BO-O-OM!
Someone had fired a shot inside the Monument.
28
THE VIEW FROM THE TOP
‘Ned! Run!’ yelled Alfred.
He had fallen back onto the floor, and was groping for the spear he’d just dropped. In front of him, someone large and dirty had reared up through the open hole – someone with a shining bald head, bushy black side-whiskers, and a huge moustache.
When Ned saw the smoking pepperbox revolver clasped in this stranger’s hand, he screamed, ‘Open the door! Please! Mr Copperthwaite!’
The door didn’t open. But Ned’s raised voice distracted the hulking intruder, whose pale eyes swung towards him. At the same instant, Alfred’s fingers closed around the shaft of his spear. And as the intruder aimed his revolver at Ned – who stood frozen with shock – Alfred suddenly lunged forward, thrusting his spear into the gunman’s arm.
The gunman roared. He fired wide and his pistol-ball ricocheted off one wall, spraying tiny chips of stone. Ned ducked and ran. There was nowhere to go but up, so he made for the circular staircase, screaming for help. Then another shot rang out.
BOOM!
‘Mr Bunce!’ Ned cried, glancing over his shoulder. But Alfred, he saw, was already behind him, still clutching the bloody spear.
‘Run! RUN!’ Alfred shouted.
Ned obeyed. He pounded up the stairs, frantic with terror, expecting a ball in his back at any instant. He could hear Alfred gasping for breath.
‘Ain’t no way out!’ a cracked voice called after them. ‘And I got one more shot in this here pepperbox!’
‘Keep going,’ Alfred wheezed to Ned. ‘Don’t stop.’
Ned had no intention of stopping. As he passed one of the alcoves, he briefly wondered if it would provide any cover, then decided it wouldn’t.
‘I’ll shoot you first, Bunce!’ the man continued roughly. ‘And then I’ll throw that boy off the top o’ the tower! ’
Ned couldn’t suppress a frightened moan. He heard Alfred pause just a few steps behind him.
‘You can’t do that, Gammon!’ the bogler rejoined, panting heavily. ‘Ain’t no one can jump off the gallery no more – not since they shut it up in a cage!’ To Ned he whispered, ‘Go! Go!’, because Ned had stopped and turned at the sound of the word ‘Gammon’.
‘Then I’ll just have to chop him into pieces, and throw the pieces through the bars!’ John Gammon bawled. He was mounting the stairs at a clumsy canter, stumbling occasionally, his feet dragging. Ned wondered how badly hurt the man was. Would he bleed to death before he could reach the top? Suddenly Ned caught a glimpse of Gammon’s dark head, bobbing into view against the curving wall opposite, and saw that the butcher would soon have a clear shot at Alfred – since there was no stone core in the middle of the winding staircase.
‘Go, boy – run!’ Alfred bellowed. And Ned ran as Gammon laughed.
‘You can’t escape! Ain’t nowhere to go!’ the butcher taunted. ‘You’re trapped in here like rats in a barrel!’
‘You got the . . . wrong boy . . . Gammon.’ Alfred’s lungs were labouring so hard that he could barely speak as he staggered after Ned. ‘This here . . . ain’t Jem Barbary. You’ll do . . . yerself no good . . . killing him.’
‘T’ain’t the boy I want, it’s you. You’ve crossed me once too often.’ Before Alfred could reply, Gammon continued doggedly, in a harsh tone, ‘Oh, I devised all this to catch the boy. That I’ll own to. I put a nobbler o’ my acquaintance down here to cut yer throats, and sent the telegram meself to summon you. For Copperthwaite is an old mate – the Monument being so close to the Butcher’s Hall – and he’s bin useful when I’ve had things worth concealing. No one ever thinks to look under the Monument.’
The Butcher’s Hall, Ned thought in despair, as he heaved himself up the staircase. He remembered several nearby buildings with coats-of-arms above their doors, and for the hundredth time cursed the fact that he couldn’t read. For if he’d passed the words ‘Butcher’s Hall’ on his way to the Monument, it would have put him on his guard, at the very least.
‘ . . . but I had to change me plans,’ John Gammon was saying. Though breathless, he didn’t sound weak. And his footsteps didn’t seem to be slowing down. ‘I heard what you done to Fitch, this morning.’ As Alfred choked on an indrawn breath, the butcher snarled, ‘Oh, yes. You think I ain’t got spies at Smithfield station house? I skipped out o’ Cock Lane just ahead o’ them coppers as came to nib me, and took my nobbler friend’s place.’
