The Camelot Caper, page 20
“But they can’t just leave us here! You need a doctor….”
“I don’t think they will just—leave us here.”
She stared at him wide-eyed, her hand at her mouth.
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“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to frighten you,” he said gently. “But the prospect’s rather grim. They’ve gone further than they intended already; in for a penny, in for a pound, you know. And your suave cousin is not the man to—”
The hideous room needed only the rattling of chains to complete its Gothic air; now the rattling was supplied. Jess bounded to her feet and glared, first at the door, whence the rattling came, then around the room for a possible weapon. Her wild eyes lit on the convenience standing demurely in the corner, and in one leap she had gathered it up into her hands. A second leap carried her to the door, chamber pot raised for action.
The door grated and groaned in traditional fashion as it swung slowly open. Jess saw David, raised painfully on one elbow, regarding her with alarm; she waved the chamber pot at him and he subsided, whether in response to her warning or in shocked un-consciousness she could not be sure. Then the opening door cut off her view of the bed.
It opened about halfway and stopped. There was a pause, during which she heard only the sound of even breathing. Then in a sudden rush 298 / Elizabeth Peters
the door finished its swing and pinned her flat as a beetle against the wall. A hand curved around the edge of the door, caught her wrist, and shook; the pot fell, sending sprays of forget-me-nots into the air.
Released, Jess slumped against the wall, fighting tears of rage and frustration. She didn’t move, even when the door closed, exposing her to the quizzical gaze of her cousin.
“Freddie’s down below, in case you’re thinking of bolting,” he remarked, and bent to pick up a heavy tray which he had put carefully off to one side before frustrating her attempt to brain him. He looked around for a spot on which to deposit his tray, found the or-molu table inadequate, and, with a shrug, put the tray back on the floor and sat down, crosslegged, beside it. Characteristically, he retained his aplomb even in this unorthodox position; but Jess thought his gaze tended to shy away from hers.
“Thought you might like a spot of tea,” he explained ingenuously.
“That’s not all I’d like,” Jess said curtly, advancing on him. “No, don’t give him that cup, he can’t hold it. He can’t even sit up. Hold his head and I’ll take the cup.”
“Hmmm.” Cousin John contemplated David, THE CAMELOT CAPER / 299
whose head was on the same level as his. He lifted a bottle from the tray and poured a stiff dose into the tea. “This may help.”
Between them they got the spiked tea into David without spilling more than half onto his chest, and Jess was relieved to see a tinge of color seep into his cheeks.
He sank back without speaking, and though Jess knew he might be pretending greater weakness than he felt, he didn’t have to pretend very hard. She fixed her cousin with a contemptuous stare, and was glad to see that his eyes fell before hers.
“Band-Aids and iodine?” she inquired, indicating the tray. “That’s a lot of help. He needs a doctor, you—you murderer.”
“Well, he can’t have one. Not immediately. Jess, not to worry—”
“Not to worry!” She leaped to her feet, fists clenched.
“To think that I’m related to you! I’d rather have the Boston strangler for a cousin! I’d rather share grandparents with a sex maniac! The Marquis de Sade would be—”
“Now, he wouldn’t be, not really. For goodness’
sake, girl, calm yourself. At least we can make him more comfortable now; I’ll help you, I know a bit about first aid. Then, tomorrow—”
“The execution?”
Cousin John looked shocked.
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“Would I be going to all this trouble if we were planning to be so drastic? Why wouldn’t we have killed you at once if that had been the idea?”
“I can think of several good reasons, John…” She called him by name, almost for the first time since she had met him. The result surprised both of them; it was incredible how much intimacy could be conveyed in a formal, personal name.
“You are my cousin,” Jess went on, after that brief, demoralizing pause. “And basically not such a bad human being. I think…”
“Thanks so much.”
“I’m sorry if I’m expressing myself badly. I don’t even know for sure what you want out of all this. I don’t care, so long as it’s not something filthy like drugs or kidnaping. I just want—to keep on being alive.
With David.”
“You are in love with the fellow, aren’t you?”
Jess looked down at her recumbent lover. He was pathetic enough to disarm many a villain, with his dark lashes—she had already had occasion to note their unexpected length—lying on his pale cheek, his mouth curved down in a line of pain. The black hair on his forehead, under the filthy bandage, was tumbled, and even the arrogant nose looked smaller.
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“Yes, I am.”
“And he’s keen on you, too; that was obvious.
Jess…”
He was kneeling beside the bed, so that she had to look down at him. The light outside had been steadily growing stronger. Enough of it filtered through the grimy panes to enable her to see him clearly, and his expression weakened her anger. She found it hard to believe that this man, whose well-cut features and keen blue eyes reminded her so strongly of her father, could be a murderer. The reasoning was faulty, but hard to fight.
“Jess,” her cousin said again, in a conspiratorial whisper. “I want to—”
She had occasion, then, to be grateful for the horrid creak of the door. No other warning of the man’s approach had been audible. The shriek of rusted hinges cut through Cousin John’s speech like a knife, and he swiveled on his heels to stare at Freddie, framed by the open doorway, smiling like a tiger.
