Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

  Thomas woke in an alien bed, sat up, felt a stab of pain in his side and lay down again quickly. A familiar voice at his side said, ‘You’re still not bein’ stupid with knives, are you? Only Mister Lyle weren’t happy.’

  He half-turned his head and Tess slowly came into focus. ‘Where is this?’

  She sighed. ‘Stupid question.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, first you were all helpful, in a bigwig way, and then you got out this knife and decided to be all stupid and kill people, which were just bad. And you weren’t even very good at it, were you?’

  ‘Where ’s . . . Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Out,’ she said sharply. ‘But he says I’m to sock you if you do anythin’ bad.’ He realized Tess was holding the tube with the sharp wire antennae.

  He sat up, carefully, taking his time. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Too right!’ She frowned at him. ‘Why’d you do it?’

  ‘I don’t remember. It was a dream. I saw green eyes, the most beautiful eyes I’ve . . .’ He realized what he was saying and blushed. ‘And a voice. It was beautiful in my mind. I couldn’t argue with it.’

  ‘You’re mad!’

  ‘It’s all right!’ he said hastily as she stood up. ‘I’m feeling better now. It’s gone. It’s just like a dream. I didn’t know it was there before, but when I looked at Lyle and saw him working, the eyes and the voice were just everywhere, just . . .’

  She leant close towards him, and hissed in a conspiratorial voice, ‘You want to know what I think?’

  ‘What?’ he whispered in the same hushed, dreadful voice.

  ‘Do you believe in magic, bigwig?’

  Horatio Lyle was waiting. He stood, fingers twined together, on a bridge that spanned the purple-black Regent’s Canal, watching the dark water crawling towards the nearest lock. A barge passed underneath, laden with coal, black from its cargo. The lampman bumped his ladder across the bridge, pausing to light the lamp that hung on its support above and casting Lyle into a pool of yellow light that showed him to be the only person near the water. Lyle waited. After a while, he became aware of a black shadow standing a dozen or so yards away, keeping out of the light, watching him intensely. He smiled.

  ‘It’s you I’m waiting for,’ he called.

  The shadow slunk into deeper darkness.

  Lyle waited. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, though he had been concentrating for all he was worth, but nor did he jump when the man spoke at his shoulder. ‘Mister Lyle.’ There was a faint accent there, something foreign and mysterious. He didn’t turn to face the man in the crooked top hat.

  ‘You know my name. What ’s yours?’

  ‘Feng Darin.’

  ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mr Feng.’

  ‘If you are here to confront me, Mister Lyle, you are wasting your time.’

  ‘Why are you following me, Mr Feng?’

  ‘You are looking for the Fuyun Plate.’

  Lyle seemed surprised. ‘That was easy.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You just answered my question.’

  ‘Why should I not tell you something you already know?’

  Lyle smiled politely, and nodded. ‘If I turn to look at you properly, will you be offended?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well, then. Do you know where the Plate is?’

  ‘If I knew that, why would I follow you?’

  ‘What does the Plate do?’

  ‘What legend says it does.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How legend says it does.’

  ‘Forgive me for scientific doubt, but that hardly seems plausible. ’

  He felt the shrug behind him. ‘Be that as it may, it is the truth.’

  ‘What is the significance of the eyes?’

  ‘I do not know what you mean.’

  ‘I’ve been attacked twice today, by people acting as if hypnotized. They mentioned eyes. Why did they attack me?’

  ‘People will want to stop you getting the Plate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It has power.’

  ‘Oh yes, the cultural significance. Not to mention legend. Are you a Chinese spy, or is that really just a bit melodramatic?’

  ‘I am . . . was . . . Tibetan.’

  ‘Really?’ Lyle brightened. ‘Was?’

  ‘I serve a cause within China, not Tibet.’

  ‘That ’s rather interesting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re the first Chinese man I’ve met who serves a cause within China, rather than the Emperor. Will you stop me getting the Plate?’

  ‘That depends entirely on what you are planning to do with it. If you swear to hand the Plate over to me on recovering it, then I will not stop you.’

  ‘I can’t swear that.’

  ‘Then I cannot promise not to stop you.’

