The Elder Ice: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

by Hambling, David

  I did have one straw to clutch at, and I took down some of the files relating to Shackleton. For the first time, the weight and volume of my own reports impressed me. I blushed to see the untidy early ones, all blots and crossings-out, and the workmanlike jobs I was now turning out satisfied me more.

  I was looking for a gold mine. Shackleton did mention finding grains of gold on one mud sample, but the expedition geologist, Bibert Douglas, offered a more authoritative statement. He talked extensively with Shackleton on this exact topic and oversaw the analysis of the mineral samples, too. I doubt Shackleton could have put one over on him. Douglas was categorical about the lack of gold, silver, or other precious metals in any of their samples, however optimistic his superior had been.

  I was on my way to replacing the files when Mr Rowe chanced to pass on his way out of the office. He was alone, so I decided to speak up. “Begging your pardon, Mr Rowe, sir,” I began.

  “Hmm, what is it?” He seemed surprised rather than annoyed that I had importuned him.

  “I merely wished to reassure you, Mr Rowe, of my continuing fidelity to the firm.” I fumbled for words. “I do hope that my recent report will not have created any bad impression, as I’m sure you will take the full circumstances into account.”

  “Ah well, yes, of course I will. I have realistic expectations. Was that all you wanted to ask?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Well, well, keep up the good work, er, Stubbs.” He nodded politely and continued on his way without a single word of reproach or even warning about my behaviour. That was better than I could have hoped. Afterwards, a new fear took me—perhaps he had not even read my report yet. But Mrs Crawford assured me he had read it and that he understood fully the unorthodox nature of the assignment and the nature of the incidents that consequently attended it.

  “He thinks very highly of you,” she said. “He told me he was quite satisfied with the progress of the Shackleton case.” She passed me a thick manila envelope marked “private and confidential” and advised me not to read it until I was out of the office. Mr Rowe had used more precaution than usual to conceal my work from my colleagues, and on examining the contents, I discovered why.

  Disputes and legal difficulties often hedge action to recover rightful property. If a thief steals your gold watch, are you permitted to burgle it back? Volumes and volumes of law books on the shelves at Latham and Rowe were devoted to this very topic, and it has provided ample employment for lawyers over generations.

  In this instance, Mr Rowe assured me that stealth and subtlety would be the most expeditious approach, and that the old adage about possession being nine parts of the law was a valid one. That was not quite the first time I had accepted such a commission, but it was unusual. For such a mild-looking man, Mr Rowe had a surprising streak of the bandit about him; before I joined the firm, I had no idea that respectable solicitors employed such tactics. Truly, I was undergoing an education.

  This assignment would require the utmost discretion and a solid pry-bar.

  The pry-bar is a useful, I might say indispensable, implement to the modern housebreaker. It is a stout tool forged from Sheffield steel, curved into the shape of the letter J, with flat prongs at each extremity. These can be inserted into the narrowest crevice, and the operator can exert very considerable leverage—enough, if he has any muscle, to open any ordinary door or window. I do not include those doors or windows reinforced against just this sort of attack. Because of its compactness, one may easily conceal the pry-bar beneath an overcoat, wrapped in a hand towel for padding and hooked over the shoulder.

  If the pry-bar has a disadvantage, it is that possession of such an implement is difficult to explain to the custodians of the Law. Whenever I have recourse to one, I borrow it from an acquaintance in the building trade who has legitimate cause for it. If one were discovered in my lodgings, questions might be asked.

  My friend was obliging as ever and quickly extracted the said implement from his toolbox. “Now don't go doing anything I wouldn't do, Harry.” He winked at me as he handed it over.

  A man who is in debt but possesses some form of portable wealth is in a different situation to regular persons. He can't put it in the bank, or even keep it at home, because debt collectors, creditors, bailiffs, and others are most likely to look there. He has to hide his wealth away, like an old-time pirate burying his gold. Like the celebrated Captain Kidd, in fact, a man who Sir Ernest clearly admired in some of his capacities.

