Chapter Thirty-one
Thirty-one
Amity listened to the frantically galloping hooves of a terrified horse bolting down the long lane.
“So much for our cab,” she said.
She could not take her eyes off the burning mansion.
Her pulse was pounding harder than it had the day she and her guide had rounded a corner on a Colorado mountain trail and found themselves confronting a bear.
The extraordinary spectacle of the blazing ruins and the knowledge that she and Benedict had very nearly died in the explosion riveted her senses.
“He intended us to die in that house,” Benedict said.
“The driver will no doubt assume that we were killed in the explosion,” she said.
“Yes,” Benedict said. “I believe he will.”
She got the impression that he was doing some intricate calculations in his head. She took her attention off the inferno long enough to glance at him.
“You have another plan in mind, don’t you?” she said.
“Perhaps.”
She turned back to the view of the fire. The flames roared, consuming the interior of the mansion. Even though she and Benedict were some distance away she could feel the waves of heat. The stone walls would stand, she thought. But by morning Hawthorne Hall would be a burned-out hulk.
“Do you think this fire will ignite the woods?” she asked.
“Doubtful,” Benedict said. “There is little to burn in the immediate vicinity of the house and it has been a damp summer. In any event, there is another storm coming. The rain will suppress the blaze.” He studied the dark clouds. “We need to find shelter soon.”
“Surely the driver will summon help.”
“He will no doubt carry the tale back to the village, but there is no way the local fire brigade can defeat a house fire of this size. A few curiosity seekers may show up this evening, but even that is unlikely.”
“Like the driver, everyone in the village will assume that we are dead.”
“Yes,” Benedict said. “And that may prove quite useful.”
“I detect the engineer at work again.”
“We may have something of a grace period tonight, a time to think about what we have learned. I have been overlooking an important piece of the puzzle, Amity. I can feel it.”
“Isn’t it possible that the killer was watching the house and saw us flee into the woods?”
“Certainly, but I’m inclined to doubt that he is anywhere nearby.
The village is small. This isn’t London.
Around here everyone would remember a stranger who arrived at the railway station, inquired about directions to Hawthorne Hall and then failed to take the train back to London until after the explosion. ”
“I see what you mean,” she said. “In order to remain as anonymous as possible, he would have wanted to be seen leaving the village long before the explosion occurred. But you are assuming he came and went by train. What if he hired a carriage?”
“Again, that is a possibility,” Benedict conceded.
“But it is a very long trip from London by carriage. No, I suspect that he took the train, just as we did, and that he returned to the city hours ago. At the moment he is no doubt anticipating news of the explosion at Hawthorne Hall and the deaths of three people in tomorrow’s papers. ”
A chill swept through Amity. “Dear heaven, the press reports. Yes, of course. My sister will surely see the accounts and believe that we are dead. We must get word to her.”
“We will do so first thing in the morning,” Benedict promised. “There is no hiking back to the village tonight, not with that storm about to break over our heads.”
“But Penny will be worried when we do not return on the midnight train.”
“There is no help for it, Amity,” Benedict said gently. “She is accustomed to losing track of you from time to time due to the vagaries of your travels. She will not panic.”
“I hope not.” Amity paused. “She is aware that I am with you. That will no doubt reassure her.”
“Come, we must find some shelter.”
He started around the side of the burning house. Amity collected the folds of her cloak and fell into step beside him.
“As you pointed out, the nearest farm is some distance from here,” she said.
“We won’t be able to get that far before the rain comes. We will have to content ourselves with that cottage we saw at the far end of the lane.”
“That should do nicely,” Amity said. “I’ve certainly stayed in far more uncomfortable accommodations.”
She tried not to think about the obvious but it was impossible to ignore. She would be spending the night alone with Benedict.
“It won’t be the first time,” Benedict said. “You spent three nights on the Northern Star in the same cabin with me if you will recall.”
She smiled. “There are occasions, Mr. Stanbridge, when I wonder if you can actually read my mind.”
“From time to time I have wondered if you can read mine. But as neither of us claims to be psychic, I think we must look to another explanation for these occasional flashes of mutual intuition.”
“And what would that explanation be, sir?”
To her surprise, he hesitated, as if searching for the right words.
“I think that we know each other perhaps better than we realize,” he said finally. “I expect that lurching from crisis to crisis together as we have been obliged to do lately has that effect on two people. We know what to expect from each other in a pinch.”
“That is very insightful of you,” Amity said.
“You are surprised?” He smiled faintly. “I may not possess Declan Garraway’s knowledge of psychology, and as I have noted, I’m not a fan of poetry, but I can usually add two plus two and arrive at four.”
“Something to be said for a sound foundation in mathematics.”
“I like to think so.”
“What made you realize that Hawthorne Hall was about to go up in flames?” Amity asked.
“I knew there was a problem as soon as I stepped on the trigger mechanism hidden under the carpet and saw the spark. I admit that I leaped to the conclusion that the spark might ignite a fuse, but it seemed prudent to act on the assumption.”
