Lord Foxbridge Butts In (24 page)

“What are you doing, Stan?” I asked, bewildered.

“Setting you up for a short stay,” he turned and smiled at me, “I don’t want you to starve to death, do I? Here’s some tinned meat and veg, some biscuits, beer and seltzer to drink. No tea, I’m afraid, that old stove there don’t work. But you get plenty of air out of it, you won’t suffocate.”

“Why am I naked? Why am I tied to the bed?”

“I don’t want you trying to get out of here, of course,” he went back to arranging the tins and boxes and bottles, “Clever lad like you might actually figure a way out, though I can’t see how m’self.  Being mother-naked will slow you down. The fetter is just to keep you still while I’m here, you’ll get it undone in an hour or so. And don’t worry, I didn’t interfere with you while you was out, though I was sorely tempted. I’m not a
complete
bounder, y’know.”

“But
why
?” I wailed, frustrated by his smiling calm.

“I need a head start, of course,” he replied reasonably, coming over to squat beside me and look me in the eye, “When I’m a day’s journey from here, Marseilles maybe, I’ll send a letter telling the coppers where you are. You shouldn’t be here more’n three days before you’re found. And I can be on any number of ships going to any number of ports by then. I’ll not be found at all.”

“As a point of interest,” I looked at him squarely, trying to decide if he was mad, “where
am
I?”

“In a cellar under a basement,” he grinned, “under a Greek restaurant on Wardour Street, but there’s a passage from the yard behind me shop. The passage up to the Greek restaurant’s basement is bricked up, so we’re nice and secret here. I use it as a place to bring blokes for some fun, mostly. Nobody can hear nothing from here, we can whoop and holler all we want.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I whispered with some admiration: it was the perfect place to torture a prisoner or store stolen goods, yet he had used it as a place of assignation.

“Never thought it would come in handy for keeping nosy boys out of the way,” he reached out and ruffled my hair, making me flinch when he touched the knot on the back of my head.

“So, you
did
kill Mike Baker,” I said, wanting to get him talking so I could start to work on the knot, and maybe overpower him before he locked me in, “And poor old Mrs. Nazerman.”

“
Poor
? Nazerman was rich as Croesus and mean as an old she-wolf.”

“Still,” I went on, warming to the theme I had begun to explore with Twister earlier in the day — was it still only Wednesday? So much had happened already, “I can understand putting Mike Baker down, he was a ghastly cur, and killing him a public service; but doing in an old woman? That’s not quite
pukka
, old man.”

“Well, I wouldn’t of had to if you hadn’t gone poking your nose in. I saw you go into that shop and knew you’d be having your Scotland Yard friend around next, asking about that knife.”

“Nonsense, the police would have known where to look as soon as they talked to me or Gabriel, or the Baron for that matter. We all knew where it had been. I mentioned Nazerman’s to Sergeant Paget that same night, he might have gone right then and there.”

“Nazerman would’ve been closed by then, wouldn’t she?” his eyes twinkled merrily, impressed with his own cleverness.

“But why did you even take the chance? Why did you have to use the Baron’s paper-knife at all?”

“I figured the little round buster wouldn’t be questioned, bein’ a diplomat and all. They’d just assume he’d done it, or that big bruiser he brought with him that day, but wouldn’t be able to touch him. He’d go free, Gabriel would be free, and I’d be free. And the world would be rid of one mangy cur and one old she-wolf. Everybody’s happy.”

“Everybody but me,” I admitted: he was right, if it hadn’t been for my involvement, Gabriel never
would
have said a word to Twister, and then Twister wouldn’t have known anything about Mrs. Nazerman — and Stan wouldn’t have had to kill her. Without me butting in, nobody would have connected Stan to the affair at all. That was going to have to be on my conscience.

“Everybody but you,” he agreed, sitting down on the floor and making himself comfortable; I had found one of the ends of the knot with my right hand, and so as long as I kept his attention on my face, I might be able to work the thing loose and cosh him with the wash-basin on the table beside the bed.

