The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs (7 page)

St. Ives abruptly came to himself, waking up fully sensible, but with no idea where he had been a moment earlier. Now he lay in the back of a moving wagon that smelled of hay, and in fact he rested comfortably enough on that substance, looking up in the faint light at what was apparently tightly stretched canvas. His hands and feet were bound, although the rope that connected his ankles had some play in it, enough so that he could hobble if he had any place to hobble to. He could recall the scuffle at Heathfield, and Alice’s flight, but precious little else since then, aside from a suspicious memory of having met the Queen, who had taken the form of an immense jackdaw wearing a tall golden crown. Other memories flitted through his mind—a trip to Surrey in a cart drawn by a pig, a flight over London on an enormous bullet fired out of a cannon on Guy Fawkes day, a descent into the depths of hell where he held a long conversation with a crestfallen devil who looked very much like himself. He knew that he had been insane and that he was now in the hands of his enemies, but whether for hours or days he couldn’t say. Nor could he tell in which direction the wagon traveled, only that they moved at a moderate pace, bumping and jostling along over an ill-maintained road.

After a time the driver reined in the horses, and all was momentarily still. St. Ives closed his eyes, feigning sleep. The gate of the wagon clattered downward, and as the night wind swirled in around him there was the swishing sound of the canvas being drawn back. The wagon dipped on its springs as someone climbed aboard, and then there was the sharp reek of ammonia under his nose, and his eyes flew open involuntarily. A voice said, “That roused the bugger,” and immediately he was dragged bodily off the back of the cart and dumped onto the ground, still bound.

For a moment he lay there, wary of being kicked, but the men—the Peddler Sam Burke and the man with his arm in a sling—walked off and left him to his own devices. He sat up, grateful to breathe clean air, and looked up through the trees at the moon riding at anchor amid a flotilla of stars, which told him that they were traveling south.
Beachy Head
, he thought, smelling the sea on the wind now. It was pretty much the same moon that had risen last night—only a few bare hours having passed since he had been taken. They weren’t on the Dicker road by any means, but were on a broad sort of path through the forest, little wider than the wagon.

In a small clearing nearby, his companions had set up a low table, with a Soyer’s Magic Stove alongside it, the wick already lit. The Peddler was just then filling a kettle with water, which he set on the stove, and then from a basket he took out candles, a teapot and cups, a loaf of bread and a piece of what looked like farmhouse cheddar, all of which he set out on the table, arranging it neatly, as if he took particular pleasure in what he was doing. He lit the candles and nodded with satisfaction.

The other man watched him with a derisive scowl. “A man would think you were a miserable sodomite with those pretty ways of yours, Peddler,” he said.

“Some of us are what they call civilized, Mr. Goodson,” the Peddler told him. “My old mother was particular about serving tea. She had the idea that it was proof positive we were descended from angels rather than the much-lamented apes. ‘I’m on the side of the angels,’ she’d say, taking out the china teapot. She didn’t have the pleasure of knowing you, of course, Mr. Goodson. You might have changed her mind for her. Cup of tea, Professor St. Ives? Rather later than is customary, but we make do in our crude way.”

St. Ives saw no reason to answer.

“Ah, I forgot that you were bound hand and foot, Professor. Not at all conducive to holding a teacup. We might untie our captive friend’s hands, Mr. Goodson. Loop a noose around his neck first, however. Then you can lead him into the trees so that he can relieve himself in Mother Nature’s waterless closet. The tea should be steeping by the time you return. We’ll give the Professor something more fortifying—a restful glass of brandy, perhaps.”

“Get your old mother to lead him into the woods,” Goodson told him, nearly spitting out the words. Then he stepped across to the short-legged table, picked up the entire cheese, and took a great bite out of it, spitting the chunk into his hand and setting the cheese back down. He stood there chewing like a cow and glaring at the Peddler, who calmly removed a long clasp knife from his pocket, opened it, and sliced off the ruined corner of the cheese, which he flung over his shoulder. He flipped the open knife neatly into the air, moonlight glinting off the blade, and let it fall onto the table, where it stuck quivering.

