by John Gardner
Thinking that Jack Idell possibly had the same proclivities as those he tempted with small and young children, Moriarty would often say, as he had said to Spear recently, “The man who would delight in lusting after a young child is somehow warped, and not worthy to be called a man.” And in a manner he was right, for Idle Jack was not above stealing children from their parents if it suited him.
Look hard at Idle Jack; look into those cold grey eyes and you might possibly glimpse the real man—heartless and cruel. The misshapen character glowers from his face, revealed by his physical flaws: the twist of his smile, the teeth that show uneven, and the mouth slightly askew. Idle Jack was a robber of innocence, a pillager of families, a thief of time and decency.
ALBERT SPEAR, WITH Harry Judge in tow, hired a gig from a man he knew near Oxford railway station, and they drove out on the road to Steventon, Harry handling the reins of the little piebald pony called Smudge. It was cold, but they had not suffered the same heavy falls of snow as London; still, Harry grumbled a lot during the railway journey, and now he grumbled again because he was hungry. Spear had to be sharp with him in the end, and he went quiet, a shade sulky but still handling the gig sensibly and with dexterity, which went in his favour. Some five miles from Steventon they stopped in the hamlet of Twin Willows, where there was a coaching inn: The White Hart.
Twin Willows stood on the edge of Sir John Grant’s estate, with its farm, several acres of wheat and good grazing land; the big house, Willow Manor; a wonderful stretch of river with fine fishing; and his shoot, which was much talked about in fashionable circles in London itself. It was also here that Sir John had the kennels and runs for his hounds, the savage pack that ran with the Grant-Willow Hunt. Sir John and Lady Pam were out with the Grant-Willow every other Saturday during the season, and Sir John was, naturally, Master of Foxhounds. It was a hunt looked up to by members of the Royal Berks, the Quorn, the Beaufort, the Old Berkely, and other great hunts. Foxes were no trouble to the many hens kept by local farmers—not with the Grant-Willow hallooing and tantivying across the local fields.
The White Hart was a fine old Tudor Inn that had seen better days. Until the advent of the railways it had two stagecoaches going through from London to Oxford every day—one in each direction—with all the extra gain they brought with them: ladies, tired from the journey, who would book in to stay a few nights until rested, and the many travellers who required feeding, or simply needed to use alcohol to dull the boredom and pain of journeying.
The main taproom was large, scented with wood smoke from the big open fire, clean, and with respectful locals: two old granddads, wearing the ancient country dress of smocks, who pulled their forelocks to Spear, and three or four men who obviously worked the land nearby. All of them showed deference to Spear and Judge, who, to their eyes, looked, they supposed, like gentlefolk, for they were both dressed in jackets and trousers of good cloth. The Professor insisted on his men being neatly dressed and polite of manner. Spear of course wore a short top hat.
Confidently, Spear asked the landlord of The White Hart if they could get some dinner, and the landlord, one Jonathan Booker, said there was not such a call as there had been when the coaches still ran, but he liked to keep some victuals to hand for travellers. In the end he gave them a tasty and nourishing vegetable soup followed by generous slices of a veal-and-ham pie that was bulked out with hardboiled eggs, mushrooms, and oysters mixed in with the meat. Spear recognized it immediately as the kind of veal-and-ham pie that Fanny Paget—Fanny Jones as was—used to make when she cooked and cleaned in the old warehouse headquarters in Limehouse. So, right away, he mentioned to Booker that he had come to look up an old friend who he had heard was now Sir John’s gamekeeper.
“Oh, that’ll be Paul,” Booker nodded. “Lives just up the road. Tell the truth, the pie you’re eating was made by his wife, Fanny.”
“Little Fanny! Well I’ll be damned!” Spear gave him a special shark’s smile and reached up to clap him on the shoulder, then asked where he could find old Paul, mentally noting that Pip had changed his Christian name at least. “Big lad,” he said by way of description. “Broad-shouldered, light-coloured hair, thick as a good maid’s thatch but straight and floppy, bronze of face an’ all. Liked to be outdoors; a smiler, with bold blue eyes and a way with him that demanded respect.”
