The Aylesford Skull

“A corpse candle do you say?”

“Yes, sir. A spirit light, hovering nearby the wagon. It was the ghost of a boy; I could see that much. I didn’t like the look on your man’s face, sir, but I can’t rightly tell you why. It was a thing you could smell almost. I can’t think of another way to put it. I made sure to stand in the shadows. He wanted me to get into the cart with him, but I wouldn’t, and he drove away.”

“I fear that he returned,” St. Ives said, “after you’d gone back up to your cottage. He drove away only because you’d seen him.”

“Who was he, sir?”

“His name is Ignacio Narbondo. If you see him again, Finn, don’t speak to him. Don’t go near him. Run. He’s the king of liars.”

“I’ve heard you speak of this Narbondo, sir. And Jack Owlesby told me about him when I stayed at the house on Jermyn Street. Narbondo was the one as caused the trouble at Morecambe Bay.”

“Yes,” said St. Ives. “The very man, come round again.”

Finn stood staring for a moment, his hand at his forehead. “I should have come looking for you, sir, or Mrs. St. Ives. I knew it was long odds against anyone coming along to tell him of the London Road that time of night, but I didn’t think… I didn’t… I should have come up to the house.”

“You couldn’t have known, Finn. I knew that Narbondo had been lurking roundabout, and I neglected to tell you. The blame in that regard is my own.”

Finn was staring at St. Ives’s feet now, his face set. He touched his forehead again with trembling fingers, as if he couldn’t keep his hands still. “I didn’t know…” he said, as if trying to come to grips with his regret.

“Finn,” St. Ives told him. “The guilt of the crime lies solely with Narbondo, and what’s left over I’ll take. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Finn said, nodding his head too rapidly to be convincing.

“Good man,” St. Ives said. “See to things, Finn, while I’m gone. I’ll be traveling in to London again.”

A wagon came rattling along the wisteria alley now – Hasbro come home, and none too soon. St. Ives pressed Finn’s shoulder and turned away, running toward Hasbro, who reined up the horses.

“We leave for London in half an hour,” St. Ives said without preamble. “Narbondo has taken Eddie.”

ELEVEN

TO LONDON

Alice watched as the wagon moved away, dust rising from the wheels, carrying her husband from her yet again, his portmanteau sitting on the bed of the cart. He turned and waved one last time before the wagon flung itself up onto the road and flew out of sight, but she knew that his mind was already on London, and on the terrible need to make haste yet again. The last thing she said to him was, “Bring me his head.” But she knew now that it was her very anger at Narbondo that instigated vicious thoughts within her – anger at the hold that he had upon all of them, and especially upon her husband.

He can save others, she thought, watching the dust settle, but he cannot save himself, the utterance of the Corinthian soldier coming into her mind unbidden.

Bitter thoughts followed – recriminations that she wished weren’t there, that had been drawn from within her as out of a dark well. She cast them aside and thought of her own part in the crime. Better to be angry with herself. Why hadn’t she awakened? Wasn’t she supposed to have some instinctive bond with her children, whom she’d foolishly allowed to sleep alone in the gallery? Why that, of all things, when the devil was abroad in the neighborhood?

“Gone again,” she said out loud, pushing the unanswerable questions aside and talking now to the empty afternoon.

What if, she wondered – what if years ago, Langdon had taken a different turning in the road, and Narbondo and he had never been put into each other’s way? What then? Would some other tragedy or woe have stepped into the breach? It was apparently what the human multitudes were born for. That she might or might not have awakened in the night made little difference now. It was foolish to lament what had not happened any more than to worry about what might. There were a million possible alternatives that arose in a lifetime, and it had quite simply fallen out by dumb chance that she now had both a husband and a son to lose in a single stroke.

She found a kerchief in her pocket and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She knew absolutely that unless she forced herself to remain even, with her wits intact, she would begin to sob, and that the sobbing would not answer, but would shatter what little command she had left of herself, and she would be no good to anyone. Though come to that, what good was she now?

Her mind turned to Finn, and she looked toward his cottage, where for some reason the door stood half open. Langdon had told her that Finn blamed himself for Eddie’s kidnapping, and would certainly torture himself with it. And so the poison spreads, she thought. At that moment a gust of wind banged the door fully open. It swung back again, but didn’t shut, and it came to her that the cottage was empty.

She began to run. Surely the boy wouldn’t do himself a mischief; he was steadier than that. She looked into the interior, not bothering to knock. “Finn!” she shouted, but there was no answer. Drawers stood open and clothes lay on the bed where they had apparently been tossed. He had been in a hurry. She saw then that the lamp on the table by his bedside rested atop a sheet of foolscap, apparently left as a message, and in an instant she had snatched it up and read it hastily.

I’ve gone into London to try my hand, the note said. I’m used to its ways having lived rough there for a time. I’m main sorry to have played my part so bad, but I mean to put it right. Finn Conrad.

“God help us,” she said, sitting down hard on the bed and reading the note through again. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart was fluttering, and for a moment she thought she would faint. She forced herself to breathe evenly, closed her eyes, and sat just so until something leapt onto the bed – Hodge, she discovered. The cat stared at her, as if to imply that there was more she should be doing.

She stood up then and went out, tucking the note into her pocket and calling Hodge to follow her. She scooped him up, shut Finn’s door behind her, and turned toward the house, but she hadn’t taken ten steps before she heard a shout, and saw Bill Kraken heading toward her at a lopsided run, just then coming out of the hops orchard from the direction of Hereafter Farm. He waved at her, and she waited for him, even at a distance seeing trouble in his hurrying stride and in his face.

Kraken bent over and clasped his knees with his hands, breathing hard, and then caught up with himself, took his cap off, and said, “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I’ve come for the Professor. There’s a mort of trouble at the farm.”

She felt a wave of something strangely like relief, the wild idea coming into her mind that Narbondo might still be lurking nearby. Eddie mightn’t be in London at all. St. Ives had taken the pistols, but there was still the fowling piece, which she could aim as well as anyone she knew, save perhaps Hasbro…

She realized abruptly that Kraken was waiting for her, and she brought herself back from her own thoughts. “What trouble, Bill?”

“Mother Laswell’s gone off to London a-looking for the Doctor. Bent on murder, she is. She’s sailing under the black flag, ma’am. No quarter. She’ll have his liver and lights on a plate or die a-trying, despite he’s her own son, blackguard that he is.”

“To London, Bill? Are you certain?”

“Yes, ma’am. She left me ashore, I don’t know how long ago. Hours maybe, for I was up ere the sun. I set to working in the garden before the day hottened up, and later on come in for breakfast a-looking for her, but she weren’t there. I looked whether she was still abed, for she had sat up half the night in a black fret, but the bed was empty and had been laid upon, but not in, if you follow me. She had laid there a-waiting, do you see, making up her mind like. Then in come Simonides, the hired boy, who said he took her to the train early-on in the dogcart, and was just then getting back. By then she was London bound, perhaps already in Tooley Street. The Professor will tell me what to do, I’m main certain of it.”