D'Arragon's Axe by John Paxton Sheriff

Author:John Paxton Sheriff [Paxton Sheriff, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

1

Inevitably, Nick was dragged back to the cold, dark woods.

He and Frank Hahn came up from the cellar into the comforting warmth and normalcy of Twayblade's living-room and quaffed numerous pewter tankards of Stella Artois while Rachel watched them, petite and darkly feminine in her own dry clothes, a half-smile on her lips as she sipped tea and listened to their banter that was merely a thin skin overlaying earnest assertions and conflicting opinions.

But, gradually, Nick came to believe what Frank Hahn, puffing swirling clouds of blue smoke from the inevitable cigar and swallowing great gulps of ice-cold beer, persisted in telling him. There was a reasonable explanation for the English Civil War figures, he said, the old ebullience restored. Had to be. Nothing came out of thin air, no way, someone had switched moulds, Nick's mind had been elsewhere – understandably, and here Hahn's eyes had softened at memories of his favourite niece – and somehow Nick had been left with ECW figures and no mould to show for them. Simple. Find that mould, and the problem disappeared.

Put like that, it was all so reasonable. Frank Hahn always did sound utterly convincing, brushing aside problems with a display of logic that was hard to refute. And once he had convinced Nick that there was a simple answer to the mysterious figures, other problems simply melted away. Or, at any rate, became mortal problems, with ordinary mortal solutions.

It was only later as, pleasantly muzzy-headed, Nick had followed Frank Hahn out into the yard and watched him stump off across the gravel to where he had left his car, that Rachel innocently brought him crashing back down to earth.

'Um, that fire's still smouldering,' she said. Her voice was soft in the now still night air. Her eccentric behaviour seemed to have vanished with the rain.

'We'll damp it down,' Nick said happily, watching the Bostonian's glistening bald head bobbing in the moonlight. He lifted his hand to answer a final cheery wave. Then, realising what she had said, and the direction of her gaze, he frowned. 'Which fire?'

'There.' Rachel pointed towards the woods, and Nick's heart sank.

'I noticed it when I came back from my walk. Flames leaping up to the low branches. Only it was still raining then, there was no danger, so I thought no more about it.'

Nick's eyes were searching the trees. He detected a movement; a wraith of white smoke, drifting lazily through straggling branches. 'When was this? Just before you came down into the cellar?'

Rachel nodded. 'Umm.' She hugged his arm, and pulled him towards the porch. 'Come on, toy soldier man. It's getting cold.'

'In a minute.' Uneasily, Nick remembered what he had been doing just before Rachel came down through the trap door. He had been by the melting pot, leaning over it, his skin crawling as he watched the toy soldier's agonised contortions in the searing heat. Watching – and listening to tiny, piercing screams. Now this. A fire, in woods that for hours had been drenched by the chill rain.

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