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“Mr. Ruddle.”
The soft voice of a nurse pulled him away from his memory but not before he had it firmly in his grasp. Now he knew for certain that Her Ladyship had not married Captain Harrigan. It was all a lie. He had been trying to tell that young lawyer, but the barman had stopped him, and then he’d been attacked. Someone had tried to kill him, and a woman had been there; a woman who knew that he knew the truth. Could it have been Lady Sylvia herself? Had she remembered what she had told him as they watched the invasion fleet?
The nurse interrupted his troubled thoughts. “Mr. Ruddle, there’s someone to see you.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s a policeman.”
The policeman was already looming in the doorway. It was the one-armed detective. Sam thought he was an unpleasant fellow, probably still angry over the loss of his limb, but he would have to do.
“Mr. Ruddle, I have some questions for you.”
“And I have answers,” Sam replied, “but not now. There’s hanky-panky going on up at Southwold Hall, and you had better take care of it before some poor little girl is stolen away from her mother, and more people are killed.”
The policeman sat wearily in the chair next to Sam’s bed. “Tell me about it, Mr. Ruddle.”
Sam waved an impatient hand. “Don’t be sitting there like you ain’t got nothing else to do. We have to go up to the Hall, you and me together. She didn’t marry no American and I know it. Now help me get dressed.”
“Mr. Ruddle, does this have anything to do with what happened to you?”
“Of course it does. Why else would I be talking to you? He didn’t even take her to the Savoy. It’s a pack of lies.”
Sam climbed out of bed. His legs were shaky but he managed to stay upright.
“Where are my clothes? What’s happened to my clothes?”
“Mr. Ruddle, if you could just explain—”
“I ain’t got no time for explaining. I’ll tell you everything on the way. I know things, and there are those that don’t want me to say what I know. They want me dead, so I think I’ll stick by you. I’ll be safer that way.”
Sam hobbled to the door and called out for a nurse. His voice echoed down the marble corridor. “Where are my clothes?”
Sam stepped back into the room.
“D-Day,” he said. “I saw her on the cliff.”
“Saw who?”
Sam was momentarily speechless. The cliff! He had seen it from the cliff. He beat at his own bandaged head. He was a fool; a stupid old fool.
He put a hand on the detective’s shoulder and shook him slightly to get his attention. “Get on to the navy.”
The detective pulled away from Sam’s grasp and glared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“A mine,” Sam said. “I saw a mine.”
“On D-Day?”
“No,” Sam croaked. “Not D-Day. Now! I’m talking about now. Before I got hit on the head, I was coming to phone the police. It’s a mine. I could see it clear as day, rolling around in the waves.”
“What kind of mine?” Slater asked.
Sam spread his arms impatiently. “What kind of mine do you think? There’s only one kind that goes floating about at sea and blowing things up.” He made a circle with his arms. “Big round thing with metal spikes.”
“German?”
“I don’t know,” Sam snapped. “It don’t matter, do it? German or British, it’s just waiting to hit something and explode. The way it was going, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came ashore at Rose Bay or got carried into the caves. That would make a fine mess, wouldn’t it? Probably blow off a great chunk of cliff.”
The detective seemed indecisive, but perhaps he hadn’t been an air-raid warden. Sam knew what to do.
“Get onto the navy. They’ll take care of it. They’ll blow it up at sea where it won’t do no harm, if they get there in time.”
He pictured the mine rolling in on the tide and riding on the crest of a wave that would fling it into one of the caves along the shore. He thought of the cave that ran under the foundations of Southwold Hall. He wouldn’t care if the whole place blew up.