Reaching forward, he grasped it by the handle to assess its weight. This must be the sword Mog found in the chest, he said to himself, remembering the story I’d told him about how I’d scared off the man from Calcutta.
He put it back, and sat down on the beam, dangling his legs over the edge. If he’d kicked out, he could have struck the biggest of the bells with his foot. He uncorked the rum bottle and took a small swig, closing his eyes as the burning liquid went down. But it made him feel better. Peering down, he could see the tower like a shaft falling away beneath him, to the platform he’d stood on a few minutes earlier. Just above him were massive beams to which the bells were attached, suspended from thick ropes to enable them to swing and chime. And decorative windows in the very top of the spire afforded him a view, six or seven feet above his head, of clouds pouring like smoke across the three-quarter moon. He leaned back against the wall by the little hidey-hole, adjusted the gun in his belt which was digging uncomfortably into his thigh, and soon found himself so comfortable and so tired that his eyes closed and his head sank, gradually, onto his shoulder.
I had no inkling who was holding me, their arm clamped over my mouth, and it was clear they weren’t going to reveal themselves until I stopped kicking. I was quite astonished to find myself not being beaten up: I’d expected worse, in fact. All that seemed to be happening was that a voice, which knew my name, was whispering to me not to shout out and not to panic.
“Mog,” it hissed, “you must listen. I’m not going to hurt you.”
When I stopped struggling, and he released his grip, I managed at last to turn and find out who the mysterious assailant was. I got quite a shock when, in the shadow, I recognized the extremely thin man I’d met in the Three Friends, who had told me the bosun’s address. What on earth was he doing here? I asked him as much.
“It’s a long story,” he whispered; “it’s going to take some time to explain.”
Something was fishy.
“You used to have a stammer,” I said.
“St-st-stammer c-c-comes and-g-goes,” he gulped.
I looked at him. My mouth was still in pain from having his hand clamped so tightly over it. Despite looking as if he were made of pipe cleaners, he was obviously very strong. He loomed beside me in the darkness like a pillar. A few yards away, Lash had his head down and his paws out in front of him, attacking a hunk of raw meat, which the thin man must have thrown him as a distraction.
“Who are you?” I challenged him.
“N-name’s C-C-Cricklebone,” he spluttered, “B-Bow Street.”
Now I understood. He wasn’t one of the villains, nothing to do with Flethick or His Lordship or the bosun or even the man from Calcutta. It began to make sense. He was spying on them in much the same way as I had been, and that’s why he’d been in the Three Friends the morning I’d dropped in. He was a kind of policeman: a Bow Street Runner.
Or, at least, he said he was.
Warily, I tried to find out more.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I might ask you the s-same k-k-question. How m-much do you m-m … know about all this?”
“Not enough,” I said, cagily. “Look, we mustn’t stay here. We’ve got to find Nick. And the men might come back. Or the man from Calcutta.”
“M-man from C-C —“ He began to chuckle, before he’d even finished his phrase. “M-man from … listen, M-Mog, I’ve a f-few surp-prises for you.”
“What sort of surprises?”
“Big ones.” He could detect my mistrust. “How can I prove to you who I am?” he said, his stammer apparently disappearing again. “We’ve been watching you and your friend for several days. Once we’d worked out that you were two people, not just one, we realized you might be able to help us. There are a lot of useful things I think you know — and one or two quite important things you don’t, as yet. What would you say if I told you there is no man from Calcutta?”
“Well, wherever he comes from! I don’t know. But he was hiding in this house, or at least I think he was — and he’s got a snake, and he killed Jiggs, and he tried to kill me.”
“I can see I’ve got some explaining to do,” said Cricklebone.
“Yes, you have,” I retorted. “And my friend Nick’s just been carried off in a cab by his Pa, the bosun, and I’ve got to find them before it’s too late.”
“I’m pretty sure I know where they’ll have gone,” Cricklebone said.
