Peter Lovesey - The Tick of Death

There is no reliable way of knowing how soon a man crowned with a rolling-pin will regain consciousness. Cribb did not intend to stay to find out. Pausing only to kick Devlin’s Smith and Wesson out of sight under the dresser, he left the kitchen and hurried through the dining room and across the hall to the stairs. He mounted them two at a time. On the way, he took the key of his bedroom door out of his pocket. This was not the occasion to be suspended on the end of a rope; he would risk the floor-boards instead and get back to his room by the conventional route.

It was a simple enough intention, but he was unable to carry it out. Halfway along the first floor corridor, on his way to the next flight of stairs, he distinctly heard movements overhead, borne down by the eloquent boards. Someone else had been disturbed-the manservant. What deplorable luck!

As if this were not enough to give a man apoplexy, there came sounds from downstairs. Devlin had recovered and was coming at speed through the dining room.

There was no question now of taking to the rope from the conservatory roof. He did the only thing possible in the situation: opened the door nearest to him, stepped inside and closed it. It was Rossanna’s bedroom.

He stood just inside the door, trying to estimate the effect of his sudden entry. What does a woman do when a man bursts into her bedroom in the middle of the night-scream blue murder or become paralysed with fright? Nine women in ten, he guessed, perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred, would do one of those things, but he could not be sure about Rossanna. From what she had said earlier in the evening, she might have been lying awake listening for movements. In that case, it was possible she had heard what he had-the creaking boards upstairs-and put a different construction on the sound. Could she actually have been expecting him? Was she lying there in anticipation of a development she regarded as the logical consequence of having a mature professional adventurer in the house? If so, it was one thing they had not prepared him for at Woolwich Arsenal. But it did provide him with a means of sanctuary. If Devlin came knocking at the door, she was not going to reveal to him that she had a secret visitor-not if she was quickly reassured of the nature of the visit. It rested with Cribb to provide such reassurance. There was not much time for it.

Better not speak too loudly. He took two measured steps in the direction of the bed. The room was so dark that every movement was a small adventure. Her scent, the fragrance of stephanotis, lay on the air, increasing his unease. A Scotland Yard career was no preparation for boudoir atmospheres. Still, he was determined not to forget that he represented law and order; without that, his present situation was unthinkable. He was doing this for the protection of the realm. After what Thackeray had described, he certainly had no inclination to be here for any other reason!

His hands touched something cold and hard: the foot of a brass bedstead. He gripped it strongly and spoke in a subdued, but resolute voice: ‘Such a warm night, Rossanna. Couldn’t sleep at all, so I’ve risen early. No notion of the time, I’m afraid, but I remembered that you said you’d be awake in the small hours. Thought I heard a movement down here, so I came to see if you were wanting company. Not that I want to impose myself. You’d quickly tell me if I wasn’t welcome, wouldn’t you?’

He paused for a response, but got none. She could not possibly still be asleep. He could only interpret silence as encouragement. He edged along the side of the bed for Queen and country. ‘You needn’t be afraid of me, you know,’ he continued. ‘I ain’t the sort to force myself on one of the fair sex, not if it ain’t by invitation. But I’ve knocked about the world a bit, young Rossanna. Paris. . Berlin. . I think I know how to treat the ladies as they like it. Here, let me hold your hand for a moment. Pretty little hand it is, too.’ He put his right hand confidently on the bed. Finding nothing, he moved it towards the centre. Still nothing, and what was even more disturbing, the bed was cold. He felt with both hands. Great Scotland Yard! He had addressed the most passionate speech of his career to an empty bed!

Where the devil was she, then? As if in answer, he heard her voice from the corridor outside. ‘So it was you, Patrick! I was wondering what on earth was happening downstairs. I was really quite frightened. I went up to Mr Sargent’s room for protection, but he is fast asleep with his door locked.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Devlin. ‘Well, if it wasn’t him, somebody must have broken in. I found the kitchen door open and I thought I heard them running off. There was more than one, I reckon.’ His voice hesitated, plainly balking at the full account of what had happened in the kitchen. ‘What were they after, do you suppose?’

‘I really wouldn’t know. Is the prisoner secure?’

‘Quite safe. I checked him.’

‘Good. And the back door-is it locked now?’

‘I think so. That is, I can’t remember.’

‘Really, Patrick! What’s come over you? You must be sharper than that, you know. Go down and make sure, and we can all get some sleep. I shall be locking my door, like Mr Sargent.’

Suddenly, Cribb was profoundly reluctant to be discovered in the bedroom. The situation had altered totally. He wheeled round in desperation, and discerned the dark shape of a door beyond the bed. He opened it and passed through, just as the handle of the other door was being turned.

He found himself in the next bedroom, better lit because the curtains were made of some thinner material. The air seemed fresh after the scent-laden atmosphere next door. He tiptoed towards the door, so determined to get quickly out and upstairs that he gave only a passing glance to the figure in the bed.

A glance he was not to forget. It discovered McGee, for once without the black mask. The dynamiter’s grey eyes stared piercingly from an agglomeration of scar-tissue and raw-red flesh, pitted and contorted beyond belief. Except for the eyes, the only approximation to a human feature was a cavity on the left side, held rigidly agape and twisted at the extremity into a hideous leer. It was a more dreadful testimony to the effects of dynamite than anything Cribb had witnessed on the bomb-ranges at Woolwich. Most chilling of all was the knowledge that McGee was awake and must have recognised him, seen him come from his daughter’s bedroom, and been unable to utter a coherent word of protest. The recriminations would have to wait.

Without turning round, Cribb opened the door and emerged in the corridor. Heedless of the floorboards now, he mounted the stairs to the top floor, arrived at his room, unlocked it, slipped inside and locked it again. He went to the window and hauled in the rope, reflecting as he did so that he might as well have made a noose at the end and put it to personal use. After this night’s doings, there was not much to choose between that and a bullet in the head next morning.

It took a long bout of hard thinking to get Cribb downstairs for breakfast. Whichever way he reviewed the night’s events, he came back to the penetrating scrutiny of the grey eyes in that mis-shapen face. They had fastened on him like the eyes of the Argus. It was only with a consummate effort of concentration that he managed to dispel the idea that everything he had done that night was known to McGee.

The facts, when he finally disentangled them, were not quite so depressing. Nothing was known to the dynamiters of his meeting with Thackeray. Devlin had merely checked that the prisoner was still in his cell; it was enough to know that he had not escaped. Rossanna seemed to have convinced herself that because Cribb’s room had been locked, he must have been asleep inside, and not downstairs. The disturbance in the kitchen had been put down to some amateurish attempt at house-breaking. For his own reasons, Devlin had mentioned nothing to Rossanna about the bruise he undoubtedly had on the back of his head. Left to them, the capers in the night were quite likely to be forgotten.