King Arthur's Bones (45 page)

‘I’ll have to hurry you, pal. It’s a new moon tonight, and I am not in the mood to waste the hours of darkness when I have an order for five large.’

Crouch, for that’s who the pockmarked man was, meant he had a request for five adult bodies to be supplied no doubt to Guy’s Hospital down the road that very night. Flanked as he was by four lieutenants, resembling nothing less than Barbary apes from the hairy nature of their faces to their beady, animalistic eyes, Crouch was a fearful character at the best of times. Now he was in one of his bad moods, as today he had learned that Israel Chapman, a Jew to whom he owed money, had started up in the trade Crouch had thought to have monopolized. Israel had had the nerve to supply a corpse or two to St Bartholomew’s. He had already had a drink or two while planning how to deal with the Jew, when these two innocents had had the nerve to fall into his rookery.

They had been observed asking about Kathleen Hoddy in a voice loud enough to irritate Crouch, who liked to keep his affairs dark. He had got his men to hustle them out of the gin-shop and into the back room Crouch used to plan his forays into the graveyards of London. So they had ended up in the very presence of the man they were asking awkward questions about. Now Crouch was wondering how to deal with them. He reckoned the man was easy meat, and maybe he could add him to the order for five large corpses by way of compensation for the nuisance he had caused. But the woman was another matter. A little on the plump side for Crouch’s tastes, she would nevertheless be more useful alive than dead. He grinned, exposing his blackened teeth.

‘Now, as for your request for information about the girl, I can’t say I’ve ever heard the name. Nor do I know anything about this pile of old bones you are looking for. Though I might be able to help you for a consideration.’

Malinferno looked glum, knowing he had no money to offer the man as a bribe. Of course, if Crouch was the murderer they sought, no amount of coins would get to the truth. It was more likely that he and Doll would end up on some anatomist’s slab themselves. He shivered, wishing they had never come to Borough to try to get some information from the locals. It was clear from the start that Crouch would learn of their prying. He watched in horror as Crouch stepped close up to Doll and leered at her, peering down her cleavage with clear intent in his mind.

‘Of course, you could pay me in kind, if you know what I mean . . . arrgh.’

His lascivious tones were abruptly cut off, and Malinferno looked on in puzzlement as Crouch’s face turned first bright red, then purple, his eyes bugging out of his head. Doll merely smiled sweetly, and told his nervous lieutenants to stand their ground.

‘Or your boss’s jewels will be crushed to powder.’

Malinferno looked down with curiosity at the front of Crouch’s stained and crumpled pants. Doll had firm hold of a hefty portion of the cloth and, from the look of pain on Crouch’s face, most of the contents too. Malinferno could not believe that such delicate hands, encased in virginal white gloves, could perform such a crushing task. He winced at the thought. Doll, however, was implacable.

‘Mr Crouch, I don’t believe that you never heard of Kitten. She spoke to you about the bones, and you sent her to get them, didn’t you?’

At first Crouch’s eyes shone with defiance, and he shook his head. Then he winced as Doll squeezed harder and lifted him a little by his crotch. His manner changed abruptly. He nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes. I overheard the silly bitch talking about finding a bag of bones. I told her she should go back and fetch them for me, or she was in trouble. The next thing I knew she was dead.’

‘Killed by you?’

‘No. Why should I do that? She was on an errand for me.’

Malinferno leaned over Doll’s shoulder and threw in his own question. ‘And my friend, Augustus Bromhead? What of him?’

‘Never heard of him.’

Doll gave a deft twist of her wrist, and Crouch squealed like a pig.

‘Orl right, he was on our shopping list, the little dwarf was. But we heard someone else was after him. Someone you didn’t argue with – a little Welshman from out of town. We left him to it.’

Crouch’s eyes were by now screwed up in pain, and he could manage only a final croak. ‘It’s the truth. Honest.’

Doll relaxed her grip, and a great sigh came from Crouch. He sank to his knees, clutching his bruised tackle. Doll dusted off her pretty gloves and thought to retaliate in some way for Crouch’s comment about Kitten being a silly bitch. It was not for the likes of Crouch to deride a girl who was now dead and due for a pauper’s grave. Even if she was a silly bitch. Malinferno perceived Doll’s intent from the look in her eyes and, grabbing her shoulders, steered her rapidly from the room. He wanted them both to escape before Crouch was sufficiently recovered to think of setting his faithful terriers on them. He didn’t stop pushing her along ahead of him until they were well down Tooley Street and halfway back to Bromhead’s house.

