Beneath London, page 21
Tubby picked up the coffee pot now and filled their cups. “He revealed the location of Klingheimer’s residence, very near the Temple. A wealthy man, it seems.”
“Well,” Alice said, “I don’t intend to pay this Klingheimer a visit. And I hope that Smythe won’t stir the hornet’s nest up afresh when he reports to him. I would rather Mr. Klingheimer assumed that he was successful in his efforts and moved on to other crimes.”
“Hasbro is quite correct in stating that the man still has his eye upon us,” Tubby said. “If he were moving on to other crimes he would not have sent Smythe and Penny to spy on us. We’ve stepped into a nest of vipers whether we like it or not, and we cannot stand idle. We know the villain’s name now and he knows ours. We can carry the battle into his camp any time we choose.”
The street door opened, and the three of them looked in that direction. It was Henrietta Billson, blowing into the room on a gust of wind and bearing a great basket of eggs and another of greens. She shut the door behind her with her foot, wished everyone a good morning, and went toward the kitchen, promising to have Billson prepare a fresh pot of coffee. Before another word was spoken, the door swung open yet again, and to Alice’s vast surprise, Mother Laswell, bundled in a vast shawl, came in through the doorway with Bill Kraken right behind her, his hair sculpted into a precipice by the wind and his face hard set. Abruptly it came to Alice that Clara wasn’t part of their company, that they had not gone north as planned, and that beneath his cap Kraken had a bandage wrapped around his head, a bloody patch showing through.
“Thank God we’ve found you,” Mother Laswell said to them, breathing hard and hauling off her coat. “We’re here to search out Clara Wright and fetch her home.”
* * *
They shifted to the great table, where there was room for the eggs and toast and rashers and beans and pudding and pots of coffee and tea that appeared from the kitchen. Tubby settled into a second breakfast, and Alice poured herself another cup of coffee, listening to Mother Laswell tell the story of the treachery at Hereafter Farm and the surprising news that Finn Conrad had followed Clara and the man Shadwell into London – that he must have arrived yesterday.
“He knew that we were staying here at the Half Toad,” Alice said. “We’ve brought along his portmanteau, for he meant to arrive this very day. Why hasn’t he come to us?”
Mother Laswell shook her head grimly. She opened a small purse and removed a wrinkled piece of paper, which she lay atop the table for everyone to see. “Finn is looking out for this address,” she said. “He might have found it – discovered something there that kept him.”
Alice stared unhappily at the drawing of Ignacio Narbondo, but it was Tubby who said, “Lazarus Walk, by God!”
“Do you know the street?” Alice asked.
“Yes, although… This is curious, indeed. Mr. Klingheimer resides there, as I was saying just a moment ago. The odious Penny revealed it to me, and I wondered whether he lied. It must certainly be true, however, for here’s the same street, and associated with villainy into the bargain.”
“Shadwell, the false policeman, carried this bit of paper – several copies,” Mother Laswell said to Alice. “Finn took one along with him. What is this house, then?”
Alice related the story of the collapse of the Embankment, possibly engineered by the shadowy Mr. Klingheimer, and of the suspicious death of James Harrow, and of the land beneath London, and of St. Ives’s surfacing from that land on Hampstead Heath. She paused in her tale, thought for a moment, and said to Hasbro and Tubby, “The explosion must have been directed against Langdon and Gilbert then. It wasn’t merely to close the passage to the underworld.”
“You’re in the right of it,” Hasbro said. “Otherwise the coincidence beggars belief. It seems to me that Mr. Klingheimer must have engineered a far-reaching conspiracy, with his false policemen and infernal devices. But why this interest in Doctor Narbondo, who is assuredly dead?”
“Perhaps Klingheimer does not know of Narbondo’s death,” Tubby said.
Alice looked doubtful. “It wasn’t reported in the newspapers, because there was no body and because he was a secretive man. He simply vanished, after all.”
“Is he dead, then?” asked Mother Laswell. Her earlier determination had faded from her face, and she looked merely tired now. “He’s been assuredly dead before, my son has. Has no one seen the corpse?”
