River's Edge

by James P. Blaylock

  “We must return it,” Finn said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Talk is a waste of time,” she said. The two of them climbed in, and Larkin unshipped the oars, spun the boat like a whirligig, and looked back over her shoulder at the far shore as she slung them out into the river. The current helped to propelled them downstream, and very soon they were passing the first farms at the edge of the village of Snodland, people up and about, a man leading a pair of oxen along the road. Larkin heaved on the oars, the shore drawing closer, and Finn wondered just what they would do—whether an enemy would present itself, whether Larkin harbored a scheme in her mind, whether the Professor was nearby, or Hasbro…

  He saw movement on shore now, a woman, heavy-set in a bright, orange-red dress, hurrying down out of the trees: Mother Laswell, heading for the river’s edge above the tannery. She staggered forward rather than ran. Gravity seemed to be lending her momentum while threatening to dash her to the ground at every step.

  Finn was thrown forward as the boat shot up onto the beach and stuck in the weedy sand. Larkin leapt out and Finn followed, hauling the boat up above the flood where it would be high and dry. Mother Laswell lumbered on some distance ahead, and by the time the boat was secure, she had disappeared into the crowd of girls crowding the road around the ferry landing, their voices rising into a loud chant.

  Chapter 22

  Testimony

  WELL NOW,” CONSTABLE Brook said when St. Ives and Willum walked into the small office that fronted the one-cell jail where Bill Kraken was held. “I thought you were Dr. Pullman coming round. He sent to say that he’s done with his examination of the baby. I expect him any moment now. Who is this boy, then?”

  “This is my young friend Willum,” St. Ives answered, and Willum tipped his cap as St. Ives had told him to do, then sank into his chair, his chin pressed against his chest. “Willum has news of the murder in Tunbridge Wells.”

  “Does he now? Has he heard of the reward that’s been offered? The Benevolent Society has promised fifty pounds for information leading to the identity of the assailant, but it looks very much as if it’s Bill, although it grieves me to say it. This is something new, then?”

  “Yes,” St. Ives told him. “It’s plain fact, I believe—fact that will show that Bill Kraken is innocent of the crime. Speak your piece Willum.”

  “You needn’t be afraid.” Brooke told him, when he saw the boy’s hesitation, and he opened a drawer in his desk and drew out a parchment package. “Do you fancy a piece of Blackpool Rock, perhaps?” Without waiting for an answer he removed a stick of rock from its wrapper and cracked it against the edge of the desk, handing a big piece to Willum, who snatched it up, closed his hand around it, and thrust his hand between his knees.

  Willum looked around furtively, and perhaps seeing that there was no escape, he said. “I seen Pink die. The man scragged him. Here.” He thumped his chest with the hand holding the piece of sugar rock as if it were a knife.

  “You saw this, with your own eyes?” Brooke said.

  Willum nodded. “I worked for Pink. Leastways sometimes. I was there in the old barn, and I saw it plain through the window.”

  “The tumbledown shanty behind, do you mean?”

  “Aye, sir. Pink gave me the odd shilling and said I could sleep dry if I was to sleep there.”

  “And this man who scragged Pink, how do you know he wasn’t the same fellow who sits in my very jail?”

  “I seen your man, sir. A tall man. Narrow. His hair stuck up from his head and his ears like…” He held his open hands to his ears by way of illustration. “He wore red gaiters and his pants had a stripe to them, and a patch on the back as had been sewed on.”

  “That’s right. I see that you’re a truthful boy. What did you see him do?”

  “Well, sir…” Willum started, and he told the story just as he’d told it to St. Ives, about how Kraken had gone into Pink’s through the back door, and then Pink had come out in a hurry and met his fate, stabbed in the chest by a burly sort of a man, whose face was hidden by a hood. “He weren’t much taller than Mr. Pink, but terrible strong, like my dad, who carried hod. Old Pink went over onto his back, and the man hauled him to his feet like nothing. Pink turned to run, the blood running out, but the man pushed him up the steps, opened the door, and flung him in. Then he run off, the man did.”

