Dead for a Spell

by Raymond Buckland

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can tell Mr. Stoker what you told me yesterday evening, Welly, if you would?” I said.

  “Of course, Harry.” He cleared his throat and then focused his attention on Bram Stoker. “The morning after Harry, here, had departed on the train, Mr. Roberston came storming into the theatre in an even fouler mood than he usually has, though perhaps I shouldn’t say that, sir?” He looked anxiously at my boss, who gave a slight shake of the head and waved a marmalade-laden knife to indicate Welly should continue. “I suppose he’s not always in a bad temper but, well, more often than not. Anyway, that morning he certainly was. And why? He started shouting that someone had stolen his book.”

  “His book?” asked Stoker.

  “That thing he says his grandmother gave him. The book with all them magic spells and stuff. He treated it like it was a Bible, if I may say so?”

  “So he had discovered that it was gone?”

  “Yes, sir. He stormed about the theatre all morning, pulling open drawers, upturning boxes; he made a fine old mess. He was screaming that someone had robbed him, and he made no secret of the fact that he believed the thief was young Rufus.”

  As the hunchback leaned forward, the breakfast order arrived, and Welly took the opportunity to top up his teacup. I saw that my boss had ordered a mixed grill of fried eggs, tomatoes, bacon, kidneys, mushrooms, sausages, and potatoes. My own bowl of porridge paled by comparison, but there was no way my stomach could sustain such an onslaught after the previous evening’s extravagance. Mr. Stoker waved his fork at Welly as an indicator that he should proceed.

  “As I told Harry, here, sir, I firmly believe that the book is in far better hands now, though it were certainly wrong of young Rufus to take it and no mistake. But anyway, Mr. Robertson would listen to no one, and when he later spotted Rufus, he charged at him like a raging bull, he did. He nearly managed to grab the boy, but Rufus ducked under his arms, dove between his legs, and scampered out the door.”

  Mr. Stoker paused in his eating to nod several times approvingly.

  “Mr. Robertson stayed mad, and I heard as how he gave a terrible performance onstage that night. Not that there was much of a house to witness it, anyway.”

  “Did you catch up with Rufus?” asked Stoker.

  “No, sir. Never saw hide nor hair of the boy. Then the next morning Mr. Robertson came into the theatre but with a bit of a smile on his face. I wondered what was going on. I didn’t dare ask him, but he volunteered the information. He said as how he’d seen to it that ‘the wretched street arab,’ as he put it, wouldn’t be any more trouble. Then I asked him what he meant by that and he said, ‘Don’t think no more about it, Welly. Just don’t go expecting your young friend to show up for a cup of tea anytime soon.’ He was still mad, and from time to time throughout the day he cursed Rufus and kept searching everywhere he could think of in case the boy had stashed the book somewhere.”

  “And you haven’t seen Rufus since?” asked Stoker.

  “No, sir. Like I said, not hide nor hair.” He took a long drink of his tea, which I thought must surely be cold by now. “It gives me the creeps,” he said. “Then I thought of Harry and, after a few more thoughts about things, I just left the theatre and took the train down here.”

  “Quite right, Welly. Quite right,” Stoker acquiesced.

  “What do you think, sir?” I asked.

  Mr. Stoker took his time answering. He chewed thoughtfully for some moments then sat back and looked hard at the hunchback.

  “A systematic search must be undertaken, Mr. Wellington. We must obtain the services of as many of your local lads as we are able and put them to work tracking young Rufus’s last movements. Someone must have seen something; seen in which direction he went. Did he have any favorite haunts that you know about?”

  “No, sir. He was always a very secretive lad. Not given to making friends easily, if you know what I mean? I don’t even know where he lived. He was always slipping away, sometimes for days at a time.”

  “Did he have a regular job at the theatre?”

  Welly shook his head. He went to take a drink from his cup but, finding it empty, pushed it away.