“No,” Alice told her. “But I myself saw him fall into the earth, and the earth close over him again.”
Alice paused now, seeing that she had made a mere assumption, and Mother Laswell said, “The Professor apparently fell into a similar hole just yesterday, and yet he walked out alive.”
“True, but this handbill merely makes it clear that Klingheimer is actively seeking Narbondo,” Hasbro said. “There’s no evidence at all that he’s found him.”
“Since my son ceased to be … human… and became the creature who calls himself Narbondo,” Mother Laswell said, “no one has sought him out unless they were audacious villains, and most often to their own peril, as we know. This Klingheimer will be no exception, I do assure you. If he has an interest in Narbondo, then he has an interest in deviltry. And now Clara and perhaps Finn have fallen into his grasp.”
They sat in silence for a moment, during which Henrietta Billson carried away the dishes and brought fresh coffee. There was the sound of someone descending the stairs, and Alice looked up to see Lars Hopeful hauling Miss Bracken’s bags, the woman herself coming along behind, wearing her hat. She had managed to make the crow presentable again.
“Ah,” said Tubby. “It’s Madame Go-Lightly herself, leaving for good and all, by the look of it, God bless her.”
Miss Bracken approached the table now, looking stoic, and Alice introduced her to Bill Kraken and Mother Laswell. “Charmed,” Miss Bracken said, foregoing a smile of any variety. “The boy Hopeful is seeing me into a hansom cab. I intend to stay at the Midland Grand, St. Pancras. Mr. Smythe particularly recommends it. When… When Mr. Frobisher returns – for he will return, mark my words – be good enough to ask him to wait upon me there.”
“Are you solvent, Miss Bracken?” Tubby asked, reaching into his coat for his pocketbook. “I mean to say, could you use a ten-pound note to see you through the week? I apologize, ma’am, for having accused you of purloining my uncle’s jewel case. It turns out to have been secreted away by your friends Smythe and Hillman.”
“I’ll take nothing from the likes of you,” she spat, “and you can save your mealy-mouthed apologies for those who care to listen, which ain’t me.” Then she nodded to him with theatrical graciousness. “Your uncle is a generous man, sir – I won’t say was – and I’ll do well enough on what he gave me. If he does not return to me in a two-day’s time, I mean to board ship for Kingston, where I’ll once more be among friends. In that event, please tell him when you see him that I await him there where he found me, pining away for grief.”
“I’ll do just that,” Tubby said, and then he muttered something that Alice couldn’t hear, nor wanted to hear.
“If there is any news at all of Gilbert,” Alice said, “we’ll find you at the Midland Grand. You can depend upon it.”
Miss Bracken nodded her thanks, dabbed theatrically at her eyes with a kerchief, glared one last time at Tubby, and turned toward the door, making her way out into the blustery morning with Lars Hopeful trundling along behind her.
“What an extraordinary hat that woman was wearing,” Mother Laswell said.
“I rather fancy it,” Alice said, “although I don’t know that I’d have the courage to wear it.”
“What of Finn, then?” Tubby asked, as if he were anxious to avoid any further discussion of Miss Bracken. “No doubt he found the house on Lazarus Walk, but what then? Are we certain that Clara was taken there?”
“No,” Mother Laswell said. “We’re certain of nothing. But Clara and I have a… bond, so to speak. We’re the both of us psychical beings. I can feel that she’s nearby. Her powers are uncommon strong. I mean to set out this morning in order to conduct a search in that neighborhood for a stronger sense of Clara’s presence.”
“I believe that Finn would endeavor to rescue her,” Alice said. “If he still lives, he is either in that house or searching for a way in.”
Mother Laswell shook her head unhappily. “The boy has saved my life twice now. Indeed he has. Now that we’ve filled our bellies, we’d best be about our business. I can’t stand the waiting.”
“Nor can I,” said Tubby. “I’m off to the Heath in order to search out this tunnel below the old ruin.”
“I know that house on the Heath well enough,” Hasbro said. “We played among the rooms when I was a lad, growing up in Highgate. It was abandoned even then. It had a lamentable history.”
“Will you help me find Uncle, then?” Tubby asked.
