‘He’s not deaf and dumb, Oliver, he’s a mute! He can hear perfectly well, and he can still write down what he knows, or what he’s seen,’ Quaint said determinedly, ensuring that he kept his previous visit with Prometheus secret. He had no wish to get Constable Marsh into any hot water. ‘My crew have already gleaned quite a bit of information about what occurred on the night that Twinkle was murdered, but I need Prometheus to fill in the gaps.’
Dray stroked at his temples. ‘Well, why don’t you start by telling me what you do know? Stuff you can prove, I mean…not just your opinion.’
Quaint nodded resolutely: ‘Very well. Last night my colleagues and I visited The Black Sheep public house not far from this very station. If you check with the landlord he will confirm that on the night of the murder, my circus strongman was drinking with his lover—the female dwarf who now lies in your mortuary.’
‘A concise recap for the latecomers,’ Dray grunted. ‘What else?’
‘The landlord told me that on the night of Twinkle’s murder, an Irish gentleman by the name of “Hawkspear” paid him to give my circus strongman a bottle of whisky. The whisky contained a drug that would have probably killed a smaller man. As it goes; it merely rendered him unconscious.’ Quaint paused, watching Dray’s expression closely. ‘Surely that is enough information to prove that Prometheus wouldn’t have been in a fit state to do anything— especially murder the woman he loved. Arthur Peach’s admission will surely absolve my employee, and I urge you to trigger a manhunt for this Hawkspear fellow, at least.’
‘Arthur Peach…yes, I know of the man. A sly one up to his neck in smuggled tobacco and cheap whores,’ said Dray with a nod. ‘All right…if what you say can be substantiated, and Peach will talk to us…maybe I’m prepared to delve a little bit into this—but on my terms, Cornelius. I won’t have you influencing this investigation. You stay well away from now on. Just let us do our jobs. I’ll have someone go to the Sheep and look into what you say. But if Peach denies everything, what are you going to do then, eh?’
‘He won’t deny it, Oliver,’ said Quaint assuredly. ‘I believe I made a convincing argument for him to peddle his honesty to you.’
‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ Dray said, shuffling distractedly with some files on his desk. ‘But until then, your mate stays locked up in our cells and no one sees him unless I’m satisfied.’
‘Well, you might not get very satisfied without me. Look, just let me speak to Prometheus for five minutes, Oliver, please…I can help.’
‘You can get involved, you mean,’ Dray snapped. ‘It’s just like the old days, eh? I’ve not set eyes on you for twenty years, and you haven’t changed a bit. You’re still poking your nose into matters that don’t concern you. I’ve told you—I don’t want you anywhere near this investigation, and that’s my final word. Now, Sergeant Berry will escort you out.’
‘Commissioner Dray, if you please,’ Madame Destine interrupted. ‘Surely you are more concerned with justice than arguing with a man you have not seen for twenty years,’ she said. Each word was energised with a devilish whiplash and Dray suddenly fell silent. ‘Now, admittedly…Cornelius may be as stubborn as a mule, but he speaks the truth. He can help you solve this case. More importantly, he can help our friend Prometheus. By allowing us audience with him, we may just learn something that can shed more light on this unfortunate affair. Would that not be a more preferable outcome than what you currently have?’
Dray was sizzling in his seat, his face beetroot red. Horace Berry looked over at the man, almost expecting to see steam rising from his collar, but somehow Destine’s words seemed to penetrate his hard exterior, and the blustering Scot’s temper waned.
‘Commissioner,’ said Sergeant Berry, raising his hand. ‘Perhaps we should let Mr Quaint and Miss Destine see their friend, just in case a friendly face will make the man share a bit more information,’ he said cautiously, like a man disturbing a grizzly bear’s hibernation with a sharp stick. ‘Lord knows our constables aren’t having much joy. It can’t do any harm, can it?’
Dray folded his arms tight against his chest. ‘I knew if I ever set eyes on you again things would go potty, Cornelius. I don’t know how much information you can expect to glean from a man who can’t utter a word, but I have to admit…I haven’t the foggiest where else to begin. I think it’s high time your employee told us the whole story, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Commissioner,’ agreed Quaint. ‘I rather think it is.’
