The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs (10 page)

“Where’s the Doctor’s lamp, then? Quick.”

“They took it away. Middle of last night it was. Experiment was finished, they said. They cleared out, the lot of them. Then the Tipper, he showed up two hours ago and said he was done up, said he would take a bit of a nap, and I let him have his way. No harm in a nap.”

“Where are they, then? Where’d they clear out
to
? No nonsense now. Tell us and you walk away whole.”

The keeper sat thinking for a moment, as if making up his mind, and then he began to speak.

We waited, standing there on the face of the cliff, not talking, but listening. Certainly the Tipper had slipped into the cavern and vanished. He had fled the lighthouse to avoid running afoul of Tubby, and it was unlikely that he thought to lure us into the darkness to waylay us, because he didn’t know we were there. I looked at my watch, surprised to see that the morning had nearly flown. It was half ten o’clock—another thirty minutes until the rendezvous at the light. “Whither?” I asked.

“We’ll give him another minute or two and then follow him into the cliffs,” Alice said. “He’ll lead us to something. It’s our good luck that he ran off into the woods in Blackboys.”

I hope so
, I thought. “What about the others—Tubby and Uncle Gilbert?”

“They’re grown men,” she said. “They’ll get along well enough.”

Gulls wheeled around us, and small seabirds flew out of crannies in the chalk and flew back in again. Birds of prey rode effortlessly on the drafts rising from below. Uncle Gilbert could have named them all, no doubt. The sea wind blew ever more freshly, straight through one’s clothing. To the west the Seven Sisters stretched away, and below us the swell washed in. On the horizon a low brown haze might have been the coast of France.

We slipped into the darkness of the cavern and waited again, allowing our eyes to grow accustomed to the twilight. We were in a high room—a sort of chalk rotunda with a window letting in sunlight high above, which illuminated a domed ceiling. As the moments passed I became aware of a general movement roundabout me, the cavern apparently alive with crawling and flying things. Moths of great size flitted through the air, and chitonous insects scurried away across the floor, which was littered with what were apparently bones, perhaps fossilized bones, and a rubble of flints and sea shells. Water dripped here and there from above, running in dark rivulets downhill along a dim passage, apparently along the edge of the cliff itself. Some forty or fifty feet farther another wash of sunlight shone through yet another window in the wall.

Alice set out across the cavern toward the passage, with me following as quietly as I could, although the rubble on the floor rattled and scraped as we trod on it. The second window stood at head-height, appearing to be a natural fissure in the rock. Someone had chiseled it larger, however, and the chalk was nearly white where it was newly exposed. The walls of the passage itself were gray, however, with black blotches and streaks of red, and here and there veins of quartz and flint. The stream ran heavier in its channel, fed by further streams where surface water filtered through from above, having dissolved the chalk over the long ages.

We passed into darkness, stepping into the surprisingly chill stream more than once and soaking our shoes, the passage leading ever downward, sometimes steeply. The air had grown stale, but I got a scent of salt air suddenly, and rounding a corner I saw another window, nearly level with the floor this time and providing scant illumination, but enough so that I could see that the passage turned again ahead, and then again after that. On we went, time ticking away. It seemed to me that we might easily have passed beyond Beachy Head proper, into one of the Seven Sisters, and that soon we would come level with the Channel itself if we continued downward at the current rate.

In time, however, the passage leveled off. We saw a tiny flame hovering in the darkness ahead of us, surrounded by a golden aura. When we drew near to it, I could see that it was a large lantern, sitting in a carved-out niche. It must have held a couple of pints of lamp oil, which meant that someone routinely filled it to keep it alight—someone who might be making his rounds at that very moment, lurking nearby. There was nothing for it, though, but to go on, ever on the watch for movement in the far shadows or for the sound of footsteps. Another lantern glowed beyond the first, and I could see that the floor of the cave had been swept clean now, as if we had arrived at a habitation. Chunks of chalk had been pushed up against the far wall in a heap, with a wheelbarrow upside-down atop it. On our right-hand side an arched doorway stood open, through which light glowed. Like the windows along the seaward passage, the doorway had apparently been enlarged, which accounted for the chalk pieces in the rubble heap. At first all was quiet, the air deathly still, and then there was the sound of movement, clearly coming from within the lighted room.

