Beneath London (17 page)

There was an exposed bit of shoreline some distance farther downstream, indented with animal prints – badger and fox, for certain, and what might be the tiny paw prints of a hedgehog. All of them had come down out of the forest along a narrow path. Finn followed it, working his way downhill, the stream tumbling over rocks away to his left now. He stopped short and listened when he heard someone calling out – a woman’s voice.

He set out at a run when he heard it again – a cry for help, and no doubt about it. He came out on level ground, picking his way around a tumble of rocks and finding himself on a flat run of shoreline along a wide pool. A man, bloody and half buried in the pool, swayed in the current face down. On the opposite shore stood Mother Laswell herself, tied to a tree, deadwood heaped around her feet, a shovel lying nearby.

It was a confounding sight, but inarguable. He held onto his creel with his free hand and took a run at a line of half-submerged rocks, leaping out to catch the edge of the first one with his toe, bounding off of it even as it shifted beneath his weight. He danced across the stream dry-shod until his final leap, when he splashed ankle-deep into the cold water. He cast down his pole and creel and took out the oyster knife that he had carried since his days on the river, an Irish knife with a short blade, sharp on both edges. He tried to listen to the rush of words tumbling from Mother Laswell’s mouth as he flung the brush and bundles of wood away, but he made out little of what she was saying.

“Hold up, ma’am,” he said to her, cutting her bonds with his knife. “You’re all right now.”

Mother Laswell staggered to the brook, drank out of a cupped hand where the water tumbled over a clean stone, and then sat on a nearby boulder breathing hard, her hands on her knees.

“It’s Clara,” she gasped. “The man Shadwell has taken her into London, the one who murdered her mother, the false policeman. That’s his own partner there in the stream, whom he betrayed and murdered.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Finn said. “I’m bound for London myself, and might as well leave now as tomorrow. I’m ready this very moment. The man Shadwell, what’s his appearance?”

“We’d best talk as we move along,” she said, standing up, pausing to catch her balance, and then hurrying away down the shore, leaving Finn to pick up his fishing pole and creel and follow. She told him the story of Sarah Wright’s murder and the coming of Shadwell and Bingham in the black brougham, disguised as Metropolitan Police, some of which Finn already knew, and about Bill Kraken being wounded, maybe worse. “This man Shadwell is a human monster, Finn. Don’t let him near you. Use all your cleverness, but do not engage the man. He’s a murderer, but with a convincing tongue about him, like a serpent. Clara is safe from him for the moment because he means to put her to use, but you’re not safe, Finn, no more than his partner was safe.”

Her gait had slowed considerably, and she hobbled along now, the soles torn out of her slippers. Finn looked at the stile in the distance, the farm out of sight beyond. Speed was essential if he wanted to catch up with Clara and Shadwell on the London road, and he was in a tearing hurry to be away. “I’ll do just as you say, ma’am. Are you all right, though? Not injured?”

“Tired and defeated, Finn, but not injured. Shadwell doesn’t know you, and that’s your main strength. Don’t show your hand or…”

“Yes, ma’am, and you’re to bear in mind that the Professor and Alice are in London along with Hasbro, or will be in due time, and it’ll be strange if they don’t lend a hand as well.”

“Yes. I’d forgotten. My wits are astray, Finn. Warn the Professor that Shadwell was disguised. He is a hook-nosed man who wore a toupee when first we saw him, but today half his head is bald as an egg on top, although he’s wearing a flat-topped felt hat, green in color, which would…”

“Forgive me ma’am, but I must run ahead if I’m to be of any service to anyone.”

“Wait, Finn! You’ll want money in London. Do you have any?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, and she drew out the purse that she had put away for their Yorkshire journey, now never to be made.

“Spend what you need,” she told him, drawing out half the currency and assorted coins. “And this handbill, Finn,” she said, sliding one of the several folded copies into the purse, “if nothing serves, and you’re all to seek, there’s an address on it. It might come to nothing, but the men were carrying a quantity of them, as if they had something to do with it.”

He stuffed the purse into his pocket without looking into it. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, walking away from her backwards, not wanting to be impolite, but thinking of Clara still, the girl’s face clear in his mind. He would do whatever was needed to find her – that he knew – but he was burning daylight, and Clara was further along the London road with every passing moment.

