Wild Boy and the Black Terror

by Rob Lloyd Jones

“Clarissa?”

  Finally she looked up. Her eyes were pink, and salty tracks of tears stained her cheeks. He hoped she might jump up and hug him. He needed her to. But she simply gave a weak, flickering smile, like a flame struggling to stay alight, and returned her gaze to the floor.

  Wild Boy understood now why Dr Carew had sounded unsure when he said she’d recovered. Whatever Clarissa saw when the terror struck had almost broken her. He tried to think of something to say, some way to help her.

  “We did it, Clarissa,” he said. “We got the black diamond.”

  No reply. Did she even hear him?

  “Dr Carew said the terror is still in us, just a bit,” he said. “Said maybe we’ll still see some of them bad things. I … I saw the freak show. I was back there again, alone. Did you see your mother?”

  Clarissa’s fists clenched so tightly that her nails drew blood from her plams. “No,” she said softly. “I didn’t see nothing.”

  At any other moment, on any other day, seeing Clarissa like this would have crushed Wild Boy’s heart. But right then, as he felt his pocket, a realization struck him so hard that he felt as if it had punched right through him, bursting his lungs.

  He checked his other pocket, then checked both again, making sure he wasn’t mistaken. Praying he was.

  He wasn’t.

  The black diamond. Oberstein’s black diamond.

  It was gone.

  23

  “Wanna go for a walk?” Clarissa said.

  Her hand was as shaky as her voice as she reached for Wild Boy to help her from the floor. Her fingers gripped his as if she was hanging from the edge of an abyss.

  Across the workshop, Dr Carew looked up from his notes. “Where are you two going?”

  Spencer’s gaze turned from the fire, stormy eyes watching from behind his cracked stone mask. He seemed to be on the verge of rising, or perhaps even speaking. Wild Boy sensed that he, too, wanted them to stay close.

  Even more reason to leave.

  They walked from the workshop and through the museum’s long exhibition chamber. Strips of fading daylight shone through cracks in the window shutters, spotlighting wax statues arranged in strange, imaginary scenes. On one plinth, the Duke of Wellington planted a signature boot on a prostrate Napoleon Bonaparte. On another, the French queen Marie Antionette wore a silver-sequined mask. Courtiers danced around her disguised in cloaks and black-beaked masks. Beside them, Queen Victoria took tea with Henry VIII, the warlord Genghis Khan and the famous opera singer Jenny Lind.

  Wild Boy stared at the statue of the Queen, remembering his excitement when she asked him to investigate this case: the thrill of the mystery and the prospect of solving it. He’d hoped that he and Clarissa would be allowed to stay in the palace for as long as they wanted. Only, he’d made a mess of it so far.

  Marcus was still alive, but the black diamond was gone.

  He didn’t even know how. It had been in his pocket – deep in his pocket – after the crash in the tunnel. It had been safe.

  He looked back along the exhibition chamber at the flicker of firelight from the museum workshop. Had someone stolen it while he was unconscious? Apart from Clarissa, only three people had been near him in that time: Dr Carew, Spencer and Gideon.

  Was one of them the killer?

  It would make sense. The killer was trying to resurrect the demon Malphas, or at least that’s what the killer thought would happen when the four diamonds of the Black Terror were reunited. But one diamond was still missing, the largest of the stones. Oberstein had no idea where it was, so Wild Boy doubted the killer did either.

  The killer still needed their help.

  But he wouldn’t get it. If the killer was acting out Lord Dahlquist’s curse, that meant he planned to spread his terror across all of London. Wild Boy couldn’t let that happen, not even to save Marcus. The only hope was to get that last stone and use it to catch the killer, and then make him give them the cure. They needed a new plan. But Wild Boy’s mind was so foggy he could barely think.

  The chamber darkened as they reached the last statues. These were raised higher than the others, to give the impression that they were leering down at visitors. A sign on the wall was scrawled in crimson writing to look like blood:

  Here were models of Britain’s most notorious criminals: the crazy-eyed witch, Mother Shipton, grinning body snatchers Burke and Hare, and the murderous barber Sweeny Todd, slashing the air with his rusty razor.

