The Ruby in the Smoke (17 page)

The air in the yard was chilly, and she was lightly clad. Images of a shattered arm, of blood spurting from torn flesh and splintered bone, insisted on crowding into her mind; but neither the cold nor her imagination made her shiver, and the hand she raised to aim the pistol was perfectly steady. She was satisfied.

She pulled back the hammer one extra click to unlock it, and aimed at the center of the door.

Then she squeezed the trigger.

The gun leaped in her hand, but she was expecting that and had allowed for it. The huge bang and the smell of the powder were different from those she was used to, but close enough to delight her senses, and in the same split second she realized that the barrel had held, that she still had an arm and a hand, and that everything in the yard was the same as it had been before the shot.

Including the door of the shed.

There was no bullet hole anywhere to be seen. Puzzled, she examined the pistol, but it was empty. Had she forgotten to put a ball in? No, she remembered the square of cloth from the blue dress. Then what had happened? Where had the ball gone? The door was big enough by any standards—she could have put a bullet through a visiting card at that distance.

Then she saw the hole. It was two feet to the left of the door, and a foot from the ground; she had been aiming at roughly the height of her own head. She was glad her father had not seen that shot. But surely she hadn't let the recoil destroy her aim? She rejected that idea at once. She had fired hundreds of rounds; she knew how to fire a pistol.

It must be the gun itself, she concluded. A short, wide,

unrifled barrel just did not make for accuracy. She sighed. Still, at least she now had something which would make a loud noise and smell of gunpowder, and it might serve to frighten anyone who attacked her; but she would only have one shot . . .

The kitchen door opened, and Frederick came running out.

"What the devil—" he began.

"It's all right," she said. "Nothing's broken. Did you hear the noise inside?"

"I should say we did. My fair client leaped out of the chair and almost out of the picture altogether. What are you doing?"

"Testing a pistol. I'm sorry."

"In the middle of Lx)ndon? You're a savage, Lx)ckhart. I don't know what effect you'll have on Mrs. Holland, but by God you terrify me." Then, more kindly, he said, "That was the Duke of Wellington, talking about his soldiers. Are you all right?"

He moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling all over now, and felt cold and hurt and angry with herself.

"Lx)ok at you," he said. "You're shaking like a leaf. How on earth can you shoot straight if you're trembling like that? Come inside and get warm."

"I don't shake when I'm going to shoot," she muttered, unable to find her voice; and she let herself be led inside. Then she thought. How can he be so stupid? How can he be so blind? And simultaneously: How can I be so feeble?

She said nothing, and sat down to clean the pistol.

•••• ^ 9 ^ ••••

Ihe Turk's Head

Mrs. HOLLAND, IN PURSUANCE OF HER AGREEMENT

with Mr. Selby, detailed one of her young men to look after him. This youth sat in the office picking his nails and whistling tunelessly, and went to and fro with Mr. Selby, annoying everyone they met with his insistence on searching them for hidden weapons. Jim was vastly entertained, and made the young man search him every time he came into the office—^which he did as often as possible, until Mr. Selby lost his temper and ordered him out.

But tormenting Mr. Selby was only one of Jim's preoccupations. He spent a good deal of time in Wapping over the next few days. He made the acquaintance of a night watchman on the jetty by Aberdeen Wharf, who fed him information about Mrs. Holland in exchange for much-used copies of Stirring Tales for British Lads. The information was not very interesting, but it was something; and so were the snippets of news he gathered from the mudlarks—boys and girls who earned a living by picking up lumps of coal and other bits and pieces from the mud at low tide. They sometimes turned their attention to unguarded boats as well; anything along the shore was fair

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game. They knew plenty about Mrs. Holland, too, and they followed her movements with close attention; for instance, on the day after Sally tried out her new gun, they were able to tell Jim that Mrs. Holland and Mr. Berry had gone out in the morning, heading west and dressed against the cold, and that they hadn't yet returned.

The origins of that particular expedition lay in the scraps of paper Mrs. Holland had received after their detour through the hands of Ernie Blackett. At first she had thought Sally had made up the message on purpose to mislead her, but the more she looked into the words, the more there seemed to be a kind of sense in them; but she was damned if she could see what.

Finally, she lost patience.

*'Come on, Mr. Berry," she said. "We're off to Swale-ness."

