by Tom Hourie
“No good. We’re safe as long as we’re in the presence of witnesses. They won’t dare to behave improperly.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Make your speech last as long as possible. I’ll see if I can get someone to bring Schrödinger’s van to the side entrance.”
“Why don’t you do it? Oh wait, you can’t drive.”
Miss Trelawney was just wrapping up as I made my way back to the stage. “Girls, please offer a warm Bishop Jewel welcome to our American guest, Mister Robert Liddel,” she concluded, extending a regal hand toward me.
I made my way to the podium with the uncomfortable feeling that I looked more like someone who had come to fix the drains than a western desperado. I really hoped Sarah was right and that this crowd wouldn’t notice the difference.
I placed my notes on the lectern and looked at the upturned faces. There was a long moment of silence broken only by the sound of shuffling feet and the occasional cough.
I had decided earlier that if I was going to tell tall tales, I might as well go for broke. I hitched up my trousers and began my own version of one of the great frontier legends.
A few years ago I chanced to be in the town of Deadwood when I saw Wild Bill Hickok in Nuttal and Mann’s Saloon. As it happened, I was down to my last dollar and Bill owed me ten from a game of five card draw we’d played a week previous. I don’t play cards much but that day I was feeling lucky because my landlady had served me an extra flapjack at breakfast by mistake.
The rear door of the assembly hall opened to admit Fox and Flowers, accompanied by Schrödinger who shook his head and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ at me. The three men quietly took up a position at the center of the far wall.
Like I said, I was broke but even so, I was reluctant to press my claim. You’d understand better if you knew Wild Bill. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, so I won’t come right out and say he was meaner than a rattlesnake but he’s the only fellow I ever met whose idea of diplomacy was to pour you a drink so’s he could hit you over the head with the empty bottle.
It bothered me Fox and Flowers had shown up by themselves without any kind of backup. Sarah was right, they didn’t want witnesses. We were in big trouble if they got us away from the school grounds.
I finally got up the gumption to ask for my money, but before I had a chance, I got pushed aside by “Broken Nose” Jack McCall who was aggravated with Bill for calling him a no-good, cheating, Irishman.
I heard the distinctive sound of Schrödinger’s van coming to a stop by the side door. Unfortunately, Fox and Flowers heard it too. Fox nodded his head in the direction of the sound and Flowers went to investigate.
Jack walks up behind Bill and pulls out his forty-five Schofield. “I’m Scotch,” he says and lets Bill have it in the back of the head.
Bill’s wound was mortal and to this day, the hand he was holding, aces and eights is known as the dead man’s hand.
In spite of the tight spot I was in, I couldn’t help noticing my storytelling was going over well. The girls were leaning intently forward, scarcely breathing.
They finally got around to hanging Jack which was lucky for him because Bill’s girlfriend had vowed to unman him with a meat cleaver. At least this way Jack got to meet his maker with all his parts intact.
This last detail earned me a round of nervous giggles and a warning glare from Miss Trelawney, but everyone’s attention shifted away from me when Flowers re-entered dragging Sarah behind him. He leaned toward Fox and began whispering something in his ear. Ever the trouper, I carried on with my anecdote.
Jack had the last word though. When he was on the gallows he says to the hangman, “Can’t we speed this up a bit? I hear Satan serves lunch at noon sharp and I don’t want to be late.”
Fox undid his jacket as soon as Flowers had finished so that I could see the revolver he was carrying. He strode toward the stage leaving me just enough time to finish my story.
Now there’s a moral there that applies to well-brought up young ladies like yourselves, just as much as it does to the rough customers of the Old West. If Jack hadn’t let his pride get the best of him, he’d have missed that appointment with the six foot drop.
It’s like the good book tells us: pride goes before a fall.
Chapter XXX:
In Pursuit – Max’s Revenge
“Whatever is going on, Mister Liddel?” asked Miss Trelawney as Fox climbed onto the stage.
“Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service, headmistress,” said Fox, showing her his warrant card. “We need to speak to Mister Liddel about certain matters.”
Fox bent my wrist inward in a ‘come-along’ hold and hustled me off the stage and down the aisle past the rows of astonished young faces.
“Where’s Schrödinger,” Fox asked Flowers when we got to the rear of the assembly hall.
“Scarpered ain’t he? I couldn’t go after him without leaving this one,” Flowers said, jerking his chin toward Sarah.
There was the sound of a steam-powered car starting up in the forecourt. I could tell it wasn’t Schrödinger’s van whose engine I had learned to recognize.
“Blast the man!” Fox said. “You said their van was around the side?”
“Out that door,” Flowers said.
“Well, get it started up. We’ve not a moment to lose.”
Max the cat made another escape attempt when Flowers opened the rear door of Schrödinger’s van, but the bald man swatted him backward like a fly. “Get in and keep your cakehole shut,” he told me, as he placed a big meaty hand between my shoulder blades and shoved me forward.
Everything had happened so fast that we were already moving by the time I remembered I had hidden Lord Newford’s revolver under the daybed. I knew my kidnappers would see me if I tried to get it right now but I resolved to go for it at the first sign of any distraction.
