A Very Unusual Pursuit (14 page)
‘She’ll be robbed and rolled in a minute, and I don’t doubt that’s Charlie’s plan,’ Birdie whispered to Alfred, who frowned as he scanned the street. Ahead of them, Charlie looked back and jerked his head in a meaningful way.
‘Don’t fret,’ said Alfred. ‘We’ve arrived.’ He didn’t pause in front of the house that Charlie had indicated, but cast many a quick, sidelong glance at it as he walked past. Then he told Birdie, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Run and tell her it’s this ’un. Pretend you’re griddling. I’ll be in that lane over there, with the other two.’
Birdie nodded. She turned around and skipped back down the road, then planted herself in front of Miss Eames with her palm outstretched, as if she were a beggar. ‘That there’s the house, miss,’ she quietly informed Miss Eames. ‘You can meet us in the side lane, when you’re done.’
‘Oh. Yes. Very well.’ Miss Eames was a little out of breath. ‘If anyone answers my knock, I shall pretend that I am looking for a Mr Potter.’
Thanks to the rain, the street wasn’t as crowded as it could have been, though there were still a few people about, splashing in and out of nearby courts with their heads down and their collars raised. It was an old, dilapidated street, dotted here and there with ancient buildings like the doctor’s house, which was half-timbered, with leadlight windows. Birdie had never seen such a drunken-looking structure. Its second storey jutted out precariously, like a hat-brim. Its roof had sunk in the middle like an old mattress, so that its dormer windows leaned towards each other. It had crooked chimneys, bowed walls, and a front door that had settled a few inches below street level.
Miss Eames knocked on this door three times, but there was no response from within. So she abandoned her post on the doorstep and joined the others in the nearby lane, where she reported that the doctor’s house seemed to be all shut up, with every curtain drawn and every downstairs shutter fixed.
‘There
is
smoke coming from the chimney,’ she admitted, ‘but a doused fire can smoke for ever so long, in my experience.’
‘We’ll ask Jem if that slavvy’s gone yet,’ said Charlie.
He then led his companions around a corner, into the alley that lay behind Doctor Morton’s house. Here they were greeted by a young boy in a flannel jacket, who suddenly popped up from behind a rubbish heap.
‘
You
took yer time!’ he scolded. ‘She’s bin gone a good quarter hour!’
It was Jem Barbary, the black-haired pickpocket. Birdie scowled at him, but he ignored her. He was too busy peering suspiciously at Miss Eames.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know her.’
‘She a friend o’ mine,’ Alfred rejoined.
‘She knocked on the door for us, but flushed out no one,’ Charlie explained, glancing up and down the alley. It divided two rows of small, fenced yards, so it wasn’t overlooked by innumerable windows. Furthermore, the dreary weather had emptied it of life. Not even a rat could be seen foraging in the clumps of refuse that were strewn about. ‘Is there anything we should know of?’ he asked Jem. ‘Any suspicious movement?’
‘Not a twitch,’ Jem replied. ‘It’s a deadlurk. Empty.’
‘Then let’s do this,’ said Enoch. And without another word, he heaved Jem Barbary over the nearest fence.
Jem quickly unlatched Doctor Morton’s rear gate. As it swung open, Birdie caught sight of a privy. But she didn’t get a chance to inspect this dingy little hut for bogles. Though the small garden was shielded by the canopy of a stunted, wizened old crabapple tree, it was still partly exposed to the gaze of any neighbours who might be looking out of their upstairs windows. So Charlie wanted everyone inside the house as quickly as possible.
‘Don’t talk,’ he instructed under his breath. ‘Don’t move unless you have to.’
Charlie himself stood guard while Enoch picked the lock on the kitchen door. As for the others, they were told to huddle against the wall of a tumbledown coal shed. It was a squalid hiding place, but they didn’t have to crouch among the sooty weeds for very long. Soon Charlie was hustling them into the kitchen, which was a dank and decrepit addition to the main house.
One look at its dirt floor, antique oven and stained tabletop was enough to make Miss Eames turn even paler than she already was.
‘He
cannot
be a doctor and live like this!’ she protested softly, much to Birdie’s surprise. She thought the kitchen quite airy and well-stocked, though not as clean as it could have been. And there was a definite smell of mildewed potatoes.
She saw Jem surreptitiously whip a handful of almonds into his pocket.
‘Enoch’ll stay here, in case the slavvy comes back,’ Charlie whispered. He had put down his carpetbag, though not before removing a crowbar from its depths. ‘The rest o’ you, keep close to me. I don’t want no one wandering off, is that clear?’
