Betrayal at Blackcrest (26 page)

“Something dramatic, I think,” he said quietly. He might have been selecting a suitable tie. “Something heinous—the public taste for gore and sensation must be appeased. I'm going to give them what they want: a treacherous villain—Derek; a beautiful heroine—you; and a crime so foul they'll shudder as they relish every detail of it in the tabloids.” He ran his thumb along his lip, thinking. “It must be perfect—”

He seized me, his hands gripping my arms. He pulled me to him, and when he spoke again his lips were close to my ear. He crooned, as though the thing he was describing was beautiful and soothing and I was a child he was explaining it to.

“The cell,” he said. “Yes, ideal. There are chains, manacles. I will chain you to the wall and leave you. I'll lock the door of the cell behind me, and you'll die. It'll be slow. You'll scream at first. You will cling to the thought that someone will come, someone will save you, but no one will come—why should they? What would they be doing in this part of the cellars? After a while, you won't be able to scream. You'll find it hard to breathe. There'll be hunger, and thirst, and finally, there'll be nothing but the prayer for death.”

He swirled me around and began to push me toward the door of the cell. He was amused. The smile curled pleasantly, and his eyes were filled with dancing delight. I struggled. He didn't seem to notice. He was strong. His madness gave him an extra strength that made my efforts to escape futile, the thrashings of an animal in a steel trap. Alex was chuckling softly to himself as he thrust me into the room. I fell to the floor. I could see his dark silhouette standing there in the doorway, his chest heaving, his clenched fists hanging at his sides.

“That'll be enough, Alex,” the voice said.

Alex turned, a look of total horror on his face.

The blow landed on the side of his head. He hurtled backward. The glow of the lamp flickered, danced madly, throwing weird shadows across the walls. I climbed to my feet. I stumbled to the door. I clung to the frame and watched the macabre ballet. I saw the flailing arms, heard the sharp impact of crashing blows, saw the bodies clinging together, swaying, falling. They were dark shapes, rolling, panting, crushing, and it seemed they moved in slow motion. I could see no features, no clear outlines, just the dark, grappling shapes and their wild shadows thrown against the wall by the flickering yellow light.

They struggled to their feet. I watched the shadows. I saw the arm swing back, saw it make contact, saw the other shape crash against the wall and slowly slip to the floor. I saw only the shadows, and it was not real. I heard the moan, the gasp. I looked away from the shadows. I looked at the man standing over that shape on the floor, saw him reach down and touch the face with a curiously gentle gesture.

“He cracked his skull against the wall. He's dead.”

He was not speaking to me. He spoke to someone else, a man standing a few feet away.

“It's just as well,” the man replied. “A blessing, really.”

I tried to speak, but I was unable to. He came to me, and I collapsed into his arms. He held me for a long time, his hand stroking my hair, his arms nestling me loosely against him.

I looked up at his grim face. I trembled.

“He—”

“We heard it all. We were standing just outside the circle of light all the time. This is Martin Craig, the friend I called the first morning you were here. He came down today. We have all the evidence we need. A few minutes ago Alex unknowingly clarified everything we weren't sure about.”

“Martin Craig—” I whispered.

“He's been working on it ever since I called. I talked to him this morning, twice. He flew down this afternoon when he was sure. Alex was not as careful as he thought. Several people saw him with your cousin—he courted her in secret, but she was too well known not to be spotted.”

“You were there—while he …”

“We had to let him talk. We had to know all the details.”

“It was—”

“Don't try to talk now,” Derek Hawke said. His guttural voice was harsh, but there was a gentle tone in it that I had never heard before. “Come,” he said.

“It wasn't you …”

“Come,” he repeated. “It's over now, truly over. Delia is waiting for you upstairs.”

2O

“I'll be thankful to Freddie Jay for the rest of my life,” Delia said. “He's such a
crashing
bore, and I really can't abide him, but just the same, I owe him my life, you might say.”

“You might,” I replied.

“If he hadn't seen us together in that dreary little pub! Alex was so
secretive
. I couldn't imagine why he didn't want anyone to know about us. There was the book, of course, and tricking you, but I couldn't see why we had to sneak around all that time in London. I mean, we weren't doing anything
dishonest
—after all. Not that
I
knew of.”

“Well—” I began.

“Oh, Debbie, don't. It was such fun. You know how I loved all his books, and he was so fascinating. I thought I was helping him with the book, really doing something constructive for once in my life instead of wearing spangles and making faces and dancing. If only I had known—”

She shuddered. All the brightness went out of her pixie face. She reached for my hand and squeezed it, and for a moment we remembered together, and we were very close, two against the world. Delia shook her head, and I smiled.

“It's over,” I said. “Freddie Jay saw you and Alex at the pub two days before you left London, and he told Martin Craig about it, and the detective was able to put two and two together, with Derek's help.”

“Yes,” she said. “Derek—”

She grinned impishly and looked at me with mischievous eyes. I refused to make any comment. We were sitting at a table on the terrace behind the inn. There were small trees in large white pots, and beyond the railing the river flowed like a sparkling blue ribbon. It was the middle of the afternoon, four days after Alex's death, and up in our room the bags were packed. Delia had flatly refused to drive back to London in my old car. It was in a garage now, getting a new set of tires and a complete overhaul. The mechanic would deliver it to me in a few days. We were taking a train to London, and it would leave at six o'clock. We had come out here for a final cup of tea.

The case was closed now. We could leave.

We had had to remain in Hawkestown until it was all settled. We had both undergone long interviews with various men from Scotland Yard, and we had both waited apprehensively for the newspapers to break the story. It was a small story, unsensational. Derek Hawke still had several connections in high places, and he had used all his influence to keep the more lurid aspects of the crime out of the papers. Delia's name was not mentioned, nor was mine. Only a few people knew the truth, and they were adhering to those traditional British characteristics—absolute silence and stoical reserve.

Delia had brought me to the inn that night after Alex's death. It would have been impossible for me to stay at Blackcrest any longer. I wanted only to forget the place and forget the horror I had known there, and now that the case was officially closed, I intended to go back to the city with Delia. She had wired her agent three days ago, and he was impatient for her to get back to London. A new revue was being cast. The producer wanted Delia. She was elated. She would go back in triumph, be very secretive when people asked about her “marriage,” and in a few weeks she would be wearing spangles again and making faces and giving pleasure to hundreds of theatergoers as she cavorted behind the footlights.

I was not so elated.

Sooner or later, I would find another job. My face was definitely not my fortune, but it would do for more beer advertisements or serve to herald the virtues of a certain deodorant on tube-station placards. The prospects were hardly glorious, and I felt a curious sadness as I sat on the terrace and watched the river sparkle white and blue in the heavenly afternoon sunlight.

I had seen Derek Hawke only once, when I went to Honora's funeral. He stood beside Andrea at the graveside, holding her arm. She was wearing black veils, her face covered, but his face had been grim, chiseled from hard granite. I wondered if he felt guilty about Honora's death. I knew now that he had had her welfare in mind all along. He had been the only one who knew Neil for what he really was, and because of it he had had to play the stern patriarch. That she had died never knowing he had been protecting her made the tragedy all the more poignant.

He nodded to me as we were leaving the graveside, a sober nod. I wiped the tears from my eyes and laid a single rose on the grave before the last car left that bleak cemetery in the country.

“Don't you think so?” Delia asked.

“What?” For a moment I had lost track of what she was saying.

“Dear, you haven't been listening. I've been going slightly mad over the man, praising him to the skies, and you've been daydreaming. He
is
madly attractive in a stern, rocky way, so virile and foreboding. If a man like that were interested in
me
, I'd be sitting on his doorstep night and day.”

“What makes you think he's interested in me?”