Mother Laswell waved him on, shouting, “Don’t stint!” And then, “Take the chaise, Finn! Shadwell will be driving a coach or so we must assume, a black brougham with a white squiggle. Send the doctor back to Hereafter if you find him at home!”

Finn was halfway to the stile now, waving his fishing pole in the air to acknowledge her final shouted entreaty. He went through the gate in the hedge and loped up past the oast house and into the woods along the path to the farm, where he saw spilled blood and broken flowerpots on the paving stones near the back door. He set his pole against the wall – he would want his creel – and he knocked hard on the door. He opened it without waiting and shouted a greeting before walking in, where he found Mr. and Mrs. Tully standing next to the day-bed in the parlor. Kraken lay on his side, breathing heavily, his eyes shut. Finn begged their pardon for his hurry and ask Mr. Tully about the chaise.

But there was no chaise. Simonides had already taken it to fetch the doctor. The boy had gone off half an hour ago, Mr. Tully said, when Bill Kraken had staggered into the house and collapsed. It would be another half hour before the boy’s return, and who knew how long it would take him if the doctor were away from home? They feared for Mother Laswell and Clara, Mrs. Tully put in, to which Finn replied that Mother Laswell was quite all right, and would be here soon, but what about the wagon – could he borrow the wagon? It was no living good to anyone at the moment, Mr. Tully told him. This morning a wheel had seen fit to separate from its axle and fling itself into a stone, breaking two spokes, and wasn’t yet repaired. Two hours would put it right, if Finn could lend a hand.

Out the window the evening gloom was descending. Real night was half an hour away, and Mother Laswell would arrive shortly with more advice for him, very good advice, no doubt, but…

“Is there a saddle for Ned Ludd?” Finn asked, and as soon as Mr. Tully said, “Oh, aye,” and began to nod, Finn set out for the barn, through the French window, happy to see through the open top half of the Dutch door that a lantern was lit within. “Where are you taking him?” Mr. Tully called after him.

“London!” Finn shouted back, and didn’t wait to hear the reply.

There stood the wagon, with the wheel off but supported by blocks. The broken spokes lay on the ground, the new spokes waiting to be knocked into the hub. There were three saddles on a rail, and Finn looked at each carefully. A mule saddle hadn’t much rocker, a mule being flatter in the withers than a horse. Having ridden all sorts, from zebras to camels to elephants, he quickly found it and hoisted it off the rail. He draped a blanket over the creature, stroking his cheek and whispering into his ear. He had cared for mules during his days in Duffy’s Circus, and he had a way with them and their stubborn notions. Keeping them happy was the salient thing.

Dr. Johnson came into his mind as he was saddling the mule, specifically that he was making ready to abandon the elephant. He wished he hadn’t said out loud that he would top off Johnson’s food bins in the morning, because he was certain that the elephant not only had a long memory, but that he understood human talk fairly well, especially as regards food. He hoped that Mr. Binger would look in on him as soon as he returned.

Finn filled a bag with oats now, collected a nosebag, checked to see that the saddle was cinched tight, and walked Ned Ludd to the swing-gate that barred the open barn door. The mule stood looking out into the dusk when Finn drew the gate back, and for a moment Finn thought that he would refuse to leave the barn. But it wasn’t so. As soon as Finn was settled into the saddle, Ned Ludd set out at a steady pace, as if he knew that they hadn’t any time to waste, and within minutes Hereafter Farm had disappeared behind them. They soon passed through the village and came out onto the London road, where a sign told him that it was six miles into Wrotham Heath. Finn felt the freedom of it, of the open space fore and aft and to either side, and of having no one to answer to but himself and his duty to Clara.

The missing chaise from Hereafter soon hurried past in the opposite direction, Simonides driving, apparently having come from Doctor Pullman’s house. The Doctor and Constable Brooke rattled along behind in the Constable’s wagon. Simonides looked at Finn in surprise as they passed each other, and Finn shouted, “It’s Clara!” although the message would not convey any meaning either to Simonides or Constable Brooke until they had reached Hereafter and heard the story from Mother Laswell. Finn wondered briefly whether he should return to the farm in order to borrow the chaise, but he would lose most of an hour doing so, and in any event he couldn’t abide further waiting.

