Convicted Innocent(26)

“To further complicate matters, Mr. Harker stepped into view briefly this afternoon and then disappeared once more before any of my people could lay a finger on him.”

“Where did he turn up?”

“He walked into a Clerkenwell police station. Bold as brass. Came in, left an envelope at the desk, and departed as quiet as you please. Didn’t even bother with a disguise.”

“A police station.”

“Yes. And so unexpected it was that the chaps at Clerkenwell didn’t recognize him or give chase until Mr. Harker had plenty of time to vanish in the afternoon street traffic. Which he did.”

“What was in the envelope?” Hildy asked after a pause.

“A certain policeman’s warrant card and a broken string of prayer beads. The kind a popish vicar might use.”

His wife digested this for a moment.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her brown eyes wide with alarm. “They have both Lewis and his friend… but what can they want? What could be Mr. Harker’s purpose with them?”

“That is why I’m awake at this hour. I can make wild conjectures, but I haven’t the faintest shred of proof in any direction. And since whatever plot’s afoot smacks of far more creativity than Nicholas Harker seems capable of, I begin to wonder if someone else is playing puppet master. Other Harkers are certainly devious enough, but they’ve never resorted to such measures before when one of their own is on trial. They usually worm their way out of charges in the courtroom. On being questioned, they’ve protested that they know nothing.

“To top it off, I have the most nagging suspicion we’re being toyed with, or that my boys and I are puppets as well.”

“Well, it seems obvious you’re being taunted, what with the blatant reappearance and all.”

Horace pursed his lips wryly. “Of course that is a taunt, but I don’t see the need for it. Mr. Harker has been on trial for murder. A very public trial. In that context, this public display would be counterproductive.”

His wife nodded in understanding and yawned. “Lord knows what they’re thinking, then. Fighting a murder charge, but then flaunting multiple kidnappings: quite baffling. Maybe if you stand everything on its head it’ll come out right.”

* * * * *

“Something is the matter with me, Lew. I think you know when it began.”

David had continued speaking to his friend for what had to be hours. The daylight in their cell faded to twilight and then night; lamplight from the adjoining room splintered the darkness through the hole in the wall.

He had reminisced further about their shared youth, about his studies abroad, about the exploits of his nieces and nephews that his sisters and brother had so thoughtfully passed along, and was about to start a new tale when he realized there was a subject he couldn’t avoid any longer.

“A man can face any manner of horrors if they don’t touch his soul, but that accident…” David scrubbed a hand over his face. “The train, two years ago….”

His friend grunted.

“The world shifted that morning. Since then a thousand petty things have happened that make it ever harder to understand the ‘why’ of anything.”

David heard a rustle in the gloom and then Lewis’s hand gripped his arm briefly.

“Not your fault,” his friend whispered. “Have hope.”

The priest shivered but said nothing; the silence lengthened between them. He knew the accident hadn’t been his fault. Logically, anyway. He couldn’t have known what would happen. Even so….