The Black Widow (12 page)

Downstairs.

‘
Lawks, Mister
Jackson!’

‘
Whatever is it, Mrs. Bellamy?
Has your cock-a-leekie caught on the hob or has … My goodness!
Excuse me, gentlemen, but can I be of any assistance?’

The butler’s composure amazed Herne and
Coburn. They had burst into the kitchen, guns in hand, unshaven and
dirty, and the Englishman simply stood there and greeted them as
calmly as if they were guests at a Leicestershire Hunt
Ball.

Rubbing his white gloved hands
together, peering deferentially over gold-rimmed spectacles,
Jackson repeated his question.

‘
Can I be of assistance to
you? If I may say so, I would have expected you to enter in a
somewhat different manner. Without those pistols in your
hands.’

Herne
grinned. Taking off his battered hat
and bowing to the middle-aged cook, who stood, flustered and not a
little frightened, by the long pine table. Her hands were covered
in flour and she tangled her fingers nervously together.

‘
I’m truly sorry to have come in
on you all unannounced like this. You must be Jackson, the
Stanwycks’ butler? And you’re Mrs. Bellamy, the cook
here?’

‘
Housekeeper and cook, if
you don’t mind, sir. Not that there’s many hereabouts to know
what’s what.’

The butler was edging towards a large
bell-pull set in the kitchen wall, close by the fire. But stopped
when Coburn took a step in his direction.

‘
Hold it there, buddy. We
got nothing against you. We’ve come to see your
employers.’

‘
Beg pardon, sir. But even
in this barbarous country, I had not thought that it was the custom
for guests to come calling brandishing firearms.’

‘
Your folks
upstairs?’

‘
Of course, sir. You would
surely not expect to find either Mrs. Stanwyck or either of the
young masters spending their afternoons below stairs.’

‘
Lawks, no. The very idea
of such a thing makes me blood run cold!’ exclaimed the cook,
adjusting her mob cap.

‘
Don’t get fresh with me,
Limey,’ said Coburn, not sure whether to join his partner in
laughter or get angry with the extraordinary couple.

‘
Now, Whitey. These folks
are just doing their best. I guess you’d do well not to talk much
more, if’n you take my advice.’

Both servants fell-silent, exchanging
glances that made it clear what they thought of Americans in
general and of Mister Coburn and Mister Herne in
particular.

‘
What shall we do with
them?’ asked Whitey.

Herne
walked round the room, picking up a
small iced cake from the table and popping it in his mouth. ‘Mmm.
Very good, Mrs. Bellamy, if I may say so.’

She bridled with pleasure. ‘Of
c
ourse you
may, sir. And welcome. Why, when we were back in England my scones
were the talk of...’

‘
Mrs. Bellamy!’ snapped Jackson.
‘Kindly keep quiet if you please.’

There was a large stone pantry off the
kitchen, with a stout door and a lock on the outside. It had no
window.

‘
In there, if you please,
folks. Just for a few minutes till we finish what we came to
do.’

Under the threats of the two gunmen,
the butler and cook dutifully filed into the pantry, both keeping
grimly silent, though Jackson turned as the door was shut on
him.

‘
I
trust that you will wipe that snow
and mud off your boots before entering the rest of the house. I
would not want to incur the anger of either of the young masters
for being remiss after your departure.’

‘
I
don’t reckon you got much to worry
about from either of them, Mister Jackson, so set your mind at
rest.’

As he locked the door, Herne heard the
butler say something to Mrs. Bellamy. Coburn also heard it and
asked his partner what he’d said.

‘
Something ’
bout it not being like this
back in Seeton Place. Wherever the Hell that is.’

The corridor up from the kitchen was
narrow, and quite silent. Both men walked cautiously, guns cocked
in their hands. Eyes and ears alert for danger. At the top of a
flight of stairs, there was a heavy door, lined in green
baize.

‘
Guess that’s the door
between the downstairs part and the rest of the house,’ muttered
Coburn, pushing gently against it.

It wasn’t secured by any kind of
catch, presumably to make it easier for servants carrying loaded
trays to negotiate. Whitey stuck his head round, standing
motionless as he listened for any sound of movement. But Mount
Abora was quite silent.

‘
Maybe they’re sleeping
off their lunch?’ whispered Jed.

‘
Could be. Only one way to find
out.’

Herne
covered Whitey as he stepped out into
a cavernous hall, covered with Italian tiles and terra-cotta
sculptures. The walls were hung with dull oil paintings of European
landscapes and heavy-featured nobles. To the right several doors
turned their blank faces to them, and a flight of wide stairs wound
upwards across the hall.

‘
Take the ground floor first,
then move along upstairs? Or try up there first?’

Herne
moved out to join Coburn, rubbing the
stubble on his chin with the barrel of the Colt. It was a tricky
one. As far as they knew there was only one of the gunmen left
alive, and he might be anywhere. Then there were the two boys. And
their mother.

The decision was made for them by a
woman’s voice, floating down from the rooms above them. ‘Mark.
Would you tell Luke that I shall be ringing for tea in a short
time? I wish to retire early tonight. I feel somewhat
fatigued.’

Muffled, as though it came from behind a
closed door, they heard someone call out agreement. In a voice that
sounded oddly high-pitched. A voice that Herne recognized as the
same one that he’d heard call from the open window.

It wasn’t necessary for further talk.
Stepping as lightly as if he were walking on rows of eggs, Coburn
made his way towards the bottom of the stairs, pausing with his
left hand on the ornate banister, taking a quick look above him,
checking that the landing was clear. Herne joined him, and they
started to climb up through the echoing silence, their boot-heels
sinking into the thick-pile carpet.

