by Alan Bradley
“Never mind, then. Lean forward. I’ll try the key.”
Putting the torch on the ground so that its light reflected from the wall, I attacked the knots with the business end of the key.
Colin groaned, letting out little yelps every time I applied pressure to his bonds. In spite of the clamminess of the tunnel, sweat was dripping from my forehead onto the already saturated rope.
“Hang on,” I told him. “I’ve almost got it.”
The last end pulled through—and he was free.
“Stand up,” I said. “You need to move around.”
He rolled over, unable to get to his feet.
“Grab hold,” I said, offering my hand, but he shook his head.
“You have to get your circulation going,” I told him. “Rub your arms and legs as hard as you can. Here, I’ll help you.”
“It’s no good,” he said. “Can’t do it.”
“Of course you can,” I said, rubbing more briskly. “You need to get some circulation into your toes and fingers.”
His lower lip was trembling and I felt a sudden surge of pity.
“Tell you what. Let’s have a rest.”
Even in the half-light his gratitude was hard to miss.
“Now then,” I said. “Tell me about the blood on the fountain steps.”
Perhaps it wasn’t fair, but I needed to know.
At the word “blood,” Colin shrank back in horror.
“I never done it,” he croaked.
“Never did what, Colin?”
“Never done Brookie. Never shoved that sticker in his nose.”
“He roughed you up, didn’t he? Left you no choice.”
“No,” Colin said, managing somehow to pull himself to his feet. “It weren’t like that. It weren’t like that at all.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said, surprised by my own coolness in what could prove to be a tricky situation.
“We was chums, Brookie an’ me. He told me stories when we wasn’t scrappin’.”
“Stories? What kind of stories?”
“You know, King Arthur, like. ’Ad some right lovely talks, we did. Used to tell me about old Nicodemus Flitch, an’ ’ow ’e could strike a sinner dead whenever ’e took the notion.”
“Was Brookie a Hobbler?” I asked.
“ ’Course not!” Colin scoffed. “But ’e wished ’e was. ’E fancied their ways, ’e used to say.”
So there it was: I should have asked Colin in the first place.
“You were telling me about the sticker,” I said, trying to steer Colin gently back to the moment of Brookie’s death.
“He showed it to me,” Colin said. “Ever so pretty … silver … like pirate treasure. Dug it up behind your ’ouse, Brookie did. Goin’ to make dozens of ’em, ’e said. ‘Enough for a garden party at Buckin’ham Palace.’ ”
I dared not interrupt.
“ ‘Give it ’ere,’ I told ’im. ‘Let’s ’ave a gander. Just for a minute. I’ll give it back.’ But ’e wouldn’t. ‘Might stab yourself,’ ’e said. Laughed at me.
“ ‘ ’Ere, you promised!’ I told ’im. ‘You said we’d go halfers if I carried the dog-thing.’
“I grabbed it … didn’t mean nothin’ by it—just wanted to have a gander, is all. ’E grabbed it back and gave it such a tug! I let go too quick, and—”
His face was sheer horror.
“I never done it,” he said. “I never done it.”
“I understand,” I said. “It was an accident. I’ll do whatever I can to help, but tell me this, Colin—who tied you up?”
He let out such a wail that it nearly froze my blood, even though I already knew the answer.
“It was Tom Bull, wasn’t it?”
Colin’s eyes grew as round as saucers, and he stared over my shoulder. “ ’E’s comin back! ’E said ’e’d be back.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “You’ve been here for ages.”
“Goin’ to do me, Tom Bull is, ’cause I seen what ’e done at the caravan.”
“You saw what he did at the caravan?”
“ ’Eard it, anyhow. ’Eard all the screamin’. Then ’e come out an’ tossed somethin’ in the river. ’E’s goin’ to kill me.”
Colin’s eyes were wide as saucers.
“He won’t kill you,” I told him. “If he were, he’d have done it before now.”
And then I heard the sound behind me in the tunnel.
