held his pistol.
I tried to roll over but the breath was only coming back to me with agonizing slowness. Just ahead and out of reach lay my own pistol, the long barrel protruding from a clump of weeds. I flung out my arm and tried to drag myself towards it. The figure advanced remorselessly, cocking his weapon and reaching up with his other hand to pull down the scarf from his face. Was it that vengeful Fury, Pugg? There was a hole the size of a tanner in the shoulder of his cape but no sign of blood. Had I winged him or merely ruined his coat?
Lungs bursting, I tried to sit up and sling myself into cover.
«Damn it,» I gasped. «Who are you, you ruddy maniac?»
The figure stopped and seemed to consider me.
Then, echoing across the cemetery with the eeriness of a banshee came a cry: «Hello! What’s going on? What are you doing there?»
Two men, holding yellow lamps high above their heads hove into view to my left. Their appearance had a startling effect on my attacker. Swiftly, he slipped his pistol into the folds of his ulster and raced back towards the cab, pulling himself up into the driver’s perch. He whipped up the horse and rattled away.
The lamp-bearers ran towards me, as welcome as real angels. «Good Lord, are you all right, sir?» said one. His companion, heavily bearded and mean-looking was less forgiving. «What the blazes has been going on?» he demanded.
Ignoring him, I struggled to my feet and grabbed for my pistol. I aimed at the retreating cab, but in moments it was out of range. I turned on my heel and wrenched the lamp from the bearded man’s hand.
«Here! What are you doing?»
«His number,» I hissed. «The cab number. Can you see it?»
Nothing was clear, though, in the sickly yellow light and the cab soon vanished into the murk.
I stood for a moment, swinging the lamp round in an arc and illuminating the devastation I had wrought. My cab was almost cracked in two. The horse stood nearby, placidly chewing grass at the foot of one of those broken columns that tell of life cut off in its prime. Happily, that life had not been mine.
«’Ere!» cried my bearded rescuer. «You was bloomin’ shooting! What the hell do you think you’re about? This is a place of rest!»
The cemetery watchmen took me to a little cabin where I was treated to a tot of rum by the kinder of the two — Lukey by name — and furious glares from his mate, name of Bob. I assured the good burghers that all expenses would be met. In the morning I would despatch the Domestics to set about hushing things up, not least the body of the faithful Delilah who was probably still lying undiscovered with a bullet between her shoulder blades on some dreadful suburban roadway. I dragged my ragged, filthy and exhausted self to my feet and was moving towards the cabin door when a notice pinned to the wall caught my gaze.
«What is that?» I asked.
«That’s the interments list, sir,» said Lukey.
«Is it, by George. And that name, fourth down…?»
«The Verdigris Mausoleum, sir.»
«What a coincidence,» I mused. «An… acquaintance of mine goes by that name. I wonder if it is his family tomb. Would it… would it be an awful imposition to ask to see that mausoleum?»
The bearded one positively glared at me and cleared his throat of a noisome expectoration that landed in a hissing green lump on the coals of the fire. «The Verdigris? Indeed it would! After what you’ve been up to tonight, you’re damned lucky we ain’t called the bobbies!»
Lukey laid a hand on the other’s arm. «Now then, Bob. Watch that temper of your’n. You said there was summat funny about that funeral in any case.»
I adopted a sombre expression. «Gentlemen, I am investigating certain irregularities connected with that funeral. It is more than likely that you have given invaluable service to the Crown. I need you to show me that mausoleum. At once!»
With much ill-grace Bob finally assented and a few minutes later the three of us stepped back out into the humid night.
Our feet crunched on the gravel pathways, the lantern held aloft by Bob throwing a funnel of yellow light into the oily gloom.
I was dog-tired but pressed on, unsure of what, if anything, I might find.
The Verdigris family tomb was about the size of a small cottage, done in the familiarly dreary style of Corinthian columns and arched roof. A pair of massive bronze doors were set in the centre, a thick, well-oiled padlock strung between the door handles like a fob-chain across the waistcoat of a prize-fighter.
«There,» barked Bob the lantern-carrier. «Can we now get back to our business?»
I moved towards the mausoleum and craned my neck to make out the family name, picked out in black against the white marble.
I assumed the masterful tone that comes so easily to me. «Quickly, man, the key!»
«Now hold on a moment»
«Give him the key, Bob!» wailed Lukey.
Cursing, the burly fellow began to fiddle with the huge bunch of keys at his waist.
«Hurry!» I urged.
At last he selected a long, spindly specimen and, grunting with the effort, shifted his belly forward so he could insert it into the lock.
As soon as the tumblers clicked, I dragged at the chain and hauled it to the ground.
«The lantern, Bob!» I hissed. «Give it to me!»
So saying, I grabbed the thing from his hand and, dragging open the doors, plunged into the mausoleum.
Inside the air was suffocatingly stale. The grim black oblong of a new coffin stood out boldly on its shelf against the homogenous dust-grey boxes that abutted it.
«Give me a hand,» I commanded, pulling at the head end of the coffin.
«’Ere!» cried Bob, entering the building.
«No time to explain!» I cried shrilly. «Get the coffin on the floor and get the lid off.»
«Do as he says,» said Lukey. «He’s on to something.»
Together, Lukey and myself pulled the coffin to the dust-thick floor, then I began to look about for something to prise open the lid.
«My God, if the family find out about this» murmured Bob.
«Never mind that,» I barked. «Hold the lantern high.»
I swung round and then stopped as my eyes alighted on half a dozen wooden chairs, stacked in the corner and presumably for use at funerals. Without hesitation I grabbed at the top chair and smashed it to pieces on the floor. From the debris I retrieved a chair leg and with this began to hammer away under the coffin lid. After ten or twelve blows, the lid gave with a nasty squeal and splintered across.
«Pull it apart!» I cried. «Open the thing!»
Lukey stepped forward and, grasping at the wood, wrenched the lid away. Bob glided forward from out of the shadows, the queasy yellow lantern light flooding the macabre sight before us.
«Well, bless my soul!» whispered Lukey.
For within the coffin was revealed a cloth dummy, its innards stuffed with straw, its eyes and mouth merely crude stitching like that on some common scarecrow.
«Ha!» I cried triumphantly. «Exactly what I expected to find!»
Which was a bloody lie but there you are.
8. The Man in the Indigo Spectacles
I KNOW what you’re thinking. Resurrectionists! Body-snatchers once more at work in old London town! Had the good professor (and his erstwhile colleague — for a search of Sash’s tomb the next day revealed the same result) been made away with by wall-eyed, whisky-breathed anatomists to be displayed and skewered at the