  It is a matter of some interest in my line to observe how little we need to do to protect things of value. The rule of law is so deeply ingrained that the mere suggestion of a barrier is sufficient to deter all but the most determined. Fences so low you can step over them defend our gardens, and even our front doors are made of flimsy wood that gives way to an insistent shoulder. Of course, stealth is also a consideration, which is why a pry-bar is a useful appendage for forcing a window. Breaking the glass attracts attention. Though of course plenty of thieves will break a plate-glass window with a hammer to get what they want.

  The question then was where Sir Ernest would hide his putative valuables. Not at home, clearly, and perhaps not even with his mistress—with any of his mistresses. No, we are creatures of habit, and when we find a good hiding place, we tend to stick to it, even if it’s from our childhood. I was to try my luck with Sir Ernest’s oldest cache.

  There was a good moon and a cold wind that night, both of which favoured me. The chill breeze meant few pedestrians were about, and nobody would look twice at a man in a heavy overcoat with his bowler hat pulled forward against the wind.

  I glanced behind me once or twice. The guilty flee where none pursues, or so they say. If I had encountered a constable, I might have babbled like the most obvious guilt-wracked criminal. Fortunately, I saw none.

  With the application of the pry bar to the chain, the locked side gate to the garden popped open with a small metallic screech and little resistance. I tossed the broken lock aside, opened the gate, and stepped cautiously through.

  The only illumination was the light from the sky, enough to find my way across the lawn to the square bulk of the summerhouse. That lock was broken, no need for the pry bar. Stepping inside onto floorboards, I closed the door behind me, feeling for the electric torch in my pocket.

  In the almost absolute velvet darkness, I knew I was not alone. By that sixth sense which warns us a room is occupied before we even see the occupant, I felt a presence nearby. It was a chilling moment. I'm not afraid of anything I can see, but there was menace in the darkness. I felt like a grave robber at a haunted tomb.

  I stayed motionless, not even breathing, trying not to give my position away. The other would have seen my silhouette and known where I was, but I hesitated to move for fear of making a sound. There was no blow, no shot, but I had the sense of being scrutinised in spite of the intense dark.

  I brought the torch out and snapped it on. The circle of yellow light illuminated heavy garden chairs stacked together awkwardly, and a folded garden parasol. I swept it around the small room, and the shadows leaned and bent, forming suggestive shapes, but it revealed no human presence.

  I breathed again, but oddly, the sense that I was not alone persisted. I swung the torch to and fro. Odd that a few shadows should scare one usually unmoved by physical danger!

  The light fell on a narrow, oblong box that I took for a coffin, and I almost dropped the torch. Then I saw the lettering on it: “Harrison Bros: complete garden croquet set: mallets, hoops and balls: an entertainment for young and old.” As harmless an object as you could imagine.

  But still, I did not like the way the shadows moved. And while I could not hear any breathing, there was a kind of murmuring, so faint it might have been the rushing of my own blood, but it rose and fell like distant waves. It was not an external sound, and it was not internal, either. It was like the sound of a seashell held up to your ear.

  My foot touched something on the fl
oor. It was a wooden baton, of the type used by conductors or professors. I did not understand its presence. Could it have fallen from above?

  I swallowed and felt the lump in my throat. With an awful sense of premonition, I slowly tilted the torch and looked upwards at the shape I sensed looming right over me. My mind had already formed an image of it, a huge spider with legs that spanned the width of the summerhouse, poised over me. Not quite a spider, but something that writhed… I forced myself to look upwards before the image could take shape and my imagination overwhelmed my courage.

  There were plenty of cobwebs but no spiders, unless they were small ones. Nothing but the wooden struts supporting the roof that, at the edge of vision, might give the suggestion of a spider shape—at least to an impressionable eye in the dark.

