The Shadow in the North (20 page)

"Could you look in the following year?" she said. j He did so. Again there was a page missing at the place where Nordenfels would have appeared. Mr. Tolhausen came as close as his dignity would allow him to being outraged. ]

"I shall report this at once. I have never known such breach of regulations. It is most distressing."

"Before you do, could you check the next couple of jrears for me? And the subject index?"

He checked the subject index for each year under 50th steam engines and armaments, which took some ime, since both subjects had long entries. Altogether they found seven patents for steam engines in the name of Nordenfels, but in the armaments section for 1872 and 1873 Mr. Tolhausen found more pages missing.

"Yes, they are the pages for Nordenfels," he said. But the index is cross-referenced. One moment..."

He turned back to the steam engines section and nodded. "Aha," he said. "Here is a patent for the application of steam power to machine guns. And here is one for a steam-powered gun to be mounted on a railway carriage. But the number of the patent is on the armaments page, which is missing. This is outrageous. I must apologize to you. Miss Lockhart, for the failure of upervision—clearly someone has managed to cut these 5ages out without being noticed. It is extremely annoying. I must thank you for bringing the matter to my attention."

Sally thanked him for his help, noted the dates md numbers of those patents there was a record of, and turned to go. Before she left a thought struck her, and she took out the alphabetical index of British patents digain. If Bellmann were going to make any money from

this thing, wouldnt the patent have to be registered in his name?

And there it was. In the 1876 volume she found: Bellmann, A, 4524, Steam-powered Gun drawn on Railway Carriage.

As simple as that!

She closed the book, feeling more satisfied than she'd felt for months. Miss Walsh, she thought, you'll get your money back now. ... As she left the building and turned down into Chancery Lane she found herself smiling.

She didn't notice the young man in the bowler hat who'd been sitting at the desk nearest the door and who folded his papers quietly as she passed. She didn't notice him get up and follow her out; didn't notice as he wandered down Fleet Street behind her and into the Strand; didn't notice as he came into the tea shop at the corner of Villiers Street, where she had lunch. He sat in the window and had a cup of tea and a bun and read his newspaper, and then he followed her out, but still she didn't notice.

He took care that she wouldn't. He was dressed inconspicuously, and he was good at his job. One bowler hat is very like another; and in any case, she was thinking of Frederick.

At that moment, Frederick was in Thurlby, where the firing range was. It stood on the Solway Firth, and as far as he was concerned, the Solway Firth could keep it. It

was a grim, flat, desolate place, with nothing but a dreary village and a railway line leading along the shore for miles before vanishing behind a tall fence and a locked gate. Notices warned of extreme danger, and the wind came off the sand dunes laden with gritty salt. There was nothing to be seen there.

He decided to travel on to Netherbrigg, the little town over the Scottish border where Jessie Saxon had said Mackinnon had been staying. Lord Wytham's estate was only a few miles away, on the English side, but there wasn't, he thought, much chance of finding anything out there. He took a room at the King's Head in High Street at Netherbrigg and asked the landlord where visiting theatrical folk usually put up. Did they stay at the King's Head?

"Not here," said the proprietor firmly. "I wouldnae take their money. Godless mummers."

However, he gave Frederick a list of lodging houses, and after lunch Frederick set out to visit them. The sun had come out, though a cold wind was blowing, and the place looked like any little market town. The music hall itself wasn't open at the moment; Frederick was surprised that the place was big enough to support one at all.

A dozen addresses and no map make for a good deal of walking, even in a small town, and it was late in the afternoon when he found what he was looking for. It was his ninth call: a house in Dornock Street, a shabby place with a grim gray chapel in the middle of it. The

landlady's name was Mrs. Geary, and yes, she did take !

boarders. \

"Theatrical people, Mrs. Geary?" i

"Sometimes, aye. I'm no' fussy." ]

"Do you remember a man called Alistair Mackin- '

non

A flicker of recognition, and a smile. She wasn't a bad sort. "Aye," she said. "The wizard."

"That's the feller. I'm a friend of his, you see, and— may I come in for a minute?"