“What?” I was on my feet in a flash. “We’ve got to go after them!”
“I think we’d better go and meet someone first,” he replied, getting to his feet and towering over me like a bean plant.
“Lash,” I called. “Lash! Leave it and come here!”
We followed Cricklebone out into the lane. “You haven’t got a stammer, have you?” I accused him.
He turned to me. “D-d-dep-pends,” he stuttered, his eyebrows jerking.
“Depends on what?”
He didn’t reply. He was striding along ahead of us, his insect-like legs covering so much ground we had to run quite fast to keep up. He seemed to consist mainly of endless limbs, and the spread of his frock coat behind him made him look like a grasshopper standing up on its back legs.
“Where are we going?” I panted.
“You’ll see.”
“When can we go and find Nick?” I worried at him as I ran beside him. “Where is he? Do you really know? What are you going to do about that house? There was a dead man in the garden. Oh, where are we going?”
Suddenly, as we strode a dark lane leading toward the City, I heard a voice singing from beside a wall. I grabbed Cricklebone’s arm.
“Who’s that?” he called, stopping in mid-stride.
For all we could see, it might have been any old vagrant or pauper, lying in a gateway senseless with gin. But I knew the voice. I held on to Lash, wanting him to stay quiet.
“Well, bless me soul,” it suddenly piped up, and it was the Irish tramp Nick and I had met before, “a pair of fine gentlemen, and a handsome dog if I’m not mistaken.”
“He’s a drunkard,” I whispered to Cricklebone.
“Drunk I may be,” sang the tramp, “but not deaf, young sir! And not blind neither. Didn’t I just see a commotion and a riot going on in that house where the music plays? Where the music plays like heaven in a reed-flute. Magic music, now. And there they were, wicked men.” He shivered audibly. “Wicked men!”
“Did a hackney carriage go past here?” I asked him.
“Did it now? That it did, young sir! Shakin’ like a bag o’ bones, a carriage did go by, yes my young handsome sir, yes it did. And all towards the town I saw it go.” It sounded as if he were reciting a ballad, and for a moment I thought he might really not have seen the bosun’s cab at all. “From the house of the heavenly music, it came,” he continued in his tuneful way, “and past here, and along there.”
“Where did the wicked men go?” I asked.
“Past here, and along there,” he lilted again. “Now, to be sure, Nature has not lavished her gifts on me, but I can sing, fine sirs, sing like a lark, they tell me. Like a bird above the lough, sirs, a gift I have, they tell me. For just a penny, I’ll sing for you! Now this gentleman’s a long gentleman, and he’ll like a long song. But this other gentleman’s a little gentleman, and it’ll be a little ditty for him, to be sure! A penny for my song, fine sirs.”
“Come on,” Cricklebone said shortly, pulling me away, “he’s not making much sense.”
“No, wait,” I said, “he just wants money before he tells us anything. He’s — Mr. Cricklebone, wait, why don’t we just give him a penny? He might be able to —”
But Cricklebone was off, having evidently decided the man was as insane as he seemed. I had no choice but to leave him sitting there; and as I hurried after the spidery-legged policeman, with Lash following nonchalantly a few paces behind, I heard the voice behind me break into a song which struck me as uncomfortably familiar.
/> Ding, dong, ding, dong,
Here’s a sweet song,
Ding, dong, ding, dong,
Ere long, life’s gone.
“Who do we have to meet?” I asked Cricklebone, breathlessly, as he loped up the hill. But all I got in reply was a chuckle: until we came to a street corner close to the enormous west wall of Newgate prison. Here he stopped and consulted his fob-watch.
“Should be here by now,” he said, tucking the watch back into his waistcoat.
“Who should?”
Again, just a short chuckle by way of reply. What a maddening man! And how soon were we going to find Nick? I began to feel very uneasy, and to worry that this Cricklebone might very well be in league with the villains after all. What if this was a dreadful trap, and the person we were waiting for turned out to be His Lordship, or someone? I grew still more uneasy when he grasped me by the wrist; and when a shadow moved on the opposite side of the street he said, “There he is.”