“In hindsight, it was a positively brilliant assumption, Mr. Stanbridge.”
The cottage at the end of the lane was empty, but it was in better shape than Amity had expected. There were no signs that rodents or other forms of wildlife had taken up residence on the premises. The well pump functioned and there was a shed that contained a supply of firewood.
The storm arrived with a crack of lightning and a rumble of thunder just as Benedict came through the door with the last of several logs. Amity closed the door behind him, shutting out the blast of rain.
“I think that the owner of this place probably rents it out at least occasionally,” she observed. “Everything is in reasonably good condition, including the bed.”
She winced as soon as the word bed left her lips. That particular item of furniture stood in the corner, but it seemed to dominate the small space.
Mercifully, Benedict politely chose to ignore both the comment and the bed.
“We will go hungry tonight,” he said. “But at least we will have water to drink and we’ll be warm. I’ll get a fire started.”
Amity smiled, feeling decidedly smug. “We won’t go hungry.”
He was on one knee in front of the fireplace, preparing to strike a light to ignite the kindling that he had brought in from the shed. He paused, looking at her with great interest.
“You found something to eat?” he asked.
“I brought something to eat.” She went to where her cloak hung on a peg near the door and opened the folds to display the many pockets sewn inside.
With a flourish, she took out two small waterproof pouches.
“I long ago learned that one should never set out on a journey without at least some biscuits and tea. One never knows what awaits at the other end.”
Benedict’s eyes gleamed appreciatively when she opened one of the pouches and removed a small packet wrapped in paper.
“I do admire a lady who is always prepared,” he said.
She found a kettle and used it to boil water from the well. When she opened a cupboard, she discovered a pot, some mugs and a few chipped plates. She smiled.
“It is as if we were expected,” she said.
Benedict watched her with a bemused expression.
“I am acquainted with a number of people—male as well as female—who would long since have begun complaining about the poor quality of the accommodations,” he said.
“When one travels as much as I have, one learns that the definition of poor-quality accommodations is subject to considerable flexibility depending on the circumstances,” Amity said.
Benedict glanced at the cloak. “Between the items you carry on your chatelaine and the number of pockets in your cloak it is no surprise that you occasionally clank when you walk.”
She cleared her throat. “You think that I clank?”
He nodded appreciatively. “I think that you are the kind of woman who is able to cope with unforeseen circumstances.”
She smiled and reminded herself that he did not read poetry.
When she had the small repast ready, they sat down at the table in front of the fire to dine on biscuits and tea.
They ate in a companionable silence and contemplated the cheerful blaze on the hearth. Outside, the bluster of the storm turned to a gentle, steady rain.
When they finished, Benedict helped rinse the mugs and plates.
And then they were left with the issue of the single bed in the corner of the room. Amity determined to take a brisk, no-nonsense lead. She was, after all, the kind of woman who could cope with unforeseen circumstances.
“It will be just like camping out in the West,” she said. “Except that we will not have to sleep on cold, hard ground and there will be no need to fret about wolves and bears.”
“Just a human predator who kills with a scalpel,” Benedict said.
Amity looked at him. In the firelight his face was hard and grim.
“Have you changed your theory about the present whereabouts of the killer?” she asked. “Do you think he is out there somewhere in the storm, watching us?”
Benedict looked into the fire for a moment and then shook his head.
“No. I think he is being careful now. He got rid of the two people who knew his secret and who might conceivably go to the police. He will have returned to his lair for the time being. In any event this cottage is reasonably secure. The windows are too small for a man to crawl through and he cannot break down the door without an axe. That is not his style.”
“He might use an explosive device such as the one he left behind at Hawthorne Hall.”
“No.” Benedict sounded more certain now.
“That sort of trap requires time, planning, access and—above all—the right materials. It is highly unlikely he traveled all this way prepared to set two explosive devices. In any event, he could not possibly know that we would escape the first explosion and seek shelter here.”
She watched Benedict for a moment.
“What is it that worries you so much tonight?” she asked. “Beyond the obvious fact that we are hunting a killer, of course.”
He took his attention off the fire and met her eyes. “Damned if I know. But there is something about this affair that I am not seeing.”
“It will come to you in time,” she assured him.
“I fear that time is the one thing that we do not have in great measure.”
“We have tonight,” she said.
Benedict smiled. It was a wry smile but a real one.
“Yes,” he said. “We have tonight.”
He gazed at her as if he was in some sort of trance. She understood that he was waiting for a response from her, but she was not sure what to say. When she just looked at him, mute, he stirred and pulled himself out of the stillness.
“I got the bed the last time we spent a night together,” he said.
“The bunk in your stateroom, do you mean?”
“Yes. It is only fair that you get the bed tonight. I’ll sleep in front of the fire.”
A sinking feeling came over her.
Well, it had been a rather long and difficult day, she reminded herself. What else could one expect except a sinking feeling?