The Camelot Caper, page 12
The far wall of the Lady Chapel had three arched windows, the one in the center higher than the two on either side. They showed, at first, only as star-sprinkled shapes of black against the deeper black of the wall.
Gradually they paled, and Jess caught her breath as the moonlight spilled through the silvered tracery and lay like water on the inner floor. When David moved, she followed him in a kind of trance.
Stonehenge by moonlight had evoked history, 172 / Elizabeth Peters
restoring a simulacrum of something which had existed three thousand years before. Glastonbury, under a full spring moon, was sheer romance, a shining ghost of what had never been, a truth that was eternal because it had lived, never in time, but in the hearts of men.
The colors were gone; only black and gray and glaring white defined arches, carvings, foliage; Jess would not have been surprised to see the bark Malory described come gliding across the shimmering grass, with the three mourning queens and the still figure of the hero at their feet.
A rude noise from David broke her poetic reverie.
“Hssst! Look there!”
The dark figure, featureless in silhouette, was no vision out of Malory, but it was almost as incredible.
Motionless against the silvery space between the mutilated piers of the crossing, it seemed to be swathed from neck to heels in something that resembled a monkish robe. Jess clutched at David. The silhouette moved, flapping its long sleeves like wings; then it glided behind the farther pier and vanished in the shadows.
“What on earth?”
“It’s Cousin John, all right,” David said THE CAMELOT CAPER / 173
grimly. “Doesn’t he have fun, though? Let’s see what he’s doing.”
David flung himself down on his stomach and began to crawl. Jess followed, muttering curses; she wore a new pale-blue summer suit which had a semifitted jacket and a skirt which fitted only too well, being extremely tight and short. The dew had settled on the grass; she was immediately soaked from her chest to the hem of her skirt.
The low stone wall which sheltered them was followed by the higher shelter of the only remaining section of the nave walls. They now had to cross the same open section, between the piers, which the figure had already crossed, and David stopped, presumably to consider this problem. Jess was more preoccupied with her skirt, which she had pulled up to facilitate crawling.
As she tried to adjust it, David looked back. His eyes popped.
“Haven’t you ever seen a girl’s legs before?” she demanded, in a hoarse, aggravated whisper.
“Never under such provocative conditions…sssh.
We’ll have to make a dash for it. Take my hand.”
They darted across the open space; when they reached the sheltering shadow of the far pier, David caught her and swung her into his arms.
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“None of that now,” she muttered, poking him.
“I just want to talk to you.”
“It seems to me I’ve heard that—oh! What’s that?”
A rustling, like the frisson of dried leaves, or the leathery wings of a giant bat…David dropped Jess and whirled around, in time to see the cloaked figure flit mysteriously across the far end of the nave and duck behind a pile of stone. He started out after it. Halfway to the stone pile he stumbled, floundered grotesquely, and fell.
Jess’s heart stopped. There had been no shot, but…An arrow? A poison dart?
“You are a fool,” she told herself; but she was relieved to see David beckoning her to join him. He had simply tripped. The grounds were well kept, but protruding stones and bits of foundation, carefully preserved, were hazards to runners.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked, dropping down on the grass beside him.
“No. I was just thinking—”
“Oh, Lord! Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you—there he goes again.”
He was on the southern side of the ruins now, among the buried foundations of the domestic offices.
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“All right,” David said, sighing. “What I was thinking was that there may be some point to this fatiguing sport; and the point may be to separate us. Keep with me, can you?”
“Oh. Oh! Do you think Algernon could have sneaked—snuck—uh—”
“Try ‘crept.’ I think too much, that’s the trouble, and I know too little. But I prefer to take no chances. Come along, let’s play games with Cousin John. How I’d love to get my hands on that capering comedian!”
The game was “hide-and-seek,” and there had never been a better place for it; a pack of children would have run wild. Shadows, trees, rocks and ruins; open doors and gaping windows and grassy banks—there were a hundred places in which to hide, and a dozen ways out of each one. The black-cloaked figure seemed supernatural. It vanished into shadows from which no escape seemed possible, and materialized yards away.
It did not run, it floated; and the folds of its black garment billowed in the breeze, giving it impossible shapes, as fluid and amorphous as an amoeba. Jess could have sworn that sometimes it stood still and flapped its arms at them.
After a merry romp clear across the grounds, around the octagonal angles of the Abbot’s 176 / Elizabeth Peters
Kitchen, and over the spot which had been the cemetery, they cornered it, finally, in the Lady Chapel, which was one of the few places that had corners. Both pursuers were soaked to the skin, and Jess’s feet were cut, since she had made the mistake of trying to run barefoot. Still, they must have looked formidable as they advanced on the figure that cowered against the chapel wall. Jess was too intent on their quarry, which had already demonstrated convincingly its ability to dematerialize, to spare a glance for David, but she could feel his fury, and knew that he must be glower-ing. She couldn’t believe that they had almost caught the flitting, elusive shadow of a man; and David shared her doubts, for he said suddenly, “Keep an eye out behind us, Jess.”