I could hardly believe my eyes. The figure which ran across the street to meet us, cloaked in black, with his head down, and holding a hat to his head as he ran, was the man from Calcutta.
Cricklebone had tightened his grip on my wrist, sensing that the sight of the cloaked and hatted figure approaching us might make me want to break free and run; and I could tell that Lash’s hackles were up. But there was something not quite right. About the way he ran; about the shape of his head.
“Evening, Mr. Cricklebone,” said the man from Calcutta, coming up to us, “who’s this you’ve got here? A chimney sweep? Looks a bit startled, whoever he is.”
My mouth must have fallen open in astonishment. The man from Calcutta was speaking with a Scottish accent.
“Young man by the name of Mog,” Cricklebone said in a low voice. “Found him at the old house in Clerkenwell. The bosun’s gone off with his companion in a cab.”
“Have you told him anything?”
“He probably knows most of it. Mog, may I introduce Mr. McAuchinleck of Bow Street, sometimes known as Dr. Hamish Lothian, sometimes known as Damyata. I think you’ll find he means you less harm than good.”
I stared at the newcomer. Under the streetlight I could see his face: he wore a long, pointed mustache, and his eyes shone white in contrast to the dark skin around them. But his features were completely the wrong shape. The curving nose was smaller and narrower than I remembered it; the forehead was undistinguished, with wisps of pale hair blowing across it; and the lower part of his face seemed less brown than the rest. Chasing around in the darkness, I’d been completely convinced by Damyata in his long coat, with his bright white eyes. But, in proper light, it was clear he didn’t look as though he came from Calcutta at all.
“I’m sorry about the disguise, Master Mog,” McAuchinleck said, “but it certainly fooled enough people, yourself included.” As he spoke, one half of his black mustache fell out of place, and he had to reach up to adjust it. When he took his hand away again, he’d left a pale smudge under his nose where the brown makeup had come off on his finger.
I could hardly speak for astonishment. I felt like an idiot. How could I have been taken in by this? It wouldn’t have fooled anybody.
“You mean the — the man from Calcutta — you’re the — there is no man from Calcutta?” I squeaked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“B-but the snake! Was it you who sent that snake after me?”
“There was no snake,” said the man in the makeup, with a patronizing chuckle. “Listen, Mog, there’ll be plenty of time for explanations later. Let’s just say that everything you’ve fallen for, the villains have fallen for too.”
“Mr. McAuchinleck has been quite convincing enough,” said Cricklebone. “But now, Mog, we need you to help us. We’ve got a list — which I’m afraid we stole from you — of the people we’re after.”
I started. “You took it? The papers from my treasure box? And all my other things?”
“Quite. Ah — sorry about that. You’ll get them back, Mog, I promise, but we had to make it look as though the villains had taken them. But the most important thing, Mog, is the camel. We don’t have the camel.”
I stared at them.
“The camel,” Cricklebone went on, “you know, the camel you took from the bosun, which he took from the Sun of Calcutta. The, er — brass camel.”
They were both looking at me expectantly.
“We need it,” McAuchinleck added, “as evidence.”
“But you’ve got it,” I told him, gibbering slightly.
They looked at each other.
“You stole it back from Mr. Spintwice’s,” I said, “didn’t you?”
“We were sure,” said McAuchinleck uncertainly, “that you still had it.”
The man was a fool. “Look,” I said, “the camel was hidden at Mr. Spintwice’s shop. You broke in, nailed the shopkeeper into a tea chest, and ran off with his camel.”
“Ah,” said McAuchinleck, taken aback.
“You mean you didn’t?”
“I didn’t.” He looked at Cricklebone. “Did you?”
Cricklebone gripped my shoulders, and bent to look right into my face. He had to bend virtually double, like a pair of tongs.
“Mog,” he said, “when did it disappear?” His voice had taken on a quiet urgency.
