dangerously.
'Dammit, man, someone has just tried to kill me.'
Danny McQuinn's eyes widened. 'Is that a fact? I hope you're making a charge, sir.'
'Get me out of here.'
'Can you walk, sir?'
'No, I can't walk. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking for help, would I?'
'I see. Just a moment.' And McQuinn produced from the closed interior of the carriage an extending ladder, part of the routine equipment for rescuing children who locked themselves in upstairs rooms, and for reaching old ladies' cats who got themselves stranded in trees. It was also useful for saving folks who fell into the water - by accident, not intent.
With the help of the driver of the carriage and a considerable amount of painful effort on Faro's part, the two men managed to get him over the railings and hoisted inside the cab.
'Quite comfortable now, are you, sir?'
Faro forbore to reply. His gratitude for the rescue was now exceeded by feelings of humiliation and resentment of his dependence upon the hated McQuinn. At that moment he would have enjoyed nothing more than soundly boxing his ears. Fortunately for McQuinn, he needed that spare hand to support himself in the swaying carriage.
'Anything I can do for you, sir?'
'Yes, you can take me home,' snapped Faro and decided to keep the clues he had discovered to himself. He was furious, in no condition now to search the royal apartments, and if his ankle was broken, as he feared from its throbbing agony, then Vince, in his new role of qualified doctor, would doubtless immobilise him for some time.
Meanwhile a verdict of 'death by misadventure' would be recorded on the dead man whose body, if unclaimed, would go to the medical students. As for his murderer, the law would be cheated again as the trail grew dim and finally disappeared before Faro was fit to resume his investigations.
Sitting back in the carriage, with McQuinn's shrill whistling of an Irish jig adding insult to his injury, Faro realised his accident had made abundantly evident that it was an assassin he was up against. And a desperate one at that, who would attack in broad daylight - he remembered that glimpse of upraised arms against the sky, and the projectile, too well aimed to be an accident.
His search had been observed and noted by his adversary, to whom an encounter with 'falling' rock must have suggested a convenient way of disposing of this inquisitive policeman. Only the presence of what some might call a guardian angel, which was to Jeremy Faro a tangible awareness of lurking danger, had saved his life. He shuddered. But for this uncanny sixth sense, which had paid off many times in his long career, he would now be lying alongside the dead man in the city mortuary.
At last McQuinn delivered him like a large and unwieldy piece of furniture to his own front door. If Faro had thought that his injury was the worst that could happen to him, then he had not bargained for the hysterical behaviour of the four females occupying his home. At that moment he was grateful that three of them were there on a purely temporary basis.
Fuss was a part of Mrs Brook's nature that Faro was teaching her sternly to keep in check. The housekeeper was, however, totally outclassed by his mother, with whom he could do nothing at all.
He only thanked God that he had made light of the incident. He had slipped and fallen, that was all. If Mary Faro had an inkling that the 'accident' had been deliberate then he would have to endure once again the story of 'your poor dear father's' unfortunate death. The long and tortuous account of the events which had widowed his young wife and left their one child fatherless would be retold, complete with tears still remarkably fresh and ready flowing after thirty years.
Rose and Emily were speedily infected by the panic and confusion. Taking their cue from Grandmama, they rushed up and downstairs, 'helping' with basins of hot water which they contrived to spill.
The atmosphere was one of utter chaos when Vince put his