Warriors

CHAPTER 58

The front door was swung wide by a man who blotted out all light from within. A man with a voice that seemed to resonate from the bottomless pits of hell.

“Good evening, sir. May I help you?” he said.

This beast of a fellow had the flutiest English accent imaginable. He seemed a footman in the old sense, cutaway jacket with polished brass buttons, knee breeches, white stockings, and brogues. He had a sleek, bullet-shaped head atop his bull neck and massive shoulders. And, beneath brushy black eyebrows, two small black and stone-dead eyes that belied his wan smile. Ambrose had the distinct impression he’d seen this character somewhere before.

But where?

On the telly, that’s where.

He had been some kind of a TV wrestler back in the mid-nineties. What was his name? Ah, yes, Optimus Prime. “The Brute,” they’d called him back then. Who could forget him? This Prime looked like his true heart’s desire would be to place his palms on either side of your skull and squeeze slowly but forcefully until you literally blew your top, volcano fashion. Ambrose forced a smile.

“Ah, yes. Terribly sorry about the hour. I would very much like to speak with Dr. Moon. Is she at home by any chance?”

“Whom shall I say is calling at this hour, sir?”

“Chief Inspector Congreve,” he said, “of Scotland Yard. A matter of some urgency.”

“Won’t you step inside, sir? She’s in the library, busy with her studies, I’m afraid. I’ll locate Madame and ask if she is receiving.”

“Thank you so much,” Congreve said, stifling an almost overwhelming urge to add “My good man.”

Optimus Prime stomped off down the hall and disappeared into the interior darkness. Congreve heard the squeal of a door, and suddenly an oblique rectangle of yellow light slid across the black-and-white marble checkerboard floor of the great hall.

Five minutes later, the famous brawler was back.

“Yes. Madame will see you now. She’s waiting in the library. May I offer you some refreshment? A sherry? Brandy?”

“No, thank you.”

“Right this way, sir.”

“Good evening, Dr. Moon,” Ambrose said, making his way toward the vast crimson silk sofa where she’d arranged herself rather grandly, as if she were sitting for a formal portrait. He was aware of a large number of tall glass showcases filled with beady-eyed blackbirds perched atop realistic ceramic tree branches and inside smaller glass display cases in every corner of the room. And there was a lingering scent of perfume in the air. Shalimar. The very same fragrance he’d detected at Watanabe’s cottage.

He said, “Terribly sorry about the appalling hour, Professor. Please forgive me.”

“Not at all, Chief Inspector, not at all. I’m a night owl, as you can see.”

She extended a long slender arm, encased to the elbow in tight emerald silk. Her protruding bloodred fingernails looked capable of plowing whole fields, and her many-jeweled rings glittered darkly in the firelight from the hearth. Her black eyes were ferocious, he noted, somewhat taken aback at their intensity.

He took the proffered hand.

Her handshake was like taking hold of a few little breadsticks in a silk sachet. She smiled, turning her face up into the light so he could get a look at her delicately rouged cheeks and colored lips, a practiced seductress of many conquests. And perhaps older than one might guess at first glance.

It was immediately apparent that this was not the murderess described as leaving the scene. This was an elegant woman of a certain age, not the pretty young thing in the short dress with chopped-off shiny black hair. The young woman Pelham had so vividly described.

“How do you do, Chief Inspector? To what do I owe the dubious honor of this wholly unexpected visit?”

“Ah, Madame. There’s been a crime, I’m afraid.”

“Really? What kind of crime?”

“Murder.”

“The worst kind. Who was the victim?”

“A young woman of my acquaintance. She worked as a child’s guardian. Miss Sabrina Churchill. She was a Royal Protection officer from Scotland Yard. A woman in the employ of the child’s father, a gentleman named Lord Alexander Hawke. Shortly after midnight, his lordship’s butler heard a commotion upstairs in the nursery. He rushed up to find the poor Churchill girl already dead upon the floor. She’d apparently been viciously pecked to death by some kind of killer bird, although it’s too early to tell if that was the actual cause of death.”

“How horrid.”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about all this, but, really, Chief Inspector, please tell me, precisely what it is that brings you here to Ravenswood?”

