Hildred looked at him in utter astonishment. ‘Oh, fingerknots! Rex, what in the world do you think you are doing?’
‘I . . . I don’t know,’ he stammered, looking confused and dismayed and surprised all at once. ‘The smell was so strong and I just wanted to clean my fingers.’
‘Well, at least wait until it’s cooked next time.’
They climbed the steps in silence. Rex was worried. He had tried to laugh off his odd behaviour but inside he was as shocked as Hildred. And not because he had licked the blood. But because he had liked the taste.
There was no sign of Dr Velhildegildus and his visitors when they reached the asylum but they bumped into Mrs Runcible in the entrance hall.
‘Where’ve you two been?’ she asked. ‘It’s early supper tonight, so’s Dr Velhildegildus can have the kitchen.’
‘Where is he now?’ asked Hildred.
‘They’re all in his study.’
Rex was glad. He didn’t want to see her, just Mr Faye, and preferably on his own.
During supper (cold meat and bread with watered down ale – a reasonably palatable meal; there was little that the good-natured cook could do to ruin it) Mrs Runcible, still miffed at the perceived insult to her cooking, sat mournfully at the end of the table swilling the leaves in a cup.
‘It’s the lady’s,’ she said. ‘I don’t know her name, the doctor hasn’t introduced us, but there’s lipstick on the side you see. She drinks dainty she does,’ she continued. ‘You should see the way her little finger sticks out. Sign of breeding.’
Rex shuddered at the scarlet stain on the lip of the cup: Acantha’s trademark. ‘What do her leaves say?’ he asked.
‘Difficult to tell,’ said Mrs Runcible. ‘But give me another few cups and I should be able to say.’
After supper, Hildred and Rex went to Hildred’s room and sat debating their next move. Hildred wanted to go back to the torture chamber, as they now called it, but Rex didn’t. He wanted to spy on Tibor and his guests. ‘I want to get a proper look at Andrew Faye first. I’m certain there’s a connection between him and my father and the other clues.’
‘We can do both,’ suggested Hildred.
Reluctantly Rex agreed.
‘See? No moaning,’ said Rex tetchily as they made their way down the stinking tunnel to the rocky end wall. He was already regretting agreeing to see the cells first. He could hardly bear to be there, and he was most anxious to eavesdrop on the supper in the kitchen above.
‘Be patient, I just want to have a look,’ said Hildred. ‘I’ll only be a minute or two.’
‘But what if Andrew Faye leaves tonight? I might never see him again.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about that. They’ll drink too much and then go to Tibor’s study, have a few brandies and probably fall asleep by the fire. You might catch him in the morning.’
‘But—’
‘Besides, I don’t think that fellow is your mysterious Mr Faye.’
Rex was momentarily silenced. ‘Then who is it?’
‘Cecil Notwithstanding.’
Rex snorted in disbelief. ‘How on earth do you know that? You’ve never even seen him.’
‘I’ll admit it’s a bit of a wild guess but I do have some evidence.’
‘What evidence?’ Rex found Hildred’s logic exasperating at times.
Hildred reached into her pocket and produced a large square of white linen stained blue and red. ‘Remember this?’
‘The handkerchief,’ said Rex disdainfully. ‘What does that prove?’ But then he saw the initials on the corner: ‘C.N.’
‘Cecil Notwithstanding,’ said Hildred matter-of-factly rather than triumphantly. ‘And did you see the state of the man’s fingers? Black and blue from ink. Is that not the true sign of a journalist? Remember that letter from Acantha?’ she continued. ‘I think Cecil is the fellow who knows too much.’
Rex had to admit that she was probably right; she was nothing if not logical. He tried to play her at her own game. ‘Then the real question is, what does he know? That’s why we have to see him.’
But Hildred had her ear to the wall again. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said with a disappointed shake of her head. She nodded to the locked door. ‘I think we should have another look in there.’
Rex hung back.
‘Mr Ephcott always said in cases like these that it is vital to eliminate every possibility. You said yourself you saw Gerulphus come down here the other night. There has to be a reason. You’ve got your picklock, haven’t you?’