“The Doctor would particularly appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Goodson. Indeed he would. He’s a generous man, the Doctor—a generous man. No one moreso when good work’s been done.” The Peddler looked steadily at Goodson, who seemed to be reconsidering his ways. After a moment he swallowed what he was chewing and walked unhappily to the wagon, where he drew out a length of rope. His arm being in a sling, he awkwardly tied a slipknot into the end of it and then stepped across and dropped the loop over St. Ives’s head before drawing the noose tight. Then he untied the Professor’s hands, all the time staring into his face with a dark look.

“Up you go, cully,” he said, hauling on the rope, and St. Ives had to scramble to his feet to avoid strangling. For all that, he was grateful enough for the short jaunt into the trees, and for more reasons than one. He looked out for Mr. Goodson to let his guard down, and he meant to cause him some real harm before the Peddler could join the fray. But the man had the rope wrapped half a dozen times around his good hand, and would without a doubt keep St. Ives on a long tether, pulling him taut at the first hint of a false move. With his feet hobbled, the Professor would have little chance of prevailing, but even so, he watched for his chance, determining to force the issue while the odds were close to even.

When they returned to the clearing again, the Peddler was standing at the wagon, pouring brandy into a cup. He nodded cheerfully at St. Ives. “Night-cap, Professor? Best you drink it while your hands are free. There’s more dignity in it.”

Clearly the question was meant as a command, and St. Ives took the cup as if he were happy to oblige, tasting the brandy before consuming it, the bitter flavor of chloral nearly making him spit. “Cheers,” he said, and he pitched the brandy into the Peddler’s face, spun around so that he was facing Goodson, and grabbed the line, yanking Goodson forward and off balance, slamming him on the nose with his knee, hard enough so that the man’s head snapped back and he fell, the rope still wrapped around his hand. St. Ives was dragged forward, despite yanking savagely to free himself. The Peddler’s arms wrapped around his chest just then, and he was lifted bodily off the ground, getting in one last boot-heel blow that caught Goodson in the forehead.

Goodson got up more slowly the second time, blood flowing from his nose. “Hold him still, Peddler,” he said. Securing the coil of rope even more tightly around his hand, he drew back his arm and hit the Professor savagely on the cheek, the rope cutting into his flesh. He would have struck him again if the Peddler hadn’t turned away.

“Fetch the funnel,” the Peddler told him brusquely. “Give the rope to me.” He set St. Ives down, took the line from Goodson, and quickly tied St. Ives’s hands behind him again, so that his hands were tethered to his neck now. He pushed him back toward the bed of the wagon, still squinting his eyes against the sting of the brandy that St. Ives had flung into his face. “You’d best sit down of your own accord, Professor, or I’ll let Goodson have his way with you. That’s it. Now lie down on the straw there. He bound the Professor’s feet tightly now, doing a neat job of it, then walked over to where the cup had landed in the dirt and picked it up. He took a satchel from Goodson, from which he removed a bottle of French brandy, followed by another small bottle, clearly from a chemist’s shop, and a funnel with a long tube. He knocked the cup against the side of the wagon by way of cleaning it, and then poured brandy into it along with a heavy dose of chloral. St. Ives lay there looking up at the moon again, weighing the odds without any real hope. Resistance was useless. Better to bide his time. When the Peddler told him to open his mouth, he did it. The Peddler was middling accurate with the funnel, sliding it neatly into the Professor’s throat and pouring the contents of the cup into it, and even though the liquor bypassed his tongue, St. Ives nearly gagged on the fumy bitterness of the chloral.