A few minutes later, Commissioner Dray grabbed the cell block keys, and strode down the long corridor that led from his office to the cells. Quaint and Madame Destine walked behind him in silent thought, and Sergeant Berry brought up the rear.
‘You can have ten minutes with your mate and no more, Cornelius, and you can thank Horace here for that,’ Dray said quietly into Quaint’s ear. ‘My job’s going to be well and truly shot if this goes any further than this district, and if your monster has jeopardised my career—he’ll hang for it, I swear.’
‘Always an open mind, eh, Oliver?’ Quaint said, as he clamped his hand firmly on Dray’s shoulder, making the Scotsman’s heart miss a beat. ‘You’re going to have to start entertaining the fact that maybe you’re wrong on this one—and you’re going to have to start thinking like that pretty damn soon. Your ignorance is your greatest weakness.’
‘And your stubbornness is yours,’ parried Dray.
Quaint grinned. ‘Well, you know what I’m like.’
‘I’d forgotten,’ said Dray, rolling his eyes.
‘I admit, perhaps sometimes my mouth gallops ahead of my brain.’
‘I’ll say! Every time you speak it’s like a ten-gun salute. You’ve only got two settings, Cornelius—explosive and bombastic! You don’t know subtlety. It’s not in your blood is it?’
‘Maybe so,’ said Quaint, as he drew a breath through clenched teeth. ‘But then, neither is giving up on a friend of mine when he’s in trouble.’
Dray unlocked the cell door, and it swung open with a grinding screech of metal against stone. The quartet stared into cell, their eyes adjusting to the darkness slowly and, one by one, they looked to each other for an explanation. An open-mouthed Sergeant Berry looked to Dray, who scowled at Quaint, who in turn then shot a perplexed squint towards Destine. A veil of silent confusion suddenly fell over them.
The cell was completely empty.
Prometheus’s discarded woollen cap, lying on the floor next to the iron-grated window and piles of rubble, was the only sign that he had ever been there at all.
CHAPTER XVI
The Strongman’s Escape
THE SMALL, BARRED grate that had served as the only inlet for natural air and light in the cell had been forcibly ripped from its concrete moorings from the inside. The circus strongman known as Prometheus had escaped.
‘Remind me again of your employee’s innocence, Cornelius,’ seethed Oliver Dray.
‘There has to be some mistake,’ gasped Quaint. ‘He wouldn’t just—’
‘Oh, but he has. He won’t get far though, I promise you that,’ snapped Dray, as he turned on his heel, and barged past Destine and Quaint, dragging Berry with him in his wake.
Quaint squatted down onto his haunches and inspected the metal bars, discarded on the ground along with chunks of crumbled masonry from the wall. He looked to Destine for reassurance that what his eyes were recording was actually taking place, and he had not just set foot in a warped fantasy land. ‘So tell me, fortune-teller—did you see this coming?’ he asked.
Destine stood at his rear, her veiled face hiding her expression of surprise, but her silence told Quaint all he needed to know.
‘I see,’ grumbled Quaint. ‘What on earth is Prometheus doing? What does he think this will accomplish? Why would he be so stupid? If Dray didn’t already have a noose measured up for him, he will have by now. How the hell do we repair this damage?’ he said, peering at the window’s grate. ‘Hang on…what’s all this then?’ He lic
ked his finger, and gingerly touched the tip of one of the iron bars. He yelped, and withdrew his hand quickly. ‘Well, well,’ he said under his breath.
‘What’s all what, Cornelius?’ Destine asked.
Quaint ignored her, and stood up sharply. ‘I knew there was more to this than met the eye!’ he proclaimed, and approached Destine. She froze as he placed his arm on her shoulder, and plucked something from the tight bun at the back of her head. ‘Ah, perfect, Madame. Thank you!’ he snapped excitedly, and squatted back down onto his knees, inspecting the grate.
‘Cornelius…I know you take great delight in perplexing me,’ Destine said, teasing her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘But what exactly are you doing with my hairpin?’
Quaint ignored her again, and began poking tentatively with the metal pin at the window’s grate in silence.
Destine tapped her foot on the floor. ‘The Commissioner will have mobilised his lynch mob by now, Cornelius,’ she said impatiently. ‘Whatever you are doing, it is costing us valuable time!’
