C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (28 page)

The last of the daylight had disappeared sometime earlier, fading in a purple haze which a poet, or a depressive, might have described as the fading of all hope. I pulled the curtains closed behind me and gently shut the French windows.

The night was as black as a bat’s wing at midnight. The evening was so quiet I could have heard a polite cough from a sparrow half a mile away. The air was filled with the kind of electric stillness that comes before a mighty thunderstorm. I looked up at the sky but could see nothing. The curtain of clouds blacked out even the faint glimmer of stars.

Then from the lawn just beyond the terrace I saw a brief flash of light. I hurried towards it, squelching over the dew-wet grass to where Jack stood.

‘You have your own torch?’ he whispered.

I nodded. Then I realised he couldn’t see me nod in that dungeon-like gloom, so I whispered my affirmative reply.

‘Come along then,’ he hissed. ‘This way.’

When we had put some distance between ourselves and the house, I asked, ‘What is this all this about? What are we up to?’

Jack, who had been walking briskly just ahead of me, stopped and turned around. ‘Let’s see,’ he said, ‘if we can solve the mystery of Drax and his cottage on the moors once and for all.’

We pushed on in silence after that, through bushes we couldn’t see whose branches whipped back and struck us in the face, and over stiles that we had to clumsily feel for with our hands and feet.

There was no moon, and only faint, occasional glimpses of dim starlight when those dense clouds rolled back for a moment, like a gate swinging open in the cloudy castle above out heads. Then, just as silently as it opened, the gate would swing closed again, the cloud cover would be complete and even the feeble glitter of the starlight would vanish.

We used our torches sparingly, not wishing to be seen from the house or by any gamekeepers, or poachers for that matter, who happened to be about. We seemed to plod on endlessly into the night. A kind of mystical monotony gave our strange journey the feeling of a nightmare—as if, with every step we took, the object of our long walk retreated further away; the sort of haunting journey that happens only in dreams.

But that stumbling trek in the dark did finally end. As we reached the hollow that hid Drax’s isolated cottage, the clouds parted giving a feeble glow of starlight. By then our eyes were so dark-adapted we were able to make out the faint outlines ahead of us in the dim, silvery light. The stand of pine trees between us and the cottage seemed to my fevered imagination to resemble a flock of black ravens. If those trees had taken wing and circled overhead uttering croaking cries of doom, I would not have been surprised.

Jack indicated with a gesture that we should be as quiet as possible. We picked our way through that copse making each footfall as gentle and silent as we could. At last we reached the cottage. Once again all the blinds were drawn, and only the faintest yellow gleam indicated that lamps were lit inside.

We approached the first window but were unable to see anything—the blinds covered the window panes from edge to edge. With Jack in the lead, we then slid silently along to the second window where, in an unusually careless moment, Drax had left a small kink in the blind.

Jack put his eye to the gap and looked for a long time. When he finally drew back he pressed his lips to my ear and whispered, ‘Look. But don’t cry out and don’t say anything.’

We changed places and I pressed my eye to the window. What I saw astonished me.

I saw a man, an Englishman by the look of him, with a shock of blond hair. He had a pock-marked and scarred face. He was tied tightly to a chair, and he was sobbing. Drax was hovering over him. The prisoner looked wild-eyed at the South American native, who was, presumably, his captor. Those wide-open, pale-blue eyes swivelled franticly backwards and forwards and large drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

My heart was pounding, and my instinct was to thump at the cottage door, rush inside and free the prisoner. At that moment Jack laid a calming hand on my shoulder and patted me gently. Then I remembered his instructions not to cry out and not to say anything.

As I continued watching, Drax, who had been absent for a few moments, reappeared. He was carrying a bowl of soup and began feeding his prisoner slowly and carefully—spoonful by spoonful. When the soup was finished, the prisoner appeared a little calmer. He hung his head down on his chest and seemed to be visibly sobbing, although we could hear nothing.

