Pirate (16 page)

“You are most amusing, Monsieur Bonaparte,” Madame Li said with a wry smile. He’d dropped his guard during the heat of the moment and he’d caught it.
Madame
was a
monsieur.

“Sorry if we alarmed you,” Bonaparte said, “but there wasn’t really time to explain.”

“I think we have a few minutes just now,” Madame Li said.

“Yes. By all means, let me explain. There was a young man in that Citroën named Philippe Honfleur. He was the youngest son of our current prime minister. He was the unwilling guest of a small cadre of rightist paramilitary types hired by me to attack this vehicle. Needless to say, they did not know that I would fight back. This outrageous attack on me by the prime minister’s son and his would-be fellow assassins will be viewed as a blatant attempt to derail my negotiations with the sultan of Oman. The evening news will be full of the attempts on both our lives.”

“Clever boy,” Madame Li said, chuckling. In truth, he admired the ruse.

“Sometime in the next few hours, the badly charred body of the prime minister’s son will be identified by the police medical examiners,” von Draxis said, smiling broadly. “The press will go insane.” He was busily putting his weapon to bed in the aluminum case.

“Very impressive,” Madame Li said, and he meant it. The scheme was inspired. And the German clearly a man of great courage and cunning. “Will I see you again, my dear Baron?”

“My work here for the moment is ended, Frau Li,” von Draxis said. “My plane is even now warming its engines at Le Bourget. I must get back to my beloved
Valkyrie,
my yacht, you see, so, I will be leaving you. I am only sorry that I won’t be joining you for the fete at Château Belmaison this evening.”

“A fete?”

“Mais oui, madame.
I have invited the sultan of Oman to Paris. Tomorrow morning at the Palais he is to receive the Légion d’Honneur. Tonight, I am hosting a soiree to celebrate this great honor to be bestowed upon His Excellency, the Sultan,” Luca said.
“Une bal masqué
at my country estate. You are invited to this masked ball, Madame Li.”

“I accept with pleasure. We will miss you, Baron von Draxis,” he said and offered the German his hand. The baron took it and smiled, his blue eyes crinkling in a most warm expression of goodwill.

Von Draxis added,
“Zo, Frau Li,
we have now this day begun the inevitable spiral toward a new world. This is what shall later be called history, madame. Enjoy it.”

“Indeed. Who knows what reprisals against the current government we might expect? Or what the lunatic extremists who support me might extract in retaliation for this craven attempt on my life?” Bonaparte said, and expelled a cloud of smoke with great satisfaction. “We might even see another most unfortunate assassination.”

“Or two.” The baron chuckled. The car slid to a stop in front of a hangar at Le Bourget and the German climbed out. The driver shut the door, climbed behind the wheel, and the Maybach accelerated away. Luca reclined his seat and expelled a great cloud of Cuban cigar smoke.

“Bienvenue à Paris, Madame Li,”
Bonaparte said.

CONGREVE, HIS VIVID IMAGINATION HOUNDED BY BASKERVILLES,
was racing across the haunted Grimpen Moor in the north of England, when the telephone jangled. He was so deeply lost in his beloved and well-thumbed Sherlock Holmes volume, he’d first thought the ring was part of the cracking good story. He looked up at the brass ship’s chronometer mounted on the wall above his reading chair. There was a click and whir. Eight bells tolled midnight in the cozy sanctuary of his library.

He reached for the phone.

“Hullo,” he said into the mouthpiece, and waited for whatever bad news was even now inexorably zipping along the wires in his direction.

“Is that Ambrose Congreve?”

“Yes, I suppose it is. Who’s calling, please?”

“Oh, Ambrose, it’s Diana Mars. I’m so sorry to ring at such a wretched hour. But I felt that I had to call immediately.”

“Are you in some kind of danger, Lady Mars?”

“Call me Diana, please. No, I’m not. But I fear you may be.”

“Ah, well, in that case, you needn’t be alarmed. I’m quite accustomed to danger, you see. Goes with the territory, as they say in the, uh—territories.”

“Ambrose, please, hear me out. I think your life may be in grave danger. If you don’t mind, I’d—I’d rather not speak of this over the telephone.”

“Well, I could drive over to Brixden House. At this time of night, it would take me only about—”

“No, no. Not in this house. I’ll explain when I see you. I’d drive myself over to you but there’s something wrong with the Bentley. It’s the only car I have keys for…and, well, I don’t want to rouse my chauffeur.”

“A pub somewhere in between us? No, that won’t work. Too late.”

“All closed. I know what we’ll do. We’ll meet down at Spring Cottage. It’s all shut up but I have a key, naturally. Do you know it? My summer house?”

“The Tudor structure on the river below the main house.”

“Exactly. Can you meet me there in half an hour?”

“Half past. Jolly good. See you then.”

He hung up the phone. For some reason, when he stood up, he tried to touch his toes. Hadn’t done it in years, but he felt just spry enough at the moment to attempt it. Blast. No luck. Couldn’t do it now, because his damn belly got in the way. Still, it felt pretty damn good to limber up a bit. Get the old blood flowing before one sprang into action. He stopped on his way out the door and shook his head, laughing at this picture of himself, the still-vigorous knight-errant taking up his battle-weary lance and entering the lists once more.