“Happily,” Hasbro said. “Given that there’s a company of us now, it would seem sensible that we divide our forces, for there’s much to be done. And a crowd calls attention to itself, after all.”
“Quite right,” Alice said. “I expect Langdon to arrive here at the inn at two o’clock this afternoon. Theodosia tells me that he will send a message otherwise. Can we meet again at that hour?”
“With great pleasure,” said Tubby. “I have much to ask him.”
“In the meantime I intend to look in on the police in order to shed some light on the mystery of James Harrow’s death. Langdon isn’t satisfied that it was accidental, and we have reason now to agree with him.”
“Not alone you ain’t going nowhere, ma’am,” Bill Kraken said, breaking his long silence.
“You go with her, Bill,” Mother Laswell told him. “We’ll walk together to Lazarus Walk, and I’ll plant myself there until I discover something of Clara.”
Kraken fixed his eyes on her and said, “Don’t go cutting no capers, Mother. Get the lay of the land, so to say, and leave it at that. We must meet up right here in this very room for a bite of dinner and a chat with the Professor. We can all tell what we’ve found, and then go in together if we’re a-going in.”
“Go in where, Bill?” Mother Laswell asked him.
“Into this here goddamn Klingheimer’s house and take out Clara and Finn Conrad, by God, pardon the blasphemation. And doesn’t this Shadwell creature hope I don’t get my hands roundabout his vitals.”
TWENTY-TWO
AURA GOGGLES
The hansom cab dropped St. Ives at the Tower Gardens in the morning, making a brief stop at a tailor’s shop in Hampstead in order to find more suitable clothing. Although it was monumentally unlikely that he had been followed from the Spaniards, he sat upon a bench and looked about himself for a few leisurely minutes as if enjoying the day, which in fact was just what he was doing. He felt surprisingly limber after yesterday’s ordeal. The pain from the bruised rib had largely subsided, unless he forgot himself and made an awkward movement. The head wound had turned out to be nothing once the blood and muck were washed away. He put his hand into his vest pocket now and felt the piece of tissue-covered lens that had happily survived his ordeal underground. He unwrapped it and looked through it at the sky, now stained a deep purple, before putting it safely back into his pocket.
The few people roundabout him were going sensibly about their business: nannies pushing prams, the odd pedestrian, a policeman directing traffic at the intersection with a great deal of style, his arms moving almost as if he were dancing. Half a dozen ragged boys ran past on the pavement, the last of them contorting his face at St. Ives and then howling with laughter before snatching at the tail of a slouch of a dog trotting past from the other direction. The dog stopped to allow St. Ives to scratch its head before trotting away again. Aside from the boy and the dog, no one gave him a glance of any sort.
There was a brisk wind, but the sky had cleared and the sun shone, and he found that the sunlight and fresh air suited him after yesterday’s sojourn through the underworld. He contemplated upon luck, which he had always considered a silly notion, rationally speaking, and yet this morning he felt lucky to be alive, and there was nothing silly about it.
The clothes he had borrowed from Mr. Loftus were slightly flamboyant but were no sort of disguise. He had decided against that – no false chin whiskers or mustaches or beggarly rags. He would go about London as a free man. He intended to seek out Dr. Pullman’s friend Walter Kilner at St. Thomas’s Hospital. If he learned nothing useful, he would proceed to Smithfield in order to catch up with Alice and his friends at the Half Toad.
Last night it had seemed a good idea to do some sleuthing – to look into the designs of the men who had made an effort to murder him, if in fact they had. But when he had awakened this morning he realized that he would serve his friends better if he were to lend a hand in the search for Gilbert Frobisher. Do what he might in London, he could not bring poor Sarah Wright back to life, nor did he have any desire to thwart nebulous plots that might have little or nothing to do with him. He had been a rabbit caught in a trap, as had Gilbert, because they had been in the way of that trap. He had got out of it again through sheer chance. A sensible rabbit would dust himself off, count his blessings, and return to his home beneath the hill.
