Return of the Emerald Skull

by Paul Stewart

  Crossing the snarled-up traffic of Market Street, I headed down Cannery Row and stepped into the reassuring wood-panelled gloom of Marconi's Coffee House. Ordering a cup of Black Java, I breathed in the rich coffee aroma and tried to make sense of what I'd just witnessed.

  ‘Barnaby?’ A hearty voice broke into my thoughts. ‘Barnaby Grimes. My dear fellow, good to see you!’

  Looking up, I saw that the voice belonged to a regular client of mine – a portly, ruddy-cheeked coal merchant by the name of Sidney Cruikshank – seated at the next table. Together with his brother, he owned Cruikshank and Cruikshank, the coal merchant's next door to Marconi's.

  Throughout the autumn and early winter, their huge carthorses would deliver vast loads of coal all over the city, recouping the money week by week throughout the rest of the year. My job in the last week of summer was to take the advance orders for the season ahead. We tick-tock lads called it ‘coal scuttling’, and it was one of our busiest times of the year.

  ‘Morning, Mr Cruikshank,’ I said, a little weakly.

  ‘Good morning to you, Barnaby,’ he said, his loud voice drowning out the babble of conversation in the coffee house. He reached across and thrust out a great ham of a hand, the nails and creases black with coal dust. ‘You must drop by – the new season's almost upon us, my boy.’

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, and sighed.

  Mr Cruikshank frowned and thrust his huge red face close to mine. ‘Are you all right, old son? If you don't mind my saying, you're looking a bit peaky. Not coming down with something, I trust?’

  I shook my head. ‘I've just seen a man get run over on Market Street,’ I told him.

  Mr Cruikshank breathed in noisily through his teeth. ‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ he said, shaking his head sympathetically. ‘The roads these days. Not a coal dray, I hope …’

  ‘A coach-and-four,’ I said. ‘Ran over a beggar.’

  ‘Carriage carrion!’ said Cruikshank with a snort. ‘When will these people learn? One must take care crossing a busy street …’

  ‘I knew him, actually,’ I said. ‘Up till quite recently he was the gatekeeper at Grassington Hall School.’

  ‘Grassington Hall, eh?’ said Cruikshank, arching an eyebrow. ‘Mighty fine academic institution. And I should know. I send young Sidney junior there.’

  The news surprised me – although come to think of it, I realized I hadn't seen the young Cruikshank lad at his father's offices for quite some time. He was like a miniature version of his father – though, if anything,

  rounder and slightly redder in the face.

  ‘In his second year,’ Mr Cruikshank continued, nodding. ‘Having a whale of a time, by all accounts – and getting a damn good education into the bargain.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sheet of folded vellum. ‘In fact, I received this from him not half an hour since.’ He smiled. ‘Tick-tock lad delivered it to me in the yard … Just popped into Marconi's for a cup of the black stuff and a quick read.’ He looked up and flapped the letter in my face. ‘Would you like to hear how he's getting on?’

  I nodded – though, to be honest, I suspect he'd have told me whether I wanted to or not. He pulled a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles from his top pocket and put them on, then unfolded the letter and cleared his throat.

  ‘Dearest Father and Mother,’ he began. He paused and peered at me above the half-moon lenses. ‘Wonderful penmanship they teach them as well.’ He resumed reading, his voice a little slow as he laboured over the words. ‘Dearest Father and Mother, I trust that this letter finds you in good health. I have settled in well this term. I am working very hard and learning a lot. Lessons are very interesting, the masters treat us well – and there is plenty of food. You mustn't worry about a thing. I'll make you proud of me. Your loving son, Sidney.’

  He looked up and smiled, and I detected a certain moistness in his eyes.

  ‘You're right,’ I said. ‘It sounds as though he's getting on well.’

  ‘Working hard and playing hard,’ said Sidney Cruikshank. He pulled a large checked handkerchief from his jacket pocket and blew his nose noisily. ‘Make me proud, he says … I'm telling you, Barnaby, I'm already the proudest father in the whole world. Young Sidney's getting all the advantages of a good education that I never had.’

