A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Hey! You’re not supposed to be here.”

  We’re already running in the opposite direction. My ankle throbs. The constables’ footsteps pound after us. Mick pulls me down a narrow passage between two barns, past a fenced yard that contains sheep. The constables, hot on our heels, yell, “Stop!” We reach the brick wall that encloses the estate—a dead end. I look over my shoulder and see the constables almost upon us. We’re trapped. They’ll take us to Inspector Reid, who will surely send us to jail for trespassing, interfering with a police investigation, and any other charges he can dream up.

  “Hurry!” Mick turns right, yanking me with him.

  We run for some fifty feet parallel to the wall, then slip through a gate just as the constables arrive there. On the other side, a narrow path borders the wall. Below the path, the wooded hillside slopes steeply toward the heath. We plunge down the hill, which is covered with slippery dead leaves, and I lose my footing. My hand tears free of Mick’s, and I tumble head over skirts until a tree stops me with a jarring thud against my back. Dizzy and breathless, I hear the constables laughing uproariously.

  Mick skids down to meet me. “Miss Sarah, are you all right?”

  As he helps me to my feet, my head spins, my back hurts, and my legs wobble, but nothing seems badly damaged. “Yes.”

  “Good riddance!” the constables shout.

  They’re apparently not going to desert their post to chase us, but they’ve shown me the futility of my hope of sneaking into Mariner House. The sky has darkened. Water pelts the leaves of the trees and splashes on me; it’s raining again. “Maybe we should just go home.”

  “Don’t give up yet,” Mick says.

  As we circle the estate through the woods, he wanders around in search of something. I’m too dispirited to ask what. We finally stop at a point some twenty feet downhill from the surrounding brick wall and closer to the road below. Here, a section of the slope is steeper, almost vertical, as if a big slice had been shaved off the hillside. Roots from trees above and a thick mat of vines hang over the incline. Mick walks onto a rocky ledge that fronts the slope, lifts the vines, and reveals an iron door that’s about six feet high and painted with green-and-brown splotches to blend in with the scenery.

  “How did you know about that?” I ask, surprised.

  Mick grins. “I learned a few handy things from the servants.”

  “What is it?”

  “A secret escape route from the house. Sir Gerald built it in case his enemies come after him.” When Mick grasps the door by its handle and pulls, it swings back smoothly on oiled hinges. The dark tunnel behind it exudes a cold draft that smells of earth. Mick steps across the threshold, takes a box of matches from his pocket, and beckons.

  I do not want to go in there. I do not like dark, unfamiliar spaces. “Don’t the guards know about this?”

  “Yeah, but they don’t know we know,” Mick says. “They won’t look for us here. And they won’t tell the coppers. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  A secret shared by the servants and who else? Summoning my courage, I follow Mick into the tunnel. It’s high enough for a man to stand upright in but so narrow that we’ll have to walk single file. The sides and ceiling are shored up with wooden beams. The sight of oil lamps strung along the walls doesn’t relieve my fear. Mick strikes a match, lights the first lamp, and pulls the door shut. The lamp’s flame glows weakly in the darkness. Mick precedes me along the tunnel, striking more matches, lighting more lamps as he goes, pushing away the darkness ahead of us a few feet at a time. Tree roots dangle from the ceiling like gnarled, ghostly fingers. The tunnel zigzags as it snakes uphill, so I can’t see the lamps we’ve left behind us. I’m afraid they’ll burn up all the air. Panic quickens my breath; I feel faint.

  “I’m starved,” Mick says. “When we get to the house, I’m gonna sneak in the kitchen and steal us some food.”

  I hear the whispery sound of dirt and pebbles sliding, and I imagine the great weight of the hill collapsing onto the tunnel, crushing us to death. After minutes that seem like eons, Mick lights the final lamp and says, “Ha!”

  We’ve reached the end of the tunnel—an iron door that must lead to the cellar of Mariner House. My relief quickly gives way to fear of what awaits us on the other side. Mick tries the knob, then rattles and thumps on the door. He turns to me, crestfallen. “It’s locked.”