  I had half a mind to get out there and then. Instead, I steeled myself and followed the instructions, finding my way to the fourth floorboard from the left-hand wall. After looking about the place once more with the circle of light, I directed the torch to the floorboard and discovered the place where it was loose. Underneath it was an empty space and—yes!—a container. I reached in and pulled out a dusty old biscuit-tin.

  The murmuring in my ears rose. As I whirled the torch about, the shadows whisked together for an instant before dispersing. An illusion, of course, but a disturbing one, and I left that summerhouse at some speed, the door banging behind me, the biscuit tin tucked firmly under my elbow. I was across the lawn and through the gate too, out onto the street and, as I thought, safety.

  I stopped to catch my breath under a streetlight, exhaling streams of steam like a horse. The feeling of being watched, of another presence, was as strong as ever. I whirled around, but no one pursued me. Two workmen passed by on the other side, deep in conversation and passing a bottle between them, but that was all.

  That nagging sense of another presence stayed with me as I walked on. I suspected it had to do with whatever was in that biscuit tin, as though a haunted thing, if that made any sense. My instructions had warned me not to open whatever container the hidey-hole concealed but to return it unopened to Mr Rowe. Perhaps it was a fragile thing he did not trust to my sausage fingers. More, perhaps, he was afraid the glittering prize would seduce me and I would refuse to give it up.

  Or perhaps the treasure was in some way perilous.

  The box did not feel like it contained a living thing. It did not grow warm. But there was a sense of... something. A boxer learns to trust his instincts, to dodge the punch a split second before his opponent’s glove moves. And something about that box stirred my instincts down to the marrow of my bones. The big spider that loomed over me in the summerhouse was looming still, something watching me intently from a direction I could not fathom out.

  Because I had the sense of that presence, I was slow to notice when someone came up behind me. I did not turn until the last second, just in time to see the blur of motion and the arc of an arm swinging towards me in the dark, followed by that jarring impact.

  I have taken many blows to the head. The gloved fist and the naked fist have their own distinct sensations, as singular as the bouquet of claret or Beaujolais to the wine connoisseur. This, however, was the more powerful but slightly padded blow of a sandbag or blackjack. It caught me awkwardly but solidly enough to send me reeling and falling the long way down to the gently yielding turf, trailing, it seemed to me, a long stream of stars as I went.

  Consciousness returned and I twisted, rolled, and rose to my feet, instinctively feeling for the ropes even though I was not in the ring. A painful lump on the side of my head mapped the blow’s location, but there was no cut and no bleeding. A cold compress would help with the pain, but the humiliation would stay with me.

  It was a great loss to be robbed just at the hour of my triumph, and yet I was not as downcast as I might have been. Some part of me was more than a little glad to be rid of whatever was in that tin. It might indeed be valuable, but it felt very dangerous, too dangerous for a man like Harry Stubbs to have in his possession.

  Round Six: The Irishmen

  As I came down to breakfast next morning, the landlady informed me a small boy was waiting to see me in the parlour at my leisure. He was to transmit his message only to me in person, she said, a trifle sniffily.

  Going through, I recognised Arthur Renville's eldest, a fine-looking young chap of eleven years, sitting in a hard-backed chair as straight as a guardsman. He stood up and addressed me with the authority of a bonded messenger. “Begging your pardon, Mr Stubbs. If you come with me directly, you will learn something to your advantage.”

  “What would that be, then?”

  “Can't tell you, sir.”

  “Where will you take me?”

  “Can't tell that either, sir.”

  The boy had been well schooled.

  “Just so,” I said. “Young Renville, are you permitted to tell me if you have breakfasted yet?”

  “No, sir—I mean yes, sir, I can tell you, and no, sir.”

  The fried eggs looked very tempting, and I was loathe to leave them. I requested the landlady make the toast up into a parcel of egg sandwiches. She wrapped them in kitchen paper and passed them to Renville’s boy while I pulled on my boots and buttoned up my coat.