The gate came back up, the canvas was drawn back across, and he found himself once again lying in darkness, his head throbbing with pain, listening as if from a great distance to the sounds roundabout, of night birds and teacups and the racket of the table being stowed. He moved his jaw, relieved that it wasn’t broken despite the pain, but almost anxious now for the chloral to take effect. The wagon set out once again, and very soon the St. Ives was slipping into a drugged darkness, thinking with the last remnants of his waking mind that his companions were somewhere very nearby, that Alice was with them, safe.

We caught sight of Tubby’s Uncle Gilbert’s house when we were halfway up the yew alley—a vast sort of Georgian pile with three tiers of windows. The ground floor looked large enough to house a company of marines, and smoke billowed from the chimney, which was a happy sight. There was a pond, too, with the moon shining on it, and a boathouse and dock with a collection of rowing boats serried alongside. “Uncle Gilbert is a boatman of the first water,” Tubby told us, laughing out loud at his own pitiful wordplay.

Barlow, Uncle Gilbert’s butler, let us in with great haste, as if, impossibly, he had been expecting our arrival. Uncle Gilbert himself met us in the vestibule, leading us into a stately, oak-paneled room with coffered ceilings and stained glass windows depicting knights and dragons. Hasbro himself sat in a chair, drinking whiskey out of a cut glass tumbler, and when he saw us his face fell. He couldn’t help himself. He had been full of the same hope and unease that Tubby and I had felt waiting for the Tipper at the Inn at Blackboys: he had banked on the thin chance that St. Ives would be with us. But now hope was dashed, and you could see what was left of it in his eyes. That changed, however, when he saw Alice. Something good had come of the day after all. Hasbro looked done up, as if he had traveled night and day to rendezvous with us, which in fact he had, having come back down by rail on an express to Eastbourne and then back up again to Dicker, arriving only a half hour ago.

There arose a gleam of optimism in my own mind, for the company was gathered together at last, the elephant reassembled, the waiting mostly over. I’m told that it’s common among soldiers and sailors to feel both a sensible fear and a fortifying elation before going into battle, and my own emotions confirmed it that night. There was a great fire of logs burning in the hearth, which was sizable enough so that a person might step into it without stooping, if one wanted to be roasted alive. There were oil lamps lit, and the room shone with a golden glow, our shadows leaping in the firelight. The walls were hung with paintings of birds and sailing ships. It struck me that I couldn’t remember having been in a more pleasant room with better companions—if only St. Ives were there. Already I was fond of Uncle Gilbert, who might have been Tubby’s older twin, if that were possible, but with his hair disappeared except upon the sides, where it stuck out in tufts. The old man was in a high state of pleasure and surprise at Tubby’s arrival, for he had himself been made uneasy by Hasbro’s revelations. His pleasure was heightened considerably when he got a good look at Alice.

“Ravished, my dear,” he said, bowing like a courtier and kissing her hand. “Simply ravished. You’re a very diamond alongside these two lumps of coal.” He gestured at Tubby and I. Then he shook my hand heartily, apologized for having called me a lump of coal, compelled me to admit to the truth of the insult, and then apologized again for having nothing but dry bones and clinkers to feed us. If he had known for certain that we were coming, he said, he would have slaughtered the fatted calf.

Barlow hauled me away at that point to see to my arm, which needed a proper cleaning and bandaging. He gave me one of his own shirts, my own being a bloody ruin, and he took my coat away with him to see whether Mrs. Barlow could put it right. Mrs. Barlow was at that moment apparently looking after Alice’s needs. We were being looked after on all sides. I had the distinct notion that the earth was growing steadier on its axis after having been tilted this way and that for the past weeks.

