and he prodded the man on the floor who was now stirring and groaning “—that with his fellow he sought so desperately to kill you?”
“Why, as to that, I know not,” replied Grahame, who was visibly distressed by what had just passed. There were bruises on his face and throat and he had some difficulty in speaking. “Only that the two of them broke in through the door there and set about me.” He pointed at the one through which his assailant and Geordie had disappeared.
For some reason Catherine—who had been standing back staring at the action, which was far more exciting and dangerous than that in any play in which she had acted—did not believe him. She wondered whether Tom also thought that Grahame might not be telling the truth.
Tom had sheathed his dagger again inside his coat, was hauling the groaning man to his feet and throwing him down on the settle, since he appeared to have difficulty in standing.
“Come, mijnheer,” Tom began in broken Dutch, for he was of the opinion that these might be assassins sent by the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt, to dispose of a double agent whom he might now consider dangerous, “who sent you here to kill Master Grahame—and why?”
The man shook his head and seemed not to understand what Tom was saying. Grahame began to interrogate him, but Tom stopped him, saying, “Do not distress yourself, sir. My wife speaks good Dutch. Mine is poor and he may not understand what I was asking him. Wife?”
Catherine stepped forward, just as Geordie reappeared, looking glummer than ever.
“My apologies, Master, but I lost him. There is a small wood beyond the gardens where the path forks and I must have taken the wrong track…”
“No matter.” Tom was brief. “Our friend here will soon tell us all. Begin, wife.”
Catherine questioned their captive in Dutch and then in French, being proficient in both. He understood not them, nor English either—or so his shaking head and uncomprehending face appeared to say.
Tom lost patience. He surveyed the man silently for some minutes. He was anonymous in both face and dress, being like a score such as one might see in the street. At last he leaned forward to pull the man upright.
“Wife,” he said, not turning his head towards Catherine, “do you go into the garden and not return until I call for you. I would fain question this piece of scum more severely and I would not have you present. Go!” he ordered her fiercely as she hesitated.
Nothing for it but to leave with Geordie, for Tom bade him to go with her and, “to look after the mistress with a little more care than you chased yon assassin!”
Catherine never quite knew what followed next for her back was towards Tom, Grahame and the would-be assassin when, just as she reached the door, she heard a shot behind her.
Shocked, she swung round to see Tom facing the assassin who was sinking to the floor, blood gushing from his mouth. Behind him stood Grahame, his face grim, a pistol in his hand.
“Now, why the devil did you do that?” enquired Tom of Grahame.
“To save you, of course,” returned Grahame hardily. “See, he had drawn a dagger on you, it is on the floor near his hand. I had a pistol in my belt that I was not able to use against my assailants, their attack being so sudden, and I used it to save you, as you had saved me.”
Tom’s expression was deadly, thought Catherine, shivering a little, and he did not seem at all grateful to Master Grahame for saving his life.
“No,” he said, his voice so cold and severe that Catherine scarcely knew it, “I was in no danger from this poor fool, despite his dagger. And now that you have slain him so incontinently, we can know no more of who paid him to slay you.”
Grahame’s expression was a sad one, but his voice was patient. “Forgive me. I had no time to think. I saw you being attacked, and acted accordingly.”
Tom stood silent before giving a short laugh. “No, you must forgive me. You thought I was in danger and you acted promptly. For that I must thank you. You were not to know that I have been for many years a mercenary soldier who would not easily have fallen victim to such an amateur creature as this. After all, he and his accomplice were making heavy weather of killing a solitary man, unable to use his weaponry.”
Well, Catherine thought, a trifle indignant on Grahame’s behalf, at last Tom had thanked Grahame, even if his thanks were belated.
Grahame inclined his head. “We are quits, I think,” he said, smiling. “And now you must tell me who you are, and why you have sought me out here. And, most of all, who told you where to find me. I had thought this place unknown to all my enemies, and most of my friends.
“Then, in a few short minutes, there arrive both enemies and friends, for I take you, your wife and your servant to be my friends. Indeed, if you arrived as strangers, your actions have made you my friends.”
He smiled at them, before announcing, “Wine,” and going over to a buffet—the Low Countries word for a sideboard—where stood a decanter and several goblets of fine glass, a little at odds with the rough style of the house and the furnishings of the rooms in it. “We must drink a toast to our survival.” He had needed to step over the assassin’s corpse to get there. Catherine felt quite faint at the casual way in which all three men were treating his death.
She was not surprised when Tom shook his head, saying, “Wine later. First we must decide what to do with him,” and he pointed at the body. “If I am wrong in supposing that you do not wish to inform the authorities of what has passed this day, forgive me. If I am right, however, the evidence needs to be disposed of.”
Grahame continued to pour wine as though discussing murderous attacks and the hiding of dead bodies was an ordinary, everyday matter.
“There are enough canals about here, to hide a dozen such as he. Depend upon it, no one will seek to know what happened here today. The odds are on it that his companion will not return to confess his failure. These were but poor hirelings sent to dispose of me. It was their bad luck that you arrived.”
And ours that we did, thought Catherine to whom a glass of wine seemed a most desirable thing. I have had a real baptism of fire today. If I had ever imagined that this enterprise was not a risky one, this episode has proved exactly how risky it is! I feel quite faint, but will not confess it.
She looked away from the dead man, and saw Tom gazing at her enquiringly. She gave him a small wry smile to try to tell him that, whilst she was shocked, she was not about to disgrace herself—or him—by doing anything so stupid as faint.
Pleased—and relieved—by her stoicism, Tom handed her his glass. “Drink up,” he bade her. “It will make you feel better.”
She made no demur, but drank down the good Rhenish wine, and listened to Tom and Grahame discussing what to do with the corpse.
“Your man may help me to carry this poor fool to the shed in the garden. He may lie until darkness falls when the canal shall be his resting place—for the time being, that is,” said Grahame, his manner almost cheerful.
Geordie pulled a long face, but did as he was told. Tom said nothing, but he was thinking a great deal. No stranger to violence himself, he found that Grahame’s equanimity in the face of violent death—and a violent death which he had needlessly inflicted—was telling him something of