  On the highest plinth stood a monster covered in hair. The creature looked like a werewolf, with blood-red eyes and vicious, curling claws. The sign on its stand said:

  Wild Boy and Clarissa stared at the figure. A few days ago they’d have found it funny. They would have blasted it with spitballs, or swapped its clothes with another wax statue. They’d always laughed about those plays in penny theatres – The Savage Spectacle of Wild Boy.

  But things were different now. This statue and those plays were the reason they had relied so heavily on Marcus’s protection. They were the reason why, if Marcus died, Wild Boy would have to leave Clarissa. She could do anything. But for him there was only one other place.

  Wild Boy closed his eyes as dark memories flashed through his head, glimpses of swooping crows and freak-show walls. It was the Black Terror, still affecting his mind, as Dr Carew had warned.

  Clarissa reached to him but pulled away and stepped back. “I’m sick of this,” she fumed.

  She shoved the model so hard that it toppled from its stand and thumped to the floor. “Even if we do get the cure, no one will thank us. They’ll still make up stupid stories about you.”

  “I don’t care about those people, Clarissa.”

  “Me neither.” She punctuated each sentence by kicking the model on the floor. “All I care about is Marcus. He’s the only one I’m giving the cure. Everyone else can get the terror for all I care.”

  Her last kick was so hard that the statue’s marble eyes fell out and rolled across the floor. She stood over it, breathing hard. “Why are we even here? We’ve got the black diamond. How do we swap it for the cure?”

  There was no point in delaying it any longer, and no good way to say it. Wild Boy had only put it off because he feared her reaction. He breathed in, braced himself. “We ain’t got it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Oberstein’s diamond. It was in my pocket. It was safe.”

  He expected her to explode, to swear and punch the other statues. Instead Clarissa fell silent and glared towards the workshop. When she finally spoke it was barely a whisper.

  “Someone took it,” she said.

  She marched back along the exhibition chamber.

  “Where you going?” Wild Boy called.

  “To beat a confession out of one of them.”

  Wild Boy shouted after her, but she didn’t stop. He didn’t know if anything he said would make a difference anymore. Clarissa’s anger had never scared him like it did then. They had always acted tough, but the terror – whatever she had seen – had turned her rage into something deeper. It was as if it had put out a light inside her and lit a darkness.

  He picked up the statue and stood it on its plinth. As he stared into its empty eyes he realized that he’d never felt so sad, not even in the freak show. Back then he had nothing. Now, he had so much to lose. And he was losing it, minute by minute.

  For Clarissa, for Marcus, for himself – he had to find the last black diamond.

  24

  “So which of you is the killer?” Clarissa demanded.

  Wild Boy raced back to the workshop, relieved to see that she hadn’t started swinging her fists. He was certain that Clarissa’s threat to beat a confession out of one of these men was serious. But it would be a wasted effort. Whoever was behind this was too determined and too crazy to give up merely from the threat of force.

  In her anger, Clarissa hadn’t noticed that Gideon was still not here. Spencer and Dr Carew sat beside the fire and its cauldron of wax
, together but alone. As Clarissa strode closer, the doctor gave a frightened shriek. Spencer didn’t react. Still he stared into the flames, breathing heavily into the back of his broken mask.

  The workshop door burst open with a swirl of snow. Gideon hurried in from outside, muttering and grumbling. He stamped ice from his boots and shook snow from his hat and coat. Grazes on his face from the tunnel crash had turned pink from the cold.

  “Where have you been?” Clarissa asked.

  “Fetched the carriage,” Gideon said. “Between here and Oberstein’s place, I counted ten Black Hats and around thirty coppers, all banging on doors looking for us. People saying the Wild Boy of London’s on the loose again. Just like old times, eh?”

  Clarissa marched so close that flecks of her spit hit Gideon’s cheeks. “You think this is funny? We ain’t got the black diamond no more. So we ain’t got no deal with the killer, and Marcus is gonna die.”

  Gideon hadn’t been smiling. He was now, but without the remotest trace of humour. “I’ve served Marcus for sixteen years, missus,” he said. “I owe that man more than you’ll ever know. So no, I don’t find any of this funny.”