‘I don’t think so, Madame, I think that—aha!’ exclaimed Quaint, skipping easily to his feet for a man of his age and stature. With a broad grin, he held the metal hairpin towards Destine’s face. ‘This mystery seems to have developed a new level of perplexity, Madame. Take a look!’ A thin, barely visible wisp of smoke trailed from the tip of the hairpin, stolen quickly by the wind that blew freely into the cell through the hole in the wall. ‘Well, what do you see?’ he beamed, like an eager child, proudly presenting a painting to his mother.
Destine lifted her veil and stared uncomprehendingly. ‘My eyes are not what they used to be. What exactly am I supposed to be looking at, may I ask?’
‘Madame, do you not see? Those bars were not simply wrenched from the wall by Prometheus’s strength alone. They have been eaten away! Look…eroded…by some sort of acid! It is burning the metal pin as we speak.’
‘Acid?’ asked Destine, beseeching Quaint’s impassioned eyes. ‘But how would Prometheus get hold of acid in a police station?’
‘Anyone’s guess. Perhaps there is a lot more to this than we had imagined.’ Quaint turned, and strode towards the open cell door. ‘Come, Madame, let us see what havoc Oliver’s causing upstairs.’
‘Perhaps we should keep this mystery to ourselves for the time being, Cornelius…I am no longer sure whom we can trust.’
With a crash, Quaint and Destine exploded through the thick set of double doors into the main station office and stared at the pandemonium before them. Commissioner Dray was holding court in the centre of the station as his men rushed about to and fro around him, obeying his every command.
‘Hurry it up, men! We don’t have all day. God knows when he decided to run for it. Didn’t anyone hear anything? There’s half a damn wall missing!’ Proving that rage can be a most powerful fuel, Dray yelled with the vigour of a man half his age. ‘Sound the alarm, I want that man found!’
As Quaint approached Dray and Sergeant Berry, he looked around the madhouse that was the station. Policemen were rushing everywhere in panic, their eyes to the floor, desperately trying to comply with Dray’s barrage of orders. Raised voices thronged the air, police whistles screamed and Commissioner Dray had Constable Tucker by his jacket lapels up against a wall.
‘When was the prisoner last checked, Tucker?’ Dray yelled.
‘Sir? The giant, you mean?’ said a flustered Tucker. ‘Well…he was given some breakfast I think, not too long ago.’
‘How long, lad?’ Dray demanded.
‘About an hour maybe,’ said the petrified Constable Tucker. ‘Could be a bit longer, I…I’m not sure. Why, what’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong, Tucker, is that he’s bloody absconded! Ripped the bleeding bars out of the damn wall, he did. Have you got cotton in your ears, son? Did you not hear anything?’ Dray demanded.
‘Why, Oliver…did you?’ asked Quaint, stepping up behind Dray.
The Scotsman shot a furious look over his shoulder. ‘You stay out of this, Cornelius, this is police business. Your friend just signed his own death warrant.’ He switched his stare back to his constable. ‘Tucker, get all the men we have available out on those streets right now. I want an immediate street by street search for the prisoner. Use whatever force necessary to restrain him and haul his arse back here, sharpish!’
‘Seven feet tall, with a bushy beard and muscles like an ox. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, Oliver, even for your men,’ Quaint said sarcastically, even though the situation clearly dictated against it. ‘Let me help. If Prometheus is anywhere nearby, or if he’s returned to our transport, we’ll find him. He is one of ours, after all.’
‘Oh, don’t think I’ve forgotten that. Just you make damn sure you bring him back here, Cornelius,’ Dray muttered, flattening back the lapels on Constable Tucker’s uniform. ‘Don’t go getting any funny ideas either! Your lot are going nowhere unless I say so, got it?’
‘Understood. But you needn’t waste your men’s time, Oliver. My train’s not going anywhere until this mess is straightened out,’ Quaint said, feeling Madame Destine’s fingers tighten around his arm like ivy around a drainpipe. She leaned towards his ear and tugged him firmly to one side.
‘Cornelius, we may have further need of this man, if your temper hasn’t burnt all our bridges,’ she reminded him. ‘So play nice. Exacerbating a grievance with the Commissioner will do us little good in exonerating Prometheus.’