‘Aye,’ said Alfred. Birdie grunted. Jem gave a nod because his mouth was full of almonds.
Miss Eames was gazing fixedly at the crowbar. ‘Oh dear,’ was all she could say.
‘Everyone take this rag,’ Charlie continued quietly, removing a tattered old shirt from the same bag that had yielded up his crowbar, ‘and wipe yer feet on it. Or we’ll be leaving our boot-marks, which can be traced back to the boots as made ’em. Enoch’ll mind this bag.
And
yer wet brolly.’ He jerked his chin at Miss Eames, who promptly relinquished her umbrella. Her hand was trembling, Birdie noticed.
‘We’ll follow in Billy’s footsteps, but we’ll do it back to front,’ Charlie went on. ‘Summat happened to him between here and the upstairs window. If we don’t find nothing on our way to that spot, then we’ll spread out.’
‘Watch where you’re treading,’ warned Enoch. ‘There might be a trapdoor.’
‘Or a bogle,’ said Birdie.
She began to wring out her wet clothes, while those with dirty boots cleaned off the muck. When everyone was ready, Charlie raised his crowbar. He cautiously pulled open the door that linked the kitchen to the rest of the house – and found himself stepping into a large, low, shadowy room containing a sideboard and a dining suite. The furniture in this room was heavy and dark. So was the panelling on the walls. But the dignity of carved oak and red damask was marred by a mess of paper that overwhelmed almost everything else.
Books and papers were piled high on the dining table. They were scattered over the floor, heaped in drifts on the sideboard, and stuffed into half a dozen wooden chests. Sheets of paper were nailed to the wall. Rolls of parchment had tumbled off the window seat. Scraps of cardboard were tucked between the pages of leather-bound books, which were stacked in great towers under a forest of melted candle stubs.
‘Good heavens,’ said Miss Eames. While the others gazed blankly at the chaos in front of them, Miss Eames was awestruck as she peered at a book that lay open on one of the chairs. ‘Someone reads Latin.
And
Greek.’
Birdie glanced up at Alfred, who shook his head. There was dust everywhere, but no blood. No slime. No signs of a recent struggle. ‘Whatever happened to yer boy, it didn’t happen here,’ Alfred told Charlie. And Charlie agreed.
Together they made their way to a door at the other end of the room, trying not to disturb any books or papers. It was very difficult. Birdie kept slipping on loose sheets, while Jem accidentally knocked a large, dusty volume onto the floor. He snickered when he retrieved the book, because it contained a black-and-white print of a naked man with bat’s wings.
‘Shhh!’ Charlie put a finger to his lips. Then he took a deep breath, raised his crowbar a little higher, and gave the door in front of him a tentative shove.
To Birdie’s surprise, the dining room didn’t open onto a hallway, or a stairwell. Instead she found herself stepping into a very large drawing room, which contained even more dark panelling, and heavy pieces of furniture. There was also a big stone fireplace, and an odd little boxy staircase that seemed to be built into one wall. But instead of paper, an extraordinary array of other strange things were strewn about: knives and candles, apothecary jars, a bird’s claw, a human skull, a carved stone figure, a shrunken head. There were scrolls made of silk and animal hide. There were slabs of sealing wax and a grotesque feather mask. There were hairless specimens preserved in glass bottles.
A large circle had been painted on the floor, next to a smaller triangle. The circle contained four six-pointed stars; the triangle had a circle inside it. Each shape was decorated with inscriptions, which Birdie couldn’t read. But when she looked around for help, she realised that Miss Eames was nowhere in sight.
‘Miss Eames?’ she said, a little too loudly.
Charlie glared at her. ‘Shhh!’
‘Where’s Miss Eames?’ Birdie hissed at Alfred, who was pulling his dark lantern out of his sack. The room was very dim because the window was heavily shuttered. The atmosphere also seemed somehow smoky, though the embers in the fireplace were black and cold.
‘She’s still in the other room,’ Alfred replied. ‘Reading a book.’
Birdie didn’t like the sound of that. Hadn’t they been told to stay together? She was retracing her steps when Jem suddenly announced, ‘Billy would have stopped for these here. He couldn’t have passed ’em up – not if his life depended on it.’
He was leaning over a small round table draped in a purple cloth. From where she stood, Birdie couldn’t quite make out what had caught his attention. But then Alfred struck a match, and the lantern flared, and she saw a gleam of silver.
‘This ain’t plate,’ said Jem. ‘It’s solid sterling. Feel the weight of it, Charlie.’
