The Murders at Clarion Castle, page 11
"Clarion Castle," came a measured voice that Alice assumed was Glenwood's.
"Good evening," she said. "This is Miss Greenleaf. Could I speak with Inspector Jenkins, please? He's expecting my call."
"One moment, miss."
There was a pause, then Harry's familiar voice came on the line. "Alice? Where are you?"
"At The Shepherd's Rest Inn, about a mile from Blair Cottage," she replied, keeping her voice low. "Harry, I think we're on the right track. The innkeeper just told me there have been 'strange goings-on' at the cottage—lights and strangers at odd hours, coming and going. And someone heard a commotion—a man crying out and a woman calling after him."
"Could that be Evie?" Harry's tone was cautiously hopeful.
"Not sure, but a man with a foreign accent claimed his wife was helping him through a bad dream about the war."
Harry was silent a moment. Alice could almost see his furrowed brow. Then he said, "There are two ways we could go about this. One, we could march in there at once— tonight— with guns blazing, and demand that whoever's in Blair Cottage open up and let us see who's inside. If I tell Nigel about any of this, I can nearly guarantee that's what he'll want to do."
Alice had been envisioning the possible scene at Blair Cottage that Harry described, but was momentarily distracted. "Has he told Evie how he feels about her, do you know?"
Harry made a sound that was midway between a grunt and an exasperated exhale of breath. "I'm not sure Nigel's even admitted to himself how he feels about her. It takes older, experienced eyes like ours to see it's plain as the nose on his face he's in love with her."
For a moment, they were both quiet. They were separated by miles, and yet Alice felt they were sharing a brief moment of mutual understanding, two people with age and experience who were now able to view the heartaches and yearnings of the young with the clear-eyed view wrought by greater distance.
Then she said, "You obviously don't think that forcing our way into the cottage tonight is the right thing to do, though."
A part of her— the part of her that was desperately worried about Evie— would have liked to do just that. But she went on, "And you're quite right, of course. If Siegfried is the one holding Evie at Blair cottage, he's both clever and ruthless. If he so much as suspects that police are closing in on him, he might well decide to kill Evie so that he can flee without encumbrance."
"Exactly," Harry said. "Our second option is to be more cautious. Wait until we can orchestrate a visit that won't rouse anyone's suspicions."
Alice twisted the telephone cord around her finger. "I shall visit the cottage first thing tomorrow morning."
"Be careful, Alice. Siegfried is dangerous."
"I'll just be a pilgrim asking for water," Alice assured him. "Nothing suspicious about that. I'll see what I can observe without raising any alarms."
"Good. Call again tomorrow if you can."
"Any progress on your end?"
"Blake and Katherine have arrived. They're working on decoding a notebook we found on Vernon's body—the murder victim," Harry explained. "We're hoping it might contain something useful."
"Clues to Evie's disappearance?" Alice murmured.
"Possibly. But we still don't know for certain."
"I'll let you know tomorrow," Alice promised. "I should go now—the innkeeper is hovering."
Indeed, Mrs Hadley had reappeared in the doorway, making a show of straightening a picture frame.
"Take care, Alice," Harry said before disconnecting.
Alice replaced the receiver and thanked Mrs Hadley, who led her upstairs to a small, clean room with sloping ceilings and a narrow bed. The window overlooked the inn's back garden and, beyond it, the dark silhouette of woodland that surrounded Blair Cottage.
As she unpacked her few belongings, Alice's mind raced with possibilities. If Evie was indeed at Blair Cottage, what was happening there? The story about nightmares seemed dubious at best. And who was the man with the foreign accent? Siegfried himself, or another German agent?
She leaned on the windowsill, staring out at the darkening landscape. Somewhere out there, Evie might be held prisoner. Tomorrow, Alice hoped, she would find out more.
As night fell over the countryside, Alice prepared for bed, methodically organising her belongings for a quick departure the next morning. Her pilgrim's disguise had served her well thus far. She hoped it would continue to do so when she reached Blair Cottage—and whatever secrets it held.
Chapter twenty-three
Evie
The first thing Evie saw when she opened her eyes was Paul’s face. She’d fallen asleep after hiding the pound note under the bed last night, and now Paul was leaning over her, his face just inches away from her own.
Evie’s heart jolted hard against her ribcage and she couldn’t suppress her gasp of shock.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you,” Paul said. His tone was light, but she didn’t miss the cold hardness of his gaze or how closely he was watching to see how she would respond.
Evie laughed and sat up. “I know it’s been months since France, but I’m still used to waking up ready to defend myself. You’re lucky I didn’t punch you in the nose.”
Paul smiled, too, and she thought the watchfulness of his gaze might have relaxed just a fraction. The coldness, however, remained the same. “I’m sorry to wake you, but we don’t have much time. Hans and Gerda are making all the arrangements to move to a new safe house.”
“Move?” Evie tried to inject the proper note of surprise into her tone.
“Yes. Standard protocol.” Paul grimaced. “And then some of the local folk have been getting a bit too curious about us.”