She whirled, half expecting to see Algernon’s sat-urnine dark features at her shoulder. The long expanse of the chapel lay silent and untenanted; the moonlight left one wall in shadow but picked out every graceful detail of the interlaced arcade midway up the opposite wall.
David was now within ten feet of the fugitive, who had backed into the farthest corner, half-crouched, his draped arms up before his face. Step by slow step the pursuers closed in. David’s outstretched arms were almost touch
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ing the shrouded heap of blackness when, with terrify-ing suddenness, it rose up—only on tiptoe, but at that time, and in that place, the effect was like something soaring up on flapping wings. The outstretched arms beat up and down, and the folds of the cloak flew.
Then the figure darted at them, fingers clutching.
Jess tried to fall down. To his eternal credit, David stood firm; but he did flinch as the swooping blackness leaped at him, and the arms he had extended moved, quite involuntarily, into a position of defense. The black-draped arms embraced both him and Jessica, banged them together like cymbals, and let them fall.
Neither was hurt, but both were considerably amazed. For three short but decisive seconds they sprawled, motionless; it took another three seconds to untangle themselves from one another and from the cloak in which the fugitive had wrapped them.
David, the first on his feet, bolted for the doorway.
Jess followed more leisurely, carrying the cloak. She found David outside, waving his fists.
“Gone?” she inquired.
“Damn, damn, damn, damn—whoops, there he goes!”
He ran off. Jess wrapped the cloak around 178 / Elizabeth Peters
herself; she was soaked with dew and perspiration, and the extra covering felt good. She was too tired to run, and too disgusted to try; from where she stood she had an excellent view of Glastonbury by moonlight, and also of the last scene of the second act of their little drama. Or was it the third act?
The running figure, now uncloaked, made no attempt to conceal itself; it moved as quickly as it could, as if heading for some definite goal. It made a slender, agile silhouette against the pale stone of the wall which bounded the Abbey grounds on the south. At the wall itself the figure stopped, and coursed up and down as if in search of something. David ran madly, but he was still some distance away when the black figure made its final move, and even after its earlier performances, this one left Jess gaping. He lifted his arms, hands together as if in an archaic incantation to pagan gods; then he swarmed up the wall as easily as if he had levitated.
David’s lope slowed; then he threw himself forward.
He was too late. The agile shape poised itself on top of the wall, flinging one arm out in what looked like a mocking salute. Then it vanished. A moment later David plowed to a halt at the base of the wall and began pounding on it with his fists.
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Jess lifted up the trailing skirts of the cloak and broke into a slow trot. When she reached David he was leaning up against the wall, staring pensively at the sky.
“Shall we go home?” she asked tactfully.
“Yes, let’s.”
“How?”
David heaved a deep sigh.
“I shall lift you on top of the wall. You will then toss over to me the rope which you may—or you may not, but I rather think you may—find there.”
“Is that how he got up? I thought he flew.”
“So did I, for one frightful moment. If they took the rope with them, you’ll have to locate the village bobby, and tell him your boyfriend got locked in.”
The rope was there, still attached to the bole of a tree on the other side of the wall. Jess half expected to find something, or someone, else there; but the street was empty. The game was over for the evening. She was more confused than ever as to its purpose, and David grumpily refused to speculate. He pointed out, sharply, that they had missed dinner, and asked how long she thought he could go on like this, battling villains, without nourishment?
The first place they found was a Chinese 180 / Elizabeth Peters
restaurant, and David led the way in with the air of a man who is in no mood for argument. The chop suey fascinated Jess. It didn’t taste at all like the chop suey she had had in the States. But it was filling and hot, and it seemed to soothe David. The restaurant was equally soothing, being warm and crowded and dim.
The dimmer the lights, the better, she felt; she had removed the cloak when they reached the High Street, and her poor suit was slightly out of press.
David finished his chop suey, ordered egg foo yung, ate it, and ordered chow mein. By that time his expression was slightly less grim; and when his eye fell on the heap of black material on the bench beside Jessica, he looked almost human.
“I’d forgotten that. Let’s have a look at it.”
Held up in David’s hand, the garment did not look particularly promising as a clue. It was black, made of some shiny cheap material, with a high collar.
“Looks like a stage costume,” David said. “Yes, there’s a label. Wells. He bought this, or hired it, yesterday.”
“But why?”
“Can’t imagine.” David shook the garment angrily, and then cocked his head. “Wait a sec. Did you hear something rustle?”
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“The whole thing rustles. It looks like taffeta.”
“No, something else. Like paper. Wait, it’s got a pocket.”
“Cloaks don’t have pockets.”
“This one does. And…” David removed his hand.
“There’s something in the pocket.”
They spread the paper out on the table, and both heads bent over it.
“Regent Hotel, Bath,” Jess spelled out. She was reading upside down; by the time she had deciphered the larger letters of the heading, David had digested the body of the letter.
“Two single rooms booked for Friday night. That’s two days from now. He must have shoved this into the pocket and forgotten about it. I can’t believe it—are we going to have one chunk of good luck, for a change?”
