The Aylesford Skull (49 page)

MORNING

“W
ho would have thought that there were so many costers selling pineapples?” Jack asked. He and Tubby were standing under an awning out of the rain. “And at this early hour of the morning. We’ve got to look into every cart, I suppose, although I’m worried that we’re wasting our time. One of Narbondo’s people might be setting up shop a few yards away as we speak.”

“Not a waste of time at all,” Tubby told him. “One can never eat enough pineapple. And as for these fiends being a few yards away or half a mile, there’s nothing we can do about it but continue to search. Perhaps Hasbro and Doyle are having better luck.” He shoved the last of the slice into his mouth and chewed it up. “Uncle Gilbert spent some time in the Sandwich Isles, do you know, and grew very fond of the pineapple. He taught me to eat them as a boy, fried up in cane sugar of an afternoon, and served with a tot of brandy poured over and set alight. Those are glorious memories, Jack.” He wiped the juice from his face with a kerchief.

“I don’t doubt it for an instant, but here’s another of the damned barrows,” Jack said, “just now turning into the alley ahead. Two men this time, and a headlamp on the front of the barrow.”

“By God that’s one of
Merton’s
alleys,” Tubby said, as the two of them set out, Tubby carrying the dark-lantern. “‘Carmelite Culvert,’ it’s called on the map. Look to your weapon, Jack. It’s a dead end ahead. They’ll fight like rats.”

Jack was carrying de Groot’s tiny pistol in his pocket, but he had never shot the thing, had never shot a pistol at all, let alone at a man. He had thought there would be some comfort in carrying it, but at the moment he felt nothing of the sort. The alley was empty when they reached it. Halfway down stood a deep, foul-smelling alcove an inch-deep in standing water. Several feet into the alcove stood a low, iron door, heavy with rust, not just quite tight.

“They’re in a hurry,” Tubby whispered. “Too much of a hurry to bother shutting the door, the fools.”

“They mean to come back out this same way, no doubt,” Jack said. He peered into the passage beyond the door, immediately seeing the lantern moving along some distance down – two lanterns, he saw now, one carried in a man’s hand and the other the headlamp on the front of the cart, considerably brighter and showing far down the steeply descending tunnel.

Tubby set out, Jack following, pulling the door nearly shut behind them. The brick tunnel was thankfully dry – perhaps an access to the Fleet Sewer – and the loud creaking of the cart emboldened them to move even more hastily. Tubby carried his blackthorn raised across his chest for a backhand blow.

They were upon them quickly, apparently unheard until the last few steps. The man carrying the lantern turned toward them, his illuminated face bearing a puzzled look. He flung the lantern into Tubby’s face out of sheer surprise, and Tubby knocked it aside with his left forearm, the lantern clattering against the bricks on the opposite wall. Tubby struck with the blackthorn in the same moment, knocking the man sideways as Jack leapt past him, pursuing the one who pushed the cart, who was trundling along ever more rapidly down the decline, some distance ahead.

The man stopped abruptly, gripping the handle of the cart with one hand and skidding along for a moment on the soles of his boots. As momentum carried Jack helplessly forward, he saw the pistol come out of the man’s coat. There was the crack of the weapon firing as Jack threw himself down, realizing even as he did so that the man had missed the hasty shot, and tumbled forward into the man’s legs, bringing him down. His assailant hit him awkwardly on the side of the head, bit him on the hand, and then sprang up and sprinted down the tunnel in pursuit of the runaway cart, which careened away, bouncing on the uneven brick of the floor.

Jack followed at a run. The cart’s headlight showed a turning in the wall dead ahead of it. The right-hand corner of the cart struck the wall at the turning and the cart caromed off the brick. Immediately the front wheels caught against something unseen, and the cart overturned, its tin sides flying off and its contents tumbling. The man pursuing it, too close to it to stop, pitched bodily over the top and into the waters of the Fleet River along with a smoking kettle that instantly threw a blanket of roaring flame over the waters.

