and he had only nodded and gone on reading. And now you’ve inherited everything, absolutely everything.
Suddenly he was thoroughly sick from the candles. He could see the candelabra everywhere, such costly silver. Some of them were even encrusted with jewels. God, how much money did this Order have stashed away in its cellars and its vaults? A small nation indeed. But then it was all the fault of fools like Stuart, who had long ago willed his entire fortune to the Order, and must surely have changed that will, all things considered, of course.
All things. Tessa. The plan. Where was Stuart now—with Tessa?
The talk grew louder and louder. There was the tinkling of glasses. Elvera came again and poured more wine into his glass.
“Drink up, Mark,” she said.
“Do behave, Mark,” whispered Tommy, unpleasantly close to his face.
Marklin turned. This wasn’t his religion. This wasn’t his custom, to stand about feasting and drinking in black clothes at dawn!
“I’m going now!” he suddenly declared. His voice seemed to explode from his mouth and echo throughout the room!
Everybody else had gone silent.
For one second, in the ringing stillness, he almost gave in to a scream. The desire to scream was more pure in him than ever in childhood. To scream in panic, in horror. He didn’t know which.
Tommy pinched his arm, and pointed.
The double doors to the dining hall had been opened. Ah, so that was the reason for the silence. Dear God, had they brought the remains of Aaron home?
The candles, the crepe—it was the very same in the dining hall, another cavern of grimness. He was determined not to enter, but before he could act upon this decision, the crowd moved him slowly and solemnly towards the open doorway. He and Tommy were being almost carried along.
Don’t want to see any more, want to leave here …
The press loosened as they passed through the doors. Men and women were filing around the long table. Someone was laid out on the table. God, not Aaron! Can’t look at Aaron. And they know you can’t look at him, don’t they? They are waiting for you to panic, and for Aaron’s wounds to bleed!
Horrible, stupid. He clutched Tommy’s arm again, and heard Tommy’s correction. “Do be still!”
At last they had come to the edge of the grand old table. This was a man in a dusty wool jacket, with mud on his shoes. Look, mud. This was no corpse properly laid out.
“This is ludicrous,” said Tommy under his breath.
“What sort of funeral is this!” he heard himself say aloud.
Slowly he leant over so that he could see the dead face that was turned away from him. Stuart. Stuart Gordon, dead and lying on this table—Stuart’s impossibly thin face, with its bird-beak of a nose, and his lifeless blue eyes. Dear God, they had not even closed his eyes! Were they all insane?
He backed away awkwardly, colliding with Tommy, feeling his heel on Tommy’s toe, and then the swift removal of Tommy’s foot. All thought seemed beyond him. A dread took hold of him totally. Stuart is dead, Stuart is dead, Stuart is dead.
Tommy was staring at the body. Did he know it was Stuart?
“What is the meaning of this?” Tommy asked, his voice
low and full of wrath. “What’s happened to Stuart….” But the words had little conviction. His voice, always a monotone, was now weak with shock.
The others drew in all around them, pressing them right against the table. Stuart’s limp left hand lay right near them.
“For the love of heaven,” said Tommy angrily. “Someone close his eyes.”
From one end of the table to the other, the members surrounded it, a phalanx of mourners in black. Or were they mourners? Even Joan Cross was there, at the head of the table, arms resting on the arms of her wheelchair, her reddened eyes fixed upon them!
No one spoke. No one moved. The first stage of silence had been the absence of speech. This was the second stage, the absence of movement, with members so still he could not even hear anyone draw breath.
“What’s happened to him!” demanded Tommy.
Still no one answered. Marklin could not fix his gaze on anything; he kept looking at the small dead skull, with its thin covering of white hair. Did you kill yourself, you fool, you crazed fool? Is that what you did? At the first chance of discovery?
And suddenly, very suddenly, he realized that all the others were not looking at Stuart, they were looking at Tommy and at