  23

  I awake suddenly in complete darkness. I don’t know where I am. Panic-stricken, I grope around me while my heart hammers as if trying to break out of my chest. My fingers touch the hard dirt surface I’m sitting on and the rough planks at my back. My eyes adjust to the darkness, which isn’t as complete as I thought. A faint, thin vertical strip of gray light illuminates Mick, lying curled up beside me asleep. Relief calms me. We’re in Sir Gerald’s escape tunnel, near the secret exit to the woods. We extinguished the lamps and decided to wait out the day here and then make another attempt to breach Mariner House at night.

  I rise, stretching my stiff, sore muscles, and push the iron door open wider. Cold, damp wind filters into the tunnel. Outside, black trees sway beneath a cobalt sky studded with thousands of stars that are never visible in foggy, smoky, gas-lighted London proper. The full moon dazzles among them like a silver coin surrounded by silver dust. I slept the whole afternoon. My stomach growls; I’ve not eaten since last night.

  I shake Mick until he rouses. “It’s time.”

  Mick yawns, stretches, and stands. “God, I could eat a horse.”

  We emerge from the tunnel, blinking in the moonlight, shivering in the cold. Darkness has transformed the woods into an enchanted forest from some nightmarish fairy tale. They’re alive with creatures rustling through the underbrush, owls hooting, wings flapping, wind rustling the trees, and disembodied voices calling. As we grope our way up the hill, I see Mariner House rising from within the brick walls that surround the estate, aglow with light from its windows like a haunted castle. I wonder if Inspector Reid has solved Robin’s murder. I wonder if Barrett is still at Mariner House and whether he’s thinking of me. Missing him is a raw wound in my heart.

  “There’s a pit here,” Mick says. “Watch your step.”

  We inch our way down the slippery side of a cleft in the hillside, perhaps four feet deep and six across. At the bottom, as we wade through dead leaves, a muffled shriek freezes me in my tracks. Up from the leaves rises a shape. Hunched over, grunting and panting, it looks like a bear. We yell and scramble up the side of cleft. The thing at the bottom collapses. Now I see two spread arms, two bent legs—it’s a man. Lank dark hair frames his ashen face. His slender body heaves as his breath rasps through his gaping mouth. His eyes are black pools of terror that gleam with reflected moonlight.

  “It’s Raphael DeQuincey!” I say.

  The medium raises himself on his hands and left knee and tries to crawl out of the cleft, dragging his right leg. He collapses again and sobs.

  Mick and I look at each other in astonishment. “Have you been here since this morning?” I ask DeQuincey.

  “Yes,” he says between gasps. “I couldn’t get away. There were too many police chasing me.”

  “What’s wrong with your leg?” Mick asks.

  “I fell into this pit. I think it’s broken. It hurts so much, I can barely move. I had to cover myself with leaves to hide from the police.” DeQuincey moans in agony. “Help me get out of here. Please!”

  DeQuincey wouldn’t be in this predicament if I hadn’t talked to Barrett, and I don’t think he’s guilty of anything except performing fake séances. “We’ll help you,” I say. “Mick, we must take him to a doctor.”

  Before I can climb into the pit, Mick says, “Wait. Here’s our chance to get the straight goods from him.” He asks DeQuincey, “Did you kill Robin?”

  “No!”

  “Then why did you run from the coppers?”

  “If I’d let them grill me, it would have come out.”

  “What woul
da come out?”

  “I can’t tell you. It’ll make me and Tabitha look bad. You’ll think we kidnapped Robin and killed him, and you’ll tell the police.”

  “No, we won’t,” Mick says.

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You got a choice?”

  Footsteps crunch twigs on the hill above us. There I see a moving spot of light—the flame of a lantern. It’s too dark to tell whether the person is a constable or one of Sir Gerald’s guards.

  “Better talk fast,” Mick says to DeQuincey.

  DeQuincey expels a sigh of capitulation. “Tabitha and I sent the ransom note.”

  Fresh amazement renders me speechless. I’d ruled out the possibility that they were involved in the kidnapping.

  Mick snorts in disbelief. “You admit you sent the ransom note, and you expect us to believe you didn’t kidnap Robin?”

  “It’s true! We didn’t! Somebody else did!” Frantic to convince us, DeQuincey says, “Tabitha was with Lady Alexandra when Robin was taken. I was in Grosvenor Square, holding a séance for my client Mrs. Webb at her house. You can ask her and her friends. They’ll tell you.”

