I may have told you, Phil, hauntings do not much interest me. If the accounts are true, ghosts seem to be completely unaware that they are actually dead. Which makes them, in my view, remarkably stupid creatures. What would be the point of communicating with them, even assuming that one could? But, you know, perhaps our Miss Turner is a sensitive. A natural medium. Unwittingly, without her own knowledge. I have heard of this, although never encountered it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I shall speak with her.”

“Right.”

“Shall we go have breakfast?” he asked me.

I looked down at my bathrobe, looked back up at the Great Man. “I thought I’d get into some clothes first.”

“Excellent. I shall finish up this letter to Bess.”

DOWNSTAIRS, ANOTHER servant—one we hadn’t seen before— told us that breakfast was still available in the conservatory. We followed him along some more hallways.

The conservatory was a large sunny room. All around, lush ferns and squat palms spread lacy fans and plump shiny fronds. Bright saffron light streaming through the walls of glass warmed the smooth gray marble floor. Beyond the glass was a view as still and as perfectly composed as a landscape painting. Blue sky overhead, a few white puffs of cumulus hanging there. An expanse of green lawn sloping down to a broad formal garden neatly blocked with squares of red and yellow and purple.

Sitting in the middle of the room was a long table covered with white linen. On a sideboard to the right were five or six silver warming pans, all of them the size of washtubs. There were stacks of porcelain plates, teapots and coffeepots, cups and saucers.

Lord Bob was sitting at the end of the empty table, in another gray suit.

“Ah, Houdini, Beaumont,” said Lord Bob cheerfully. “Up at the crack of dawn, eh?” He chuckled. “You’ve missed the others, sorry to say. Gone into the village, all of’em. Shopping, seeing the sights. Both sights, presumably. The church and the pub.” He chuckled again. “Grab some grub, why don’t you. Isn’t that how you Americans say it? Marvelous language, American. Help yourself, we’re informal at breakfast. And coffee, tea, whatever. Probably need your coffee this morning, eh, Beaumont? Comforting damsels in distress all night long, eh?”

He was in too good a mood to be talking about his daughter. I smiled at him as I lifted the lid of a warming pan. “You heard about last night?” Inside the pan were glistening layers of chunky pork sausages. I picked up a fork and stabbed a few, levered them off the fork onto a plate.

“Everyone has,” said Lord Bob. “Talk of the town, eh?”

I said, “How is Miss Turner this morning?” I looked inside the next warming pan. A small beached school of stiffened fish stared up at me with scorched cloudy eyes. I returned the lid.

“Fine, fine,” said Lord Bob. “None the worse. Funny, though, wouldn’t you say? Never would’ve pegged her for the flighty type.”

The next dish held rashers of bacon. I took some. “Me neither.” Like me, the Great Man was piling food on his plate. He asked Lord Bob, “This ghost was your ancestor, Lord Purleigh?”

“Supposed to be.” His bristly white eyebrows dipped. Impatiently, he waved his teaspoon. “But too nice a day for that sort of thing, eh?”

Both the Great Man and I had filled our plates. We sat down next to each other and the Great Man turned to Lord Bob. “You have a lovely home, Lord Purleigh.”

“Bob,” he said. “Nice of you to say so. Can’t take all the credit, of course. Been here a lot longer than I have. Make a lovely golfing club, though, won’t it?”

“A golfing club?” said the Great Man.

“For the toiling masses. Idea of mine. Poor chaps don’t get enough fresh air, do they.”

“Ah,” said the Great Man. “Yes. Miss Cecily mentioned something about this, I believe.”

“Cecily did, did she?” He stroked his mustache. He nodded, faintly, sadly. “Doesn’t approve, Cecily. Neither does her mother. Upbringing, you know. But they’ll see the light. Know they will.” He leaned forward. “Think of it. A golfing club for the proletariat. Plenty of good fresh air, plenty of sound, healthy exercise. And we’ll have more, of course. Nursery school for the young ’uns. Free medical care for everyone. And research facilities with first-rate people, eh? Finding ways to improve the quality of life. Everyone’s life. And educational classes, as well, readings from
Das Kapital
. Not all those statistics, mind, but the gist of the thing. The meat. Read it, have you, Houdini?”

