“Yes, m’sieu” said Pierre again, and he began his tale, pausing frequently to give Wyatt a chance to translate for Tucker, who was taking notes, and also of course for Sara.
He came from Marseilles, he told them. His father died when he was very young, leaving his mother, his brother and himself alone in the world. They were poor—his mother was a laundress—but they managed, especially when his brother became old enough to go to sea as a sailor and began to send them money. Then, about six months ago, his mother suddenly became sick, ran a high fever, and in three days was dead. His brother was away, so all at once he was completely alone, with no one to turn to.
“You had no other relatives?” Wyatt asked him.
Not in Marseilles, Pierre told him. His parents had come from further north, and although he believed they had relatives in Lyon, he did not know them. Neighbors helped him out for a few days, but they were even poorer than Pierre’s family had been, and he did not like to take food from them. Each day he went down to the harbor to see if there was word of his brother, but he had shipped on a long voyage to the Far East and no one knew when he would return. Then, one day he met an English sailor—a bosun—who said he knew the brother, that he was in England and, if Pierre wanted, he would take him there.”
“What did he say your brother was doing in England?” Wyatt asked.
“He said he had been hurt and was in hospital there. I was very happy. I went on to his ship with this man and worked hard in the galley and as cabin boy. The food was not good and the sailors laughed at me because I could not speak English, but I did not care. Soon I would be with my brother. But of course when we got to England my brother was not there.”
“Had he been there?” Andrew asked.
“I think not,” Pierre said. “The bosun said he had left the hospital and gone, but now I am sure he was lying, that he never knew my brother.”
“But why did he say he did?” asked Sara.
“Because they needed a cabin boy—I found out later that the other one had run away—and me they did not have to pay. And besides, when we got to London, the bosun sold me to the cleaner of chimneys named Gann.”
“Sold you?” said Sara, her eyes large. “How could he sell you?”
Pierre shrugged when Wyatt translated the question.
“They told me that I owed them money for bringing me from Marseilles to London, that M’sieur Gann had paid them the money and I must work for him till I paid him back.”
“I’ve heard of such things,” said Tucker. “If you can get hold of a boy who doesn’t speak English, then you not only don’t have to pay him, but he can’t complain, won’t run away no matter what you make him do.”
“I doubt if we can find the bosun, but I’m fairly sure we can find Matty Gann, go into this with him,” said Wyatt grimly. “Go on,” he told Pierre.
Gann took him to his place, a cellar room over there—Pierre pointed east—near the big railroad station that looked like a cathedral.
“St. Pancras,” said Wyatt, and Pierre nodded.
There was another, older boy who worked with Gann, and together they began preparing Pierre for sweeping, rubbing him with a pickling solution and standing him in front of a fire to toughen him up so that he could crawl into flues that were still hot. It was a hard life, for when you were climbing one of the narrow chimneys you were half suffocated by the soot and when you came out your hands and knees were bleeding from the rough bricks. Most of the time he did not get enough to eat, but occasionally Gann and the other boy would go off at night and when they came home they would be in good spirits and there would be plenty of food, and Pierre would not have to work for several days.
“Probably doing a little breaking and entering,” said Tucker. “A flue faker has a good chance to look a place over.”
Pierre nodded. That’s what he thought. Then Gann and the older boy quarreled, the boy left and things became so bad that Pierre was thinking of running away when suddenly a man appeared whom Gann apparently knew, a strange gypsyish man, and things changed again.
“Was his name Severn?” Wyatt asked him. “Sixty Severn?”
Yes, it was, Pierre told him. Shortly after Severn appeared, Gann and Pierre went to a house on Alder Road with a high wall around it and Gann tried hard to get the woman there to let him clean the chimneys. (This must have been the day that Wyatt and Andrew met Polk, Andrew decided later, for Pierre remembered seeing them as Andrew remembered seeing Pierre.)