  He slid off his coat and spread it beside the fire to dry. Wild Boy noticed black smears on his fingers.

  “Oil,” Gideon explained, quickly wiping his hand on his necktie. “Had to fix one of the carriage wheels where it hit the lamp post outside Oberstein’s.”

  Wild Boy thought back to the events on Bond Street. Scenes from that morning flashed through his mind, perfectly frozen moments of time. He saw Gideon riding the carriage. Gideon tumbling off. Gideon grappling with Oberstein’s guard. But he didn’t see the carriage wheel striking the lamp post.

  Wherever Gideon had gone, he’d been drinking. Wild Boy could smell the whisky on his breath even from across the fire.

  “Do you really believe one of us took the diamond?” Dr Carew said.

  “One of you is the killer,” Clarissa replied. “Planning on spreading your terror all over London too.”

  “It’s possible,” Gideon grunted. “Only how do we know it ain’t one of you two?”

  “It ain’t us,” Clarissa said. “We’re the good ones.”

  “That so? You’re the only one that walked out of Lady Bentick’s dinner without the terror. Funny that. Or fishy, more like.”

  “The killer gave me a note,” Clarissa insisted. “Told me to leave the dining room.”

  “Yeah?” Gideon asked. “Where’s that note then?”

  “I threw it on the fire.”

  “That’s convenient, ain’t it?” He cast a beady eye at Wild Boy. “You think this too, eh?”

  Wild Boy stepped beside Clarissa, making it clear where his allegiance lay. He didn’t trust any of these men; any one of them could be the killer. Gideon and Dr Carew were both at Lady Bentick’s mansion when the killer struck, and the doctor knew about poisons. But Dr Carew hadn’t been in Oberstein’s showroom when she got the terror.

  What about Spencer? He still hadn’t spoken, but he could speak. Wild Boy had seen behind his mask, too. Burn scars. He remembered Oberstein’s story of how Lord Dahlquist’s body was burned by the British soldiers. And then it disappeared.

  The only thing Wild Boy knew about Spencer was what he saw in his eyes. It was the same lost look he’d seen on performers at the freak shows, those who had suffered the hardest pasts. The look of someone haunted by memories. Spencer wasn’t just sad about what happened to Oberstein. Something else troubled him. Something deeper.

  Wild Boy doubted he’d get answers by asking politely. But a few less polite words might provoke Spencer into giving something away. And no one was less polite than Clarissa.

  He signalled to her with a nod, and she understood. Her eyes lit up, delighted at the prospect of a quarrel. She stepped closer to Spencer.

  “What about you, masked man?” she said. “I know you can hear me. How’d you get them burns on your face? Maybe when you stole Lord Dahlquist’s body from the fire. That’s how Oberstein knew so much about the Black Terror, isn’t it? You’re one of Dahlquist’s pals, ain’t you?”

  Spencer’s rose. The mask’s leather straps creaked as he shook his head.

  Clarissa shook hers too, mocking him. “Of course you’d deny it,” she continued. “I would too if I knew that crazy bloomin’ killer.”

  “Enough!” Spencer roared.

  His voice carried an accent, but it was too muffled by the mask to place.

  “So you do speak,” Clarissa said.

  Spencer’s eyes darkened and swirled, the storm gathering. Then he rose and marched from the workshop. Moments later, thumps and crashes echoed from the museum’s exhibition chamber as he took his anger out on the wax statues.

  “Well,” Gideon said. “You ruffled his feathers. How about Dr Carew here?”

  “How about you, Gideon,” Clarissa said.

  Gideon sneered. “This’ll be good. So how am I the killer then?”

  “You rushed off from here awful quick. Maybe you stole the diamond and went to hide it.”

  “I said I fetched the carriage.”

  The carriage, Wild Boy thought. “At Lady Bentick’s House, your carriage was outside but you weren’t. Where were you?”

  “That all you got on me?”

  “What about that pistol in Oberstein’s shop? Loaded it like you knew what you was doing. That ain’t part of usual coach driver’s training. But then you ain’t exactly a usual coach driver, are you Gideon? Your tattoo is from the army. When were you a soldier?”