  Brooke sat back in his chair and considered this for a moment. “Bill Kraken tells the same story, Professor. It made no difference, of course, when it was just Bill himself telling it. Until someone else tells the same story, it isn’t worth a farthing. Kraken says that Pink struck him over the head with a glass paperweight, which explains the wound. But why would Pink have done so if Kraken hadn’t attacked him?”

  “It’s as I told you,” St. Ives said, “the photographs of the so-called witches were clever fabrications. Pink contrived them in his laboratory using the photographs that he took at Mother Laswell’s soirée. Something had gone wrong for him, though. His employers wished to silence him, or so I believe, and Bill caught him in the act of running.”

  “What of the dead baby, then? Surely Pink wasn’t a ghoul who would kill a baby.”

  “I don’t dispute that there was a dead baby, although the entire business is highly suspicious. Pink was of course paid to manufacture evidence.”

  There was the sound of a wagon drawing up outside. “Here’s Dr. Pullman just now arriving,” Brooke said. “I’ll ask the pertinent questions, if you don’t mind, Professor.”

  In a moment the door opened and Dr. Pullman entered, wearing a stained doctor’s smock, a cold pipe in his mouth. There were greetings, and Pullman sat in the remaining chair. “The long and short of it is that the baby was stillborn,” he told them. “It never drew an earthly breath. They’re easy enough to acquire, you know. There’s a class of midwives that earn pin money selling them. In short, there is no murdered baby, only the corpse of a baby never born.”

  “What of the bloody wound, then?” Brooke asked.

  “The blood was that of pig, probably, although any animal would do. If the blood had been fresh, I could have been more certain that it wasn’t human blood, but the cells contract and shrivel as they dry, and it becomes quite impossible to distinguish human blood from animal blood. In any event, dead things do not bleed. The blood, as I say, was a theatrical addition.”

  “I see.” Brooke looked out through the window. A breeze had come up, and a gust blew a flurry of leaves past. “Give me a moment, please, gentlemen.” He went out, and after a moment returned, ushering a haggard Bill Kraken along before him.

  “That’s the man!” Willum said, sitting up straight in his chair and pointing.

  “You’re certain,” Constable Brooke asked him. “It’s not just the red gaiters and the trousers? Any man can wear such an outfit, you know.”

  “No, sir. That’s the man as went into Pink’s, but not the man what put the knife into him.”

  “Bill,” St. Ives said, standing up to shake his friend’s hand, “this is Willum, who saw Manfred Pink murdered in Tunbridge Wells. He’s offered up testimony that’s set you free.”

  “And he’s earned himself fifty pounds from the Benevolent Society into the bargain,” Brooke added, smiling at Willum now.

  Kraken stared at the boy for a moment and then began to weep. “They called me Willum when I was a lad,” he said, “and now this.” He wiped his eyes. “It’s the mouths of babes, is what it is, like the Testament tells us. It was ever so. What word of Mother, Professor? I fear for her.”

  “No word,” St. Ives said. “She took to the woods, apparently, and as far as I know she’s still hiding. I intend to carry the news into Snodland immediately, however. The sooner we clear away the hokum, the safer our wives will be.”

  Chapter 23

  The Mob

  ALICE STOOD ON the iron frame of her cot, watching the sunrise through the barred window, great slashes of red and orange against a blue-black sky that was li
ghtening by the moment. She had a downhill view to the river, and could see the ferry dock in the near distance, and she heard the voices of several girls, Paper Dolls coming down from their dormitory. The world was waking up, and she was happy to see daylight at last.

  She didn’t dare show herself in the window, but stood well to the side in order to avoid the rocks pitched through the bars from across the road. A mob had congregated two hours ago, carrying torches. They’d been quiet at first, but then in a body had commenced to chant, “Witch!” and “Hell spawn!” and other epithets. To Alice’s ear there was a theatrical quality about it, although the stones and rotten fruit thrown at the window hadn’t been theatrical in the least, and still lay scattered and splattered on the floor of her cell. Hasbro had fastened the shutters over the windows, which stopped the pelting. He and the night constable, Reginald Fisk, stood between her and the mob.