The Great Man blinked. “Not as yet, Lord Robert.”

“I’ll give you a copy. Got hundreds of ’em. It’ll change your life. Changed mine, for a fact. Would’ve started this thing years ago, the golfing club, if it hadn’t been for the Earl. My father. Dead set against it. Well, what can you expect? Complete reactionary. But he can’t hold on forever, thank goodness. Soon as he pops off, we get to work. Should be any day now, too. Got a bad ticker, the swine.” He grinned happily.

“Well,” he said. “I’m off.” He stood up. “There’s coffee, tea, whatever. Help yourself.”

“You are going into the village?” asked the Great Man.

“No, going for a ride on my new motorbike. Arrived just yesterday, straight from the factory. A Brough Superior, one-liter engine, four gears, hundred miles an hour top speed. Real beauty.” He smiled at the Great Man. “Almost forgot, Houdini. You’re in the
Times
this morning. Maplewhite, too. The society page. Well, you two want anything, food, whatnot, just ask one of the servants. The others should be back soon. Tea at four o’clock. Till then, enjoy yourselves, eh?”

Lord Bob left the room, as the Great Man looked over at me. “The
Times
?” I said.

His eyelashes fluttered. “I know nothing about it,” he said. He leaned forward and plucked up the folded newspaper that lay in the center of the table. He opened it, turned the pages. I waited.

He read silently. After a moment he began to smile with pleasure. Then he looked in my direction and he frowned. He said, “I had nothing to do with this, Phil.”

“Let me see it.”

He handed me the newspaper. I glanced over the society page until I found it. It was only one small paragraph in a long column, but it was enough.

Viscount Purleigh will this weekend be entertaining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of one of England’s, and the world’s, most popular fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Also present at Maplewhite, the Devon estate of Lord Purleigh’s father, the Earl of Axminster, will be the famous American Escape Artist, Mr. Harry Houdini.

I closed the newspaper, folded it, tossed it to the table. This, I thought, was why he had been so cooperative. “Damn it, Harry,” I said.

He showed me the palms of his hands. “I did nothing, Phil.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“It must have been Carlyle.” His manager.

“Uh-huh. And how did Carlyle know?”

“I cannot imagine. I shall telephone him. I shall tell him I am furious.”

He snatched up the newspaper, started to read it again.

“It’s a little late for that,” I said.

Still peering at the page, he said, “Why do you suppose they mentioned Sir Arthur first?”

“Harry, we’ve got more important things to worry about right now.”

He lowered the paper, looked at me. “But perhaps Chin Soo is not in England yet. And even if he is, perhaps he did not read the
Times
this morning.” 

“Is that something you want to bet your life on?”

He frowned.

I reached into my pocket, took out my watch.

Ten-thirty.

“What are you thinking, Phil?” he asked me.

“Let’s say that Chin Soo
is
in England. Let’s say he’s in London. Let’s say he read the paper this morning. The earliest he could read it would be eight o’clock, maybe. Let’s say seven, to be on the safe side. I don’t know how many trains are running from London to Devon on a Saturday, but there can’t be that many. And the trip takes six or seven hours. So we’ve got a few hours of leeway.”

“Yes? And what do we do with them?”

“
We
don’t do anything. You stay in your room.”

“Phil—”

“Just for a few hours, Harry. Read a book. Write a letter. Meanwhile, I’ll take a look around the grounds.”

“And why will you do that, Phil?”

“To see if I can figure out how he’s going to come at you.”

THE GREAT MAN and I went up the stairs and down the halls. He didn’t say anything, but his mouth was set in a thin petulant line and I knew that trouble was coming. When I closed the door to our suite, he turned to me. And on me.

“Phil,” he said. “This is entirely unfair. You are treating me as though I were a child.”

“It’s for your own good, Harry.”

“But you said yourself that we have a few hours of leeway.” 

“Sounds like you’ve got something on your mind.”

He drew himself to his full height. “I refuse to stay here, cooped up in that tiny room.”

“Cooped up? Harry, you’re the guy who spends his time in coffins.”

“From which I can escape whenever I wish.” Somehow he managed to draw himself still taller. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I refuse.”