In his dressing room, shedding his navy silk pajamas, he paused by the small bow window seat and sat on the cushion. What does one wear to a secret midnight rendezvous in a deserted house? Considering a selection of tweed jackets, he chanced to notice through the window that lights were still on in Mrs. Purvis’s bedroom. Upon returning from hospital, she had been installed in the rooms over the gardener’s cottage some few hundred yards distant. It was decided that she would be far more comfortable there than in her prior digs, the small bed-sitting room under an eave on the third floor of Heart’s Ease Cottage.

Mrs. Purvis not sleeping well? The doctor had said she’d be uncomfortable for at least another month. The bullet had torn a muscle in the chest wall that would be slow to heal. Poor dear. Ambrose had had no idea just how much her cheery presence meant until she was gone.

He chose a much-loved tattersall shirt, and a cavalry twill jacket over an old pair of flannels. Then, with a shudder of pleasure, he slipped on the brand-new pair of driving shoes he’d bought at Mr. J.P. Todd’s establishment. They were red, a rather vivid shade, which Ambrose thought gave them quite a racy flair. Dorothy’s slippers, Sutherland had called them upon their debut, and Congreve, unlike Ross himself, had not been even slightly amused.

He switched off the lights in his dressing room and the single lamp beside his bed and headed for the back staircase. At the end of a short corridor was a door to a room he’d seldom entered until very recently. An enchanted room, full of magic and wonder he’d only just discovered. He took three long strides and was there, hand on knob.

He could hardly believe his zooming pulse rate as he entered his garage and reached for the light switch.

Click.

Oh.

Just the light reflected in the mirror finish of the long sculpted bonnet took his breath away. The car, his car, was a Morgan. The 1962 Plus Four Drophead. Forty-three years old, but she’d undergone a frame-off, rubber up restoration, whatever that meant. Wooden chassis, ash, stainless-steel wire wheels with spinners. A newish color one seldom saw on a Morgan, bright canary yellow for the body with a sort of Harrod’s green for the fenders. Forced to choose a word to describe the paint scheme to someone, he might use the word “snappy.” Yes, he thought, opening the driver’s side door and climbing behind the wooden steering wheel, definitely snappy.

And he’d bought the two-seater machine off the Internet (actually, his pal Chappy Morris at the Crown and Anchor had done it all on the pub’s office computer) for a good deal less than twenty thousand quid! Why, he’d simply stolen the jewels when you thought about it.

He sat there for a moment, just breathing in the smells of the thing. The leather seats, the grease on the wheels, the carnauba wax on the fenders, the fresh sawdust he’d sprinkled on the floor. Why, the entire garage was full of wondrous sensory inputs. The smell of old machine parts and oil and dirt in the dark space was intoxicating. How had he missed all this? This was the stuff of dreams.

This mechanical wizard (all right, it was dated) was nothing short of a personal rocket to the moon! He was free, in the bargain, free to roam, no longer held captive to the demonic Ross Sutherland and his midget racer. And, now, he was off to a midnight rendezvous with a beautiful woman—wait! He’d better let Mrs. Purvis know he was going out, lest she wonder if the new car was being stolen.

He’d had a wall phone mounted in the garage against the day when he’d spend more time out here, puttering around with wrenches and the like, cleaning the carburetors and whatnot. He climbed out of the Morgan and reached for the phone. He’d found this daunting egress far easier to accomplish with the top down, so he’d taken to leaving it down at all times. He’d already decided not to drive his dreamboat more than a mile from home if it even smelled like rain.

Someone was saying “Hello?” on the other end of the line.

“Oh, Mrs. Purvis, yes. I am so sorry to bother you at this hellish hour, but it’s Mr. Congreve, as I’m sure you know. Saw your light on. I just rang to inform you that I’m about to go out in the new car. You know, the Morgan. Take it for a spin about the countryside. I didn’t want you to worry needlessly on my account.”

“Not at all, Mr. Congreve. I saw the light go on in the garage and I supposed that’s what you were doing. I’m just tending to my needle-point. I must warn you that you’ve quite a surprise coming your way next Christmas. I am an absolute demon when it comes to needle-point.”

“Ah. Well, splendid. I’m off then, Mrs. Purvis, with a roar and a chitty-chitty, bang-bang. Goodnight!”

He climbed back aboard the contraption and hit the ignition button. The Morgan roared to life (well, perhaps “roar” was too strong a word), and he engaged reverse and backed the thing carefully out of the garage. Reverse, he’d recently learned, was a damned tricky business. When one went backward, everything was the reverse of going forward. Eminently logical, but still. Took some getting used to, naturally, but he’d crack it. That crumpled left rear fender and brake-light assembly would be fairly easy to mend, he guessed.

