The Murders of Richard III - Elizabeth Peters [30]
The remaining breakfasters stared at one another.
“Sick,” said Kent succinctly. “No wonder, that ghastly mess he’s been eating—”
“He eats it every morning,” Thomas said. “I hope he isn’t coming down with something—a virus—”
“I had better see if I can be of help,” said the rector. He popped the last kidney into his mouth. Thomas couldn’t blame him for the smug look on his round face.
The rector trotted out. Jacqueline was staring at the doctor’s plate.
“I wonder…”
“No time to wonder,” said Thomas briskly. “Come on, Jacqueline. If we’re to be back by ten, we’d better get moving.”
Jacqueline went upstairs to get her gloves—“I can’t possibly go to the village without gloves, Thomas!” Thomas took the statement in the spirit in which it was offered. He knew what Jacqueline was going to get. The Purse, in one of its giant manifestations.
As she started up, the butler approached Thomas. He proffered a note on a silver salver.
“This was found in your room, sir, by the maid.”
The envelope had Thomas’s name on it in a hurried scrawl. Thomas opened it.
Jacqueline, on the landing, leaned over the banister. Her hair gleamed like an infernal aureole.
“What is it, Thomas?”
Thomas read the note again. It didn’t take long; the message was brief.
“Come down to the wine cellar after breakfast. I think I’ve found something. Frank. P.S. Don’t tell anyone. This could be dangerous.”
The word anyone was heavily underscored.
“Thomas, what does it say?”
Thomas looked up.
“Nothing much. I’ll meet you here in five minutes.”
The cellar lights were on. This might have alerted Thomas or reassured him, depending on his state of mind; but in fact he didn’t even notice. He was sure Frank had nothing of importance to show him, but he wanted to check it out before he went haring off to the village on what was probably a wild-goose chase. He was also moved by a less noble motive. Jacqueline was lovely and charming and witty, but she was also irritating, with her amused contempt and her air of omniscience. If he could find out something she didn’t know…
Absorbed by these ignoble but satisfying thoughts, Thomas was taken unawares by the blow that struck him down. He saw stars, but that was all he saw, except for the blackness that swallowed him as he felt himself falling.
He came to his senses after an indeterminate period of time, and it took more time, equally impossible to calculate, before he figured out where he was. His position seemed to be the product of delirium or delusion; it couldn’t be real. The growing congestion in his aching head finally convinced him. He was standing on that very head—upside down, to put it plainly. His arms were tightly bound to his sides and his legs were tied together. A gag covered his mouth. He was blind. Literally blind; his eyes were uncovered and open, but he could see nothing. He could smell, however. The smell filled his nostrils and increased the nausea which his position and his injury had instigated. One other sense, normally unused except by the genuinely blind, came feebly to his assistance—the generalized sense of location centered in the nerve cells of his face. Thomas’s brief state of consciousness was fading again, but he was a man of considerable intelligence; his reeling brain put the data together and came up with an incredible answer. The smell of stale wine, the sense of enclosure in something narrow and confining, the absurd, humiliating position. Thomas tried to swear, choked, and fainted again.
When he regained consciousness the second time he opened one eye to check the stimuli before deciding whether to retain his senses. The result was reassuring. He was prone and horizontal; his limbs ached, but they were free; light greeted his eyes, and there had been a fleeting suggestion of a face, haloed in flame and pale with what Thomas hoped was anguish on his behalf. He opened his mouth and croaked like a frog.
“What did you say?” The voice was Jacqueline’s. It was cool and controlled and mildly querulous.