Docketful of Poesy (31 page)

“There will be two of them,” I said. “They always
worked as a team.” There was a certain pain in facing it: that in
this, Peter had turned to Catriona, that in this they were still
one. And somehow reminding myself that both of them had slightly
askew—or in her case, totally polarized—moral compasses, didn’t
really make me feel better.

Blade said, “I don’t see anyone else. They picked a
good night for it. It’s black as pitch out there.”

“Let’s get down,” I said, cautiously shifting
position on the sturdy branch where I was sitting.

“And do what?” he inquired, still peering through the
field glasses.

“I don’t know. Get a closer look?”

“Are you sure you really want to see this?”

Was I? I opened my mouth, but he said suddenly, “Hang
about.” He leaned forward, refocusing the binoculars. “Someone’s
coming out.”

“What do you mean ‘coming out’?”

“Someone just opened the French doors onto the
terrace.”

“You mean one of them is already inside the
house?”

In answer he pushed the binoculars my way. I brought
them up to my eyes, staring at the terrace brought suddenly into
giant and crystalline view. A tall man with fair hair stood outside
the glass doors talking to another tall, slim figure in black. For
a confused moment I thought it must be Peter and Catriona, but then
I realized the man was older than Peter, his hair silver, not
blond, and his face bland and lined in place of Peter’s clever,
elegant features.

I watched the man’s mouth moving as he spoke briefly
to the shadowed figure in black. I couldn’t tell who that tall,
thin outline—hair and face concealed by a black cap—belonged to,
but the figure nodded and slipped away down the terrace. I followed
him—or her—until it vanished into the shadows.

Robinson/Roget disappeared inside the house, closing
the door and drawing the draperies across.

“What was that about?” I murmured.

“She’s heading for the carriage house.”

“She?”

Blade raised a burly shoulder. “Maybe not. Very
slight build, very fast.”

“Catriona,” I said.

Blade reached out and I handed back the binoculars.
“Yeah. She’s going inside the carriage house.”

“They’re up to something,” I muttered, and Blade
began spluttering.

“I mean, I know they’re up to
something
,” I
said. “But I’m guessing they’ve set up some kind of trap.” And
suddenly it made sense to me. Of course Catriona hadn’t forgiven
Peter. She was merely pretending to be helping him against Roget,
but in fact she was working with Roget, and now the trap was about
to be sprung.

“We need to get down there,” I said.

To my relief Blade seemed to feel my urgency. He
dropped from the tree, landing with a heavy thud and reaching up a
hand to me as I clambered down more cautiously.

Quietly, carefully we made our way past the mounds of
fountain grasses, skirting ornamental ponds, then cutting through
the woods to the edge of the lawn.

Blade caught my arm. “Wait. There —”

Kneeling in the wet grass, we watched as the front
door of the house opened, and a lone figure, Roget surely, in a
parka came down the stairs and started across the lawn towards the
carriage house. He strode briskly, casually without any effort at
concealment.

“We can go around the back,” Blade said.

I nodded.

We turned, and started back, keeping to the edge of
the prettified copse of trees, holding to the deep shadows. The
carriage house was lost to view as we crossed behind the main
house. I felt a frantic need to hurry. I felt certain Peter was
being set up, that any minute he was going to walk into an ambush.
Horrifying images came to mind as I pictured Roget shooting him as
a trespasser. I could too easily imagine Brian and Chief Constable
Heron swallowing some story about Peter coming to rob the place or
Roget having to act in self-defense.

It seemed to take forever, but it could have only
been a few minutes before Blade and I arrived—I, somewhat out of
breath—at the old carriage house. Silently, Blade indicated that we
should move to the back entrance, which we did, creeping along the
side of the building. There was no sound from inside, but I could
see the wavering light of a lantern through the silvered glass of
the windows.

We reached a side door, and Blade eased it open, one
rusty centimeter at a time. At each squeak, we froze; but the wind
was strong that night, and the old building creaked and groaned
with phantom pains.

When the opening was just wide enough, Blade gestured
for me to wait, and he squeezed through. I watched him silently
cross the sawdust-littered floor to the side of an empty box stall.
He crouched down, staring around the corner of the stall. After a
moment, he turned to me and gestured for me to come ahead.

