“You never spoke a truer word, midget,” said Larky, tracing the edge of his crown with his dagger. “You are indeed at me mercy. But I’m afraid it won’t be forth-comin’ in large measure. You see, it won’t do to have folk privy to my little secret smudgin’ the countryside. I expect, secrecy being the thing, yon odor is a testament to the whereabouts of the poor souls who built it.”
Foss really was impressed. He hadn’t given Larky, being only a forager, much credit for logic. But he was right as nails. It was Foss himself who, in accordance with the King’s command, had poisoned the congratulatory drink he’d shared with the workmen in what would become their tomb upon completion of their task.
The concentration of sweet-smelling extract of nerium and belladonna root, in a mixture of the King’s own devising, proved almost immediately lethal when catalyzed by the cider’s natural effervescence.
One of the workmen had remarked that he’d never tasted anything as pleasant, and was in the act of toasting the King when his bowels gave way. An unpleasant side effect Foss had not foreseen, nor the King warned him of. The other two men followed suit and in a flash Foss was at pains to side-step the flood of excrement and body fluids projecting from every orifice of the dying.
Taken all together, it had been an unpleasant errand.
Acknowledging Larky’s deductions, Foss bowed slightly. “What now?” Which is exactly what he was wondering, though from an entirely different perspective.
“What now,” said Larky—and the ears of Welf the Potter’s son were practically flapping with conspicuous interest, “is that you and her,” he twiddled his knife in the direction of the semi-supine and completely mirthless Mirth, “are gonna drag this lot,” he redirected his twiddling toward the sacks, “in there,” with a concluding twiddle at the hiding placecum tomb behind the steps. “Where Welf and I will avail ourselfs of it as required.”
Welf was so relieved to have been included, at last, in the plans, he was willing to overlook the fact that his mention had been more or less an afterthought. “Then we shut ‘em in, and they die!” he announced with satisfaction.
Larky hung and shook his head. “You have the brain of a turd, Welf.”
“Which means that, combined, the two of you have the brain of a turd-and-a-half,” Foss observed.
Larky quickly closed the little space between them and shook his dagger menacingly in Foss’s face. “Who’s got the treasure?” he said. “Who followed you and ‘er,” he snapped an incline of his head at Mirth, “all night long to see where you was goin’? Who found y’er ‘idin’ place? Who figured out the King’s secret? And, now, who has the knife, andboth bags of treasure? Answer them questions afore you go callin’ anyone turd-brained.”
“You’re not a mathematician, are you?” said Foss, with a good deal more insouciance than he was feeling. “You credit your partner with the brain of a turd. I credited you both with the combined wit—on the open market—of a turd-and-a-half which means you’ve overestimated your own contribution to the trust by half-a-turd.”
“Hah-hah!” Welf chortled. “Shorty got you by the short hairs there, Larky, my boy! Half-turd brain! Hah-hah!”
Larky’s breath was coming in huffs and puffs, clouding his immediate atmosphere with steam so that he looked like nothing so much as a dragon in human form. Had fire pouted from his nostrils, it would have come as no surprise. Welf sensed danger.
“I was just teasin’, Larky. Just teasin’ is all. You got a whole turd brain.” If this last minute addendum was intended to mollify his partner, it missed the mark, which Larky’s knife did not. Intercepting a beam of moonlight, the blade flashed a brief warning, but its light had no sooner registered in Welf’s eyes than he felt a sting under his chin. His hands went reflexively to his throat and came away covered in blood, at which he stared in disbelief.
Larky repented immediately. “Welf! Welf, ol’ boy! I didn’t mean it! It were accident!”
The eyes of Welf the Potter’s son widened as he trained them on the companion of his brief boon. His lips moved, but words never reached them; translated to blood they gushed from the mortal wound in his neck crying ‘death!’. He sank to his knees then, without restraint, fell face-first onto the hard stone floor.
Larky spun on Foss. “Now look what you gone and made me do!