Jack took my arm and gently pulled me away from the cottage. In that faint starlight he put his finger to his lips to indicate continued silence, then beckoned me to follow.

We retraced our steps through the trees and climbed the far side of the hollow. When Jack judged that we were far enough away, he asked, ‘Well, what did you make of that?’

Following his example I kept my voice low, so I almost hissed, ‘That native is holding a man prisoner! An Englishman by the look of it! Aren’t we going to do something?’

‘Yes, we are. I believe it’s time for us to approach Lady Pamela and suggest, gently, that it would be for the best if the world knew the truth about Edmund.’

‘Lady Pamela? Edmund? I don’t understand.’

‘Come along, back to Plumwood Hall—I’ll explain on the way.’

We re-entered the Hall by the drawing room French windows that I had carefully left unlocked. From there we went to the entrance hall and the foot of the main staircase. Here we encountered Keggs. He was making his last round for the night with his large bunch of keys, locking all the downstairs doors and windows. We had got back just in time.

The butler looked startled to see us. He obviously did not expect to find mud-spattered travellers staggering into the house after ten o’clock.

‘Keggs,’ I said, ‘you remember Mr Lewis, don’t you?’

He nodded his head but continued to regard us with relentless disapproval.

‘It’s important that Mr Lewis and I see Lady Pamela. Is she still up?’

‘Her ladyship has retired to her room for the night. But her maid has not yet run her bath.’

‘Well, would you let her know we’re here please? And that we need to see her urgently.’

He hesitated. After a long moment he said, ‘I take it this is a matter of the utmost urgency, sir?’

‘You may so take it, Keggs,’ I replied firmly. ‘If you would please let her ladyship know.’

‘Very well, sir. Perhaps you had better wait in the library. I’ll tell her ladyship you’re there. She will either come to you herself or send her maid.’

‘She will come herself,’ boomed Jack, ‘if you say one word to her.’

‘Sir?’

‘Say
Edmund
—just that, and she will see us.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

Keggs departed on his mission, and Jack and I climbed the stairs to retire to the library. In doing so we passed the door of Sir William’s study, which was standing slightly ajar. In consequence we could hear voices from within.

‘You’ll not get another penny from me, Jackson—not another penny.’ That was, unmistakably, Sir William’s voice.

In reply came a strange voice, one I didn’t recognise: ‘You are the cruellest and most heartless businessman in the whole of England.’ This was said not in an angry tone but in a sad, almost heartbroken one.

‘Yes, and that’s why I’m the success I am,’ replied the biscuit tycoon.

Intriguing though this conversation was, it was no part of our present occupation and we moved on to the library.

We’d been there less than two minutes when Lady Pamela appeared. Her face was white—as white as Carrara marble, and it looked as hard as marble as well.

She stood just inside the library door and raised her eyebrows.

When Jack and I failed to respond to this invitation instantly, she said, ‘I believe you gentlemen have something you wish to say to me?’

Just as she uttered these words the long-threatened storm began. A rolling, rumbling crash of thunder burst from the clouds and stamped in pounding footsteps like an angry giant across the fields towards Plumwood Hall. These sounds were followed in close succession by jagged flashes of lightning. Then Thor’s hammer beat again against the clouds and this time the thunder sounded even louder. The next flash of lightning showed huge raindrops splashing against the library windows. These liquid pioneers were quickly drowned by their flood of followers. Soon the rain pounding and washing against the glass made conversation difficult.

Lady Pamela took several steps closer and demanded, ‘Well?’

Jack’s powerful voice rose above the storm with ease. ‘We have just seen Edmund,’ he said. ‘Drax appears to be caring for him very well.’

Lady Pamela’s face remained as hard as marble, and she showed no obvious emotion, but tears sprang into her eyes. She lowered herself unsteadily into a nearby armchair. Once she was seated, she seemed to collapse and sag into the leather upholstery—as if she were as boneless as a cat in front of a fire.