“Not through yet, Johnny?”
“Barely begun,” said Cousin John, in a voice that was almost steady. “Jessie needed to be reassured.”
“What a lovely job.” Freddie’s flat black eyes 302 / Elizabeth Peters
went over Jess with a clinical interest; she didn’t know whether to blush or turn pale with fear. “Get on with it, then.”
His face again under control, John produced a pocketknife and cut away David’s sweater and shirt from the wound. They had to soak the crusty, hardened linen from his shoulder, and the water in the pitcher was red when they finished.
“We’ll need more water,” said John to his ally.
Freddie’s mouth widened into an expression which could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a smile.
“Here,” he said, producing a bucket from outside the door.
This was almost the last word spoken.
To Jess’s inexperienced eye the puffed, reddened skin around the bullet hole looked bad, and her cousin’s silently pursed lips confirmed her fears. However, he proceeded to paint the area with some sort of anti-septic, and bandaged it quite skillfully.
“It’s not too bad,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “Clean through, no bones broken. Don’t try to get that arm into a shirt or jacket, just keep him covered.”
Jess said nothing. The presence of Freddie affected her the way a snake affects some people; THE CAMELOT CAPER / 303
it paralyzed even her well-exercised vocal muscles. She was relieved when the pair left the room and the heavy door swung shut. She heard the rattle of keys and chains and bolts; then silence.
The day dragged interminably. The sunlight strengthened, and began to fade. Jess finally fell asleep, through sheer boredom; she awoke at the touch of David’s hand, shocked and groggy; but her first glance at his face reassured her.
“You’re feeling better.”
“Better than what?” David inquired disagreeably.
“Damn it, I’ve slept like a hog and so have you. Time’s awastin’, as one of your national poets puts it.”
“You talk too much. I know you’re feeling better.
See what my dear coz left. How about a slug of cold tea?”
“I’d like a slug of whatever’s in the bottle even more.
Jess, what was Cousin J. about to say when you were interrupted by the advent of Freddie?”
“Were you awake?”
“Most of the time.” David gulped brandy and cold tea. “I needed that. False courage.”
“He started, at one point, to say something about tomorrow.”
David slumped back against the pillows she had arranged behind him.
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“I rather think that should read ‘tonight.’”
“Why?”
“Because, whatever they mean to do, they’ll need darkness in which to do it.”
Jess looked at him, and found him studiously contemplating the rough blanket and the shape of his lax hands which lay upon it. The implications were clear; nor were they new to her. In a way it was almost a relief to hear them spoken.
“It’s getting dark now,” she said in a small voice; and her hand crept across the blanket to touch David’s.
Both his hands closed over hers, in a quick movement that came close to unnerving her; but his need steadied her; she felt the fury of frustration that seethed beneath his calm.
“It’s not very late,” he said. “Dark in this filthy hole, that’s all.”
“Is there anything—anything at all—we can do?”
“We can talk.” David gave a sudden laugh; to her relief there was no bitterness in it. “I can always talk.
Jess, the picture isn’t all that black.”
“Then show me the little rays of sunshine. At the moment I can’t see any.”
“Well, we still live, as one of the heroes of my youth kept monotonously repeating. If they THE CAMELOT CAPER / 305
mean to do us in, they’re wasting a lot of good brandy.”
“That’s a small bright ray.” Jess slid down onto the floor and curled up, her head against the edge of the bed, her hand still warm in his. “Tell me more.”
“This isn’t a fact, but it’s a fairly solid hunch. Remember, I’ve had altercations with both of the boys, and believe me, there’s no better way of evaluating a man’s capacity for committing murder than fighting him.
Freddie’s a bad lot; he fights like a killer, with no scruples and no notion of fair play. John holds back.
He doesn’t like being hurt, and he doesn’t like to deal it out. He could kill, if he had to; but only in a fit of rage, and it would take a hell of a lot to make him that angry. He’s a civilized coward, like me.”
“You think Freddie wants to kill us, and John doesn’t?”
“A number of subtle clues point to that conclusion.
After all, Cousin John reads Tolkien. No man who does that can be wholly evil.”
“I question your reasons, but agree with the conclusion. I wonder which of the boys is going to win.”
“So do I,” David muttered. “I’d hate to be dependent on Freddie’s goodwill.”
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“Which of them is the boss?”
“Oh, John, most certainly.”
There was a pause, during which Jess noted, against her will, the grayness of the remaining light.
“Why?” she asked.
“He must be the instigator; it’s his plot, and his property.”
The objection was clear to both of them: Cousin John might have instigated the scheme, but was he still in control of a more violent, less scrupulous, personal-ity? Neither voiced the question; the rest of the conversation skirted delicately around it, as two people might circle a nasty patch of quicksand or smelly corpse.
“What about Aunt Guinevere? Does she know we’re up here, freezing to death and starving and dying of thirst and—”
“Rotting? Sorry…I don’t know. She must know of the original plot; but I can’t see her approving of murder either. If that’s any consolation.”