Jack reached the fallen cart seconds later, Tubby following behind him now. They saw Narbondo’s man rise from the flood entirely aflame, some ten feet down the river, the horror visible on his burning face. He tore at his clothing, yanking off his flaming jacket, wading downriver through the flood, shrieking inhumanly. He stumbled and went under, but when he rose he was once again covered with the burning sludge, and in another moment he fell and disappeared for good, the river carrying away the body and the flames together.

Tubby and Jack made their way back up the tunnel, silenced by what they had witnessed. Halfway along they passed the other of Narbondo’s people, who had been shot through the back. Jack realized that the man had caught the hastily shot bullet meant for him, and was startled by the sight of the body, unhappily imagining his own body lying on the bricks, the life leaked out of him.

They went on without speaking until, near the alley door, they discerned the dark mouth of another tunnel, which they hadn’t seen earlier, so intent had they been on their immediate task. Vague noises sounded from somewhere deep within.

* * *

From the centermost of the arched windows on the third floor of the old house, Narbondo watched with great satisfaction as the storm moved in over London. The sky was black to the distant horizon, and lightning flickered from the clouds, too distant yet for the sound of thunder to reach him. It was perfectly droll that it had appeared on this very day – life spectacularly imitating art – and it would add monumental impetus to the chaos he intended to provide for the city’s amusement. People were gathering in the streets for the ceremony, dressed in capes and hoods and carrying umbrellas, costermongers threading through them despite the weather, selling hot potatoes and pea-pods and pies. Narbondo had seen a pineapple cart move through half an hour ago, pushed by Sneed the Dwarf accompanied by McFee, the two of them disappearing into an alley that led to the river and to the iron door that opened onto the Fleet Sewer, disused since a century past, when the Fleet was first arched over with brick and mortar and hidden from the sun. In the cart were kegs of coal dust, with several more already delivered and waiting below, along with the bellows device consisting of several pneumatic tubes of great circumference, powered by the steam engine from Merton’s very useful launch and cleverly cooled by water drawn from the Fleet itself. Very soon the black dust would fly up, and it would begin.

He considered the myriad of tunnels that led away from the walls of the Fleet and the other underground rivers – the turnings, the double-backs, the hidden doors and iron ladders that went ever downward into the Stygian darkness. He had traveled those tunnels the first time as a sixteen-year-old boy, carrying rush-and-paraffin torches and lucifer matches of his own inventing, which had ignited for no good reason, burning him badly. Even then white phosphorous was known as “the devil’s element,” and perhaps that explained his attraction to it. His stepfather had regaled him with the legend of the ancient, long-buried world far beneath the London Temple, with its rumored access under Carmelite Street, and two days later Narbondo had betrayed his stepfather to the authorities. He had been on hand for his stepfather’s hanging, and had watched gleefully as he swung out over the crowd, his eyes and tongue protruding, his neck having failed to break due to the hangman’s ineptness. Narbondo had sold the body to resurrection men, and his stepfather’s skeleton no doubt lived on in an anatomical theater now, perhaps at a great university.

A light rain began to fall, umbrellas blooming below him like black flowers. The time was drawing near, and Narbondo turned away to inspect the rifle that leaned against its stand next to the window, and the small but very flammable bullets that lay waiting in their copper tray. He found that he was in a state of high anticipation, which he despised in himself as weak, and for a moment he was tempted toward a dose of laudanum, but he rejected the idea. If ever there was a time for his faculties to be sharply honed, it was today.

A bell at the rear door rang now – two rings, followed by a pause, and then a third. He stepped to the wall and tugged on the bell rope, hearing the faint sound of its chime. In a few moments Beaumont appeared at the door, his beaver hat in his hand, ushering in the very enterprising Helen and a man whom Narbondo knew to be connected to the War Office, a colonel, apparently, and the man Lord Moorgate had insisted on calling Guido Fox. Beaumont disappeared, leaving the door open.

“The second part of the money is paid,” Helen said without preamble.

“And what of de Groot?” Narbondo asked her.