Rex was tempted to say no, but he could see that Hildred was not to be swayed from her quest so he opened the door. ‘Though I don’t know what she thinks she’s going to find in there,’ he muttered to himself.
The room was as before: pungent and dank, like something from a living nightmare. Hildred went around the walls, holding her lamp up high, looking at everything on the shelves, feeling all the tools of torture. There was a large empty barrel in one corner and she peered into it for what seemed like an age. Rex stood by the door, distinctly ill at ease, becoming increasingly agitated. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he said. ‘I really don’t want to be down here. Can’t we go?’
Hildred ignored him and continued with her silent examination of the room.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Rex exclaimed. ‘You’re not even listening!’ And with that he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Hildred alone in the chamber.
‘I don’t care what she says,’ he muttered as he stomped up the tunnel. ‘I’m going to see what they’re up to with Cecil Notwithstanding.’
39
Eavesdropping
It was a few moments before Hildred even noticed that Rex had gone, but when she realized that she was alone she too was furious.
‘I don’t believe it!’ she exclaimed, looking down the tunnel. ‘He’s gone and left me down here. After everything I’ve done for him. What an ungrateful . . . pig!’ At the door she tutted with exasperation. ‘How stupid can you get? How can I lock the door without a key?’
She noticed a light approaching from beyond the bend down the tunnel, and immediately felt remorseful at how quick she had been to condemn Rex.
But it wasn’t Rex up ahead – it was Gerulphus. Luckily, on account of the fact that he sneezed as he rounded the corner, his eyes were closed so he failed to see Hildred stepping hastily back into the chamber of horrors.
Hildred didn’t want to be found down here again. Gerulphus might tell Tibor and there was Indagator to think about now. Annoying as Rex might be, she didn’t want to ruin his chances of finishing the project or, of course, solving his mysteries. Thinking quickly, she stepped into the empty barrel and tucked herself into a tight ball.
Upon arriving at the chamber, Gerulphus was surprised, and suspicious, to find that the door was unlocked. He held up his lantern and looked around. Nothing had been disturbed.
‘Those children,’ he muttered as he locked the door. ‘It’s time for a padlock. Unless it’s Dr Velhildegildus? Perhaps he has found a key.’ What matter? His time was nearly up on Droprock Island.
From her hiding place Hildred’s eyes followed Gerulphus’s every move. She was nervous but also excited. What exactly was it that brought this laconic oddball back here again and again? She watched with fast-beating heart as he went to the panel with the branding irons. She heard the turn of a key, saw the panel swing open and then, to her great surprise, Gerulphus was gone. But this was no magic trick; Hildred didn’t believe in that. There was a logical explanation for everything. So, with no thought for her own safety, only for her curious mind, she crawled out of her hiding space, ran to the closing panel and just managed to slip through before it silently shut.
While Hildred was in pursuit of Gerulphus, Rex was creeping down the stairs to the kitchen. Assailed on his descent by the delicious aroma of Acantha’s stew, he licked his lips constantly. Unfortunately his plan – if plan it could be called, so flimsy was its premise – was immediate
ly thwarted. The sound of chairs being pushed back across stone and loud voices put him in a panic and he turned tail, raced back up to the hall and dived for cover under the main stairs.
Barely seconds later Acantha and Tibor and their bearded guest appeared from below. Of the three, the stranger (Rex was still not wholly convinced he was Cecil Notwithstanding) seemed the worst for wear. Unsteady on his feet, he needed support on both sides from his fellow diners.
‘This way, Cecil,’ said Tibor, dispelling in one fell swoop Rex’s lingering doubts. ‘We’ll go to my study for an early nightcap.’
Rex gritted his teeth. How come Hildred was always right!
‘I think I musht have had a little too mush of that fine wine,’ slurred Cecil. ‘A Fitzbaudly bottle, you say. A very good year, but powerful shtuff!’
