Convicted Innocent(30)

Horace chewed his lip some more. “Has the coroner stated whether he might be able to determine where our deceased has been recently?”

Nolan and Bradtree looked at each other.

“I’ll ask him, sir,” Bradtree whistled for the both of them.

“Very well. Also, consider where a fugitive might find the means to hide himself, as well as enjoy the ability to enter and exit with relative ease without alerting the public.”

Several heads around the table nodded.

“Now,” Horace said, returning to one of the many and multiplying issues that bothered him, “why do you think Harker would kill – rather, personally execute – one of his greatest supporters only two days after escaping police custody?”

* * * * *

“Stop.”

At first, the priest thought he’d spoken without meaning to. But his lips hadn’t moved from their frozen grimace, and he hadn’t the breath to speak anyway.

“S-stop!”

Someone pushed between David and his attackers, repeating the stuttering injunction a third time. For a time, the second thug had held the priest steady for the other to strike; then the second fellow had released him to have a go as well. David had sunk down on his haunches and huddled against the wall with his eyes closed; from this position, now, the priest couldn’t tell who the newcomer was.

The battering stopped.

“Move yer arse, y’bloody fool,” the first thug snarled.

“N-no! No!” The newcomer’s words were a cross between a command and a plea; at the same time, David felt himself wrapped in gentle embrace.

“Why you—!”

“—Venn!” The second thug cut the first off sharply. “Boss says we can’t touch ‘im.”

The first – whose name was apparently Venn – grumbled most vehemently at this, but (to David’s surprise) he respected both the newcomer’s wishes and the second thug’s reminder.

After a moment, David opened his eyes – one was nearly swelled shut – and saw Innocent’s face only a few inches from his own.

“Thank you,” the priest murmured. Split and bleeding though his lips were, he managed to speak coherently. Innocent beamed in response.

The young man helped David stand. His body screamed quite unhappily at this, but the priest was pleased to note none of his new pains shrilled with the sharpness of broken bones.

Small mercy.

The fair-haired chap returned a minute or two later, and the two thugs crowded David against the wall again. With Innocent at his shoulder, the only violence the two directed toward him were hostile looks (the third thug still seemed as bored as ever).

A new fellow who’d accompanied the blonde into the room completely arrested David’s attention.

This chap was no taller than the priest himself, of a slight but sturdy build, and dressed in the long, loose shirt and baggy, straight-legged trousers of the Orient. The fellow’s face was a round collection of lines and wrinkles, his eyes were an impassive almond in both shape and color, and the hair that straggled out from beneath a squashed felt cap was uniformly white.

In silence, the old man knelt down next to Lewis, who was deathly still in the lamplight’s glow…though David could still hear him wheezing ever so faintly.

Every person in the room – even the bored thug – was riveted by the sight of the little foreigner as he transformed the room into an impromptu surgery.

Over the course of the next hour or so (David couldn’t be certain how long), the old man worked over the policeman with long-nailed, deft fingers. When he finally finished, Lewis was rather bloodied, but his breathing was noticeably stronger, less labored, and his face no longer bluish.