“You were told to bring it,” she grated.
“I think we need to have a discussion,” said Arthur. “Shall we go inside, or would you like to come out here?”
She ushered us in. There were men standing in the shadows at the back of the room. I took three stools down from the tables, and we sat in the empty pub. It was smaller than I remembered.
Elsie was wearing her fancy barmaid’s dress but with a shawl over it as though it was not quite proper in the light of day.
“And what have you got to say for yourselves?” Her arms were still crossed, but Arthur’s appearance had made some impression. She must have heard his name, and she could never have seen anyone of his calibre in the establishment. While he was not intimidating, Arthur could be formidable. He always said that he was merely a figurehead, not a captain, but in practice, he had at his command a large and powerful organisation that occupied the area around the New Town, completely surrounding it.
“I don’t think we need be hostile to one another, Miss Granger,” Arthur said mildly. “I was hoping to do business with you on amiable terms. I wanted to start by saying how very impressed I am at your operation here.”
“Oh, yes,” she said with a barmaid’s immunity to flattery.
“This place has been nothing but chaos for as long as anyone can remember.” Arthur’s gesture took in the whole New Town area, but he might have been talking about the pub, which showed marks of violence and neglect. “Not just without law but lawless, if you get my meaning. Everybody was at each other’s throats and in each other’s pockets. Nobody ever managed to get them organised before, but you did, and for that, I salute you. Once you get them organised, you can do anything. You can build something. Make some real money.”
A sidelong look suggested she was not entirely uninterested.
“Now to brass tacks. As you may not know, the object which you seek is no more.” Arthur waved a hand as if dispersing smoke. “Mr Stubbs is in no position to give it to you. And he did us all a great service by getting rid of it.”
“It doesn’t help me,” she grumbled.
“Oh, but it does. Furthermore, even if we were to let you have it… the prospective buyer is also no longer with us.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed.
After parting with Skinner, I had gone from the woods to the Firs. I knew that Stafford would want to know what had occurred. I did not know how he would react, and I cherished a hope, albeit a faint one, that he might be pleased with the outcome.
I had expected the Firs to be dark and quiet, but every window was lit up, and servants rushed about. There was a car in the driveway, and two women were sobbing outside the front door.
The butler, in his shirtsleeves, stopped to talk to me. It seemed that Stafford had been working that evening in his observatory and had rushed out in a state of high excitement. There was a display of summer lightning towards Beulah Hill, and he had brought the whole household out on to the lawn to see it, some of them in their nightclothes.
As they watched the atmospheric lights, Stafford had become incoherent, talking to them about transfiguration and apotheosis. The butler would not disclose details, but I could imagine his employer’s mystical frenzy. Just before the climax, Stafford had gone into convulsions and died.
“Did anything unusual happen just before he died? Or just after?”
“I really couldn’t say, sir,” said the butler.
“Was a there a coloured light –” I started. The butler’s face was blank, shuttered. What he had seen he would carry to the grave. But I was convinced that an autopsy would have found part of Stafford’s brain—the part where his deepest self resided—melted to powder. “Never mind. None of it matters now.”
“Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes. No, just one thing. Do you have a housemaid called Evie working here? I’m supposed to give her a message.”
The butler reluctantly conceded that there might be a young person of that name in the establishment. I wrote out what Pierce had said on a sheet from my notebook and gave it to the butler. I did not want to deliver the message face-to-face.
“Very good, sir.” The butler hesitated a moment and cleared his throat. “Does the, ah, settlement of your accounts require a final payment from Mr Stafford?”
There was a world of implication in those words. The butler knew some of the details of our employment. Perhaps he knew what Skinner was like. If he could save the estate any heartache and future claims connected with “Lantern Insurance,” it would be well worth paying for our silence.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Mr Stafford paid for everything. And—my sincere condolences to you all.”
“Very good, sir,” he repeated.
He’d actually bowed to me before turning to go back into the house.
Stafford’s death was the closing of a door. With him went the last hope of assistance from a person of influence, one who understood about the baetyl. All that was left was my old friend and mentor, Arthur Renville. I had found him in a stable yard piled with crates. Luckily for me, Arthur’s night’s work was at an end, and he was able to give me a hearing. And there we were.
“Mr Stafford passed away last night of natural causes,” Arthur told Elsie. “He won’t be buying anything from anyone.” He let the words sink in a moment. “All of which leaves any discussion of the item in question as having no practical value.”
Elsie did not miss a beat. “So what have you got to offer me instead? Assuming you want to see her again.”
“I have taken a personal interest in Sally’s wellbeing,” said Arthur in the same mild tone. “She is a good woman who has been through hard times—there but for the grace of God go all of us! Her late husband worked for me, and I would take it amiss if anything was to happen to her. But as I said, I was favourably impressed by the way you’ve brought order here. This operation is proof positive that you’ve got the place organised at last. I think you have the necessary underpinning to join in a rather lucrative venture.”
“So you have got something to trade.”
He had her interest now.