Fox and Flowers were sitting in the front seat with Sarah between them. Fox turned to me from the passenger seat and patted the bulge made by the revolver beneath his coat. “Let us have no foolishness from you Mister Liddel,” he said. “You have caused quite enough trouble already.”
At least Max the Cat was on my side. He crawled onto my lap and glared at Flowers with a malevolent look in his yellow eyes.
“No sign of the bugger,” Flowers said, leaning forward to scan the road ahead of him, his hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“Lady Sarah, I believe you are familiar with the area,” Fox said. “Schrödinger will no doubt head for London. Please direct Mister Flowers as to the best way to intercept him.”
Sarah had no choice. Her words, consisting of only of directions such as “left here” and “right at the next corner” were the only ones spoken for the next few minutes.
We emerged at a crossroads on the other side of town. There was a cloud of dust coming toward us which soon resolved itself into an official-looking sedan.
“That’ll be him,” Flowers said, as he pulled Schrödinger’s van into the intersection to block the road.
Schrödinger saw us and stopped the car about twenty yards away. He tried to reverse but his left rear wheel hit a wagon rut and he slid backward into the ditch beside the road.
“Keep an eye on these two,” Fox said. He gave Sarah and me a last warning look before opening the passenger door and stepping out onto the road.
Schrödinger started to run as soon as he saw him, but the flat fields surrounding the crossroads had recently been mown and there was nowhere to hide. Fox didn’t hurry. He drew his revolver and assumed a classic dueling stance with his body turned sideways and his shooting arm raised to eye level. There was a puff of white smoke followed a half second later by the reverberating crack of a pistol shot and Schrödinger fell face forward into the stubble. Fox holstered his revolver and began walking unhurriedly toward him.
This was the chance I had been waiting for, but I still needed something to distract Flowers. My solution was provided by the four legged b
undle of fur sitting on my lap. “Sorry pal,” I said to Max. I lifted him with one hand on the scruff of his neck and the other under his belly and threw him straight at Flowers.
Max had not gained his reputation as a fierce battle cat for nothing. He landed on Flowers’ hairless head with his legs straight and every claw extended. A moment later he had his front claws dug into Flowers’ skull while his rear claws gouged deeply into the man’s face.
“Gerrof!” Flowers screamed. He pulled Max away and threw him onto the floor.
By now I had retrieved Lord Newford’s pistol and was pointing it at Flowers. I had hoped for a repeat of my experience with Schrödinger but Flowers was made of sturdier material. There was no look of dismay on his blood-covered face. Instead he smiled.
Chapter XXXI:
Flowers’ Threat – Sarah’s Sang Froid
“Now what do you think you’re going to do with that shooter, young fellow me lad?” Flowers said. “Best you put that down before someone gets hurt.”
I tried, unsuccessfully to stop my arm from shaking. “Get out,” I said.
“Not bloody likely mate.”
“I mean it.”
“No you don’t. Little Nancy boy like you, you’ve never done a bit of rough work in your life. Here, I’ll make it easy for you. You put that gun down and I won’t carve up your lady friend like a Christmas goose.” His right hand moved slowly beneath his vest and came out holding a bone-handled straight razor whose hollow-ground blade would not have looked out of place in Sweeney Todd’s barber shop. Flowers flicked the razor’s blade toward Sarah who recoiled against the passenger door with an expression of disgust, rather than fear. With a smile still playing on his lips, Flowers began a series of snakelike feints toward her, each one coming closer to her face.
So I shot him.
I remember reading somewhere that the reason for Britain’s success as a colonial power had less to do with the prowess of its occupying soldiers than with the steely resolve of the women who went with them.
If so, Sarah was a true daughter of the empire. Without so much as a grimace of distaste, she reached over and opened the drivers’ door. With her feet on Flowers’ torso and her back pressed against the passenger door, she pushed his bloody corpse out onto the road. She even gave him the benefit of an epitaph, if the words “good riddance” can be so described.
I clambered into blood-soaked driver’s seat and handed the pistol to Sarah. “Would you mind shooting Fox?” I asked as I backed the van out of the crossroads.
“It would be my pleasure,” she said, pulling back on the hammer spur of the Adams revolver. “Hold still would you?” She opened the passenger door and braced herself against the door post. I waited, but there was no discharge. “Bloody poltroon has gone to ground,” she said.
“Well we can’t stick around,” I said. “Fire a shot through his car’s boiler and let’s get out of here.”
There was a thunderous crack followed by a rush of escaping steam that shrouded the sedan in a cloud of vapor. A moment later we were on our way to London.
Chapter XXXII:
Back at Schrödinger’s Esoterica – Percy’s Invitation
You might be wondering how I was feeling, now that I had launched a new career as a murderer. After all, I was new at the trade. The fact is, I felt astonished at myself rather than remorseful. I could understand not being sorry since I had been protecting Sarah, but how to explain my heightened sensations? I noticed everything on the way back to London. Every bird song, every smell, every color. It was almost as though I had come awake for the first time in my life. I hoped it was nothing more than a post-traumatic high. There was no way I wanted to become some kind of inter-dimensional Ted Bundy.
