Chapter 18 #2
Although if the oncoming train’s driver didn’t know that there was a stalled train ahead of him, he’d most likely slam directly into it, and crumple the last train car into an accordion, and us with it.
So we might as well stay where we were and get creamed here.
There was nowhere else to go. The tunnel was largely circular, shaped for a standard stock car to skim through without much room on either side.
The windows don’t open in a tube train, for good reason.
The stone walls are much too close to the train for it to be safe.
Ergo, there was nowhere we could go to be safe.
No handy niches or extra space outside the rails.
Pressing our bodies against the walls wouldn’t leave enough room for the train to pass, not to mention that we’d have to stand on top of the electrified rails to do it.
The squealing of metal on metal filled the tunnel—tires on tracks, my mind supplied: the train was moving, and from the sound of it, picking up speed—and farther up the tunnel, the reflection of light on the tracks resolved itself into a single circular beam, as if from a headlamp. It wobbled strangely.
Wolfgang hesitated. His hand around my wrist had loosened in his agitation, and he seemed to be dithering between going backwards in an effort to try to save himself, or face the challenge head-on, no matter how futile it might be.
I decided to take matters into my own hands, as it were. If I were going to die anyway, at least I wouldn’t have to die being held in place by Wolfgang.
So I yanked my arm free and used that and the other hand to give him the most powerful shove I could manage. He stumbled back, and I took off running. Straight at the oncoming light. Might as well get it over with quickly.
Behind me, Wolfgang let out a bellow, and then a higher-pitched shriek. There was a crackling noise, and several loud pops, and then a strange, sort of burnt smell that wafted down the tunnel after me.
I thought about stopping, and about going back, just in case there was something I could do.
I didn’t. Instead, I kept my face forward and kept running, staying well clear of the buzzing rail in the middle of the tunnel.
I was sobbing now, my breath hitching, and tears were running down my cheeks.
Up ahead, the headlamp resolved itself into something much less threatening than an oncoming train.
I realized that it was merely a torch beam, bobbing in someone’s hand.
As I made my way closer, the dark figure behind it took on the shape of a man, and I could see several other dark shapes behind him.
After a few more seconds, I recognized him—Ian Finchley, still in his drunk hobo outfit from the platform earlier, but with his lips pressed tightly together and a steely look in his eyes.
As I came closer, he moved out of my way, stepping carefully over the buzzing rail, and let the two figures behind him surge forward.
A second later, I found myself wrapped in four different arms, with my nose buried against a tweed coat.
It wasn’t until I inhaled that I realized that it was Crispin who had reached me first, and Christopher who had flung his arms around both of us a second later.
It was a good thing that the last train for the night had passed Dover Street, because Scotland Yard closed down the eastbound tunnel until morning.
By then we were long gone, of course. Finch walked past us to look at Wolfgang, and turned back with a grim look on his face. “Go home. We know where to find you.”
I peered past him to where Wolfgang was slumped over the high voltage rail, and wished I hadn’t. His hair was standing on end and his body smoked, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.
“Is he—?”
It must have been a stupid question, because both Crispin and Christopher turned to stare at me. Finch nodded.
“Yes, Miss Darling. He’s dead. Properly, this time.”
I nodded. And as we trundled up the tracks to Dover Street station and Crispin and Christopher made their way onto the platform and hauled me after them, and we climbed up to the surface and into the Hispano-Suiza that waited at the curb, I tried to find some sort of sadness for that fact.
Last time I thought Wolfgang died, I had had mixed feelings.
This time, I didn’t. This time, there was only relief.
He had proven himself to be a rogue through and through, and for all that he was my cousin, and my only living relative on my father’s side of the family—I was fairly certain that my grandfather had died of old age in the two months since I’d last seen Wolfgang—I was glad he was gone.
Properly gone, so I didn’t have to think about it anymore.
We ended up back at the flat, so I could sleep in my own bed, where Christopher and Crispin decided that I would feel the safest. Crispin insisted that he’d be fine on the Chesterfield—I told him that he could leave and go back to Sutherland House, that Christopher and I would do very well on our own, but he insisted on staying—and said that he’d slept in worse places, which was undoubtedly true.
