The Green Lady Page 7

he said in an undertone.

  Mina steadied Elizabeth by holding her shoulders. ‘That woman can’t have hurt Hamish without a struggle, and if she attacked him in here, I would have heard it in the gallery. Besides, she came up the spiral staircase alone.’

  Max looked at Mina, with an expression of reluctant understanding. ‘Mino—?’ he began.

  ‘No, Max, it’s none of my work,’ she reassured him. ‘She must have tracked you from London, and broken in downstairs. Perhaps Hamish went to get a nightcap, and she found him there.’

  Elizabeth struggled anew. ‘We must look for him— God knows what she’s done to him! He may be lying in a pool of blood, too weak to cry for help!’

  Max had already left the room. ‘The spiral stairs, you say?’

  All three descended, and immediately saw that the door to the vault was ajar.

  ‘The candlestick’s gone,’ observed Mina, looking to the window ledge. ‘Somebody’s down there.’

  They indulged in no discussion on the subject. Max passed through the door, with Mina and then Elizabeth closely attending him. Without the candle it was difficult to negotiate the steps, because the vault itself was now completely devoid of light. They fumbled helplessly for some while, calling for Hamish in the dark, until Mina happened upon one of the candelabrum, and, having brought the matchbox, contrived to set a flame to the wick. In the uncertain glimmer this produced, they searched about, but their repeated cries were not answered.

  Then, discovering the smaller candlestick and bringing it to life, Mina drew their attention. ‘Look at the coffin— it’s closed.’

  Elizabeth, with an expression of harrowing apprehension, leant to open the lid. Mina held the candlestick high, and the ruddy beams disclosed Hamish lying inside, with drops of blood on his forehead.

  ‘Hamish! Hamish!’ Elizabeth wailed, reaching to pull him out, but then recoiling from the spectacle of death. ‘She’s killed him! She’s murdered him! Oh, Hamish, my Hamish, you didn’t deserve this, my poor Mishy—’ and here she dissolved into inarticulate sobs, before addressing him again. ‘Oh Hamish, I’m so sorry, I never got to tell you, I never had the chance— oh, why did this have to happen, why? Hamish, I love you, I mean it, I wish you could hear me! I wish you’d wake up and hear me! Max, Max, play something to bring him to life —music will do it— I’d sing myself if I could, oh, Hamish, Hamish!’ Then, pursuing this confusion of ideas through her grief, she began to breathily mouth the words to some old song, interrupting herself to tell him: ‘It’s our song, Mishy, remember? Listen to me, wake up and listen!’ —but as this effort produced no effect, she leaned in and kissed him tenderly, before withdrawing to weep again.

  Mina sighed and smiled. ‘Look, Elizabeth! He’s recovering!’

  Indeed he was. He opened his eyes uncertainly, and with an unsteady, rather offended voice, asked: ‘Where am I? God, my head! What was I drinking?’

  And so it was that the couple were reconciled. The misadventures of the night were followed by a drawn-out train of emotional retraction, thorough explanation and official procedure. The police were called, and a search undertaken to recover the unfortunate Genna, but the darkness of the night, and the improbability of her survival, did not inspire anyone with hope. Hamish was not seriously harmed, and, having endured many tight embraces from his wife, was conveyed by her to bed with a chronic headache.

  This left Max and Mina, in the early dawning of the new day, to sip coffee together and take a walk along the battlements. The chill but invigorating sea breeze seemed to sweep away the disorders of the evening, and restore their spirits.

  ‘You’ve done well, Mino,’ he commended. ‘Hamish and Elizabeth are back together, and as sentimental as they could ever wish to be. A busy night’s reward.’

  ‘I can take none of the credit for that, Max,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t set out to reunite them, and it’s a sad accident that brought it about.’

  ‘Really? Then what was your intention? Surely not to throw her into my hands!’

  ‘Into your clutches, Max— you must remember you’re a famous libertine! But no, that was all Elizabeth’s whim. I simply thought that the best way to show her how foolishly she was acting, would be to let her carry on, and embarass herself.’

  ‘So you switched the bedrooms in the hope that she’d come across Hamish, and be exposed as a fraud. Mino, Mino, your brilliant powers are waning! A bed-swap is hardly worthy of you.’

  ‘That was only my first tangle,’ she smiled. ‘Naturally I had a backup in case it failed.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘You, Max.’

  ‘Me? The famous libertine? That was taking a chance! Once she was in my clutches, who knows what I’d do!’

  ‘I knew,’ she said.

  ‘But I’m a danger to the female sex, Mino! How did you know I wouldn’t seduce her as soon as look at her?’

  She look his arm as they strolled along. ‘Because, Max, although I’ve no doubt of your amorous intentions in general, I’m well aware that you’re a firm friend, and a clever fellow.’

  ‘Compliments, Mino? I’ll turn to stone.’

  ‘But you are a firm friend to Hamish, and you are a clever fellow— I can’t help it if the truth also happens to compliment you. You’re too clever a fellow to be much taken with Lizzy’s brash charms, and blundering advances. I know you well enough to see that, if she fell into your hands, you’d feel more contempt than passion for the fumblings of your best friend’s silly wife.’

  He paused, winking in the sunlight that glittered off the sea. ‘You read me well, Mino.’

  ‘Compliments, Max?’

  He laughed, and then tried to catch her eye. ‘What are you reading now?’

  A sly smile. ‘I never read aloud.’

  He tutted. ‘You’ve always got a retort.’

  ‘For every shot you take.’

  At that, he mimed taking aim at her with his fingers. ‘You’re my favourite target —and I bet I’m yours, Mino.’

  She did not reply, but leaned over the ancient crenellations to hide her expression.

  Max paused a moment, considering, and then said quickly: ‘Well, what about it, Mino? What about you and me? Wouldn’t we make a good team? Well, wouldn’t we? Instead of Mina and Max, her and him, we’d be referred to together, as one —Maxamino.’

  Now she laughed in her turn. ‘As much as I’m tempted by such a prospect, Max, I’m afraid I must decline!’

  ‘But why? “Maxamino” has a ring to it.’

  She shook her head. ‘It isn’t pleasant to say why.’

  ‘Remarks like that only make me want to know the why even more.’

  ‘Max,’ she said, ‘save your ammunition. You’re just working through your manoevres. I expect you’ll fire your famous lie next, and we’ve been in and out of that already.’

  ‘Don’t look away!’ he frowned. ‘That was last night, and this is this morning. This morning the lie may be true.’

  ‘They’re the same words, morning, noon or night.’

  ‘But the meaning’s different.’

  She spread her hands. ‘Until you can prove “I love you” is true, Max, I’ll never say it back.’

  ‘Ah, well then,’ he said with a soft smile, ‘if you won’t take it on trust, I’ll never say it again.’

  And with that they carried on walking, while the seagulls cawed overhead, and the tide crept out, and the sun rose over Brackley Castle.

  The end

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