She opened her mouth several times to speak but no sound came. This imperious woman was looking more uncertain than I had ever seen her. Eventually she decided what she wanted to say. ‘How much do you know?’

Jack dropped his authoritarian voice to a warm and sympathetic growl as he said, ‘Enough. I can guess the rest.’

Lady Pamela waved impatiently at armchairs beside her own. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ she commanded.

We did as we were bid. A silence followed, broken ultimately by Jack, who said, ‘It’s a disease, I take it, that he contracted somewhere in the upper reaches of the Amazon.’

Lady Pamela nodded.

‘When Drax got him downriver,’ she said, ‘he was still conscious, and still coherent. The first doctor who treated him spoke English and Edmund dictated a telegram to be sent to me. In that he warned me of the inevitable course of the disease.’

She looked up at the ceiling, as if preferring not to acknowledge our presence, and spoke in a quiet, but a clear and determined, voice. ‘The next telegram came from the doctor telling us that Edmund’s lucid moments were becoming fewer and fewer. The usual pattern of the disease was being followed: long periods of sleep, great weakness and confusion, with rare but dangerous outbursts of energy—usually violent, aggressive energy.’

She paused, so Jack and I waited.

‘Then came the telegram from the doctor saying that he had exhausted his treatments, and no improvement could be expected. The condition, he said, led to lunacy followed by a rapid death.’

She took a deep breath, then said more firmly and confidently, ‘I expected the next telegram would be the news of Edmund’s death. Instead, to my great surprise, it came from Drax—whose English is excellent. He was offering to bring Edmund home to die. In one of his few lucid moments, Edmund had expressed that wish. The doctor was prepared to supply enough sleeping powders to keep Edmund heavily drugged for the duration of the sea voyage.

‘Of course I wired him money and instructed him to proceed at once. I met Drax at Southampton myself. We had arranged an ambulance. We didn’t bring Edmund back through the village. The ambulance stopped on a quiet country lane and Drax carried him to the cottage. Edmund is dying. There seems no point in damaging his reputation or distressing the family with the truth about Edmund’s . . . lunacy . . . his violent outbursts . . .’

‘So you pretended he was already dead?’ asked Jack.

‘It was the kindest thing to do all round,’ insisted Lady Pamela. ‘We had a decent Christian funeral for him with an empty coffin. The family mourned his passing, keeping Edmund’s secret safe. And my dear brother will die here in England as he wished. When that happens, he will be buried next to the cottage where he now lives. Drax will be well rewarded for his faithfulness and care. And he will return to his people. That’s all the future can hold for Edmund now.’

When she stopped speaking, the only sound was the flooding rainwater washing over the windows and walls of the old building.

There was only one table lamp switched on in the library. It cast a warm, buttery-yellow glow around us three in our armchairs. Beyond the reach of the lamp, the library disappeared in folds of dark shadows. It seemed an appropriate setting for such a sad and grim story.

‘Have you had the best medical advice?’ Jack asked.

‘Those people in the Amazon Basin are experts in tropical diseases,’ said Lady Pamela. ‘If there was anything that could be done, they would have known about it and done it.’

‘Still,’ Jack persisted, ‘the prognosis you were given has turned out not to be correct, hasn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, as haughty as ever.

‘According to what that first doctor wired to you, your brother should be dead by now, shouldn’t he?’

‘Drax tells me he is surprised,’ she admitted. ‘He’s never known any victim of this infection to last this long.’

‘You may consider me impertinent, Lady Pamela,’ said Jack in his warm, hearty voice, ‘but may I make a suggestion?’

She nodded.

‘Harley Street has its own share of experts in tropical medicine,’ Jack said. ‘I know there are medical men researching such diseases in my own university. Given his unexpected survival, might it not be wise to have the best available doctors re-examine Edmund? Might it not be wise to reassess his condition?’