“Last night,” I told him. “Saturday. Late. Nick and I found Mr. Spintwice in a tea chest, and he said a foreign man with a mustache had nailed him in. And the camel was gone.”
“But you didn’t see the man? The foreign man? You’ve only got Spintwice’s word for it?”
“Well yes, I suppose we have,” I admitted, “but who else —”
“Mog, come with me,” Cricklebone interrupted, taking me by the hand again. He looked very worried. “We have to stop whoever it is from selling the camel or anything that’s in it.”
“It’s only flour,” I said.
“No, Mog, it certainly isn’t flour,” said Cricklebone with a grim, humorless laugh, “oh, it most certainly isn’t flour.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, “we swapped the powder for flour. At least, Mr. Spintwice did. So even if they took the camel, they wouldn’t have the stuff.”
Cricklebone’s jaw dropped open.
“It won’t take them long to find out,” said McAuchinleck, “and then someone’s going to get killed.”
Cricklebone stood for a moment, thinking. “Get rid of that disguise,” he said to the other policeman. “Burn it. And join me at the Three Friends with as many men as you can, in one hour’s time. You’d better come with me, Mog. But you do exactly as you’re told. And you keep the dog on a leash — the whole time. Do you understand?”
14
DEATH I
Our cab stopped at the entrance to a dark lane around the corner from the Three Friends. Lash lay quietly at my feet. On the way, Cricklebone had given me back the contents of my treasure box. He’d kept a few things, he said, because they hadn’t quite finished with them: but most of my precious things were there, including the bangle. Apart from this he’d said little, sitting upright in the cab with his cheeks sucked in so far he barely seemed to have a face at all. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him that I didn’t know which question to ask first: it seemed simpler to sit here in silence, clutching my treasures for dear life, the night’s events whirling almost meaninglessly in my tired head as we rattled through the grimy streets. When we stopped he peered out of the window.
“This is it,” he said, opening the door. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Stay very close, Mog, and very quiet.” He jumped out; I clambered down after him, and Lash flopped to the ground beside me. Still covered in soot from the chimney we’d hidden in, I must have been almost invisible as I followed him along the greasy cobbles towards the back of the Three Friends.
First we heard it, and then we smelled it. A hubbub of noise, laughter, and voices raised in anger, getting louder and softer as doors opened and closed. And a stench of old fi
sh, old cabbage, and maggoty scraps of meat which had been thrown out to the dogs in the yard or left to fester in the summer heat. There were lights on in the upper rooms of the tall, ancient inn, and it was clear that a great many people were crammed in, in a state of some excitement.
“Tie the dog up,” commanded Cricklebone shortly.
When I’d secured Lash, on a very short rein, to an iron ring in the inn wall, Cricklebone took me by the wrist and launched himself into a low-ceilinged passageway. Coughing slightly, as the odor changed to suggest horses, I followed his bent form until we reached a door on our right. Cricklebone had done his detective work: he probably knew every nook and cranny of this place. He led me inside.
Without actually being seen to arrive, we’d appeared among the crowd in the taproom, as if by magic. It was roasting hot in here. People were drinking, and laughing, in animated little groups between us and the bar, standing so closely packed together that I thought I was going to be smothered. Cricklebone was trying to clear a route through the crush with polite “Excuse me’s.” He was ducking and nodding like an enormous goose, and he was being completely ignored.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I muttered, and pushed my way in front of him, squeezing and wriggling between the people who stood in our way.
“Nobody’s going to excuse you in a place like this,” I said over my shoulder to Cricklebone. “You just have to use your elbows.”
When I turned to move forward again, a man was blocking my way, glaring down at me. “Whatchoo mean by comin’ in ’ere muckin everybody up?” He held out his shirt sleeve to demonstrate a huge splotch of soot I’d inadvertently left on it. “Stripe me, stow makin’ everybody black.”
Printer's Devil (9780316167826) Page 21