  “He had just turned up one day, out of the blue you might say, and struck up a conversation with me. I liked him right away, and we would chat on this and that. It got to where he knew when I would be brewing a cuppa and he’d make sure to drop in about that time.” Welly smiled as he recollected. “Nice kid. Not like many of them these days.”

  “So he wasn’t actually employed by the Oxford Grand Theatre?”

  “Lor’ no, sir! I got to giving him a sixpence once in a while for doing odd jobs, and most others there got to know him and he’d run errands for them.”

  “I see.” My boss’s great head nodded up and down as he digested the information. He returned his attention to his breakfast, very soon wiping the plate clean with a crust of toast. Welly and I said nothing, waiting for him to speak.

  Mr. Stoker looked up at the clock on the tea shop wall and then pulled out his gold pocket watch. He studied that before signaling the waitress for the bill. As he gave her some coins he looked at me.

  “Harry, we must take some action. I cannot get away immediately, with the rehearsals for Othello ongoing, but I feel you must go on ahead of me and accompany Welly back to Oxford. I will join you as soon as I am able. You know what to do. Get a search party organized. You have money to pay them?”

  I nodded. I always had something set aside in my office for emergencies.

  “Good.” He got to his feet. Welly and I both stood up. Mr. Stoker extended his hand to the hunchback, who seemed a little taken aback as he took it and shook it. “Have no fear, Welly. We are on the case. You can rely on Harry, here. I know I do. We’ll find your missing boy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get on to my own theatre.”

  * * *

  I sent a message to Jenny, just in case I shouldn’t be able to make it back by the weekend, and I briefed the necessary people at the Lyceum, though things were moving like clockwork there. Finally, I went back to Mrs. Bell’s and packed my valise. I had arranged to meet Welly at Paddington Railway Station. There was a train to Oxford by way of the Great Western Railway leaving at 1:37 P.M. The return fare was fourteen shillings, and I thought the least I could do was to also pay for Welly’s one-way fare of eight shillings. I had learned that he had come rushing down to see me barely able to cover his Oxford-to-London conveyance.

  I took the omnibus to Praed Street, the station lying between that thoroughfare and Bishops Bridge Road. I had arranged to meet Welly on the concourse, at the statue of Brunel, the designer of the imposing terminal, and was pleased to see him there ahead of me. He was gazing up at the huge glazed roof, supported by wrought-iron arches in three enormous spans.

  “Ah, there you are, Harry,” he said. He waved a hand over his head. “We’ve got nothing like this in Oxford. Must be very grand, living in a big city like London.”

  “It has its moments, Welly,” I admitted.

  We traveled second-class and had a carriage to ourselves. It seemed that early afternoon on a Wednesday was not a busy time on this railway line. There was the usual jostling and shaking as the engine got up steam and started pulling its load out onto the track. After just over fifty miles there was a brief stop at Didcot, where the Oxford branch diverges to the right of the main line. Didcot is a little town dating back to the Iron Age. The river there is known as the Isis and there are countless beautiful views to be enjoyed as the railway line crosses a fertile and pleasing area. Beyond Radley the line again crosses the Isis, with Bagley Woods on the left, and to the right there is a fine view of the city with its towers and spires.

  “You see, Welly,” I said, pointing, “you have much here that we don’t get to see in the bustling metropolis of London.”

  “I suppose you are ri
ght, Harry. What is it they say about the grass being greener?”

  Welly had said that he would love to have me stay with him while I was there, but regrettably he just didn’t have the room in his small flat. I didn’t press him on that and assured him that I would stay where I had on my previous visit, at the King’s Arms hotel. If and when Mr. Stoker arrived, that would be his choice, too, I felt.

  After checking into my room I returned downstairs to the lounge area. Welly had gone back to the theatre to see if there was any news of Rufus and was going to join me at the hotel for dinner. I settled into one of the comfortable chairs near the fireplace and picked up a copy of the local paper. The Oxford Bugle was a low-key publication reporting on local events. On page three there was another of Reginald Robertson’s rants against the English stage and its failure to recognize his genius. The fact that it was on page three seemed to indicate to me that even in his hometown they were tiring of his tirades.

