Peg legs, no waist, dyed hair ... That was how Arthur had described the woman Gerald took to lunch at the Flamborough. Not in the first bloom of youth, Arthur had said, which she wouldn’t be if she already had gray hair when she’d been involved with Douglas. But why in God’s name would Gerald be keeping assignations with his late uncle’s old mistress?
Anthea began to put the documents back into the box. “The great difference between Gerald and Douglas,” she said sadly, harking back to the discussion she’d begun with Swann, “is that Gerald’s lies have brought him no pleasure at all. I wish I knew why he felt they were necessary.” With a sigh, she closed the box. “Is there anything else I can show you?”
“Thank you, no,” said Nell. “I think Bertie and I will go up now. It’s been a very full day.”
“Lori?” said Anthea.
I stood. “I’d like to get a breath of fresh air before I turn in, if that’s okay with you.”
“A good idea,” Anthea said. “After that long nap, you may have some difficulty getting to sleep. But a breath of Yorkshire air is as good as a sleeping pill, they say. Would you like company?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “You go on up with Nell. I’ll just take a turn around the courtyard.”
Five minutes later, I was in the front hall, clad in one of Anthea’s warm wool jackets and carrying a long-handled black flashlight that was heavy enough to use as a club. I bid Anthea, Nell, and Bertie good night, opened the door, and welcomed the slap of the cold wind across my face. I hoped it would slow my spinning mind.
24.
It was ten o‘clock at night and preposterously dark outside. Not a gleam leaked from the house’s heavily draped windows, and no security lamp flooded the courtyard with reassuring illumination. The moon and stars had been extinguished by clouds blown in on the wind sweeping down from the high moors, and the surrounding hills cut off what glow there might have been from neighboring farms or the village. My flashlight beam sliced through the darkness neatly, leaving oceans of inky blackness on either side.
It was a noisy sort of darkness. Apart from the usual chorus of insects and the distant rustle of leaves on the forested hillsides, the wind whistled and moaned around the stone buildings, the horses snuffled and stamped, and the stable’s wide wooden door, left partly open, creaked on its hinges. The rhythmic squeak would drive me mad, I decided, and the draft couldn’t be doing the chestnut foal much good. With a groan, I put my head down, pulled my collar up, and crunched across the graveled courtyard to close the stable door.
Wisps of hay sailing through the flashlight’s steady beam reminded me to keep it trained on the ground, lest I should encounter other, less pleasant reminders that horses had passed this way. I was within an arm’s length of the stable, and trying to picture Nell with a pitchfork in her soft, long-fingered hands, when the bay gelding’s braying whinny sent a sliver of ice down my spine and redoubled my determination to see to it that Anthea’s remaining darlings were securely shut up for the night.
As I reached over to tug on the door handle, something darted between my legs, and I shrieked, dancing back into the courtyard. A sharp gust banged the door, snatched the scream from my lips, and whipped a plaintive mew past my ears. The beam from my flashlight bounced along the ground until it landed on a pair of green eyes glowing weirdly in a dainty, fuzzy, black-and-white face.
“You fiend.” I clutched the front of my jacket and gulped for air as I watched the cat circle around me. “You nearly gave me a stroke,” I muttered, and was on the verge of laughing at my own taut nerves when the door rattled behind me and a hand clamped like a vise upon my shoulder.
My mind went blank with terror, but my body went on autopilot. I’d been raised by a single mother on the west side of Chicago, and she’d drilled her precious daughter in self-defense. Nothing elegant or Asian, just your basic down-and-dirty street technique.
I jammed my elbow backward and the handle of the flashlight went back with it. I heard an oomph, the vise released, and I sprinted, spraying gravel, for the house. I was two yards from the doorstep when my brain came back on-line and informed me that it knew who’d made that oomph.
I skidded to a halt, and slowly turned. The adrenaline haze subsided as I cautiously retraced my steps across the courtyard to the spot where a hulking figure crouched, bent double, just outside the creaking door. As I approached, a palm went up to block the flashlight’s glare.
“Would you point that damned thing somewhere else, please? You’ve already broken my ribs. There’s no need to blind me.”
“Bill?” I said, in a tone of voice I’d been saving for a face-to-face encounter with Amelia Earhart.
“No,” he wheezed. “It’s Jack the Ripper. Lucky thing you put me out of action. Who taught you to do that, anyway ? The nuns at your grammar school?”
“Bill?” I repeated, swaying slight on my feet.
He straightened very slowly, groaning softly as he did. “Yes, Lori. It’s me.”
“How ... ? When... ? Oh, Bill,” I cried, “did I really break your ribs?”