‘
Last time I seen this sort of
class was in the biggest cat-house in Boston,’ whispered Coburn.
‘Just before they caught the Sheriff shacked up with the Madame and
three whores. One of ’em the daughter of a Congressman.’

Herne
grinned, grateful to have his old
partner with him. The size of the house was daunting. There could
be an armed man at the corner of any of the wandering corridors. At
the junction of the stairs. Behind any of the closed bedroom doors.
Anywhere.

At the top of the staircase they
paused, glancing sideways before stepping up on to the landing. The
rows of rooms stretched out on either side, along a dismal, shadowy
corridor, lined with the same sort of pictures as those in the
hall. ‘Which way?’

Coburn shook his head. ‘Both look the same
to me. How ’bout splittin’ up and takin’ a look around that
way?’

If they stayed together, they had more
chance of taking anyone they came against. But from the voice
they’d heard, it looked as though the Stanwyck family was split up
for the afternoon. That meant they’d probably do better if they
hunted alone.

‘
You go left, and I’ll go
right,’ whispered Herne. ‘Good luck.’

They didn’t shake hands, or decide
where they’d meet. There was going to be shooting, and that would
give the clues to where the action was.

There were guttering lamps all along
the dark corridor, casting a smoky yellow glow. It was as quiet as
a tomb. The doors were thick enough to hide any sound, so there was
only one way to find out who, or what, was in any of the
rooms.

Gripping the Colt in his right hand,
Jed’s left hand snaked out and touched the cold brass of the handle
of the nearest door.

And opened it.

Out of sight from Herne, hidden by a bend
in the long corridor, Coburn had reached the first door on his
side. It was cold and he could dimly see his breath smoking in the
dusty air. He could faintly smell perfume lingering in the
stillness.

He grabbed the nearest handle and
silently twisted it, easing the door open.

The room within was very dark, but
after the murkiness of the corridor outside, his eyes were
reasonably adjusted to it. There was an ornamental Chinese screen
behind the door, with a shawl of Spanish lace hanging over it.
Whitey inched the door shut, squeezing an eye around the corner of
the screen.

It was a small ante-room, with another
door opening off it. There was an over-stuffed chaise-longue in
green velvet, and a long mirror. Through the doorway, he could see
into the far room.

A bedroom.

With someone lying full-length on the
large bed, arms outstretched. Whitey walked across the carpet, gun
swinging to cover his own reflection in the mirror, grinning
self-consciously at himself. Tipping his hat back to release the
flood of white hair over his shoulders. It gave a pleasantly
theatrical effect. More than once in his long life it had been
sufficient distraction to a man with the drop on him to allow
Whitey to turn the tables.

The figure on the bed stirred as
though something had walked through its dreams. Whitey saw that it
was a woman, wearing only a black chemise, tight across the
breasts. The hair was short and fair, curling in close at the nape
of the neck as the woman moved restlessly. Her legs were
bare.

Coburn knew that it must be Ruth
Stanwyck, and he moved in closer, his figure filling the doorway
into the bedroom, shutting out the little light that filtered
through. His shadow drifted across the woman’s face, and she moved
again, hands going up to her bosom.

‘
Is that you, Luke? You’re
earlier than I thought you would be. Or have I been sleeping for...
You!!’

She sat straight up, eyes opening wide as
she suddenly realized that the person in her room was not her
son.

‘
Afternoon, ma’am,’ said
C
oburn,
touching his hat with his left hand. The right kept the gaping
barrel of the Colt aimed rock-steady at the valley of shadow
between her breasts.

‘
You are Herne the
Hunter?’

The voice was soft and musical, with
an underlying touch of steel that Coburn didn’t miss. She saw the
gun and checked a movement towards a velvet bell-rope near the head
of the big bed.

‘
Wouldn’t do you no good, Mrs.
Stanwyck. Pullin’ that there rope. Wouldn’t do no good.’

‘
You’ve killed them all?’ Her
voice rose close to the edge of panic. ‘Not my boys?’

‘
No, ma’am. Far as I know, and I
don’t hear no shootin’ from my partner, both your boys are still in
the land of the living.’

Then...?’

‘
Cook and man-servant are
in the larder, thinkin’ over any sins they might have committed.
All your gunslingers are cold meat. You shouldn’t have hired punk
kids with their diapers still wet.’

‘
Clearly not, Mister... ?
I don’t know your name.’

She was recovering her
self-possession; and he could almost hear cogs spinning in her mind
as she tried to see a way out of the trap.

‘
My name’s Coburn, ma’am. Isaiah
Coburn, and to save you asking me, I’m the man that Senator Nolan
hired to gun down Herne.’

‘
And you have betrayed
that trust?’

‘
No. I still aim to do my best
to deliver Jed Herne, alive or dead, to the west coast. He knows
it, too. But there are things that a man can’t pretend ain’t
happening. So him and me are together in this one.’

‘
To murder my boys and
me?’

‘
No, Mrs. Stanwyck. We hold no
grudge against you. But your boys have been playing their games,
and folks have been hurt. You got to teach them that those sort of
games have to be paid for, and we come to get that
price.’

‘
They lay with some whore in
Tucson. The wife of this killer Herne. That’s hardly a
crime!’

Ruth seemingly ignored the fact that she
was near-enough naked, sitting on her bed, under the unwavering
stare of this bone-faced man with the red eyes.

“
They raped her, Mrs. Stanwyck.
Both of them. More than once. Them and others. Stood there while
one woman was butchered, and another driven clear out of her mind
by their damned games! And they will be better off,
dead!’