“That’s Paul to a T,” Jonathan Booker declared. “Like looking straight at him, how you describe him.”
“So, how do we find him?”
“Nothing easier. Straight on up the road half a mile, t’wards Steventon, and there is a road signposted to Willow Manor, on the left. ’Tis a track really, right along the four-acre meadow they use for grazing the cattle. Quarter of a mile and you come to two clumps of cottages. The first two—big ones, more houses than cottages really, with two dormer windows jutting out of the roofs. First one is the Huntsman’s cottage, Mr. Grosewalk. Lazarus Grosewalk. But the second, new painted last summer, that’s Paul’s cottage. You should find him there this time o’ day. Goes home for his victuals, and a bit more I’ve no doubt, for he has the most tasty wife in Fanny.” And they all fell to laughing, merry as grigs.
“Eat up, then, Harry.” Spear touched Judge’s forearm. “We’ll go along and surprise Paul. It’ll be lovely to see him again.”
“And Fanny,” Harry Judge said, and Spear recalled how Harry had fancied Fanny Jones like a fandangle. Never would have done anything about it, though, for Harry had his own one-and-only girl and nothing would ever change that.
Spear failed to see the pot boy, who had been washing the mugs and jugs, slip away from his work and leave the inn by a side door.
It took less than ten minutes to drive up to the track with the fingerpost that pointed to the left, neatly painted, black on white, saying WILLOW MANOR. Spear gave Judge his instructions to stay pulled in to the track, but with Smudge facing the road. “Mark any sod that comes my way,” he ordered. “I’ll whistle for you if I need you. My good two-fingered whistle.”
“Your shrieking one. Right. You whistle and I’ll come trotting down for you.”
“Good man.” Crossing into the field, Spear made his way up the side of the track, hidden by the thick and high hedgerow with its evergreen bushes and trees at intervals.
Albert Spear was wise to the ways of London streets, but knew little of country matters. There was no ditch running along the hedgerow—his eyes told him that, just as they also told him he was well shielded from the cottages when he came to them. Behind him, looking out of place in the middle of the meadow, was a clump of trees: some firs, and a pair of oaks, clear of leaves in winter, the branches curled against the sky. There was, he noted, a gap in the hedge, flanked by two elms almost directly opposite the cottage that he marked down as Pip Paget’s bolt hole—and a nice little place it was, built in red brick with a slate roof, and big enough to warrant white barge boards at the gable ends. The remaining woodwork—door and window frames—was a neat, clean white as well.
New painted last summer.
There seemed to be no sign of life from the cottage, but behind him in the field there were cattle, restless, anxiously lowing, expectant even. Then the cottage door opened and out came Fanny, unchanged, with her long, dark hair just as lustrous as Spear remembered. She was shaking out what could have been a tablecloth, cracking it in front of her, holding the ends far apart, her eyes raking the hedge and peering to the far distance. Spear crouched down; she was, he thought, a sight for sore eyes. Pretty as any picture. Oh, Fanny was captivating. Always had been. Even though he had his own beloved wife, Bridget, Albert Spear thought nobody could fail to be captivated by Fanny with her slim waist, that jet hair and her big brown eyes: captivating and fascinating. He was so fascinated with her now that he could not take his eyes off her every move, and felt the need to circle her waist with his hands.
Until he heard the unpleasant deep and menacing growl.
Then the click of a shotgun being cocked, the thumb pullin
g the hammers back, one after the other.
He spun around, his right hand going for the pistol he kept—like Carbonardo—in a special pocket behind his right hip.
“Don’t, Bert. Don’t make me blow holes in your guts.”
Philip Paget stood four feet away from him, a grey-black lurcher with its teeth bared growling close to his booted and gaitered leg and a two-barrelled shotgun, steady and pointing, aimed at his stomach.
“Bugger me. Pip Paget.” Spear opened both eyes and tried to look innocent.
Which made Paget laugh aloud. “Bert Spear, you old fraud. You’ve seen Fanny come out, so don’t be surprised when I’m here.”
Spear nodded slowly. “How d’yer manage to creep up on me like that, Pip?”
“Because all these years I’ve been living like Billy Bones.”
“Who’s Billy Bones when he’s at home then?”