Sitting in the gloomy upstairs room that was Bromhead’s study, Malinferno tried to puzzle out the sequence of events that had brought Bromhead’s and Kitten’s deaths about.

‘Well, it looks like Crouch didn’t do it either.’

He rooted aimlessly through the impedimenta on Augustus’s desk, not sure what would be of relevance. Sturdy modern leather-bound books lay side by side with ancient curled-up scrolls, and various items served as anchors for the latter, preventing the wind that whistled through the ill-fitting windows from carrying such papers away. One of the paperweights was a large skull, and Malinferno quietly set it aside as a possible substitute for Arthur’s missing one. There would have to be some judicious hammering of its surface, as he was sure Augustus had once told him that Arthur’s skull was damaged with a sword blow. But it would be a start. After all, they had the empty box already. He looked across at Doll, who was occupying her time by scanning through a small and battered tome that Malinferno remembered Thomas Dale picking up off the floor at their first meeting. It was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of Britain
, and its position on the floor had been the reason why Dale reckoned the antiquarian had been killed. He said Augustus would not have thrown down such a precious book. The recollection gave him another idea – maybe the last chance of finding the bones.

‘Doll, put the book down. We have to go.’

Before she could ask where they were going, Malinferno was down the stairs and out into the street. Only then, as they hurried along, did Doll manage to get her question out. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To talk to someone who might know who else is interested in Arthur’s bones. Perhaps this Welshman of Crouch’s knew about them from the start. Perhaps it’s him who has been following me.’

Doll clutched Malinferno’s arm and hung on tight. ‘Well, I may be mistaken, but someone is following us right now. No, don’t look around!’ She pinched Malinferno’s arm hard to stop him giving the game away. ‘Ever since we left the Frenchy’s place and in the Borough there’s been a large cove with a big hat on right behind us.’

‘Probably the same one as tried to peer in at the window of Madam De Trou’s before he fell off the railings.’

‘Well, that may explain why this one has a stick, and is walking with a limp.’

After a description like that, Malinferno could not resist it. He turned to look behind him. Suddenly Doll grabbed his face in both hands and planted a kiss full on his mouth. Her lips were wet, and she tasted of strawberries. Malinferno felt quite hot, and his hand sneaked up to Doll’s bosom. She stopped his groping fist with one firm hand.

‘Don’t get the wrong idea, Joe Malinferno,’ she hissed into his ear. ‘That was just to stop you giving the game away. Though I must say it wasn’t all that bad. Now, just look out the corner of your eye. It’s the big man in the black coachman’s coat and hat. You can’t miss him.’

Indeed, Malinferno couldn’t miss him. Not only was their pursuer supporting himself on a heavy wooden stick, but a bandage circumnavigated his skull underneath the hat. It seemed he had more than twisted his ankle when he fell from outside the window of Madam De Trou’s house.

‘Don’t linger on him too long. And give me another of them kisses. I suppose I owe you from last night.’ Malinferno needed no further invitation from Doll Pocket, and he tasted the sweet strawberry lips again. After a while they resumed their stroll, sure that the man was following again.

‘Where
are
we going, Joe?’

‘Why, to Thomas Dale, of course. We may not yet have the bones, but he may give us some idea of who might be interested in them besides us.’

Bloomsbury Square, once called Southampton Square because the fashionable area had been developed by the earl of that name, was lined with noble residences of the well-to-do. Malinferno guessed that Thomas Dale must have made a lot of money out of cabinetmaking. It boded well for his pockets if they could string him along until they found Arthur’s bones. Or any bones, when it came down to it. The evil thought of substitution had more than once crossed Malinferno’s mind, only for it to be put aside. If Arthur could be resurrected from his bones, then the bones of some utter nobody yanked summarily from his grave by the sack-’em-up men would give the game away. Of course, if Doll Pocket were to be believed, the whole idea was nonsense. But Malinferno, for all his love of science and engineering, could not discard the rags of a belief in the once and future king. After all, his English mother had told him all the tales. And like a foreigner who eagerly adopts the customs and ways of another country, Malinferno had become more English than a full-blooded Englishman. He realized Doll was saying something to him, and came out of his reverie.