By this time Alfred was lagging so far behind that Ned had to run back and tug at the bogler’s sleeve. ‘Come on, Mr Bunce!’ he whispered. ‘I got an idea, but you have to hurry!’
‘Ain’t no one else knows I’m here, save Copperthwaite, and he ain’t going to blab. So I can’t be letting you out to peach on me, can I?’ The butcher seemed almost to be thinking aloud as he stamped up the stairs. ‘I’ll hide you both in the basement, then go out tonight and arrange a berth on one o’ them eel-boats. Eelers is no strangers to smuggling – I know that well enough. And they’ll not baulk at dropping remains overboard, providing the remains is a manageable size . . .’
‘Ssst! Mr Bunce!’ hissed Ned, who had finally reached the open door that led to the caged viewing gallery. It was a solid door with a hefty lock, but Ned didn’t have a key. And there was no way of bolting it from the outside.
If we lean against it to keep it closed, he’ll just shoot straight through it, Ned decided. Then he glanced down at Alfred, who was still catching up. The bogler was bent double, pouring sweat and coughing like a consumptive.
Catching his eye, Ned pointed at the ladder set into the wall some distance above them both. This ladder started where the stairs stopped, and Ned knew exactly where it led: straight to the trapdoor in the golden orb.
Alfred nodded as Ned closed the gallery door with a bang.
‘Ain’t no good shutting that door, Bunce! It won’t keep me out!’ John Gammon yelled. ‘I got a filleting knife in me pocket and one shot left in this here revolver! If you had any sense, you’d let me put a ball through yer head, nice and clean – for if I wing you, you’ll not like what follows!
’ By this time Alfred had heaved his apprentice up onto the ladder. Ned immediately began to climb through the narrow shaft that led to the very top of the Monument, pursued by the sound of Alfred coughing and John Gammon shouting, ‘Think you hurt me, Bunce? Think again! I’ve had worse wounds cutting sides o’ pork in the shop!’
Suddenly Ned’s hand struck something metallic. It was the lid of the flaming orb, and it wasn’t locked or bolted down. He gave it a mighty shove, then pulled himself through the hole he’d exposed.
Almost immediately, he was hit by a blast of wind that almost took his breath away. For an instant he froze, feeling dizzy and terrified; beyond the golden spikes that ringed him like a crown of thorns he could see nothing but grey clouds and wheeling pigeons. But then he felt something nudging his feet, and quickly swung them up until he was crouched amid the gilded flames – which were twisted strips of metal, too thick to be razor-sharp.
Grabbing the spear that Alfred was passing up through the trapdoor, he set it aside carefully, placing it so that it wouldn’t fall. Then he reached down and grabbed Alfred’s arm, helping the bogler to scramble up into the whistling wind.
One glimpse of the cloud-capped steeples surrounding them made Alfred’s face turn white as he edged away from the hole, allowing Ned to seal it again. The gilded flames gave them both something to cling to – and also provided excellent footholds – but Ned’s natural instinct was to freeze like a cat stuck in a tree. He had to fight that instinct when he craned his neck for a better look at the structure below him.
He saw at once that the cage around the viewing platform was a long, long way away. Even further away was the ground beyond it. The people down there looked like ants, and the buildings like toys. Ned’s original plan had been to climb down from the orb and spear John Gammon thr
ough the bars of the cage, as the butcher emerged onto the viewing platform. But Ned had miscalculated. Even Jem would have found it impossible to descend the Monument’s crest without a rope; though the golden urn beneath the orb was furnished with many footholds, the grey dome beneath that was just a smooth, stone curve, damp and slippery.
Ned wondered if anyone on the ground would hear his voice if he shouted for help. Probably not, he thought. Not with the wind blowing so hard.
Then he caught sight of John Gammon’s shiny scalp, moving anti-clockwise around the viewing platform. And he jerked his own head back.
Any moment now, the butcher was going to work out where Ned and Alfred were hiding.
‘Sit on that!’ Ned mouthed at Alfred, pointing at the lid. Only their weight would block Gammon from joining them. But Alfred shook his head. He retrieved his spear and carefully shifted position, his face taut, his eyes bulging. Soon he was poised to strike at whatever came erupting out of the orb.
Ned could only pray that Alfred’s spear would hit the butcher before the butcher had a chance to fire.