  Gideon turned his neckcloth around his throat again, fidgeting, suddenly uncomfortable. “Don’t know what you’re taking about.”

  “I bet you don’t,” Clarissa scoffed.

  “You said Marcus saved you,” Wild Boy continued. “What does that mean? And what about that passage you marked in your Bible about sin and forgiving?”

  Gideon pulled so hard on his neckcloth that he choked, coughing into the fire. He looked away, refusing to answer.

  They had pushed him far enough, Wild Boy decided. Whether or not Gideon was in the army, and whatever his past with Marcus, neither might have anything to do with this case. He turned away, but Gideon’s next words made him stop and turn back.

  “Anyway,” Gideon muttered, sitting by the fire, “this is about Lord Dahlquist, not me. I ain’t got nothing to do with some village in south-east India.”

  A shiver ran through Wild Boy’s hair. “What did you just say?”

  “I said you better back off.”

  “No. You said ‘village in south-east India.’”

  “So what? I heard it off Oberstein.”

  “No. She said south-west.”

  “How could you possibly remember that?” said Dr Carew.

  “Cos that’s what I do,” Wild Boy replied. “Marcus said you’ve been in India, doc. Where’s that village where Dahlquist killed all them people?”

  “Kollur?” Dr Carew said. “It’s close to Golkonda, an important mining community, in which—”

  “Just tell us where, doc.”

  “The south-west. I suppose Madam Oberstein was wrong.”

  “Yeah,” Wild Boy said, “and Gideon just got it right.”

  Gideon jabbed the fire with a stick, staring hard into the flames. If there had been a smile on his face a moment ago, now it was replaced by something like sadness. He brought his pipe from his coat pocket, but his hands shook too hard to open the tobacco pouch. “That don’t mean nothing,” he said. “What about Dr Carew? Ain’t you gonna quiz him too?”

  The doctor slid back from the fire as if he’d been burned. “Me?” he said, laughing nervously. “I hardly think you need consider me in your investigation.”

  “What are you writing in that notebook?” Clarissa asked.

  “A record of the terror’s symptoms. It is our only hope of developing a cure should we fail to apprehend the killer.”

  “How long did you live in India, doc?” Wild Boy said.


  The doctor shot a look over his shoulder; that same panicked reaction Wild Boy had noticed before, as if he was contemplating an escape. When he spoke again it was with fresh confidence, as if he’d found the answer among the shadows.

  “I would appreciate it if you would stop calling me ‘doc’,” he said. “I am a trained medical physician, educated at Cambridge and with senior residencies at hospitals in London, Paris and Bombay.”

  “Bombay. That near Dahlquist’s village?”

  “It is not.”

  “What’d you do there, then?” Clarissa stepped closer. “Doc?”

  “I specialized in rare diseases, Miss Everett. I watched people die in the most appalling ways. I witnessed atrocious levels of suffering. It is my duty as a doctor, a gentlemen and a Gentleman to find cures for such misery. That is why I am here, whether you happen to like it or not.”

  He dipped his quill in his inkpot. “Besides,” he added, “it seems to me that your energies would be better spent locating the last black diamond. Then, perhaps, we will have a chance of getting the killer’s cure.”

  “Ha!” Gideon said. He finally managed to fill his pipe and patted the tobacco into its bowl. “Answer that, mister detective.”

  Wild Boy didn’t hear. He stared at the loose tobacco that sprinkled from Gideon’s pipe. Everything else disappeared from his world as he watched the brown strands flutter to the floor.

  “Tobacco…” he said.

  His eyes lit up, bright and shining with excitement. How could he have not realized? His mind had been so foggy that he’d not been able to see the signpost, the obvious clue he’d missed.

  “You just worked something out, ain’t you?” Clarissa said.

  He had. Right then he knew exactly where to find the last black diamond. He knew how to get it, and how to use it to catch the killer.

  “Me and Clarissa better be off now,” he said.

  “Really,” Dr Carew said, “it is best that we remain together.”

  “That’s right,” Gideon said. “If one of us is the killer, then we gotta settle that. If that ain’t the case, we gotta solve who is.”