Death Devil's Bridge (20 page)

There was only one way to stop. Kate braced her feet, tightened every muscle, and pushed on the hand-brake lever with all her might. The leather-covered block on the right wheel gripped and almost held. The brake on the left did not. The motorcar swung violently to the right, lurched onto the two right-side wheels, and plunged into the ravine. Kate heard the long, shuddering scream rise from her throat as she was flung into the air, and then a deafening crash, and utter silence.

“Kate?” Charles's arms came suddenly around her in the dark, strong and sure, and she gasped with mingled fear and relief. “It's all right, dear,” he whispered, smoothing her hair. “You're safe. It was only a dream.”

“Yes,” she gasped, and clutched him close. “A
horrible
dream.” And she told him what she remembered of the nightmare.

“You know,” Charles said thoughtfully, “it could have happened in that way—an accident caused when Albrecht was forced to brake too quickly, and went off the road.” He chuckled in the dark. “It's too bad your dream personage had no face, Kate. Perhaps you could have told us who removed the grapnel from the gondola.”

“Laugh if you like, Charles,” Kate said soberly. “But all the same, when you examine the wreckage, you should inspect the brakes. If the left had held as well as the right, I think I could have stopped.”

“I shall, of course,” Charles replied. “But it was only a dream, Kate. Don't mix the real and the imaginary.” He paused, and then said, with a kind of feigned carelessness, “I don't suppose I happened to mention that Albrecht believed that the left brake did not hold?”

“No,” Kate said in a small voice. “You did not.” And as she lay back against the pillow, her heart still pounding with remembered fear, all she could think of was the runaway motorcar flying down Devil's Hill, and the figure with no face, and the brake that did not hold.

The devil fries fastest in his own grease.

—English Proverb

 

 

 

I
n the rose-covered gatehouse cottage, Lawrence left his bed and dressed himself in the Sabbath dark, as usual, to save the candle. He was not his usual self, however, having spent a tormented night in anxious tossings, so that the sheets on the bed he shared with Amelia were twisted and drenched in sweat.

Lawrence had heard of the motorcar crash late on the previous evening as he sat by the kitchen fire at Bishop's Keep, waiting for Amelia, who had been helping with her ladyship's dinner party. The news had completely unnerved him, for to Lawrence, there was only one explanation for the Daimler's crashing at Devil's Bridge, at the foot of the two steepest hills in the whole district. He had sat for a full half-hour, watching in his mind's eye as the car flew down one hill, shot across the bridge, and ran partway up the far hill as it lost power and then began to roll backward, out of control. The primitive braking system, which was less effective in reverse, would not have held it, and he could imagine the car rolling backward, gathering speed, the driver desperately trying to brake and steer backward. No, even though Lawrence might have thought of it,
should
have thought of it, the report that the car was demolished and Albrecht dead came as no great surprise.

Lawrence had managed to get through the rest of the evening without the kitchen staff noticing that something was dreadfully amiss. But his apprehension had not escaped Amelia's notice, and once at home, before their own fire, she had compelled him to tell her all.

“Ooh, Lawrence!” she had exclaimed, her eyes gone very wide and her face white as paper. “Wot'll they do to ye, when it's all found out?” She had clasped her hands and held them to her bosom as the tears began to come. “Wot'll become o' us, Lawrence?” she had wailed. “We're as good as dead, like '
im
!”

Lawrence had tried his best to comfort her, holding her in his arms and kissing away the tears. But nothing had availed, and he knew that Amelia's sleep had been as tormented as his own. What
should
he do? What
could
he do? In the sleepless hours, he had thought of a dozen different answers to those unanswerable questions, and had at last decided on one—not a very good one, but the only one that seemed at all workable. Perhaps, as the day went on, another, better answer would come to him.

Lawrence whistled loudly as he dressed, to buoy his spirits and soothe Amelia's, and went to the kitchen to eat the breakfast she had prepared for him: hot oatcakes with a scraping of butter, a boiled egg, kippers, marrow toast, and tea. The food tasted like so much dry hay, but he knew she had cooked it to cheer him. He ate it to please her, who moved like a small wan ghost from stove to table.

