Don Gutteridge - Unholy Alliance

Cobb was disappointed to find it empty.

However, straight ahead among the morningshadows he spied a short hallway with a door at the end of it. Hemoved silently across the room, and as he neared the hallway, henoticed another door to his left. It was half open, enough for himto take a peek inside. In the dim light he could just make out agleaming copper bathtub and detect the lingering scents of perfumedsoap and bath powder.

He turned his attention now to the doorstraight ahead. It wasn’t locked, and gave way with a squeal whenhe pushed it inward. He could see nothing in front of him butdarkness.

“Anyone in here?” he called out softly.

A human figure of some sort fell into thefaint lozenge of light spilling through the opened door. Two hugedark eyes in a white face stared up at the intruder.

“Who are you ?” the face inquired in atremulous whisper.

Cobb jerked back, startled, and struck hishead on the door-sash. “Jesus, fella! You give me a fright!”

“She made me do it, honest !” Thecrouching figure, a male despite its being clothed in a pinknightgown, lurched forward and wrapped its bare arms all the wayaround Cobb’s ankles.

“I’m Cobb,” Cobb said as he tried todisentangle himself, “a policeman from Toronto. An’ you gotta beMr. Graves Chilton from London, England.”

The shivering creature at his feet burst intotears.

Cobb half-dragged and half-carried Graves Chilton toBessie’s sofa, where he propped him up against two pillows and drewthe pink nightdress discreetly over the fellow’s thin, hairy legs.Cobb sat down next to him.

“I’ve come to take you outta here,” he began,trying in vain to make eye contact with the butler, who had stoppedsnivelling but still refused to look up at his rescuer. “And I needyou to tell me how you come to be in this predict-a-ment. Itake it you been a prisoner in these rooms fer the past elevendays?”

Chilton nodded, then finally glanced up atCobb, who was surprised to see that, except for the brief effectsof the sudden tears, Chilton did not look like a man who had beenstarved, abused, or sleep-deprived with worry for almost two weeks.“I was on the stagecoach from Kingston — on a Tuesday, I think..”

“That’s right. You was headin’ fer a job atElmgrove in Toronto.”

“With Mr. Garnet Macaulay, yes. And Iremember becoming ill as we pulled up to some wretched-lookingwayside inn, and that large woman — the one who’s been at me allthese days and nights — ” He paused and a shudder passed throughhim.

“She beat ya?” Cobb said, incredulous.

“Not exactly,” Chilton mumbled, and hung hishead once again.

“But you were a prisoner in here?”

“She gave me a cup of tea to settle mystomach, and when I woke up I was lying back there — on that bed inthat dark room.”

“She must’ve drugged yer tea.”

“I–I tried to get out a window, but theshutters are nailed tight.”

“That’s why it’s so dark in here.”

“Then that woman came — she made me call herDearie — and told me I was in a cabin deep in the woods, with onlysnow and trees and bears around us.”

“You don’t know where you are ?” Cobbcried, scarcely believing his ears. “You’re in the livin’ quartersof Bessie Jiggins, the woman who runs the inn you landed in. An’the Kingston Road is twenty yards to the north of us!”

Chilton was stunned. “She lied to me,” hemuttered, and looked as if were about to cry again.

“Of course she did. Fer reasons I’ll tell yaabout later, she needed to keep you from gettin’ to Elmgrove fer aweek or so. Lockin’ you up here an’ spinnin’ you a yarn about bein’a prisoner in the wild woods was her plan all along.”

“Locked?”

Cobb’s jaw dropped. “Jesus, Chilton, didn’tyou try an’ get out that door over there? Even to have a peek atthe trees an’ the bears?”

“I heard her locking it a few times, but notevery day.”

“An’ you never once tried to get away?”

Chilton put his head in his hands. At thesame moment Cobb caught sight of a small sideboard angled into afar corner and only now visible in the fading shadows of the room.Sitting on top of it were three bottles of Scotch whiskey, two ofthem empty.

“She kept you supplied with booze?”

Chilton nodded, and mumbled through hisfingers, “I’ve got a terrible weakness for the drink. It was myundoing back in England.”

“So you’ve been liquored up fer a good dealof the time you was supposed to be kidnapped?”

“She knew I couldn’t stay away from it.Diabolical, she was.”

“An’ she kept you well-fed?”

“Yes. We — we had some meals in heretogether.”

“An’ just how was she supposed to rustle youup good grub way out in the bush amongst the bears?”

Chilton shook his head. “I was — I was groggywith the drink.”

Another, more incredible, thought popped intoCobb’s head, as he recalled the copper tub and the still-warmstove, and noticed how neat and tidy these quarters were. “Don’ttell me you two cuddled back there in that bed?”

A sob erupted from Chilton. “She made me doit,” he wailed. “She was insatiable. What could I do?”

“An’ scrubbed yer back in the copper tub? An’powdered yer butt afterwards?”

“You don’t know what it was like!” Chiltonshouted with a touch of defiance.

Oh, don’t I ? Cobb thought, but said,“So what’ve we got here? A fella that might’ve been drugged or justill from the journey, a fella who wakes up unmanacled in a darkroom an’ don’t think to try the unlocked door, a fella who’sgullible enough an’ yellow enough to let an unarmed woman bamboozlehim, that takes to the drink she gives him like a duck to a pond,paddles in her bathtub, takes his meals with her and — in short — lets himself become a love-slave fer eleven days! You weren’tkidnapped, sir, you were cuddled to death!”

“It was the gorilla,” Chilton said, pleadinghis case and glancing at the door he had not bothered to test. “Shesaid he was her lover and if I left the safety of these rooms, hewould rip my arms off in a jealous rage!”

“Brutus? The stableman?”

“She brought him to the door once, and hegrowled and howled like something unhuman — and monstrous!”

“He’s a mute, you silly man! An’ he’sharmless.”

“I–I don’t think so!”

The door had swung open with a bang, and Cobbturned just in time to see Brutus Glatt bearing down upon him. AndBrutus was not here to wish the guests “good morning.” Cobb jumpedto his feet, but before he could get his arms up to defend himself,Brutus thudded into him, chest to chest. The breath went out ofCobb as he stumbled and fell flat on his back. Brutus followed himdown, and the man’s enormous weight collapsed full-length on top ofhim. Cobb felt his ribs flex, and a sharp pain tore all the waydown his spine and into his thighs. He cried out in agony. AsBrutus reared back, Cobb instinctively threw his hands up to wardoff the blows expected. But his assailant went for the exposedthroat. His huge, muscular fingers closed over Cobb’s windpipe,cutting off his breath and the scream that boiled behind it.Brutus’s fiery stare and his garbled curses were only inches aboveCobb’s face.

“Help! Help! He’s killing him!” the butlershouted at no-one in particular.

That’s a lot of use, Cobb thought grimly, ashe fought for air — even as his mind was entertaining theimpossible possibility that he was about to die.

“Let him go, Brutus! Now ! He wasn’ttrying to hurt dear Mr. Chilton.”

Brutus rolled off Cobb, checked to see thatthe victim had resumed breathing, and then stood up meekly besideBessie Jiggins. She was standing in her pink nightdress, a twin ofthe one draped over Chilton, with her hands on her hips. “The gameis up, Brutus. No sense in making it worse.”