He picked up a silver cup, which flashed and glittered in the lamplight. Drawing closer, Birdie spotted two other silver objects on the table: a man’s ring and a large seal, or stamp. Both were solid chunks of metal, highly polished and carefully placed, like sacred vessels on an altar.
Jem was shaking his head. ‘If Billy ever seen that ring, he would have tried to palm it, no question.’
‘And he must have come past here,’ Charlie said thoughtfully, squinting at the staircase on the other side of the room. ‘Unless he never made it this far.’
Birdie studied the silver ring on the purple cloth. All around lay murky, dusty, eerie clutter, but the round table with its display of treasure was clean and bright and attractive. It made her think of Alfred’s ring of salt, with herself standing inside. It made her think of baits and traps and bogles.
Only this wasn’t a bogle-trap. This was a boy-trap.
Her gaze drifted around the room, lingering on the dark walls, the wax stalagmites, the cobwebs hanging from the smoke-blackened beams, and the dead things rotting behind smeared glass. They seemed to exude a gloomy aura, like a prison or a graveyard. They made Birdie’s heart sink and her courage fail.
‘There’s a bogle nearby,’ said Alfred.
He was staring at the circle on the floor. When he looked up, and caught Birdie’s eye, she instantly believed him. There
was
a bogle nearby. There had to be. All her instincts were telling her so.
‘It’s close as can be,’ Alfred continued. Lifting his lantern, he stepped forward to examine the fireplace. ‘If yer boy stopped for a time in front o’ that silver, Charlie, and had his back to the bogle’s lair—’ ‘But where
is
the bogle’s lair?’ Birdie interrupted.
‘D’you think it’s a chimney-bogle?’
Alfred shrugged.
‘That chimney’s a long way from this silver.’ Birdie frowned as she tried to calculate the distance. ‘And in plain sight, for all it’s so dark. If Billy stopped here, and the bogle took ’im . . .’
‘Mebbe the silver’s bin moved,’ said Alfred. Then Jem, who was still gazing greedily at the cup in his hand, observed, ‘Mebbe there ain’t no bogle. Mebbe the cove as lives here came through that door, saw Billy hoisting his gewgaws, and nobbled him from behind.’
‘And did what with ’im after?’ Charlie demanded. ‘We ain’t seen no corpse leave this house.’
‘Not in one piece, you ain’t.’ As the people around him gasped and grimaced, Jem added roughly, ‘It’s what doctors do, ain’t it? They cut up corpses to learn their trade. They’ve the tools for it –
and
the stomach.’
But Alfred shook his head. ‘There’s a bogle nearby,’ he repeated. Then he pointed at the circle on the floor. ‘Why else would this be here? Someone’s seen the bogle and is trying to kill it.’
‘No.’ Miss Eames suddenly spoke up. She had appeared in the doorway, carrying a small, cloth-bound book. ‘He is
not
trying to kill it. He is trying to summon it.’
Everyone goggled at her. Even Jem wrenched his gaze away from the silver cup in his hand. Charlie, who had been lifting lids and pulling open drawers, scowled and said, ‘How d’you know that?’
‘Because it says so in his journal.’ Miss Eames looked damp and pasty, like a fillet of fish. But her eyes were blazing. ‘Doctor Morton considers himself a necromancer,’ she announced contemptuously. ‘He wishes to conjure up a demon so that he can make it serve him.’ As proof, she opened her book and read from it. ‘“
Let me only invoke an aerial spirit of infernal powers, and I shall have the four elements at my command.
”’
‘But you can’t
make
a bogle do
nothing
!’ Birdie protested. ‘Can you, Mr Bunce?’
‘You can make it die,’ said Alfred.
‘No, no. You don’t understand.’ Miss Eames was trying to stay calm, though the strain of it made her voice creak. ‘Doctor Morton is highly educated. He has been studying ancient grimoires, and other texts associated with magic and alchemy. He believes that he can imitate King Solomon, who evoked seventy-two demons with magic formulae, confining them in a brass vessel to work for him.’
Alfred gave a snort. ‘If you ever tried to put a bogle in a brass box—’ he began.
‘You would fail,’ Miss Eames finished. ‘And he did. He failed to conjure up a demon – until he began to imitate Gilles de Rais.’ Seeing the confusion on every face, she went on to provide more details. ‘Gilles de Rais was a medieval lord who tried to evoke a demon to do his bidding. When his first three attempts didn’t succeed, he was told by a wicked alchemist to make an offering of dead children.’