Bang! Clang! Thump! All at once Ned felt the orb vibrating beneath him. He was convinced that Gammon must have gone back inside and spotted the ladder. But that ladder would be impossible to climb one-handed. Gammon would have to clamp his pistol between his teeth, or stick it in his belt.
Perhaps Alfred should try to spear him before he reached the top?
Clang! Thud! There was definitely someone in the shaft beneath them. Ned motioned to Alfred – a flipping motion, followed by a jabbing one. ‘Now!’ he was trying to say. ‘Do it now!’ But he couldn’t speak because he didn’t want the butcher to hear him.
Alfred licked his lips. He’d lost his hat somewhere, and his thick, greying hair was whipping about furiously in the cold wind. His coat was flapping like a flag on a ship’s mast. His dark eyes in his white face looked like coals in the snow.
Ned had never seen Alfred frightened before, but the bogler was frightened now – so frightened that he didn’t appear to have grasped the message that Ned was trying to convey: namely, that the broad-shouldered butcher would be at a disadvantage in such a narrow shaft, with his revolver clenched between his teeth and his eyes briefly dazzled by the unaccustomed light. Ned was explaining all this with hand-movements when he suddenly heard a muffled scream.
‘A-A-A-AGH . . .!’
The orb stopped shaking. Silence fell. Even the wind dropped for a moment, as Ned and Alfred stared at each other. They waited and waited.
Finally Alfred croaked, ‘Did he fall?’
‘I dunno.’ As Alfred stretched his hand towards the lid, Ned added, ‘It might be a trick. He might be pretending he fell.’
Alfred froze, and seemed to be lost in thought. But after a while he came to a decision. First he adjusted his grip on his spear. Then he indicated, with a complicated gesture, that he wanted Ned to remove the lid at top speed. Ned saw at once what Alfred was planning to do. He was planning to catch Gammon by surprise, throwing the spear down the shaft before the butcher could fire his gun.
It was their only option, now.
Alfred held up three fingers. ‘On the count o’ three,’ he mouthed. ‘One. Two . . . three! ’
Ned flung back the lid. Alfred hurled his spear. But no explosion of gunpowder followed. There wasn’t even a roar of pain. All Ned could hear was the sound of the spear clinking against hard surfaces as it tumbled down the core of the Monument.
Once again, Ned and Alfred gazed at each other. It was several seconds before they slowly, reluctantly, peered down the shaft. Ned saw that one corner of the iron ladder had pulled away from the wall. He also saw a coil of stairs receding into the distance below him, making a perfect spiral pattern. But in the very centre of this spiral was a black dot.
And in the centre of the dot was a spreadeagled shape, white and blue against the dark limestone.
29
BIRDIE’S DEBUT
‘I say!’ Mr Harewood exclaimed. ‘Where have you been? The overture’s just begun – we shan’t be allowed to go in if we don’t hurry!’
He was standing in the vestibule of the Theatre Royal, which was almost deserted. Dazzled by all the gilt-framed mirrors and polished marble, Ned hadn’t spotted him at first.
‘I’ve your tickets with me,’ the engineer continued, eyeing Alfred’s stained and shabby clothes. Mr Harewood himself looked resplendent in a black tailcoat, white tie and white gloves. His hair was slicked back and his bruises were barely visible in the flattering glow of the chandeliers. ‘You should have joined us in Bloomsbury before coming here, Mr Bunce,’ he said, hustling Ned and Alfred into yet another vestibule, which was two storeys high, with a domed roof. ‘Gilfoyle brought his spare evening clothes for you to wear. And Miss Eames was very anxious when you didn’t arrive . . .’
‘We was delayed.’ Alfred spoke gruffly. After hours and hours spent in the station house on Bishopsgate Street, he and Ned had been allowed to leave only after the police officers there had communicated with their colleagues at Smithfield. Thanks to Sergeant Pike’s efforts, the Bishopsgate police had at last been persuaded that Alfred’s story was true – that he hadn’t murdered John Gammon. But still the bogler and his apprentice had been kept in a small room, making sworn statements and answering questions, until long after sunset.
Upon finally being released, Ned and Alfred had found themselves with only half an hour to spare. So they had rushed back to Orange Court, dropped off Alfred’s bogling sack, washed their faces at breakneck speed, and hurried to the Theatre Royal without exchanging more than a few rushed comments about practical things like cab fares.