“Whose knife is that in your hand?” said Foss, alarmed. “And whose blood on the blade?Yourblade.Your friend’s blood! Don’t put your sin on my shoulders.” As he spoke, he perceived a possible advantage in playing upon the murderer’s likely superstitions. “You’ve bloodied this holy place! Right in front of God’s eyes, bold as Lucifer!” He shook his fingers toward the angels inhabiting the darkness, as if calling upon them for an ‘amen!’. He wrinkled his nose. “That sulphur I smell?”
“No!” Larky cried, crushed by guilt. He suspected a fellow could get away with dispatching a foe out in a field or forest in hopes the Lord would be busy elsewhere. But a church was His hearth. Foss was right, nothing within these walls would escape His notice. “No!” he grabbed Welf by the armpits and dragged him toward the tomb beneath the stairs, leaving twin trails of blood. “I’ll bury him proper in here. It were an accident! You saw! He oughtn’t’ve called me a half-turd-brain!” Welf was apparently heavier than he’d bargained for, and had a hard time catching his breath, so his words, not backed by much wind, were raspy. “You oughtn’t’ve said that, Welf. But . . .” Backing into the sacks of treasure as he continued to improvise his former partner’s funeral arrangements, he was reminded of practical considerations. “You,” he said, nodding at Mirth. “You come here and grab these sacks. I ain’t leavin’ ‘em out here with yon thievin’ midget. An’you, midget” he huffed at Foss. “You keep in mind that yon lass will be in reach of my blade ‘til I come out.”
The remainder of his words were muffled by the walls of the tomb as it embraced the foragers living and dead. Mirth, with a nod from Foss, did as she was told.
“Dwarf,” said Foss under his breath.
The smell from the make-shift sepulcher, as Mirth dragged the bags to its maw, was overwhelming. She stopped, a bag held by its neck in each hand. “I ain’t goin’ in there.”
“Just as good you ain’t invited, then,” said Larky as he arranged Welf somewhat indifferently among the corpses of John’s workmen. “You just toss ‘em in here, and we’ll tuck ol’ Welf away like a pharoah.” The laugh with which he met his little joke was stirred to madness by the impenetrable darkness in which he tripped his way amongst the dead, and the gagging miasma seeping into his wits.
Mirth let go one of the sacks and, gripping the other with both hands, slung it into the pitch darkness where it collided with the only occupant who might object. “Ow! You did that on purpose!”
“‘ow could I?” Mirth objected. “I can’t even see you.”
“Nevermind that,” said Larky. “Is he still out there? The Fool?”
Mirth stood a step back and cast a glance at Foss, who was shuffling at the edge of the moonlight, agitating the shadows. “Aye.”
“He’d best be when I come out. Now, heave me that other, and be quick.”
Mirth dragged the sack, which was much heavier than the first, to the lip of the opening and half-kicked, half-shoved it into the blackness, where other hands grabbed it and pulled it across the threshold to a chorus of grunts and groans.
The instant the sack cleared the threshold, there was an earth-shaking thud from the tomb. A wall of stone, apparently released from the low ceiling, had fallen across the opening, tripped into place by some hidden device.
The dust hadn’t settled before the muted thunder sounded from the bell tower and the set of steps—as if at the behest of unseen forces of Judgement—began a steady journey to their former place, snug against the church’s outer wall.
So quickly did this happened that Mirth had to jump back out of the way.
Foss stared at the wall in disbelief. He rounded the stairs and pressed his ea
rs to the plaster. He may have heard a plaintiff wail from the darkened depths of that mechanical grave, or he may have imagined it. After a moment, he stood up, brushing his hands like a gravedigger.
“A church that swallows sinners whole,” he observed. “Can you imagine the converts after a sermon thus illustrated!”
An unexpected sound over his shoulder seized him by the ears and spun him around. A crack appeared in the plaster to his left, oblong in outline, as if something was being pushed through from inside the tomb. As it emerged, the plaster fell away in a neat, brick-sized cartouche, in the middle of which was a word, neatly engraved. Foss stepped close and read. “ ‘F-O-S-S’.” He was suddenly reminded of the King’s last words. ‘Surprises await.’
