The List Of Seven (15 page)

"I see," Doyle said, and took the beer.

"Now, Doctor, I have confided in you the true nature of my business," Sparks said, leaning back and relighting his pipe. "Are you still of a mind to cast your lot with me, or shall I instruct Larry to put in at the next negotiable beach?"

Sparks seemed perfectly content to wait him out indefinitely. For a moment, South America leapt irrationally into Doyle's mind as a third, immensely attractive alternative. He drank his beer and tried to brake the wheel of fortune spinning in his head.

"I'm with you," said Doyle.

"Good man. And glad we are to have you," said Sparks, energetically pumping his hand.

"Welcome aboard, sir," added Larry, beaming.

Doyle thanked them, smiling wanly, secretly yearning for even the smallest confidence in the wisdom of his choice. The question of his enlistment settled, they busied themselves with trimming of lines and sails to fit the changing conditions of the sea. As the sun reached its ascendant, land appeared on the southern horizon.

'The Isle of Sheppey," Sparks said, pointing south. "If the wind holds, we should make land at Faversham by sundown. It's a full night's ride from there to Topping. If you don't mind, I think it advisable we push straight on through."

Doyle said he didn't mind.

"The late Lady Nicholson's husband is a man by the name of Charles Stewart Nicholson, son of Richard Sidney Nicholson, the earl of Oswald, who over the years has quietly become one of the wealthiest men in England," said Sparks, with a note of contempt. "I'm most eager to meet Charles Stewart Nicholson. Would you like to know why?"

"Yes," answered Doyle neutrally, content now to let Sparks dictate his own rate of revelation.

"Lord Nicholson, the younger, came to my attention last year when he sold a large tract of family land in Yorkshire to a blind trust. Surrounding this seemingly commonplace transaction was a legal miasma that proved tremendously difficult to penetrate: Someone had gone to considerable lengths to conceal the identity of the buyer from the public view."

Sparks paused, watching Doyle's confusion with amused interest.

"Would it surprise you to learn that the man who purchased Nicholson's land was Brigadier General Marcus McCauley Drummond?"

"Yes, Jack. Yes, it would."

"Yes. It did me, too."

chapter ten TOPPING

THEY DID INDEED REACH FAVERSHAM BY NIGHTFALL. NeGOTI-

ating the outer reaches of the Isle of Sheppey, they sailed up the generous arm of the sea known locally as the Swale, took a narrowing channel upstream, and put in at the edge of the oyster beds in shallow waters outlying the old town.

Larry leapt off the bow, pulled them ashore, grabbed their bags, and scampered up an embankment, disappearing from view. Doyle and Sparks gathered the remainder of their possessions and followed his path up the hill. Waiting for them on the ridge above was a brougham with a brace of fresh horses, and helping Larry load in was none other than brother Barry. Doyle found it nigh onto impossible to discern one from the other until he moved close enough to spy Barry's disfigurement. Larry took evident pleasure in properly rein-troducing Barry to his valued friend, the esteemed Dr. Doyle. Barry was not nearly so talkative as his brother, quite the contrary, but between the two of them Larry's generous endowment of gab amounted to an equitable disbursement of verbal capital. Doyle found his chilly opinion of the twins beginning to thaw with prolonged exposure to Larry's homely warmth. The only dissonance he experienced came while attempting to reconcile Barry's sour mien and retiring disposition with Larry's characterization of him as a rampant, indefatigable womanizer.

Once the carriage was packed and travel-ready, Larry bid Doyle a friendly farewell—he was leaving on some undisclosed assignment—and walked blithely off into the night. Barry assumed the driver's seat, Doyle joined Sparks in the enclosed cab, and they drove away.

"Where's Larry off to?" Doyle asked, looking back

through the curtains at Larry's receding figure, already missing him a little.

"Cover our tracks and make his way to London. There's work to do," said Sparks. A dark mood had crept over him with the night. He was remote and avoided eye contact, mulling over something tough and disagreeable. With no invitation to engage, Doyle did not press for conversation and eventually drifted off to sleep.

He awoke to weight shifting overhead. The carriage was still moving. Sparks was no longer in his seat. Doyle fumbled for his watch: half past midnight.

The door opened, and a small steamer trunk appeared in the opening.

"Don't sit there, Doyle, give us a hand," he heard Sparks say.

Doyle helped wrestle the trunk onto the seat opposite as Sparks pushed it through, reentered, and shut the door behind him. His color was high again, his spirits burnished to their former brightness.

"How is your weekend etiquette?" asked Sparks.

"My what?"

"Houseguest skills, billiards, table talk, all that rubbish."

"What's that got to do with—"

"We're visiting a gentleman's country house for New Year's Eve weekend, Doyle. I'm trying to ascertain your aptitude for the upper crust."

"I know which fork to use, if that's what you mean," said Doyle, his ears burning with pride.

"Don't take offense, old boy, I need to determine which part you're going to play. The less suspicion we arouse among Lord Nicholson and his posh crowd, the better."

"What are my choices?"

"Master or manservant," said Sparks, throwing open the trunk to reveal its two halves packed with wardrobe appropriate to either role.

"Why don't we just tell them I'm a doctor?" Doyle asked, hoping he wouldn't have to shed his comfortable middle-class skin for a vertical move in either direction.

"That's boxing clever. There's every reason to suspect your enemies may be waiting for us there. Why don't you have cards printed and solicit for patients while we're at it?"