When the woman said she did not want to have her chimneys cleaned, Gann and Severn brought Pierre back to the house that night and lifted him up so that he could look over the wall. There was a huge watchdog inside there that began growling and barking the moment it heard or smelled him, frightening him badly, but he had seen the small house in the garden and was able to describe it to Severn and Gann who seemed very interested in it.
Severn had them wait there for about an hour while he went away. When he came back, he had a piece of meat and some white powder with him. He sprinkled the powder on the meat and threw it over the wall. A few minutes later they picked Pierre up again and had him tie a rope to one of the iron spikes on top of the wall. While he was doing so he looked over the wall and saw the watchdog lying there. At the time, he didn’t know if it had been drugged or poisoned, and that was all he did know then because, after he had tied the rope to the spike, Gann sent him home, and he didn’t know what happened after that.
“Severn must have gone over the wall,” said Tucker, “seen what was in the garden house, realized what his wife was hiding and why, and decided he could blackmail Somerville for a small fortune.”
Wyatt nodded, told Pierre to go on.
The next morning Gann took Pierre back to Alder Road, apparently to find out what the results of the poisoning had been, determine whether anyone had seen them. It was while Gann was listening to Polk talk to the constable that the butcher boy had attacked Pierre, and he had been rescued by Sara and Andrew.
“It was the first time since I had been in England,” he said, “that anyone seemed to care about me, that I felt I had a friend.”
He looked at Sara and Andrew as he said this and, understanding what he meant even before Wyatt translated it, Sara smiled at him.
During the next few days Gann was away a good deal and Pierre saw very little of him. He remembered one night when Severn came for Gann and, as they were about to leave, Gann told Pierre that if he followed them, he’d kill him. It had never occurred to Pierre to follow him, and he didn’t do so that night. But, once Gann had put the idea in his head, he thought about it and, a few nights later, he did follow him.
“When was this?” asked Wyatt. “How many days after the dog was killed was it that Gann told you not to follow him?”
About three days, Pierre told him.
“That would make it the night that Polk was killed and Somerville’s son was kidnapped,” said Tucker.
“Yes,” said Wyatt. “And when did you follow him?” he asked Pierre.
About four days after that, Pierre told him.
“That’s the night the woman was murdered on Pentonville Road,” said Tucker.
“Yes,” said Wyatt. “Continuez, mon brave,” he said to Pierre.
Pierre hesitated, looked at Wyatt, then at Sara and Andrew.
“It’s all right,” Sara said, convinced that Pierre would understand her. “Andrew told you that you can trust the inspector and you can.”
And of course he did understand. He nodded and went on.
Though they had cleaned a few chimneys since the night Gann had told him not to follow him, Gann had not been particularly interested in what they were doing and had seemed more and more tense and nervous. On this particular day he went out to a pub fairly early, came back with a bottle of gin, spent most of the afternoon drinking, then fell asleep. There was some stale bread and cheese in the cellar, and Pierre ate that for his supper. It was about eleven o’clock at night when Gann woke up. He did not
seem to want anything to eat, which was probably a good thing because there was nothing, but he was upset when he examined the gin bottle and saw how little was left in it. He drank that, sat there muttering to himself for a while, then got up and went out without locking the door, which he usually did, and without saying anything to Pierre.
Without hesitating, Pierre went after him. He was not certain why he went, but he was quite sure that Gann was involved in something he shouldn’t be, and he thought if he could find out what it was, it might help him to get free of Gann. In any case, he did go.
It was another foggy night, almost as foggy as tonight, he said, looking out of the window, and that made it easy for him to follow Gann, since he could keep quite close to him and Gann was too drunk to be concerned, to stop and look back.