He was well into it when there was a knock on the door and to Lawrence's distressed surprise, Sir Charles entered, dressed as for a photographic expedition. He was wearing a brown canvas jacket, well worn, with lumpy pockets which outlined odds and ends of camera gear: a viewfinder, a light meter, an accessory shutter. His tweed breeches were tucked into heavy-soled brown boots, and he wore an old soft felt hat with a mashed crown, pushed to the back of his head.

“Good morning, Amelia,” Sir Charles said, and took off his hat. “Good morning, Lawrence. I am sorry to interrupt your breakfasts, but I would like a word, if you don't mind.”

“Good momin', Sir Charles,” Amelia whispered, dropping an ungraceful curtsey.

“Momin‘, sir,” echoed Lawrence uneasily, rising. He gestured to the empty chair. “ 'Ave some tea, sir, if ye please, an' an oatcake.”

“Sit down,” Sir Charles said, as Amelia poured steaming tea into a cup, and placed an oatcake on a plate. “You've heard about the motorcar crash?”

“Last night.” Lawrence seated himself, and hardened his voice, taking the tack on which he'd decided. “Ye'll pardon me, Sir Charles, if I say that's wot comes o' lettin' a furriner drive Lord Bradford's motorcar. That's wot I tol' ‘is lordship when I saw 'im leavin' the ‘ouse last night. ‘It's a damn great shame,' I sez to 'im, an ‘e sez, 'Yes, Lawrence, it's a shame.' ”

“I suppose we should remember that it was a foreigner who built that particular motorcar,” Sir Charles said mildly, and added, buttering his cake, “I would like to ask you to come with me to Devil's Bridge, Lawrence. The wreckage must be retrieved and the pieces identified.” He paused and added, with what seemed to Lawrence a deep significance, “I believe that you're the man for the job.”

Lawrence had raised his kipper-laden fork halfway to his mouth, and there it hung. “The pieces ident' fied?”

“There is some question about the car, it seems.” Sir Charles, busy with his food, did not look up, but Lawrence felt his scrutiny.

“Question?” Slowly, carefully, the forkful of kippers descended back to the plate. “Wot sort o' question?”

There was a moment's silence. “It seems,” Sir Charles said vaguely, “that the vehicle did not burst into flame.” He stirred his tea. “I thought perhaps you might be able to tell me why.”

“Me?” Lawrence bent over and shoveled the last of the kippers into his mouth. “Why d'ye ask me, sir?”

Amelia refilled her husband's cup in such a nervous haste that she splashed tea into the saucer. With a desperate attempt at normalcy, she said, “ 'E asks 'cause you know more about Lord Marsden's motorcar than anybody.” She appealed to Sir Charles, who was finishing his food. “I‘nt that jes' like the man, 'idin' 'is light under a bushel?”

Sir Charles gave a dry chuckle. “Indeed, Amelia. Lord Bradford claims that your husband knows every nut and bolt in that vehicle, and I believe him.” Lifting his cup, he drained it and stood up. “Thank you for the tea and cake. Lawrence, I shall drive on. I give you leave to absent yourself from Lady Kathryn's household prayers this morning, and when you have finished your breakfast, I should like you to bring the wagon to Devil's Bridge. We shall need it to fetch the wreckage back here to the barn, where you can examine it. And bring a good pair of gloves as well, if you please. I want those pieces handled with as much care as you would use to handle plates in the photography lab.”

Lawrence raised his eyes, not wanting to ask because he thought he knew the answer. “An' why, sir, wud ye want that?” In his nervousness, the question was put more forcefully than he had intended.

“Lawrence!” Amelia exclaimed, horrified at his effrontery.

Sir Charles looked him straight in the face, his eyes suddenly gone hard. “Bring the wagon, Lawrence,” he said, very low. “And the gloves.”

And Lawrence, quaking inside, did as he was bid.

 

The balmy late-summer weather had turned overnight. The dawn air was chill and the breeze had a cutting edge as Charles arrived at Devil's Bridge, his thoughts troubled by what had just transpired at the Quibbley cottage. That Lawrence had done something to the motorcar he did not doubt, although he could only guess what it had been.