“No, it isn’t. David, I still don’t know what this is all about. What is the original plot?”
“But it’s so obvious.”
“Only to a writer of Gothic thrillers.” Jess smiled at him. It was harder now to distinguish his features. The light was definitely failing.
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“Well, maybe I’m mental. But I can’t see what else it can be. Would you like a resume? We’ve nothing else to do.”
“Except—wait.”
“Yes. Well,” David said quickly, “it all began with your grandfather’s Arthurian mania—that, and the recent discoveries which have brought Camelot into the news. Plus a third event, which I can’t actually prove, but which I postulate in order to fill an otherwise gaping hole in the motive.”
“Go on.”
“You told me, some days ago, about your grandfather’s belief that the family was descended from Arthur.
I didn’t take it seriously, any more than you did. Even if it could be proved—so what? But people who get hung up on genealogy go all out to prove their point.
Your grandfather went into archaeology, hoping to find evidence of Arthurian occupation on his land. He was looking for Camelot.
“It sounds mad. But in the last couple of years quite a number of solid, unimaginative academicians have been doing precisely the same thing—looking for Camelot. I read the stories about the Cadbury dig more or less in passing, paid no particular attention to them at the time, but a few odd facts did stick in my mind.
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Grandpapa wasn’t completely bonkers. Cadbury isn’t the only place connected with Camelot by good local tradition; there are other such sites in Wales, Cornwall, even Scotland. Tintagel, up the coast from St. Ives, is the place where Arthur is supposed to have been con-ceived, and they’ve found objects there which date to the right period.
“All right. These odds and ends were sloshing around in my mind when we arrived here. Naturally I wasn’t really concentrating on them; I had no reason to suppose they were relevant. Then we met Mr. Pendennis.”
“But he thinks he’s found Camelot,” Jess said.
“Doesn’t that make him some kind of a nut too?”
“No, actually it’s the other way around; it makes your esteemed old ancestor something less of a nut.
Pendennis is no fool, for all his age; he might exaggerate or misinterpret evidence, but he wouldn’t invent nonexistent evidence. If he says that he succeeded where your grandfather failed, I’m inclined to believe that he did find something—something from the period of Arthur, on his own land.
“Now we come to the mysterious box, which your grandfather left his old friend and rival. That’s unlikely, to begin with. Collectors don’t THE CAMELOT CAPER / 309
leave collections to rival collectors; they bequeath them to museums for the admiration of posterity, with little tags reading ‘Donated by.’ And you saw Pendennis’s face when he opened that box. He was thunderstruck.
He was seeing not only something totally unexpected, but something he didn’t want to see. After I talked to Cliff, I knew what that something was. The objects in the box were typical of fifth-century sites. The period of Arthur.”
“Then—then Grandfather did find it! Camelot.”
“Wait, wait; you’re jumping to conclusions. This is a lot more complicated than it seems.” Jess could hardly see him now, but he sounded almost like his old self.
Wrapped up in his theories, he had forgotten about night-fall and what might come with night.
“All right, continue,” she encouraged.
“One further point about the box. Did you notice how those paltry odds and ends rattled around in it?
Why put them in a container much too large?”
“Oh? Oh! I think I’m beginning to get it. There was something else in that box!”
“Must have been several somethings. And one of them, at least, was gold; that fragment had been recently broken, the edges were clean.”
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“Wow. David…David—remember what John said?
In the pasture? About the treasure? That’s what he said, treasure….”
“He did, he did indeed. That’s what he’s after, Jess.
That’s why he chased you all over England.”
“Then the ring must be part of the treasure. Gosh, David, if the rest of it isn’t any more exciting than the ring—”
“Exciting, hell. Didn’t you listen to Cliff the other day? Scraps of metal, bones, holes—that’s all they’ve found from that whole period. There was gold in that box, Jess. Can you imagine what a collection of fifth-century jewelry would be worth? It would be absolutely unique; the British Museum would probably hire killers to get it. But that’s not all. Think of the other implications.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think! Fifth century…fortified castle site…chief-tain…jewels…royal regalia…”
“Oh, David, no! Not King Arthur’s crown!”
“I’ll lay you odds that that’s what Cousin John has in mind. He and his hired hatchet man. They wanted the ring back, it’s part of the loot. But the ring was not the reason why they were after you. They wanted to prevent your reaching your grandfather before he died.
There was no ambush waiting for us at the gate, was there?
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Up to that point they had tried every means up to and including murder to prevent our reaching Cornwall.
But we walked in as peacefully as lambs. Why? The old man had died in the meantime.”
“He might have told me about the treasure,” Jess muttered. “Hmmph. I doubt that he would have. He wasn’t sentimental, they all said that. Something about inheritance…Wait a minute. John is the residuary legatee. He’d get the treasure anyhow. Why steal it?”
“Because,” said David patiently, “the treasure was in the box, and the box was left—to whom? You’re getting there, Jess. Keep thinking.”