Slipping into the musty shadows of the building, I
sneaked across to where Blade knelt. Wordlessly, he pointed down
the aisle of stalls and tack rooms. It took my eyes a moment to
adjust to the uncertain light. At the far end of the building, I
could see Roget sitting on a hay bale. He was smoking a pipe, and
in the flickering light of the lantern next to him, he looked
perfectly relaxed.

But then he had an ace up his sleeve.

I said, forming the words almost soundlessly, “She’s
in here somewhere.”

Blade nodded, and pointed up to the second level. I
moved my head in acknowledgement. But if Catriona were lying in
wait up there she was not doing a very good job by letting us creep
inside the building. Not that I was complaining.

We waited.

The smell of pipe smoke mingled with the faded scents
of leather, sawdust, and horse. Overhead, a floorboard creaked once
and was silent.

Time passed. I could hear my wristwatch ticking. Next
to me, Roy Blade breathed softly, evenly, his muscular shoulder
brushing mine. His profile was intent on the front of the carriage
house. Feeling my gaze, he turned and smiled at me. I managed to
smile back, although I felt much more tension than he apparently
did. But then everything that mattered to him was not at stake.

And then the double doors pushed open, and Peter
walked in. He seemed to carry the freshness and energy of the night
with him, startling in the musty chill of the old building. The
lamplight caught the gleam of his hair and eyes, although he stood
partly in shadow—and I didn’t think he took that position by
chance.

“Peter Fox,” Roget greeted him. He had a pleasant,
cultured voice. “We meet again. At long last.”

Peter’s thin mouth curled. “Gordon Roget. Or, I
gather, George Robinson these days.”

“I prefer Robinson, yes. I must say, you look
disconcertingly well,” Roget remarked. “But then you always did
have more lives than a cat.”

“Speaking of which, Catriona sends her
greetings.”

“Does she?” Roget didn’t sound too interested in
that.

Peter said conversationally, “I admit I’m surprised.
I didn’t think you’d show.”

“You didn’t give me much choice,” Roget said.
“Blackmail is a new line for you, isn’t it?”

“One must move with the times. And I move faster when
someone tries to kill me.”

“That was…perhaps a mistake on my part. I didn’t
realize at the time you might be open to negotiation.”

“Does it mean that much to you?” Peter inquired.
“Marriage? The quiet, comfortable life of a country squire?”

Roget shrugged. “Once again you’ve underestimated me.
Now can we get down to business? What is it you want?”

“Fourteen months of my life back. Or, failing that,
the Serpent’s Egg.”

Roget looked pained. “My dear boy, you must know the
jewel went long ago to finance any number of lucrative business
endeavors. Now if it’s money you want —”

“But it’s not. Like you, I’ve done quite well for
myself. Well, not quite like you. I never had to betray anyone. Let
alone commit murder to buy myself peace of mind.”

“Spare me the sermon,” Roget said. “I don’t have the
stone.”

Peter seemed to consider him in the hazy light. “I
don’t think I believe you.”

Roget drawled, “That’s because you’re a romantic
fool, and you always were. The fact that you even undertook such a
job...” He shook his head in amusement. “In itself, the stone meant
nothing to me. But the money from its sale bought me the
world.”

“That
is
unfortunate,” Peter said, “because
the stone was the only thing you had that I wanted. And now your
world is in my hand.” And he made a little motion as though he were
emptying his hand.

“What is unfortunate,” Roget bit out, and the urbane
mask slipped away, “is that you didn’t pick some other corner of
the world to hole up in.” He snapped his fingers, and a tall, slim
figure in black rose from one of the stalls. A black cap covered
her hair, but as she stood in profile to Blade and me, the body was
unmistakably female. She held a wicked-looking little silver gun
and it was pointed straight at Peter.

Peter smiled at her. “Why am I not surprised?” he
said.

“Nothing personal,” she said. The voice carried,
flat—and American.
Tracy,
I realized with a jolt.

“It’s kismet,” Roget said blandly. “We’re all the
pawns of our destiny. Your destiny unfortunately ends here
tonight.”