They went north and east, past the big railroad station, then into an area of workshops and goods yards that was crisscrossed by stone and iron railroad bridges. There was no one else abroad there at that hour, and so even when Gann turned sharply one way or another, Pierre was always able to follow him by listening to the sound of his footsteps. On they went, past the huge black holding tanks of a gas works. The streets became even narrower, the brickyards and lumber yards gave way to tumbledown warehouses. Then Gann turned into an alley. Pierre went after him cautiously, and it was well that he did, for the alley led to the bank of a canal and, waiting there, was Severn. Pierre gathered that he had been waiting for Gann for some time—apparently Gann was quite late—and he was very angry. But he finally led Gann up the bank of the canal to a derelict, half-sunken barge. The bow was partly under water, but the cabin in the rear was still intact and, though the windows were covered with sacking, there were faint signs of light within.
Severn took Gann into the barge cabin, and a few minutes later came out alone and went striding off up the alley, passing within a few feet of where Pierre had hidden. Pierre remained there until the sound of Severn’s footsteps had died away, then he stole up the canal bank to the barge. He stepped on to the deck and up to the cabin. There was no sound from within, and at first, because the window was covered, he could not see inside. But he went around to the other side of the cabin, and though the window there was covered with sacking too, it was not covered completely, and he was able to peer in through a crack.
He had been talking more and more slowly, his face getting more and more pinched and anxious.
“Gann was there,” he said, Wyatt translating phrase by phrase. “He was sitting on a box with a club in his hand. And sitting on the other side of the cabin and staring at him was a monster.”
Andrew had been expecting this. After all, the first words the French boy had said when he had recovered consciousness were “Le monstre!” But even so he felt a sudden chill of fear.
“What do you mean by a monster?” Wyatt asked him quietly. “Why do you call him a monster?”
Because that’s what he was, Pierre told him. Though he looked like a man, was as big as Gann and perhaps bigger, he was not really a man. His forehead was low, his hair growing down almost to his eyes. His jaw was large and thrust forward like the muzzle of a beast, and through his parted lips his teeth looked like fangs. But it was his eyes that were more frightening than anything else. For, set deep under beetling brows, they were not only unblinking like those of the big cats, but somehow inhuman.
Pierre stared at the creature, who was watching Gann, then, in shocked horror, he backed away from the window. And that was his undoing.
One of the hawsers that held the barge to the dock was looped around the stern bitt and crossed the deck behind him. He tripped over it and fell with a thud. There was an exclamation from the cabin, the door burst open and, before he could scramble to his feet, Gann came out, the club in his hand.
“You!” he said, furious. Pierre wasn’t sure what else he said, probably something about the warning not to follow him; then picking him up by the front of his jacket, he struck him on the forehead with the club. As his knees buckled, Pierre felt himself lifted and thrown over the bulwarks of the barge into the canal.
It was Gann’s haste and anger, Wyatt said later, that saved Pierre’s life. For though he was unconscious from the blow on the head, the shock of the icy water brought him to. He was a good swimmer and, weak though he was, hardly aware of what he was doing, he swam to the end of the backwater in which the barge was moored. There was a ladder there and, after hanging on to it for several minutes, he was able to climb it and stagger out through the alley to the nearest street.
“How did he get here?” asked Sara.
“He’s not really sure,” said Wyatt after talking to Pierre. “He said he knew where you lived, knew that you were his only hope. He apparently stole a ride on a dray near one of the railroad yards, hooked another in back of a four-wheeler, and that took him close enough so that he could walk here.”
“Well, I think he’s a wonder!” said Sara. “How do you say that in French?”
“You don’t have to,” said Andrew. “He knows what you mean.”
Pierre, pleased, smiled shyly and nodded.
“There’s something else,” said Tucker. “Something we should really be asking the doctor but, since he’s not here … would you say he was well enough to get up, ma’am?” he asked Mrs. Wiggins.
“You mean now? Right now?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to Wyatt. “In the light of what happened the other night and what Lord Somerville told us this evening …”
“I agree,” said Wyatt. “Every minute counts.”
“Well, I’m not a doctor,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “But if it’s really important … yes, I think he could get up for a short while.”