“‘No witnesses!’ Ha!” He giggled. “I should’ve known!”
“Known what?”
“He had a go at me on his deathbed, but it was just a ruse so I wouldn’t suspectthis.”
“This what? Who did?” said Mirth, knitting the air with nervous fingers. “I don’t unnerstan’. Wot’s happened? The church et that man! Did you see?! And this,” she slapped at the cartouche. “What do these signs mean?”
“They mean,” said Foss, “that the King was a king to the last, missy. And but for the soon-to-be-late Goodfellow Larky, I’d’ve been on the receivin’ end of the last trick up the ol’ bastard’s sleeve.” He crossed himself. “Pardon, Lord.”
“I never seen nothin’ like it!” said Mirth, catching her breath. “He’s trapped in there!”
“With the jewels,” Foss lamented.
“Well,” said Mirth. She reached into a pocket of her wardrobe and withdrew a fist, which she opened slowly just as a curious beam of moonlight passed by for a peek. “Not all of ‘em.” A handful of jewels and a golden chain flashed in her nested fingers. She held them out and Foss made a cradle of his hands into which she dropped them with a giggle, withholding only one, a large sapphire which she examine in shaft of light. “This is for ma. Them’s for you.”
Foss was touched. He shook his little treasury, and dropped it into the leather pouch that hung at his waist. “You’re a resourceful lass, Mirth.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said. “Is it good?”
“Oh, very good,” said Foss. “Very, very good. It makes me wonder, you’re still determined to be along of me?”
“Aye,” said Mirth without hesitation. “Long as you’ll have me.”
“I think that would be good,” he said thoughtfully, “for both of us.” He led her toward the baptismal font and there, upon their knees, they pledged themselves to one another until inevitable death—of which, standing very still and listening very quietly, one could just perceive a muffled reminder—should sunder.
When they had concluded their impromptu ceremony, Foss got to his feet and brushed his hands.
“What now?” Mirth asked.
“Now,” Foss replied. “We’re off to pick the Bishop’s purse.”
Chapter Nineteen
“We’ve made a mess,” said Albert, surveying the mess he and Simon had made. He picked up a little throw rug that lay inconspicuously before the meaningless steps and shook it, even though it was too far from the wall where they’d been working to have gathered dust. It’s just where he happened to have wandered.
Back in the Maine of his childhood, Betty, his mother’s housekeeper, had always been shaking and beating rugs, sometimes draping them over a porch rail, sometimes hanging them from a clothesline, but always beating them with gusto.
Betty had excellent rhythm, but she was a Shaker from Sabbath Day Lake, so that was to be expected.
Having shaken the rug to his satisfaction, he was just about to return it to its place, when his attention was drawn to a stain on the otherwise uniformly gray floor. Another suspicious asymmetry. “The floor is stained.”
“Yes,” said Simon, who had returned with the Hoover and was trying to find a place to plug it in. “Been there for years. People hereabouts call those the blood stones.”
Naming things, like stains, was not inconsistent with Albert’s experience of the English. “English people like naming things.”
Simon excepted the comment with a good will. “Gives everything a place and purpose, I suppose. Anyway, in this particular instance, this rust, or whatever it is, has been cleaned with every concoction, abrasive, and method known to man—or woman—but it won’t be budged. Part of the stone, I suppose. Must be.”
Albert wasn’t a geologist, but the stain was on three distinctly different stones. He pointed this out.
Simon, now at his side, bent at the waist, looking at the stones. “So it is.” He straightened and looked at Albert. “I’m seeing my own little world with fresh eyes, Maestro, thanks to you. Yet another mystery. Up to our neck in them!”
“I think it’s blood,” said Albert, looking at the stone one last time before laying the rug back in place, meticulously placing it in the rectangle of unworn floor it had previously occupied.
“You do?” said Simon. “Real blood? What makes you say so?”
“Because people nickname things for a reason. The Tower of London is the Bloody Tower, because people died there. They had their heads cut off, and their blood came out.