  She had listened to the sound of the two men exhorting the crowd to go home, Fisk threatening them with the Riot Act. Quiet had ensued for a time shortly before dawn. Fisk had retired when another constable, a large, hairy, uncouth man named Bates, had spelled him. Shortly thereafter, Bates had sent Hasbro away for two hour’s sleep, assuring him that he would keep the peace.

  But then, inexplicably the shutters had come off the jail window and the mob had worked itself up again. Constable Bates had apparently gone away—had left Alice without a guard. At best it was unlikely behavior for a constable. At worst… She wondered how Bill Henry had managed to hang himself. There was nothing but the bars on the windows to support a man’s weight. He’d perhaps leapt from the cot, although it would have meant a very short noose and a very small man. Had the oaf Bates helped Bill Henry die…?

  Alice chanced a look at the mob—a score of people now, including two men leading a heavy mule and carrying an ominous coil of rope tied to a three-pronged grapnel. They hadn’t the appearance of villagers—not more than two or three shabby women and the rest mean looking men probably hired out of pubs. The full weight of this bore down upon her, and she wondered where Langdon was, and Gilbert, and the rest of her friends. She looked around for a weapon of some sort, but her iron cot was too stoutly built to dismantle.

  Gilbert’s largesse had furnished the room with a wash-stand built of oak, however, with three turned legs, and after only a moment’s hesitation, she darted across to it, crouching so as to be out of sight of the window, and removed the pitcher and basin. She picked up the table, held on tightly to two of the legs, and slammed it against the wall until it broke apart, leaving her with two unbroken legs. She hefted one of them and wondered whether Constable Bates would appear outside the cell door to see about the noise she’d made. But the moments passed and there was no Bates. She shouted his name, but still there was no response. Apparently she’d been abandoned altogether.

  A man’s voice arose in anger beyond the window now, and she hazarded another glance outside, where she saw none other than Charles Townover himself astride a bay horse, haranguing the mob, which jeered at him heartily, two or three persons pelting him with eggs and stones. He shook his fist, received a derisive howl, and then gave off and trotted away toward the river. Alice considered this. If the mob were hired either to frighten her or assault her, it would have been Townover who had done the hiring. But clearly that was not the case.

  What on earth was the case? She looked down toward the ferry dock, beyond which black smoke arose from the ferry’s chimney, the boat itself sitting idle. The road in front of the platform was filling with Paper Dolls standing in a mass, blocking Townover’s way. As if on cue they took up a chant, “Strike! Strike! Strike!” Townover’s horse, perhaps spooked by the noise, shied sideways, and Townover lost his top-hat, the chanting momentarily replaced by laughter.

  Now someone was ascending to the platform—a woman in a voluminous, flaming dress, back-lit by the rising sun. Her wild hair glowed like a golden aura around her head, and she held up both hands as if granting a blessing, and then began to shout.

  God help us, Alice thought. It was Mother Laswell, come to throw an iron plow into the works of the Majestic Paper Mill just as she had threatened. Charles Townover hollered something in response, waving one arm over his head, but a vast cheering arose and drowned him out. When the cheering faded, Mother Laswell began to magnify her exhortations through cupped hands, and the crowd fell silent. Even the mob across the road was listening. “The murderers you work for,” she shouted, “have stolen your health and your…”

  But now there was a hue and cry from the mob, as if time was wasting, and Alice heard the sounds of running feet and struggle. She looked out and saw that Hasbro had returned, thank God, his rifle pointed into the air. Fisk was there also with a truncheon. There was the crack of the rifle, and the mob fell back. But they hadn’t lost their spirit, for they rushed forward in a mass now, knocking Hasbro to the ground, a man wrenching at his rifle, Hasbro using a man’s weight to pull himself to his knees.

  There were hands on the bars of the window, and Alice swung her club, smashing fingers, blood squirting from split knuckles. A bruiser with a hammered face slipped the grapnel through the bars and pulled it tight, two of the prongs catching hold. Alice thrust her table-leg through the bars, hitting the man in the forehead, but he wrenched her club from her hand, cursing into her face. She pried at the grapnel, trying to twist it loose, but the rope was taut—tied to a yoke around the neck of the mule, which surged forward, two men beating it on the flanks. Brick dust squirted from the mortar in the joints of the wall.