Colin’s eyes grew even larger, almost starting from their sockets.
“ ’E’s ’ere!”
I whipped round with the torch to see a hulking form scuttling towards us like a giant land crab: so large that it nearly filled the passageway from roof to floor, and from wall to wall; a figure bent over nearly double to negotiate the cramped tunnel.
It could only be Tom Bull.
“The key!” I shouted, realizing even as I did so that it was in my hand.
I sprang for the lock and gave the thing a twist.
Damn all things mechanical! The lock seemed rusted solid.
No more than a dozen paces away, the huge man was charging along the tunnel towards us, his rasping breath now horribly audible, his wild red hair like that of some raging madman.
Suddenly I was shoved aside. Colin snatched the key from my hand.
“No, Colin!”
He rammed it into the lock, gave it a fierce twist, and the hasp sprang open. A moment later he had yanked open the gate and pushed me—dragged me—almost carried me—through.
He slammed shut the gate, snapped the lock closed, and pushed me well away from the bars.
“Watch this un,” he said. “ ’im’s got long arms.”
For a moment, Colin and I stood there, breathing heavily, looking in horror at the blood-engorged face of Tom Bull as it glared at us from behind the iron bars.
His great fists grasped the heavy gate, shaking it as if to rip it out by the roots.
The Red Bull!
Fenella had been right!
I jerked back in horror against the wet wall, and as I did so, my twisted ankle gave way and I dropped the torch.
We were plunged instantly into inky blackness.
I dropped to my knees, feeling the wet floor with outstretched fingers.
“Keep clear of the bars,” Colin whispered. “Else ’e’ll grab you!”
Not knowing which way was which, I scrabbled in the darkness, fearful that at any instant my wrist would be seized.
After what seemed like an eternity, the back of my hand brushed against the torch. I closed my fingers around it … picked it up … pushed the switch with my thumb … nothing.
I gave it a shake—banged it with the heel of my hand … still nothing.
The torch was broken.
I could have wept.
Close to me, in the darkness, I heard a rustling. I dared not move.
I counted ten heartbeats.
Then there came a scraping—and a match flared up.
“ ’Ad ’em in my pocket,” Colin said proudly. “All along.”
“Go slowly,” I told him. “That way. Don’t let the match go out.”
As we backed away from the gate into the tunnel, and Tom Bull’s face faded into darkness, his mouth moved and he uttered the only words I ever heard him speak.
“Where’s my baby?” he cried.
His words echoed like knives from the stone walls.
In the horrid silence that followed, we edged farther back along the tunnel. When the first match burned out, Colin took out another.
“How many of those do you have?” I asked.
“One more,” he said, and he lit it.
We had gained some ground, but it was still a long way to the cellars.
Colin held his last match high, moving slowly again, leading the way.
“Good lad,” I told him. “You’ve saved us.”
A sudden gust of cold air blew out the match, and we were plunged once again into blackness.
“Keep moving
,” I urged him. “Follow the wall.”
Colin froze.
“Can’t,” he said. “I’m ’fraid of the dark.”
“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’m with you. I won’t let anything happen.”
I pushed against him, but he would not be budged.
“No,” he said. “Can’t.”
I could have gone on without him, but I was incapable of leaving him here alone.
And slowly, I realized that somehow, even in the darkness, I could dimly see Colin’s white face. A moment later, I became aware of a growing light that had suddenly filled the passageway.
I spun round, and there, to my amazement, was Dogger, holding a large lantern above his head. Porcelain peered round him, fearfully at first, and then, when she saw I was quite safe, running to me, almost crushing me in her embrace.
“I’m afraid I ratted on you,” she said.
THIRTY
“AND DOGGER, YOU SEE, had already latched the door at the fountain. It only opens from the outside, so there was no way Tom Bull could get out.”
“Well done, Dogger,” Father said. Dogger smiled and gazed out the drawing-room window.
Daffy shifted uneasily on the chesterfield. She had been torn away from her book by Father, who insisted that both she and Feely be present at the interview. It was almost as if he was proud of me.
