“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied tightly.
“Look,” said Ian. “I need to know I can trust you.”
“How could y’ever doubt that?” Dickerson said, his blue eyes tragic.
“Well, you’ve been spending a lot of time with Constable Turnbull lately, and I—”
“He likes me! Treats me like an equal. Makes me feel important, like.”
“But he’s not to be trusted—”
“How would you know? You’re so busy tellin’ me wha’ I done wrong, puttin’ me in my place.”
Ian felt his face redden. “I never—”
“Lecturin’ me on this an’ that, so’s I don’ forget who’s in charge. Well, I don’ forget, but I don’ always have t’like it, either!”
“Sergeant Dickerson, are you ready?” Clyde Vincent called to him from the stage.
“I were jes comin’,” Dickerson replied. Turning back to Ian, he said, “Oh, and Gretchen tol’ me that Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen haven’t been comin’ t’seances near as long as they claimed. She said they’ve only been there fer two, maybe three months at most.”
“That’s odd—why would they lie about it?” Ian mused.
“Sergeant!” called Clyde Vincent.
With one last glare at Ian, Dickerson turned and stalked toward the stage.
Watching him go, Ian felt a stab of pain in his cheek. When he put his hand to it, there was blood on his fingers. Cain’s words from the Old Testament popped into his head. I am not my brother’s keeper.
If he was not his brother’s keeper, Ian wondered, whose keeper was he?
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Donald settled into his armchair and took a swallow of ginger beer. “No doubt you are right about this Constable Torn—Tern—”
“Turnbull,” said Ian.
They sat before the fire in the parlor, Bacchus curled up on the sofa next to them. The logs crackled merrily in the grate, casting a warm glow around the room, but Ian’s mind was far from the serene setting on Victoria Terrace.
“You must let the sergeant make his own mistakes,” said Donald. “He will discover his error soon enough.”
“But what if he realizes it too late?”
“What are you afraid will happen?”
“It could be ruinous.”
“For Dickerson?”
“And the force. I don’t know what Turnbull is up to, but I don’t trust him.”
“It sounds as if your sergeant has fallen under his spell.”
“He must know he is playing with fire, and yet—”
“From what you say, it sounds as though he is doing it to spite you.”
“I cannot understand how he could avoid realizing what Turnbull is,” Ian said, taking a drink of whisky, deep and bitter and comforting. “So many ills in life are the result of a refusal to face the truth.”
His brother rose and plucked a clay pipe from the rack over the fireplace. “Do you imagine you have a monopoly on the truth?”
“Certainly not, but at least I—”
Donald pulled a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and began stuffing the pipe. “Forgive the tautology, but people are only human, after all.”
“But—”
“The truth is often hard and frequently bruising. Can you really blame them for not having the stomach to face it?”
“It’s not going to go away, and any attempt to circumvent or deny it can lead to disaster.”
“And yet so many men spend their lives dancing around the inevitable, trying to avoid what’s plainly in front of their face.”
“Precisely my point! Building one’s life on a bedrock of lies is insupportable and disastrous, and yet—”
“It is common,” Donald said, taking a box of matches from the desk drawer.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Except for you, the heroic truth-seeker.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Donald lit his pipe, wisps of blue smoke curling around his head. “It certainly informed your choice of a profession.”
“As a medical man, you seek truth as much as I do.”
“Ah, but my field is nature, not human behavior.”
“You deal with diseases just as ugly as murder—cancer, consumption, typhoid.”
“Without having to gaze into the souls of my fellow man.”
“But—”
Donald sat back in the chair and puffed at his pipe. “Has it ever occurred to you that some truths are better left unspoken?”
“I don’t see why—”
“Because people aren’t ready for them, Ian. Take my own situation, for example—”
“You have overcome your weakness for drink admirably.”
“That is not what I was referring to.”
“Oh,” said Ian, looking away. “I see.”
“Do you, brother? Do you really see? Most people regard me as a pervert, an aberration. A monster. Is that what you see when you look at me—a monster?”
“Certainly not—don’t be absurd.”
“But are you ready to face the truth about me—about who or what I am?”
Ian held his head in his hands. He did not care to think of his brother’s private life. He knew what Donald did with other men, but could not pretend to understand it. It was a chasm between them, perhaps unbreachable, and it filled him with misery. “I don’t know. It’s so difficult to—”
“I rest my case. People turn away from the truth because it is too difficult—too painful—to even think about.”
There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Then Ian said, “Do you think I’m pompous?”
His brother gave a short laugh. “Of course you are. So am I. It runs in the family.”
“Odd—that’s the second time tonight I’ve heard that phrase.”
“Don’t make anything of it,” Donald said. “It’s just coincidence. Aunt Lillian has enough superstition for the lot of us.”
“I see you put some evergreen over the mantel. And a bit of mistletoe on the windowsill.”
“That’s not superstition—it’s just holiday spirit.”
There was another silence, as they listened to logs crackling and hissing in the fire.
“Are you going to see Lillian in the play?” said Ian.
“We’d jolly well better, or we’ll never hear the end of it. Besides, I’m fond of Dickens. Always have been.”
“Do you think . . .”
“What?”
“Do you think people really get a second chance?”
“If they don’t, then I’m bloody well done for.”
“What I mean is—”
“Do angels and ghosts interfere to change the course of a life? I think not—but I wager Aunt Lillian might take issue with that.”
“What I meant to say is, are some mistakes too dire to recover from?”
“Some, I suppose. But surely not all.”
“Do people ever really change, though? Is Scrooge’s redemption wishful thinking?”