"What for, ma'am?"

"A fortune."

"Where is it.^"

"I wish I bleedin' knew."

"Then what are we going there for.^"

"You know what, Jonathan Berry," she said passionately, "you're a fool. Henry Hopkins was flash and unreliable, but he wasn't a fool. I can't abide a fool."

"Sorry, ma'am," said Mr. Berry, feeling ashamed of himself without knowing why.

Mrs. Holland's plan was to visit Foreland House and interrogate Major Marchbanks's drunken housekeeper, if she was still there, in the hope that she might know something; but after a muddy walk in the biting wind, they found the place empty and locked. Mrs. Holland cursed fluently for a good ten minutes without repeating herself

and then lapsed into a moody silence as they tramj>ed back toward the town.

Halfway there, she stopped suddenly.

"Here," she said. "What's the name of that pub by the harbor?"

"Pub, ma'am? I don't recall seeing one," said Mr. Berry courteously.

"No, you wouldn't, I suppose, you pork-brained water-swilier. But if it's the Turk's Head like I think it is—"

She spoke for the first time that day without venom, and Mr. Berry felt his spirits lifting. She was scrutinizing her piece of paper again.

"Come on," she said. "D'you know, Mr. Berry, I think I got it ..."

Stuffing the paper into her bag, she led off at a faster rate. Mr. Berry followed faithfully.

"If I TELLS YOU to drink a mug o' beer, you'll bloody well drink it," she said much later. "I ain't having you sitting there like a bloody temperance meeting swilling lemonade, a great big man like you—^why, it'd attract unwholesome attention. You do as you're told."

They stood outside the inn. It was dark, Mrs. Holland having insisted that they wait until sunset; she had spent the rest of the afternoon hanging about the harbor, where the fishing boats were rising slowly with the tide that flowed in up the creek. Mr. Berry had watched, bemused, as she spoke to one old fisherman after another—^meaningless questions about lights and tides and suchlike. She was a marvel, and no error.

But he wasn't going to drink beer without a fight.

"I got me principles," he said stubbornly. "I took the

pledge, and that's good enough for me. I ain't drinking no beer."

Mrs. Holland reminded him in vivid language that he was a thief, a thug, and a murderer, and she had only to snap her fingers to have him arrested, and what she knew would hang him inside a month; but he would not budge. Finally she had to give in.

"All right," she said bitterly, "lemonade, then; and I hope that little maggot of a thing you call your conscience is satisfied. Get inside, and don't breathe a word."

With the calm joy of the righteous, Mr. Berry followed her into the Turk's Head.

"Drop o' gin for me, dear," she said to the landlord, "and a glass o' lemonade for my son, what has a delicate stomach."

The landlord brought the drinks, and while Mr. Berry sipped his lemonade, Mrs. Holland engaged the man in conversation. A handsome situation he had here, facing out to sea like he did. An old pub, was it.^ With an old cellar, no doubt? Yes, she'd seen the little window by the step on the way in, at ground level, and she'd had a little bet with her son that you could see the sea out of it. Was she right.^ Only at high tide? Well, fancy that. What a shame it was dark now—^she couldn't prove it to him. A glass for the landlord? Go on; it was a cold night. Yes, pity it was dark now, and they'd be on their way in a little while. She'd like to win her bet. She could? How's that? There was a buoy in the creek—you could see it when the tide was in—and there was lights, was there, on the buoy? There, Alfred! (To Mr. Berry, who sat befuddled.) Will that prove it to yer?

Kicked, he nodded hard, and surreptitiously rubbed his ankle. "Yes, Mother," he said.

Exchanging a broad wink with Mrs. Holland, the landlord hfted the flap of the counter and let them through.

"Down the steps," he said. "You have a squint out the winder, and you'll see it."

The cellar door was in a little passage behind the bar, and the steps were in darkness. Mrs. Holland struck a match and looked around.

"Shut the door," she hissed up to Mr. Berry.

He pushed it to and stumbled down after her.

"Careful," she said. She blew the match out, and they stood on the steps in the dark.

"What are we looking for?" he whispered.

"'A place of darkness,'" she whispered. "That's this cellar. 'Under a knotted rope'—that's the Turk's Head."

"Eh?"

