Alex Grecian - The Black Country

“Or we can wait and see why he wanted us out of the way,” Day said.

“What if he’s got the Price family hidden away somewhere?”

“It doesn’t seem likely. There’s something else going on here. Let’s see what happens.”

“Of course, he could be trying to kill us, after all,” Hammersmith said. “And he could decide to try again when he sees it didn’t work this time.”

“Then we’ll arrest him,” Day said. “Eat your bread to soak up the drug in your stomach. Eat mine, too.”

“Thank you, but if you wouldn’t mind turning your back for a moment?”

“Of course.”

Day turned and pretended to examine the chest of drawers against the window. Hammersmith took a deep breath and stuck a finger down his throat, immediately choking up a small amount of liquid back into the soup bowl. He wiped his lips on his shirtsleeve again and took a long swallow of beer to wash the taste of vomit out of his mouth.

“You are a hardy sort, aren’t you?” Day said.

“I do wish people would stop drugging me,” Hammersmith said. “I’m going to have to start preparing my own food and I’m a terrible cook, so that’s hardly better than submitting to all the poisoning going on around me.”

“It’s your second time. I can’t imagine it’ll happen again. You’re already bucking the odds.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Hammersmith dropped to his hands and knees and pulled the chamber pot from under Day’s bed.

“There are still chamber pots in the rooms here?” Day said.

“I assume indoor water closets haven’t yet come to Blackhampton. At least, not all of it. Still, this ought to do,” Hammersmith said. He poured both bowls into the big pot and looked around for a place to dump it out.

“Huh,” he said. “They’ve blocked the window.”

“The chest of drawers. I thought putting it in front of the window was merely an unfortunate use of the space.”

“It was done to keep us in here.”

“Further evidence that the drug wasn’t meant to kill us. If we were dead, we wouldn’t try to climb out the window tonight.”

“Probably not. At any rate, I can’t dump the contents out the window, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with the scent of groaty dick in your room.”

“It’s not altogether unpleasant,” Day said. “If I have to put up with a scent, I mean.”

Hammersmith shoved the chamber pot back under the bed. He and Day sat and ate the bread, washing it down with the strong ale. Hammersmith yawned. “We were supposed to fall asleep quickly,” he said.

“The question is why?”

“Our host is hiding something from us,” Hammersmith said.

“Then I think it behooves us to find out what that might be.” Day stood and held out his hand, and Hammersmith handed him his plate. Day chuckled. “You still managed to get a bit on your sleeve there.”

“I know. I did it practically on purpose. I think you planted the notion in my head.”

“I’m devious that way.” Day put their plates and glasses on the tray with their bowls and opened the door long enough to set the tray in the hall. He came back into the room and closed the door.

“We should be very careful in those woods tonight,” he said. “They’ll think we’re sleepy, so we’ll watch them for mistakes. But no unnecessary chances.”

“Agreed.”

“I mean it, Nevil. You are not invincible. You have a tendency to leap before you properly think a situation through.”

“I’m touched that you worry about me.”

Day shook his head and smiled. He searched his pockets until he found his flask and took a deep swallow from it. He held it out to Hammersmith.

“Take a drink. It’ll kill the poisons.”

“No, thank you, sir. I’d prefer tea.”

“Of course. But brandy will keep you healthy.”

Hammersmith took the flask and raised it in a mock salute to Day. He took a swallow and handed the flask back. The two men stood and looked around the room.

“Well,” Day said. “Are you ready to go and risk our lives in the woods behind an unsettling village in the middle of the night?”

“It’s what I live for,” Hammersmith said.

“Then after you, Mr Hammersmith.”

He swung the door open and waved the sergeant through, then stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. The two men stepped over the tray of empty bowls and steins and walked to the staircase. Without a look back, they headed down into the flickering darkness of the inn.

Fires banked forty feet into the air, throwing the landscape into sharp contrast and spreading shadows of the four men across the snowy fields. Constable Grimes led Day, Hammersmith, and Calvin Campbell past the furnaces, which worked night and day, smelting ore and creating the slag that bordered every path. Day and Hammersmith had seen the furnaces from the train windows when they arrived, but the effect was much more dramatic in the dark. Everything was indigo and white, and as they drew nearer the forest, shadows capered beyond the tree line, a fairy dance for the unaccustomed audience.

Day let Hammersmith and Campbell walk ahead. The two men seemed to have found an easy camaraderie based on their shared fear for the life of little Oliver Price, but Day wasn’t ready to trust the stranger yet. He held out his hand in front of Grimes to slow the constable down.

“Tell me about him.” Day nodded in the direction of Campbell’s back.

“Nothing much to tell,” Grimes said. “He’s been around the village for a week or two. Staying at the inn. Studying birds of the region, he says.”

“Rose doesn’t like him.”

“Rose likes him well enough,” Grimes said.

“He didn’t want Campbell with us out here.”

“No,” Grimes said. “You misunderstand. It’s nothing to do with Mr Campbell. He’s probably harmless enough.”

“Then what?”

“I think Mr Rose was trying to protect you.”

“But you just said that Campbell’s harmless.”

“Not from Campbell. It’s only that most of the people round here are superstitious. Rose is the same as any. He didn’t want you out here tonight.”

“I’d say he didn’t. He drugged Sergeant Hammersmith and me.”

“Drugged you?”

“Put something in our supper to make us sleep.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to harm you. He doesn’t always think. They’re good people here, they really are, but they’re closed off.”

Day didn’t say anything. He waited.

Grimes sniffed and looked at the trees ahead of them. “You understand I’m not one,” he said.

“One what?”

“Like the others in Blackhampton. I don’t believe in the. . I don’t think the same things about it all.”

“Rose thinks he knows what happened to that family, doesn’t he?”

“Not just him. Lot of the folks here do.”

“That’s why you sent for us?”

“I had to. I couldn’t find that family myself. And nobody else wants to help.”

“So where does Rose think they are?”

“Down below.”

“In the mines?”

“Yes.”

“What makes him think that?” Day said.

Grimes said nothing.

“Should we be down in the tunnels,” Day said, “rather than out here in the woods?”

Grimes shrugged. “I didn’t say I thought they were in the tunnels.”

There was another long silence. The two of them walked on. They drew up alongside Hammersmith and Campbell, who had stopped at the tree line where the snow abruptly ended.

“Let’s get in there,” Campbell said.

Day nodded, and Hammersmith produced a box of matches. He withdrew a long wooden match and lit each of the men’s lanterns. Day looked around at the faces of the three other men. Hammersmith wore his customary expression of determination. Campbell’s face was partially hidden in shadow, and the light from his lantern cast yellow highlights under his cheekbones that made him seem cadaverous and deadly. Day looked at Grimes. The constable’s eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. He had the appearance of a high-strung horse ready to bolt.