Feely stood at the chimneypiece, pretending to be bored, stealing quick, greedy glances at herself in the looking glass while otherwise simpering at Sergeant Graves.
“This whole business about the Hobblers is intriguing,” Inspector Hewitt said. “Your notes have been most helpful.”
I fizzed a little inside.
“I gather they’ve been carrying out their baptisms in the Gully since sometime in the seventeenth century?”
I nodded. “Mrs. Bull wanted her baby baptized in the old style, and her husband, I think, probably forbade it.”
“That he did,” said Sergeant Graves. “He’s told us as much.”
The Inspector glared at him.
“She went to the Gully with Miss Mountjoy—Dr. Kissing saw them together. There might have been other Hobblers present, I really don’t know.
“But something went horribly wrong. They were dipping the baby by the heel, as Hobbler tradition requires, when something happened. The baby slipped and drowned. They buried it in the Palings—swore to keep the truth to themselves. At least, I think that’s what happened.”
Sergeant Graves nodded, and the Inspector shot him such a look!
“Mrs. Bull thought at once of blaming it on Fenella. After all, she had just passed the caravan in the lane. She went home and told her husband, Tom, that their baby had been taken by Gypsies. And he believed her—has gone on believing her—until now.”
I took a deep breath and went on. “Fenella told Mrs. Bull’s fortune at the fête last week—told her the same nonsense she tells everyone: that something was buried in her past—something that wanted digging out.”
Only at that instant, as I spoke, did the full force—the full aptness—of Fenella’s words come crashing into my consciousness: “Told her there was something buried in her past; told her it wanted digging out—wanted setting right.” I had actually copied these words into my notebook without understanding their meaning.
She couldn’t possibly have learned of the Bull baby’s supposed abduction until later—she had been gone from the Gully before the bungled baptism began.
Mrs. Bull, to reinforce her lie, must have been forced to follow through by filing a false report with the police. Tom, because of his shady associations, must have managed to keep well in the background. Hadn’t Mrs. Mullet let slip that he’d had his troubles with the law?
How I wished I could ask the Inspector to confirm my conjecture—especially the part about Tom Bull—but I knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell me. Perhaps some other time …
At any rate, Fenella had almost certainly been tracked down and questioned by the authorities during their investigation of the missing child—tracked down, questioned, and cleared. That much seemed obvious.
So that when Mrs. Bull had wandered unexpectedly into her tent just last week at the fête, it must have seemed as if Fate had sent her there for justice.
“There’s something buried in your past. Something that wants digging out … wants setting right,” Fenella had told her, but it was not the baby she meant—it was Mrs. Bull’s accusation of kidnapping!
“Revenge is my specialty,” Fenella had said.
Revenge indeed!
But not without cost.
Surely the woman had recognized Fenella’s caravan at the fête? Whatever could have possessed her to enter the tent?
I could think of only one reason: guilt.
Perhaps, in her own mind, Mrs. Bull’s lie to her husband and the police was beginning to come unraveled—perhaps in some odd way she believed that a fresh confrontation would deflect any growing suspicion, on Tom’s part, of her own guilt.
What was it Dr. Darby had told me? “People can behave very strangely in times of great stress.”
“Well?” the Inspector said, interrupting my thoughts. He was waiting for me to go on.
“Well, Mrs. Bull, of course, assumed that Fenella had looked into the crystal ball and seen the drowning. She must have gone home straightaway and told her husband that the Gypsy who had taken their baby was again camped at the Palings. Tom went to the caravan that very night and tried to kill her.
“He still believes his wife’s lie, most likely,” I added. “Even though the baby’s body has since been found, I’ll bet he’s still blaming it on the Gypsies.”
I glanced over at Sergeant Graves for confirmation, but his face was a study in stone.
“How can you be so sure he was at the caravan?” Inspector Hewitt asked, turning to a new page of his notebook.