Early as it was, Ned Laken was there before him. The constable had tied his horse and trap at the top of the steep hill, blocking the road, and was standing now at the bottom, surveying the wooded ravine beneath the bridge. With him was Thomas Gaskell, the P.C. from the nearby tiny village of Lawford, who had guarded the area all night.

P.C. Gaskell was a tall, thin scarecrow of a man whose bony wrists extended two inches beyond his cuff and whose trousers ended well up his boots. “Nossir,” he was saying to Laken in a squeaky voice, “noffink an' nobody's been ‘ere, sir.” He rubbed his straw-colored hair, which stuck out over both ears. “Just me an' the owls an' that wreck of a motorcar down there.” He gestured toward the Daimler, which had come to rest forty feet below. “Don't trust them 'orseless carriages meself,” he added. “ 'Tis only the mercy o' Providence as this one didn't burn itself up and fry the poor devil that drove it.”

The motorcar was jammed between two large beeches. As far as Charles could see, it had been totally destroyed by the impact, the frame twisted, the two rear wheels at odd angles, and mangled chunks of metal and wood and upholstery scattered among the rocks and trees.

“Jessup reported that he found Albrecht just there,” Laken said, pointing toward a large horse chestnut a dozen yards uphill of the wreckage. “In any event, that's where he lay when I arrived.”

Charles turned and looked back up the hill, noticing the deep, uneven ruts in the dirt lane—a difficult surface to manage even under the best of conditions. The Daimler must have been flying at more than twenty miles an hour when it reached the foot of the hill, an incredible velocity for so light a vehicle. At that speed, he doubted that Albrecht could have steered safely across the narrow bridge, constructed as it was of uneven planking with gaps between, and hardly passable even for slow-moving horse-drawn vehicles. How had Albrecht managed to keep the Daimler on four wheels as long as he had? And why hadn't the car, loaded as it was with a full tank of fuel, burst into flames when it crashed? There was only one probable answer to that question, and Charles thought he knew what it was.

He looked back into the ravine. “Was Albrecht flung free from the wreckage, or did he crawl?” he asked.

“Crawled, most likely,” Laken replied. “He might have been trying to reach the road, where he hoped he would be rescued. Not much of a hope, though,” he added thoughtfully. “There is little traffic in this lane, since most wagons must avoid the steep hill.”

“Crawlt,” agreed Gaskell emphatically. “There's broken bits o' grass an' twig, an' bloody marks where the pore bloke dragged ‘isself along by 'is elbows an' knees. Cruel 'ard-work, I'd say.” He beckoned. “Come an' see fer yerselfs.” And picking his way gingerly through the underbrush, he led the way down the hill.

Some moments later, having surveyed the wreckage and the site, Sir Charles found himself in full agreement with P.C. Gaskell. The driver had apparently ridden the vehicle to the bottom of the ravine and had most likely received the fatal injury when the Daimler fetched up against the beech trees. There was blood on the broken tiller shaft, blood on the seat, and blood on a flat rock on the right side of the wreckage. A bloody trail of disturbed leaves and grass could be followed with the eye, up the hill to the spot where Albrecht had been found.

And it took only one quick look to confirm Charles's guess as to why the Daimler had not exploded upon impact—as it certainly should have done, given its engineering design. The engine had a flame-heated hot-tube igniter that was known to present a dreadful fire hazard, and its surface carburetor required a highly volatile petrol which would necessarily have a very low flashpoint. One of the same model had recently crashed and burned near Paris, killing the driver. But when Charles unscrewed the metal cap to peer into the fuel tank, he discovered the reason why this one had not burned. The tank was virtually empty, even though the car had not traveled a great distance. Why?

And to that mystery was quickly added another. When he turned to a close examination of the rear wheels, Charles saw that only one of the leather-covered wood-block brakes—the one on the right, on the driver's side—was in place: the one on the left, the one that might have caused the car to go into the ravine, was missing.

“I'll get my camera and photograph the scene,” Charles said, when they stood once again on the road. “Lawrence will be here shortly with a wagon and team to retrieve the motorcar, if Constable Gaskell would be so kind as to assist. Harry Hodson has also agreed to come. And we will need a thorough search of the area,” he added, thinking of the missing brake mechanism. “I want to be sure that all of the loose bits of the vehicle have been located, their positions marked and the pieces properly recovered.”