The Empire of Night

16

For a few moments we just stood like that. Neither Joe Hunter nor I knew what to say to Isabel Cobb.

She trembled on.

Finally I whispered, “It’s all just melodrama. You’ve played this a thousand times.”

“Don’t be a fool,” she said.

She was right.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s life. But we’re acting in it. We can do this.”

She nodded.

She lifted her face. But not to me.

I felt a shudder pass through her.

And her trembling stopped, as if the curtain had just risen and she was on.

I followed her gaze.

Stockman was heading this way. He was looking at me as if through rifle sights, me standing with my right shoulder tucked behind her left and my arm enveloping her, pulling her close. I was very lucky that I’d not actually taken her into my arms, even in the chaste way I would have, as any son might have when his mother was suddenly terrified. This tableau was bad enough, as far as Stockman was concerned, as far as his intended woman and this snoopy journalist were concerned.

Mother knew the look. She broke away from me at once, rushed forward to meet Stockman, whose body paused for her, whose arms opened for her, even as his severe gaze remained on me.

She threw herself into his arms with a flurry of words.

“Oh Albert, what’s happened to that poor man? Is he dead? And where did you go? It’s a good thing Mr. Hunter was nearby. He held me up when I was about to faint. I was swooning away.”

She looked back to me from Stockman’s chest. “I’m sorry to have frightened you like that, Mr. Hunter. Thank you.”

She was a pro. She was convincing.

She laid her head on his chest again. “Can you take me away from this now, Albert?”

His gaze upon me went more or less neutral just before he looked down at Mother. “Of course, my dear.”

For good measure, she wobbled suddenly at the knees, threatened to slide from his arms.

Stockman held her closer, held her up. “Be strong,” he said. “My people will take care of this. We can go in now.”

“Yes,” she said. “Please.” She pulled away from him just enough to put her arm in his and begin to turn him.

He gave me one more look. Grudging. I’d touched his woman, even if it was innocently. But he seemed ready to overlook this.

I nodded at him.

He did not return the nod, but he looked away as if I were not an issue.

That was good enough.

The two of them moved off toward the door into the house, Mother clinging to Stockman’s arm, her head against his shoulder.

A Gray Suit instantly filled the space where they had stood. “Please come with me,” he said to all of us weekend guests. “Stay together and follow me quickly.”

We complied, and he and another of his cohorts, who met us in the Great Hall, hustled us to the north end of the house and up the stairs, one of them leading us solitary denizens into the bachelor wing and the other taking the couples up to the next floor.

Our hallway was lit with electric bulbs on sconces. The Gray Suit made sure we all went into our rooms and closed the doors, telling us, as we disappeared, to be sure to turn the lock after us.

I did.

I waited in the dark.

I paced.

I waited, and then I softly undid the lock and eased the door open.

I looked out into the still-lit hallway.

“Please,” a voice said sternly. “We must insist. It’s for your own safety.”

I withdrew instantly.

I was stuck.

But it was just as well. My own instincts needed to be reined in now. I had nothing to do but wait until the morning and hope for a few private moments with my mother. And hope that Jeremy Miller had made good use of Martin’s gray suit and was rushing safely through the woods or along the shore by now.

I went to my casement window and undid the latch and pushed it open.

I listened. The action was likely to be on the far side of the house.

The clatter of feet. The sound of struggle. These things would never carry as far as this room. Not through a window looking north.

I lay down on the bed.

One thing would carry, however, and about ten minutes later I thought I heard this thing: the pop of small arms fire. Once, twice. Perhaps a pistol or pistols. The sound was very distant. Perhaps Jeremy Miller had just been shot dead. Or he’d just shot his last pursuer dead. Or everyone had been shooting at shadows. Or perhaps an automobile had simply backfired on the road to Ramsgate.

But now there was silence.

And there was nothing to do about it.

I got up. I took off my coat and my pistol and my shoes. I would make no further concession to my confinement.

I thought to turn on the light at the writing desk.

But I did not. The dark was better for now.

I lay back down.

Like Jeremy out there in the night, I started running from my pursuers. Thoughts. I was running in my head from thoughts. Small-caliber ones, which were harder to deal with. The big things to worry about, the fundamental things, seemed easier somehow. That was why I figured I was cut out for the work I’d done over the past six years of my life. At first, I’d dodged bullets and watched men die and I wrote about that. Lately, I’d risked myself in ways that made bullets from a bunker seem reassuringly predictable. I’d learned to kill in service for my country. To kill in unpredictable ways. Dealing with that was simple and it was deep. It was merely how this roughneck planet we all lived on was put together, and so the way to cope was already imprinted in our muscles, was coursing in our veins. But this whole thing about my mother and her men, which was whining after me in my head now: that was all just niggles. Of no consequence to me. Long ago I left off needing to give a damn about how she lived her life. Which was the way it should be for any son and mother. You have to leave, and she has to let go.

So I slept.

And I woke. I didn’t know how long had passed or what had awakened me.

I rose and crossed to the window.

Before me was barely differentiated darkness. The dark of a lawn. The deeper dark of the miniature canyon of the Dumpton gap. The dark of the woods beyond.

And a sound.

I closed my eyes and listened.

This sound may have been what drew me: the distant revving of an engine. I leaned out, looked, tried to catch its direction.

To the east, toward another darkness, was the fierce bratting of a runabout engine, moving away now, diminishing. Out there, where I knew the Strait of Dover to be, I could see a cluster of lights. A larger vessel upon the water. And someone rushing toward it.