‘His only interest in Garland was as a victim to be blackmailed. He had carried on with the extortion that Creech had begun.’
‘Is that so?’ The professor looked surprised. ‘Ah, well, no matter. He knew enough that he could not live.’
‘How did you trail him to that wretched tavern by the river?’
‘It was not so difficult a task. You also found him, did you not? I had made an earlier attempt to dispose of him which had failed. He took fright and ran to his hiding-hole. I spoke to that ragged hetaira of his. What is her name?’
‘Ada.’
‘Ada was most forthcoming. I had taken it upon myself to offer money to the Polyphemus who guards the entrance to her place of work. Again, I have forgotten his name. If, indeed, I ever knew it.’
‘Fadge, you must mean Fadge.’
‘Well, whatever the one-eyed Cyclops is called, he proved very effective in persuading Ada that she should tell me where her ageing inamarato was lodged.’
‘You did not allow Fadge to hurt the poor girl?’
‘A little,’ Fields acknowledged. ‘She was surprisingly loyal to Jinkinson. But she was eventally persuaded that he was not worth the breaking of her arm.’
‘You scoundrel!’ Adam could contain his outrage no longer. How could he have been so mistaken in his judgement of the professor? Here was a man he had admired for his knowledge and his scholarship now revealed as little better than a common or garden brute.
‘It was unfortunately necessary to employ such methods. I had to find Jinkinson.’
‘So you went in search of him at the Cat and Salutation.’
‘By happy chance, I travelled to Wapping on the very night that you went there yourself. I arrived an hour earlier than you and was in time to see the man leave that dismal alehouse for the first time. I followed him for some time but he walked along busy streets. I could not make use of the pistol in my pocket. Then he returned to the pub. I thought I had lost my opportunity. I had not reckoned on your presence in the place driving him out into the night once more. And onto the darkest path by the river.’
Fields ceased speaking, as if expecting Adam to make some contribution to the conversation. The young man was silent, contemplating the terrible truth that he had been indirectly responsible for the deaths of both Creech and Jinkinson. He had long realised that had Creech not sought him out, the man would have still been alive. Now it was clear that, in arriving at the Cat and Salutation in search of Jinkinson, he had inadvertently impelled the private investigator towards his nemesis.
‘I thought that the figure in the shadows was familiar,’ he said, after a pause. ‘It was you.’
‘For a while, I thought that you had recognised me,’ Fields admitted. ‘I returned to Cambridge on an early morning train, half-convinced that the police would soon be calling at the college to question me. When you wrote to me the following day, suggesting that you visit, I wondered whether it was part of a stratagem to unmask me. But, after your arrival in Cambridge, it was clear that you knew nothing. That you had not recognised me.’
‘And so you decided to use me.’
‘Creech had thought to recruit you. Why should not I? I knew from our travels in sixty-seven that you would make a good companion on any expedition to Greece. So I pretended to know nothing about Euphorion.’
Throughout the time he had been speaking, Fields had continued to keep the revolver trained on Adam’s heart. The gun was still pointing there as he finished. Adam let out a long sigh of disillusion and disappointment.
‘But what of the deaths, Professor? How could you bring yourself to murder in pursuit of your goal?’
‘I have already explained,’ Fields said, almost complacently. ‘Creech and the sot were not worthy of the knowledge upon which they had stumbled.’
‘And what of yourself?’ Adam demanded. ‘Have your motives for action been so pure?’
‘I care for knowledge!’ Fields screamed, his face suddenly contorted with fury. ‘I care for scholarship! Why should my name not go down to posterity as one of the great archaeologists of the age? The chance had been offered to me. Why should I not take it? Why should a blackmailer and a drunk stand in my way?’
The professor had stepped forwards in his agitation, the gun shaking in his hands. His face had reddened and blue veins in his temple stood out like rivers on a map. He made a heroic effort to regain his self-control. His breathing came in short, sharp pants.
‘You have nothing to fear from me, Adam,’ he said eventually, his voice now eerily calm. ‘I have long had your interests at heart. Since you were a schoolboy in Shrewsbury, I have seen you as, in some way, my successor. The son I have never had, perhaps. Is that too sentimental a thought? I would not harm you. Besides, I have not forgotten you saved my life that day in Athens. Had it not been for you, I would have been a mangled carcass beneath the wheels of that runaway cart.’
‘An unfortunate accident.’ Despite the professor’s words, Adam had no confidence that he would not shoot him if necessary. Had he not said as much only minutes before? Fields seemed so deranged by recent events and by his own demonic urge to gain the Macedonian gold that he could not be trusted.
‘I thought for a while it was no accident,’ the professor continued. ‘That some enemy in the city had attempted to kill me. Later, when my rooms at the Angleterre were rifled, I was sure of it. But I have since understood that the person responsible for upending my belongings was Rallis. And Rallis, whatever his other faults, was not a man to take another’s life. No, you are right. The cart crashing into the café was no more than chance.’
‘Which way should we travel, Devlin?’ Lewis Garland, turning in his saddle, called back to Quint. Adam’s manservant was perched behind Giorgios on the latter’s bay horse as the party retraced the journey he had so recently made. The road before them divided. One fork of it continued to follow the bank of the small stream; the other headed into the hills. Quint waved an arm to indicate that the horses should begin to climb. Garland led the way as the small group of riders turned off the main path and made its way uphill. For an hour they climbed steadily if not steeply, the path rising ahead of them and the distant view of Mount Olympus permanently before them. The ground hereabouts was uncultivated and rough. On several occasions, the horses came close to stumbling on the rocks and loose stones that were strewn across the path. At one point, they heard the sounds of what might have been a shot coming from the countryside far ahead of them. They all turned to look at one another.
‘That was a gunshot, Lewis, was it not?’ Emily asked.
‘I cannot tell,’ Garland replied. ‘It is difficult to be certain in this terrain. Sounds carry for many miles. And they can be distorted in their journey.’
‘We must hasten on our way. Adam may be in danger.’
‘The shot — if it was a shot — could be from the gun of a villager out hunting, my dear. We should not risk the horses by riding at too great a speed amongst these rocks.’
The MP had reined in his horse and dropped back to join Emily. Quint and Giorgios were immediately behind them. Bringing up the rear were half a dozen young men hired by Garland in Salonika, all now looking as if they wished they were back in that city. In the vanguard, fifty yards beyond his master, was another of the Englishman’s servants. As he came to the top of a gentle rise in the land, the man cried out. Garland and Emily spurred their horses forward to join him. The young woman gasped and raised her hand to her mouth as she saw what had attracted the servant’s attention. On the path ahead was a body. Sprawled in the dirt was the huge form of Andros. He looked like one of the giants felled by Zeus in his battle with them.