  I was suddenly disturbed by a commotion at the front door. The voice of the landlord, Mr. Timothy Carstairs, boomed through the lobby and into the lounge. I got to my feet to discover Cuthbert Wellington and a group of ragged, grubby children advancing over the carpet in my direction. Mr. Carstairs protested at their dirty boots and general appearance.

  “Welly! What is this? Who are these children?” I asked.

  The hunchback grinned at me and totally ignored the protests of the landlord.

  “Mr. Stoker said to get onto it right away, Harry. I’ve done what he suggested and rounded up several of the street arabs from around the Grand and thought you’d like to direct us on how to go about the search.”

  “So no word on Rufus, eh?” He shook his head. “It’s all right, Mr. Carstairs,” I said to the landlord who, with a glare at Welly and the children, returned to the inner room behind the front counter.

  “No word at the theatre,” said Welly. “No sign of Mr. Robertson. Curtain-up isn’t till this evening so I thought—bearing in mind what Mr. Stoker said—that I should get things moving. I just can’t sit around, Harry.” His eyes were wide and appealing.

  “You are right, Welly. I should have been onto this myself. I think the journey lulled me into a lazy place. Well done! Let’s see what we can do.”

  We all marched outside, the children looking at me intently. I gathered them around me and explained about Rufus’s disappearance.

  “We are very concerned about the boy,” I said.

  “We knows Rufus,” said the tallest of the children, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “’E’s a good’un.”

  “Yeh. Everyone knows Rufus,” said another one. There was a murmur of assent.

  “Good,” I said. “Well then, you are probably the best people to look for him. You know where he might go. Perhaps somewhere he might hide?”

  “No one knows where Rufus goes,” said a young girl dressed in a boy’s trousers and shirt and with dirty blond hair sticking out at all angles from a filthy cloth cap pulled down over one ear. “’E don’t talk much . . . but I like ’im.”

  “Well, you all have a better idea than myself or even Welly here. I want you to spread out and look everywhere. There’s a shilling in it for the first one to find him, or sixpence to find where he has been, even if he’s moved on from there. Report back to me here at the hotel or to Welly at the theatre.”

  They seemed to like that and ran off, singly and in pairs, in different directions.

  “We’ll see what happens, Welly,” I said. “Thanks for getting things moving right away. Now, do you have to be at the theatre?”

  “Best I be there for the performance tonight,” he said. “I missed the last one, though I got someone to cover for me. But better not press my luck. Mr. Robertson would throw me out on my ear.”

  I nodded. “Let’s have an early dinner, Welly. Perhaps by then there will be some news.”

  But there wasn’t. We dined, and then Welly went off to the Oxford Grand Theatre and I settled hopefully in front of the fireplace at the King’s Arms, with a tankard of porter to fortify me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mr. Stoker was as good as his word and arrived on the early train the next morning. After a late breakfast, he complimented me and Welly on starting the search.

  “Do you think it might be possible to speak directly to Mr. Robertson, sir?” I asked. “After all, it was he who told Welly not to expect Rufus to show up again.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” said Welly quickly. “You don’t know him like I do. That could set him off and no mistake!”

  “I’m quite sure I am capable of handling the tantrums of one such as Mr. Robertson,” said my boss to the hunchback. “But with deference to you, my friend, I will refrain. Besides, I doubt very much that he would have anything positive to contribute to our endeavor. If he really is responsible for Rufus’s disappearance, he is most unlikely to give us any clues as to what he did to the boy. And if he is innocent of any wrongdoing, then he can provide little of substance to aid our search. No, I think we need to move ahead under our own steam, as it were, and we can confront the man if and when we have results.”

