A voice whispered: “He’s awake.”
Clomp.
Quayle opened his eyes. There was a candle burning. His sight was blurred and his head was throbbing. He had a migraine. He felt his hands — they were no longer tied together. His nightdress was filthy, and he ached from bruises. He had been dragged across the floor for part of his journey and dumped into this location.
He was on the floor in a room without windows. The door was shut. The only thing in the room was a small wooden box — an empty wine case. A solitary candle in a silver holder stood upon it.
He sat up. The floor was stone and cold. The air was damp and musty. The dampness was familiar. His nose itched. He guessed he was in the south wing, beneath the floors, in the cellar.
The door opened. Richard and Rawdon entered. They were dressed in black clothes — uniform-like — and they blended into the night like shadows. They wore solemn expressions.
“What in God’s name are you boys playing at?” Quayle asked.
“Whom are you working for?” Richard asked.
“Why have you come to Mallbright?” Rawdon asked.
“Why have you dragged me down into the cellar in the middle of the night?” Quayle shot back at them. He clambered to get up. He was groggy. His eyes could barely focus. When he was almost to his feet, a chain connecting from the wall to a manacle clamped around his ankle came abruptly to its full length. The jolt toppled him, bringing him crashing back to the ground again.
“Unlock this!” Quayle barked from the floor. “Let me out of this!”
The boys stared at him, unmoved.
“You two are in a lot of trouble,” Quayle growled. “I don’t give a damn who you have for a father.”
“You are compiling reports,” Richard said. He held up the inspector’s notebook. “There are reports in this book on everyone in the house, about the house itself, our weapons, and the location of our ammunition.”
“I’m a policeman,” Quayle said. “Those are notes. That is what you will find in a policeman’s notebook.”
“You acknowledge this book is yours,” Richard asked. “And written by your hand?”
“Of course it’s mine and written by me,” Quayle answered him. “You know that very well. You’ve apparently stolen it from my room.”
The two boys nodded to each other, then turned about and left.
“Come back here,” Quayle shouted after them.
They left the door open. He was indeed in the cellar. There was a dark corridor leading away from his cell.
Quayle tried to free his leg, but it wasn’t possible. The manacle was iron and layered with rust. The chain was bolted to the wall.
“Hello?” Quayle shouted. “Can anyone hear me?”
Rawdon stepped into the doorway — the two boys were apparently just outside, just beyond the door. He shook his head. “You’re too far away for any of them to hear you.” He stepped out of sight again.
Quayle could hear the boys’ voices, faint whispers and murmurs. A discussion went on for some time. There was debate. And then agreement.
A moment later, they returned.
Richard stepped up and addressed the prisoner. “Ian Edward Quayle, if that is indeed your true name, you have been found guilty of spying for the German enemy.”
Quayle stared in disbelief. “Spying?”
Richard nodded. “And for this crime, you have been condemned to death.”
Quayle roared in anger. “This game stops right here and right now!”
Richard turned about and left the room.
Rawdon remained. He stared thoughtfully at the inspector. “What you said tonight at your dinner was correct. The schoolmaster’s passport was important.”
Quayle tried to get to his feet, but could only manage to get to his knees.
Rawdon reached into his back pocket. He produced a German passport. He stepped forward and held it open in front of Quayle’s face. “Read the name.”
Quayle read it aloud: Peter Heinrich Schwarz.
“Schwarz is the German word for Black,” Rawdon explained. “The schoolmaster lied about his identity. He was German. He pretended to be English. He hid this passport, but we found it.”
Quayle remembered the brother’s dedication in the book in the schoolmaster’s room: DES. Mrs. Chalmers had said she only knew of a brother called David. DES wasn’t a name — it was the initials of a name.
“This is the schoolmaster’s dirty secret?” Quayle asked.
The boy nodded.
Quayle shook his head wearily. “Hundreds of Germans living in this country have changed or hidden their names, so as to avoid persecution or internment. They have nothing to do with the fighting.”
Rawdon closed the passport and returned it to his pocket.
“It’s not a crime to have been born in Germany or to have had German ancestry.”
“We are at war with Germany,” Rawdon replied. There was no emotion in his eyes.
“My God,” Quayle said. “This is what happened to the schoolmaster. You dragged him from his bed and brought him down here.”
Richard returned. He held one of the rifles.
The enormity of what had happened, and what was now happening, burned inside the inspector’s skull.
Rawdon brought a finger to his lips... silence.
Richard aimed the rifle. Before he pulled the trigger, he said: “This is for our mother.”
Diamond Ruby
by Joseph Wallace
© 2008 by Joseph Wallace
Professional nonfiction writer Joseph Wallace’s books include The Autobiography of Baseball, which was nominated for the Seymour medal for best baseball book of 1998. He began writing short stories recently and has appeared in the anthologies Hardboiled Brooklyn, Baltimore Noir, and Bronx Noir. For his EQMM debut he employs his knowledge of baseball in a most inventive way.
“You’ve got no choice,” the man said.
He leaned back against the splintery bench, his head outlined against the steel-gray sky and sea, and smiled down at the girl sitting beside him. His teeth were white behind his thin lips, and his eyes were silvery as they scanned her face.
The two of them sitting there like father and daughter on a visit to Coney Island. But no family in its right mind would linger on the Boardwalk today, with the wind chasing curtains of sand and ragged waves grinding against the beach. The only other people in sight were hurrying past, heads down, hats pulled low over their eyes.
“No choice,” the man said again.
The girl, a fair-skinned teenager with an oval face and dark eyes, huddled deeper into her cloth coat and didn’t speak.
“You listening to me?”
Finally she lifted her head to look at him. “I’m listening,” she said in a whispery voice. “The answer’s still no.”
He shook his head, and for an instant seemed almost sorry for her. “You have no idea what I’m talking about,” he said. “You don’t get it.”
No longer smiling, he got to his feet.
“But you will,” he said.
The big man stood at home plate, waving that ridiculously heavy bat over his head and grinning out at the mound. He wasn’t young anymore, and all those hot dogs and cigars and late nights had begun to take their toll. For a few years already he’d had a bit of a shelf above his thin waist and banjo legs, but now he was running to fat, his belly pushing against his pinstriped jersey.
Same grin as always, though. Same moon face and crinkled-up eyes and pure joy in doing whatever he did. Those hadn’t changed. You almost had to smile back when you saw him.