Pax Britannia: Human Nature (43 page)

"Oh, it's not case closed yet, my dear," Ulysses remarked, somewhat condescendingly.

"It's not? But you've caught the killer."

"Yes, but look at him," Ulysses said, "he's an imbecile. Severely brain-damaged as a result of his attempt to become a member of the Damocles Club all those years ago. There's no way that he could have masterminded the murders himself, tracking down the perpetrators of something that took place thirty-seven years ago."

Lucy looked again at the pathetic creature bound to the chair before them. Ulysses was right. Marley was a blunt instrument, nothing more.

"No," Ulysses went on, "this poor wretch is merely the puppet. Someone else has been pulling the strings all along. And when we have this puppet-master, then we can consider the case closed."

"So, who's that then?" Lucy was feeling exasperated now. Ulysses flashed her a devilish grin. "You do know, don't you?"

"No - not at all!" he declared gleefully. His devil-may-care attitude was starting to grate on Lucy's nerves.

"But you know where to start looking," the Master suddenly said.

"I do indeed."

"It's the knife-fist, isn't it?" Ashton-Griffiths went on, focusing all his attention on the murder weapon that now lay on the blotting pad on his desk.

It was a rusted metal affair, not unlike a knuckleduster, with a bar that was held in the palm, and four sharp blades that effectively formed claws in place of the wearer's fingers when it was gripped in the hand.

Ulysses nodded. "And I have my old alma mater to thank for that morsel of useful knowledge. After all, it was at those times when I was actually working towards my degree in Social Anthropology that I visited the Pitt Rivers Museum and saw this particular item for the first time."

Ulysses turned on his heel and made for the door. "Miss Gudrun, I would appreciate it if you would wait here for the police with the Master."

"But-" Lucy tried to protest.

"Don't worry, you've still got your exclusive, but you've done enough. Nimrod, you're with me."

As the dandy and his butler exited the Master's study in a whirl of coat tails and well-bred arrogance, Lucy was left mouthing 'O's like a goldfish.

"Quicksilver's wasting his time," the Master said from the other side of the room, teacup and saucer in hand again.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked intrigued.

"I mean, they won't find the killer's manipulator at the museum. They don't know who they're looking for."

"And you do?"

"I've a pretty good idea," the Master said, the steel back in his voice. Ignoring the curious gaze of the drooling idiot still bound to the chair in the middle of his study, Ashton-Griffiths moved for the door. "Wouldn't you rather come with me, now, and find out if I'm right, rather than wait here for the police with... with that?"

A moment later, Lucy Gudrun ran out of the study on the heels of the darkly determined Master.

VIII - SINS OF THE FATHERS

"This is most irregular," the curator complained as Ulysses barged past him and into the echoing hall that housed the Pitt Rivers collection. Nimrod shot the man a look that silenced him and followed his master into the museum annexe.

Their insistent knocking had alerted a night watchman - saving Nimrod the bother of having to pick the locks - who had then fetched the curator from his attic apartment. The curator answered the night watchman's summons in his pyjamas and slippers. He had not been best pleased.

The cavernous space of the museum rose for three floors above them in the darkness. Ulysses was aware of bizarre shadow-shapes looming out of the darkness all around him. As the curator trotted anxiously after the invaders of this sanctuary, Ulysses and Nimrod turned on their torches.

Ulysses gasped in delight as his sweeping beam illuminated the leering faces of a totem pole, suspended Eskimo kayaks and luridly-painted Balinese ritual masks. The place never failed to evoke a familiar thrill of wonder and joy.

Ulysses had been a regular visitor to the University Museum of Natural History and its Pitt Rivers' extension, when he had been a student at Boriel College, sometimes for purposes of study, at other times simply to luxuriate in the eccentric, jingoistic glory of it all.

It was a magical place, a monument to the attitudes and explorers - like Captain James Cook - who had helped to make Magna Britannia great.

It was rumoured that the collection contained half a million objects, displayed according to type - everything from masks and musical instruments, to fetishes, jewellery and weaponry. And it was the last of those things that had brought him back here on this dark Christmas Eve.

His own collection of esoteric and exotic pieces from around the world were almost a homage to this wonderful relic of the nineteenth century, but it couldn't compare to this collection gathered during Cook's expedition to the South Pacific and since donated by Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers.

"Most irregular, you say," Ulysses announced, suddenly turning on the thin-faced curator, shining his torch beam directly into the startled man's face. The curator threw up a hand to save himself from being blinded.

"So is murder, Mr...?"

"It's Doctor, actually," the curator bit back. "Doctor Brierley."

"Would you happen to know if there was such a thing as a Hootoo Clan fighting-fist in the museum collection?" Ulysses asked, turning his torch back onto the display cases full of shrunken heads and flint axes that surrounded him.

"Wh-What? W-Well, yes," the flustered curator flapped, "as it happens."

"Ah, I knew it! I was sure there was." He turned back to the curator who was still trying to knot the belt of his dressing gown about his waist. "Can I see it?"

"Er, yes... I-I mean no."

"Ah! And why not?" Ulysses pressed, leaning towards the curator, breaking the invisible barrier of Doctor Brierley's own personal space. Brierley took a nervous step backwards, only to find Nimrod there, looming over his shoulder, watching him with eagle-intensity. "Lost it, have you?

"Oh, no. It's out on loan."

"On loan?"

"Yes, along with a number of other items, to the college."

"Which one?" Ulysses said, his voice low and intense.

"Christ Church."

Ulysses' look of diffident arrogance began to weaken and his face began to pale. Things were not working out quite as he had expected them to.

