The Murders of Richard III - Elizabeth Peters [47]
He watched while Jacqueline advanced on the group consisting of the rector, the doctor, and O’Hagan. She cut the latter neatly out of the group, removed him to a cozy sofa near the window, and sat down beside him.
Thomas was aroused from thoughts that did not become him by Weldon’s impatient exclamation. “Where are Percy and his mother? It’s late; we must begin.”
Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones may have delayed her entrance in order to be the last to appear, but something had happened to distract her. She trotted into the room without pausing to strike a pose.
“Where is Percy? Liz, have you seen your brother?”
Liz turned.
“No, I came down some time ago.”
“He’s not in his room,” said Percy’s mother.
Jacqueline stood up and began to run. She crossed the room doing a solid six miles an hour, and vanished out the door.
It was a ludicrous sight, but Thomas was not amused. He was still hypnotized by history. Jacqueline’s streaming hair and pale face, her golden gown conjured up visions out of England’s past—visions of queens and royal ladies fleeing for their lives. Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s next-to-last wife, whose wailing ghost is still seen rushing down the corridors of Hampton Court; Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Jane Grey. All Tudor victims…
Something snapped into place in his mind with a horrible click. He leaped up and followed Jacqueline. Liz and Frank reached the door at the same time. Their faces were shaped into the same expression of pallid fear.
“Where?” Frank asked. “The cellars…”
Thomas saw Jacqueline taking the stairs two at a time. Her skirts were raised to her knees.
“Upstairs,” he grunted, and shoved past the others.
Jacqueline didn’t bother investigating the boy’s room; she looked in the other bedrooms. Thomas had never realized the sheer size of Weldon House until that time. It was nightmarish. The doors seemed to go on forever, down one unending corridor after another.
“How the hell many doors are there in this museum?” Jacqueline wailed, opening another door.
She hardly paused; but there was a split second’s hesitation before she flung herself across the threshold. Thomas reached the door in time to see what was within.
The figure sprawled on the bed was Percy; there was no mistaking that gross shape. The face was hidden by a fat white pillow.
“Smothered in the Tower,” someone behind him was babbling. Thomas could not identify the voice; it was shrill with horror. “Smothered between two feather beds!”
5
IN THE SPLIT-SECOND PAUSE BETWEEN DISCOVERY and action, Thomas’s ingenious imagination presented him with a series of horrific pictures. It was a wasted effort. When Jacqueline snatched the pillow away, he saw Percy’s familiar pink face, open mouthed and wet-lipped; the lips vibrated perceptibly to the sound of Percy’s regular breathing.
Along the corridor came the pounding of feet. Not even maternal love could drive Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones’s heavy frame beyond a certain rate of speed; she was the last to arrive. The staring onlookers in the doorway staggered back as she thrust through them. Catching sight of the pillow in Jacqueline’s hand and the outstretched feet of her son, she gave a heartrending cry. She flung herself onto the bed. The springs squealed and Percy’s relaxed body bounced before she gathered it into her arms.
It took considerable time to convince the woman that Percy was alive and well. Percy’s head drooped over her arm; his mouth had sagged into an idiotic grin.
“He’s drunk,” Thomas said.
“No. Drugged, though, I think. Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones, if you would let the doctor have a look at him…”
Rawdon was on the other side of the bed, trying to get at his patient. It took Jacqueline’s and Thomas’s combined efforts to pry the distracted mother from her son, and they had to wrestle with her again when the doctor, after peering into Percy’s eye, administered a few hearty slaps. The next time he lifted the boy’s lid, it stayed up. The expression of the single blue eye boded no good for the slapper.
Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones