Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (13 page)

The man swallowed hard and it sounded like it was something more tangible than fear that was sucked back down his throat. He croaked: ‘You’re crazy, you know that?’

Edge nodded. ‘Yeah, sometimes I guess I am. But it’s something I’ve learned to live with when fellers like you rile me enough to make me act that way.’

‘You want to learn how to die with it?’ The muscular young man struggled to regain his confidence as he realised he was not going to get hurt if he did as he was told.

‘Lee!’ The woman’s tone was more imperious than it had been at any time while she was in the Second Chance Saloon last night. ‘Precisely what on earth is the meaning of this unseemly disturbance?’

The man, who Edge guessed was surely the Lee Baldwin Travis Hicks had spoken of, backed off a single pace.

This allowed Edge to step inside a large, sparsely but elegantly furnished two stories high hallway with the matching wings of a flying staircase curving up at each side to a 67

gallery landing at second floor level. The walls were darkly wood panelled and hung with oil portraits of sombre faced men and women in gilt frames. Against the back wall was an enormous circular table bearing a massive foliage plant in a ceramic bowl. Olivia Colbert stood at the head of the flight of stairs to the right. She was taller and more slender than edge recalled from seeing her in the saloon and this morning wore a matt black dress that was maybe meant to emphasise the paleness of her skin. Which in turn showed to striking effect the large size of her dark eyes and the sheen of her long sable hair. Her face was a little too angular to appeal to Edge, but he acknowledged she was certainly a beautiful woman in a classical, somewhat aloof manner.

‘He says his name is Edge, Miss Olivia.’ Baldwin did not turn his head away from the impassive face of the caller to look up at her. ‘And he says he doesn’t have an appointment to see you.’

Olivia Colbert started down the stairway, moving with a high degree of icy aristocratic grace that perfectly matched her appearance.

‘I’m making one now, lady.’ Edge stepped forward another pace and used a boot heel to swing the big door closed. ‘Like to talk to you?’

‘I don’t suppose I can prevent you from doing so, since you hold a firearm in your hand, Mr Edge.’

She reached the foot of the stairway and glided elegantly across the thickly carpeted floor with the same almost ethereal motion with which she had descended the stairs.

‘Not my choice, lady.’ Edge turned the revolver and thrust it butt-first toward Baldwin. ‘Not my gun.’

The disconcerted man accepted the Colt with a gulp and a startled look.

‘There is much that is valuable kept throughout this house, Mr Edge.’ The woman swung away and headed toward a closed door beneath the curve of the stairway she had just descended. ‘So my brother and I feel it is essential to protect our belongings with armed guards. And our men are instructed to use whatever force is called for to carry out their duties. Lee was fulfilling that duty in dealing with you. Almost a stranger to me, a total stranger to him and to the house as you must surely agree?’

She halted at the doorway to look back with a trace of a distant smile at the two men across the hall.

‘Miss Olivia?’ Baldwin was eager to be given an expected instruction.

‘I’m rather intrigued by our visitor, Lee.’ Her smiled duly took on a quizzical quality.

‘So kindly show Mr Edge into the drawing room if you will?’

She swung the door open and waited on the threshold of the room beyond.

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Baldwin muttered something under his breath, holstered his gun, allied a sardonic smile with an over-emphatic bow and ushered Edge to move on ahead of him Edge removed his hat and started forward.

‘And Lee?’

‘Yes, Miss Olivia?’

‘I think it best you attend to your other duty now.’

Edge was abruptly aware of danger. And in the instant he realised the woman had spoken some kind of coded instruction he knew Baldwin would have drawn the Colt. Then he felt a sharp pain as the gun butt cracked into the side of his head: just above where his hat brim would have been had he not removed the Stetson. After the pain came darkness and a sensation of falling. Next he heard the sound of his limp frame slamming to the floor rather than had any feeling of impact. Oblivion engulfed him and on the crazily twisted timescale within his unconscious mind it seemed to last for no more than a stretched second.

‘Thank God, he’s coming round!’ The man sounded deeply relieved.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Arthur.’

Edge briefly experienced a sense of satisfaction that he was able to recognise Olivia Colbert’s authoritarian voice and could recall that Arthur was the name of her brother. But whatever mild pleasure he derived from the ability to do this was immediately negated by the sharp pain under his skull.

‘How would I possibly know that, sister dear?’ Colbert was scornful now as he posed the rhetorical question. ‘The way things have been going for me lately, a lot of the time I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.’

Edge snapped open his eyes and had an unclear image of two people towering over him as he growled sourly: ‘I can help you sort that out, feller. When a heel clobbers you, the pain’s in your head.’

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CHAPTER • 9

______________________________________________________________________

THE DRAWING room of the Colbert house was as large as Edge would have
expected it to be and far more luxuriously furnished than the stark hallway. He got a first blurred impression of his new surroundings as he eased cautiously up into a sitting position on a long, soft leather couch against a wall opposite a wide floor to ceiling, rain-speckled window that overlooked the landscaped front garden of the house.

‘I hope you will accept the apologies of my sister and myself for the way you have been received in our home, sir.’

The tall and lean, silver-haired and moustached, sallow faced and past fifty Arthur Colbert spoke in a remorseful tone, his expression one of deep concern, He moved purposefully across the sound-muffling carpet to stand with his back to the window as he went on: ‘The men who work for Olivia and me are extremely loyal, which is highly commendable of them, of course. But sometimes, to our regret, they overstep the mark in the execution of their duties.’

‘Arthur, I – ‘ his almost as tall, blonde-haired and dark eyed sister tried to interrupt, her expression implying controlled anger.