  I recover my voice. “If you and Tabitha didn’t kidnap Robin, then why did you send the note?”

  “We needed money to go away together. Two days after the kidnapping, Tabitha got the idea of the ransom note. We weren’t greedy—all we asked for was a thousand pounds. That would have been plenty to set me up in business in Bath, and Sir Gerald wouldn’t have missed it,” DeQuincey says, as if that excuses their actions. “When I wrote the note, I said to leave the money in the dinosaur park because I used to live near there and I know my way around. It seemed like the perfect solution.”

  Mick nudges me. “What d’ya think?”

  My intuition says DeQuincey is telling the truth. “I think the only thing he and Tabitha are guilty of is taking advantage of Robin’s kidnapping by extorting money from Sir Gerald.”

  “Yeah . . .” Mick says reluctantly.

  “But if the police find out, they’ll pin Robin’s murder on us.” DeQuincey’s voice slides up to a shrill, panicky pitch. “And if they start beating up on me, I’ll roll over and confess.” He adds sheepishly, “I’m a coward.”

  Although his story has failed to reveal the identity of Robin’s murderer, I realize that he may be able to solve other mysteries. “There was a double murder in the dinosaur park on the day you collected the ransom. Were you a witness to it?” Next I’ll ask him if he saw my father.

  DeQuincey moans, writhes, and clutches his broken leg. “I don’t know anything about a double murder. Tabitha and I weren’t there. We didn’t collect the ransom.”

  “You passed up a thousand pounds?” Mick says, incredulous. “Why?”

  “We got cold feet because we were afraid that Sir Gerald would set a trap, and when we came to get the money, his goons would jump out of the bushes and catch us.”

  Disappointment crumbles my hope of finding my father. No matter what he’s done, I need to hear his side of the story, but I’ve arrived at another dead end.

  “You ain’t much of a criminal mastermind,” Mick says in disgust.

  “No. I’m not.” DeQuincey drops his fluty, theatrical accent. “I’m just Joey Fenton, a cobbler’s son from Hackney, trying to make a dishonest day’s living. I’ve told you everything.” More footsteps approach, and he hushes his voice. “Now help me!”

  The guards or police are coming closer to us. I’m revolted by DeQuincey’s actions, but I won’t have Robin’s murder blamed on him while the real culprit goes free. “All right,” I say. We’ll take him to a hospital and figure out what else to do later.

  Mick and I skid down to the bottom of the pit, crouch on either side of DeQuincey, drape his arms around our necks, and lift. He’s heavier than he looks; my knees buckle, and my ankle twinges. Leaning on us, he hops one laborious step at a time up the side of the pit, dragging his broken leg, sucking air through clenched teeth. I listen for footsteps between the sounds of the wind in the trees and carriage wheels on the road. When we’re finally out of the pit, DeQuincey suddenly goes limp and crumples to the ground.

  “He’s fainted,” I say.

  Mick slaps DeQuincey’s cheeks. DeQuincey rouses, crying, “Don’t hit me!”

  He faints twice more while we struggle down the hill. Somehow we reach the road. By this time, I’m exhausted and wet with perspiration, and my back and my sprained ankle are sore. Mick is breathing hard. DeQuincey trembles and groans as he hops slowly between us along the road that separates the hill and the heath. The moonlight paints the moors in ghostly shades of gray. It’s at least a mile to Hampstead village. I don’t know how we’ll make it. Still short of breath from smoke inhalation, I can’t bear DeQuincey’s weight for much longer. I wonder if the police are guarding the train station, watching for the fugitive.

  DeQuincey groans so loudly that I don’t hear the hoofbeats until they’re thundering on the road directly behind us. A male voice shouts, “Police! Stop!”

  Terror freezes my blood. I turn as light spills over us; I blink in the glare of lanterns attached to two horses ridden by mounted constables.

  “Run!” Mick drags DeQuincey and me toward the woods.

  One of the constables blocks our path, saying triumphantly, “Hey, I found the runaway medium. You owe me a crown.” The other, maneuvering his horse behind us, protests, “I saw him first.”

  Both constables jump off their horses, and the first says, “Raphael DeQuincey, you’re under arrest.”

