Stephen Gallagher - The Bedlam Detective

Evangeline closed the box and looked around. If Grace had meant for her to find something here, she couldn’t imagine what it was. Perhaps it had been taken. What an irony that would be, if Grace had kept some kind of evidence to protect herself only to be killed for it.

She took the box outside and placed it in the pannier of her bicycle. Arthur had finished his work with the animals and was sitting on the stile beside the outer gate, his attitude stoical, his breath feathering in the cold air. At his feet was the rope-handled bag, made from a jute sack, in which he always carried his tools. Evangeline wheeled her bicycle through the gate and closed it behind her.

She said, “Shall we walk back together?”

“You carry on,” he said.

“Are you sure? I can walk with the bicycle.”

“You ride on home,” he said. “Don’t fret about me. I’ve another job to go to.”

Sebastian was still working his way through Stephen Reed’s notes when Dolly-from-the-kitchen came through with a message for him. After taking it from her and opening the envelope, he said, “Here I am trying to think of how best to confront Sir Owain, and look what shows up.”

He passed the envelope and its contents across to Stephen Reed. The police detective read over the handwritten card and said, “A dinner invitation.”

“It’s for tonight,” Sebastian said. “He must have sent his chauffeur to deliver it. The man’s up to something. Do I go?”

Stephen Reed handed back the invitation with an equivocal shrug. “Lion’s den,” he said. “Perhaps we should both of us go.”

“If he’s wondering why I’m back,” Sebastian said. “I’d rather keep him guessing.”

“Perhaps he means to confess.”

“Staking his claim to an insanity plea by confessing to the Visitor’s man before the police? I suppose it’s possible. But why should that require a dinner invitation?”

“His farewell to freedom.”

“Unlikely. I’ll keep an open mind but go armed.”

Up in his room, the detective watched as Sebastian took the revolver and box of cartridges from his Gladstone. Sebastian loaded the gun with five rounds and set the hammer on the sixth chamber, empty.

“A nice short barrel,” Stephen Reed observed. “That’s lucky. It won’t spoil the line of your dinner suit.”

“Do I look like a man who owns a dinner suit?”

Sebastian might not have owned a dinner suit, but William Phillips, the town’s photographer, had four on the dressing-up rack behind his studio backdrop. Two were shabby, one was huge, and the other just about fit.

“You look most elegant,” Phillips assured him as he stood before the studio’s full-length mirror.

“I look like the headwaiter at Simpson’s,” Sebastian said.

Sir Owain’s car drew up outside the Sun Inn at the appointed time that evening. Stephen Reed stayed out of the way. The driver held the car’s door open for Sebastian, who said, “How many will there be at dinner tonight?”

“Just the three of you, sir.”

“No one else?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you plan to abandon me again?”

“That was a misunderstanding, sir. You can be sure my employer chastised me for it.”

The drive seemed even longer at night. The landaulet’s headlamps-six of them in all, including carriage lamps on the passenger cab-cast a lemon electric wash onto the bumpy road ahead. Sebastian tried to keep a mental track of their route as he remembered it-estuary, farmland, grouse moor, woodland-but after a while he gave up looking for landmarks and sank back into the leather. He did not try to speak to the driver again.

When the Hall finally came into sight, it was like a pale shining castle on the hill. Perhaps not a light from every window, but enough of them to make a startling impression from its place above the valley. A shaft lit up the waterfall that tumbled below it, and a string of bulbs illuminated the final part of the driveway that led around and up to the court.

The main doors were open and Sir Owain was waiting before them. As Sebastian stepped out of the car, Sir Owain said, “Welcome, Mister Becker.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Sebastian said. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s probably of no significance to anyone else. But I’m assured of my home and my liberty for another year, and it’s you I must thank for it.”

“Sir James made the decision.”

“But you made the report.”

“You don’t know what my recommendations were.”

“But you are a professional man. Forgive my defensive manner the last time we met. I should have trusted in your judgment.”

He led Sebastian through the house. They came to a vaulted drawing room, with a wide expanse of floor on which stood a maple-inlaid piano. The back of the room was dominated by a massive marble fireplace, beside which Dr. Hubert Sibley waited to serve them with sherry.

“Look at him,” Sir Owain said cheerfully. “Doctor, manager, nursemaid, and now butler. As you see, Mister Becker, there’s no end to our Hubert’s talents.”

“Four years of shipboard living teaches a man not to stand around going thirsty for want of etiquette,” said the affable Dr. Sibley as they each took a glass from his silver tray. “Your health.”

“And yours,” Sebastian said, struggling a little to adjust to this air of genuine good cheer. He felt like an actor who’d been invited to drop his role and meet his fellow players out of their characters for the first time. A dangerous temptation, given what he knew.

It was a good sherry, as far as he was able to tell. In Sebastian’s world, sherry had always been a parlor drink for judges and old ladies. They made small talk. He asked about the Hall’s extravagant lighting scheme and learned that it was the one thing on the property that came cost-free; Arnside was self-sufficient in electricity, from a hydroelectric plant of Sir Owain’s own manufacture. Its turbine was driven by the very same torrent that emerged to feed the falls below the house.

A few minutes later, Sir Owain’s driver appeared in the doorway. Only now he was out of his chauffeur’s livery and wore a white jacket with a starched apron over.

He said, “Dinner in five minutes, please, gentlemen,” and withdrew again, after which they took their unfinished drinks through into the dining room.

Another fire burned in here, keeping back the autumn night’s chill. The dining room had oak paneling and green flock wallpaper. An oriental theme ran through its decor, with woven cane in the dining chairs and fringes on the light shades. The capstan table had several of its sections removed to reduce its size, and there were place settings for three.

“In case you’re wondering,” Sir Owain said, “our Thomas is a first-class cook.”

“Though his range can be a touch limited,” Dr. Sibley suggested.

“Give the man credit,” Sir Owain said. “None of your fancy French sauces, but he can shoot, hang, and burn a bird with the best of them.”

“And thank God for it,” Sibley said, drawing Sebastian’s chair out for him, “because dear old Cook wouldn’t have been able to drive the car to save her own life.”

“All the same,” Sir Owain said, “I was sad to let her go.”

Sebastian said, “What happened?”

“No fault in the woman, just sheer financial necessity. No one believes it when you sit on an estate and plead poverty, but the land and the house just suck in cash. If you don’t farm and your tenants don’t pay, then what do you feed it with?”

“There must be some kind of a solution. I imagine you could sell up and live well in a smaller place. Or at least rent out this house.”