“The Boston Massacre is called the Boston Massacre because . . .”
The Rector interrupted. “So you think this is called the blood stone, because . . . somebody died here?”
“No,” said Albert. “Somebody was murdered here.”
“Murdered! Surely not! I’ll never be able to walk the church without a light on! I’ll be seeing ghosts in the every shadow!”
“The brighter the light, the darker the shadows,” Albert observed.
Simon was unsure how to respond to the statement. “Seriously though, surely if it were blood, a stout washing would get it out.”
“Not this kind of blood,” said Albert. “It has too much to say.”
He turned and walked promptly to the door, where he found egress modestly impeded by the collection box. He looked at it, then at Rector who was standing amid the plaster debris with the Hoover in his hand and Albert’s parting words ringing in his ears.
“I don’t have any money with me. Jeremy will send it to you.”
The wonderful thing about money, Albert thought as he walked across the churchyard in the direction of the bus stop, was that people were willing to do things for you if you gave them some. This was wonderful because, according to Mrs. Bridges, he had lots of it, which meant he could get people to do lots of things.
Perhaps he could pay someone to play his concerts for him. He’d have to talk about that with Huffy.
How much to pay to someone who did something for you, however, was problematic. The only commodity of which he had sure and fixed knowledge was cigarettes - which cost forty cents a pack in Massackhusetts. This, divided by twenty in a pack, made cigarettes worth two cents each. So that was the Basis of Relative Value by which he computed the worth of things; the number of cigarettes he would be willing to trade for whatever it was.
The absolute value of a cigarette, however, was directly linked to how badly he wanted one. There are situations in which he wouldn’t trade his last one for a grand piano. This must be what he had heard referred to as ‘the gold standard.’
This was not a formula he had arrived at after exhaustive thought, it was just what he thought when he found himself thinking about it. Extrapolating the formula to domestic necessities, he figured a cup of coffee was worth about five cigarettes so, ten cents. He would not have been surprised to find that a loaf of bread was about forty cents. Twenty cigarettes.
But what about hiring someone, Angela for example, to go somewhere—Castle Combe, for instance—and get something, such as information about Annabella Scrope?
This is where Albernomics became foggy.
How many cigarettes, translated into money, was an errand like that worth? Would it depend on the information she brought back,
or would it be right to pay her for just taking the time to go there and try, even if she was unable to find out anything?
And what about the money shewasn’t making in the subway while she was doing errands for him?
Albert wished Jeremy Ash was there and then, as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, the boy emerged from the veil of mist that had been loitering dramatically at the end of the lane, his progress punctuated by the familiar rhythmic scuff of his hands on the wheels of his chair.
“A! Where you been!”
Albert stopped, half-turned, and pointed at the church. “In there.”
“I thought so. What’d you find?”
“I found what the man in the blue pajamas was looking at.”
“You did?” Jeremy came to an abrupt stop. If he had legs, his feet would have run into Albert’s knees.
“Yes.”
Jeremy waited, but further information was not forth-coming. “And?”
“And now I know.”
“Know what?”
Albert was confused. Hadn’t he just said. “I know what the man in the blue pajamas, Blue Robert, was looking at.”
“Yes. Got that,” said Jeremy as, in the near background, Albert saw the fog give birth to twins; Angela and Huffy. “Whatwas he looking at?”
“A wall,” said Albert. “Why is everybody here?”
“To tell you about your brain.”
Albert’s hand went to his head.
“The School sent a doctor over from the States. He wants to see you, down in London.”
At this point, Angela and Huffy hove within hearing distance. “Too muddy to bring the car in here,” said Huffy, as if somebody had asked him why he didn’t drive to the church. “Left it in the car park.” He stamped a foot on the ground and withdrew it with a sucking sound. “20p! What’s the world coming to when you can’t even park your car in the English countryside without some mechanized beggar lookin’ for a hand-out?”
Coda: The Third Albert Mystery (The Albert Mysteries Book 3) Page 25