Staring up at the sky, Sir David took a step back and then his legs buckled beneath him and he dropped. He landed heavily on his back, his arms flopping out along the grass. His head rolled to the side.
I stood over him beneath that blue sky in the center of a huge silence. Nothing moved.
Suddenly Doyle was there and I eased back. He glanced at me, his expression unreadable, and then he turned to Sir David and bent slightly forward and started counting aloud, swinging his arm down through the air to mark time. “ One,” he said. “ Two.”
I snapped my knuckle back into place. If you wait too long, the swelling starts and then you’re stuck.
“ Five. Six.” Doyle was calling out the numbers louder now, maybe hoping that if he shouted, Sir David would hear them. And maybe Sir David did. His leg moved slightly. But he didn’t get up.
No one in the crowd had said anything. Not even the Great Man. I looked out there. Mrs. Corneille glanced away. Miss Turner was staring at me with the corners of her mouth turned down.
“ Nine,” said Doyle. “And ten.” Sir David hadn’t moved again. “And the winner is Mr. Beaumont.” Grimly, Doyle wrapped his big hand around my wrist and raised my arm over my head. I had the feeling that if he wanted to, he could’ve plucked me from the ground like a dandelion.
Suddenly the Great Man was at my side, jumping from foot to foot, slamming gleefully at my shoulder. “ Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! ”
The others were less enthusiastic. They applauded, but briefly and lightly. Some of their hands, probably, never made contact with each other. Even Lord Bob, who had just won five pounds, looked like a man who would rather be somewhere else. Cecily turned to her mother and said very clearly, “But is it over?” Her mother leaned toward her.
Doyle dropped my hand and slowly went down onto his knees beside Sir David. I could hear him exhaling with the effort.
Cecily backed away from her whispering mother and complained, “But there were supposed to be ten of those things. And he said they were supposed to last three minutes.”
On the ground, Sir David moved his leg again. Doyle looked up at me. “He’s coming around. I believe he'll be all right.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“Excuse me,” said an unfamiliar voice behind me.
I turned. So did Doyle and the Great Man.
There were three people standing on the flagstone patio. One of them was Briggs, and he was wearing his black uniform. Beside him stood two men wearing suits. One of the men was bulky in the shoulders and taller than I was. The other was shorter, and he was the one who smiled pleasantly. “Good morning to you all, he said. “And it is a lovely morning, isn’t it? Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.” He smiled again. “Allow me to introduce myself and my associate. I’m Inspector Marsh. This is Sergeant Meadows. We’re from London. The C.I.D.”
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-nine
"Well now, MR. Beaumont,” said Inspector Marsh. “You’ve been at Maplewhite for a while now. A houseguest since Friday evening, I take it. And you’re a Pinkerton, a trained investigator, hmmm?” He smiled. “Really a stroke of luck for us, our having you here.”
I wondered if he were pulling my leg. It was something I wondered the entire time I talked to him.
He turned to Sergeant Meadows. “ ’ Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good deeds on’t. ” Sergeant Meadows nodded, without taking his eyes off me. Marsh turned back to me. “The Winter’s Tale. You know Shakespeare, do you, Mr. Beaumont?”
“Not personally.”
He chuckled. “Lovely. We’ll get along famously, you and I.” He smiled. “So you’ve been rattling about the manor house for two days now, in the very midst of all these mysterious goings-on. And no doubt you’ve kept your eyes open? Asked a question or two, have you? Confess now.” He smiled slyly, narrowing his eyes, and he waved a slender finger at me. “I see a strange confession in thine eye, do I not?”
I smiled. “Yeah. A question or two.”
“Well of course you have. Leopards and spots, eh? I couldn’t expect anything else.” He sat back comfortably, adjusted his pants legs to spare the crease, and he crossed his legs, right over left. “Well then, if you don’t mind, why not put the good sergeant and me into the picture.”
The three of us were in the library. Marsh and Sergeant Meadows sat on the sofa, across from my chair. The sergeant sat on Marsh’s left, a small notebook in his ample lap. In his late thirties, wearing a black suit, he was a big man, nearly as tall and as broad as Doyle. From a sharp widow’s peak, his black hair ran slick as a coat of lacquer back along his wide rectangular skull. His heavy jaw was sheened with blue-he had the kind of beard that probably grew back while he was rinsing the soap from his razor. There was a small scar, shaped like a comma, running vertically through the center of his thick left eyebrow, and his nose had been broken at least once and then badly reset. Police sergeants in England, it looked like, didn’t have any easier a life than police sergeants in the U.S.
Inspector Marsh was in his forties. His nose had never been broken. It was a narrow, aristocratic nose in a narrow, aristocratic, mobile face. The nose was delicate, like almost everything else about him-his fine brown hair, his eyebrows, his cheekbones, his pointed chin, his small chiseled mouth. The gray wool suit he wore, delicately pin-striped, had been delicately tailored to his slim athletic body. The point of a powder-blue handkerchief peeked delicately from the breast pocket of the coat. He looked so delicate that I was afraid he might float off the ground and sail away.
But delicate cops don’t last very long. And Marsh’s eyes-hazel, almost green-weren’t delicate at all. His face seemed open and without guile. He smiled as he bantered at me, and he pursed his lips together, or nibbled the lower lip between small white teeth. Every so often he wiggled his eyebrows, or dipped them, or raised them in surprise or amusement. But whenever he looked at me his eyes were always the same-cool and shrewd and watchful.
It had been his idea to talk to me alone. Out on the patio, Lord Bob had introduced himself to the Inspector, and then introduced everyone else. Lady Purleigh, Cecily, Sir Arthur, the Great Man. And Sir David, who was up off the ground now but still a little blurry. Lord Bob had introduced me last, as “Houdini’s Pinkerton bodyguard.”
Marsh had smiled at me and said, “Lovely! A Pinkerton. In the flesh. Wonderful!” He had turned to Lord Bob and his thin, mobile face had suddenly gone grave. “Lord Purleigh, permit me to offer you my condolences. Irreparable is the loss, and patience says it is past her cure. The Tempest.”
Lord Bob blinked. “Yes. Well. Thank you very much.”
Marsh leaned toward him. “Now, you’ll think me terribly rude,
I know, and I do beg your forgiveness, but is there some secluded little corner into which I can tiptoe with Mr. Beaumont? We’ve things to discuss.” He lowered his voice and his eyebrows. “Rather important matters, you understand. Hush hush.”
Lord Bob had seemed a bit surprised. By the request, or maybe by Inspector Marsh himself. Inspector Marsh would surprise almost anyone. But Lord Bob was a gentleman, and he said, “Well, yes. Yes, of course. There’s the library.”
“The library!” said Marsh, eyes wide with pleasure. “Perfect!” He cocked his head. “ Come and take choice of all my library, and so beguile thy sorrow. Titus Andronicus.”
Lord Bob stared at him. Marsh turned to me. “Do you know the library’s location?”
I nodded.
“Lovely. Lady Purleigh. Lord Purleigh. Ladies and gentlemen. I hope you’ll all forgive this intrusion. Police, officialdom, nasty business you’ll be thinking, and I couldn’t agree with you more. But I do hope you’ll all bear with me whilst I briefly huddle with Mr. Beaumont. I do so much look forward to chatting with each and every one of you.”