Acantha and Tibor, exuding an aromatic cloud of mouthwatering smells, exchanged sly glances behind Cecil’s head as they passed by the hidden watcher. Unaware of Rex creeping along in their wake, the two of them half carried, half dragged Cecil all the way to Tibor’s study, his limp feet leaving parallel lines in the pile. Knowing this really was Cecil Notwithstanding brought little comfort to Rex. He was unsure what to make of it all. This was the man his father had said to trust – yet here he was, dining with his arch-enemy, Acantha, and Tibor, the man who had promised to liberate him from said enemy. Something didn’t add up.
The study door closed and Rex put his ear against it. I had never thought to be such a regular eavesdropper, he mused. Perhaps I should invent some sort of machine that is able to listen through doors.
He cupped his hand and listened intently but in truth he didn’t hold out much hope. The dinner conversation would surely have been more enlightening, but Hildred’s insistence on going down to the tunnels had prevented his catching that. So Rex was resigned to hearing little more than the chink of the brandy bottle and snoring.
But he was to be surprised. Very surprised indeed.
‘Now, Mr Notwithstanding,’ he heard Tibor croon. ‘You just settle yourself down here. You say you are interested in my Lodestone Procedure. It’s a very relaxing experience. What was that? Safe? Oh yes, perfectly safe, I assure you. Perfectly safe indeed!
Lodestone Procedure? thought Rex. He had not expected this!
Hildred was some distance behind Gerulphus but was able to track him by the light of his lantern. Lacking her own, she couldn’t afford to let him get too far ahead. Neither could she afford to be squeamish as, in a flash of inspiration, she broke a bony hand from one of the many skeletons in the cavities, and placed a joint at each turn to mark her ever descending path.
After a short while, and many turns left and right, and a near miss with a deep hole, the light ahead remained steady.
What’s he doing? wondered Hildred, but she didn’t dare go any closer. Then the light was on the move again, but slower this time, dipping rhythmically as if Gerulphus was hauling something along in short bursts of effort.
At the next turn Hildred just caught sight of Gerulphus taking a left in the distance. He was dragging something but she couldn’t see what. She walked on quickly and came to an open iron-barred door. Another cell, and all the way down here! The floor was covered in fish bones and there was a small piece of embroidered red cloth caught on the door. She took it then hurried on. Gerulphus’s light was no longer visible but she could still see, for now she was bathed in the familiar blue glow of the underground chamber.
We must be nearing the lake, she thought.
She slowed at the final bend. The blue light was stronger now and she could smell the water. Her hands were sweaty and her heart was racing as she stood just inside the exit. Ever so slowly she inched her head around the rock. She saw the lake, the water higher now than before, and there on the ledge was Gerulphus, still dragging his awkward burden.
He went all the way to the end of the rocky promontory before dropping it. There was something in the way it fell and its shape upon the ground that struck a chord with Hildred. ‘Oh Lord,’ she breathed. ‘It’s a person! He must have taken him from that last cell.’ She prayed that whoever it was was long dead, for she had an ominous feeling that what she was about to witness was not going to be pleasant.
Gerulphus picked up a stick and began to beat on the water, causing a ripple to spread outwards to the middle of the lake. Nothing happened. Hildred cocked her head to one side, listening intently, though to any other ears no sound could be heard. Seconds later a large scaly fin split the water like a knife. Gerulphus smiled and dropped the stick.
Hildred could hardly bear to look but she couldn’t help herself. So she saw the very moment the monstrous creature broke the surface of the water, its scarlet, yawning, dentiferous mouth, its overlapping scales glittering in the blue light. She saw Gerulphus take up the man, for bag of bones he might be but he was still a man, and involuntarily she covered her eyes with her hands. But it wasn’t enough and through the gaps between her fingers she watched as, with a great expulsion of breath, Gerulphus flung the body into the maw of the monster. It sank back down and disappeared, the only trace of its existence being the rapidly subsiding undulations on the surface. And in her very marrow Hildred could feel the reverberations of its teeth crunching into the dead man’s bones.
‘So, Mr Notwithstanding,’ crooned Tibor, ‘what exactly have you been looking into recently?’
Tibor’s voice was at its smoothest. Even through the door Rex could feel his head beginning to swim. He shook it hard and bit his knuckles in an attempt to stay focused.