“A pirate, Bert. A pirate in Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson’s wonderful book, Treasure Island. He comes to this inn on the cliffs and pays people to watch out for him. To watch out for anyone asking about him. In particular to look for a one-legged seafaring man. Well, I pay people, Bert. Good people, and I pay them to watch out for me.” He gave a strangled little laugh. “I told ’em to watch out for a big bully-boy over six foot tall, and a little foxy man, a Chinaman, and a big man with a broken nose and a scar shaped like a lightning flash down his cheek.”
“Me,” Spear grunted.
“Yes, you, Bert Spear. And the pot boy from The White Hart came running over here not a half hour ago and said his gaffer was telling you where to find me. Do you not recall that in the old days, when you were a lad, pot boys were known as squealers?”
“So how did you get behind me, Pip?”
“I been with them cows, Bert; then a’course Fanny come out and that got your attention. Now, Snapper!” He spoke to the dog, which growled and looked alert. “Stay, Snapper! Watch!” He moved a pace closer to Spear. “Snapper here will have your throat out if you move against me. Who else you got with you, Bert?” He came very close now, removed the pistol from Spear’s right hip, and gently felt in all the right places for other weapons, Snapper the dog circling close. His forelegs and body were grey, but his right eye was circled with black. Bert Spear thought of Bill Sykes’s dog, Bullseye, in Oliver Twist.
“I got Harry Judge up the end of the lane. But, Pip, I come here first to warn you. I swear to God I did, not just to seek you out, or do you harm. The Professor’s looking for you. Told me to find you. I thought I could come down and warn you that where I’ve been he’ll soon be watching.”
Paget said they should walk gently over to the cottage. “Fanny’s got a shotgun in there as well, Bert, and she’s not afraid to use it.”
“I’m not going to cause you any trouble, Pip, I swear. On my mother’s eyes I swear.”
“We’ll see. How can you summon Harry?”
“Me piercing whistle, Pip. Two blasts with me fingers stuck in me mouth.”
“Not yet. Just walk, quiet; slow; don’t do anything stupid, Bert Spear, because Fanny has a twelve-bore trained on you as well.”
Spear looked toward the cottage and saw that Fanny, standing just inside the door, had a second shotgun at her hip, up and pointing toward him.
“Whistle when we get to the gate,” Paget told him.
So, at the gate, mindful of the shotguns, Spear slipped his two fore-fingers into his mouth, above his front teeth, resting on his tongue. He turned his head and blew two long, piercing double whistles that actually hurt his ears, so Lord knew what they did to the dog. Snapper looked bewildered and pained but settled again, staying with him as they got to the door.
“Snapper!” Paget commanded. “Stay! Watch!”
And the dog gave another low growl, moving quietly in as Spear stepped over the threshold. Paget was to one side, out of sight, and Fanny remained just a blur somewhere in front of him but in a dark patch, just inside her kitchen door, pretty much in line with the front door and leading off the parlour. Later he saw that the kitchen door was a latched half door, like one in a stable—nice though, painted a deep cream, as was all the interior woodwork. “Hello, Mr. Spear,” she said in her lovely deep and soothing voice. “It’s been a few years.”
“I need to talk to you both …” he began, feeling inadequate.
“Let’s deal with your chum Harry first,” Paget said. “I want to make sure he’s not lurking around with a barker ready to puncture me.”
The gig pulled up in the middle of the track, right in front of the cottage gate, and Spear called to Harry Judge, “Come on down, Harry. Come and say hallo to Pip Paget.”
Paget left his shotgun behind the door, calling back to Fanny not to let Judge see the weapons before gently pushing Spear toward the garden, the dog close to them both, looking up, interested, as Harry came through the gate, meeting Pip Paget as though he had no care in the world. Which was an accurate description. Harry was a literal person. He knew Paget had left the Professor’s service suddenly and without permission, but that was as far as it went. Nobody had directly charged him to take any action against Pip, or Fanny for that matter.
“Hallo, Pip,” he called, coming up the path, boots crunching on the neat gravel. “That’s a fearsome-looking dog you’ve got there.”