Evie’s heart leapt at that, then squeezed itself into a cold clump. Were the local folk just neighbours? Or did that mean that Nigel and the others from Crofter’s Green were actively looking for her? Either way, if anyone, friend or neighbour, had already been here, it wasn’t likely that they would come back, unless Gerda and Hans had somehow roused their suspicions.
She couldn’t let any of what she was thinking show, though, so she cast a look around the dingy, windowless little room and said lightly, “Well, I suppose anywhere else has to be better than this place.”
“Yes, not too cheery, is it?” Paul agreed. “I’m sorry about that, darling.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Evie said. She drew her feet up, hugging her knees. “If it will help.”
“I knew you’d see it like that. You always were game for anything— ready to tackle any problem head-on. By the way, I hear that Hans’ headache this morning is thanks to you.”
Paul grinned down at her again, and this time, Evie would have sworn that just for a brief flicker, there was genuine affection, or at the very least admiration in his blue-eyed gaze.
For some reason, that flicker of affection made her stomach twist and her whole body flash even colder than his detached scrutiny had done.
She smiled back. “I had to make it look as though I were at least trying to escape. If they know anything about me at all, they’d never believe I would just sit here without a single attempt to get away. Hans should be grateful I wasn’t actually trying; otherwise he’d have worse than a headache to complain of this morning.”
Paul laughed. “True enough.”
“What can I do now?” Evie asked. “There must be something; otherwise you wouldn’t have risked coming back here again. Gerda said you were called away; that you were at work on a critically important mission.”
She added the last just in case Gerda had already told him of their conversation. She had to be open, Evie told herself. Completely guileless, as though she trusted Paul as implicitly as she would have done during their time as a married couple in London.
Paul nodded. “Yes, there’s a job not far—”
“Don’t tell me!” Evie interrupted. “You can’t give me any details at all. What if I talked in my sleep and Gerda and Hans were to overhear that I knew more than I ought? Or what if they drugged me and I accidentally let something slip? Then they’d know that you confided in me. It would be only one step from there to knowing that you’re a double agent!”
“You’re wonderful, Evie!” Paul’s voice was fervent. “And you’re right, of course. I’m just so thankful to be able to see you— speak to you— again that I forget to be cautious.”
Evie didn’t believe that for a second. But she did think that the taut, watchfulness in Paul’s expression had relaxed just a little more. Which meant his seeming slip in beginning to tell her about his mission had been a calculated test. One that she had— apparently— passed.
“So what do you need from me?” Evie asked.
“Well.” Paul’s expression took on an apologetic look. “I’m afraid my handlers— my German handlers, that is— will be expecting me to get information out of you. Not that I’ll tell them the whole truth, of course,” he hastened to add. “But if you could give me something— something about what you know of the top brass officials in the SOE, for example— that would give me material to work with. You know how the game works: include just enough truth that your enemy swallows down the convincing lie.”
Evie did know. She knew, in fact, that cloaking a lie with a bit of truth was exactly what Paul was doing with her, now. But she kept her bright smile in place. Open. Guileless. “Of course! What would you like to know? Let me see. I met with a man who called himself Mr Brown, although I’m sure that’s not his real name. I don’t know that— or anything else about him, except that he had a covert office in Threadneedle Street. I can give you the address to that, of course. Although I’m afraid that by this time, he may have moved on to somewhere else. I don’t think it was a permanent address.”
Paul nodded. “Yes, that’s a start. I mean—” he caught himself. “That gives me something to report. How did you first get in touch with Mr Brown?”
This was stepping onto shaky ground. Evie had met with Mr Brown thanks to the intervention of an SOE agent named Diana Lovecraft. Her stomach sickened at the thought of giving Diana away to Paul. But Diana was no longer in Crofter’s Green. Evie wasn’t even sure that she was still in England. She had been called away on another SOE assignment, and if Diana was any good at her job—which she undoubtedly was— she would have covered her tracks well and would be firmly established with a new cover identity by now, one that Paul and his Nazi friends would have a good deal of trouble in tracking down.
“In Crofter’s Green, Lady Hawthorne had an old friend from school staying with her,” Evie said with barely a second’s pause. “Her name was Diana Lovecraft. Although I’m not actually sure whether that was her real name. I mean, so far as I know, she really had been at school with Lady Hawthorne, but I think she’d made up a fictional married name for herself, to use while she was there. And I never knew what her maiden one was.”
Paul nodded with barely concealed impatience. “Is she still there now?”
“No. Mr Brown told me that he’d called her away for another assignment. Of course, he couldn’t tell me what it was. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.” She rubbed her forehead. “I think maybe the chloroform is still making me a bit groggy. But I might be able to remember more about Diana. I did have several conversations with her— just about trivialities, really. But maybe there’s something I’m forgetting for now that will come back to me later.”
Paul nodded again. Evie could still see the tightly masked frustration simmering under his smiling expression. Frustration, and a flicker of something that it took Evie a moment to identify, because it was so completely foreign to Paul’s nature: nervousness.
Before this, she would almost have laughed at the very idea of the word being applied to Paul. He was so supremely confident always, so utterly self-assured. But now, without question, he was definitely worried, maybe even uneasy.