Concentrate, he urged himself. This was not the time to yield to Dr Velhildegildus’s persuasive tones. Cecil Notwithstanding, however, had succumbed.
‘The beggars,’ replied Cecil easily. ‘Certainly there are fewer now than before but there are reports that they are disappearing under strange circumstances. And the asylum superintendent, Cadmus Chapelizod – well, there were some very unpleasant rumours about him. I’m sure there is some sort of connection.’
‘Do you know of Cadmus Chapelizod’s whereabouts?’ continued Tibor. Rex bit harder and warm salty liquid oozed from his knuckle.
‘No,’ replied Cecil dreamily. ‘No one has seen him since news of the breakout reached Opum Oppidulum. It’s most infuriating. I wanted to speak to him, about the beggars. I warned Ambrose Grammaticus that something was awry before his tragic . . . And, of course, I wanted to talk to you, Mrs Grammaticus, seeing as you are on the committee looking into the problem of the beggars. It was such a happy coincidence that you invited me here tonight.’
There was a long pause then Tibor spoke again, slowly, very deliberately. ‘And what of Andrew Faye?’
Rex’s ears immediately pricked up.
‘Andrew Faye?’ repeated Cecil. ‘Not as yet. But, rest assured, if he is in any way involved in this, I, Cecil Notwithstanding, in the interests of truth and justice and the Hebdomadal, will find him and expose his crimes!’
There was a long silence and then the sound of deep snoring. Cecil Notwithstanding, under the influence of alcohol and the Lodestone, was enjoying a truly relaxing experience.
Rex knelt, carefully pushed up the keyhole cover and peered in. He could quite clearly see Cecil fast asleep on the couch by the window. Tibor and Acantha were staring down at him. ‘What do you think?’ asked Acantha.
‘I think he is a danger to us all,’ said Tibor. ‘I will deal with him.’
‘What about Rex?’
‘I have a plan for him, and the girl. I don’t think it’s safe to let either go. Even though he admitted little under the Lodestone I have my doubts.’
Behind the door Rex stifled a gasp. Tibor’s unguent tones could not soften this betrayal. He continued to listen with a hardening heart.
‘Does he know about Andrew Faye?’ asked Acantha.
‘I’m not entirely sure.’A grin appeared like a dark crevice across Tibor’s square jaw. ‘But I think we will have to induct them both into the Society, after the full moon
. That should satisfy their curiosity!’
Acantha laughed. ‘You are such a devil, Tibor. The years haven’t changed you a bit. Ambrose Grammaticus wasn’t a patch on you, the old fool. If you had seen him that night! He might have been a clever inventor, but he wasn’t clever enough for me. What a shame we ever parted. But now that I have you back again it was almost worth the pain!’ She flung her arms around him and gave him a long, loud kiss on the cheek.
Tibor laughed. ‘Fate has seen fit to bring us back together,’ he said. ‘And now for your surprise, the one you have been waiting so patiently for.’
Acantha clapped her hands in delight. ‘At last! Are you certain I will like it? I am so difficult to please!’
‘Dear, dear Acantha,’ said Tibor. ‘You most certainly will. Thanks to my invention, we will both be rich beyond our wildest dreams.’
He pulled out the copy of Decline and Fall and once more the bookcase slid aside, but he hesitated on the threshold. ‘You must promise me one thing.’
‘Anything, anything,’ said Acantha girlishly.
‘No fish!’
‘Never! Only the best of meat from the finest butcher.’
Tibor gestured into the darkness with his hand. ‘After you,’ he said gallantly.
40
The Perambulating Submersible
Rex was waiting in Hildred’s room when she ran in. She was shivering and her face was grey. She looked, he thought, as if she had suffered a monstrous shock and he felt dreadful that he had left her alone. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘Where have you been? You won’t believe what I just heard.’
‘And you won’t believe what I just saw,’ blurted Hildred. ‘Gerulphus fed a person, a person, to some sort of lake-dwelling monstrous creature.’
‘What?’
Hildred then recounted exactly what she had seen and heard. Rex’s eyes widened impossibly and his mouth hung open throughout. At intervals he exclaimed, ‘No!’ and ‘I don’t believe it!’
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