I put my anxieties aside to concentrate on the task at hand. We needed a place to hide out since that is what wanted fugitives do. We talked it over and decided to go to Schrödinger’s shop since there was probably a key to the place hidden somewhere in the van.
But nothing in life is ever easy. There was some kind of a notice on the front window of Schrödinger’s when we got there. We couldn’t read it from the van and we couldn’t get out in our blood-soaked clothing so we had to look for a change of dress in Schrödinger’s theatrical trunk. I finally settled on the black trousers and stiff-fronted white shirt from his stage costume while Sarah made do by wrapping herself in his scarlet-lined cape.
The sheet of paper on the door turned out to be an eviction notice which put a stop to our plans to use the place as a hideout. The last thing we needed was to be found on the premises when the bailiffs showed up. I can’t speak for Sarah but I was overwhelmed with an overpowering feeling of weariness. We were filthy and hungry and we had run out of options.
“Well there’s no point waiting around here,” I said finally. I turned back to the van when someone called to me from the other side of the street.
“Oy Bob, is that you? What you doing dressed like that?”
It took me a moment to recognize Percy, the hall boy from Newford house. It was only a short time since I had last seen him but he looked different. His hair was longer and he walked with the swagger of a young man. His eyes widened in disbelief as he caught sight of my companion.
“Lady Sarah?”
“It’s Mister Cowan, isn’t it?” Sarah said, as though there was nothing unusual about encountering one of her family’s servants on a disreputable East End London street. “You are one of the staff at our house.”
“Not any more I ain’t. They gave us all the sack when Lord Newford was called to the country.”
“Oh I am sorry.”
“That’s all right. I’d had just about all I could stomach of that bugger Coates anyway. Working on the docks now, ain’t I? So what’s all this about then?” he continued, taking in the disheveled state of our clothing and the battered wreck that was now Schrödinger’s van. “I’d say by the looks of things you two have run into a spot of bother.”
“You might put it that way,” I said. I gave him a highly censored version of our recent adventures, leaving out the fact that I had killed a man.
“Sounds like you need a place to duck and dive,” he said.
“If you mean hide out, you’re right.”
“You could stay at my mum’s. We got an extra room now that my brother’s gone for a soldier.” He stopped and looked dubiously at Sarah. “It ain’t fancy mind, and there’s only one bed.”
“I can sleep in the van,” I said.
Chapter XXXIII:
Percy’s Mum – The Truck Gang – Sarah’s New Career
Percy’s mum glared at me as though I were the sole cause of Sarah’s sorry state which I felt was unfair. The major cause, yes, but not the sole cause. “Get them clothes off this instant Lady Sarah,” she said. “I expect I can find something to fit you while I get ‘em clean.” She made no reference to the fact that Sarah’s clothes were covered with blood spatters. They play by different rules in The East End.
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Cowan,” Sarah said. “And please, just Sarah.”
“And you can call me Edith dear,” Percy’s mum gave her a reassuring pat before turning to Percy and me. “What are you two idle devils doing hanging about? Go make yourselves useful. You can start by putting that van in the shed.”
“Sorry about mum having a go at you,” Percy said as we pushed Schrödinger’s van into a wooden shed facing the lane behind the Cowan family’s row house. “She means well.”
“Your mother is an angel Percy,” I said. “She can talk to me any way she wants.”
Percy reddened at the compliment and I had the unfamiliar sensation of having said the right thing.
Edith Cowan was a woman with maternal instincts of Olympian proportions. She welcomed Sarah as her surrogate daughter and me as us as her ne’er-do-well son who needed constant watching. She never so much as hinted we owed her anything but Sarah and I were determined not to impose any extra financial strain on the already-meager resourc
es of the Cowan household. At first we paid our share from Sarah’s dwindling supply of money but it soon became obvious we would have to get jobs.
Finding employment was relatively easy for Sarah. She had been taught needlework by a series of governesses so she was soon sub-contracting work from local seamstresses.
For me, it was a different story. As you may have gathered, my education had not provided me with many saleable skills. I finally convinced Percy to introduce me to his foreman on the St. Katherine's Dock in spite of his doubts as to whether I was ‘the right sort of bloke’ to be working there.
Once I got to know the docks, I couldn’t imagine what he thought the ‘right sort of bloke’ might be. The dockworkers I met included decayed and bankrupt butchers, bakers, publicans and grocers; discharged soldiers, sailors, almsmen and lawyers' clerks; Polish refugees, broken-down gentlemen, servants and thieves.
Whatever his background, a dockworker’s day was long, hard and dangerous. I once saw a deal porter slip on a gangway while carrying a bundle of planks on his shoulder. The bundle burst and landed on top of him as he floated face down in the fetid water. By the time his mates fished him out, he was dead. They stretched a scrap of canvas over his sodden corpse and continued unloading the ship. Who came to collect him and where they took him, I cannot say.