“De Groot has warned the Queen’s Guard very convincingly that there’s the threat of a Fenian atrocity at the Cathedral. She’ll remain in Buckingham Palace, today, although the crowd in the street doesn’t know that. The letter implicating Gladstone and the Home Rule plot has been delivered surreptitiously, again by de Groot, to the newspapers as well as to the Palace.”

“
Splendid
,” Narbondo said. “That should further Lord Moorgate’s political career enormously. A bold stroke indeed. I envy the man his foresight.”

“And this is Mr. Guido Fox, who has accepted the second sum. I’ve assured him that the third and final payment will be made whether the endeavor succeeds or fails.”

“Mr. Fox,” Narbondo said, bowing deeply, “I bid you welcome.” He looked at the man’s neat mustaches, his military bearing, the supercilious cast in his eye, and hated him immensely. He served a purpose, however, there was no gainsaying it, and would have to be humored, although he seemed to be in no mood to be humored.

“Who is
this
?” Fox asked Helen angrily, jerking his thumb in Narbondo’s direction. “Where’s Lord Moorgate?”

“My name is Gobeline, Mr. Fox,” Narbondo told him. “Phestus Gobeline. I’m Lord Moorgate’s associate.”

“Be damned to you, then. My business is with Lord Moorgate.”

“As is mine, sir. Lord Moorgate is on holiday in York. He saw fit to remain at some distance from the... entertainment.”

Fox stared at him for a moment. “He’s gone off and we’re to be in the thick of it?”

“You were paid to be in the thick of it, sir, by Lord Moorgate.” He turned to Helen and said, “It’s time to fetch Mrs. St. Ives and the boy, Helen. Beaumont is preparing to take the lot of you across to the cathedral. Time is of the essence, my dear.”

Helen nodded and went out without a word.

“I suppose it’s all one to me that Moorgate’s cut and run,” Fox said. “I don’t care for the man, only for his money.” He drew a cheroot out of his pocket and lit it, drawing deeply on it and blowing out a cloud of smoke.

“In that we agree entirely,” said Narbondo, stepping back a pace.

“My men are pretending to search the interior of the cathedral for the device,” Fox said. “The opening is postponed. The cathedral doors are locked, of course, and will remain so. Six of my men, the four searching the cathedral and the guards at the doors, have been purchased.”

“
Purchased!
How very well put. The word has a ring of permanence to it. Think of it. When we’re done with our morning’s work, you can set up your carriage and retire for good and all. Here’s the way of it: a short time after the arrival of the woman and her son, my man Beaumont will alert you to the fact that the undertaking has been so far successful by playing upon the cathedral organ. You’ll have five minutes then – more than enough time – to make your way into the passage with your men and descend to safety beneath the street. The woman Helen will no doubt be quite anxious to accompany you, although I would rather that she remain within the cathedral to stand guard over Mrs. St. Ives, a most tenacious and dangerous woman.”

“I’m to maroon her in the cathedral?”

“You’ll be doing both of us a service if you do, Mr. Fox. We must consider the possibility that she means to extort money out of either or both of us. It would be a simple matter to close the door behind you and leave her to her fate.”

“Done,” Fox said, shrugging.

“And one last thing, sir. If the attempt is for any reason unsuccessful, you will please to return the two women and the boy to me through the passage again? Helen, in that case, might suffer a fall down the very steep stairs, since we’ll have no more need of her services.”

“Certainly she might,” Fox said, looking steadily at Narbondo. “Now I’ll have my little say. I warn you that if for a moment I believe that
I’m
being deceived, I’ll walk out through the door into the street and name you as the anarchist. Moorgate won’t contradict me, and no one on Earth would believe the word of an ugly hunchback over Lord Moorgate’s, with my solemn testimony into the bargain. Keep that in mind, sir, and pay me the rightful balance when the deed is done. We’ll part square that way, and may we never meet again on Earth.”

Narbondo smiled and bowed in acquiescence. The man, certainly, would make an entertaining corpse.

FORTY ONE