The Aylesford Skull

“Yes, sir. Apparently, although it seems doubtful that he’s as bold as that.”

“He means to follow us, then, and not attack us, you mean?”

“Indeed – has been following us, obviously, since we lost sight of him on the Pilgrims Road.”

Merton was blinking at both of them. “Attack you? I don’t mean to hurry you away, but I’m late for an appointment. Oh my, yes, very late. Mrs. Merton will flay me alive with a serpent. I regret being inhospitable, but…”

“Quite right,” St. Ives told him. “We’re also on the wing.”

“I’ll just slip out the back,” Hasbro said, “and over the wall. Perhaps we can collar our man and have an informative chat.”

St. Ives nodded. “I’ll go out through the front door in two minutes’ time. We would be fools, however, to allow George to distract us as he has in the past. If we cannot collar him, we’ll let him go about his business and we’ll go about ours. We’ll see him again, and soon, I believe.” He watched as Hasbro disappeared toward the rear of the shop, and began mentally to count the seconds in the efficient manner he had learned as a schoolboy: one elephant, two elephants, three elephants…

Merton rose from his chair, bent over the back of it, and pulled out several painted sign-boards, choosing one from among them. “On Holiday,” it read. “I wish you the greatest luck in finding your son, Professor, and forgive me for reminding you of the promise you made to me this evening in regard to the money that was, I’m certain, stolen from me. I’m fearful that I’ve once again put my head in the noose. I believe you know the whereabouts of my second establishment?”

“Unless it has moved locations in the past two years,” said St. Ives, starting in on the second sixty elephants.

“No, sir, it has not. I would very much like to know the results of your endeavors. It would give me the greatest pleasure to learn that Narbondo has been knocked on the head.”

“We’re of a like mind,” St. Ives said, shaking Merton’s hand. He walked toward the door with twenty elephants to spare, preparing himself for the possible chase. George would find it curious, perhaps, that he was coming out alone, but if his curiosity gave him a moment’s pause, St. Ives would take advantage of it.

He heard the key turn in the lock behind him as soon as he was through the door, and the “On Holiday” sign- board clacked against the glass. There stood George, right enough, lounging in a shadowy doorway opposite, half shrouded by fog. St. Ives saw Hasbro step out of the byway onto the street, and in that instant St. Ives sprinted hard toward the relevant doorway, dodging around a carriage and nearly knocking over a crossing sweeper who offered to rid the path of horse manure. George was already afoot, however, dashing east along the river toward the Old Swan Pier, disappearing up a narrow, fogbound alley. St. Ives and Hasbro, running side by side now, dodging pedestrians, gained the mouth of the alley and saw the moving shadow just then cutting out of sight between two buildings. They followed warily, listening to their own footfalls on the cobbles until they arrived at the recess between the buildings.

“Easy does it,” a voice said, and they saw George’s face lit by a match that he touched to the bowl of his pipe, drawing the flame downward. He leaned against the sweating bricks of a building, in no particular hurry now. His face had been torn open, probably when he had been thrown from his horse, and was patched with a strip of bloodstained sticking plaster. Nothing in his demeanor suggested the pleasant bumpkin from the Queen’s Rest. He had been a consummate actor. “I was sent by the Doctor to parlay, gentlemen,” he said, “since you weren’t given to it on the road this morning.”

“Weren’t given to it?” St. Ives said, immediately angered. “It was more in the line of murder than a parlay.”

“But who did the murdering? Poor Badger’s dead after that caper in the tree, stupid sod, but it was you who knocked him straightaway off the back of the wagon.”

“He held a knife in his hand, which meant that he badly wanted to be knocked off the wagon. And if memory serves, it was you who ran him down, and it was Fred who pointed a pistol at us.”

“Meant for persuasion, not murder, but mayhaps you’re in the right of it. I’d have done something the same if the Badger had dropped onto the back of my wagon. You’re wondering what I’m doing now, though. I’ve got no knife in my hand.”

“Your misfortune, perhaps,” St. Ives said.

Hasbro put his hand under his coat and sidestepped two paces deeper into the passage so that George was between them, or near enough.

George whistled, and there were answering whistles from back the way they’d come, and from farther on into the gloom of the passageway. “I haven’t come alone, guv’nor,” he said. “I’m to deliver a message from the Doctor, and then go on my way. You’re to think on it.”

“Deliver it, then, and be gone.”

“The Doctor humbly offers the life of your son for the sum of fifty thousand sovereigns. No negotiation permitted. You have until tomorrow morning to come to a decision.”

“And if I do not?”

“You will, your honor. I know it to be true.”

“On what authority?”

George took the pipe out of his mouth and banged it against the edge of his fist, the coal falling out onto the ground, where it continued to glow. He slid the pipe into the pocket of his trousers, dusted his hands together, and then whistled again, twice, which meant, possibly, that he knew he was in dangerous waters, at the edge of the maelstrom, and that he wanted his friends to know the same. Again the answering whistles, twice each. St. Ives held very still, listening for approaching footfalls, but heard little beyond the distant traffic from Thames Street and shipping along the river.

“On the authority that you want your son safe. And that you’re not keen to make the wrong choice and then have to explain yourself to the missus. No, sir, you wouldn’t want that. I’m a married man myself, who had a son of my own, and I know. That would be middling hard, it would indeed.”

“Your wife would almost certainly be elated if I were to kill you where you stand.”

He shrugged. “That’s as may be. But I’m merely the messenger, sir, and my message is that little Eddie won’t be safe unless you agree to the Doctor’s terms.”

“In what way not safe? Say what’s in your mouth, sir, and keep my son’s name out of it.”

“Right. The Doctor said to tell you that he’s got a customer who wants one of the skulls, sir, that casts ghosts. This man will pay the same sum as the Doctor is asking of you. But the Customer, so-called, doesn’t care what little boy is the cat’s paw, if you follow me. It needn’t be your son. That’s what the Doctor put into my mouth to say.”

“The Customer,” St. Ives said, the word being suddenly loathsome to him. He stared at the man, contemplating his death, and George, seeing it in his eyes, looked furtive, ready to bolt. St. Ives felt a hand on his arm – Hasbro, who shook his head meaningfully. The moment passed, St. Ives forcing his anger downward, out of his mind. “Tell the Doctor,” he said at last, “that I’ll consider his offer. Tomorrow morning, do you say? How am I to assemble that sum this evening? The thing is impossible.”

“Eight o’clock sharp on the morrow. Corner of Thrawl Street and Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Bring a token sum – something serious, mind you – to put on the barrelhead.”

“I’ll have to see that my son is safe.”

“Agreed. There’ll be a man there who you won’t know, and others you won’t see. He’ll wear a red kerchief. Follow him, and he’ll tell you what you need to do. You’ll have time to find the rest of the nuggets, if you’re quick about it. Meanwhile, the lad’s safe, eating rashers and eggs. And he’ll stay safe – aye, and your little daughter, too, so says the Doctor – if you gather up the boy and go on your way, back to Kent, and out of the Doctor’s purview, so to say.”

He paused a moment, something coming into his face as if he were considering, and in a low voice he said, “I believe it’s on the up and up – that the Doctor will do as he says.”

He whistled three times sharp, and then turned on his heel and walked past Hasbro, away down the passage, where he was quickly swallowed by the darkness and fog.

There were no answering whistles now – no need for them; the thing was done. Hasbro and St. Ives stood alone in the darkness for another moment, and then walked briskly up to Cannon Street, where they hailed a