Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [52]
This was several months ago. He mentioned all this doubtless to excuse his behaviour: with myself and Torby and the others as the cat, away at church, he was like a liberated mouse, desiring only to meet this bobtail in the woods near Mausolus. Craig strived at all points to blame himself, and not the girl, for what happened next. ‘She kept askin’ if the mad ’ouse’d be all right without me,’ he said on more than one occasion. ‘I wasn’t expectin’ anythin’ to happen!’
(Have I overdone my recollection of his vernacular?) Craig assured me that Mausolus was ‘as quiet as the grave’ before he left, and that he was not planning to be absent for long.
I draw a veil over the subsequent episode of Craig’s account (he said he was
‘putting Nebuchadnezzar out to grass’), but I do note that what came next was a might queer. In the blink of an eye, he said, the very atmosphere of the woods changed – became cold and oppressive. Mr Craig said it was as if a teacher had suddenly entered a room of rioting schoolchildren. The girl said she was sure they were being watched. Craig tried to reassure her, but now she wanted naught else but to escape back to the sanctuary of the farm.
They were both turning to leave when they saw a pair of great, glowing eyes watching them from the trees. These eyes, he said, were like two huge lanterns that split the darkness.
The girl fled in terror; Craig (to his credit) returned at once to Mausolus.
He began checking the rooms and corridors.
‘And what was the time?’ I asked.
90
‘A little after midnight,’ he replied. ‘I wanted nothing more than to settle down to wait for your return from Mass.’
‘And this was when you found Mr Sands?’
Craig nodded. ‘His room was the last on the list. I glanced in and. . . Well, I didn’t ’ave to open the door to see that he was dead! Poor cove. He was by the window, as you saw. His eyes were like white marbles. I swear he’d been staring out at the trees when he died.’
‘You cannot be sure of that.’
‘The window,’ said Craig simply. ‘He’d either let something in, or was trying to keep something out.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ I said firmly. ‘His death was nothing if not normal. His body gave up on his mind. His heart ceased. A sad, but natural, occurrence.’
I told Craig that we would deal with his dereliction of duty at a later date, and asked him to get a suitable message through to Mr Joseph Sands.
I decided that, as soon as it was light (despite the lamps that burn every hour in the corridors of Mausolus the patients are deserving of their sleep, especially if they are to wake to such unfortunate news), I would question Mary Jones and Haward, whose rooms are either side of Mr Sands. I did not, for a moment, think that anything was amiss, but even if his death were natural, either one might have heard something.
I knew also that, for different reasons, coming out and asking uncomplicated questions might not elicit the answers I was searching for.
It is often my habit to play cards with Jones – she retains enough of her wits to beat me with bothersome regularity, and to understand why she is incarcerated.
‘You are most kind to come and see me on Christmas morning,’ she said as she dealt out two hands from a well-thumbed pack of cards. The once bright backs of the cards had faded, and there were occasional nicks and marks on them. (I would not put it past her to have memorised the precise complexion of each and every card.) ‘It surely cannot be the quality of my card-playing that keeps you from celebrating Christmas.’
‘The Reverend William Macksey would doubtless say that a true celebration of Christmas is to do what Christ did.’
‘But what would you say?’ she asked, with great perception.
‘I would say that my real reason is concern at the death of Sands.
I assume you have heard the sad news.’
A strange animation briefly held Jones’s face, which oftentimes