As a result, Ned didn’t really know how Alfred was feeling. He himself was at the end of his tether. Being chased to the top of the Monument had been bad enough, but what followed had been even worse. Ned would never forget the horror of banging on the Monument door, shouting for help, with John Gammon’s shattered body lying at his feet. Though a passer-by had finally heard Ned’s pleas, and had gone to fetch a policeman, there had been a delay of at least an hour between the moment Ned had reached the ground floor and the moment when the policeman, after searching in vain for Mr Copperthwaite, had finally broken down the door.
And there had been other horrors as well. The horror of being accused of murder, for instance. The horror of seeing Alfred’s spear destroyed. The horror of knowing, as he sat in the station house, that he – Ned Roach, one of Birdie McAdam’s best friends – was probably going to miss her debut performance.
But he hadn’t missed Birdie’s performance. He and Alfred had made it just in time. And as they followed Mr Harewood up the stairs to the Grand Circle, Ned decided that he was going to concentrate on Birdie’s performance, and not let anything else distract him from it. He wasn’t going to dwell on the bloody scene at the Monument, or the loss of Alfred’s livelihood, or the fact that he himself looked completely out of place in the luxurious theatre, with his damp, dirty jacket and scuffed boots.
This was Birdie’s evening, and he wasn’t about to spoil it for her. Neither was Alfred. ‘We’ll tell no one about this. Not tonight,’ he’d informed Ned, on their way to Drury Lane. ‘Tomorrow we’ll pass on the news, but I ain’t about to discuss John Gammon in a box at the theatre.’
‘We’ll be sitting in a box?’ Ned had asked dully.
‘Aye. Miss Eames arranged it so. Ten shillings and sixpence, she paid. And wouldn’t take nowt from me.’ It was the lowest box on the right-hand side of the stage. When Ned followed Mr Harewood over the threshold, he found himself in something rather like a jewellery box, encased in gilt and lined with velvet. Glittering in the centre of all the plush and gold fringe was Miss Eames, who turned sharply at Mr Harewood’s entrance. She was wearing a gown of glossy grey satin, trimmed with crystal beads. There were feathers in her hair and diamonds in her ears.
She looked magnificent.
‘Mr Bunce!’ she hissed, glaring at the bogler. ‘Where
on earth have you been?’
‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ Alfred mumbled. ‘We was delayed.’
‘Hush, dear – don’t make a scene,’ Mrs Heppinstall said. She was sitting by her niece, wrapped in a dark fur. On Miss Eames’s other side was Mr Gilfoyle, beautifully groomed in his black-and-white evening clothes. Mr Wardle was nowhere to be seen, but since there were only three vacant seats left, Ned assumed that the Inspector of Sewers had decided not to come after all.
‘What happened at the Custom House, Mr Bunce?’ Mr Gilfoyle asked in an undertone. But before Alfred could reply, Miss Eames said, ‘Shh!’, and the overture concluded in a burst of applause.
Then the curtain rose – and Ned was transported into fairyland.
He had never been to a theatre. He’d never even been to a penny gaff. So he was completely unprepared for the dazzling world that unfolded before him: the bright landscapes, the billowing seas, the gleaming battlements and coloured lights, the music, the trumpets, the clouds, the animals. He forgot all about flash-boxes and smoke-pots; he barely remembered that King Arthur was Frederick Vokes, or noticed that Jem was dancing in the ballet corps, small and nimble in a page’s costume. Instead, swept up in the action, Ned let all thoughts of the real Theatre Royal vanish from his mind – along with everything that had happened to him that day.
When a giant’s head appeared over the castle wall, Ned gasped. When the giant ate Tom Thumb, Ned squeaked. He clapped when Tom Thumb jumped out of the giant’s mouth, then cheered when a huge bird seized Tom in its mighty talons. Like everyone else in the audience, Ned marvelled at Rosina’s dancing. He laughed at the antics of a pantomime horse – the same horse he’d once seen shuffling along a backstage corridor. He applauded the singing of one young actor who, according to Mr Harewood, was ‘straight out of the music hall’.
But when Birdie sang, Ned couldn’t help crying. Perhaps his terrible day had left him feeling vulnerable. Perhaps he cried because at least two of the songs she sang were sad ones, all about motherless children and cold winter snows. Or perhaps he was moved because she looked so beautiful, standing there in a cloud of white gauze, with her hair gleaming and her eyes flashing and her astonishing voice ringing out like church bells.
A Very Singular Guild Page 19