  Lyle sighed. ‘I thought you’d say that.’

  Quietly, Feng asked, ‘Can you find the Plate, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It is of paramount importance that you find it before they do. If they can find it and restore it to its original form, they will be unstoppable.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The Tseiqin.’

  ‘Oh yes, I should have guessed. Them,’ said Lyle in a dejected voice. ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe any of this, do you?’

  ‘You are an intelligent man, Mister Lyle. I hope you can believe whatever the truth happens to be.’

  Lyle frowned. ‘How do you mean, “restore” it?’

  ‘The Plate was damaged a long time ago - deliberately - to prevent the Tseiqin from using it for their intents. Now the time has come when they can repair it, as the time has never been right before. They will repair it by the iron that they revile. It is vital that they do not achieve this. You must not let them. We will kill to stop this, as they will kill to achieve it. They are watching you, Mister Lyle.’

  Lyle stared at the water, and ran his hands wearily through his hair. ‘This is horse manure,’ he muttered under his breath. Silence from behind. ‘Mr Feng?’ He turned and looked into darkness. Feng Darin was gone.

  ‘Just let me try to understand this. You say you saw me working and suddenly your head was full of green eyes and beautiful voices and you couldn’t resist their exhortations to murder.’

  Thomas thought about it. ‘Sir, I am so very sorry, I . . .’

  ‘He were bewitched, Mister Lyle,’ said Tess brightly. ‘Just like that other one.’

  ‘The other one?’ said Thomas weakly, feeling his heart trying to jump out of his chest.

  Lyle shot Tess a look. ‘Why is it I seem to go through life meeting stranger and stranger people who either threaten menace or actually charge at me with carving knives? Who are these people who just happen to have carving knives stashed in every pocket and sleeve?’

  ‘Mister Lyle, you carry chemicals and electric things and magnets an’ all,’ pointed out Tess in the best serious voice she could muster.

  ‘That is beside the point.’

  ‘Well, actually, it really ain’t, ’cos . . .’

  ‘Teresa!’

  They lapsed into silence. Finally Lyle said, ‘You’re certain you’re not feeling any murderous compulsions at the moment?’

  ‘No, sir!’

  ‘He might be rep . . . repress . . .’

  ‘Repressing, Teresa.’

  ‘Like he were when he come in!’

  Lyle stared thoughtfully into Thomas’s eyes, and Thomas met the gaze head on, standing up a little straighter and matching his stare with the full force of Elwick arrogance that he could muster, while inside his stomach churned and his elbows shook in his sleeves. At length Lyle said very quietly, ‘All right, lad, say I believe you.’

  ‘Lyle never believes no one,’ whispered Tess helpfully into Thomas’s ear.

  ‘Teresa! You are not assisting the situation!’

  ‘Just thought he deserved to know, Mist
er Lyle.’

  Silence. Thomas swallowed, feeling it drag at his self-esteem. At last Lyle said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it and it ’s probably bad. You don’t seem like the unstable kind, and nor did Mrs McVicar - and the fact that you both said the same thing is disturbing too. The letter that you brought from the Bank is written in your father’s hand, on your father’s paper, with your father’s seal, and I’m willing to swear that it isn’t a forgery. How is it possible that your father would deliberately choose to put into his vault a sarcophagus containing a thief?’

  Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but Lyle quickly raised a hand. ‘I know. It isn’t possible, or at the very least isn’t rational. But there have been a lot of people doing a lot of irrational things of late, and perhaps your father’s inexplicable action is one of those irrational things. Still, there’s a chance I might need you, lad, so I’m going to take the chance that what you say is true and that you’re not really a murderer in the making. If, though, you are lying, and if you attempt to hurt Teresa or myself, I swear that a massive electric shock will be the least of your worries. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Lyle smiled, stood up in a single, brisk movement, clapped his hands together and said, ‘Then let’s go and do a little detecting, shall we?’

  The evening had settled in for good, and now the only traces of light on the horizon were echoes of sunshine, and not the sunlight itself. The office was grand, all strange foreign wood, imposing portraits and, in one corner, a parrot that Tate growled at with unremitting hatred.