  “Don’t let them take me!” DeQuincey cries in terror, then he faints again.

  Too exhausted to defend him, Mick and I ease him to the ground. “He didn’t kill Robin,” I say.

  “How do you know?” the first constable asks. “Who are you people, anyway?”

  His partner laughs. “Well, I’ll be darned. It’s Sarah Bain and her street urchin.”

  “What are you doing with DeQuincey?” the first constable asks.

  “We found him in the woods,” Mick says.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “His leg is broken,” I say. “We were taking him to the hospital.”

  “Inspector Reid told you to get lost. What are you doing here?”

  Reid will be angry enough to hear that we disobeyed him, never mind that we planned to sneak into Mariner House. Ignoring the question, I say, “Mr. DeQuincey is innocent,” and I explain about the ransom note.

  The constables exchange skeptical glances. The second one says, “We’ll take him back to Mariner House and let Inspector Reid be the judge.”

  Mick whispers to me, “We gotta get out of here.”

  “I can’t leave Mr. DeQuincey,” I whisper back. There’s no one at Mariner House to defend him and Tabitha from Inspector Reid.

  “What about them?” the first constable asks the second, pointing at Mick and me.

  “We’ll take them in too.”

  “Miss Sarah, come on!” Mick tugs my arm.

  “You go. I’m staying.”

  The second constable says to us, “You’re under arrest.”

  “Arrest?” Mick’s voice echoes my dismay. “What for?”

  “Aiding and abetting a fugitive,” the second constable says. “Inspector Reid can bring other charges against you if he wants.”

  24

  I ride back to Mariner House on one of the horses, my hands cuffed behind my back, like a queen captured by an invading army. Mick, also handcuffed, trudges beside me while the constables guard us. The unconscious Raphael DeQuincey is slung facedown over the other horse like a sack of grain.

  The driveway outside the mansion is empty except for a single large black carriage, its two horses, two footmen, and driver. The lights in the windows look sinister and inhospitable. I wonder what else has happened here today. It seems that Mariner House is my destiny to which I’m fated to return again and again and never escape.

  When the police h
elp me down from the horse, I’m so stiff and sore, so tired and weak from hunger, that I can barely stand. A fit of coughing wracks me, and Mick thumps my back until I spit up phlegm laced with smoke. As the police unload DeQuincey, he regains consciousness and moans. Guards escort Mick and me into the mansion; the constables follow, supporting DeQuincey. In the foyer, a few gas sconces are lit. The crape-shrouded chandelier hangs like a heavy black moon. The door to the parlor is closed, but I can smell incense, candle wax, and flowers. Men’s raised voices issue from the dining room.

  “This is extortion!” It’s Inspector Reid; he sounds furious.

  “It’s my emergency protocol,” Sir Gerald says.

  His voice is ragged but calm. My heart thumps at the sound of it. Maybe Barrett wasn’t so wrong to think I’ve given Sir Gerald a place in my affections.

  “In the event that I’m detained by the authorities anywhere in the world, the funds in the Mariner Bank are automatically frozen,” Sir Gerald says.

  “The home secretary and the prime minister have been receiving telegrams and visits all day from frantic account holders demanding their money.” The third man has a gruff, Scottish-accented voice.

  “Not to worry,” Sir Gerald says. “Now that my family and I have been released from house arrest, the funds will be unfrozen.”

  Apparently the police have been holding and questioning the Mariners all day.

  “He’s got us over a barrel, Reid,” the Scotsman says. “I have to shut down your interrogation.”

  I admire Sir Gerald’s nerve and his determination to protect his family, but I’m appalled by his tactics, and I don’t want to think it’s really himself that he’s protecting.

  The guards and constables, Mick, DeQuincey, and I reach the dining room door. The dining room has become the police’s makeshift headquarters. Chairs are pushed back from the table, which holds a disarray of teacups, half-eaten sandwiches, and full ash trays. The air smells of tobacco smoke. The statues, draped in black cloth, peer down as if in disapproval at the three men facing off by the table. The constables hesitate, reluctant to interrupt. Reid is in shirtsleeves, hair tousled as if he’s been raking it with his hands, and his bloodshot eyes blaze with anger. Sir Gerald looks tired but smug. Reid speaks to the Scotsman, whom I’ve never seen before.