  Mr. Stoker proceeded to the local police station to alert them to the disappearance, while I started a round of questioning any who might have seen Rufus after he left the theatre. I started with cabdrivers and then extended my enquiries to news vendors, delivery boys, crossing sweepers, and the like. It seemed that the boy had made a clean getaway, disappearing into the jungle of main thoroughfares and cross streets around the Oxford Grand Theatre. Many admitted to being familiar with Rufus—his cheery grin had become well-known—but none had seen him within the last few days. I thought of how Mr. Robertson must have truly put fear into the young boy’s heart to make him disappear so totally.

  “We must not give up hope,” said Mr. Stoker over dinner that evening.

  Welly and I sat with the big man at a table in the hotel, the hunchback moving vegetables about on his plate but not eating. I must admit that I, too, had lost my appetite, though Mr. Stoker followed the line of thinking that the body must stay fueled if it is to operate at full capacity.

  “Have we had any word from our search party?” I asked.

  Even as I spoke, the grubby blond girl wearing the cloth cap bounced into the room, ducking under the arms of the landlord as he tried to restrain her.

  “We’ve found ’im!” she shouted. “Come on! ’Elp get ’im out!” With that she turned tail and ran back out of the room.

  We all three of us came to our feet and hurried after her.

  There were others of the search party outside the hotel. They had come with the girl, but she had been quicker and got in to inform us and out again before they had even got through the door. We all trailed after the female figure who, still shouting, “Come on!” was now a distance ahead of us. I learned that her name was Charlotte, though everyone called her Charley.

  It was a motley crew of breathless adults and grubby, excited children who finally came to a halt in a muddy ditch behind a half-built and abandoned housing project many blocks away from the theatre district. The evening was advancing and the light was failing, but we could discern a narrow drainage pipe disappearing into the ground. Stooping down, I was able to make out what looked like a bundle of rags stuffed down into the pipe.

  “What do you see, Harry?” asked Stoker.

  I told him.

  “Is it our boy?” he asked. I couldn’t help noticing that the missing urchin had suddenly become “our boy” to the big man.

  “It’s ’im!” chirped the girl, Charley. “I recognize ’is coat.”

  The figure did indeed wear a jacket with a particularly loud checkered pattern. The figure was not moving.

  “Rufus!” Welly got down with his face into the end of the pipe. “Rufus, lad! It’s me, Welly. Can you hear me?”

  There was no sound and no
movement.

  “We must get him out,” said Stoker. “Harry, can you reach him? Get a grip on his coat?”

  As Welly moved aside I stuck an arm down as far as I could. My fingertips brushed the material but I was unable to make a purchase.

  “We are wasting valuable time,” said Stoker. He looked around at the sea of dirty faces. “Which of you children knows where we might find a doctor?”

  The tall, skinny boy, who I had originally taken to be their leader, looked up and nodded. “Doc Schrock over on West Street,” he said. “He’s closest.”

  “Run and get him.”

  The boy was off like a shot, two other smaller boys chasing after him.

  “Now!” Stoker surveyed the rest of the children. His attention focused on a boy in a turtlenecked sweater a size or two too small for him. “You, boy. What’s your name?”

  “Alfred,” said the boy.

  “Alfred, I think you may be Rufus’s only hope.”

  The boy gasped, and despite the growing dusk, I could see his face redden. “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to crawl into the pipe. It will be a tight fit, but I think you can do it.”

  “But what good will that do, begging your pardon, sir?” protested Welly. “He’ll only get stuck as well and then we’ll have two boys to get out.”

  “No, Welly.” Mr. Stoker sounded reassuring. “He can’t go in too far because Rufus is blocking the way. But he can go far enough to get a good grip on the boy’s jacket. We can then haul out both of them by pulling on Alfred’s legs.”

  There were murmurs all around. Some seemed dubious, but I could envision the strong possibility of it working. “Are you willing, Alfred?” I asked the boy.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno.”

  “Garn!” Another boy chided him. “You won’t get stuck. We can all pull on you.”

  “Yes!” cried Charley. “Come on, Alf! We gotta get Rufus outta there!”

  The rest of them suddenly joined in the chorus. “We gotta get Rufus outta there!”