The Aylesford Skull

by James P. Blaylock

  “London is admirably quiet at this altitude,” Hasbro said, not looking up from the periscope lens.

  “Are people taking notice of us?” St. Ives asked, the idea appealing to him.

  “Indeed. They come out into the street and point skyward. Some seem to be determined to follow, although our circuitous route has confounded their efforts.”

  “We’ll drop down a few hundred feet,” St. Ives said, “in order to give them a better view. See if you can pick out the Half Toad. I’d like to get several more absolute bearings before slanting away toward Greenwich.”

  When released by a foot pedal, an iron tiller with a ball atop tilted the propeller up and down, shifting the craft vertically. St. Ives pushed the tiller forward now, the ship descending toward the rooftops and leveling off when they were quite low.

  “I believe I have Billson’s in view,” Hasbro said. “There lies the Smithfield Central Market and the top of Shoe Lane, if I’m not mistaken. Billson’s must be one of the…”

  There was a sudden, heavy concussion somewhere below them, a dull, muffled thud – an explosion, almost certainly. Abruptly the airship rushed upward nose first, was pushed as if from a great wind, the gondola sweeping downward on its pendulum to remain level. St. Ives had no control of the craft at all now, and it occurred to him that if the ship somersaulted, or came close to, the gondola might simply plunge into the rubberized skin of the craft and be engulfed. There was a terrible groaning noise, as if the bamboo struts that formed the skeleton of the craft were straining against their screws and rivets. Then the force lessened, and he eased forward on the tiller, depressing the nose, until they were level again. The ship answered the helm, the silence returned, and the engine hummed away as ever.

  “A good deal of smoke seems to be issuing from the environs of the market,” Hasbro said, “or very near – the Farringdon Street edge below Charterhouse Street. A great billowing now.”

  St. Ives could see it clearly as it rose into the sky ahead – black smoke, for the most part – and he was reminded of the Palm House at the Bayswater Club. He drew the tiller back, and the craft rose, passing over the leading edge of the cloud. People could be seen fleeing from the market, many running toward the grounds of St. Bartholomew the Less and others fleeing east along Charterhouse Street.

  “My God,” Hasbro said, his usual equanimity shattered. “They’ve blown a hole in the wall of the Fleet River, I believe. There’s a torrent pouring out of the breach and washing down Farringdon Street, sweeping everything before it.”

  St. Ives craned his neck, watching the floodwaters rage along toward the Thames, carrying away wagons and horses that had been coming up toward the market. People fled away on every side, broken wagons washing up against the buildings along the street. The flood and debris must have been making a din, for people some distance ahead of the waters climbed up onto whatever high ground afforded itself, others ran east or west, if they were lucky enough to be near an intersection. St. Ives had rarely felt as useless, for there was nothing he could do to help except pray that people could find their way clear.

  Blackfriars Bridge arched over the Thames ahead of them. Behind them the smoke had thinned, blowing away on the breeze. The flood showed no sign of abating, which was odd. In fact, now that St. Ives considered it, the flood itself was odd. It was true that the waters of the Fleet came down from high elevation in Hampstead Heath, as did most of the underground rivers, and that they were very near the surface in Smithfield, but even so, what explained their sudden issuance? The explosion alone wouldn’t answer. The collapse of the tunnel, perhaps? – the Fleet simply blocked?

  The papers would blame anarchists, as ever. It was perilously simple to cast blame into the open pit of anarchy and have done with speculation. They crossed the river to the south shore, and then came around again, looking back toward Smithfield. The flow was diminished now, the river apparently having resumed its course after its ten minutes of wild freedom. But what had caused the cessation? The force of the waters might perhaps have cleared away the debris…

  “The explosion in the Ranelagh Sewer was much the same,” St. Ives said. “Too much the same to be mere coincidence, it seems to me.”

  “Your men got out along the embankment in that instance, I believe?”

  “I’m fairly certain of it. Train the glass on the river’s edge, if you will – there where the waters of the Fleet issue out. There seems to be activity there.” The waters were much diminished, it seemed to St. Ives, although the flow was perhaps strengthening again.

  “I have them in the lens now, sir. Two toshers, from the look of it, one of them a child. No, a dwarf, a bearded dwarf. There’s a barred door in the face of the Embankment, but the gate stands open. The dwarf pushes a barrow with a lantern.”

  The blimp descended, St. Ives anxious to see the way of things. The two might easily be the same two who had effected the explosion at the Bayswater Club, especially given that they were trundling a barrow – an element too eccentric to be meaningless. It was possible, of course, that they were mere sewer hunters who had brought a cart along to haul their finds.

  “They’ve taken an interest in us,” Hasbro said.

  St. Ives got a good look at the pair now, although he could tell nothing much from it. When he had gone into the Ranelagh Sewer beneath the Bayswater Club, he hadn’t been able to see the face of his attacker. The dwarf was gesticulating, apparently arguing with his companion, pointing toward the airship. If they were mere toshers, illegally scavenging in the sewers, they would scarcely fear an airship, which could do damn-all to inconvenience them. They weren’t dressed like toshers, either. The thin man wore a bright-blue flannel coat, gaudy shoes, and a straw boater, as if he were spending a holiday at the seaside.

  Suddenly the dwarf leapt forward and pushed his barrow along the embankment toward the cover of the bridge, the thing bouncing and swerving. He glanced back at the airship, and was evidently fleeing. The barrow gave a leap, skidded sideways, and fell, the front panel of the enclosure popping upward. What appeared to be an iron kettle bounded off and rolled toward the Thames, bouncing once and then flying in an arc from the lower terrace. Its lid flew off as it described a short arc out over the river before plunging in. A whiff of white vapor ascended at the point where the waters closed over the kettle, and immediately there was a pool of liquid fire floating on the surface of the river in the shadow of the bridge. The dwarf’s companion caught up with him now and cuffed him about the head, the dwarf warding off the blows. They soon gave it up, righted the barrow, and went on their hurried way, disappearing beneath the bridge.

  The airship passed over, hundreds of people atop the bridge pointing skyward now. The two men and their barrow were nowhere to be seen, and they could easily skulk away into London from the shelter of the bridge. There was nothing to be done about any of it. As for St. Ives and Hasbro, their way lay to the east, and the sooner the better. St. Ives shifted the wheel to port, the airship carrying them around the newly constructed Cathedral of the Oxford Martyrs. From the air it appeared to be a preciously slender cast-iron framework around plate-glass rectangles, less sturdily constructed, it seemed to St. Ives, than the gondola in which he sat. The structure was built in the manner of the Crystal Palace, although considerably smaller. To St. Ives it looked something like the head of an Aberdeen terrier, but without any of the dog’s virtues. Although Gladstone had condemned the cathedral as a silly piece of egotistic rubbish, the papers touted it as a marvel of its type, another of the grand architectural achievements of Victoria’s reign. It would officially open with great ceremony sometime soon – an event that failed to interest St. Ives in the least, as did the political squabbling of the Queen and her prime minister.

  “Is it the same pair that attacked you?” Hasbro asked.

  “I’m compelled to believe that it is. If not the same two, then two from the same mold, surely. Anarchists, perhaps, although with strangely complicated methods. I wonder at t
he substance that was burning on the water.”

  “Greek fire, I should think. It’s easily produced, ferociously hot.”

  “But why go to the trouble of taking along so dangerous a substance?” St. Ives asked. “An infernal device is far easier to produce with mere gunpowder, and it creates its own explosion with a simple clockwork mechanism.”

  “True,” Hasbro said. “Consider, however, that the bursting of the Fleet Sewer might be mere practice toward some greater end, where an infernal device wouldn’t serve.”

  “Could it be coal dust that exploded?” St. Ives asked, the idea coming into his mind abruptly. “I know so little of coal dust, but Merton’s contraband coal raises the possibility, if this is indeed Narbondo’s handiwork.”

  “Gilbert Frobisher is acquainted with the dangers of coal dust, sir, given that he’s made his fortune in smelting.”

  “We’ll quiz the man when we have an opportunity. It seems quite possible that Narbondo is behind both explosions – weeks ago at the club and again today. Suppose they dispersed the dust into the air in a confined space and detonated it by casting Greek fire into its midst. Grain silos explode with tremendous force when a few pounds of suspended dust are empowered by a lucifer match. A palm house would go up in much the same manner, although I have no idea how much dust would be required. Could such a thing be done in a sewer, though?”

  “Possibly,” Hasbro said. “There are chambers built into the walls of the tunnels at intervals. A dam built of coffer-work might deflect water into one of the chambers near a point where the river is particularly close to the surface. That same coffer-work might be constructed to allow the blockage of the chamber altogether, allowing for the dust to accumulate in a sufficient volume if it were pumped in. Certainly they’d have to find a chamber with a perilously thin outer wall to avoid blowing themselves up into the bargain, and at a point where the waters were very near the surface. Dangerous work, sir, with a great deal of labor involved, no doubt – immense preparation. Keeping the work hidden from the flushers would be the greatest task, I should think. It would take practice to get it right, no doubt, as well as a close knowledge of the sewers, but such a thing could be done if one had sufficient time and resources – funds to bribe the right parties.”

  “Practice to get it right,” St. Ives said. “I’m with you there. But practice to what end? Something that justified the expense and labor.” On a whim he brought the ship around in a circle again, in order to take another look at the glass cathedral. “It’s impossible not to have heard of the coming ceremony at the cathedral, but I’m afraid I haven’t paid sufficient attention. Fairly grand, is it?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hasbro. “The Queen will be in attendance along with other dignitaries.”

  Below them, men moved about, both inside and out of the building, finishing the work, clearing things away, as visible as fish in a crystal bowl. St. Ives thought again of Mother Laswell’s fears about the lane to the land of the dead, a half-baked absurdity that he hadn’t shared with Hasbro. What would it take, he wondered, to turn the glass cathedral itself into a vast infernal device, perhaps with the Queen herself sitting at the very heart of it?

  “If the explosions are Narbondo’s handiwork, as you believe, then there’s certainly a well-defined, lucrative motive,” Hasbro said.

  “I have an idea what might justify it,” he said, “although you won’t be able to credit it. Mere logic cannot be brought to bear on it.”

  By the time he was through with the tale, they had passed over Greenwich, moving more quickly than ever now, with the wind at their back and the sky an endless pastel blue in front of them. The bent finger of water that was Egypt Bay was clearly visible in the near distance, the uneven green terrain of the Cliffe Marshes stretching away on three sides, cut with sheep trails and dotted with ponds and meadows and thickets.

  “What I find unsettling,” Hasbro said, “is that if Narbondo managed to shift the Fleet out of its brick-and-mortar banks today, then he’s very far along in his plans.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE CIPHER

  A side from what appeared to be several piles of rags sleeping in the shelter of a wall, Angel Alley was empty in the early morning, the sun low in the sky, when Jack Owlesby, Arthur Doyle, and Tubby Frobisher arrived. Last night’s vagrants were comatose, no doubt, and there were no screeching rats or snarling dogs to be heard, only the morning noises out on Wentworth Street, which awakened early. They had seen the dirigible pass overhead a short time earlier, which seemed to them to be an auspicious sight, as if things were moving forward in some organized manner now that they knew the whereabouts of Narbondo and of Finn Conrad. Both Jack and Tubby understood Finn to be almost supernaturally competent, and his loyalty knew no bounds, which might easily mean the death of him if he undertook to engage Narbondo alone.

  “The door stands open,” Tubby said in a low voice. He pointed with his cudgel at the arched door that led into Narbondo’s penthouse.

  “They could be lying in wait,” Jack said, “knowing that we’d simply walk in. The open door is an invitation to an assault.”

  “Then we’ll nail their ears to the breadboard and pitch the lot of them through the window,” Tubby said. He pushed the door open and they peered into the dark stairwell. The oil lamps were burned out, and all was quiet above, although they listened for a moment longer before climbing the stairs and walking into the empty room with its crippled table. A broken chair lay on the floor along with shattered dinner plates and splinters of wood and glass from the smashed window, through which the wind blew.

  “Take note of that rope bridge,” Tubby said, nodding toward the window. “The door at the distant end stands open.”

  “For my money they’ve gone off with no idea of returning,” Doyle said. “It’s little we’ll find here.”

  “Here’s something curious,” Jack said, gesturing at the unbroken window opposite, which looked down toward Wentworth Street. Costermongers and a few carriages went up and down among early morning pedestrians. Two blue-coated soldiers on horseback stood on the far side of the street, apparently looking in the direction of the penthouse, which lay largely in shadow, and so there must be precious little that the soldiers could see. Even so, the three men moved away toward the farther room, where they would be entirely out of sight.

  “I recommend moderate haste,” Doyle said, “and then away, perhaps across the very useful rope bridge.”

  In the back room stood a workbench scattered with odd bits and pieces of things. Two small human skulls, both of them yellow-brown, cracked, and evidently ancient sat at the back of the bench. Both had been trepanned, the circular openings splintered, the skulls useful, perhaps, to hold morbidly decorative candles on a theatre stage, but not for Narbondo’s fell purposes, given St. Ives’s description of the lamps. Alongside the skulls, in a scattering of excelsior, lay pieces of exposed glass photographic plates, small screws and bits of sheet copper, and – strangely – odds and ends of shell casings and lead bullets lying in a heap of what appeared to be gunpowder, as if someone had been loading cartridges.

  “There’s an odd smell here,” Tubby said. “Rather like garlic.”

  “White phosphorous,” Doyle said, pointing at a porcelain dish with a heap of white dust in it. “Extremely flammable. Highly regarded by anarchists these days, by the way. There are photographic chemicals here also.” He picked up two green-glass, capped bottles and then set them down again. “Ferrous sulfate and potassium cyanide,” he said. He held up a piece of one of the photographic plates and scrutinized it. “Here’s the negative image of a boy’s face in profile.”

  “I believe it’s Eddie’s likeness,” Jack said, looking at it. “Why, though?”

  “To make the ransom demand more tenable, perhaps,” Doyle said. “They must have had a darkroom assembled, which of course they took away with them.”

  “Let’s pray it’s to make the ransom demand more tenable, and not for some other bloo
dy purpose,” Tubby said. “I don’t like this business of the decorated skulls. St. Ives seemed to think that vast sums of money are involved, enough to make child murder seem like a trifle.”

  “Here now!” Jack said, reaching into the debris beneath the bench and picking up a small object. “A signet ring, by God. An eagle clutching the letter M in its paws. Highly stylized, but moderately plain for all that. It might belong to anyone.”

  Tubby nodded sagely. “One would suppose that all signet rings belong to someone, Jack. I’m going to guess that this particular ring was lost by a man whose name begins with the letter ‘M.’ That excludes our friend Dr. Narbondo. Keep it safe, however.”

  There was a clattering from the direction of Wentworth Street, and Tubby stepped out into the adjacent room again to have a look, leaving his two friends to continue their search. “A carriage has arrived,” he said through the door, “accompanied by two more soldiers aboard horses. The door swings open. By God, it’s Keeble’s Dutchman from the look of it, our man de Groot. Tremendous large head with the eyes of a pig. He’s evidently coming on alone. Why would the man do such a thing when he’s brought four soldiers with him?” Tubby walked back into the room.

  “I’ll warrant he wants this very ring,” Jack said. “He’ll summon the soldiers quickly enough when he discovers we’re here. Out the back, I say.”

  “Nonsense,” Tubby said. “We’ll parlay with the man. Certainly he’s a reasonable creature. The Dutch are great thinkers, although I’m told that they make their shoes out of wood. You two go about your business. I’ll play the man a bit of a prank when he arrives and then we’ll engage him in edifying discussion.”