“He kissed you.”

“In a moment of distress, under strain.”

“Come, now! He kissed you because he couldn't help himself. You've always been a ninny where men are concerned, Debbie. Admit it. You said yourself he was the most magnetic man you've ever met.”

“He's not interested in women,” I said primly.

“Ha!” she cried. “You're not going to hand me
that
. I saw his face that night he brought you up from the cellars. Who do you think you're kidding?”

“Just the same—”

“He's interested, Debbie. Believe me!”

“Well, I'm not. I found him thoroughly detestable—even if he did save my life. He's arrogant, and rude, and hard, and—”

Delia yawned gracefully, lifting her hand to stifle it. “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,'” she quoted.

“I don't intend to argue, Delia,” I said, finding it hard to hide my irritation. “What you say might be true. He might be violently interested. He might want to swoop me up in his arms and ride off with me into a Technicolor sunset, but I'm not at all concerned. I have my career to think about.”

“Your career!” Delia exclaimed. Her laughter tinkled in the air, merry silver notes that brought a flush to my cheeks. “Really, Debbie,” she said. “Neither of us has ever had many illusions about
that
.”

“You don't have to be
bitchy
about it,” I snapped.

Delia smiled her radiant smile and stood up. She lifted her wrist and glanced at the fragile silver watch. There was a secretive look in her eyes that I didn't like at all. She looked like the proverbial cat who has swallowed the canary, and I had learned long ago to beware when she had that look.

“I think I'll toddle along upstairs,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Good luck? What do you mean?”

“You're so bloody uninterested, and he'll be here in a minute. He called this afternoon while you were down at the desk. I told him he'd find you out here on the terrace.”

“Delia,” I cried.

She went on toward the door, moving with that jaunty grace that so enchanted her public. Her short red curls blazed in the sunlight, and at the door she turned to grin and give me a final wave. I sat at the table, fuming. It was hard to stay irritated with Delia. She was like a mischievous child, delighted with her own pranks. I sipped my tea and watched the river. I heard his footsteps as he walked across the terrace toward me.

“Thinking?” he said.

I looked up. He swung out the chair Delia had been sitting in and sat down in it himself. He propped his elbows on the table and stared at me. He wore the green corduroy jacket with leather patches over a white polo shirt. His tanned face looked tired. I knew he had been through a lot these past days, settling everything, yet despite the heavy lines of fatigue, there was a relaxed, mellow look about his face that had not been there before. A lock of hair had tumbled over his forehead, and his wide mouth was grinning. He stared at me rudely, saying nothing more. I felt a faint blush coloring my cheeks.

“Delia tells me your bags are packed,” he said finally.

“They are, as a matter of fact.”

“Good. I can put them in the car.”

“The porter will see that they get to the station,” I said coldly.

“Oh, but you're not going to the station. Didn't you know?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You're coming to Blackcrest with me.”

“I most certainly am not!”

“I'm tired,” he said. “I don't feel like arguing. The house is grim and solemn now. It needs you. Andy needs you. It's going to be hard for her to get over all this, and the only thing that'll help is for her to get right back to those damned memoirs and work. You'll have to work twice as hard, be twice as bright and diverting. With your help, she'll snap out of it and be her old self. She's already asking for you. I told her I'd bring you back.”

“That isn't fair!” I cried. “Using Andy to induce me to come back! It's wicked, in fact. You know how fond of her I am. You know I couldn't stand to leave thinking she wanted me.”

“Very wicked,” he agreed. “I play dirty.”

“Well, I don't intend to go back,” I said firmly.

“Deborah—” he said.

His dark eyes looked into mine. There was a dancing light in them, and the grin on his mouth spread. It was infuriating.

“Blackcrest needs me. Andy needs me! Do you think that's enough to induce me to toss everything else aside and bury myself in the country and sleep in a
tower
and—”

“No,” he said calmly, “but there are other inducements.”