I found my companions in the dining hall where they were just then sitting down to gnaw on the bones and clinkers, which turned out to be bangers and mash running with butter and gravy, cold pheasant, cheese and bread, and bottles of good burgundy. Barlow had already taken the corks out of three of the bottles, and the glasses stood full. You can imagine that we fell upon the food and drink like savages, Alice included, pausing only to answer Uncle Gilbert’s myriad questions. He cocked his head at what we had to say, nodding seriously, cursing the man who had hit me on the head, astonished at the machinations of Ignacio Narbondo, who, he insisted, needed a good horsewhipping before he was bunged up in an empty keg with a rabid stoat and set adrift. He knew the Tipper, he said, from his hunting forays around Blackboys. Gibbet bait, he was. Vermin. A worm. Gutter filth. “We’ll settle him,” he told me, nodding heartily and tipping me a wink. “We’ll hand him his head in a bucket.” He seemed to be as worried for the Professor’s health as we were, as if the two of them were old friends.

His use of the word “we” made me uneasy. I mentioned to him that we would be out of his way before dawn, which meant getting precious little sleep….

“Of course I’ll come along,” he said. “You’ll need another stout hand when you beard these rogues.” He stood up from his chair and crossed to the wall, where he took down a saber, cutting at the air with it and skipping toward a great, mullioned, oak chest full of crystal objects as if to hack it to pieces. I thought of Tubby beheading the stuffed boar in the Explorers Club. I was fond of Uncle Gilbert, as I said, but he was distinctly excitable. My refusing him outright, however, wouldn’t have been gentlemanly, so I rather hoped that Tubby would come up with something to put him off the scent.

“You knew the Earl of Hamsters, didn’t you Uncle?” Tubby asked as Barlow poured more wine into our glasses.

“Lord Busby, do you mean? I did indeed know him. We were at Cambridge together, you know, before we were sent down over a misunderstanding involving the fairer sex, ha ha. Pardon me,” he said to Alice, “not half so fair as you, my dear. Anyway, I regretted it immensely, of course, but I mend quickly, and I was never any kind of scholar. I’m afraid it went ill for poor Busby, who was a frightfully sensitive man. Every small insult struck the man like a blow. The press made game of him, with the Earl of Hamsters comments, although he did have capacious cheeks. He had a trick of packing them full of walnut halves and then eating them one by one when we were in chapel. He saw nothing humorous in it, do you see. He simply didn’t have to share them with the rest of us that way, or crack the nuts during sermon. Poor Busby had a run of ill luck after the scandal, and became a variety of scientific hermit. I felt badly when I read that he’d been murdered. What has he to do with our mission?”

I told him what I knew—about the Prussians, about Busby’s experimental rays that were said to be impervious to the horizon and therefore monumentally dangerous, about the man’s palpable fear when I met him, like a mouse expecting the imminent arrival of a snake. At that time he had been holed up in the top floor of a hotel on the hillside looking down on Scarborough Bay. It was a den of prostitutes and panel thieves, but he was attracted to the hidden passages. Everything in his laboratory was set up on an ingenious scaffolding of stout wooden crates, and could be packed up and spirited away on the instant.

I had witnessed the workings of the sapphire ray on that occasion—a propulsion ray generated by a device that Busby referred to as a ‘transmuting lamp.’ Light bounced around inside a cylinder containing the sapphire until it was released as a narrow stream of blue light—‘disciplined radiation,’ as Busby would have it, although the phrase conveyed little meaning to my mind. The ray had sent a glass paperweight hurtling from where it sat on a table in front of the lamp, out through the open window and down into the sea. It plunged into the depths without so much as a visible splash, and was (for all I know) driven into the sea floor. The crystal structure of the sapphire was destroyed in the process, broken down, Busby told us, by ‘imperfect hydrothermal synthesis,’ although why the phrase has lingered in my mind I can’t tell you. Mother nature’s stones, to put it simply, were of inferior quality. It had been a costly little experiment (the expense apparently borne by the Prussians) and one that quite surprised the Professor. I didn’t have the scientific wit to be surprised by it.