Arthur outlined briefly the essentials of the consignment business, of the need for plenty of reliable hands to transport and store goods, to deliver them to customers, and to collect and distribute payment. It was like any other business, but the handling of money was on a more informal basis, and though the letter of the rules was loose, the enforcement of the spirit could be harsh.
“The enterprise relies on having trustworthy men at every link in the chain so there’s no pilferage or diversion,” said Arthur. “It’s like an electric circuit: only if every connection is sound can money flow from one end to the other.”
“If I wanted to sell odds and ends,” she said, “I’d get myself a market stall.”
“Our current consignment is one of cigarettes,” said Arthur, placing a pack on the table in front of her with a box of matches on top of it. “Quite decent ones, as it happens. You’ll have plenty of takers at this price.”
Elsie looked at the cigarettes and tossed the box to the men slouched at the bar. “How many are you trying to get rid of?”
“How many do you think you can handle in a week?” he parried.
“Depends how much you’re asking for each pack.”
A quick-fire discussion followed. Both of them showed off their ability to do mental arithmetic, and they ended up quibbling amiably over the difference a farthing could make. Elsie’s voice had dropped low. The previous discussion was meant to be shared with her crew, but she had no intention of letting anyone else in on the exact terms of the business arrangement.
She broke off once to ask the boys if the cigarettes were any good and received a chorus of approval.
“You’re not expecting cash up front,” she said.
“Not a bit of it,” said Arthur. “Your word is good enough for me, Miss Granger. You can pay me whenever you should find it convenient, within the fortnight.”
> Her eyes shifted rapidly as though reading a legal contract and looking for the catch. “You’re asking to get robbed. Goods up front and no payment?”
“Strangely enough,” said Arthur, looking her straight in the eye, “everybody always pays up. I like to think I’m a good judge of character.”
“It helps if you’ve got a few like him,” she said, indicating me. “He’s a right brawler.”
“Oh, no,” said Arthur, “Mr Stubbs is one of a kind. And I’m not in favour of brawling. But I think you appreciate more than most the finer points of the business.”
The conversation had become more relaxed, and they were soon talking shop like old friends. Arthur had little intelligence about what went on inside the confines of the New Town and was particularly interested in how often the police visited. I think he saw the Knyght’s Head as a prospective free-trade zone outside of the reach of customs and excise, like a miniature Singapore that would attract business from far and wide.
Their conversation was soon ranging wider. Elsie had little knowledge of matters outside of the New Town and knew of Arthur’s world only by rumour, and Arthur knew little more about goings-on in the New Town. Each was eager to find out what the other knew about various individuals and their activities, robberies, assaults, and disappearances.
I must have shifted impatiently, because Arthur looked around and noticed me again.
“Now I think of it,” said Arthur, “perhaps Mr Stubbs could escort Sally home while we continue our private conversation.”
Elsie turned around and barked at her crew. “Adam! Bring her out front, and let her go.” The ferret-faced man slouched into an upright position, sucking on a cigarette. “Today, if you please!” Elsie added.
“That’s very good of you,” said Arthur. “I’m much obliged. Do give Sally my compliments, Stubbsy, and see you make it up to her. Perhaps you could take her to lunch with your folks as it’s Sunday.”
“I’m in your debt yet again,” I said.
Elsie was already asking Arthur about a certain corrupt police inspector who had been troubling her.
Two of the toughs escorted Sally into the street. She was taller than they were, and she walked like a queen, anything but cowed. She did not seem much the worse for wear. I was surprised, then, when she fell into my arms and clung to me.
“Harry!” she said, in a choked voice only I could hear. “I knew you’d come.”
“There, there,” I said.
“No hard feelings,” her escort, Adam, said over Sally’s shoulder. He was standing at a safe enough distance from me just in case I took offence. I could see the cut on his face that Skinner had inflicted.
“None at all,” I assured him.
I took Sally’s arm, and we walked down the deserted street and out the gate that led into the recreation ground.
“I was scared at first,” she said. “Only a little bit, though. It didn’t take long to see through them. They were more scared than I was. You could see they’d never done a kidnapping before—they didn’t even have a proper blindfold!”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Not much,” she said matter-of-factly. “A few bruises. Nothing I haven’t had before and ten times worse. They stuck me in a broom closet that smelled of mouse droppings, with two of them on guard outside. I thought, two of them? Who do they think I am, Houdini? So I just curled up and went to sleep.”
“You were very brave.”
“What about you though?” she asked suddenly. “What happened last night?”
I gave her an abbreviated version of the events in the forest. I was just explaining how Skinner had gone off when Sally tugged my arm urgently. “Here’s trouble,” she said.
A powder-blue limousine glided to a halt a few feet away, the rear window already sliding down.
Miss De Vere looked out with all the expression of a sphinx. I could not detect anger or malice or any other human emotion in her beautiful face. She might have been posing for a photograph.
“Hello,” said Sally politely. “It’s nice to see you again, Estelle.”
“I didn’t know you two were friends,” said Miss De Vere, deadpan. “If you’ll excuse me, perhaps I can take Mr Stubbs away from you for a minute?”