“Because Colin Prout saw him there. And as if that weren’t enough, there was that whole business about the smell of fish,” I said. “I think you’ll find that Tom Bull has a disease that causes his body to exude a fishy odor. Dogger says that a number of such cases have been recorded.”
Inspector Hewitt’s eyebrows went up slightly, but he said nothing.
“That’s why, as it’s grown worse, he’s kept to his house for the past year or more. Mrs. Bull put about the story that he’d gone away, but he’d all the while been right here in Bishop’s Lacey, working after dark. He’s a foundryman, you know, and probably quite handy at melting down scrap iron and molding it into antiques.”
“Yes,” Inspector Hewitt said, surprising me. “It’s no secret that he was once employed at Sampson’s works, in East Finching.”
“And still is,” I suggested. “At least after dark.”
Inspector Hewitt closed his notebook and got to his feet.
“I’m very pleased to tell you, Colonel, that your firedogs will soon be restored. We found them in the coach house where Harewood kept his antiques.”
I was right! The Sally Fox and Shoppo at Brookie’s had been Harriet’s! Having replaced them with reproductions, Brookie was just waiting for a chance to sell the originals in London.
“There are others involved in what proved to be a very sophisticated ring of thieves and forgers. I trust that, in due time, you’ll read about it in the newspapers.”
“But what about Miss Mountjoy?” I blurted it out. I felt quite sorry for poor Tilda Mountjoy.
“She may well face charges as an accessory,” the Inspector said. “It’s up to the Chief Constable. I don’t envy him his task.”
“Poor Colin,” I said. “He hasn’t had an easy life, has he?”
“There may be mitigating circumstances,” Inspector Hewitt said. “Beyond that, I can say nothing.”
“I knew for certain he was mixed up in it when I found the rope.”
I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
“Rope? What rope?”
“The rope that fell t
hrough the grating at the Poseidon fountain.”
“Woolmer? Graves? What do we know about this?”
“Nothing, sir,” they said in unison.
“Then perhaps you will favor us by taking yourselves to the fountain immediately and rectifying the oversight.”
“Yes, sir,” they said, and marched, red-faced, from the drawing room.
The Inspector again focused his fierce attention on me. “The rope,” he said. “Tell me about the rope.”
“There had to be one,” I explained. “Brookie was far too heavy to be hoisted onto the fountain by anyone but the strongest man. Or a Boy Scout with a rope.”
“Thank you,” Inspector Hewitt said. “That will do. I’m quite sure we can fill in the blanks.”
“Besides,” I added, “the rubbed spot on the trident showed quite clearly where the rope had polished away the tarnish.”
“Thank you. I believe we’ve already noted that.”
Well, then, I thought, you’ve no one to blame but yourselves if you didn’t think of looking for the rope that caused it. Colin is a Boy Scout, for heaven’s sake. There were times when officialdom was beyond even me.
“One last point,” the Inspector said, rubbing his nose. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to clear up one small question that has rather eluded me.”
“I’ll do my best, Inspector,” I said.
“Why on earth did Colin hang Brookie from the fountain? Why not leave him where he was?”
“They had struggled for the lobster pick inside the base of the fountain. When Colin let go of the thing suddenly, Brookie’s own force caused him to stab himself in the nostril. It was an accident, of course.”
Although this was the way Colin had told it to me, I must confess to gilding the lily more than a little for the Inspector’s benefit. I no more believed Colin’s version of the story than I believed that dray horses can fly. Brookie’s death, in my estimation, was Colin’s revenge for years of abuse. It was murder, pure and simple.
But who was I to judge? I had no intention of adding so much as another ounce to the burden of Colin’s troubles.
“Brookie fell backwards down the stone steps into the chamber. That’s probably what actually killed him.”
Oh Lord, forgive me this one charitable little fib!
“Colin fetched a length of rope from the tunnel and hauled him up onto Poseidon’s trident. He had to tie Brookie’s wrists together so that the arms wouldn’t slip out of the coat later. He didn’t want to risk the body falling.”