Paget said it was good to see Harry again and responded to Judge’s remark concerning Snapper by agreeing, “Yes. Yes, old Snapper’ll have your socks off before you know it, if you give him cause.”
They talked for a few minutes, though Harry, of course, had only small talk, mentioning how cold it was and how they’d had grievous hard frosts, and crippling heavy snow up the Smoke, and how lucky Pip and Fanny were to have moved to such a nice spot as this.
“Gets righteous cold out here, as well,” Pip told him. “Cold as a witch’s tit some nights.”
Fanny came out after a while and Harry blushed, probably to the roots of his hair only you could not see, so bundled up was he against the weather. At last Spear told him to go and wait in the gig as he had to talk with Pip and Fanny, and the dog watched as Judge left, dividing his time between Spear and Judge, alert and intelligently aware of everything, his body flat, low on the ground.
Pip had always been good, Spear considered: covered himself all ways; knew how to post people on the watch and how to protect himself and others. Now he seemed to have got even better, living out here in this pleasant place. “Wouldn’t do for me, though,” he said. “Too quiet out here in the sticks, not enough going on.” Away from the city streets and houses, Spear felt unmercifully vulnerable.
“I’m not here to harm you,” he said now that they faced each other inside the nice room that was the Pagets’ parlour: two comfortable chairs pulled up to the fire; a fair-sized circular table and stand chairs; a pair of oil lamps standing on the table; even ornaments on the mantel, which was draped in a cherry-red cloth with a fringe hanging down. There were three little statues—naked women, they looked like—and a glass ball the size of a man’s fist, and two little pottery vases.
A looking glass in a gilt frame hung over the mantel, and on one wall were two framed reproductions of paintings: long-haired sheep grazing on a rocky hillside, and some horned cattle crossing a brook. Curtains, a deep red heavy material, hung from brass poles fitted above each window.
“Not here to harm you,” he repeated.
“If you’re not here to harm us, Bert Spear, why are you here at all?” Fanny asked in a cool, somewhat calculating, way, her eyes fixed on his face, steady, not shifting. Getting to the heart of it, Spear thought. Fanny did not faff around; she preferred to get straight to the nub of matters.
“We been away for several years,” he began, then launched into the manner in which Moriarty had started to show interest in the whereabouts of the Pagets. “He ordered me to find you, won’t leave it alone. And I found you with little trouble.”
“Do you have to tell him that?” Pip Paget asked. “That you’ve found
us?”
“Now what’s that mean, Pip? You forgotten what it’s like to work for him? Forgotten his demands, the ways he has? I have no means of hiding you from him. If you take my advice you’ll go. Put distance between you and him. I don’t know what he plans, but it can’t be good for you. He’s a fair master, the Professor—”
“—and I ran out on him,” Pip Paget said, a gloomy edge to his voice.
“As he sees it, Pip, you are a traitor. You gave up one of his greatest secrets to an official enemy. You sold him to the rozzers, Pip.”
Paget gave a solemn nod. “Aye, I did. Folly. The most foolish thing I ever did. Going without talking to him. But, Bert, I could not have killed for him again—not a defenceless old friend.” And he told them about Kate Wright, one of their own, whom he had been forced to murder, garrotting her with a silk scarf.
The story was so touching that tears started in Fanny’s eyes. Fanny had worked close to Kate Wright. “But Kate and her husband had betrayed the Professor,” she said. “Really betrayed him.”
“So did we, my dear,” Pip said, matter-of-fact, unemotional.
“We’re under threat again now,” Spear told him, and then explained about how Idle Jack had stolen so much, taken over so many areas of Moriarty’s organization, his family. “He’s vowed to tip Idle Jack Idell into the sea, smash him utterly, and we’ve begun to make headway.”
“Then perhaps he won’t come after us all that quickly,” Fanny said.
“I would not bank on it, my love,” Paget told her. “Unless he’s a changed man, he’ll come for the easy target first.” Then, turning to Albert Spear, he asked how long he could possibly expect to keep quiet.
“Couple of days at the most. I certainly have to see him, tomorrow. No doubt about that. He’s got something going on, Monday I think. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t avoid seeing him and he’s bound to ask. Knows I am searching for you now. Today.”