She stepped aside and let him into the hall. It was a neat place, smelling of polish, with half a dozen theatrical photographs on the walls.

"Very kind of you," he said. "This is an awkward business. Mackinnon's in a spot of trouble, and I've come up here to see if I can help him."

"Doesn't surprise me," she said dryly.

"Oh? Has he been in trouble before?"

"If ye could call it that."

"What sort of trouble?" Frederick said.

"Ah, well, that'd be telling, wouldn't it?"

He took a deep breath.

"Mrs. Geary, Mackinnon's in danger. I'm a detective, and I've got to find out what's threatening him, so I can help—but I can't ask him directly, because he's vanished. Let's take one thing at a time. Do you know a Mrs. Budd?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Aye," she said.

"Did she ever stay here?"

She nodded.

"With Mackinnon?" Aye.

"Were they—forgive me, but I must ask—^were they lovers.''

A flicker of grim amusement crossed her face. "Not n this house," she said decisively.

"A man called Axel Bellmann—^have you come across :hat name?"

She shook her head.

"Or Lord Wytham? Do you know of any connection ivith him?"

"Ah," she said. "So that's it."

"What? You do know something, then. Mrs. Geary, this is a serious business. Nellie Budd was attacked the jther day and left unconscious; there might be murder nvolved. You must tell me what you know. What s the :onnection between Lord Wytham and Alistair Mac-cinnon? Is he Lord Wythams son, as he claims to be?"

Now she smiled. "His son? There's a thought. All ight, Mr. Whatever, I'll tell ye. And it couldn't happen n England, either. Come in the parlor."

She led him into a pretty little room with more the-trical portraits and a tall piano. Despite her dry man-ler, she seemed to be a popular landlady, to judge by he number of affectionate inscriptions on the photo-raphs. He had time to examine them while she went to ;et some tea, and looked in vain for a picture of MacKinnon.

] "Well, then," she said when she came back, nudging:

the door shut with her heel. "I thought it would come

out eventually. I didn't imagine there'd be murder

mixed up in it—that's a nasty shock. Ye'U have tea?"

"Thank you," he said. She was going to tell it her! own way, he thought, and he might as well let her. Andi then she surprised him. i

"Ye'll know about the other fellow?" she said. 1

"Which other fellow?" \

"He came up here a while back; oh, some time now. Asking the same questions. A wee man with gold spectacles."

"NotWindlesham?"

"That was his name," she said.

Bellmann's man. ... So whatever he'd found out might be the reason for Bellmann's pursuit of Mackin-non.

"And did you tell him what he wanted to know?"

"I am not in the habit of concealing the truth," she said austerely, handing him a cup of tea. "If I havenae mentioned him before, it's because I havenae been asked. I spread no tales, either, mister."

"No, of course not. I didn't mean to imply that you did," he said, trying to keep his patience. "But this man's connected with the people who are after Mackin-non—and who attacked Nellie Budd. I've got to find out why."

"Well, now," she said. "The beginning of it all was with poor Nellie Budd. I hope she's not badly hurt?"

"Well, she is badly hurt, as a matter of fact; they might have fractured her skull. Please, Mrs. Geary. What happened?"

"Nellie asked me to find lodgings for Mackinnon and sign a statement for a lawyer, saying which date he'd come to stay here. And I had to certify that he'd spent each night in the house. Nellie paid his rent, ye know. He had no engagement at the time. Three weeks he stayed here and never strayed once. Twenty-one days, ye see. That's the law."

She was enjoying this, but Frederick was not.

"Twenty-one days?" he said as patiently as he could.

"Twenty-one days' proven residence in Scotland. It never used to be necessary in the old days. But they changed the law twenty years ago, and the hotel trade's prospered this side of the border, so I can't complain."

"Please, Mrs. Geary—^what are you talking about? Why should he have to prove he'd spent twenty-one days in Scotland?"

"Ooh, it's quite simple. If ye've done that, ye can get married by simple declaration in front of two witnesses. So that's what he did, ye see."

"I don't see—quite. Whom did he marry? Not Nellie Budd?"

She laughed.