  Alice picked up the remaining chair leg, which seemed like a frail sort of war club now, and watched through the window as Constable Fisk swung his truncheon in the midst of the melee until he was borne down and trampled underfoot. Hasbro was up again by now, knocking people’s heads with the butt of his rifle, his back against a tree. A man grabbed Hasbro’s collar from behind and wrenched him aside, tripping him up, and now Alice could see neither Hasbro nor Fisk from where she stood, just the grunting and shouting mob and the mule straining forward.

  She looked down toward the ferry dock, where Townover sat futilely at the edge of the throng, Mother Laswell shouting stridently, her hands gesturing. And then, uncannily, from out of the throng of Paper Dolls, Larkin appeared, shouldering her way through and running hard up the road, Finn Conrad at her heels.

  Alice found her voice and hollered uselessly at Larkin to cease, but the girl ran into the midst of the riot and sprang ape-like upon the back of the man who was harassing Hasbro, grabbed fistfuls of the man’s hair in both hands, and with a wild cry clamped her teeth onto on the man’s ear. He reeled away, caroming off the flanks of the straining mule just as the bars of the cell window were yanked outward in an avalanche of bricks.

  Through the breach in the wall Alice caught a brief glimpse of the top of the road—a cart swinging into view, coming down at a breakneck pace, Constable Brook driving the two horses. Langdon sat alongside, holding onto the wagon with one hand and his hat with the other, and Bill Kraken rode in the back, a death-or-glory look on his face.

  Alice let out a whoop of joy. Sheltered by the remains of the wall, she set her feet and held her club over her shoulder, swinging it hard at the first man near enough, hitting him solidly above the eye. A hail of stones flew through the breach in the wall, and she was forced to back away. She heard a boy’s voice—Finn’s voice—directly behind her, shouting, “Miss Alice!”

  The cell door was swinging open, Finn hauling on it. She leapt through, turning and throwing her weight against it as it clanged shut, Finn turning an iron key in the lock. Two men slammed hard against the door, shouting curses, and Alice banged one of them in the neck for good measure before dashing after Finn down the short hallway and out into the open air, Finn grabbing her hand and leading her down the narrow street toward the river. Two men and a woman ran past them, members of the manufactured mob, obviously getting out while the getting was good.

  She realized that she stil
l held onto her table leg, but she had no desire to club anyone with it. The thought came into her mind to keep it as a trophy, but in the light of day she saw that the end of it was bloody, and she pitched it away. Mother Laswell stood in silence with the assembled girls on the ferry landing now, and it was quiet along the river, the prevailing noise being the chugging of the steam engine on the ferry, which was heading for the opposite bank. Charles Townover sat astride his horse on deck, his head bowed.

  Chapter 24

  Two Bottles of Chemical

  IT WAS EARLY in the morning, the sun just up, Clover and Henley having made a long night of it. Henley sat at the desk in the office with a disheveled Clover on his lap. Her bodice was pulled down, and Henley’s undergarments were awry. A half-empty wine bottle sat on the desk, and two more lay on the carpet. When Charles Townover walked in through the door, hatless and his coat filthy, his cane knocking against the floorboards, he stopped dead and stared for a long moment at the two revelers, who stared straight back at him. He took in the shambles of the office and the empty bottles and nodded slowly.

  “You’ve been celebrating, I see,” he said in a shaky voice. “May I ask what it is that generated this revelry, given that the Paper Dolls have walked out on strike?”

  Clover slowly pulled up her bodice, but then sat very still, her hands in her lap, waiting for Henley to break the deadly silence.

  “We’re celebrating mortality,” he said, leering at his father. “Your own mortality in particular.”

  Townover glared back at him, his face petrified with rage. And then in a wild burst he turned to Clover and shrieked, “Harlot!” and bounded forward, raising his cane as if to strike her and kicking the desk with his boot.