‘I don’t blame them in the slightest. Did any of them know about my visitor?’
Tom shook his head.
‘They said not, but I think they did, me lord. They weren’t a-going to say, though. I got Rodrigo off by himself, and he admitted he knew about it, but he said he didn’t think it was a zombie what came after you, because I told him how you fought it, and what a mess it made of your room.’ He narrowed his eyes at the dressing-table, with its cracked mirror.
‘Really? What did he think it was?’
‘He wouldn’t really say, but I pestered him a bit, and he finally let on as it might have been a houngan, just pretending to be a zombie.’
Grey digested that possibility for a moment. Had the creature who attacked him meant to kill him? If so – why? But if not . . . the attack might only have been meant to pave the way for what had now happened, by making it seem that there were zombies lurking about King’s House in some profusion. That made a certain amount of sense, save for the fact . . .
‘But I’m told that zombies are slow and stiff in their movements. Could one of them have done what . . . was done to the governor?’ He swallowed.
‘I dunno, me lord. Never met one.’ Tom grinned briefly at him, rising from fastening his knee-buckles. It was a nervous grin, but Grey smiled back, heartened by it.
‘I suppose I will have to go and look at the body again,’ he said, rising. ‘Will you come with me, Tom?’ His valet was young, but very observant, especially in matters pertaining to the body, and had been of help to him before in interpreting post-mortem phenomena.
Tom paled noticeably, but gulped and nodded, and squaring his shoulders, followed Lord John out onto the terrace.
On their way to the governor’s room, they met Major Fettes, gloomily eating a slice of pineapple scavenged from the kitchen.
‘Come with me, major,’ Grey ordered. ‘You can tell me what discoveries you and Cherry have made in my absence.’
‘I can tell you one such, sir,’ Fettes said, putting down the pineapple and wiping his hands on his waistcoat. ‘Judge Peters has gone to Eleuthera.’
‘What the devil for?’ That was a nuisance; he’d been hoping to discover more about the original incident that had incited the rebellion, and as he was obviously not going to learn anything from Warren . . . he waved a hand at Fettes; it hardly mattered why Peters had gone.
‘Right. Well, then—’ Breathing through his mouth as much as possible, Grey pushed open the door. Tom, behind him, made an involuntary sound, but then stepped carefully up and squatted beside the body.
Grey squatted beside him. He could hear thickened breathing behind him.
‘Major,’ he said, without turning round. ‘If Captain Cherry has found Mr Dawes, would you be so kind as to fetch him in here?’
They were hard at it when Dawes came in, accompanied by both Fettes and Cherry, and Grey ignored all of them.
‘The bitemarks are human?’ he asked, carefully turning one of Warren’s lower legs toward the light from the window. Tom nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
‘Sure of it, me lord. I been bitten by dogs – nothing like this. Besides—’ He inserted his forearm into his mouth and bit down fiercely, then displayed the results to Grey. ‘See, me lord? The teeth go in a circle, like.’
‘No doubt of it.’ Grey straightened and turned to Dawes, who was sagging at the knees to such an extent that Captain Cherry was obliged to hold him up. ‘Do sit down, please, Mr Dawes, and give me your opinion of matters here.’
Dawes’s round face was blotched, his lips pale. He shook his head and tried to back away, but was prevented by Cherry’s grip on his arm.
‘I know nothing, sir,’ he gasped. ‘Nothing at all. Please, may I go? I, I . . . really, sir, I grow faint!’
‘That’s all right,’ Grey said pleasantly. ‘You can lie down on the bed if you can’t stand up.’
Dawes glanced at the bed, went white, and sat down heavily on the floor. Saw what was on the floor beside him and scrambled hurriedly to his feet, where he stood swaying and gulping.
Grey nodded at a stool, and Cherry propelled the little secretary, not ungently, onto it.
‘What’s he told you, Fettes?’ Grey asked, turning back toward the bed. ‘Tom, we’re going to wrap Mr Warren up in the counterpane then lay him on the floor and roll him up in the carpet. To prevent leakage.’
‘Right, me lord.’ Tom and Captain Cherry set gingerly about this process, while Grey walked over and stood looking down at Dawes.
‘Pled ignorance, for the most part,’ Fettes said, joining Grey and giving Dawes a speculative look. ‘He did tell us that Derwent Warren had seduced a woman called Nancy Twelvetrees, in London. Threw her over, though, and married the heiress to the Atherton fortune.’
‘Who had better sense than to accompany her husband to the West Indies, I take it? Yes. Did he know that Miss Twelvetrees and her brother had inherited a plantation on Jamaica, and were proposing to emigrate here?’
‘No, sir.’ It was the first time Dawes had spoken, and his voice was little more than a croak. He cleared his throat, and spoke more firmly. ‘He was entirely surprised to meet the Twelvetrees at his first assembly.’
‘I daresay. Was the surprise mutual?’
‘It was. Miss Twelvetrees went white, then red, then removed her shoe and set about the governor with the heel of it.’