"Don't be daft," she said. "Wytham's girl, that's who. Lady Mary. He married her."

L^rajhmanskip

Mr. Brown, the bowler-hatted craftsman, was used to waiting. He had waited all Thursday and all Friday morning, and he was prepared to wait all week if necessary. His visit to the patent library in Sallys wake was interesting, because it showed him that she did occasionally go out without that dog.

But there was precious little opportunity for his sort of craftsmanship on the crowded pavements of Fleet Street or the Strand. He watched her from behind his newspaper as they sat in the little tea shop in Villiers Street, and wondered if his chance would come when she was alone or if he'd have to take on the dog as well.

She was pretty, he thought. Pretty in a strange way, half English—the blond hair, the trim figure, the neat, practical clothes—and half not: the dark brown eyeSy the air of decision and intelligence and boldness. The Americans had girls like this. It wasn't a type the English produced naturally. All the more reason for him to go to America. All the more reason to kill her and earn the money.

Pity, though.

For the rest of the day he stayed with her, taking a cab to follow the omnibus she took to Islington, waiting till she came out of her house with the dog, wandering at a discreet distance behind her as she roamed. When the chance arose, he slipped into the shop doorway and changed his bowler hat for the flat cap he carried in his leather bag or reversed his cloak to show a different-colored tweed. She didn't notice. She seemed to be drifting along at random, with that great patient brute padding happily at her side.

She'd led him to the new Embankment, where he'd had to watch her watching them erect that preposterous obelisk just brought over from Egypt. She was happily calculating angles and heights and breaking points, and admiring the capable, unfussy way the engineers were working; Mr. Brown was watching the dog.

Then she'd wandered up toward Chancery Lane again and spent half an hour in a tea shop—too small to follow her into, this time; he had to drift up and down the pavement across the lane, watching the reflection in the shop windows. A waitress brought tea for Sally and a saucer of water for the dog. Sally seemed to be writing something: a letter? In fact, she was listing all the implications and consequences she could imagine of Bellmann's taking out a patent for someone else's invention, and realizing that she needed to talk to Mr. Temple again. And that she wanted to talk to Frederick.

When she came out, she didn't see the anonymous figure in the gray tweed cloak, though she passed within

two feet of him. He went on following her—along Hol-born, and up through Bloomsbury, past the British Museum, into a street where she lingered for a few minutes across the road from a photographers shop, looking at the window display, perhaps; and then, as darkness was falling, he'd walked behind her through the quiet streets to her home in Islington.

The dog.

He was afraid of it, no question about that. A colossal brute, with a mouth that could enclose your head and a tongue that would lap up your entrails....

Being a professional, he accepted fear as a warning and weighed his chances all the more carefully. It was no good just being quick and accurate—he'd have to be damn near invulnerable. And as for craftsmanship, it was wasted on animals. The knife for the girl—but for the dog, a gun.

He didn't carry a gun, but he knew where to get one quickly. An hour after Sally had returned, Mr. Brown was stationed in the dark little garden beneath the plane trees in the center of the square. She'd be out later. Dogs need what is politely called exercise before being shut in for the night.

It would be an interesting technical problem, managing the knife and the gun so quickly one after the other. But there was a skill he'd find a ready market for in America.. ..

He settled down to wait.

• • •

At half past eleven the sound of a door opening broke the silence of the square. A Hght rain had fallen earlier, but it hadn't lasted long. Everything was wet and cold and still.

The warm yellow of the doorway against the darkness of the housefront showed him the silhouette of the girl and the dog and, for a moment, another female figure behind them; and then the door was shut, and her light footsteps came out onto the pavement.

They came, as he guessed, toward the little garden at the center of the square—but turned away at the railing, despite the open gate, and walked slowly around the edge. A cab turned into the square at the same time and crawled to a halt outside a house on the opposite site. Mr. Brown kept still and never let her out of his sight while he listened to the cabdriver and his passenger arguing over the fare.

The girl and the dog wandered along slowly, she apparently lost in thought, he casting this way and that, sniffing, lifting his head and shaking it so that the chain jingled.