  I finished my coffee and left the coal merchant re-reading his son's letter, his eyes glistening and his lips moving as he did so. Turning left out of Marconi's, I crossed the road – taking more care than usual as I did so – and turned back down Grevy Lane. I reached the far end and was just about to shin up a conveniently sited drainpipe when I noticed a tick-tock lad looking vaguely about him, a bunch of vellum envelopes in his hand.

  He wore a coalstack hat like my own, only a couple of sizes too big, and a battered and patched-up waistcoat that looked like a hand-me-down. Instead of a swordstick, he clutched a gnarled cudgel under one arm – useful for beating off troublesome guard dogs, but for little else. With his muddy boots, worn clothes and sooty face, the lad had ‘cobblestone-creeper’ written all over him.

  ‘Can I help?’ I said.

  The lad had ‘cobblestone-creeper’ written all over him.

  The lad turned. He saw at once, of course, that I too was a tick-tock lad, and nodded greetings.

  ‘I'm looking for number seventy-nine,’ he said, and shook his head. ‘Can't seem to find it anywhere.’

  ‘There isn't a number seventy-nine on this street,’ I said. ‘It stops at fifty-five.’

  ‘But there must be,’ he said. ‘It's where’ – he looked down at the envelope at the top of the bundle – ‘a Mr and Mrs Tillstone live. Seventy-nine Garvey Lane …’

  I laughed. The lad was either new to this game – or he was as poor with his letters as old Sidney Cruikshank. Either way, taking pity on him, I decided to put him right.

  ‘This is Grevy Lane,’ I said with a smile. ‘Garvey Lane's the next one along. In that direction,’ I added, pointing.

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Thanks, Mr …’

  ‘Barnaby.’ I smiled, putting out my hand. ‘Barnaby Grimes. Glad to be of service.’

  The lad shook my hand enthusiastically. ‘Will,’ he said. ‘Will Farmer.’ Pushing his coalstack hat up with a grimy hand, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘I'm new to this lark. In fact, this is only my second job. I was delivering some duck eggs down south – lovely countryside – when I gets called over to these gates. Big manor house or something … And this kid gives me three gold-uns to deliver this here sack of letters …’

  Will stopped and narrowed his eyes as he looked me up and down. ‘You're one of them highstackers, ain't you?’ he said, his voice full of awe.

  ‘I am,’ I said, a note of pride creeping into my own voice.

  He glanced up at the rooftops. ‘I'd love to be a highstacker,’ he said. ‘Away from all the noise, the hustle and bustle … Up there among the spires and steeples … ‘ He sighed, long and heartfelt, then turned to me, his face as eager and full of pleading as a Friday cat's at a fish stall. ‘I don't suppose … sometime … not now, of course … you might teach me highstacking. I mean, you must have had a teacher yourself once …’

  I smiled. I liked the kid's cheek.

  ‘How did you get started, Barnaby?’

  ‘I was taught by a tick-tock lad named Tom Flint,’ I told him.

  I heard young Will's sharp intake of breath. ‘Not the Tom Flint,’ he said.

  ‘You've heard of him?’ I said, impressed. ‘Taught me everything I know, did Tom …’

  ‘Like the Peabody Roll?’ Will said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘And the Flying Fox? What about the Rolling Derby, and the Hobson's Choice … ?’

  I laughed. ‘You have been doing your homework!’

  ‘I certainly have,’ he said. ‘I don't want to be a cobblestone-creeper for ever.’ He turned his gaze up towards the chimney stacks high above our heads. ‘I want to be up there … So, will you teach me? Here's my card.’

>   Will scrabbled at the pockets of his worn waistcoat and fished out a handwritten card with his name and the address of a dingy mansion block in the cloth-cutters’ district. He handed it to me with an eager smile.

  Everybody has to start somewhere, I thought as I took the kid's card. I was a lowly bottle-black, friendless and alone, when Tom Flint crossed my path. Dropped a docket off at the bottle factory and spotted me swinging on the workshop beams while the drunken overseer slept …

  Will's expectant eyes were on mine.