“The next question is one I’ll have to ask Pierre,” said Wyatt.
Pierre stared at him when he did, his eyes large and the color draining from his face.
“What did he ask him?” whispered Sara.
“If he thought he could find his way back there, to where he saw the monster,” said Andrew. “And whether he’d take them there.”
“Je crois que je peux le trouver,” said Pierre in a small voice. “Mais j’ai peur. J’ai grand peur.”
“He said, ‘Yes. He thinks he can find the place, but …’”
“I know,” said Sara. “He’s afraid. And how can you blame him? He doesn’t know the inspector as well as we do. On the other hand … Ask him if he’d feel better about it if we came, too.”
“You come, too?” Pierre asked.
Sara and Andrew looked at Wyatt.
“If it will make him feel better about it,” Wyatt said slowly, “I suppose you could come too.”
“C’est bon,” said Pierre. “Then … I go. I show you.”
12
The Monster at Large
It took only a few minutes to get Pierre dressed. He was already wearing one of Andrew’s pajama tops, and Andrew now gave him a shirt and jacket. They were both much too long—they came almost to Pierre’s ankles—but they made it unnecessary for him to wear anything else. Though Matson had thrown out his old clothes, he had kept Pierre’s cracked and battered boots and Pierre now put them on—not that he had any immediate need for them—for wrapping him in a blanket, Tucker carried him downstairs as if he were a babe in arms.
Fred, alerted by Mrs. Wiggins, was waiting outside the door with the landau.
“Pierre had better sit in the box so he can direct us,” said Andrew. “I’ll sit there with him.”
Tucker lifted Pierre up into the box, and Andrew climbed up and sat next to him.
“Where to?” asked Fred when Sara, Wyatt and Tucker had climbed into the back.
“First stop is the police station,” said Wyatt. “In the light of where we’re going and what we may be up against, I want at least two more men with us.”
“Righty-tight,” said Fred, shaking the reins. He took the carriage out of the driveway, turned right on Rysdale Road, going up it at a fast trot, turned right again, and a few m
inutes later was drawing up in front of the police station.
“I want strong, reliable men,” said Wyatt as Tucker jumped out. “And you’d better bring some extra glims.”
Tucker nodded and hurried into the police station.
“Can we get two more men in here?” asked Sara.
“Yes,” said Wyatt. And when Tucker reappeared, followed by two burly constables, he picked her up, sat her on his lap. “In here, men,” he said.
“Now where?” asked Fred, as Tucker and his two companions climbed into the back of the landau.
“St. Pancras,” said Wyatt. “Pierre will direct us when we get there.”
“I take it you’re in a bit of a hurry,” said Fred, cluck-to the horses.
“We are.”
“Hold on, then.”
He turned the carriage, started down Wellington Road and began working his way east. The fog was not quite as heavy as it had been, but it was still so thick that the glow of the side lights carried only a few feet past the horses’ heads. But that did not stop Fred. For all the sedate driving he had to do, there was nothing he liked better than clipping—and it wasn’t often that he had a better reason for it than now with a Scotland Yard inspector telling him it was urgent. So by the time they approached Prince Albert Road, he had the horses in a fast trot, and once they were actually on the road, going past Primrose Hill, he put them into a gallop.
There was of course no one abroad at that hour, especially with London fogbound—no pedestrians, hansoms or vehicles of any sort—so there wasn’t much danger of a collision. Their chief problem, it seemed to Andrew, was finding their way. But apparently that was no problem for Fred. Though he slowed down a little when they left the Regent’s Park area and began driving through Camden Town, leaning forward and peering through the greyness, he still kept the horses at a fast trot. Before Andrew realized where they were, the huge bulk of St. Pancras station loomed up to their left, looking like a medieval cathedral with its ornate facades, arched windows, turrets and belfry.
The Case of the Somerville Secret Page 10