Comes the Dark Stranger - Jack Higgins [10]
She dropped the palette and brush, and turned swiftly, her eyes flashing. ‘And what will you do when you find out?’ she said. ‘What possible good can it do to know after so many years?’
He started to turn away without answering, and she grabbed for his lapels to hold him. One of her hands knocked against the butt of the Luger, and the breath hissed sharply between her teeth. For a moment she gazed up into his face, horror in her eyes, and then she reached inside his jacket and pulled out the pistol. ‘You fool,’ she said. ‘You stupid, damned fool. What good will this do? Will it bring any of those men back? Will it help Simon?’
He took the Luger gently from her hand and replaced it in his inside pocket. As he buttoned his trench-coat he said quietly, ‘Let’s just say I’m doing this for myself and leave it at that.’
She turned from him, hands clasped in agony. ‘What right have you to come and upset all our lives like this?’ she said. ‘It’s ancient history now. Dead and buried long ago. Why can’t you leave it there?’
He ignored her outburst and turned towards the door. As he reached for the handle she cried out sharply, ‘They’ll hang you! You realize that, don’t you?’
A peculiar, twisted smile appeared on his face. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I shan’t be available.’
Something in his voice, some quality of deadness, caused her to shiver uncontrollably. ‘What do you mean by that remark?’ she said.
‘I mean that I’ll be dead, Miss Faulkner,’ he replied calmly, and there was a hard finality in his tone.
As he opened the door she darted across the room and caught hold of his arm. ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded.
He shrugged. ‘That fall I had did more than restore my memory. It moved the shrapnel into a more dangerous area of the brain. It means that an attempt to remove it is essential. I’ve got a date with a brain surgeon at Guy’s Hospital one week from today. If I don’t keep that appointment I’ll be dead within a fortnight and the odds are a hundred to one against success. Quite a choice, isn’t it?’
He walked out on to the veranda without waiting for a reply, and descended the steps to the garden. Behind him Laura Faulkner was crying uncontrollably. He glanced back once and saw her standing in the doorway, the Dobermann by her side, gazing after him.
He followed a path round the side of the house, and when he reached the corner he looked back again, but this time the door to the studio was closed and the veranda deserted.
4
IT was still raining heavily as he walked away from the house, and when he reached the main road he hesitated on the corner, looking for a bus stop. There was a small general store opposite, and he bought some cigarettes and checked on Charles Graham’s address. It was only a quarter of a mile away on the main road into town, and he decided to walk.
He wondered if Graham had changed much. Seven years was a long time, but then Graham hadn’t been very old. He couldn’t be more than thirty-two or three now. As he walked along the wet pavement he tried to visualize the others. Wilby, a rough lout of a man with a long record of petty crimes, but a good soldier. Crowther had been a student, fresh from university, and Charles Graham had worked for his uncle, learning to be a woolbroker. And what about Reggie Steele? Shane tried hard, but was unable to remember.
It was something to which he was becoming accustomed by now, an irritating hangover from his illness that made him forget odd, unimportant things, leaving exasperating blanks in his memory.
He found Graham’s place with no difficulty. It was a large and pretentious, late-Victorian town house in grey stone standing remotely in a sea of smooth lawns and flower-beds. It had one unusual feature. Most of the second storey was taken up by a large conservatory, with a terrace that looked out over the valley to the town below.
Shane checked the address again, and then shrugged and walked along the drive to the front door. He pressed a button and a peal of chimes sounded melodiously from