“Facts.”

“Such as?”

“Upon entering the nursery, the butler in question actually saw the alleged murderer leaving the scene. She was in the act of climbing out a window onto a balcony that overlooked the car park. He got a good look at her. Also, a good look at the number plate on her car. The vehicle in question was a silver Rolls-Royce Phantom. Number plate reads ‘MAO,’ as in Chairman Mao. Sound familiar?”

“Indeed it does, Chief Inspector. That’s my car.”

“Have you driven that car this evening?”

“No.”

“Where is that car now?”

“In the car park out there with the others.”

“Does anyone besides yourself have permission to drive it?”

“Yes, of course. My dear butler and chauffeur, whom you’ve met, Optimus Prime. And my companion.”

“Might I have the name of your companion as well?”

“Certainly. Her name is Lorelei Li.”

Congreve was jolted by the familiar name but managed to conceal it. A lot of questions he’d harbored about the glamorous young Times stringer now tumbled into place.

“I see. Is Miss Li available? I would like to have a word with her.”

“She’s not available, I’m afraid. She retired early this evening, shortly after supper. Some kind of a stomach bug, I think. Running a fever. Quite ill. I wanted to call our local physician in, but she was having none of it. So I gave her a sedative and some warm milk and put her to bed.”

“I see. And what time might that have been?”

“Who knows? Shortly after eight, I imagine. Yes, the clock in the center hall had just struck the bells.”

“Where is her room? Does she live in this house?”

“Yes. A guest suite up on the third floor.”

“And you say she’s been in her room ever since eight P.M.?”

“She has.”

“She is a suspect in a homicide. I must insist on seeing her.”

“Perhaps if you’ll come back tomorrow? We’ll see if she’s feeling better.”

“Dr. Moon, listen carefully. Scotland Yard is conducting a murder investigation. A woman fitting Lorelei Li’s description was seen leaving the scene of that murder less than one hour ago in an automobile now sitting outside in your car park. The bonnet is still warm, the engine still ticking. I checked.”

“How very clever you are.”

“Perhaps I may come up with a better suspect in days to come. Anything is possible. But right now your companion resides at the very top of my very own short list. Have your butler bring her down here for questioning. Now.”

“Are you quite sure you wouldn’t like something to drink before you go? A bone stiffener? Frightfully cold out.”

“No, thank you. I came here to arrest Miss Li on suspicion of murder and that is what I intend to do. Based upon your lack of cooperation with this investigation, I may well charge you with being an accessory after the fact and obstruction of justice.”

“The woman is ill. Why can’t you believe the truth?”

“Because I don’t believe a single bloody word you say.”

She leaned her head back and expelled a never-ending plume of curling blue smoke.

“Oh, don’t be rude. I begin to find you most annoying.”

“And I begin to find you to be a woman aiding and abetting an alleged murderer. If you refuse to cooperate, you will find me a great deal more than merely rude and annoying.”

“Odd, isn’t it, when one has nothing to hide or conceal.”

“I find that difficult to believe. As it happens, I already find you to be one of the most cowardly women I’ve yet to meet, perhaps in the entirety of my career in the enforcement of the law.”

She laughed.

“Really. That’s quite a statement, coming from a street bobby policeman. I’ve read your own dossier, you see. With all the details of your humble origins. Reminded me of a Shakespeare quote on the subject. Perhaps you know it?”

“Enlighten me.”

“ ‘On what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?’ ”

Congreve didn’t even blink.

“Professor Moon, I’m quite sure you consider yourself a woman of great intellectual and personal power. You exude a bristling confidence. You show bemused disdain for those, like me, whom you deem wholly beneath you. People like myself, who come from humble origins.”

“Your humble origins are self-evident. Get to your point, for God’s sake, assuming you have one.”

“In all my professional life, Professor Moon, I have yet to meet a coward who wasn’t cruel. And, since I think you to be capable of the most unspeakable cruelty, I believe you to be the most unspeakable coward.”

“What cruelty? This is nonsense. I won’t stand for it!”

“One of the most horrific implements of death in the fifteenth century. The Shining Basket.”