I shrugged at Alice and nodded at the doorway. She nodded back at me, and at once I stepped in front of her and walked silently forward. If one of us were going to stick our head into the lion’s den, it would be me. I wafered myself against the wall, craning my neck to see past the edge of the door. What I saw was my own rather murky face looking out of what was apparently an illuminated mirror that framed the front of a wooden wardrobe cabinet.

I admit that the unexpected sight confounded me, although the confusion vanished when I saw that there was another face peering at me from out of the glass—the grimacing face of Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, who sat atop a wheeled stool, his back to the door. He regarded me without the least show of surprise. I gestured at Alice, still hidden behind me, waving her away, praying that she would vanish back into the darkness. Then I walked calmly into the Doctor’s presence as if I had been invited.

I was aware in that moment of how few times I had actually set eyes on Narbondo, and then most often from a distance. He was one of those men who keep to the shadows, living in out-of-the-way places in the countryside, or inhabiting low dens deep in the rookeries of the Seven Dials or Limehouse. He was largely unknown to the police—the sort of evil genius whose machinations are carried out by men easily manipulated by greed or fear. He was gnome-like in feature, and middling small in stature, although he was rather stout and was as pale as a frog’s belly. There was something bent about him—something you saw at once, or rather felt. I don’t refer to his being a hunchback, which is neither here nor there, but to something hellish and inhuman in his demeanor, some fell presence that made him appear to be a leering devil. One could easily imagine Narbondo taking pleasure in flaying small animals, but the idea of his drinking a cup of tea or a pint of ale with any relish was impossible. A dog would cross the road to avoid him.

He sat there regarding me now, not seeming in the least unhappy to see me. “I’ll show you a wonder, Mr. Owlesby,” he said simply, gesturing at the mirror.

I realized then that the oil lamps that stood in niches around the circular room were unlit, and yet the room was illuminated with a pale glow, the light emanating from disks of glass set into the chalk of the ceiling, looking like full moons. Somehow he had contrived to pipe sunlight far back into the cliffs as if it were water. Aside from the stool and the cabinet that supported the large mirror, the room was empty of furnishings. Broad tubes, apparently made of copper, descended from the ceiling into the wooden closet, the door of which, as I said, was the mirror itself. In front of Narbondo stood a ship’s wheel affixed to a complication of gears and levers that evidently worked whatever mechanical contrivance was housed in the wardrobe.

The reflection in the glass, as I said, was of inferior quality. My features were vague, and seemed almost to ripple, as if I were looking back through a haze of heat rising from hot summer pavement. But then I saw moving shapes in the glass, and my eyes looked to a point beyond the shimmering surface, where, to my vast amazement, there was a scenic view of the surface world—a ghostly view, as if some of its substance had evaporated during its journey through the periscope. I saw a line of trees that were certainly the edge of the South Downs woods, and below them, across an expanse of meadow, our own copse, where lay the emerald in the traveling teapot and my half-eaten sandwich. And out of that copse, as I stood there watching, strode Hasbro himself, just then putting his watch into his vest pocket.

Narbondo turned the ship’s wheel, exactly as if he were navigating a vessel across the empty Downs, following Hasbro’s progress. The lighthouse and cottage swung into view, and beyond them the edge of the cliffs and the sky over the Channel. Hasbro stopped before the door of the cottage, raised his hand, and knocked on it. The hour of the ransom was upon us. The door opened, although the dim interior hid whoever stood within. For a moment all was frozen. No doubt someone was speaking, but of course I could hear nothing. Then Hasbro took half a step backward, turned toward the cliffs, and toppled over slowly. A man stepped out of the interior of the lighthouse and stood for a moment looking down. He held a revolver in his hand. It was Sam Burke, the Peddler. He bent over, rifled Hasbro’s pockets, and removed what he wanted. Hasbro shifted then, trying to sit up, and the Peddler drew back the revolver and clubbed him on the side of the head before dragging his now-limp body in through the door. After a time he stepped back out and closed the door behind him.

And then, strangely, he waved at me, or at us, very solemnly, before setting out across the Downs in the direction of the cliffs, disappearing out of the scene, which was now merely a picture postcard view of the Belle Tout Light. The horror of what I had witnessed was accentuated by its utter silence—a dumb show of viciousness.

“What do you think, Mr. Owlesby?” Narbondo said. “You’ve just witnessed what amounts to a small scientific miracle, given that you and I are three hundred feet beneath the earth’s surface. It’s the wonder of the ages, is it not? And all accomplished with mirrors, like a circus illusion.”