“I don’t suppose he expected to lose the cloak,” Jess said. “That’s wonderful, David; it gives us time to do some planning. Hey—who’s the letter addressed to?”
“Who do you think?” David folded the letter carefully and slipped it into his pocket. “I tell you, the lad ought to be on telly. It’s addressed to a Mr. Arthur King.”
SEVEN
It was raining next morning. Jess groaned as from under heaped bedclothes she blinked sleepily at the windows, streaked drearily with raindrops. She sneezed experimentally and decided that she wasn’t going to catch a cold after all. It was a miracle she hadn’t, crawling around up to her chin in damp grass, plod-ding through puddles, drenched with rain every altern-ate day…. Then she remembered the letter which had mentioned Bath—but not until Friday. Perhaps David would let her spend the extra day here, in a nice warm bed. How heavenly…The rain on the window made a gentle pattering sound. She drifted off to sleep again.
The second time she was awakened, less pleasantly, by David’s eruption into her room and by his cries of anguish.
“Do you know what those—those—”
“Never mind the epithets,” Jess croaked. She collapsed back onto her pillow, from which she
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had sprung at David’s entrance, expecting fire, flood or murder. “What have they done now? Left their hotel? But we know where they’re going to be.”
“The motor’s gone,” David said. He sat down on the foot of the bed and looked as if he were about to burst into tears.
“The motor of what? Oh, no—not the car? David, you must be kidding; they couldn’t walk out of the place carrying an entire six-cylinder—or is it an eight-cylinder—”
“Not the whole thing. Just every part that could be detached. Or pulled out. Or ripped away. Or—”
“Well, that’s shame. But can’t it be fixed?”
“Oh, it can be fixed. Damn it, you don’t understand; women never understand these things. It’s like seeing your child mutilated—nose cut off, arms amputated—”
“Stop it, that’s awful.” Jess sat up and circled her bent knees with her arms. She made sure David got a censored view of her upper parts, and was pleased to see that his dull eye brightened. “Cheer up, darling, we can follow them on foot. All over Glastonbury. In the rain.”
“They have left,” David said. “I checked on that as soon as I found out about the car.”
He was drenched, even to his hair, which THE CAMELOT CAPER / 185
dripped pathetically onto his nose. Jess had an inner vision of David rushing pell-mell down the street, teeth bared, coatless and wild—seeking vengeance. No wonder he was frustrated.
“Poor David. But we know where they’ll be tomorrow night. Cheer up, things aren’t so bad. Why don’t you change clothes, and then we’ll have a nice big breakfast together?”
“Here?” David asked hopefully.
“Certainly not.” Jess pulled the blankets up to her chin. “I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
Jess spent one of the loveliest days she had had yet—reading in bed, sleeping in bed, and just lying in bed doing nothing. David was busy snarling at garage-men; he would no more leave the car than he would have left the hospital when his dear old mother was undergoing an operation.
His efforts paid off. The car was repaired in record time, and by noon the next day they were in Bath. The weather was beautiful; a radiant sun beamed down on Aquae Sulis of the Romans.
The Romans have been gone for a long time. Bath is Regency, even now, and Jess adored it. She babbled of Beau Nash and Jane Austen and demanded to see Laura Place, where “our
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cousins, Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret” had lived.
David was learning her habits; he refused to stop and let her buy a guide to Bath, but he accepted without comment the rain of miscellaneous information she extracted from her general guidebook. As a result both of them were fairly happy, though their conversation might have sounded peculiar to an outsider.
“Beau Nash was the arbiter of society, whose dictates of amusements and polite behavior were slavishly obeyed.”
“If the Regent Hotel is largish, we can stay there.”
“He turned the city into a center of fashion. Everyone who was anyone went to Bath.”
“Incognito, of course. If you can invent a new passport number you may as well invent a new name. Any ideas?”
“Ladies and gentlemen began their day in the Pump Room, drinking in gossip along with the prescribed three glasses of the famous waters.”
“Helen Broderick? Josephine Dubois?”
“Sam Weller…”
“Sam? That’s a man’s name. Ermingard Wilber-force?”
“Catherine Morland and Miss Tilney…”
“That’s not bad. Catherine Morland.”
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It was perhaps just as well that Jess did not have to register as Miss Austen’s heroine. The Regent Hotel was a charming old town house with an ornamental facade, but it could not have boasted more than six bedrooms, and David abandoned his first plan after one glance. The hotel had one advantage, however: Across the street there was a group of small shops, including a secondhand bookstore. After they had registered in a larger hotel some blocks away, David led the way back to the bookstore.
Jess generally approved of bookstores and was glad to see that David shared the mania. This one was especially pretty, being an old shop with the double bow windows characteristic of Bath’s heyday. There were daffodils planted in boxes under each window.
“Bookshops, secondhand ones, are almost as good as pubs, for lookout points,” David explained happily.
“The owners don’t care how long people browse. We’ll browse at the front, where we can look out the windows.”
He promptly disappeared into the rear of the shop and Jess, sighing, began to turn over a group of grubby volumes on a shelf marked “One Shilling.”