“Oh, please. All this twaddle about baskets. At this late hour…”

“I’ll not ask again. Pick up the bloody phone.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, crisscrossing her long silk-encased legs and picking up the receiver of a black 1930s Bakelite telephone. “Optimus? Yes. There you are. Could you come to the library for a moment? Our unwelcome visitor has a little something he’d like you to do for him. Yes? Good.”

“On his way?” Congreve said.

“On his way.”

“What is this fascination with ravens, Dr. Moon? This room feels like a blackbird mortuary. Most curious. A hobby?”

“Oh, much more than that, Inspector. I import a very rare breed of raven from New Zealand. Corvus antipodum. Extraordinarily intelligent. Eaters of the dead, commonly referred to as carrion eaters, you know, feasting on dead animals, decaying meat. Hunger birds, I call them. Long considered a bird of ill omen, ravens are believed by some to be ghosts of murdered persons, or some kind of mediator animal between life and death. I suppose you find some of these things morbid or distasteful, but to me, they are creatures possessed of great beauty. Oh, Optimus, here you are at last.”

The burly butler entered the large room and proceeded across the faded Persian rugs to position himself between the lady of the house and her guest. He kept his eyes on Congreve speaking over his shoulder to his mistress.

“You rang, Madame?”

“Oh, Optimus. How beautiful you are in this light. The chief inspector has a favor to ask, don’t you, Inspector?”

“Indeed. My good man, would you please go to the third floor, find Miss Li, and bring her here to the library? I have a few simple questions regarding her whereabouts tonight.”

“Sorry, sir. That will not be possible. She was feeling quite ill earlier and retired for the evening. A nasty stomach virus. She appeared in the pantry a short time ago and said she might run over to the twenty-four-hour chemist in St. Ives. Get something for it.”

“In the Rolls-Royce?” Congreve said.

“No, sir. She indicated she was taking the Vincent Black Shadow.”

“I take it that’s a motorcycle,” Congreve said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Well,” Chyna Moon said, “there you have it. So good of you to come all this way at such a late hour. Optimus, will you show Inspector Congreve to the door?”

“I am not leaving this house without speaking to Lorelei.”

“Ooh, first-name basis!”

“Yes. I happen to know her. And I know she’s in this house. If you refuse to fetch her, I shall arrest you both for obstruction of justice.”

Chyna permitted herself a flash of anger.

“I think we are quite done here. I want you to leave, Chief Inspector. Now. Optimus? Remove him from my sight.”

The big man made a move toward him. Congreve reached inside his jacket and pulled the revolver. He pointed it at the famous wrestler’s heart.

“Lay a hand on me, Prime, and I will have your bloody head on a pike. I will—”

He never finished his sentence.

Optimus faked a move to the left, then got inside, clubbing Ambrose’s gun arm down and away with a sharp and powerful downward chop of his left forearm. Before Congreve could bring the gun back up, Prime dropped away and kicked him on the point of his right elbow. Congreve felt like he had grabbed a threadbare power line with his bare hand. Red-hot wires ran up into his shoulder and down to his fingertips, and his arm went slack, half numbed.

The gun skidded across the worn carpet.

When the brawler lunged and bent to snatch it, Ambrose leaned back and drop-kicked him in the midsection with the steel-tipped toe of his custom Lobb brogue, something he would not have done in hindsight. A couple of broken ribs only galvanized the Brute.

Dr. Moon provided a smattering of applause as if from the audience. She was sipping brandy and watching the battle royal from the crimson sofa, the look on her face rife with amusement.

Roaring, Prime came back at him, swinging good punches. Congreve had somehow gotten shakily to his feet and was backpedaling, trying to put some distance between himself and his formidable adversary. He did manage to surreptitiously kick the weapon back into a corner behind him, and thank God Prime hadn’t seen him do it. It was the only chance he had.

“Oh, Optimus. Look what he’s done now,” Dr. Moon said. “He’s kicked the gun back into the corner behind him.”

“I saw that, Madame. But thank you.”

“For God’s sake, don’t kill him here. I do not want any blood on these rugs. It will never come out.”

“No, Madame. I shall restrain myself.”

“Please do,” Congreve croaked.