Palmer. I'll leave some posters in the pub and the church hall as I go by.'
The doctor's waiting-room was empty. The inner door stood ajar. He paused on the threshold.
She was sitting behind a desk writing in a notebook, her brow creased in a frown of concentration.
Lamplight gave a glow to her fair skin and he could see the fine golden hairs on her forearms where she had rolled back the sleeves of her white blouse.
'Is that you, John?'
When she looked up and saw it was him, she rose and came straight into his arms. He kissed her. She stood back to study his face. He had always felt she had the power to see into him.
'You're sleeping better.' The doctor spoke approvingly.
'Have you had any luck with your poster?'
He took one from the manila envelope he was carrying and showed it to her. She glanced at it for a few seconds and then shook her head.
'May Birney thinks she's seen him, but she can't remember where.'
He put his arms around her again. Her neck smelled faintly of jasmine. He could never find the words he wanted.
'Let me finish what I'm doing. I won't be long.' She returned to her chair. 'How soon must you go back?
Can you stay for dinner? Can you spend the night?'
'The night…?' He hadn't expected it. 'I've got nothing with me.'
'Never mind that. I'll find whatever you need. But I warn you, the house is full of relations. Father invited a whole shoal of cousins for the weekend. I can only put you in the old nursery.' She paused. Their eyes met. 'We'll have to be quiet,' she said, smiling. 'Aunt Maud's in the room next door and she's got ears like a bat.'
The joy he felt whenever they were together was tempered by the knowledge of what it would mean to lose her. He knew he would never meet anyone like her again.
She picked up her pen. 'I'm filling in my day-book, my record of patients. I didn't have time this morning.
The hospital in Guildford rang and asked me to go in.'
'Typhoid, Will said.'
'Food poisoning.' She made a wry face and went back to her notebook.
He looked about him. A glass-fronted cabinet held medical books and bandages, rolls of lint and wool, splints and surgical gauze. Behind her a partition divided the room and on the other side was a dispensary with shelves of glass-stoppered bottles. A faint smell of antiseptic hung in the air. He saw that she was watching him.
'This is my life,' she said softly. She coloured and looked down.
Her life?
She had given his back to him.
When he spoke the words seemed to come of their own accord, as if he were simply breathing. 'I love you,' he said.
She looked up, still flushed. 'So you've got a tongue, John Madden…' Her eyes were bright in the lamplight.
It was as though a wave had lifted him and carried him to her side. He was shaking like a leaf.
'My darling, it's all right… Didn't you know…?'
She held him fast in the circle of her arms. He heard a noise somewhere near, but he clung to her.
She was whispering something in his ear.
'What?' He loosened his hold.
'Sir, are you there?' Stackpole's voice sounded loud in the outer room.
'What is it, Will?' He tore himself from her arms.
'Sir, they've found him!' The constable burst in on them. He was red in the face and panting.
'Who?'
'Pike!'
'Where?'
'Ashdown Forest. They're watching him now. At least, they think it's him, that's all I know.' He was breathing hard. 'Guildford have been trying to reach me. Sir, the chief inspector wants you back in London right away…!'
She took him in her car to the station. He wanted time to speak to her. The words that for so long had been dammed up inside him were ready to overflow.
But the whistle of the approaching train sounded as she drew up outside the station.
They kissed in the darkness.
'Promise me you'll take care. Come back as soon as you can.'
Holding her for a moment in his arms he realized with a surge of happiness that the burden of anxiety he'd carried since their first time together had slipped from his shoulders unnoticed.
The fear he'd always had that each meeting might be their last.
Part Four
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath.
I have a rendezvous with death…
Alan Seeger, 'Rendezvous'
Sinclair rose from behind his desk. He surveyed the men assembled before him. Besides Hollingsworth and Styles they included six uniformed officers — two of them sergeants — all selected for their skill in marksmanship.
'To those of you who have been summoned from your homes to the Yard this evening, I apologize,' he began. 'But as you will see in a moment the matter is extremely grave.'
The door opened and Bennett came in. He was dressed in evening clothes, the gold studs gleaming in his shirt front. Hollingsworth, who was seated at Madden's desk, rose and offered his chair to the deputy assistant commissioner. The others stood grouped in a semi-circle.
'Three days ago a woodcutter named Emmett Hogg fell into a pit in Ashdown Forest. Unfortunately he didn't bother to report it until today, even though rural constables throughout southern England have been spreading the word for some time now that they want to be informed about any fresh digging in forest areas. At our request, I might add.
'Hogg made his report to the village bobby at Stonehill — that's in the Crowborough district — and this afternoon the constable went out to inspect the site, taking a friend with him, a local gamekeeper.
Luckily, as it turned out, because when they got near the keeper spotted some movement in the bushes. The constable — his name's Proudfoot — decided not to approach immediately, another piece of good judgement, and after a while they spotted a man moving about in the area. They were some distance away and the site was in the middle of thick undergrowth. But at a certain moment they got a clear view of him. He was carrying a rifle.'
A murmur went around the group. Sinclair caught Bennett's eye.
'Not a shotgun,' the chief inspector declared emphatically. 'A Lee-Enfield. They saw him clear the breech and check the firing mechanism. Both men are clear on that point.'
He glanced down at his desk.
'Some of you will have seen the photograph we began circulating today of the man we wish to question in connection with the murders at Melling Lodge.
It's possible, even likely, that the individual observed by Proudfoot in Ashdown Forest this afternoon is Amos Pike, the man we're seeking.'
The murmur, this time, was louder.
'In requesting information about any unauthorized excavations we asked the various police authorities to impress on their constables the need to exercise caution.
Proudfoot acted with good sense in not approaching this man. What he did was leave his friend watching from cover while he returned himself to Stonehill and telephoned the central police station at Crowborough. They in turn rang Tunbridge Wells where I'm glad to say the local CID chief thought it worth while to get in touch with me right away.'
Sinclair paused to collect his thoughts.