Half an hour later, he’d found his way to the A404 to Marlow. From there, he simply followed his memory and swung through the stately Brixden House gates five minutes later. Moonlight turned the Roman sarcophagi in the gardens blue. After a seemingly endless succession of orchards and sloping meadows, he came to a narrow lane that ran east along the silvery Thames. He saw one of the tall brick chimneys through the treetops first. Smoke was curling out over the gabled slate roof. Lady Mars had apparently arrived at Spring Cottage first and got a fire going.

He turned right into a small car park beside the Tudor cottage. It was situated in a thickly wooded plot on a bend in the river. The many windows on the two sides he could see were dark, but there was an orange glow visible within the fanlight above the front entrance. He tried the door; it was open. He pushed inside and saw orange light licking the walls of a further room. The fire was the only light burning in the house. The smell of smoke cut through the musty odors of a place long closed and shuttered.

“Hello? Is that you, Diana?” he said, pausing in the doorway of the library. The fact that it might not be, he had to admit, had occurred to him. Someone, he still hadn’t learned who, was trying to kill him. He sometimes found himself thinking like a mystery writer at times like these, and this deserted house by the river would be a perfect trap for the unwary victim. No one on earth knew he was here. Once he was done away with, it was simply a matter of weighting him down with stones and heaving him into the chilly dark waters flowing beyond the windows.

“Oh, Ambrose, I’m so glad you’re safe. Come take a seat by the fire,” Lady Mars said. Her voice was trembling.

There were two leather wing chairs facing the hearth. She was seated in the one to his left. In the firelight, her auburn hair had a reddish-gold glow. She was leaning forward, poking at the sparking embers with a fire-iron. On a low ottoman stood a many-faceted crystal decanter full of amber liquor and two glasses. He sat down and tried to speak. He realized that, having seen her face again, he could not.

“Er, well, here we are,” he managed.

“I’ll fill you in, dear, and then we’ll have an adult beverage,” she said, getting right down to it. “Does that suit?”

“Yes,” he said, and shut his mouth.
Dear?

“My head gardener came to see me earlier this evening. His name is Jeremy Pordage. He was my father’s chief groundsman. He’s eighty-three years old. I’ve known him since I was a child. I would trust him with my life.”

“I see.”

“Jeremy and his wife attended services at St. John’s on Sunday as it was All Saints’ Day. St. John’s is a small chapel in the village of Upper Slaughter. Do you know it? It’s the church where that horrific murder occurred last summer. Do you remember?”

“I stood up for the groom at that wedding. I was Alex Hawke’s best man. Still am, I suppose.”

“Oh! How perfectly awful for you, Ambrose. And that poor man Hawke. I’m so sorry. Did they ever catch the fiend who killed his perfectly lovely bride?”

“Yes. We did manage that.”

“Ah. That’s some small consolation, I suppose. They should hang him high, if they haven’t already done so. At any rate, after church last Sunday, Jeremy and Alma decided to walk to Castle Combe for lunch. They took the country walk, not the roads. But, dear Alma twisted her ankle passing through a muddy stile. There was a small pub at the bottom of the hill. A place you’d certainly never go unless you knew of it.”

“What was the name of this pub?”

“The Feathers.”

“I know it. Please continue.”

“The proprietor showed them to a booth and brought tea. Alma wasn’t seriously injured, you see, she just needed to take the weight off the foot for a while. Shortly after they’d been seated, they heard the proprietor greeting another party. He seated them in the booth adjacent to the one Jeremy and Alma occupied. The seat backs were high, wooden, you couldn’t see from one booth to the other.”

“I understand perfectly. An overheard conversation.”

“Yes. It was a man and a woman. Jeremy recognized the male voice immediately and almost spoke up. It belonged to my butler, Oakshott.”

“Ah. The butler did it.”

“Ambrose, be serious a moment. The conversation Jeremy overheard was about you. Oakshott began by telling the woman about your visit to Brixden House. She became very agitated. Wanted to know everything he’d overheard during your visit. He’d heard a lot, Ambrose. He’s some kind of specter, I think, hears through walls. Oakshott told her all about that picture you showed me. The New Year’s Eve party. The man with the orange hair.”

“Stop. You were absolutely right to call me, Diana. Please continue.”

“The woman sounded very frustrated with the lack of action since the failed attempt on your life ten days ago. Why didn’t you tell me someone was trying to kill you? My dear boy, you’re in danger!”

“Diana, this is not the first time someone has thought the world would be a sunnier spot absent Ambrose Congreve. Were any other names mentioned?”

“The name Henry Bulling came up. I vaguely recall meeting him at Brixden House. He’s the fellow in the photo you showed me, isn’t he?”

Ambrose nodded.

“Somebody wants you dead, my dear Ambrose. Bulling does. Or she does. I don’t know. But they aim to kill you and they are apparently deadly serious about it.”

“Over my dead body,” Ambrose said, smiling.

The concern in Diana’s eyes was most touching. He reached over and patted her hand, which was fluttering like a white butterfly above the folds of her skirt. “Which one really wants me pushing up daisies, Diana? Surely not young Oakshott the butler. I’ve never harmed a blond hair on his brutishly handsome head.”