  ‘Mister Lyle, your request is an unusual one.’

  ‘Mr Granter, there are pressing circumstances.’

  ‘What sort of “pressing circumstances”, might one enquire, Mister Lyle?’

  Lyle hesitated. ‘Security of the realm.’

  ‘Dependent on the sale of lychees?’

  ‘Erm . . . yes.’

  Mr Granter looked from Lyle to Tess and finally to Thomas. The last made him sigh and relent. ‘Well . . . you are clearly a man of integrity.’ Thomas almost preened. When Mr Granter spoke, his eyes had been on him. Lyle tried not to seethe, the smile locked on his face.

  ‘You’re too kind, Mr Granter.’

  Behind the cattle-thronged, chicken-covered, pig-packed streets of Smithfield, paved with the inevitable consequence of pushing thousands of live animals in and out of the market every hour of the day, was a small tenement whose smell of ancient, mouldering fruit immediately identified it. ‘That one,’ said Tess, pointing a triumphant finger at the smallest, darkest, smelliest door, lit only by the lantern Thomas carried.

  ‘Right,’ said Lyle, striding up to it. He hammered a few times on the door, which opened a crack.

  A suspicious eye regarded him and a gruff voice said, ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘Mr Josiah?’

  ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘Special Constable Horatio Lyle.’

  The door started closing quickly again, but Lyle had put his foot into it. From behind the flimsy wood, Mr Josiah snapped, ‘I ain’t got nothin’ to do with your kind!’

  ‘Mr Josiah, I’m not here about anything you might have done. I just need to know where you sell your oranges.’

  ‘I ain’t talkin’ to you!’

  Lyle sighed. ‘Mr Josiah, I can get authority.’

  ‘And he can pay!’ piped Tess helpfully from behind him. The door opened an inch further. The eye returned.

  ‘You pay?’

  Lyle glared at Tess, but muttered grudgingly, ‘I suppose I can offer a couple of shillings for the information.’

  ‘What d ’you want to know?’

  ‘I need to know who you sell your tasty, fruity boiled oranges to, which streets and which clients.’

  The door opened a little wider. ‘Give me the money, an’ you can come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Half an hour later, Thomas realized he’d never been in London at this hour of night, not without a small army of servants to keep him safe, or unless he’d been to the theatre with his parents or his cousins or the girl from the estate in Hampshire he was supposed to marry. Though it was dark, he had to admit it was, in a strangely haunting way, almost attractively so. Each light seemed brighter and more vibrant for the thick dark surrounding it.

  ‘There’ll be fog tonight,’ muttered Tess, as the three of them huddled together under the lamps of Smithfield. Lyle didn’t answer, but Thomas immediately looked round at the streets leading into the market, searching for an oncoming tide of grey-ness up the narrow passages.

  Lyle had a map unfolded and was tracing a route along one of its anonymous black and white streets. ‘Primrose Hill?’

  Thomas glanced at the sheet of paper Mr Granter had given them. ‘Erm . . . no, sir, no clients on Primrose Hill, but there is a Mr Wedderburn on Oppidans Road, sir.’

  ‘No. Josiah doesn’t sell to anyone on Oppidans Road. His route skirts the top of Primrose Hill, then up along Fellows Road where he sells to the big estates, and then north all the way up to Lord Crispin’s Manor below Parliament Hill, and Kenwood where he ’s got an . . . understanding with the parlour maid.’

  Tess nodded appreciatively. ‘Some prime slow’uns up that way, Mister Lyle.’

  Thomas stared at her with an appalled expression. ‘Forgive me, miss,’ he finally managed to stutter, ‘I don’t think I am aware of your . . . disposition.’

  Tess stared at him with an intense frown. ‘What you do for money,’ translated Lyle helpfully.

  A grin of delight and revelation split across her face. ‘’Course! I pinch bigwigs’ purses.’

  Thomas stood in frozen astonishment for a second, then started to laugh, a slightly uneasy laugh made unnaturally loud by its falseness. Tess stared at Lyle again, with another questioning look. ‘He thinks you’re telling a joke, Teresa,’ he translated kindly, not glancing up from the map.

  Tess grinned uncomfortably at Thomas. ‘Oh. Yes. ’Course.’

  ‘Does Mr Granter go anywhere near Belsize Park?’ asked Lyle suddenly, finger still hovering over the map.

  Thomas hastily looked down at the map, assuming a serious expression again. ‘Erm . . . yes, sir. He has four clients there - Mr Shull, Countess Ascham, Lord Chetwynd and . . . oh.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Tess quickly, looking up with alert eyes.

  ‘Same question,’ said Lyle uneasily.

  ‘Lord Moncorvo.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Same question.’

  ‘He . . . he’s a friend of my father’s. He . . .’ Don’t look at the eyes, boy . . . and how much does Horatio Lyle know, boy? ‘He . . .’

  ‘Mister Lyle?’ Tess hissed, as a glassy expression slowly crossed Thomas’s face. She edged uneasily behind Lyle as he knelt down in front of the stricken boy and waved his hand slowly up and down in front of Thomas’s glazed eyes.

  ‘Thomas?’

  Boy, perhaps it is time we discussed Horatio Lyle in more detail . . .

  ‘Thomas, you’re not carrying another knife, are you?’

  What do you want me to do, sir?

  Go to him. And when you are there, kill him, boy.

  Yes, sir.

  You are weak, boy. But I like you. You have a dream in you yet, boy.

  Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

  ‘Thomas!’

  Thomas jerked slightly, stared at Lyle and began to back away. He put one hand in his mouth and said through it, ‘Mnn!’

  ‘Thomas, use language!’

  ‘I . . . he came to the house and . . .’

  You won’t remember me, will you? I’m a dream, boy, a memory of a better time when the skies were clear and the trees grew straight for the sun. You won’t remember me. You’ll dream of my shadow, boy.

  ‘Who came?’

  ‘Moncorvo! He was there, but I’d forgotten and . . . mnn . . .’

  ‘Eatin’ your hand probably ain’t helpin’, bigwig,’ said Tess kindl
y.

  ‘Teresa! Now is not the time!’ Lyle wrapped his hands round Thomas’s upper arms and shook him gently. ‘Listen, just tell me what Moncorvo said, tell me what happened.’

  ‘He . . .’

  ‘Thomas Edward Elwick, pull yourself together!’ he barked suddenly, sharply.

  Thomas snapped automatically to attention. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he muttered.

  ‘That’s better. What did Moncorvo say?’

  ‘He said, sir, that you were evil, bad . . . that you had a heart made of iron and blood of iron and that you’d make the world a machine, sir.’

  ‘That ain’t true, is it?’ asked Tess in a little, worried voice.

  ‘Think of it as a metaphor, Teresa,’ muttered Lyle distractedly, still staring into Thomas’s eyes.

  ‘Oh well, if it’s a metaphor.’

  ‘What else did Moncorvo say, after the evil-aspect was fully covered?’ sighed Lyle impatiently.

  ‘He said . . .’ Thomas gulped.

  ‘Thomas, you’ve run at me with a knife already. Nothing you say or do might surprise me.’

  Thomas’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘He said that I should kill you, sir.’ Almost immediately he barked, ‘But I’m sure, sir, that it’s not important now, because I would never, sir, I . . .’

  Lyle stood up quickly, without a word. Thomas felt himself starting to burn red again. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lyle got there first. ‘Lad, have you ever been hypnotized? ’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Lyle didn’t immediately answer again.

  ‘Sir, I’d never . . .’

  ‘I know, lad. I’m thinking.’ Silence. Tess shifted nervously. At her feet, Tate yawned. Finally Lyle shook his head and said, ‘I’m out of my depth here.’

  ‘Your fault for takin’ the case, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Teresa, if you say one more unhelpful thing I swear I’ll take you straight back to Mr Josiah and offer you as an alternative to the house packhorse!’

  Tess wisely closed her mouth, and pouted instead. Thomas hung his head.

  Lyle tried not to chew his nails. Finally, he shook his head and muttered, ‘There’s nothing for it now. We’re going to have to go and take a look at Moncorvo’s house.’