“Tucked up in bed with a hot-water bottle and a steaming rum toddy.”
“Wait,” Skimpole said. “There is something else.”
“My my. You
“The Directorate has an enemy in Whitehall.”
“Shifty lot, these politicians.”
“Nasty glints in their eyes.”
“Never trust them, sir. Never.”
“His name is Maurice Trotman. A man from the Ministry. He wants…” Skimpole sniffed. “He wants to close us down.”
“Gosh.” Hawker sounded sympathetic. “Are you frightfully raw at the chap?”
“Had words, did you, sir?” Boon asked.
“Fisticuffs, were there?”
“Can you do it?” Skimpole gasped. “Can you kill them?”
“Deuced if I can’t see why not,” said Boon. “How about you, Hawker?”
“Absolutely, old fruit. Point of fact, I’m looking forward to it.”
“You’ve asked the right chaps, sir, coming to us. There’s none better in the sixth form.”
“Boon’s an absolute brick in a scrap. Take it from me — he’s a real game cock when his dander’s up.”
“What do I owe you?” Skimpole asked.
“Owe us?” Hawker affected incomprehension. “Owe us? Whatever do you mean by that, sir?”
“We’ll let you know our fee, sir, soon as the job’s done,” Boon said.
“You ought to get back home now, sir. Check on that young lad of yours. You’ll catch your death if you stand out here much longer.”
“Can’t you give me an idea?” Skimpole pleaded. “Of the cost?”
Boon beamed. “Oh, I think you’ll find our price quite within your means, sir. Quite within your means.”
“We’ll be in touch.”
“Goodbye, then,” Skimpole managed.
Boon touched the brim of his cap. “Tinkety-tonk.”
With this last perplexing valediction, the two anachronisms turned and vanished into the dark. Shaking with a mixture of pain, confusion and the cold, and trying not to think about the nature of what he had set in motion, Skimpole pulled his jacket tight about him and started for home.
No doubt Mr. Clemence did not intend to appear as suspicious as he did whilst he waited beneath the shadow of the Monument. But as he paced shiftily up and down, two dimmed lanterns by his feet, checking his pocket watch far more often than was necessary, he could scarcely have drawn more attention to himself had he worn a placard around his neck proclaiming his imminent intention of breaking the law.
Without warning, the shadows disgorged Edward Moon and the Somnambulist.
“My apologies if we’ve kept you waiting,” the conjuror said.
“Not to worry. Though if we could hurry, gentlemen, I’d be grateful. The sooner we get out of here, the better, if it’s all the same to you.”
“We’re ready.”
Clemence led them away from the Monument and toward the darkened flight of steps which led to King William Street Underground Station. A metal grille, padlocked shut, was pulled across the entrance. Clemence produced a key from his pocket, snapped open the lock, pulled back the grille. It groaned and complained in response and they all stood still and silent, waiting to see if the noise had attracted any attention. Nothing.
This was the financial district of the city, invariably deserted at night as the bankers, brokers and moneymen scurried home to their supper and an evening by the fireside. Besides, all this took place on a Sunday, when even the most fiscally devoted stayed in with their wives and children or (in at least two dozen cases of which I am personally aware) with their mistresses and lovers.
The last time Moon was there he had been walking with Cribb, as the ugly man kept up a steady stream of fantastical chatter, speculating wildly about London’s history, anecdotalizing about the great Stone and propounding the most curious notions concerning the relative heights of the Monument and Nelson’s Column. But now, at midnight, the place was a ghost town, barely recognizable but for the great needle of the Monument keeping its silent vigil like some landlocked Pharos.
Clemence passed one of the lamps to the Somnambulist. “Follow me.”
Looking around for a final time to check they were still unobserved, the three men stepped through the gateway and into the gloom, down the staircase, past the ticket office and onto the deserted platform. For an instant the Somnambulist fancied that he could hear the familiar clank, whistle and chug of a locomotive, but when he listened again the sound had vanished.
Clemence beckoned for them to follow. “It’s not far.” He clambered down off the platform and onto the tracks.
“You’re quite sure they don’t run trains down here?”
“At this time of night?”
Moon sighed. “We’re in your hands, Mr. Clemence.”
The railwayman strode away and they followed, leaving the relative safety of the platform behind as they headed into the tunnels, those mysterious warrens beneath the city, glimpsed by her inhabitants only as a monochrome whirl passed during the course of a journey back to the light.
Moon felt a sudden need to fill the silence. “Mr. Clemence? Are you a superstitious man?”
“Can’t say as I am. I’m a practical sort. Level-headed.”
“Then you don’t believe in fortune tellers? Clairvoyants?”
“Not given it much thought. Why do you ask?”
“I knew one.”
“That so?”
“And if she was correct, then today is the day that the city shall fall.”
“Ah, she were probably just making it up. Most of her sort are jokers, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Perhaps.”
The walked along the track for what Moon estimated must have been about half a mile, brushing past the grime and dirt encrusted onto the walls like plaque on rotting teeth. The Somnambulist felt a strong sensation that they were being watched: he could hear the skittering and scratching of the little creatures whose home this was.
Clemence stopped short as the track split into two. “We’re about halfway between stations. Here’s what the men were working when the trouble started.” He pointed ahead. “That track leads on to the next station. But this-” he gestured toward the track which curved to the left into a narrow tunnel — “this was abandoned.” He walked on, the lamplight straining against the darkness which down here seemed thicker and more complete than ever.
The track petered out a few minutes’ walk from the main tunnel. Clemence apologized. “They stopped in a hurry,” he said, moving past the remnants of the track and into the dirt and shale. “Here’s why.”
Set into the ground was a wooden trapdoor, painted a faded green. If one were to have chanced upon it above-ground, one would most naturally assume it to be an entrance to a cellar or a basement, containing nothing more sinister than firewood, or coal, or a collection of half-forgotten old junk. But here at the end of a tunnel far beneath the surface, it was distressingly peculiar, filled with incongruous menace.
Clemence seemed unaccountably pleased with himself. “This is it.”
Moon said nothing. Struggling for a moment, he eventually succeeded in pulling up the trapdoor. Darkness yawned beneath them, a deep vertical tunnel with a flicker of light gleaming distantly at the end of it. The Somnambulist moved his lantern closer, revealing a metal ladder clinging to the inner edge of the hideous drop.
Clemence gave a nervous cough. “Here’s where I leave you.”
“Thank you.” Moon passed the man his handful of coins. You’ve been a great help.”
“Pleasure.” Clemence began to move away, transparently eager to depart. “Mr. Moon?”
“Hmm?”
“Be careful.”
