Colin dropped the wire.
There was the slick sound of a bolt being drawn, and James was there, leveling his rifle at Colin’s temple. “Don’t move,” he said. He thumbed off the safety, his finger on the trigger.
“No!” George Sutter stumbled from the trees, his knees nearly buckling as he ran the few feet to the water’s edge. “No!” Never had I heard such anguish, seen such pain on a human face. “Hawley, stop! He’s my brother! Tommy, Harry—my God! Stop!”
James blinked, shifted, his fingers flexing. A muscle in his cheek rippled and something moved through his body, something like terrible pain. His gaze flickered to Gloria, still in the shadows, her arms around her brother, and then to the figures in the water. He looked at all of them with a grim knowledge, free of surprise, as if they were part of something he understood all too well. Then he swallowed and lowered the gun.
I was crying, I realized, the hot tears stinging my face. There were more voices, shouts, coming from the trees. I was looking at Gloria’s arms, her beautiful white arms, fading now. Or perhaps it was I who was fading; I couldn’t tell. The world seemed to be closing in on me, becoming a strange, dark circle, a window through which I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe, and my body went numb. I saw the flash of her dark hair in the firelight, and I thought, Good-bye, darling, and then the water came up to meet me and I knew no more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I awoke in a hospital room. I was dry and warm, a sheet and a knitted blanket tucked over me, and watery sun was coming in the window.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, blinking.
“Good morning,” said a voice.
Inspector Merriken was sitting next to my bed. He was folded into a wooden chair, one ankle crossed over the other knee. He was wearing a suit and his black overcoat, and dark stubble showed on his jaw.
“You’re alive,” I said to him, glad to be saying it.
“I am,” he agreed, glancing at the clock on the wall. “And so are you, though you’ve been out cold for about twelve hours. Hawley is going to be upset; he just left to get a drink of water. But that’s fine by me, as I get my chance to talk to you. How do you feel?”
My mind was sluggish, my throat sore. “James is here?”
“Of course he is.” The inspector frowned. “He’s been some little use, I’ll grudgingly admit. He got you out of the water seconds after you passed out, and he was strong enough to carry you from the woods unaided. But with you here unconscious, I haven’t been able to get rid of him, and he’s going to evict me the minute he comes back. So you’re going to answer my questions until he does.”
I looked down at myself. My clothes were gone, and I was wearing a hospital nightgown beneath the bedcovers. I ached everywhere, my muscles throbbing, my knee torn. “The fire—what happened?” I pushed myself up farther, ignoring the way my head spun. “Oh, my God—where’s Pickwick?”
“Stop worrying,” Inspector Merriken ordered. He made no move to assist me. “The local brigade fought the fire all night, and it’s almost under control. Nobody died, at least not yet. And one of my men has your dog. He’s become rather enamored of him, and says he wants to keep him.”
“He can’t,” I snapped.
“Very well. Will you answer my questions now?”
“Where were you?” I asked, ignoring him. “We thought you were dead.”
“I found Colin Sutter by the telephone line, preparing to cut it, just as Hawley predicted. I did my best to shoot him, but he got away. He lit the fire while I was still trying to track him. He was very, very good. I really did try to shoot him, even through the smoke and the flames.” He shrugged. “My men arrived and found me, and we made our way to the water’s edge, thinking Sutter—Colin Sutter—might go for the same place. When we got there, we found Hawley in the process of not shooting our suspect. So I obliged George Sutter, since he seemed to think it was important, and I kicked Colin over—forcefully, I admit—and handcuffed him.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. “What about the ghosts?” I said. “You must have seen them.”
Inspector Merriken looked away, and for a moment he looked very tired. “You have no idea,” he said, “how much I hate ghosts. No idea at all.” He turned back to me and changed the subject. “Colin Sutter is alive and in custody, but he isn’t talking. Did he speak to you? At the pond?”
I shook my head, the motion setting my brain in a queasy spin. “No.” He had spoken to the ghosts, but I wasn’t going to repeat that part.
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“It’s very frustrating,” he admitted. “We have a good number of the pieces, but not all of them. With the help of your testimony, we can likely make a case for his murder of Ramona and George Sutter’s man—whose name was John Richmond, by the way. But we have no eyewitness linking him to Gloria’s death. That would have been Ramona’s job, since she saw something from the trees when she left the house that night with Fitzroy Todd—according to the testimony of Todd himself, who turned himself in to us. But Colin murdered Ramona before she could confess. Until I have a clearer case, my original murder investigation will have to stay open.”
“What about Davies?” I asked.
Merriken frowned at me as he watched me struggle to sit up. “What about her?”
“Did Colin murder her?”
“I should say not, since she’s alive. I just talked to her on the telephone from Paris.”
“Paris?”