But where to begin? Are you a spy? Do you love me? If a spy, why? If you love me—damnation! Ridiculous questions—yet he had to know the answers.
She looked up at him and whispered: 'Ask the questions!'
He found he could say nothing, and after a few moments she said: 'You're afraid to hear the answers.'
He nodded dumbly.
Still speaking quietly but with what Ramage was startled to realize was bitterness and contempt for herself in her voice, she pleaded: 'Oh for the love of God ask 1 If only I'd had the strength this morning I would never have heard them!'
'What do you mean, "strength"?'
She shook her head despairingly.
'I've spent the morning trying to find the courage to end my life—and I couldn't. Now you know why I must hear the questions: that they come from your lips is probably part of my punishment.'
Although almost numbed by her words, Ramage knew she'd already told him all but the details: she was the spy, she was not a consummate actress—and perhaps she did love him.
He knelt beside her, took one of her hands in his and, cursing the banality of the phrase, said: 'Tell me what happened.'
'No! Just ask questions!'
Her vehemence startled him, but she avoided his eyes.
'How can I? I don't know where to begin.'
'Oh please don't make me sound as if I was confessing everything to a priest. Just ask questions—then perhaps you'll begin to understand.' But she shook her head as she added. 'No, you can never do that.'
By now Ramage knew that question-and-answer was the only way and he remained kneeling. It'd be easier for her to answer if he wasn't towering over her, and he had no doubt now that everything she would say would be the truth.
'Claire, if I must ask questions, the first one is obvious: did you hear me tell the Governor last night that the schooner could sail at ten o'clock?'
'Yes,' she whispered. 'I heard.'
'It was about eight o'clock, wasn't it?'
'I don't know—I suppose it must have been.'
'While I was talking with Sir Jason and Colonel Wilson, you left the balcony...'
'Yes.'
'And you went away to pass on that information to someone?' 'Yes,' she whispered.
'And then the tom-tom signalled it to the north?'
'Yes.'
'What did the tom-tom say—just that the schooner would sail that night?'
'Yes—that it would sail about two hours later.'
'To whom did you pass the information?'
Suddenly he felt her body go rigid: the hand he was holding tensed. The room seemed cold, as though an invisible fog had swirled in through the window. It wasn't the question: it was something else. He felt his senses sharpening: colours were brighter, he heard noises more sharply.
Someone had come into the room: someone of whom she was terrified. Someone who would kill them bom to keep the secret.
Ramage's mind started racing and to gain the vital few moments he needed he said, with studied casualness, trying hard to keep his voice at the same pitch:
'Leave that for a moment—a more important question is do you think the schooner has already been captured?'
'Yes.'
Her voice was almost a sob: the tips of her fingers moved slightly in his hand as if trying to warn him of the other person's presence.
Ramage moved slightly as if his right leg was cramped from kneeling, and apparently absent-mindedly rubbed the shin muscle—at the same time managing to flick up the strap over the top of the throwing-knife nestling in its sheath inside the boot.
He tried to sense exactly where the person was standing as he asked: 'Will the next schooner be captured if I let it sail?'
'I expect so.' Then, as he gently squeezed her fingers to show he'd understood her signal, she added. 'I'm certain.'
'So there's nothing we can do to save me first one? Think carefully before you answer.'
There was the edge of a shadow to his left: me shadow of the top of the man's head. Ramage's back was square to the door and the sun was shining in from the window to his left, so the man must be standing almost directly behind him. And there was a draught blowing through the room. The man had come through me door—that accounted for the sudden chill a minute or two ago; and it meant whoever it was probably had a right to be in Government House.
'Nothing,' she said. 'It has already------'
Ramage was on his feet like a spring uncoiling, throwing knife in his hand, and facing the man. Sir Jason's butler was holding a pistol in his hand, aiming it at Ramage's stomach.
Surprise—create surprise! The words hammered in Ramage's brain. But how? Then without consciously thinking, he said, as if in a casual reproof:
'I didn't hear you knock.'
For a moment the butler was startled. Obviously he'd been expecting either an attack or angry shouts; but his natural politeness made him begin to reply automatically with an apologetic:
'Well, sir------'
'Close the door!'
The hand holding the pistol moved indecisively—and the muzzle swung a few degrees.
At the same instant Ramage's right hand jerked up and forward, there was a flash of metal and the man spun round with a stifled grunt of pain.
The pistol dropped to the ground and, even as the man's left hand clutched the black-hilted knife sticking in his right shoulder, Ramage leapt, knocking him flat on his back and jumping down astride his chest.
In the same movement he'd wrenched the knife from the man's shoulder and now held the point in one hand, the hilt in the other. As he called to Claire to pick up the pistol he pushed the blade down horizontally across the man's throat.
'Don't move!' he snarled. 'Before you the you can answer some questions!'
'But I'm bleeding to death!' the man croaked. 'My shoulder—for pity's sake, sir—oh for pity's sake------'
'I don't give a damn whether you live or the.' Ramage hissed. 'I know all I need to know, but you can fill in some details.'
Suddenly the man gave a convulsive heave up with his stomach in an attempt to pitch Ramage forward over his head. The jerk was so unexpected that Ramage, almost losing his balance, had to press down to avoid being flung on his face, his whole weight coming on to his hands.
A hissing and gurgling as he regained his balance astride the man made him look down. The knife had cut the man's throat; even as he watched a bright red river of blood pumped in an ever-widening pool across the polished wooden blocks of the floor.
Ramage felt no regret; instead, as the pumping and the stertorous breathing stopped, he simply thought bitterly to himself that he didn't know all he needed to know; that many details had to be filled in.
He stood up and turned to Claire. Still clutching the pistol, she had fainted.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
More than an hour later a carriage drew away from Government House and headed down the hill. A large trunk on the rack behind contained the body of the butler, while Ramage and Colonel Wilson sat inside, hot and exhausted.
Neither man spoke until the carriage arrived at Fort George, the trunk had been unloaded and taken to the magazine, and they were both sitting in Wilson's office.
Only then did the Colonel—who, since he'd arrived at Government House after an urgent message from Ramage, had simply done what the Lieutenant told him—ask his first question.
'Why didn't we leave a guard over me dam' woman, Ramage? She could be up to some more mischief this very minute!'
'It isn't necessary, sir: she was being blackmailed. The butler was our man.'