The Eyre Affair

to use it, but I will if I have to.’

‘What makes you think he has anything to do with Crometty’s death?’

‘Nothing,’ said Bowden simply, ‘he’s just next on the list.’

We walked across in the gathering dusk. The streetlights were flickering on and the stars were beginning to appear in the twilit sky. In another half-hour it would be night.

Bowden thought about knocking but didn’t bother. He opened the door noiselessly and we crept in.

Sturmey Archer was a feeble-looking character who had spent too many years in institutions to be able to look after himself properly. Without designated bath times he didn’t wash and without fixed mealtimes he went hungry. He wore thick glasses and mismatched clothes and his face was a moonscape of healed acne. He made part of his living these days by casting busts of famous writers in plaster of Paris, but he had too much bad history to be kept on the straight. Other criminals blackmailed him into helping them and Sturmey, already a weak man, could do little to resist. It wasn’t surprising that, out of his forty-six years, only twenty had been spent at liberty.

Inside the workshop we came across a large workbench on which were placed about five hundred foot- high busts of Will Shakespeare, all of them in various states of completion. A large vat of plaster of Paris lay empty next to a rack containing twenty rubber casts; it seemed Sturmey had a big order on.

Archer himself was at the back of the shop indulging in his second profession, repairing Will-Speak machines. He had his hand up the back of an Othello as we crept up behind him.

The mannequin’s crude voice-box crackled as Sturmey made some trifling adjustments:

It is the cause, it is the cause, (click) yet I’ll not shed a drop of her blood, (click) nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow…

‘Hello, Sturmey,’ said Bowden.

Sturmey jumped and shorted out the Othello’s controls. The dummy opened its eyes wide and gave out a terrified cry of MONUMENTAL ALABASTER! before falling limp. Sturmey glared at Bowden.

‘Creeping around at night, Mr Cable? Hardly like a LiteraTec, is it?’

Bowden smiled.

‘Let’s just say I’m rediscovering the joys of fieldwork. This is my new partner, Thursday Next.’

Archer nodded at me suspiciously. Bowden continued:

‘You heard about Jim Crometty, Sturmey?’

‘I heard,’ replied Archer with feigned sadness.

‘I wondered if you had any information you might want to impart?’

‘Me?’

He pointed at the plaster busts of Will Shakespeare.

‘Look at those. A fiver each wholesale to a Jap company that wants ten thou. The Japanese have built a seven-eighths-scale replica of Stratford-upon-Avon near Yokohama and love all this crap. Fifty grand, Cable, that’s literature I can relate to.’

‘And the Chuzzlewit manuscript?’ I asked. ‘How do you relate to that?’

He jumped visibly as I spoke.

‘I don’t,’ shrugged Sturmey in an unconvincing manner.

‘Listen, Sturmey,’ said Bowden, who had picked up on Archer’s nervousness, ‘I’d be really, really sorry to have to pull you in for questioning about that Cardenio scam.’

Archer’s lower lip trembled; his eyes darted between the two of us anxiously.

‘I don’t know anything, Mr Cable,’ he whined. ‘Besides, you don’t know what he would do.’

‘Who would do what, Sturmey?’

Then I heard it. A slight click behind us. I pushed Bowden in front of me; he tripped and collapsed on top of Sturmey, who gave a small cry that was drowned out by the loud concussion of a shotgun going off at close quarters. We were lucky; the blast hit the wall where we had been standing. I told Bowden to stay down and dashed low behind the workbench, trying to put some distance between myself and our assailant. When I reached the other side of the room I looked up and saw a man dressed in a black greatcoat holding a pump-action shotgun. He spotted me and I ducked as a blast from the shotgun scattered plaster fragments of Shakespeare all over me. The concussion of the shot had started up a mannequin of Romeo, who intoned pleadingly: He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. But soft! What light through yonder… until a second shot from the shotgun silenced him. I looked across at Bowden, who shook the plaster out of his hair and drew his revolver. I ran across to the far wall, ducking as our assailant fired again, once more shattering Archer’s carefully painted plaster statues. I heard Bowden’s revolver crack twice. I stood up and fired at our attacker, who had secreted himself in an office; my shots did nothing except splinter the wood on the door frame. Bowden fired again and his shot ricocheted off a cast-iron spiral staircase and hit a Will-Speak machine of Lord and Lady Macbeth; they started whispering to one another about the wisdom of murdering the King. I caught a glimpse of the man running across the room to outflank us. I had a clear view of him when he stopped, but as he did so Sturmey Archer stood up between us, blocking my shot. I couldn’t believe it.

‘Felix!’ cried Archer desperately. ‘You must help me! Dr. Mьller said—‘

Archer, sadly, had mistaken Felix7’s intentions but had little time to regret them as our assailant dispatched him swiftly at close range, then turned to make his escape. Bowden and I must have opened fire at once; Felix7 managed three paces before stumbling under the shots and falling heavily against some packing cases.

‘Bowden!’ I yelled. ‘You okay?’

He answered slightly unsteadily but in the affirmative. I advanced slowly on the fallen figure, who was breathing in short gasps, all the time watching me with a disconcertingly calm face. I kicked away the shotgun then ran a hand down his coat while holding my gun a few inches from his head. I found an automatic in a shoulder holster and a Walther PPK in an inside pocket. There was a twelve-inch knife and a baby Derringer in his other pockets. Bowden arrived at my side.

‘Archer?’ I asked.

‘Finished.’

‘He knew this clown. He called him Felix. Mentioned something about a Dr Mьller, too.’

Felix7 smiled up at me as I took out his wallet.

‘James Crometty!’ demanded Bowden. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘I kill a lot of people,’ whispered Felix7. ‘I don’t remember names.’

‘You shot him six times in the face.’

The dying killer smiled.

‘That I remember.’

‘Six times! Why?’

Felix7 frowned and started to shiver.

‘Six was all I had,’ he answered simply.

Bowden pulled the trigger of his revolver two inches from Felix7’s face. It was lucky for Bowden that the hammer fell harmlessly on the back of a spent cartridge. He threw the gun aside, picked up the dying man by the lapels and shook him.

‘WHO ARE YOU?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t even know myself,’ said Felix7 placidly. ‘I was married once, I think; and I had a blue car. There was an apple tree in the house where I grew up and I think I had a brother named Tom. The memories are vague and indistinct. I fear nothing because I value nothing. Archer is dead. My job is done. I have served my master; nothing else is of any consequence.’

He managed a wan smile.

‘Hades was right.’

‘About what?’

‘About you, Miss Next. You’re a worthy adversary.’