The stakes for which he was playing must be high indeed, or else he wasn’t quite as securely in the good graces of his Nazi handlers as he’d have liked.
Before he could ask her any further questions, though, Hans’ voice came from downstairs. “We are ready.”
Paul’s lips thinned, but he said, “Yes, we must go now, before it’s daylight. Less chance of anyone seeing us.” He paused, then his expression took on a look of apology once again. “I’m sorry about this, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to take this. To keep up appearances with Hans and Gerda.”
Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he drew out a small stoppered glass vial, filled with some clear liquid. A sleeping draught. Chloral, probably.
Or something to make her sleep permanently?
Evie snapped off that thought and thrust it far out of her mind. She couldn’t let any hint of anxiety or mistrust creep into her expression or voice. “Of course. I understand. They have to believe that you’d take every precaution to stop me from trying to escape during the journey.” She put out her hand for the vial, and when he’d handed it over, she uncorked it and raised it unhesitatingly to her lips. “Will you be there when I wake up?”
Paul smiled as she took the first sip. The taste was the harshly bitter, soapy flavour of chloral, mixed with the syrupy sweetness of sugar that was in theory supposed to make it more palatable. If there was poison in the mixture, Evie couldn’t detect it. She drank it all off in a quick gulp, and Paul smiled at her again.
This must have been another test. He took her hand in his, and she forced herself not to shudder at the heat of his skin against her own. “I’m not sure, darling,” he said. “But I promise that I’ll see you as soon as I’m able.”
Chapter twenty-four
Harry
Harry and Nigel made their way through the labyrinthine corridors of Clarion Castle, bound for the records room where they'd been told Miss Hartley was working. The morning sun slanted through tall windows, casting long shadows across the ornate rugs.
"She said she had information," Nigel murmured. "Why do you suppose she failed to appear last night with the others?"
Harry nodded, a familiar tightness in his chest. Ever since Evie's disappearance, each interview felt like walking a tightrope—he had to balance the urgency of finding her against the methodical pace needed to solve Vernon's murder. He straightened his tie, willing his racing thoughts to settle.
"Let's ask her."
They found the door to the records room ajar. Inside, Millicent Hartley was arranging documents with methodical precision. Her sharp, angular features were accentuated by the harsh overhead light, and her copper-coloured hair was still tightly pulled back. Behind wire-rimmed spectacles, her hawkish green eyes scanned the papers before her with unwavering focus, as if searching for discrepancies amid the columns of figures.
"Miss Hartley," Harry said. "We'd like a moment of your time."
She glanced briefly in their direction, her expression impassive. "I'm rather busy preparing for tomorrow's important visitor."
"This won't take long," Harry assured her, closing the door behind them. He felt a flutter of anticipation. From the time he'd first met Miss Hartley, something about her manner had struck him as not quite right. "You said you had information for us, but then you didn't appear. Why was that?"
She sighed, closing the file drawer with a sharp click. "I was occupied with pressing matters."
"Such as?" Nigel opened his notebook.
"Our upcoming governmental visit, of course. I'm sure Mr Walker has told you."
Harry nodded. "So you've been busy."
At her nod, Harry continued, "Although you had time to take Mr Graves for a ride the night Mr Vernon was killed."
A flicker of recognition told Harry that Millicent had been ready for the question. Her reply came only a moment later. "Yes. I drove him into town and back to the castle afterward." Her tone was clipped, each word measured out with careful economy. She offered nothing more.
Harry waited, letting the silence stretch, but Millicent simply stared back at him, arms folded across her leather-bound appointment book. Harry had used this technique countless times in his years at Scotland Yard—the power of uncomfortable silence to draw out information. His patience had often been rewarded by nervous confessions. Yet Millicent's composure didn't crack, and a prickle of unease crept up Harry's spine.
"Why did you drive Mr Graves into town?" he finally asked.
"He was upset. I thought a change of scenery might calm him." Her answers remained tersely minimal.
"Upset about what?"
A flicker of annoyance crossed her features. "Inspector, I have significant responsibilities, particularly with tomorrow's visit. I've told you what you asked—I drove Mr Graves to town and back. Beyond that, I have nothing to add."
Harry felt his jaw tighten with frustration. Each evasive answer reinforced his growing suspicion that Miss Hartley was hiding something crucial.
"Did you see Mr Vernon when you returned?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "No."
"Are you certain?"
"I said no, Inspector." She adjusted her spectacles with one precise movement. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must finish these preparations."
Harry studied her face carefully, suppressing the urge to press harder. Years of experience had taught him when to retreat tactically. "Did you know that Mr Vernon had recently discovered something hidden in the old keep?"
For just an instant—a moment so brief Harry might have imagined it—Millicent's composure faltered. But her voice remained steady. "I know nothing about that."
The momentary lapse sent a jolt of satisfaction through Harry. A chink in her armour, however small.
"Were you aware of any connection between Vernon and the military personnel in the east wing?"
"Certainly not," she replied, perhaps too quickly. "Mr Vernon had no reason to interact with those gentlemen. Their presence here is quite... compartmentalised."
"I see." Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you for your time, Miss Hartley."