  ‘I'm in the middle of something, kid,’ I said, and saw the disappointment cloud his face like a storm at a church social. ‘But I'll see what I can do …’ I slipped the kid's card into my waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Promise?’ said Will, his face brightening.

  ‘Promise,’ I said.

  He turned and darted off in the direction of Garvey Lane as fast as his over-sized muddy boots would take him. I suppose he was afraid I might change my mind – and who knows, he was probably right. The last thing I needed just then was a fresh-faced apprentice still wet behind the ears.

  I was about to shin up the drainpipe when something at my feet caught my eye. In his excitement, the young tick-tock lad had dropped one of his letters on the wet cobbles. I stooped and picked it up, only for the sodden envelope to peel open in my hands. I was just about to re-seal it – a dab of wax gum from the tin in my waistcoat would have done the trick – when the crest on the notepaper caught my attention.

  Grassington Hall.

  Will Farmer must have been the tick-tock lad who'd delivered Cruikshank's son's letter to his coalyard, I realized. Despite myself, with trembling fingers I pulled the letter free from the envelope, unfolded it and started reading.

  Dearest Father and Mother,

  I trust that this letter finds you in good health. I have settled in well this term. I am working very hard and learning a lot. Lessons are very interesting, the masters treat us well – and there is plenty of food. You mustn't worry about a thing. I'll make you proud of me.

  Your loving son,

  Julius

  There was no doubt about it. Apart from the name at the end of the letter, it was identical to the one received by the coal merchant – even down to the penmanship.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I'd seen letters like this before. It could mean only one thing. Grassington Hall had become a lock-up academy.

  I shook my head. Archimedes Barnett had seemed such a decent headmaster, and his pupils had appeared so well cared for and happy. But this letter and the countless identical letters in Will's sack, with their soothing words and reassurances for parents and guardians, were ringing alarm bells in my head louder than a fire-wagon. I knew there was only one way to silence them.

  I had to return to Grassington Hall to find out what had gone so terribly wrong. I left at once. After all, as we tick-tock lads say, there's no time like the present.

  t was a dark, moonless night, and as the lamplit streets gave way to the narrow hedge-lined lanes of the southern outskirts, I felt a shiver of apprehension. Ahead of me lay the great double gates of Grassington Hall, silhouetted against the starry sky As I approached, I saw a heavy padlocked chain, like a coiled python, locking them shut.

  So it was true, then, I thought ruefully. Grassington Hall was indeed a lock-up academy.

  In the circumstances, there was only one thing for me to do. I had to sneak inside and get a message from one of the wretched imprisoned pupils. A scrawled note with a lock of hair or a much-loved stuffed toy would alert Dear Mama and Papa to their little angel's plight.

  Lock-up academies were best nipped in the bud, in my experience. Once I'd delivered the plea for help, the parents usually did the rest, alerting the authorities to shut the place down. At the first sign of trouble, the swindlers and con artists who ran these schools usually took what they could carry and disappeared – as long, that is, as things hadn't turned nasty and no blood was spilled …

  I only hoped I had arrived in time.

  Having checked that the coast was clear, I started up the left-hand gate. It was made from cast iron, intricately twirled and twisted, painted black – and easy to climb. I was up past the ornately curlicued ‘G’ at the top and down the other side in seconds. I paused for a moment, listening for the bark of a guard dog …

  There was nothing.

  To one side of the gates, the gatekeeper's lodge was in a terrible state. The door had been kicked in and was hanging off its hinges, and the windows had all been broken. I stepped inside. It was pitch-black. I reached inside my waistcoat pocket and drew out a box of Vestas. Striking a match, I held up the flickering flame and looked around.

  Obviously someone had had it in for the Major. The place had been ransacked. Curtains had been pulled from the windows; pictures torn from the wall and dashed to the floor. An old leather armchair was on its side, its stuffing spilling out like the entrails of a butchered ox, and an oak table had been reduced to matchwood.

  I stepped back outside, remembering the wild, haunted expression in the eyes of the gatekeeper. Poor honest fellow, I thought. He had obviously refused to go along with the headmaster and his cronies, and had suffered grievously as a result. By the look of things, he'd only just escaped with his life – though in the event, of course, that had tragically proved to be only a temporary reprieve.