"I see," said Doyle. "You're suggesting we arrive incognito."

"Baron Everett Gascoyne-Pouge, and valet, R.S.V.P.," Sparks said, producing an invitation to the year's end party, addressed to same.

"How did you come by this?"

"It's a facsimile."

"But what if the real Gascoyne-Pouge should decide to

come?"

"There is no such person," said Sparks, barely concealing his displeasure at Doyle's puny leaps of imagination.

"Ah. Printed yourself. I'm with you now."

"I was starting to wonder."

"Sorry, I'm always a bit thick just after sleep," Doyle explained, yawning. "Takes a moment to stir the soup again."

"Quite all right," Sparks said, handing him the working-class clothes. "And I'm sure you'll find the servants' quarters at Topping will be more than adequate."

"But, Jack, don't you think they'll see right through this charade?" Doyle stuttered, staring down at the valet's vestments. "I mean I suppose I can muddle through playing the part well enough—"

"No one ever looks at the servants, Doyle. You'll blend in like a black cat in a coal bin."

"But I mean, what if they should notice me, Jack? They may not have a clear idea of your appearance, but they certainly know what I look like."

Sparks stared at him hard. "Right," he said. He rummaged around in the trunk and pulled out a razor. "We'll have Barry pull over so you don't endanger your sense of smell." Doyle's fingers flew protectively to his mustache.

Gray dawn of New Year's Eve found them entering an arched gate and making the approach to Topping Manor down a straight and narrow lane lined with stately oaks, their sere branches reaching out to form a craggy canopy. Dressed in the unfamiliar garb of his new profession, Doyle had managed only a few minutes' more rough sleep, troubled by dreams of hopelessly incompetent servitude, followed with unmasking and capture by unknown figures. Queen Victoria had figured prominently; he remembered serving tea only to have her discover a dead mouse floating in the pot. That distressed him far more than the hard treatment he suffered at the hands of his shadowy captors, and he woke with a start, bathed in a sheen of cold sweat.

He realized his waking had been precipitated by the carriage braking to a stop. Doyle heard the door open and close before his eyes could properly inform him that Sparks was leaving the coach. Fumbling for the door, Doyle dragged himself outside.

The rows of oaks ended abruptly where Barry had brought them to a halt. The majestic trees had at one time apparently marched on ahead, accompanying the road for an additional hundred yards; now not only the oaks but every tree from that point forward had been felled, stumps scorched and blasted, and all ground cover burned. Rising abruptly out of the torched flatland before them was a solid wall thirty feet high, makeshift, unbalanced, constructed from the untrimmed bodies of the downed trees, coarsely mortared with rocks, bricks, straw, dead grass, and wattles. Early light reflected off chunks of broken glass set in the binding caulk and all along the rampart. The wall ran off for a considerable distance in both directions and then doubled back, appearing to entirely enclose the manor house and grounds inside. The highest parapets and crenellations of Topping Manor itself, a late Gothic masterpiece, were visible above and beyond the mysterious fortification. No smoke rose from any of her chimneys. No gates or entrances interrupted the unbroken face of the wall. Viewed from their perspective, this crude eruption of a barrier spoke of nothing but terror, haste, and madness.

"Good Christ ..."

"It would appear the fate of our party is in some jeopardy," said Sparks.

"What's happened here?"

"Barry, take the carriage round, see if they've left a way in. The doctor and I will investigate on foot," Sparks instructed.

Barry tipped his cap and drove off to circumnavigate the fortress as Sparks and Doyle picked their way forward through the devastated field.

"What do you see, Doyle? What does this tell you?"

"The fire was set recently, I'd say within the week. Probably the last step in the disfigurement. Discoloration around the stumps is similar; suggests they were all cut down within a short period of time."

"A great number of men, working together," said Sparks.

"How close is the nearest town?"

"At least five miles. The wall isn't the work of craftsmen, Doyle. The servants of the manor must have done the work."

"Without supervision or any evident design."

"No joints or mortises. No thought to quality or longevity."

"Someone wanted a barricade put up quickly."

"Why, Doyle?"

Doyle stopped and looked at the wall, ten feet away, trying to feel the panic and urgency of its builders. "No time. Something coming. Something that needed keeping out."

"They started building before Lady Nicholson and her brother were killed. How long did she say her son had been missing?"

"Three days before the seance."

"Before he was kidnapped as well; that could've been the reason. Fear of abduction. Protect your young—the oldest instinct in the human heart."

"A child can be moved, sent away," countered Doyle. "It's almost too rational a reason. This feels like the work of someone who's gone utterly mad."

"Or been driven there."

Sparks stared grimly up at the wall's vast reach. Two sharp blasts from a cabbie's whistle pulled their attention away to the right.

"Barry," said Sparks, taking off at a sprint, shouting back over his shoulder at his less agile companion. "Come along, Doyle, don't dawdle."

Doyle ran after him, rounded the corner, and turned left, Barry waved to them, standing beside the brougham, a quarter-mile away, half the visible length of the wall. Doyle labored to keep pace with Sparks and was completely breathless by the time he reached them.

Barry had summoned them to a rough passage hacked through the barrier, a head taller than a man and twice as wide. Wood chips covered the ground, mostly outside the entrance. A weathered ax lay on the ground nearby. Gazing through the opening, they could see stables and the house beyond. There was no sight or sound of activity inside.