The pair exchanged glances as between a school mistress scolding her favourite pupil. Quaint lowered his eyes, and turned sheepishly towards the Commissioner.
‘Look, Oliver…I am sure we’ll get a speedy resolution to this unfortunate business,’ he said, holding out his hand towards Dray. ‘It is a shame we could not meet under less…pressing circumstances.’
‘Cornelius…we both know what I owe you,’ said Dray, grasping Quaint’s open hand. ‘A long time ago, a world away from London—you saved my life. But this is just too big to sweep under the carpet. I’ve got no choice but to react with extreme measures. I have to do what’s right by the letter of the law—whether your friend is in the firing line or not! Now, off you go. And if you really want to help your friend…stay out of my way.’
CHAPTER XVII
The Twist of the Blade
RIGHT THEN, FELLAS, anyone got any questions?’ Mr Reynolds asked a roomful of distasteful-looking ruffians, all of them dressed in brown or grey ragged, grime-stained clothes practically the uniform of the common Victorian street criminal.
‘Yeah, I got one,’ said a broad-shouldered Cockney. ‘This Quint bloke—’
‘Quaint,’ corrected Reynolds. ‘Cornelius Quaint. What of him?’
‘Quaint, right,’ continued the broad-shouldered man. ‘You said he’s some sort of magician, so what’s your beef wiv’ ’im, then? What’d he do, saw yer wife in half, or summat?’
Reynolds grinned. ‘What a rum bunch you lot are. You mean you actually need to know what the bloke’s done before you do him over? What’s the world coming to when you can’t even find a reliably dishonest bloke to do a little roughing up? You’re getting paid, aren’t you?’ He clamped his hands over his eyes, and slid them down his face in frustration, distorting his voice. ‘You’re not knights of the bloody realm, fellas, you’re bad seeds. Rotten apples! Shouldn’t matter what he’s done. Maybe he’s killed my entire family, maybe he’s done nothing—it don’t matter! All you need to know is where he is and how heavy you need to get on him.’
‘We got it, boss,’ said another man, dressed in a scabby tan waistcoat with a fine mesh of grey stubble protruding from his jaw line. ‘No problem. How heavy do you want us to get on him?’
‘Dead heavy…I want you to make sure that he—’ Reynolds suddenly stopped mid-sentence as a doorbell clanged out around the house.
His eyes darted to the array of unscrupulous felons he had lined up in the house—the very same house that he had acquired since the unfortunate demise of its owner—
and he pondered, his options falling through his fingers as if he were trying to grasp water. He wasn’t expecting any callers, and he skipped over to the drawing room window, peering through the net curtains. Waiting outside, shifting his weight impatiently from one foot to the next was Constable Jennings.
‘Everyone stay in here, and don’t make a damn sound! It’s only the Peelers,’ said Reynolds to the shock of his audience. The men immediately shuffled around, looking like dumbstruck lemmings, anxiously searching for the nearest exit. ‘This one’s my contact. Just keep it shut, the lot of you, and we ain’t got a problem, right?’
Mr Reynolds opened the house’s front door cautiously, his face softening as he saw Constable Jennings. ‘Ah! Well, if it isn’t my favorite constable! To what do I owe the pleasure?’ he asked. ‘All is well, I trust?’
‘Good day to you, Mr Reynolds, sir,’ Jennings said, nodding politely. ‘No problem, it’s just…well, I can’t stop long, in case someone sees me, like, but I just thought you should know…that giant fella from the circus who we had locked up on account of them murders? Well, you’ll never guess what…he’s only gone and busted hisself out, hasn’t he? The boss is spittin’ feathers!’
‘I’ll just bet he is.’ Reynolds’s expression didn’t falter. ‘And where is Cornelius Quaint at this moment? Pulling his hair out, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Last I heard, him and some old French lady were heading back to Grosvenor Park station. I think that’s where his circus steam train is held.’
Reynolds’s expression quickly changed. ‘Did you say a French lady?’
‘Yes, sir. Quaint brought her along to the station. Apparently, she’s the circus’s fortune-teller or summink. Didn’t get a good look at her meself…her face was covered with a veil.’
Reynolds’s face became a stone-cold glacier as he advanced towards the young constable. ‘Say that again!’ he demanded.
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