The Tick of Death

hear,’ she told him.

He extricated himself with difficulty and got to his feet. ‘Time I was gone, Rossanna,’ he said. ‘Much more to do tomorrow.’ It was only after he had crossed the room, gone through the door and closed it behind him that he remembered her legs were still tied together. He did not go back.

Instead, he went downstairs and out into the garden. Although it was late, the warmth of the day still lingered in the air. From farther down towards the river came voices, Devlin’s for sure, and Millar’s. The occasional metallic thump suggested they were working on the submarine boat, possibly moving the dynamite about the hull, with the intention of spreading the ballast as evenly as possible. He could not distinguish words in the conversation, but from the rising and falling tones it was clear that whatever they were doing required frequent consultation. All the signs were that the work would occupy them for some time yet.

One vital part of Cribb’s plan needed to be attended to before the morning: he had to visit Thackeray and prepare him for the ordeal to come. His reasons for taking such a risk were not wholly compassionate; his poor, benighted assistant was entitled to be told the fate the Clan had decreed for him, but the paramount reason for seeing him was to warn him not to take food or drink in the morning, for it would certainly be drugged. If the counter-plan was to have any chance at all, Thackeray would need not only to be conscious, but capable of action. Until this moment, Cribb had intended going to him by night, as he had on the last occasion, but the sounds from Devlin’s workshop made him change his mind. Now, when such preoccupying things were going on outside, was a better time than the small hours for moving secretly about the house.

He re-entered the building through the conservatory and crossed the hall to the dining room. At the kitchen door he paused, listening, in case the servant was inside. Most domestics, being early risers, liked to get to bed tolerably early, but this was an exceptional night in this household. One could take nothing for granted. Hearing no sound, though, he entered and found it in darkness. He crossed to the scullery and opened the door. The cat, again, was the solitary occupant. It treated him like a favourite table, pressing itself against his legs. He carefully slipped the bolts on the door of Thackeray’s prison and opened it.

‘Thackeray?’ In the darkness, it was difficult to distinguish the figure on the bed of sacks. He took a step closer, and discovered nobody was there.

Thackeray had been moved.

‘Gone!’ said a voice close to his ear. He knew from the flat, almost bored tone that it was Carse. ‘It would be wise not to move. The pressure you can feel in the small of your back is from a revolver.’ He must have been standing there in the darkness behind the door, waiting for this.

‘Brother Carse?’ said Cribb, trying to gain time to think. Infuriating to step into a trap like this!

‘Not your brother any longer,’ said Carse. ‘You’ve shown me what you really are-Copper. Lie down on those sacks, and don’t make the mistake of thinking I can’t see you. I’ve been waiting here for you for twenty minutes, so my eyes are quite accustomed to the dark.’

‘Waiting for me?’ repeated Cribb, struggling to understand where he had gone wrong.

‘Do as I say,’ said Carse, more in the manner of a suggestion than an order, ‘or I shall be obliged to put a bullet in your back. It achieves the same result, but I really wouldn’t wish to raise the entire household at this late hour by discharging a gun.’

Cribb groped down towards the sacks. Carse was right: in these conditions it would be suicidal to resist. A man deprived of sight is no match for two functioning eyes and a gun.

‘Would you like to know your mistake?’ Carse was still a disembodied voice, and the removal of the gun from Cribb’s back was no comfort at all. It was probably pointing at his head. Was this to be the last conversation of his life?

He decided to prolong it. ‘I’m interested, yes.’

‘Naturally, I suspected you from the moment I heard about your appearance here. It was just too timely to be acceptable. Things do not happen in such a convenient way, but McGee and the others were so beset with difficulties that they wanted to believe what they should have questioned and rejected. And I give you credit-you have been well primed. Can you see me yet? The gun is aimed at the point between your eyes. Yes, your skill as a machinist is remarkable for a guardian of the law. The demonstration at the lake tonight all but convinced me you were really a professional.’

‘What was wrong, then?’ ventured Cribb, nurturing the conversation with painstaking care.

‘Your mistake?’ said Carse. ‘That was later. I set a small trap for you. I suspected, you see, that this man who was captive here-Thackeray, I think you called him just now- was one of the police, although no amount of questioning or persuasion had tempted him to admit the fact. And I also reasoned that if you were a policeman, you would by now have located Thackeray and communicated with him. From the account I had from Devlin and Miss McGee of the disturbance the other night, it seemed highly probable that you were thus engaged when they suspected someone had broken in. It seemed likely to me that Thackeray would have told you about his interrogations, and triumphantly reported that he had not divulged his connexion with the police. So tonight, after you returned from so capably subduing Miss McGee, I tested you in two ways. I stated, quite unequivocally, that our prisoner was a police officer. And you, correctly, reminded us that we did not know such a thing. This, of course, told me for certain that you had talked to Thackeray; otherwise you would not have known our interrogations had been unsuccessful.’

‘I see,’ said Cribb. ‘What was the other test you gave me?’

‘Ah, that was simply to inform you of our plan to send Thackeray to destruction in the submarine boat. It practically ensured that you would make an attempt to release him tonight-and what better time than when everyone appeared to be occupied in the boat-house? I simply transferred Thackeray to the dynamite store and settled down here to wait for you. You were not long in coming.’

‘Now that I’ve fulfilled your expectations,’ said Cribb, ‘what are you going to do with me?’

‘I could blow your brains out now, couldn’t I?’ said Carse. ‘As it happens, though, I have a well-developed sense of irony. I rather enjoy the notion of Scotland Yard sending two men to insinuate themselves into the dynamite party, and training one of them so efficiently in the art of bomb-making that he prepares the charge that blows the Prince of Wales to Kingdom-come. Not only that; there is the added piquancy of our two gallant protectors of the realm actually manning the diabolical underwater machine that does the deed. You will accompany Thackeray and McGee tomorrow morning. It really is a pity. There are unlikely to be enough recognisable pieces of any of you left for the authorities to appreciate the full irony of what has happened, but I shall enjoy it.’

CHAPTER 14

A white mist hung low over the river at 6 a.m. next morning when Cribb was marched down the path leading to the landing-stage. His wrists were lashed behind his back with thick cord, drawn so tight by Millar that all sensation had gone from his hands. Two broad belts pinioned him, one at the level of his chest, the other his waist. They, too, had been tightened to the maximum. Millar had crushed his boot against Cribb’s back with the zeal of the head of a family fixing straps round the holiday portmanteau. The constriction complicated breathing: he had to take repeated short, shallow breaths; anything deeper was insufferably painful.

Ahead, the steam-launch was moored at the landing-stage. Beyond, loomed the whale-like outline of the submarine boat, lying low in the water, the small conning-tower forming no more than a hump on its back.

‘Step aboard,’ called Carse from the cabin of the launch. ‘And be quick about it. We must make Gravesend by eight o’clock whatever happens, and this mist threatens to be difficult.’

In response to a push from Millar, Cribb stumbled aboard. Rossanna, deathly pale in a black cloak and hood, took his arm and guided him past a case of dynamite into the cabin. He felt most unlike the Paladin he had claimed to be the evening before, but he tried to summon a reassuring expression. If anything was to be salvaged from the ruins of his plan, it would require her co-operation.

‘Cast off, then,’ ordered Carse, who was at the wheel.

Millar obeyed, and the engine throbbed into life.

‘We’re going ahead,’ Carse explained. ‘Devlin will steer a similar course from behind. It’s difficult enough trying to see through the scuttles in that thing, without contending with these conditions. Still, if the mist holds as far as Gravesend, he’ll be able to approach much closer to the pier than we planned.’