  It was a fine morning but sharp. There was no frost on the lawns. Shops were unfastening their shutters preparatory to opening, and clerks, labourers, and shop girls on their way to work filled the streets. The younger Renville led me rapidly up Central Hill, towards Westow Hill. We continued for some minutes.

  “Is it far? Hadn't we better get a cab?” I asked.

  “No, sir. Cabbies tell tales.”

  We turned off down Woodland Road then into a lane that terminated at a stableyard. Arthur Renville the elder stepped out of a stall, flicked a cigarette aside, and saluted us. “You hurry off home now,” he told the boy. “You've done a good job. And remember—not a word to anyone, even Mother.”

  I relieved the boy of the parcel of sandwiches, passing him one. The lad dashed off at the double, eating as he went. I supposed he would be late for school, but only a brave teacher would punish Arthur Renville’s boy without his permission.

  “Morning, Arthur. What's the S.P.?”

  “I think we've got your Irish,” he said without the slightest humour or triumph in his voice. He led me into a straw-covered paddock. I was expecting to find them trussed up like chickens with Arthur’s minions standing guard, but nobody was there. At least, nobody living. As I looked down, I saw with a shock the three of them, half buried in the straw, as lifeless as sacks. When I strode forward for a closer look, I received a second shock.

  All three had been cleanly decapitated, the heads lying next to the bodies. The heads had fallen, or more likely been moved, so the faces were visible. I recognised at once three of my assailants from outside the Conquering Hero: the heavyweight Mickey, his associate who had tried to club me with so little success, and the one who had tried to run.

  “What happened here? Who did this?”

  “I wanted to ask you the same,” said Renville. He looked down at the bodies with distaste. “This is highly irregular, Stubbsy, highly irregular indeed. I expected much better from you, really I did. I thought you was in a respectable trade now, not getting mixed up with murderers.”

  “This situation is none of my making,” I protested.

  “Isn't it, though? These men appear from thin air, with no purpose but assaulting your person, and then they show up again slaughtered like pigs, right on my patch. I can't see that this is nothing to do with you, however I try, and I did expect better.” He let out a sigh and faced me. “In any case, the pertinent facts are these. Certain informants discovered that these men were camped out here—navvies and the like often use the place as informal accommodation. I approached personally last night with the intention of carrying out an interview and discovered this sorry scene you find here.”

  I continued to walk around, scrutinising the
bodies from different angles, looking about them in the straw. “Were they beheaded post-mortem?”

  “That would not seem to be the case.” Arthur squatted beside me. “As near as I can tell it, Stubbsy, decapitation occurred coincident with and at the same time as actual death. But really! What kind of savages are you dealing with—Hottentots? Borneo head-hunters?”

  He went on, and I lost track of his words. This was very strange indeed. I’ve done my time behind a butcher’s counter, and I’ve seen meat cut, chopped, and sawed with a dozen instruments. I’ve seen it cut with sharp blades and blunt ones, by real masters and by raw apprentices. But no instrument I could recognise had cut those severed heads. The meat had been cut very cleanly, and the ends had an odd finish to them—pickled pork would be the closest comparison I could make, or perhaps seared. The meat had not been cooked but treated in some way.

  “Stubbsy, what are you doing there?”

  I twisted some straws together and poked at the vertebrae sticking out of Mickey’s neck then inspected the matching end. I did the same with a second body. A cord of muscle and skin remained on one side as though the killer had not quite caught that one squarely. “Were they killed from in front or behind?” I asked.

  “I don’t know—why’s it matter?”

  “I don’t know, either. The cut is perfectly even. You can’t tell if it’s left to right or front to back or what. If you were to have the sharpest blade in the world, you couldn’t cut so cleanly. And it didn’t cut the bone, neither, but it cut through the spinal cord inside the neck bone… how can that happen? Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  “Don’t look at me, Stubbsy.”

  “Maybe it was some sort of electrical saw, or surgical instrument,” I said aloud.