Sally started to say that we were on our way somewhere, but I stepped into the car. There was no point in trying to run.
The interior was shadowy and felt chilly after the sunny street, as though Miss De Vere emanated cold. She was wearing a long dress of black, lacy material, with a hat on her lap. A tiny gold crucifix, with a diamond at each point, set off the outfit.
A cigarette in an ebony holder glowed her gloved hand. Her exhalation looked like breath on a frosty day. I wondered if her other hand, under the hat, was holding a weapon—assuming she needed one.
The scene flickered just for an instant. For that moment, we were in a deep chamber far beneath the surface of the earth. I had the faint impression of figures chained to bare rock walls, of armed guards lurking in the shadows, but before I could fully grasp it, the image had gone. The impression was clear enough, though.
I had already considered this exact situation and whether simply attacking Miss De Vere would be my best form of self-defence. I had concluded that it would be foolish, and that while she might seem to be a slight and vulnerable woman, any assault I could mount was likely to be futile.
Miss De Vere spoke less languidly and more forcefully than before. If she was angry, she kept it in check.
“You found the place. You didn’t do what you were supposed to do. Care to tell me what happened?”
“I don’t believe I ever was in your employment,” I said carefully.
“True,” she said, tapping ash into the chrome ashtray built into an armrest. “Technically.”
“Perhaps we can trade information between us.”
I had been encouraged by how well Arthur had got along with Elsie Granger. Where there was a common interest, there was always room for an accommodation.
She regarded me for a long moment.
“The arrangement works like this,” she said softly. “I can have you, or any member of your family, killed before Sunday lunch. Or I could have you jailed for your involvement in any one of—how many?—unexplained deaths. You might have information, but you have—and please correct me if I’m wrong—precisely nothing to negotiate with. Ergo, I ask the questions.”
She pronounced the Latin word as “air-go.”
My scalp prickled. Few people could deliver a threat effectively. Miss De Vere could have given classes. Her slow, calm delivery was remarkably effective.
I was not, however, an easy man to bully. My insurance policy—these written chapters that explain what had happened and who was involved—would be next to useless. It might in fact be a liability, revealing too much of what I knew and implicating Hoade and Sally to boot. I had assumed that Latham and Rowe would not give up the manuscript to anyone without my say-so, but Miss De Vere’s powers were formidable, and perhaps she would find her way to it—if she knew of its existence. So I decided not to reveal it.
But I still had a few cards to play.
“I don’t know exactly what happened to Mabel Brown,” I said. “Judging from subsequent events, I’m inclined to believe that you were responsible. But I’m not sure why you killed her without getting the baetyl.”
She raised one eyebrow. Then after a moment, she answered. “We were getting on fine, Mabel and I. Once we had both understood that she knew I knew she had it, the only question was where it was. Unfortunately… she said something dumb.”
“What was that?”
“She told me she’d swallowed it.”
“She thought that would stop you from searching her room. But as far as you were concerned, it meant she was dangerously contaminated.”
“That’s a good word,” she said, pretending to be impressed. “So… I decontaminated her.”
She blew a slow jet of smoke.
“With
an alchemical incendiary mixture. Like the one you gave me.”
“It’s isomeric,” she said. “I’ll let you look that one up.”
“You burned Madam Hester’s caravan the same way.”
“She was a gipsy,” said Miss De Vere as though that both explained and excused it. “We had a rather short conversation. She tried to kill me. Another dumb decision.”
“You talk about not opening Pandora’s box, but you dip into it yourself when you feel like it.”
Her smile was almost a smirk. Even then, her features were flawless. Almost inhumanly flawless, when you looked closely.
“Sometimes the Theral Development Society fights fire with fire,” she said without a trace of guilt.
“But Miss Horniman is still alive,” I said. “And the others from the Golden Dawn.”
“Poseurs,” she said. “But so entertaining. Willie Yeats is a real charmer. The more theatrical types there are performing weird ceremonies in purple robes, the better. They’re not… dangerous.”
She looked up at me from under her eyelashes.
Did she mean that I was dangerous? Perhaps I had miscalculated. But I had nowhere to go except forward. “It wasn’t coincidence that the spring started up again or that Stafford saw the periodic body. It is like a ship dropping off boats. The ship had returned, and the boats went out to meet it. But they needed to have all hands to man the oars, and that’s why all the pieces had to come together. It just wanted to get back where it came from. I think you knew that.”
She looked displeased at the crude simile. No doubt the real science was much more exact and I was mangling the truth, but I was convinced I was close enough.
“I told you it might have turned this place into a wasteland, and you didn’t stop it,” she said, shaking her head at my stupidity. “You helped it. You think it’s like a friendly lion with its paw in a trap? That it’ll thank you for helping it next time you meet? No. No. It’s alien. It doesn’t even recognise humans.”
I was not so sure about that. I thought it had some understanding. That was why it tried to force Skinner into the pool—not to drown him but to get him to drink and become part of it. But it was as careless of individual humans as we were of toenail clippings.
Alien Stars: A Harry Stubbs Adventure Page 20