I stared at him in stony silence, which he apparently took as an invitation to explain himself further.

“I envisioned a sort of Momus Glass,” he said, “but looking outward and not inward. The mirror itself wasn’t difficult to construct, but the necessity of tunneling through chalk was something else again. I contrived a mechanical mole to burrow to the surface, and then built a copper chimney set with highly polished mirrors of various shapes and magnifications. It’s a toy, really. But one gets weary of spending time in caverns, you see, and longs for a view of the outside world. The sad case of Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot comes to mind….”

“The Peddler knew he was being watched,” I said. “Why did he wave at us? Was that a mere pleasantry? Mockery, perhaps?”

“It meant simply that he had done his duty.”

“We had seen as much.”

“No, we had not seen as much. What we saw was merely the initial step—the shooting of the man Hasbro. The Peddler was constrained from killing your man outright, but he could scarcely allow him his freedom. As you saw, he dragged him indoors, where he was to see to his wounds before binding him into a chair. Now mark this: in the room with him sits an infernal device with a simple clockwork mechanism. There is quite a lot of explosive, enough to demolish the lighthouse and to alter the contour of Beachy Head. If I’m at all unhappy with the quality of the emerald, we’ll let your man sit there until the device detonates. Ideally he won’t bleed to death in the mean time.”

I turned on my heel and lunged through the door, possessed of a cold fury. There were tools atop the rubble pile. I would beat him to death with a shovel like the vermin that he was!

But two men stood without, and I nearly hurtled into them, one of them—the Tipper—tripping me up so that I sprawled on the ground. The other was a man I hadn’t seen before. He wore his arm in a sling, and quickly I deduced that he must be none other than the railway thief. In his free hand he held a pistol. I found that I wasn’t attracted to pistols, especially in the hands of my enemies. I stood up slowly, surreptitiously looking around, wondering about Alice, relieved that she was nowhere to be seen. The Tipper appeared to be amused to see me, no doubt full of hubris at having once again prevailed over me.

“That’ll do, gents,” Narbondo said. He lurked behind me in the open doorway, his face in shadow. “If you’ll allow me to borrow your weapon, Mr. Goodson,” he said, “I’ll escort our bold Mr. Owlesby to the room where his companion is taking his ease, and the two of you can finish conveying our cargo to the ship. We sail with the tide.”

Mr. Goodson did as he was told, and the two of them walked off silently. I was left alone with Narbondo, who gestured with the pistol, the two of us setting out at once along a down-sloping passage, its mouth nearly invisible in the heavy shadows. Soon, however, lantern light illuminated the passage, and I could see easily enough. This part of the caverns was apparently a warren of rooms and tunnels, most of them dark, although twice we passed lamp-lit rooms heaped with casks and crates, as if the place had been a smugglers’ lair. It would have been vitally interesting at any other time, but my mind was fixed variously on Alice and on making a play for the pistol.

Narbondo followed behind me, fairly close. I could almost feel the weight of the pistol against the small of my back, as if it, too, emitted some sort of physical ray. I envisioned turning, batting away the hand that held the weapon, slamming the Doctor bodily into the wall. I determined to do it and steeled myself for the assault. But I had thought too long about it, for the tunnel steepened now, becoming a narrow stairway cut into the chalk. The cavern wall on the right abruptly disappeared, and we descended into a vast, open room, the floor a hundred or more feet below us, so that any quick, erratic movement might have precipitated me into the abyss.

Again sunlight shone through natural windows in the chalk walls high above. There was an updraft of air now, heavy with the smell of the ocean and sea wrack, and I heard what sounded like the relentless surging of the waves. I caught sight of birds winging across the open expanse, darting and flitting as if snatching insects out of the air. We were in a monumental sea cave, the floor of which was a pool of dark water. Small waves washed across the surface of the pool, breaking against tumbled rocks. Alongside a wooden dock lay Narbondo’s submarine vessel, and even in the dim twilight of the cave I could see a glint of light from its portholes and the shadow of its dorsal fin. It seemed clear that Narbondo was waiting only on the fortified emerald in order to be underway, and when he gained his objective he would disappear into the vast oceans, surfacing at will to rain down literal madness on some unsuspecting corner of the world.