Clara returned to his mind now that he was settled and moving and had time to think. She was quite the most beautiful girl he had known, and he was certain that she fancied him – at least a little bit, he thought, not wanting to press his luck. He thought then of what had been done to her mother – what he had been told by Tommy earlier today at Hereafter – but he set the thought aside.

There wasn’t room enough in his mind for that sort of darkness, which took up an outsized amount of space and cast its pall over common sense and muddled the immediate present. And as for the immediate present, Finn wished that he’d had time to bring a warmer coat. It would be a cold night, and his right shoe was still damp from plunging into the stream. Then he remembered that he had an unknown quantity of Mother Laswell’s money in his pocket, although unless he happened upon a coat for sale, little good it would do him now. Better to have yesterday’s newspaper to stuff under his shirt against the wind.

In due time the moon rose above the trees, for which he was thankful; several times now a coach or chaise had driven past, and only one of them – the mail coach – with headlights. He wanted to see and be seen, not edged off into the canal that ran alongside the road. Ned Ludd was happy with the canal, however, having stopped to drink deeply from it a short time back. If the villain Shadwell were driving a chaise or the brougham that he had driven yesterday, surely the vehicle would carry him and Clara into London long before Finn would arrive, and then the both of them would simply disappear into the great city. Finn would seek out the Professor at the Half Toad, as they had planned, but he would arrive in a state of shameful ignorance, merely a bearer of bad tidings. And of course there was no certainty that Shadwell and Clara were ahead of him at all, no certainty that they were bound for London, now that he thought of it.

His mind ran uselessly on various uncertainties until he recalled something his mother had once told him: “With enough ifs one could put all Paris in a bottle.” And so he compelled himself to put the ifs aside. His destination was London until the destination changed for good reason. But what then? He would discover it in due time as was always the case, for good or ill.

He fed Ned Ludd oats out of the nosebag when they arrived in Wrotham Heath, where he bought a meat pie for himself at the Queen’s Rest. Sitting beneath the gaslight that illuminated the road in front of the inn, he opened the purse that Mother Laswell had given him, feeling the weight of the several coins and looking through the banknotes, which would have seen him through six months back in the days when he was living hard. He unfolded the paper that was slid in among the banknotes and was startled to see that the likeness of Dr. Narbondo was drawn upon it.

This was very puzzling indeed – something he could not have anticipated even if he had put his mind to it. Mother Laswell had told him that a quantity of the handbills had belonged to the men who had taken Clara, and that had an ominous air, implying secret connections, perhaps real wickedness. The address was near the Temple. He knew the area well enough, grand houses, which made this all the more puzzling. What did a rich man want with the likes of Dr. Narbondo? All the money in the world, however, could not resurrect Narbondo from where he had gone, so it was all one.

An hour later Finn was well out into the countryside, with a line of trees on either side. Pastures stretched away in the moonlight, visible now and then through the trees. He came to the peak of a hill and saw that a farmhouse lay off to the right-hand side. It was brightly lit, comfortable looking, with smoke rising from the chimney. The sight of it made him aware of the lonesome night and of the long odds against him. He bent forward to have an encouraging chat with Ned Ludd, reminding him of their sacred duty to Clara. The mule’s ears twitched, as if he were attending to every word. A mule had no concern with hopelessness, thank God.

A lantern appeared a hundred yards ahead, someone just then coming around a bend in the road – a boy, Finn saw after a moment, about his own age, holding the lantern out in front of him so as to illuminate as much of the road as possible. The light showed his face clearly, and Finn saw that he carried a brace of rabbits and had a rifle tilted against his shoulder. He also wore a heavy wool coat.

“Hello to you,” Finn said, reining the mule in when they drew abreast.

“Hello to you, too, friend,” the boy said. “Are you off to the races, then?” He wore a smile on his face, as if he thought that Ned Ludd looked droll, or more likely that Finn looked droll, riding upon the mule.

“Aye, racing into London,” Finn said. “Dinner, is it, that you’ve got there? Are you from the farmhouse, then?” Finn saw that the boy’s coat, although heavy, was worn ragged in places, and was stained with what might have been blood – his hunting coat, no doubt.