had brought along with them – the pistols that had served them well enough in Angel Alley, although their service had profited them little, except perhaps for saving their hides.
Gilbert sat blinking, looking around him as if perplexed, confounded by this wild speech and the sudden change in the weather of the conversation. “What’s this
“Dr. Narbondo, whom you no doubt recall, has kidnapped my son.”
The old man stood up, his face darkening. “Good God,” he said. “The last we saw of that filthy reptile he was making away on his submarine boat like a frightened mole. Tubby, you remember that. I told you we should have shot the creature where he stood when we had the chance.”
“We did what we could, Uncle, and you’ll recall that we had no means of shooting him where he stood, much less when he was inside his ship.”
“Aye, that was our downfall – insufficient weaponry. But I’ve got the means now, by God. The man is keen on revenge, no doubt, and this is his diabolic way of getting it.”
“I believe you’re in the right of it, sir. Revenge and more,” St. Ives said.
“Can I be of service, then?” Gilbert asked. “I’d sooner shoot this Narbondo than to shoot a pheasant, although the pheasant would eat better, certainly.”
“I thank you for the offer, sir,” St. Ives told him.
Hasbro, Jack, Tubby, and Doyle were up and moving now. There was no talk of London, just a silent preparation, and in moments they set out with St. Ives along the edge of the dunes, Egypt Bay invisible beyond. Uncle Gilbert carried his shotgun and wore his pith helmet against the sun.
“Don’t dawdle on my account,” he said. “I can keep up right enough. I’m an old man, perhaps, but I’m not a cripple. Hodgson assures me that he’ll stand guard over the airship, Professor, along with Barlow. Can shoot a sparrow out of a tree at fifty feet with a pellet, can Hodgson, as long as he don’t lose himself in his eggs and nests. And Barlow is a rare hand with a pistol. He’s set up his chair and ottoman in the shade of the ship.”
“I’m sorry to take you away from your bustards, sir,” St. Ives said. “You didn’t bargain for this.”
Gilbert nodded sharply. “It’s a child that’s in need, sir, and what’s more it’s the son of a man I consider to be my friend, if I might be forward enough to say so. A child’s life and happiness comes first for anyone who ain’t a filthy Benthamite insect, and no disrespect meant to the Crown. But the Queen has the Guard to keep watch over her. It’s their lookout, sir.”
The track along the dunes was a weedy ribbon of sand and shell, and they made good time along it, soon finding themselves on a sheep path through a thicket that eventually turned into forest. They were utterly silent, having talked their way through a makeshift plan that seemed sensible, given what they had seen of the Shade House from the air. There was no point in further talk.
They trod on a carpet of leaves now, hearing the crying of gulls, a strengthening breeze soughing through the limbs overhead, and so they easily heard the footfalls of someone running, moments before Finn Conrad rounded a bend in the path ahead, looking back over his shoulder so that he slammed straight into St. Ives, who caught him, reeling back from the force. Looking up wildly, Finn tore himself away and took several steps toward the trees before he recognized them, at which sight he dropped to his knees, his chest heaving.
A man appeared then, clearly pursuing Finn, running hard, his face disfigured both by a vicious wound and an equally vicious appearance of demented rage. His mouth worked, his voice ululating something that approximated human speech. In his hand he held a long knife, not hesitating at the sight of the men ranged before him, but evidently set on murdering Finn.
“Cease!” Gilbert shouted, stepping forward, but yet the man came on in a mad rush as if the lot of them were invisible.
Gilbert brought up his shotgun and instantly blew the man over backward, a mass of birds flying upward from the trees as the report echoed through the wood.
THIRTY-FIVE
Mother Laswell awoke in her chair at the sound of her book striking the ground. She was stricken with fear, her heart beating in her throat, the remnants of a dark dream evaporating in her mind like steam. She could still picture the dark house on the Thames and a nightmarish London veiled by cloud. The arched door of the house – the same door that had haunted other dreams – swung open, and standing within was Narbondo himself, holding Edward’s skull before him. Then the skull was illuminated, and the twin lamps that were the eyes cast a vaporous light out over the city. There was the sound of chaos unleashed: the ground shook, buildings fell, and she had lurched awake.
She looked around her now and saw where she was – sitting in a chair in her room at the inn. The morning returned to her, and she looked at the clock on the wall, thinking that a great deal of time must have passed. But it wasn’t so. She had been asleep for two hours, apparently, and she stood up now and poured herself a cup of now- cold tea from a pot on the sideboard. There were scones left, too, and so she ate one. When she had finished her cup and her scone, she found that she had no interest in her book. She thought of Alice. Surely the coach had arrived in Aylesford by now, although even if it had, Alice was still three or four hours away, depending on Simonides, where he was when the missive had arrived at Hereafter, and how quickly he had done his duty.
She stared at the clock, watching the pendulum move back and forth, seeming to mock her.
She found the path easily enough, and very shortly she found herself alone in the quiet afternoon, the path winding around toward a distant wood. After she had walked for fifteen minutes, the rectory itself appeared ahead, built of black stone, apparently ancient and fallen into disrepair, the slate roof of the house overshadowed by great trees. A broad lawn surrounded the house, the lawn cut by a brook that ran out of the wood. She stood for a time looking into the clear water, at the smooth stones along the bottom, her mind disengaged by the idyllic scene before her. There was a path along the side of the brook, but where it went she didn’t know, nor where the limekilns lay, with their mysterious smugglers’ tunnels.
Abruptly there sounded a muted singing, apparently coming from within the rectory, and she saw now that a wagon stood behind the structure and that a horse was tethered nearby. She made her way toward the wagon, finding herself looking into the rectory through an open door at a very old man who was applying plaster to a decayed frieze on a wall. She watched him work for a time, seeing the care that he was putting into it, working with a number of small trowels and scrapers. He stood back to survey his work, taking a pipe and a pouch of tobacco out of his pocket. It was then that she knocked on the door.
He turned and said, “Hello, ma’am,” cheerfully enough, and began packing tobacco into his pipe, shreds falling to the floor.
“Are you the caretaker?” she asked.
He shrugged. “After a fashion. The old place keeps falling down – bits and pieces of it – and I do what I can to put it back up. It’s a scrimshaw, you might say – something like.” He lit the pipe, drew on it, tamped it, and lit it again.
“It’s very fine work to my mind,” she told him. “The house appreciates it, you know. They develop something of a soul, houses do, over the years. I dare say this one’s watched the centuries pass.”
He smiled at her now. “That it has. I’m not fond of seeing good things in decline, you might say, although comes a time when a body can’t stop it happening. If it’s not drink and the devil, then it’ll be something else that’ll have done with us sooner or later. What might I do for you?”
