Four Days in October

Chapter Two: Return to Thorney Manor

Nurse O'Leary explained. Pearce was intrigued.  

'Surely someone can't have put poison on all the glassware!' She considered a moment. 'Let's try the butler's pantry.' This room, however, was locked. 

At this point the cook arrived for work, and was first annoyed to find strangers in her kitchen, then - when she heard the story they had to tell - worried at what had happened to her crockery. A few moments' examination was sufficient to show that all the crockery had been sabotaged by being daubed with a chemical with a brown tinge. Pearce suggested that they go and report to Manfred, 'The Just Men are chemists,' so they all trooped upstairs.  

Busby refused to let the cook into Manfred's room, so Manfred came to the door. The cook greeted him with a volley of woe and a collection of smeared plates. Manfred examined them under the electric light. 

'Leon and Raymond could probably tell you what this is, but I am not an expert,' he said. 'However, I know that Leon found poisons in the guests' rooms last night. Several of the guests came here with the intention of sabotaging the meeting and to kill as many people as they could. It's likely that none of the crockery or cutlery is safe to use.' 

The cook had quite a few things to say about her employer for inviting such men to the house, but Nurse O'Leary's concern was how to give her patient a drink. Eventually she emptied a small bottle of cold tea she had brought with her to drink herself, and after rinsing this out filled it with water for Mrs Maria. Meanwhile, Pearce had gone to call 233 Curzon Street and Scotland Yard to ask for reinforcements, and the cook went away muttering, to start washing up the poisoned plates and cutlery. 

Busby returned to her place at the door, but checked inside her tunic to ensure that she had her gun readily to hand. She had no means of knowing whether the would-be poisoner was still on the premises, but she was assuming the worst. She had heard Maria speak in South Place Chapel, and at the Miners' Hall in north Nottingham, and she had seen for herself the violent reactions she could arouse. After hearing Maria boast of some of her own past achievements in a lifetime of anarchism and revolution, Busby herself would have been happy to shoot her. However, her duty was to enforce the law; and even though Maria was a self-confessed murderer and anarchist who had entered England illegally, Busby's intention was to see her stand a fair trial, and for that to happen Maria had to stay alive. 

She suspected, however, that Maria would escape justice. For all their talk of justice, the Just Men were remarkably inconsistent in enforcing it. They had let a murderer like Maria go, but eighteen years ago they had murdered a government minister who had wanted to expel revolutionaries from Britain. So far as Busby could see, their behaviour before the Great War had been little better than Maria's. But they had done valuable intelligence work during the Great War and afterwards they had received a pardon, on condition that they kept out of politics and stopped murdering people. They had generally kept to the first, but Leon Gonsalez still regularly shot people. His claim was that they were criminals and that it was self-defence, but Busby, much as she liked Gonsalez and owed him a personal debt of friendship, wished he would let the courts decide who deserved to die, rather than making his own decisions on the matter. 

Her musings were interrupted by WPC Lilian Pearce approaching along the landing. 'Meadows is sending reinforcements,' she announced, 'and so is Curzon Street.' She came right up to Busby and dropped her voice to a whisper. 'They're going to get her out of here. Gonsalez is sending some of his agents.' 

Busby nodded, and gestured her to go into the room. This was information that should be kept strictly behind closed doors. 

George Manfred and Nurse O'Leary listened in silence as WPC Pearce passed on what Leon had told her. There would be three different rescue parties: one genuine and two as decoys. George and Nurse should take Maria out of the house by one of the back routes, to the jetty on the river, where there would be a boat to collect her. If that became impossible, they should join one of the other rescue parties. Leon would be with the boat, so wouldn't be available to co-ordinate events: George and the policewomen would have to use their initiative.