“How did you know the Baron would be in Soho that day?” I wondered.

“I didn’t,” he admitted, “That was just gravy. I’d already planned what I was going to do before I left Gabriel in the morning. I’d found the pawn ticket, y’see, under his bed. The whole plan just bloomed in me head right then. I snitched his key before I left, and sent him on a fool’s errand to Epsom to check up on a horse so I’d know he was out of the way and out of suspicion. I went and got the knife from old lady Nazerman, not twenty minutes before you showed up. I bided my time at the pub, where I met you again, until I knew Gabriel was far enough away. Went to the Mews when I left you, and found your Baron running off like a hare with the hounds after him. I let myself into the flat and gave old Mike the surprise of his life.”

“That
is
pretty clever,” I smiled, though it galled me a little.

“Didn’t think through the Nazerman angle properly, though, did I?” he frowned at himself, “I’m just glad her assistant hadn’t been there when I got the knife. I couldn’t of hurt
him
, he’s a real sweetheart.”

“But you could hurt that tiny old lady?” I reproved gently.

“Bollocks,” he dismissed my concern, “Like a told ye, she was a nasty old besom. Lied, cheated, and stole whenever it suited her. Don’t you worry about her, she got what was coming.”

“She trusted you, though, didn’t she?” I pursued the point, “She turned her back on you, Twister said she wouldn’t do that with someone she didn’t trust.”

“I’ve sent plenty of business her way,” he shrugged, “Blokes as owed me money and couldn’t pay me in kind, if you see what I mean. I had a deal with the old bat, I’d lower their debt if they went to her for the money, and she’d stint ‘em at the till, and we’d split the difference. But she’d peach on me in a minute if it kept the coppers off her back. So I really
had
to bash her one. No choice.”

“I see,” I said, tired of arguing the point. He simply didn’t see Mrs.
 Nazerman as a helpless old lady, and I couldn’t see her otherwise. I had to assume it was a point of chivalry rather than of practicality, and abandoned the question, “What are you going to do now?”

“Dunno,” he shrugged, “I took four hundred and forty-two pounds cash off the old bat, and maybe a thousand in jewelry. And all the cash out of the safe in Cavendish’s. I can go anywhere I want. I haven’t decided yet where. And if I
had
, I wouldn’t tell
you
, sly boots. Would you do something for me when you get out of here?”

“You’re really not in a good position to be asking favors, Stan,” I chided him, “I really don’t relish the idea of being locked up.”

“Well, I don’t want to kill you,” he said quite seriously, “But I don’t
have
to send that letter, y’know.”

“Oh, God,” I gasped, suddenly terrified by the prospect of dying slowly in that cell.

“Now, don’t take on so,” he stroked my cheek comfortingly, “I
said
I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to know that this is a courtesy on my part. I’d like you to do me a courtesy in return.”

“All right,” I whispered, still shaken.

“Take good care of Gabriel,” he said, “It was for him I did all this. I love that lad. Will you tell him?”

“I don’t know if he’d like to hear you killed his brother for love of him,” I said carefully after thinking it over, “But I will definitely take care of him. I already am. I got him a room in my hotel, and I’m going to find some way of getting him a living where he can use his mind instead of his body.”

“Now, that’s
fine
,” he grinned broadly, clapping his hands with satisfaction, “You oughta get him a little shop, sellin’ pretty things. He likes pretty things, and he has a way with people. Though a lot of punters won’t thank you for taking him off the game.”

“A shop?” I liked the idea, “I think I know just the place. I could pay his apprenticeship at a place I know in Bury Street. And when he’s learned the trade, help set him up somewhere nice.”

“See? I knew there was a reason I liked you, Bastian,” he ruffled my hair again, “You’ve a good heart.”

“You wouldn’t consider letting me go, would you?” I asked hopefully, “If I promise to give you your head start?”