  As I struck a second match, I caught sight of something at my feet. It was a large tasselled feather. Bright emerald, with wispy tips. I stooped down and picked it up.

  The headmaster's precious stuffed birds, I thought with contempt as I examined the feather. Those horrible dead things seemed to mean more to him than living, breathing flesh and blood.

  I glanced back at the wrecked gatehouse. As lock-ups went, this looked like a bad one. There was evil about. I could sense it. Gripping the handle of my swordstick, I turned my back on the lodge and headed across the playing fields towards the brightly lit main buildings of the school.

  They were, I had to concede, magnificent – a fact which made the change in the school's circumstances all the more unfortunate. The broad sweep of the east and west wings met at the grand central portico with its four stucco columns beneath a Grecian pediment. Through the portico lay the central courtyard, or quadrangle, from which, as I crept closer, I could hear voices.

  Instinctively, I dropped to my haunches. I removed my coalstack hat, clicking it flat and stowing it in my topcoat. My right thumb flicked the catch on my swordstick as, out there in the middle of the playing fields, I crouched down in the inky darkness and waited.

  The voices grew louder, buzzing and monotonous like the droning of angry bees, combining into an insistent chant.

  ‘Hunt the hog! Hunt the hog!’

  All at once there was a loud whooping cheer from the quadrangle, followed a moment later by an agonized, high-pitched wail of terror.

  What in hell's fiery furnace was going on? I asked myself as my muscles tensed in the darkness.

  I didn't have to wait long to find out.

  Suddenly a lone figure burst through the columns of the portico and out onto the playing field, running as fast as his legs would take him. Behind him, screeching and hooting like a horde of demented demons, came a pursuing mob.

  Some carried blazing torches aloft, the yellow flames bathing the whole seething mass in a pool of flickering light. Some brandished bats and clubs; some wielded splintered table legs and bits of broken desks. A couple wore ornate feathered head-dresses. Several had blankets and curtains wrapped round their shoulders like cloaks. All were intent on running their quarry to ground.

  The figure, sobbing and whimpering with terror, plunged into the darkness of the playing fields, and I drew back as he lumbered towards me. All at once, with a muddy squelch, he stumbled and fell, sprawling headlong on the turf. I stepped forward and, gripping him by the arm, hauled him to his feet. He turned his mud-smeared face to mine, his eyes wide with terror.

  Screeching and hooting li
ke a horde of demented demons

  It was the games master, Mr Cripps.

  His cracked lips opened. ‘Help me,’ he pleaded, his voice little more than a rasping whisper. ‘Help … me …’

  ‘Hunt the hog! Hunt the hog!’

  The fiendish cries of the pursuing mob jolted Cripps back into action. He pushed past me and headed off into the blackness in the direction of the school gates and the promise of escape. His pursuers followed close behind. I dropped to my knees once more, cloaking myself in darkness as they swept past.

  I felt the heat from the blazing torches and smelled the burning pitch. I saw the blur of brandished weapons, and heard the yelp and shriek of voices that seemed barely human.

  One figure, wrapped in a length of striped curtain, dropped the sharpened stump of a chair leg and crouched to retrieve it from the mud. The curtain fell from his shoulders. I recognized at once that round, red-cheeked face, the tousle-haired head …

  ‘Sidney junior,’ I muttered under my breath.

  The next instant, he seized the chair leg and was off once more with the others, baying at the top of his voice. I thought of his father reading the lock-up letter, and wondered what ‘the proudest father in the whole world’ would have to say if he could see his son now.

  ‘Please! Please! Please!’ I heard the abject cries of the games master echoing back across the field above the howls of glee from his pursuers. The hunt had obviously run its victim to ground.

  Keeping to the darkness beyond the flickering torchlight, I approached as close as I dared. After the seeming chaos of the chase, the hunters were now working calmly and methodically. I saw the gleam of leather and a momentary flash of metal, bright in the moonlight, as one school belt was fastened around Cripps's neck, another around his waist, and the two fastened together. As they worked, the individual screeches and cries subsided, and a new chant was taken up.