I let him sacrifice his comfort—Duke of Sutherland or no—because I thought it wouldn’t hurt him for once.
So that’s what happened. I spent the night in my own bed. So did Christopher—in his—while Crispin stretched out in the sitting room. I jerked awake a couple of times from bad dreams, but all in all, it was as pleasant a night as could be expected after such an ordeal.
Until Tom turned up in the morning, unshaven and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, with my carpet bag in his hand.
It had not been visibly affected by Wolfgang’s meeting with the high voltage rail. He must have dropped it when I pushed him, or maybe on first contact with the electricity. In either case, it was untouched by fire, and the bundles of bills were pristinely stacked inside.
Crispin opened the bag, stared at them for a moment, closed the bag again, and set it aside.
“Coffee?” Christopher offered. “Tea?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cuppa.” Tom sounded as exhausted as he looked. “It’s been a long night.”
No question about that. And for him, it had been the second such night in a row.
Last night it had been Wolfgang’s death he had to investigate; the night before, it had been Leonid’s.
I hoped he had managed to catch at least a few hours of sleep before he turned up here this morning, but I didn’t ask.
If he hadn’t, I would only be rubbing it in.
Christopher busied himself in the kitchenette, and Tom turned to Crispin. “We don’t know where to find your fiancée.”
I blinked. Not only was Tom’s statement blunt to the point of shock, but I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought about Laetitia once since the events in the tunnel.
Crispin, on the other hand, did not look surprised. He merely nodded grimly. “I assumed as much. It was too much to hope that he’d have a note in his pocket with the coordinates for where he was keeping her.”
Well, yes. Of course it was. Wolfgang couldn’t have gone down into the underground thinking he’d die last night. If he had done, presumably he wouldn’t have done it. So there was no reason to take precautions for the eventuality that he didn’t return.
Good lord, what if Laetitia was imprisoned somewhere with no access to food and water, and now she’d slowly starve to death because Wolfgang wasn’t there to provide her with the necessities?
But no—I told myself—perhaps we didn’t have to worry about that.
Precedent indicated that perhaps we didn’t.
He had knocked me out with dope, and transported me to the freighter, but when I woke up (on my own) I had been alone, and I had been able to leave the cabin under my own steam.
I hadn’t been tied up or anything like that.
And he had knocked Christopher out with a well-placed blow to the head, and had transported him to the house in Thornton Heath (along with the man Christopher had seen him kill), but after that, he had kept Christopher subdued with sleeping draughts.
When Wolfgang had left, and Christopher had slept off the last of the dope, he had also been able to simply walk out.
Perhaps the same would be true of Laetitia.
She’d wake up when Wolfgang wasn’t around to administer another dose of sleeping medicine, and she’d be able to leave on her own two feet, before succumbing to starvation.
Crispin nodded when I said as much. “Let’s hope so.”
“We’re still investigating,” Tom assured him. “If—when—we find her, you’ll be the first to know.”
“That’s kind of you,” Crispin told him, “but I think her parents ought to be the first to know, if you don’t mind. Not that I’m not concerned. But she’s their daughter. They must be more worried than I am.”
“Of course.” Tom nodded to Christopher when he handed over a cup of strong tea. “Thank you, Kit.”
“Don’t mention it.” Christopher dropped onto the sofa on the other side of me.
Both young men were still flanking me this morning, as if they were concerned that I still needed the support.
Since I still did feel a bit wobbly, I didn’t chide them for it.
It was possible, in fact, that Crispin needed the support as much as I did.
This situation couldn’t be easy for him.
“What happens now?”
“Natterdorff is dead,” Tom said, sipping the tea, “so there’s nothing more to do there. We can’t arrest a dead man. And there’s no question about cause of death. Finch saw it happen, and so did you, Pippa—”
“I wouldn’t say I saw anything,” I said, eyes on my teacup, “and frankly, I’m glad I didn’t. But I pushed him, and he stumbled, and I ran. Whatever happened after that, happened behind me.”
Tom nodded. “Well, Finch saw it. We’re not charging you with anything—”
“I would hope not,” Crispin scoffed, while Christopher added hotly, “Listen here, Tom—”