He walked across Lambeth Bridge and along the Palace Road, unhappy with his easy, rabbit-like conclusions. He thought of Sarah Wright’s death and the fact that Clara would carry a memory of that horror until the end of her days. He thought of Tubby, who had quite possibly lost his uncle. Gilbert had been more father than uncle to Tubby after Tubby’s father had died. There was nothing of the rabbit trap in any of it. The metaphor was facetious, unworthy of his friends. He consciously took it back just as the several towers of St. Thomas’s Hospital came into view with their iron scrollwork and narrow, arched windows – merely decorative, apparently, built for the scores of pigeons that flew out of them in great haste and then flew back in again.
He found his way to the Department of Electrotherapy easily enough, where he introduced himself to a forbidding-looking gray-haired dragon behind a small desk. He persuaded her that he was an associate of Dr. Lamont Pullman, who was a good friend of Dr. Kilner. Dr. Kilner was at work in his office, she told him – as usual had been there half the night. The office was close at hand. St. Ives found it, knocked on the door, which was ajar, and stepped in to introduce himself. The office was a clutter of papers and books and odd pieces of electrical machinery, the office of a man who had no leisure to neaten things up.
“Professor St. Ives! Of course,” Kilner said, shaking his hand. “I know your work, or some small part of it. I read your recent paper on pipid frogs with great pleasure.”
“You’re a naturalist, then?” St. Ives asked.
“I cannot call myself any such thing,” Kilner told him. “I’m afraid my work here takes up the bulk of my time. I’m a mere dabbler, sir, when it comes to the natural world. But what can I do for you today? You’ve come out from Kent on some specific errand, no doubt.”
“I wanted to ask you about this extraordinary piece of tinted glass, actually.” St. Ives produced the thin bit of purple lens that Dr. Pullman had found in Sarah Wright’s cottage.
Dr. Kilner held it up before the light of an electric lamp and studied it. “Might I ask where you found it?”
“It was discovered by Lamont Pullman on the floor of a cottage in Kent, a cottage hidden within a woods – Boxley Woods, to be precise. A woman was murdered in that cottage, and this is a piece of mystifying evidence.”
“Murdered in what fashion, sir?”
“Her head was surgically removed, the operation apparently undertaken while she was still alive. She had the reputation of being a witch, a benign witch to be certain, but a woman of profound extra-sensible powers. Pullman found this bit of glass beneath a prised-up floorboard in an out-of-the-way place. I surmise that the murderer would have recovered it himself if he’d had the leisure to search for it.”
Kilner stared at St. Ives, although without any surprise or horror on his face. “There were no goggles, then, to go along with it? Merely this piece of broken lens?”
“Just so. If goggles existed, they were no doubt taken away. Do you recognize it, then?”
“Indeed I do. I produced it.”
“So Pullman suspected. He told me of your experiments with the human aura, which two days ago would have sounded moderately fanciful to me.”
“There’s nothing fanciful about it. I can assure you of that. The human body produces energy in the form of invisible light. These lenses make it possible to see that light. The quality of the light, to put it simply, reveals a great deal about the physical and mental health of the individual, or so I believe. It’s my notion that any number of lenses might be contrived to distinguish various moods, shall we say: sickness and health, criminal intent, what is commonly called love, creative powers. The well is very deep, Professor, and I’ve only plumbed the surface of the waters. To say that there is much yet to learn is to understate the thing. The complexities of the human aura might easily turn out to be akin to the complexities of the human mind.”
“Have you ever run across a human being who had the innate capacity to see and assess these auras? A person who would have no need for the goggles?”
“I have not, and I do not believe that any such person exists. Why do you ask?”
“The daughter of the murdered woman, a girl who is apparently otherwise blind, is alleged to see these auras and to understand what they indicate. She can… see in other ways also, that have no scientific explanation.”
“I would very much like to meet her.”
“She speaks only rarely, and only to those she particularly trusts. I was convinced that she was a mute until I was told otherwise by the one person who regularly communicates with her. She can evidently converse with animals, as whimsical as that sounds. She is also alleged to be a human hydroscope of profound powers – an exceedingly sensitive girl. She protects herself from earthly emanations by wearing lead-soled shoes.”