‘I wish I’d seen that,’ Grey said, with real regret. ‘Right. Well, as you can see, the governor is no longer in need of your discretion. I, on the other hand, am in need of your loquacity. You can start by telling me why he was afraid of snakes.’
‘Oh.’ Dawes gnawed his lower lip. ‘I cannot be sure, you understand—’
‘Speak up, you lump,’ growled Fettes, leaning menacingly over Dawes, who recoiled.
‘I— I—’ he stammered. ‘Truly, I don’t know the details. But it— it had to do with a young woman. A young black woman. He— the governor, that is— women were something of a weakness for him . . .’
‘And?’ Grey prodded.
The young woman, it appeared, was a slave in the household. And not disposed to accept the governor’s attentions. The governor was not accustomed to take ‘no’ for an answer – and didn’t. The young woman had vanished the next day, run away, and had not been recaptured as yet. But the day after, a black man in a turban and loincloth had come to King’s House, and had requested audience.
‘He wasn’t admitted, of course. But he wouldn’t go away, either.’ Dawes shrugged. ‘Just squatted at the foot of the front steps and waited.’
When Warren had at length emerged, the man had risen, stepped forward, and in formal tones, informed the governor that he was herewith cursed.
‘Cursed?’ said Grey, interested. ‘How?’
‘Well, now, there my knowledge reaches its limits, sir,’ Dawes replied. He had recovered some of his self-confidence by now, and straightened up a little. ‘For having pronounced the fact, he then proceeded to speak in an unfamiliar tongue – though I think some of it may have been Spanish, it wasn’t all like that. I must suppose that he was, er, administering the curse, so to speak?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ By now, Tom and Captain Cherry had completed their disagreeable task, and the governor reposed in an innocuous cocoon of carpeting. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but there are no servants to assist us. We’re going to take him down to the garden shed. Come, Mr Dawes; you can be assistant pall-bearer. And tell us on the way where the snakes come into it.’
Panting and groaning, with the occasional near-slip, they manhandled the unwieldy bundle down the stairs. Mr Dawes, making ineffectual grabs at the carpeting, was prodded by Captain Cherry into further discourse.
‘Well, I thought that I caught the word “snake” in the man’s tirade,’ he said. ‘And then . . . the snakes began to come.’
Small snakes, large snakes. A snake was found in the governor’s bath. Another appeared under the dining-table, to the horror of a merchant’s lady who was dining with the governor, and who had hysterics all over the dining room before fainting heavily across the table. Mr Dawes appeared to find something amusing in this, and Grey, perspiring heavily, gave him a glare that returned him more soberly to his account.
‘Every day, it seemed, and in different places. We had the house searched, repeatedly. But no one could – or would, perhaps – detect the source of the reptiles. And while no one was bitten, still the nervous strain of not knowing whether you would turn back your coverlet to discover something writhing amongst your bedding . . .’
‘Quite. Ugh!’ They paused and set down their burden. Grey wiped his forehead on his sleeve. ‘And how did you make the connection, Mr Dawes, between this plague of snakes, and Mr Warren’s mistreatment of the slave girl?’
Dawes looked surprised, and pushed his spectacles back up his sweating nose.
‘Oh, did I not say? The man – I was told later that he was an Obeah-man, whatever that may be – spoke her name, in the midst of his denunciation. Azeel, it was.’
‘I see. All right – ready? One, two, three – up!’
Dawes had given up any pretence of helping, but scampered down the garden path ahead of them to open the shed door. He had quite lost any lingering reticence, and seemed anxious to provide any information he could.
‘He did not tell me directly, but I believe he had begun to dream of snakes, and of the girl.’
‘How do— you know?’ Grey grunted. ‘That’s my foot, major!’
‘I heard him . . . er . . . speaking to himself. He had begun to drink rather heavily, you see. Quite understandable, under the circumstances, don’t you think?’
Grey wished he could drink heavily, but had no breath left with which to say so.
There was a sudden cry of startlement from Tom, who had gone in to clear space in the shed, and all three officers dropped the carpet with a thump, reaching for nonexistent weapons.
‘Me lord, me lord! Look who I found, a-hiding in the shed!’ Tom was leaping up the path toward him, face abeam with happiness, the youth Rodrigo coming warily behind him. Grey’s heart leapt at the sight, and he felt a most unaccustomed smile touch his face.
‘Your servant, sah.’ Rodrigo, very timid, made a deep bow.
‘I’m very pleased to see you, Rodrigo. Tell me – did you see anything of what passed here last night?’
The young man shuddered, and turned his face away.
‘No, sah,’ he said, so low-voiced Grey could barely hear him. ‘It was zombies. They . . . eat people. I heard them, but I know better than to look. I ran down into the garden, and hid myself.’
‘You heard them?’ Grey said sharply. ‘What did you hear, exactly?’
Rodrigo swallowed, and if it had been possible for a green tinge to show on skin such as his, would undoubtedly have turned the shade of a sea-turtle.