“Harry, you told me—”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. He raised his strong chin. “I know what I told you. That I would do whatever you said, whenever it involved matters of security. But this does not. You’re insisting on this because you wish to punish me for that silly article in the
Times
.”

There was maybe some truth in what he said.

“That was Carlyle,” he announced. “I had nothing to do with it. If I
had
been responsible, the article would have been more than an insignificant little filler.”

I didn’t really believe that he was innocent, but I believed that, right now, he believed it. “So you’re suggesting what?”

“That I come along while you inspect the grounds.”

I shook my head. “It’s too open out there.”

“But Chin Soo is not there. He cannot be. You said so. And what if he is? Tell me, Phil, am I in any less danger inside the building? What about the Hotel Ardmore? Was it not you who pointed out that he nearly reached me there? What happens if he comes for me here, in my room, while you are outside?”

He had a point.

I walked over to the bed and sat down. I looked over at him. “Harry. Listen. Maybe it’s time to bring the cops in on this.”

“No. I told you. That is out of the question.”

“Or at least let me wire New York,” I said. “Have them send some people from London.”

“And how would I explain
those
? Shall we tell Lord Robert and Lady Alice that they are
all
my secretaries?”

“Why not just tell them the truth, tell them—”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Harry, why is seeing the grounds so damned important?” 

“The grounds of Maplewhite are
celebrated
, Phil. The forest, the extensive lawn, the fabulous gardens.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them out to me. “Would you deny me a chance to see all these, to drink in their legendary beauty? And what will I say when people ask me about them? Shall I say that Houdini never saw them, because he was busy cowering in his room?”

I slipped my watch from my pocket. Ten minutes to eleven.

It was probably safe out there. Better to give way now, I told myself. If I did, maybe he would listen to me later, when it wasn’t safe.

“An hour or two,” he said. “Only an hour or two. And then we can return to the rooms.”

I sighed again. “Okay,” I said.

“Ah, Phil, wonderful!” He stepped over to the bed, clapped me on the shoulder. “
Wonderful
!” When I was sitting down, his eyes were level with my own. They were shimmering with pleasure.

He was easy to please. All you had to do was give him whatever he wanted.

“Okay, Harry,” I said. “Okay. Go on downstairs. I’ll be right there.”

“Certainly, Phil,” he beamed.

When he left, I opened my traveling bag and lifted the false bottom. I removed the small automatic Colt and one of the spare magazines. I replaced the bottom, closed the bag, dropped the magazine into the left pocket of my coat.

I hefted the Colt. It wasn’t much of a gun and it didn’t really have much heft. But that was why I’d brought it along—if anyone found it, it would seem like the sort of gun that might be carried by the sort of person I was supposed to be.

I pulled back the Colt’s slide and released it. The slide jumped forward, chambering a cartridge. I flicked on the safety and slipped the pistol into the coat’s right pocket.

THE MANOR HOUSE sat broad and monumental in the center of six or seven acres of mowed lawn, a solitary square mountain in the center of a rolling green prairie. There were some trees scattered around, alone or in clusters, and a garden or two, and some fountains. But most of it was open space. If I could stick a couple of men in each of the two towers, no one would be able to approach the building during the day without being seen. I didn’t have a couple of men to stick in the towers.

The Great Man and I walked along a gravel path that ran around the perimeter. We kept the trees to our left. Even in the sunshine, the woods were dark. Tall shaggy pines crowded the ragged maples and oaks. Black plumes of fern drooped in the dense gray shadows. An entire army could hide itself in there, and some dancing girls, and all their relatives.

Walking beside me, the Great Man was drinking in the legendary beauty. He strolled with his head held high and his eyes wide open beneath the brim of his fedora. His arms were behind his back, left hand clutching right hand.

He took a deep breath and he hummed for a moment with pleasure. “Smell that air, Phil,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“It is a magnificent place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“And a magnificent day.”

It was. The air was warm and clear and it smelled of new beginnings, fresh starts. Birds chattered and chittered in the trees. The blue of the sky and the green of the grass were as bright and slick as fresh paint. I resented it. I had things on my mind and all that brightness and beauty were distractions.