He ignored the woman and fervently pressed on: ‘Is there something we can do to relieve your discomfort? A cold compress: or a drink, perhaps? Would it help if you sat closer to the fire?’

Edge glanced at the flaming logs in the elegant marble fireplace to his right, shook his head and silently cursed when the slight movement triggered a stab of renewed pain from the area where Baldwin’s Colt had cracked against his skull. He tried not to grimace as he looked toward Colbert, who was warmly dressed in stylish clothing, ready in all but a hat to go out this cold and wet November day. The man looked as genuinely perturbed as he sounded while Olivia, as she lowered herself into a winged chair to the side of the fireplace, wore an expression that was close to a selfsatisfied smirk. Lee Baldwin was not in the room.

‘Maybe a re-match with the feller who hit me?’ Edge suggested wryly, touched fingertips to his aching head and felt a slight swelling but no crusting of congealed blood to signal split skin. Then he looked pointedly at Olivia. ‘Just the two of us: with no one else around to make secret signs when my back’s turned.’

The brother glared for a moment at the sister then shook his head ruefully as he sighed.

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She altered her expression to one that more nearly matched his and offered stiffly:

‘Very well, I also apologise, Mr Edge. But we have had an unfortunate situation here recently. I was being bothered by a man whose attentions I found most unwelcome.’

Her tone became as defensive as the frown on her beautiful features. ‘I would ask you not to think badly of Lee Baldwin. For, as you correctly surmised, the man resorted to violence on my instruction. If Arthur had been here at the time, my brother would have informed me that you are the new owner of the former Sims store in town. And told me you were not the kind of . . . not the kind of man you seemed to me at first impression to be. You will I hope accept my apology, Mr Edge?’ Her tone had slightly altered so that instead of making a request, it sounded like she was issuing a command.

‘Reckon I can do that, lady,’ Edge said evenly as he switched his narrow eyed gaze from one Colbert to the other. ‘If you’ll answer the questions I rode out here to ask?’

‘I can’t think what it can be you have to ask, Mr Edge?’ Colbert said. ‘Unless it is that you require me to act for you in the sale of your business premises, perhaps? In which case my office in town would seem to be a more appropriate and convenient venue for such

– ‘

‘Arthur, he came to see me,’ Olivia interrupted firmly, scowled at her brother then shook her head as she directed the trace of an indulgent smile at Edge. ‘Lawyers! They do like to think that almost any aspect of normal life would be impossible to organise without them. And they do like to listen to the sounds of their own voices, do they not? So, how may I help you?’

‘The feller who was bothering you? I figure that would have been Billy Childs, right?’

Her attitude altered again: became suddenly frosty as she sat up ramrod straight in the chair and snapped: ‘May I ask what concern is that of yours? I mentioned the matter simply to explain – ‘

Her brother cut in: ‘Look, I’m aware that Charles Childs was contemplating the purchase of the old Sims store for his son. And the boy’s untimely death put an end to the transaction. But I fail to – ‘

Olivia interrupted: ‘You mentioned your office in town, Arthur. Don’t you have an appointment with that Shaver person there? A meeting arranged for very soon this afternoon as I recall?’

‘I feel I ought to remain here and – ‘

She flashed a pointed glower from Arthur to Edge as she said sardonically: ‘As you well know, brother dear, because you issued the instruction yourself, Lee will be within close calling distance until Mr Edge leaves. So in the unlikely event this gentleman and I have a disagreement that leads to any form of unpleasantness, I will be perfectly safe.’

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Colbert checked a gold fob watch, made an irritable clucking noise and shared a nervous frown between Edge and his sister then hurried from the room with a brusque word and gesture of farewell.

Baldwin revealed he was just outside the doorway and had overheard the exchange in the drawing room. He assured grimly: ‘You don’t have to worry about a thing, Mr Colbert. I’ll be right here if Miss Olivia needs me.’

The beautiful woman arranged herself elegantly into a more comfortable position in the high-backed chair some twenty feet away from where Edge sat on the couch. Then explained: ‘As one of very few females on this vast expanse of property, the men tend to be over-solicitous toward me, Mr Edge.’

‘Was Billy Childs trying to be something more than that, lady?’

This time the name of the dead young man caused a nostalgic smile to spread across Olivia Colbert’s face: then a soulful look filled her dark eyes as she fondly recalled pleasing times past. ‘Billy was a very pleasant natured, very generous boy: and a most handsome young man who took a shine to me. And I have to admit that for a while I was flattered. Particularly because of the way he was so attentive toward me for myself: not because he was being paid Colbert money at the end of each week.’

‘He called on you here at the house a lot?’

‘I’m sure he would have been delighted to stay here all the time if I had allowed it.’

She gave a slight shrug. ‘But he had to visit quite frequently in the course of his duties. Arthur and I have business interests far beyond this ranch and farm. And my brother does as much of his legal work here at home as at his office.’

‘He brought out lots of wires?’

She nodded. ‘Employed as he was by the telegraph company it was a part of Billy’s job to deliver urgent messages here. And as I have already said at first I found his interest in me flattering. And I admit I did encourage him to some extent.’

She smiled at some more pleasant memories. ‘It was certainly because of me that he took it upon himself to bring out other items apart from telegraph messages. Such things as mail and packages that arrived on the train or the stage.’ A shake of her head now as her dark eyes expressed regret. ‘But then I realised the situation was getting to be rather ridiculous. I am not the kind of woman who is coy about her age, Mr Edge. I was nearly twenty years older than Billy Childs was and so I chose to end our friendship. And I made him see why he had to overcome his infatuation for me.’