'Well- I left him tied to a tree somewhere in the heathland,' I said.
Pete began to splutter, but I interrupted him.
'Can you send the horse-box to collect him? Get the driver to come down to Brighton and pick me up on the sea-front, near the main pier. And Pete- have you got a decent map of Sussex?'
'A map? Are you mad? Don't you know where you left him? Have you really just tied the best hunter-'chaser in the country to a tree and forgotten where?' He sounded exasperated.'
'I'll find him easily if you send a map. Don't be too long, will you? I'll tell you all about it later. It's a bit complicated.'
I put down the receiver, and after some thought, rang up The Blue Duck. Ex-Regimental Sergeant-Major Thomkins answered the phone himself.
'The enemy is routed, Sergeant-Major,' I said. 'The Marconicars are out of business.'
'A lot of people will be thankful to hear it,' said the strong deep voice, with a good deal of warmth.
I went on, 'However, the mopping up operations are still in progress. Would you be interested in taking charge of a prisoner and delivering him to the police?'
'I would indeed,' he said.
'Meet me down at the main pier, then, at the double, and I'll gen you up.'
'I'm on my way,' said the sergeant-major.
He joined me by the sea wall soon after I got there myself. It was quite dark by then, and the lights along the front barely lit the ghostly grey lines of the breaking waves.
We had not long to wait for the horse-box, and when it came, Pete himself poked his big bald head out of the passenger seat and called to me. He, I and the sergeant-major got into the back and sat on a couple of straw bales, and as we swayed to the movement of the box on its way west I told them all that had happened since the day Bill died at Maidenhead. All, that is, up to my last conversation with Lodge. Of my visit to the Marconicar office and the true identity of Claud Thiveridge, I said nothing. I didn't know how English law viewed the crime of inciting to suicide, and for various reasons had decided to tell no one about it.
Parts of the story Pete already knew, and part Thomkins knew, but I had to go over the whole thing for them both to get it clear from first to last.
The horse-box driver had been given my note of the all-important signpost, and by comparing it with the map Pete had brought, he drove us back to it in remarkably short time.
Both Admiral and Corny Blake were still attached to their various trees, and we led one and frog-marched the other into the horse-box. Admiral was overjoyed to see us, but Blake's emotions seemed slightly mixed, especially when he recognized Thomkins. It appeared that it was Blake who had bashed the sergeant-major on the head with one of his own bottles.
With a grin I fished Blake's brass knuckleduster out of my pocket and handed it to Thomkins. 'The prisoner's armoury,' I said.
Thomkms tossed the wicked-looking weapon in his hand and tried it on for size, and Blake gave one agonized look at it and rolled off his bale of straw in a dead faint.
'We had better go round by West Sussex racecourse, if you don't mind,' I said. 'My car is still in the car park there; I hope.'
It was there, all alone in the big field, the rising moon glinting on its low dark shape. I stepped down into the road, shook hands with Thomkins and Pete, wished them luck, and watched the red tail-lights of the horse box until they disappeared into the darkness.
Then I went over and started my car, turned my back firmly on what was doubtless my duty – the answering of interminable questions in Brighton police station – and with a purring roar set off for the Cotswolds.
Driven by an irresistible curiosity, I made a detour along the coast to Portsmouth, taking a chance that the public library would still be open there; and it was. In the reference department I hefted out a volume of an encyclopedia and looked up Chichen Itza. The first spelling on the paper was the right one.
Chichen Itza, I found, was not an emperor; it was a capital city. It was the ancient Yucatan capital of the Mayas, an Indian nation who had flourished in Central America fifteen hundred years ago.
I stared at the page until the words faded into a blur.
What happened next was partly, I supposed, delayed reaction from the abysmal fear I felt when I looked into the barrel of Uncle George's gun; and partly it was hunger and a wave of deathly tiredness, and the sudden letting up of the stresses of the past weeks. My hands, my whole body, began to shake. I braced my foot against the leg of the table I was sitting at and gripped the big book hard to stop it. It went on for minutes, until I could have cried with weakness, but gradually the spasm lessened, and the tension went out of my muscles, and I was just plain cold.
Chichen Itza. I stood up stiffly and closed the book and put it back on the shelf, and went soberly out to the car. I had set a better trap than I knew, pretending to be on the point of understanding what Joe might have said before he died.
I remembered clearly the study lined with glass cases. I could see the heavy carved oak desk, the folders devoted to Indian tribes, and the one separate folder clearly marked 'Mayas'. Uncle George had told me too much about the Mayas: and he'd known that Chichen Itza would lead me conclusively to him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
What I had not managed to do for Kate by loving her, I had done by tearing her world apart.
She stood in front of me, rigidly controlling herself, with a look of such acrid unrelenting hatred that I tasted my misery literally as a bitterness in the mouth. The banked fires were burning fiercely at last. There was a new depth and maturity in her face, as if in two weeks she had become wholly a woman. It made her more desirable than ever.
The inquest and inquiry into the life and death of George Penn had been adjourned twice, and had just ended; and police, witnesses, and Kate and I were standing in the hall of the Brighton court buildings, preparing to leave.
The verdict of temporary insanity was merciful, but there had been no hiding from news-scenting journalists the extent of Uncle George's criminal activities, and L. C. Perth and Marconicars had been front page news, on and off, for a fortnight.
My getting Uncle George to kill himself had been no help after all to Aunt Deb. It had been impossible to keep the truth from her, and shock and distress had brought on a series of heart attacks, of which the fourth was fatal. But for Kate, though she knew nothing about it, it was still the best thing. She had had to face the knowledge of his guilt, but not his trial and punishment.
But my letters of condolence had been unanswered. My telephone calls had regularly found her 'out'. And now I saw why. She blamed me alone for the sorrows which had come to her.
'I loathe you,' she said implacably. 'You nauseate me. You wormed your way into our house and accepted everything we gave you-' I thought of those gentle kisses, and so, from the extra flash in her eyes, did Kate- 'and all you have done in return is to hound a poor old man to his death, and kill a defenceless old woman as a result. I have no uncle and no aunt. I have no one anywhere at all. I have no one.' She spoke in anguish. 'Why did you do it? Why couldn't you leave them alone? Why did you have to destroy my home? You knew how much I loved them. I can't bear to look at you, I loathe you so much-'
I swallowed, and tried to work some saliva into my dry mouth. I said, 'Do you remember the children who had to be driven to school by a judo expert to keep them safe?'
But Kate stared blackly back as if she hadn't heard.
'You are the most beastly person I have ever known, and although you have made it impossible for me to forget you, I shall never think of you without- without-' Her throat moved convulsively as if she were going to be sick. She turned away abruptly and walked unsteadily out through the big main door into the street.
The flash of camera bulbs met her and caught her unawares, and I saw her throw up her arm in a forlorn attempt to hide her face. The vulnerability and the loneliness in the droop of her shoulders cried out for comfort, and I, who most wanted to give it, was the only person she wouldn't accept it from. I watched her walk quickly