“You’ve a good heart, but you’ve also got yer honour. I can’t gamble on which choice you’ll make, so I’ll just keep you in storage for a bit. It’ll be a nice holiday for you, there’s plenty of food and drink, and running water, and there’s a stack of old magazines over there, and some books. Should keep you entertained for a couple of days.”

“I’d prefer the seaside for a holiday,” I gave up on the knot — after all that palaver, I hadn’t managed to loosen it a fraction of an inch, “But I guess I understand.”

“Give us a kiss goodbye?” he asked playfully, getting up off the floor and dusting the seat of his pants.

“All right,” I agreed, thinking maybe I could subdue him with my free arm if he was close enough; but he grabbed my left wrist before he even got within swinging distance, and lay down on top of me to keep me still.

“You’re too clever by half,” he smirked, “But I’m pretty clever, meself.”

“It was worth a try,” I smiled into his eyes. The hard weight of his body was very, well,
stimulating
, and I was suddenly very aware of the fact that there was nothing but a very thin sheet between us, and he could do anything he liked to me — which was considerably less upsetting than it ought to have been. When he kissed me, the kiss blossomed out into a surprisingly interesting interlude (and that great walrus mustache felt
fantastic
against my skin). When we finished, he thanked me very nicely and left the room, locking the door behind him, then bolting the door, then putting a beam across it.

My first order of business upon being left alone was to get out of the knot; I worked at it for quite some time before I lost patience with it, and dragged the entire bedstead with me across the room to where the food was piled on a shelf recessed in the stone wall. He hadn’t left me a knife or anything of the sort, only a spoon, a tin-opener, and a corkscrew, none of which was sharp enough to cut the silk necktie. I had a flash of inspiration, though, remembering cutting my finger once on a lid from a tin of sardines: I opened one of the tins and used the jagged edges of the lid to saw through the necktie.

Finally free of the bedstead, I got up and explored my prison, wrapping the sheet around me for warmth — the room was much less frigid than I would have thought a cellar under a basement would be, but it was still somewhat cool. The door was really quite solid, swinging outward so that no hinges were on the inside, and knocking on it produced a thick wooden sound under the bang of the iron cover. There was
definitely
no way out, there. I turned my attention to the flue of the stove, from which a warm draught came; I yelled up the flue, but there was no echo, and no sound penetrated from outside, leading me to believe that the flue was very, very long and probably had a number of turns in it before it opened to the air above. That the air was warm indicated that the flue passed through someplace hot, maybe the ovens of the restaurant above.

The food was varied and plentiful, though it certainly wasn’t Fortnum & Mason quality. The beer was Bass, the water was unmarked in blue bottles. Moving over to my reading stack, I found dozens of old issues of
London Illustrated News
,
The Sketch
, and
Country Life
, none less than five years old and some going all the way back to before the War. The books were more promising, mostly penny thrillers that, while not exactly improving, would keep me well-occupied.

However, after finishing a tawdry novelette and scouring the oldest magazines for pictures of my late mother (she’d been carried off in the influenza pandemic in 1918), I was already bored out of my mind. I ate some brown glop that purported to be Scotch beef in gravy but tasted nothing like, munched on some dry coconut macaroons, and washed it down with a beer, occupying nowhere near enough time. Another book, a more thorough perusal of the magazines, and a tin of peaches in syrup occupied a little more time.  Eventually I was singing to myself, making paper hats out of the magazines I’d finished, napping occasionally, and indulging in rather more ‘Arthurs’ than was probably good for me. I stayed clean, and I was never hungry or thirsty, and I never got cold, so I didn’t have much to complain of except boredom.

Stan’s only real cruelty was to take away my watch. With no light or noise penetrating from outside, I couldn’t tell if it was hours or minutes that had passed, or if it was day or night; and aside from my fairly regular bodily functions, I was completely unable to gauge time. But judging by the function that usually happened only once a day, I had been in the cellar for two full days and a bit before I heard a sound like someone moving about outside.