"A Turk's Head is a kind of knot. Didn't yer know that? No, o'course you wouldn't. 'Three red lights'— there's a buoy out there in the creek what flashes three times—'when the moon pulls on the water'—when the tide's in. See? It all fits. Now all we got to do is look for the Hght—"

"Is that it, Mrs. Holland?"

He was pointing at a small square of dim radiance in the blackness.

"Where?" she said. "I can't see nothing. Get out the way."

He moved up a step, and she took his place, peering out of the tiny window.

"That's it!" she said. "That's it! Now, quick: 'Three red Hghts shine on the spot'—"

She turned around. By some freak, the old bull's-eye glass of one of the panes in the window acted as a lens, focusing the distant flashes onto a spot in the stone wall—a

spot where the stone was loose, as she discovered when she dug her urgent claws into the soft mortar it was set in.

She pulled the stone out. It was only the size of a brick; she gave it to Mr. Berry and reached inside the hole.

"There's a box," she said, her voice shaking. "Strike a match, quick. Quick!''

He put down the stone and did as she said, to see her drawing a little brass-studded box out of the hole in the wall.

"Hold it still, blast yer," she said, but it was her own hands she was cursing. She fumbled at the lid, trying to manipulate the catch; and then the match went out.

"Strike another," she snarled. "That bloody landlord'll be down in a minute—"

The light flared up again in his fingers. He held it close as she twisted the catch this way and that and finally forced it back.

The box was empty.

"It's gone," she said.

Her voice was quiet and shocked.

"Gone, Mrs. Holland?"

"The ruby, you great staring toad. It was here—in this box—and someone's had it."

Bitterly she thrust the box back into the hole, after checking that there was nothing else there, and jammed the stone in place just as the door opened and the light of a candle spilled down the stairs.

"All right?" came the landlord's voice.

"Yes, thank you, dear. I seen the light, and so's my son. Ain't you, Alfred?"

"Yes, Mother. I seen it all right."

"Much obliged to yer," said Mrs. Holland as they left

the cellar. '*You ain't showed anyone else down there recent, I suppose?"

"Not since Major Marchbanks come down here a month or two back. He was looking at the Tudor foundations, he said. Nice old gent. Killed 'isself the other week."

*'Fancy that," she said. "No one else, then?"

"My girl might have let someone down, only she's not here at the moment. Why?"

"No reason," said Mrs. Holland. "It's a quaint little place, that's all."

"It is that," he said. "All right, then?"

Mrs. Holland had to be satisfied with that. But she said to Mr. Berry as they waited for their train: "There's only one person who knew where that ruby was, and that's the girl. Hopkins is dead, and Ernie Blackett don't count. . . . It's the girl. I'll have her, Mr. Berry. I'll have her and I'll tear her open, I will. I'm angry now, and I'll have her life, you see if I don't."

Protecting the Property

On FRIDAY, THE EIGHTH OF NOVEMBER, MR. SELBY TOOK

a trip on the river. It was part of his job, occasionally, to make inspections of vessels in the docks, of cargoes in the warehouses, and to issue certificates and bills of lading. He had been a good shipping agent once. He was brisk and vigorous, and he was a good judge of the value of most goods both in London and in foreign markets; he had an eye for a ship, and few people had been known to get the better of him in a bargain.

So when the chance came up to inspect a schooner to replace the lost Lavinia, Mr. Selby took it at once—with a feeling of relief. Here was a job that didn't involve unpleasantness, that wasn't going to mix him up in anything murky or Chinese: just a straightforward shipping job. So on Friday afternoon he traveled to the Blackwall Railway Terminus, well wrapped up against the cold, and with a flask of brandy in an inside pocket to clear his judgment.

With him went Mr. Berry. The first bodyguard had had an unfortunate adventure involving a policeman, a public house, and a stolen watch, and in the absence of anyone better, Mrs. Holland had sent Mr. Berry along to Cheapside.

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"Where are we going, Mr. Selby?" he said as they got off the train.

"On the river," said Mr. Selby shortly.

"Oh."

They walked to Brunswick Pier, where Mr. Selby had arranged for a boat to be ready to take them to the shipbuilding yards by the mouth of Bow Creek where the schooner was tied up. The pier was deserted, but for a single skiff bobbing at the foot of the steps, with a figure in a shabby green greatcoat and a large hat, holding the oars.