Convicted Innocent(49)

He dimly wondered if this was the same blade used to murder Frank O’Malley, for the appalling symmetry was twisted enough to fit the scene.

Nicholas Harker stopped a little more than an arm’s length away, and Horace forced himself to meet the young man’s gaze.

The inspector couldn’t remember ever really looking at Harker before – really looking at him; cases rarely required it. Certainly Horace knew the young man by sight, but in this short stretch of time before Horace was to kill him, every detail of the young man’s face burned itself into his brain.

Nicholas Harker looked so young. He was no more than 19 as it was. Silent and expressionless, he looked even younger.

Whether culpable for everything the script proclaimed or just a poor fool as entangled as were Lewis Todd, David Powell, and Conway Duke, the young Harker seemed strikingly innocent – even vulnerable – in that moment.

Yet he also seemed resolved to die at the inspector’s hand.

Delay. He must delay.

“Please,” Duke said quietly. “Help us! I—We want to go home.”

Horace half-turned toward the unfortunate spokesman, but after staring into Harker’s eyes, he couldn’t meet Duke’s. It was far easier to look at the man’s feet than his face.

A moment, though.

He chewed his lip.

“If I may ask a question,” the detective said, “how did you come back here, Mr. Duke? My men assured me they saw you safely home.”

When no one objected, Duke replied, “They nabbed me only a minute or two after the bobbies left.”

Horace finally looked up.

“You were injured?”

The other man shook his head. “They grabbed me from behind and used a rag with some sort of vaporous substance to knock me out. I came to when they were leading me down the tunnel here.”

The detective pursed his lips and pointed.

“Whose blood is that?”

Duke looked down. A dark, reddish smudge shown faintly under the shifting lamplight on the toe of the man’s right shoe. The uncle said nothing, only shook his head slightly.

Horace opened his mouth to ask something further, but the little papist began shouting then.

“Nicholas Harker is innocent!” David Powell’s words were hardly more than a rough, hasty shriek, but they carried easily through the chamber. “It’s a trap! This was all set up—!”

Then Horace saw a flash of metal in the hand of the burly, angry thug who’d thrashed the little fellow earlier. Powell’s shout ended abruptly.

The bruiser had stuck a knife in the priest’s back.

At that same moment, Lewis Todd, still supine on the floor, swung his legs around and knocked the blonde to the ground with a sweeping kick.

* * * * *

The pain was sudden and almost inconceivably fierce.

It was as if there were nothing left of his body except that one tremendous, burning sting just to the left of his spine about midway down. It robbed him of his breath and his ability to move, or speak, and almost even to think.

Sights and sounds became oddly disjointed, but they began to fade. The dim light in the circular room dimmed further – slowly at first, and then more rapidly – until all David saw was his friend attacking their captors.

Good. Lew only…pretended….

With a colossal effort, he cast his eyes toward the old detective, but couldn’t tell if Tipple had heeded his warning.

The room went black.

I hope….

The pain lasted longer, but even that disappeared and he knew nothing more.