"And in whose name was the agreement made?" he asked, his throat suddenly tight.

"The Reverend Havelock of the cathedral."

IX - MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL

"This is hardly the time, or the place," the old priest chided, keeping his voice low as the lilting strains of the choir soared into the vaulted roof of the cathedral. "Can't you see that we are in the middle of celebrating Midnight Mass?"

"Tell me then, Reverend," Virgil Ashton-Griffiths rallied, "when
would
be a good time to discuss your son?"

Lucy looked from the Master to the old priest and back again, her mouth agape in appalled amazement.

The old man hesitated before answering the Master's challenge. "What are you talking about? What is this talk of a son? I have no son!"

But he had hesitated too long before responding to the Master's accusation.

"You and I both know that you do have a son, Reverend, and that he's alive and - although I wouldn't go so far as to say well - abroad in Oxford!"

"This is outrageous!" the old man hissed. He had to be in his eighties - his late seventies at least - Lucy thought as she studied the quivering wattles of the old man's neck and the liver-spotted scalp visible beneath the few wisps of white hair. He was turning an extraordinary shade of purple. "How dare you come in here, on today of all days, making such wild claims!" he fumed.

"I dare because it's the truth!" the Master snarled. His steely gaze locked with the rheumy eyes of the old man. "We all knew even when we were at University, the first time we met Marley - the priest's bastard!"

Fire leapt in the Reverend's eyes at that but it seemed that the Master's brow-beating persistence had paid off; the old man was no longer able to avoid the younger man's glaring gaze.

"I feel like I have the blood of enough men on my hands as it is," Ashton-Griffiths went on. "I need absolution, I'm fully aware of that, but your need is greater than mine."

The Reverend seemed to visibly shrink before Lucy's eyes, his shoulders sagging, his stick-thin scarecrow frame shrouded by his plain black cassock.

"Very well, he said," his voice softer now. "Come with me."

The old man turned and led them back towards the entrance of the cathedral, away from the candle-lit nave and the host of the Christmas faithful.

Oxford's cathedral was packed. The building was small by the standards of other cathedrals, no bigger in reality than many ordinary churches, and it was never fuller than at Midnight Mass. It was only a matter of minutes now until Great Tom tolled twelve and welcomed in Christmas Day.

Her heart thumping in her chest, Lucy followed the Master as the Reverend Lemuel Havelock led them with faltering steps towards the shadows beneath the raised organ loft.

The choir concluded its anthem and there was the rustle of carol sheets as the congregation rose to their feet, with an accompaniment of coughs and throat-clearing. Then the strident tones of the organ began to sing out, breaking into the tune of 'O Come All Ye Faithful'.

"Here, there's something I should show you," the old man said, still with his back to them. Lucy couldn't be certain in the gloom at the back of the church but it looked like the priest was fumbling for something within the sleeve of his cassock.

He spun round with surprising speed, the carved wooden blowpipe already to his lips and gave one short sharp puff.

The tiny thorn lodged in the Master's neck. Ashton-Griffiths gave a brief cry of surprise and fell to his knees, one hand to where the thorn had entered his flesh. A second later, he fell face first onto the cold stone-flagged floor.

Lucy froze, a stifled scream caught in her throat, as the old man turned to her, a second thorn ready between his lips.

Some of those at the back of the congregation turned and looked back, peering over their shoulders into the shadows beneath the organ loft, uncertain as to what they had heard over the stirring refrain of the carol.

The west door banged opened, the resounding crash reverberating throughout the cathedral. The organist played on, but by now many among the congregation had stopped singing and were exchanging comments and glances instead, as they craned their necks to see who had invaded the sanctity of their Christmas celebration.

"Reverend Havelock! Stop right there!" Ulysses Quicksilver bellowed.

The old man darted a glance the dandy's way, caught completely off-guard by his arrival. The blowpipe still to his lips, the old man puffed again and Ulysses - reacting to the sudden lightning burst of his heightened sixth sense - ducked in time to avoid the dart that came propelled by the breath. He fancied he felt, or heard, the thorn-dart whistle past his ear before being stopped by the door of the church swinging shut behind him.

And then, as Lucy stood rooted to the spot in terror, standing over the body of the Master of Boriel College, with a surprising turn of speed, the priest was away, up the cast-iron spiral staircase to the organ loft.

Ulysses followed, scaling the twisting staircase as quickly as he could. He reached the loft only a moment after the old man and came face-to-face with the priest's puff-cheeked face.

The merry playing of the organ broke off in a cacophonous crash of registers and pedals as Ulysses threw himself sideways onto the startled man, barely avoiding a second poison-tipped missile.

By now, even the choir had realised that something was wrong. All had ceased their singing and were craning their heads to follow the progress of the two combatants above them.

Having untangled himself from the shrieking organist, Ulysses turned to find the old man gone.

"He went that way, sir!" Nimrod called from below, pointing to a narrow stone archway and the tight spiral stair that lay beyond it.

"Give yourself up, man!" Ulysses shouted across the void of the tower. "There's nowhere for you to run!"

He glanced from the withered form of the Reverend Havelock, scrambling unsteadily between the arches of the colonnade beneath the high stained glass windows of the cathedral tower, to the body of the church far below them. He could see pale faces peering up at them from between the myriad nimbuses of candlelight that formed their own constellation of Christmas stars below.

"Never!" Havelock shrieked back at him. "You really think I'm going to give myself up now?"

Distracted, the old man lost his footing. The congregation below them gasped in horror as one. The Reverend Havelock lurched forwards, making a grab for the next stone column as his right foot slipped off the precarious ledge he was attempting to negotiate. Ulysses' breath caught in his throat.