‘What did you say, Doll?’

‘Here we are, Joe. Are you all right?’

Malinferno nodded and stared up at the fine brass plate on the grand house before which they stood. He mounted the steps, Doll on his arm. Pulling on the ivory handle of the bell-pull, he hissed in her ear. ‘Put on that posh accent of yours. We don’t want our employer thinking I consort with . . . with . . .’

Doll smiled sweetly. ‘With bawds and grubbers?’

Malinferno blushed and was about to apologize when the door was opened and a liveried manservant stood before them.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Is Mr Dale at home? He is not expecting us, but he will see us. My name is Malinferno.’

The servant sneered, though whether it was because of his name or Doll’s presence on his master’s pristine doorstep, Malinferno was not quite sure. But he did offer some information.

‘Master is not at home.’ He sniffed haughtily. ‘He is still at his place of business.’

‘And where might this place of . . . business . . . be?’

The servant named a street in a run-down area on the other side of the Euston Road and abruptly closed the door.

‘Gawd, I didn’t need my posh accent after all,’ muttered Doll.

The place where Dale carried out his business was the very opposite of his residence. At first they couldn’t find the address the snooty manservant had given them. But finally they located it down a narrow alley whence came a strange metallic stench. Three sets of sliding doors gave on to the alley, and one of them was open. Doll peered into the darkness, while Malinferno walked on to the last door behind which there was the sound of activity. She could only just make out the shape of strange cabinets piled high one on the other. Or that is what she thought they were at first, based on knowing Dale had introduced himself to Joe as a cabinetmaker. It was an easy mistake to make, until her eyes adjusted to the dark.

‘Arrrgh, Joe!’

‘What is it?’

Malinferno came scurrying back up the alley, worried by Doll’s cry of alarm. She pointed into the warehouse.

‘Look! It’s coffins. Hundreds of them.’

Malinferno smiled knowingly.

‘So it is. No wonder Dale stumbled on the word “cabinet” when he introduced himself. He was just about to say coffin-maker. A very lucrative business too, judging by the house in Bloomsbury Square.’

Just then, the end door in the alley slid open, revealing an unearthly red glow. A tall, lanky figure emerged from the smoke that billowed out of the open door. Doll clutched Joe’s arm in fear. She hated anything to do with death, and this looked like the very devil himself come to fetch her to his lair. The voice of the apparition, however, was mild and well modulated.

‘Who’s that? Oh, Mr Malinferno, it’s you. Have you any news for me?’

Thomas Dale came over to where Joe and Doll stood, and he took Malinferno by the hand. His face looked a little flushed, but that could be explained by the heat emanating from the end door of the narrow lane. He leaned across and slid the door closed next to where they stood, hiding the wooden coffins from view. He coughed nervously.

‘I like to keep my business private, as it is not to everyone’s taste in good society. However, that is all to change soon.’ He rubbed his hands together with evident pleasure. ‘I have just finished drafting an advertisement that will soon appear in all the best newspapers.’

He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket with a flourish and gave it to Malinferno. ‘Go on, read it.’

Malinferno did so. ‘The violation of the grave is said to be needful for the instruction of medical pupils, but ask that of one who has interred a mother, husband, child or friend. Shall he devote this object of his affection to such a foul purpose? If not,
THE ONLY SAFE COFFIN IS A DALE’S PATENT WROUGHT-IRON ONE.
Thomas Dale performs funerals in any part of the kingdom, and those undertakers who have
IRON COFFINS
must divide the profits with
THOMAS DALE
.’

Dale positively beamed as Malinferno’s inflection naturally highlighted those words written in bold uppercase letters by Dale’s own hand. He indicated the red, glowing factory behind him.

‘That is what we are embarked on now. And God help the bodysnatcher who encounters a Dale Patent Coffin.’

From behind Malinferno, Doll was heard to gasp. ‘Gawd help us. What is the world come to, when we must lock our nearest and dearest away in a safe when they die?’