We agreed to meet again the following day. St. Ives, I believe, wanted to confront him on this issue of the Prussians, to talk sense, as they say, but Busby, perhaps anticipating some such thing, was gone from the hotel, lock, stock, and barrel when we returned. I was entirely ignorant of Busby’s having entrusted St. Ives with the fortified emerald, and quite rightly. It was a monstrous thing in every sense of the word, a thing best kept secret. A short time later St. Ives and I found Busby dead in the upper deck of a folly tower in North Kent.

Uncle Gilbert shook his head in both sadness and astonishment. But he was as keen as a schoolboy to know about the emerald, and his eyes grew wide when Hasbro drew it out of a drawstring bag and set it on the table. It was a vast thing, and I say that as a man who himself came into the possession of an enormous emerald some few years back, which I’ve set into a broach as a wedding gift for Dorothy Keeble, my intended. Busby’s manufactured emerald dwarfed my own. It fit neatly into the palm of Hasbro’s hand, but only just. It was oddly flattened and faceted, evidently not cut for beauty’s sake. There was something about it that was almost malignant, like a poisonous toad, or the proverbial ill wind that blows no good. Alice, I noticed, didn’t care to look at it. Hasbro slipped it back into its bag.

“What can you tell us of the lighthouse, Uncle?” Tubby asked, gnawing on a pheasant bone.

“That it’s a damned treacherous light,” he said. “Hard to see. It’s on the bluff, invisible when you’re coming down from Eastbourne ’till you sail halfway around Beachy Head. In a sea mist, you don’t know where you are. Captain Sawney was the keeper until recently. Drunk as a lord most of the time and asleep the rest, but he kept the lights topped off with oil and his wicks trimmed. You’d think he’d have fallen downstairs hauling oil up to the light or cleaning the blasted glass, but he didn’t, the poor sod. He walked off the cliff one night in a mist. They went out to look because the light went dark for want of oil and found the Captain on the rocks below with his head bashed in, the crabs eating him. There’s nothing on the beach below the headland but a ledge of shattered chalk. It comes down, you know, great masses of it some years.”

“Uncle Gilbert knew Cap’n Sawney on account of the birding,” Tubby said. “Beachy Head is a famous place for birds.”

“Quite right,” Uncle Gilbert said. “There’s a sort of cow path that winds around from East Dean. First rate birding on the South Downs and along the cliffs. Eagle owls, long ears, whooper swans, merlin. A blind man could see two-dozen varieties in a day with half an eye open. Captain Sawney kept a log, pages and pages of observations. God knows what came of it. Used to wrap fish, probably.”

“There’s a new keeper, then?” Hasbro asked.

“Some three months or more. I’ve been down that way twice now that the weather’s warmed up, taking a turn on the Downs with the binocle, but the new man won’t come down. Captain Sawney always liked a chat. It gave him a chance for a whet, you see. Didn’t matter what time of day. He’d bring the bottle and two glasses down with him. I’d sometimes haul along a fresh bottle myself and leave it with him in order to buy my round. If there was weather, I’d go up for the view. Many’s the time we watched ships beating up the Channel in a storm. He always wanted to know what I’d seen in the birding line, and if there was anything new. He was fond of owls….”

His voice fell, and he saw something in our faces now. “They murdered him?” he asked after a silent moment. “He didn’t fall? He was
pushed
?”

“Quite likely,” Alice said. “I’m sorry.”

“Then this new man…he’s in league with your Dr. Narbondo? They put their own man in?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but nodded darkly. He looked at his hands, opening and closing them. “It’s late,” he said, all the vigor gone out of his voice. “I want some rest. I suggest that we lay things out in the morning. I’ve an idea of how we might come at them.” He nodded decisively. “We’ll learn ‘em,” he said. “See if we don’t.”

The pheasant had been reduced to a skeleton, the wine drank, and the cheese and bread lay in a general ruin. Uncle Gilbert was quite right. There was nothing left to be said that would do us half so much good as a few hours of restorative sleep. As I rose from the table I wondered what “come at them” might mean, and what Uncle Gilbert intended to learn them.