Kraken sneezed voluminously, waking Keeble up again. They put the question to him. “A few hours, I suppose,” he said. “Not longer. This evening, to be sure.”
“Can we assume, then, that the fourth box will be aboard?”
Keeble nodded. They might, of course, be fooled again, but it was odds on that when the ubiquitous Dr. Birdlip appeared in the sky overhead, he’d be carrying with him Jack Owlesby’s inheritance.
“We’ve got to be on hand, of course,” said Godall.
St. Ives nodded. There was no denying that. Jack’s emerald, after all. Unless they snatched it at the first crack, they’d likely lose it. They’d never wrestle it away from the authorities — that much was certain, not without compromising Nell.
“There’s a half-dozen of us,” said Godall. “We’ll break into parties. There’s too much risk otherwise — we’ve too much ground to cover.”
Godall was interrupted by a sound on the stairs. There stood Jack Owlesby, leaning on the banister. “Jack!” cried the Captain, limping over and offering the lad his arm.
“Afternoon,” said Jack, grinning and stepping gamely but slowly down into the room. He took the Captain’s arm for the trip across the rug to the couch, and he sat down gingerly when he got there, grimacing just a bit. Nell Owlesby and Winnifred Keeble followed. “I’m going with you to Drake’s,” said Jack.
There was a general silence in the room. It was a heroic offer, under the circumstances, but of course was out of the question. No one, however, wanted to deny Jack his part.
Captain Powers, having just that moment sat down, lay down his pipe with exaggerated care and stood up once again.
“Now see here,” he said, looking at each one of them in turn. “I sailed a bit in my day — forty years of it, in truth, and commanded who knows how many lads from the Straits o’ Magellan to the China Sea. It seems natural to me then to step lively here. We got too many officers and not enough hands, and that’s been the long and short of her these last weeks, me bein’ guiltier than the rest of you.”
St. Ives’ protest to this last statement was cut short. “Hear me out,” said the Captain, poking his pipe stem in the scientist’s direction. “Don’t buck me, lad. I’m an old man, but I know what I’m about. Time’s drawin’ on. That ere blimp’s got to be circumvented, as they say. And the hunchback doctor — we’ll go for him straightaway. There’s going to be half o’ London out on Hampstead Heath tonight, blow me if there ain’t, and it won’t do to have any more scuffle than we can avoid, if you see my point. We square things away with the doctor now, is what I mean. Tie him up fast and lay him out in that there closet o’ his. We can fetch him out in a week or so if we recalls it. So here’s what I say, mates:
“I’m the blasted Captain here, so I’ll point and you’ll jump, and we’ll all run aground out on the Heath when the sun goes down, for that’s when we’ll need the lot of us and to spare. For now, Professor, you and Keeble here will slide into Drakes’ through the sewer. I’d get hold of a couple pair o’ India rubber boots for the job.”
St. Ives looked at Keeble. Did he have the stuff for it? It was clear he had to be given the chance. Keeble seemed to make a visible effort to pull himself together, to haul in loose limbs and slap some color into his face. He picked up his glass, thought better of it, and set it down hard on the table.
“I’m going with them,” said Jack staunchly.
“You’re going with me,” cried the Captain, puffing like an engine on his pipe.
“I’m…” began Jack.
“Enough! You’ll take orders or by heaven you’ll stay home and scrub the slime out o’ Kraken’s boots! You and Nell, as I was saying, will lie low outside o’ Wardour Street with a wagon. We’ll be ready to fly when the Professor and Keeble steps out wi’ the girl. It’s action enough you’ll see then, my lad. Can you fire a pistol?”
Jack nodded silently.
“One thing,” interrupted St. Ives. He considered for a moment, his face brightening, his eyes gleaming. “In the event,” he said, “that I don’t come out — through the door that is — look sharp for me in the sky. I mean to get the starship out of Drake’s just as soon as we’ve got Dorothy safe. Be ready, then, to make for Hampstead without me.”
The Captain shrugged. That was St. Ives’ affair. Certainly there would be no way of going back in after the ship, not after the confrontation that would likely occur that afternoon. “And we’ll leave ye too, mate. Don’t think we won’t. I aim to be on hand when Birdlip heaves to. The em’rald’s been in my hands these long years, if you follow me, whether it’s been in my sea chest or aboard that ’ere blimp. Yes, sir, starship or no, I’m for Hampstead when I see the black of that girl’s hair.”
St. Ives nodded.
“And you two,” he said, nodding first to Hasbro and then to Kraken. “You swabs will take care of this here doctor, like I said.”
Kraken chortled and rubbed his hands. “That we will,” he said.
Hasbro was more eloquent. “Since his ruffians,” said the starchy gentleman’s gentleman, “tore the manor to bits and shattered the visage of poor Kepler, I’ve wanted nothing more than to have words with the good doctor, strong words, perhaps.”
“Aye,” cried Kraken, leaping up in a rush and whirling away with his fists at phantoms, then sitting down in a rush when he remembered that he wasn’t wearing trousers. “Mighty strong words,” he said squinting.
“That’s the spirit,” said the Captain. “Don’t take no.”
“Not us, sir,” replied Hasbro, nodding obediently. “Am I to understand, then, that Mr. Kraken and myself are to rendezvous with the rest of you on the green at Hampstead?”
The Captain nodded vigorously. “That’s it in a nut. And mind you, it’s the blimp we want. This ain’t no social affair. First one in grabs the box. Don’t be shy. Don’t wait for slackards. Lord knows which of us will get in first.”
“Well it won’t be me,” said Winnifred Keeble, frowning at the Captain. “Apparently I’m to stay home, am I? Well I’m not, and you, sir, can smoke that if you’d like. I’m going in after Dorothy.”
“As you say, ma’am,” replied the Captain humbly. “The more hands the better when foul weather blows up.”
“And I, gentlemen,” said Godall, rising and picking up his stick, “intend to confront our evangelist. He has, if I’m not mistaken, one of the boxes in question. Which might it be again?”
St. Ives looked at Hasbro for help. “That would be the aerator box, sir, if I remember aright, which Pule possessed when he leaped from the train. And there will be two of the boxes at Drake’s, sir, if you’ll allow a gentle reminder — the little man inhabiting the one and the clockwork alligator in the other — both, I believe, of some value to us.”
“Quite,” said St. Ives, itching to be off. “What detains us then?”
The Captain knocked his ashes out into a glass ashtray. He blew through his pipe, shoved it into his coat pocket, and stood up. “Not a blessed thing,” he said.
SEVENTEEN
It was very little presence of mind that Willis Pule had left. Outrage after outrage had been heaped upon him. And now this last business at Drake’s… He strode along down alleys and byways out of the way of the London populace, grimacing at each jarring step at the pain of the chemical bath that heated his face beneath the sticking plaster. There was a good chance that the mixture would quite simply explode, reducing his head to rubble. Well so be it. He grinned at the thought of him strolling with a will into the presence of his collected enemies and, in the midst of a fine speech, detonating, as if his head were a bomb. It would have been a very nice effect, taken altogether. He laughed outright. He hadn’t lost his sense of humor, had he? It was a sign that he would prevail. He was a man who could keep his head, he thought, while everyone else was… no, that wouldn’t work. He giggled through his bandages, thinking about it, unable to stop giggling. Finally he was whooping and reeling, as if in a drunken passion, laughing down on the occasional loiterer like a madman, sending people scurrying for open doorways.
