Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

"You are perfectly correct. Do not judge by their appearance." He glanced at the man standing in the kitchen doorway. "Eh, Joseph? They are good-hearted men at bottom. They will even help the poor Sexton fill in a grave if he is hard pressed with other duties." He pointed at the limes. "There is a gate in the wall. The Sexton and his helpers can pass quite privately through it into the burial ground."

Iversen allowed me to use the pump, to splash water over my face and drink my fill. He had told me quite clearly, in so many words, that he had it within his power to have me interred in a cemetery for the poor and the insane, and I doubted if it would matter to him whether I were dead or alive when my coffin was lowered into the open grave.

"Sir," I said as we began our slow, halting progress back to the house. "May I speak with you in private a moment?"

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure." He stopped and motioned Joseph towards him. "Is the other horse saddled?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ride back to town. You should return with Elijah in the cart this evening, at about six of the clock. But first you will bind this young fellow's hands behind his back. Then cut his legs free."

Joseph obeyed, and I think he took a fiendish pleasure in making the cord as tight as possible. When he had left us, Iversen nudged me into the kitchen with the barrel of the pistol.

"Well? What have you to say?"

"There is much I do not understand about this whole business," I said when we were inside, my eyes flicking to and fro to find a possible weapon. "Indeed, at times I doubt I understand any of it. However, I know enough to make me wonder whether we need be on opposite sides."

He smiled at me. "That is a bold suggestion."

"If it is a matter of money-" I began.

"You have many natural advantages, Mr Shield, but I do not think possession of a fortune is one of them."

"I believe I know a man who would pay handsomely for intelligence, for the right sort of intelligence."

"The little Yankee and his tame nigger?" Iversen's vowels changed their character, became flatter and bolder. "No, I do not think it would answer." He reverted to the cultivated speech he had used before. "We are gone too far in this business. A man does not change horses in mid-stream if he has any choice in the matter." He motioned with the pistol towards the open trap-door. "I wish you to return to the cellar for a while."

I had no choice but to obey. When he had shut me up in the darkness, I tried half-heartedly to free myself, but Joseph had done his job too well. I do not know how long I sat on the lowest tread of the stairs, turning over in my mind various arguments I might advance to Iversen, only to discard each and every one of them. Footsteps moved to and fro above my head, and once Iversen sang a few lines of a sentimental ballad. On two occasions I thought I heard hooves, but I could not tell whether they were coming or going, passing or stopping.

At length there were footsteps again overhead, followed by the scrape of metal and a rapping on the trap-door.

"Mr Shield? Mr Shield?" Iversen called. "Pray answer me."

"I hear you."

"You may come slowly up the stairs. I have unbolted the trapdoor. But no rash movements, if you please."

I emerged, blinking like a mole, into a room filled with morning sunshine. Iversen was waiting at a prudent distance from the trapdoor. He required me to turn my back on him so that he could examine the cord around my wrists. Then he led me through the kitchen into a passageway and thence to a room furnished as a parlour according to the rustic taste of the last century. No sunshine penetrated here once the door was shut, for the shutters were closed and barred. Most of one wall was filled with a great fireplace where logs burned in a brazier. The only other light came from half a dozen candles.

There were two people already in the room. One was Mary Ann. She was bound to a chair. Even her mouth was gagged, the mouth that could speak no words, only trill like a bird. She stared at me with huge, unhappy eyes.

The second person, sitting with his watch in his hand on a high-backed wooden settle close to the fire, was Stephen Carswall.

"Ayez peur," I said, and watched a glance dart from Iversen to Carswall.

"You've taken leave of your senses, Shield," said Carswall.

Iversen pushed me to a stool opposite the settle and stationed himself by the door.

"The connection between you is known," I went on, pressing what I hoped was my advantage.

"Known by whom?" Carswall said. "Noak? A man may buy a parrot, may he not? For a boy who is about to become his stepson?" He gave the last words a peculiar emphasis and shot a look of mingled triumph and hatred at me. "Why were you pestering Mrs Frant over her husband's grave?"

"How did you know I met her there?"

"She told me." Carswall stared around the room as if the ramshackle wainscoting were an admiring audience. "She sent you off with a flea in your ear, eh?"

I shook my head. "It was Mrs Kerridge, wasn't it? She serves two masters, you and Mr Noak. And that's not all she told you. She learned where I lodged from Salutation Harmwell and passed it on: which is how Iversen's bully-backs could find me so quickly."

Carswall shrugged. "How far has Mr Noak penetrated this business?"

"I am not in his confidence."

"Let us put that assertion to the test. Have you seen a man's hand crushed in a door?"

I did not reply.

"It is not a pretty sight. It is prodigiously painful, too. Yet it is so simple. One holds the hand between the fixed edge of the door and the jamb, one finger at a time if one pleases. Then one closes the door. As any mechanic will tell you, you do not need strength if you have leverage. A child could do it, so long as there were someone present to hold the hand in the appropriate position."

"You are a monster."

Carswall said, "Necessity knows no law. Isn't that one of your tags, Mr Tutor? I take the world as I find it. You are a double threat to me: to the reputation of my affianced wife and to the success of a business transaction."

I did not speak. I clasped my bound hands and thought of the flesh, sinew and bone beneath the skin.

Carswall nodded to Iversen, who cocked his pistol and took a step towards me.

"Not him," Carswall said. "The girl first. Let him see the effect of his silence before he feels it."

Iversen nodded and untied Mary Ann's wrists. Leaving her bound around the legs, he hooked his arm through hers and dragged her towards the door. She was still gagged but she made a gargling noise in the back of her throat that was more painfully eloquent than any quantity of words.

"Stop," I said. "There is no need for the girl to be hurt."

Carswall leaned back on the settle and opened his watch. "I will give you a minute to convince me."

"Will you set her free?"

"Perhaps. It depends how honest you are."

I had no choice in the matter. I said, "Mr Noak believes that Henry Frant was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the murder of his estranged son in Canada during the late war. He believes that Lieutenant Saunders died because he threatened to expose corrupt dealings on the part of Wavenhoe's Bank, or rather on the part of Mr Henry Frant. Furthermore, he suspects but has not yet succeeded in proving that you yourself, Mr Carswall, were Frant's partner in this corruption, and are therefore, to some extent at least, a party to Lieutenant Saunders's murder."

Carswall puffed up his cheeks and blew out a gust of air. "What evidence has he?"

"Nothing that confirms your guilt. However, Mr Noak's investigation uncovered Henry Frant's embezzlement since he took over the direction of Wavenhoe's. Mr Noak took steps to hasten the collapse of the bank and Mr Frant's ruin."