Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘Poor lass,’