The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle)

by Webb, Catherine

  ‘No, sir!’

  ‘No.’ Lyle let out another profound sigh, and stared away. ‘I thought not.’

  ‘Should I research the subject, sir? Would it help?’

  A look almost of dread flickered across Lyle’s face. ‘Maybe not right now . . . Charles!’ He grabbed at the first escape he saw, taking everyone, especially Charles, by surprise. ‘Did I hear mention of a witness?’

  As they turned to go, Lyle half-turned back to look at the two bodies, Captain Fabrio and the mysterious Mr Stanlaw, employee of Lord Lincoln and thus instantly suspect, and hesitated. Very quickly he leant over and, with a speed and dexterity that would have surprised and impressed the expert eye of Tess, pulled the iron ring off Stanlaw’s finger, slipping it into his pocket and walking away with the most innocent expression.

  He had a bad feeling about the ring; but then, he had a bad feeling about anything which might have to do with Lord Lincoln.

  Old Edgar was a beggar apart. Long ago, when perhaps he was merely middle-aged Edgar and just seemed a bit worn by time, he had perfected the art of leaping out in front of sailors newly arrived from the furthest land across the furthest ocean, clinging to them and screaming, ‘Let me save you, the plague is here! I can save you, the plague is come an’ all the metal that you carries will be dust by the morn. Turn back now before the plague is spread any further; you ain’t goin’ to die if I can’t save you. For God’s sake and your men’s get rid of your metal now before it contaminates you all!’

  Regardless of the native language of the person who heard this, the effect was usually dramatic - sometimes more so for a small piece of soap Old Edgar kept in his mouth, just in case foaming was required. In the docks there were thousands who daily held out their hands in a desperate plea for survival, but, as the bobbies sometimes noted on their way back to the station, Old Edgar hadn’t yet been broken as the others had, and as a result, he could suffer with flair.

  Which explains why, when Lyle approached the bollard where Old Edgar was sitting counting a very small pile of pennies from a very large collection of pockets, the old, stick-like man took one look at him, threw himself flat at Lyle’s feet, clung on to his knee and started whimpering, ‘You shouldn’t have come here, good sir, the place is death, good sir, ain’t for the likes of you. They breathe the death here, it is on every coin you have been given by anyone what comes here. You’ll take the metal contaminated with their death back to your loved ones, sir, an’ it’ll kill them all. Oh, the death is come . . .’

  Thomas looked shocked, Lyle looked a bit embarrassed. Tess rolled her eyes and said, ‘If there’s one person gettin’ money here, it’s gonna be me.’

  Lyle slowly turned to look at her, eyebrows raised.

  She coughed. ‘For charity?’

  Lyle turned back to Old Edgar. ‘Good sir, there isn’t a plague.’

  Edgar took this reassurance in his stride. ‘You mayn’t have seen it yet, sir, but believe me, it stalks the streets at night plucking at every new-born babe and . . .’

  ‘I’m a policeman.’

  Edgar backed off. He looked Lyle up and down. His expression suggested that he wasn’t very impressed, but in a far more normal voice he said, ‘Oh. New, are you?’

  ‘No, just professionally misguided. May I ask a few questions? ’

  The beggar man, who in many ways took pride in being the most dramatic of all who were forced into his trade east of the Tower and south of Bethnal Green, considered and said, ‘I already spoke to the Inspector.’

  ‘Would this be Inspector Vellum?’

  ‘That sounds ’bout right.’

  ‘A man with a potato for a face, a turnip for a brain and a shameful attitude towards all in need?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘I imagine he wasn’t keen on supporting you in your hour of need.’

  ‘He weren’t the most comfortable customer I seen.’

  ‘Ten shillings in exchange for the truth. Not whatever you told Vellum: the real truth.’

  Edgar managed, just in time, to force a considering expression on to his face. ‘I can speak a dark tale, mister, a story of doin’s in the night and -’

  ‘Sir,’ said Lyle in an impatient voice, ‘your beard is filthy on the surface but not below the newest growth, implying regular washing and only a superficial application of dirt. Your nails are long and curved, but the ends are worn down in straight lines, and there is a degree of abrasion across these lines at the points, suggesting regular filing. Your boots are torn but the socks you wear inside the boots are not only socks, but supported with leather and wool so that, in effect, you are wearing two pairs of boots, not one. Your jacket is slashed and filthy, but the lining has a seam here,’ he snatched at the astonished man’s coat, ‘and here, where stuffing has been sewn inside by a careful seamstress who knows how to leave an exterior ragged but the interior warm, not to mention three extra pockets lined with sawdust to prevent the rattling of coins when you move. You are, in short, not just a beggar man but a thief, and you are taking money at a rate to anger the most serene starving textile worker or any frost-bitten old maid struggling to keep out of the workhouse. Now, I could go to all your starving, diseased, and broken colleagues on the street, the ones who die in corners and are never noticed until they start to smell of the death that killed them, all the true cripples who are too weak to dance and sing a merry tune for any passing stranger with a weak eye and a weaker pocket lining, and tell them the truth about good Old Edgar, king of the beggars. Or I could pay you ten shillings and hope my conscience doesn’t keep me awake at night. Please tell me now which you would find more useful towards the rendering of an accurate witness statement?’

  Five minutes later, Edgar sat by the fire in a local tavern that stank of cheap ale, cheap tar and, very faintly, cheap opium, nursing a bowl of porridge and a small pot of ale. Lyle sat wearing the expression that Tess had secretly marked in her mind as ‘you will have a bath, Teresa, or you will not have supper’. It was an expression that brooked no argument.

  Edgar talked, while the world moved around them.

  ‘I was woked by the bell, ringing one. It were a cold night, last night, the river were starting to freeze, like it do today. I were under one of the piers, near where the old sewers used to drain out at high tide, ’til they built this new pumping thing, but it were still warmer there, out of the wind. You ever heard the wind, when the river is just startin’ to freeze? You hear waves an’ you hear stone all at once - they say the river will be all froze over by tomorra mornin’ too, like stone. But it weren’t just the wind what I heard.’

  ‘What did you hear?’ Lyle’s impatience was gone, replaced by the same tight determination Tess had seen when he looked at the bodies.

  ‘I heard someone on that ship - the Pegasus. The lantern was lit. Two men, talkin’. And their footsteps.’

  ‘Could you hear what they said?’

  ‘No. Not those two. One sounded foreign . . . I don’t know why I say so, but his voice were all . . . bendy, not like the other fella. Like he were one of them circus clowns doin’ a silly foreign accent. The other fella always talked lower than the foreign man, like he was threat’nin’ or scared or something. Then there were this sound like a door or something banging ’gainst the wood, something really heavy, an’ then this foreign man was screamin’, but it got cut off with a real nasty crack, and the other man was runnin’ but I didn’t see ’im and then there were this other crack and then someone said something and someone else answered an’ I ain’t never heard no voice like that voice.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘It was like . . . like what the earth would sound like if it talked, or . . . or like a rumble, deep down. An’ then this other man says something in a more normal voice, and then there’s these two splashes, quick after each other, an’ then more footsteps, and then a carriage, goin’ away.’

  ‘A carriage? As in a hansom cab?’

  ‘No, I heard ’least two horses
an’ it sounded all heavy.’

  ‘What was the more normal voice like?’

  ‘Like . . . well, it was almost like . . . Like honey. It was all brown and smooth and warm but cool all at once, like it was ... honey. Like maple. Can’t say why I say so, but that’s what I think.’

  Edgar hesitated.

  ‘And?’

  Edgar kept hesitating.

  ‘I like irrational impressions and utter honest frankness,’ said Lyle quietly. ‘It relieves me of my doubts and fears whenever I contemplate the human race. And?’

  ‘It’d may be my imaginings.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I’d’ve sweared the other man, the normal man with the honey voice, I’d’ve sweared he was American.’

  Lyle sighed. ‘Thank you, sir. You’ve been very generous with your time.’

  Another place, an equal time.

  A knock on the door.

  ‘Enter.’

  A voice like maple syrup. Warm and cold all at once. Speaking fluent English, but not quite as it is spoken in England.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Henton. Does her ladyship require my attention?’

  ‘Her ladyship, sir, appears to be absent this morning.’

  ‘She appears to be absent many mornings. A night-owl, her ladyship. But I am sure she spends her day in piety enough. What, then, Henton, is the concern?’

  ‘A servant has just returned from the scene of last night’s arrival, sir.’

  ‘And? If you have news, speak it quickly.’

  ‘There have been complications.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A witness.’

  ‘What kind of witness?’

  ‘A beggar heard voices in the night.’

  ‘It hardly seems a concern.’

  ‘Her ladyship might disagree. She was very clear - her aid comes at a price, father; it is necessary that no end is left . . .’

  ‘Her ladyship will not make a problem of it. Was there anything else, that you are so halting in your news?’

  ‘Lord Lincoln has sent Horatio Lyle to the docks.’

  ‘This should cause me concern?’

  ‘Her ladyship has mentioned him. He was involved at the incident at St Paul’s Cathedral, and it is rumoured that . . .’

  ‘We do not listen to rumours, do we?’

  ‘No, father. Forgive me. I merely thought that you should be made aware, as it might pose a threat to the Marquis if . . .’

  ‘It does not. If her ladyship should appear before sunset, inform her.’

  ‘Yes, father.’

  A door closing. A sigh. The creak of a chair as someone leans back into it and considers, and relaxes. For now. And a brief thought, looking for a receptive brain to call home, sees the man with the maple-syrup voice and the eyes like the auburn leaves of autumn. Just for a second, doubt raises a cautious eye above the lip of the trench, before it is overwhelmed and forced on to happier hunting grounds, far, far away.

  Inspector Vellum was in the wrong job. No one was entirely sure why he was a member of the Metropolitan Police, although it was rumoured that he was discharged from the army after a brief and fairly disastrous career in India, and had simply fallen for the police uniform and its shiny buttons. The Commissioner had been won over by the Inspector’s ability to spout proverbs, albeit at inconvenient moments, and regarded the Inspector’s knack of getting other people to do the work - probably how the Inspector regarded it too - as merely encouraging latent talent. The Inspector’s robotic nod to all colleagues he passed in the corridor eloquently expressed both his inherent nobility of character in merely acknowledging these lesser beings’ presence, and the necessity of him being Somewhere Very Important Immediately. When Mister Lyle talked about the Inspector, Tess was always slightly surprised to hear not just a new tone in his voice, but a whole new accent take over, as his mother’s East End sharpness competed with his father’s Yorkshire lilt, the power of opinion overwhelming the refinement of adulthood in his speech.

  Tess knew that bad news awaited them as they returned to the Pegasus, because as they approached, Charles said not a word, but stood up straight and gave Lyle a single, crooked look of warning. Lyle took a deep breath and started down the wharf towards the ship. ‘Tess,’ he said quietly as they walked, ‘I want you to take Thomas and find a very long flexible watertight pipe, a pair of smithy’s bellows, two tins, a couple of pins, and any sulphur and saltpetre you can find.’

  Tess thought about this. ‘You ain’t goin’ swimmin’, Mister Lyle?’

  Despite himself, Lyle smiled. ‘That’s my lass.’

  As the two children scurried off, a voice that could have come from Pinocchio’s nose during a bad fit of hay fever said, ‘Ah. Mister Lyle. What brings you here?’

  ‘Two legs and a hansom cab.’

  ‘A good way to travel, I’ve always believed; although I’m told,’ with a sound half-way to a cough, but which in any other man would clearly have been a snigger, ‘that your recent studies show an interest in more aeronautical activities. Tell me, are you familiar with Lord Byron’s view on—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A man of the mind really must read Lord Byron, or His Lordship as he is fondly known in my family. It enhances perception, allows for a clearer interpretation of—’

  ‘Inspector Vellum, have you ever paused to consider the effect of air travelling at different velocities above and below a shaped fixed object of surface area “A” proportional to the downward force “F” of a construction accelerating through the air at velocity “V”, the effect on pressure and consequently the forces acting and so on that might be induced above and below the differential curve?’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve felt the need.’

  ‘One day, try.’ Lyle sidled cautiously up the plank leading on to the slanting deck of the Pegasus, and glared at the Inspector. ‘Until then, I have a royal commission to investigate and you are disturbing the evidence.’

  The Inspector turned red. ‘Very well. I shall leave you to the tasks of a constable while I attempt to find a criminal. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near - is it not so, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Indeed, Inspector. I believe it was Lord Byron who once remarked to Ruskin, Caesar adsum jam forte,’ replied Lyle brightly, as Vellum skulked down the steps.

  Alone in the fog, on the Pegasus, Lyle noted how much snow had fallen in the night: enough to leave a good inch over the ice on the leaning deck. Only a little, however, had built up on the lower side, where the ship leant unevenly. He tried to remember when it had stopped snowing the night before.

  Footprints were dotted across the deck. He took his shoes off, flinching as his bare feet touched the snow. The deck sloped so severely it was hard to walk on and he had to pick his way across by clinging on to the mast, and the loose rigging which hung down from the neglected spars. The Pegasus was not a healthy ship. The sails were made of so many patched pieces, it was hard to tell which was the original fabric. The mast was scarred, and what little paint had survived the Pegasus’s life at sea was thin and peeling.

  The ship creaked. Lyle made his way carefully over to the lower side of the slanting deck, and peered at its surface. It wasn’t hard to recognize the regulation shoeprint of the policemen, too recent even for a faint covering of snow, and his own footprints hardly made a visible mark. Which left four sets of prints, older and slightly snowed over, but still clear enough to follow. There was a confusing mish-mash on the plank up to the deck, but then they spread out. He identified the captain’s footprints, and followed them. From the gangway, with Stanlaw’s footsteps just behind, they headed towards the cargo hold, stopped on the threshold into darkness, and shuffled round in a mess of snow to face Stanlaw’s footprints. These were deeper and slightly disturbed, but still less fidgety than the Captain’s where both men had stood still. The footprints then moved together away from the cargo hold, stopped once more, and changed again.

  There was the
faintest drag mark, ending in a tiny point as if the Captain had literally been pulled up by the toes, besides a deeper, human-sized indentation in the snow where something had fallen, quite hard. By this time, the other set of footprints had changed, the stride growing narrower and the pressure of the toes increasing while the heel decreased to almost nothing: Stanlaw was running. These impressions abruptly ended just by the side of the ship, where there was a similar drag mark and man-sized impression.

  Lyle followed a further set of footprints, which seemed to start at the top of the stairs down to the hold, move over to each impression of a body in the snow, pick them up leaving shallow drag marks, move to the edge of the deck, turn, and stop in a little shuffle. There they faced the fourth and final pair of shoes, fine shoes too, but no pair that Lyle could immediately recognize. There were deeper marks here as the two sets of prints faced each other, with a tiny ridge around the edge of every mark, as if the falling snow had built up when the men had stood and talked so long.

  Lyle stared at the two sets of tracks leaving the ship and frowned. At the top of the plank, he could see the fourth pair leave, the pair that hadn’t gone anywhere near the bodies, and he could also see it arrive. But there was no sign that the third pair of footprints, the set whose owner had dragged the bodies over the side and pulled up each man until just their toes touched the ground, had come on the ship. The footprints started at the cargo hold, nowhere else. And there was something wrong about the prints. Lyle knelt down by one and peered at it, leaning so close his nose almost touched the snow.

  And he knew what was wrong. Five large toe marks, the ball of a heel and an empty space where the foot arched, that was what was wrong. The footprints were large and very, very heavy - too large to be a woman’s, he decided, and the toes unusually long, but that wasn’t what upset him. What upset him was that this person who had left with the pair of leather shoes that Lyle couldn’t recognize had had bare feet, and had been on the ship before it even started to snow.