I don’t remember moving, but Blade yanked me back
hard, and I landed on my tailbone. He continued stealthily down the
line of box stalls. Scrambling up from the sawdust, I saw Roget nod
to Tracy. But they both froze at the movement on the stairway
leading from the loft above.

“I’d think twice about that, old thing,” A cool voice
with a soft Highland lilt said, “That is, if you want to live to
see the sunrise.”

We all stared as a tall, slim figure in black, red
hair tumbling over slender shoulders, came swiftly, surefootedly
down the narrow stairs.

Then Tracy’s face darkened; she spun, bringing up her
pistol as Catriona jumped lightly to the floor below. Peter dived
for Tracy, knocking her arm up. She fired into the ceiling.

Men rushed in through the open double doors—I
recognized the dark uniforms of the police—and then I spotted
Brian.

“Throw down your weapons!” he ordered. “Police. Put
the guns down!”

And there were now multiple guns. Something dull and
deadly glinted in Roget’s hand. I saw it in the instant before he
reached out and knocked over the lantern. The barn plunged into
darkness, the lantern rolling across the floor, flickering wildly,
before it vanished behind a stall. The taint of kerosene cut the
benign barnyard odors.

To the left, I saw a muzzle flash in the darkness,
and then there was movement speeding up the aisle toward Blade and
me. A dozen flashlight beams began to stab the darkness.

Someone knocked into me with force, tripped, and went
hurtling forward. I rolled out of the way. There was a scuffling
above me, another muzzle flash, the bang of a shot; and Blade let
out a sharp oath.

“Are you all right?” I cried out, reaching for
him.

The door behind us pushed open and a shadow briefly
blocked the stars. The door slammed shut and leisurely drifted open
again.

His voice startlingly near, Peter said furiously,
“What the hell are you doing here?” And I was grabbed and hauled to
my feet. He began to feel me over with hard, anxious hands. “Are
you hurt?”

“I think Blade’s been shot,” I said.

“He bloody well ought to be!”

“I’m all right,” Blade gritted out.

“Jesus! I could shoot you both,” Peter said. He
pulled me briefly into his arms. I clutched at him in relief and
gratitude for his safety, but the next moment he thrust me away and
gave me a shake. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

“Is that rhetorical?” I said shakily.

The light came on from another lantern, the unsteady
lamp glow fluttering against the rough beams and open stalls. To
the side, two policemen were stamping out the tentative flames of
the fallen lantern. Brian stood near the double doors trying to
hold onto Tracy. She was kicking and wriggling, swearing with a
vigor and inventiveness even surprising for her.

“Where the hell did he go?” he shouted to Peter over
Tracy’s raging.

Peter pointed furiously at the door offset, on its
jamb. “Brilliant work as usual!”

“Don’t let him get away!” Brian’s curses joined
Tracy’s. He began to shout orders. Policemen ran out into the night
in pursuit of Gordon Roget.

Releasing his punishing grip on me, Peter knelt
beside Blade, who was sitting up, clutching his arm. Blood
glistened in the dim light, trickled down Blade’s black leather
sleeve.

“It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Not for your jacket, mate.” Peter’s grin was
reluctant.

Blade’s swearing joined the general profanity around
us.

I was looking for Catriona, but I didn’t see her
anywhere. For one awful moment I thought she might have been hit by
the gunfire, but then I realized that she was nowhere to be seen.
This was confirmed a moment later when Brian said, “The Ruthven
woman—where did she go?”

“I can’t believe you went to the police,” I said much
later that morning, as Peter unlocked the door to Rogue’s
Gallery.

“I should think you’d be pleased. Isn’t that what
you’re always advising me to do?”

Bells chimed soft and silvery as he pushed the door
open. We stepped inside the dim interior and Peter fiddled with the
alarm. I looked around. Golden sunlight glanced off the familiar
marble bust of Byron, flooded the old maps on the wall illuminating
the delicate tracery of long-lost roads and byways.

“And Brian believed you?” I glanced up expecting to
see the door of Peter’s flat open, expecting to see some sign that
Catriona was here—and bracing myself for that encounter. But the
door to the flat was closed. And I noticed that the mermaid
figurehead—her dark wooden belly repaired and whole—hung suspended
once more from the vaulted ceiling above us.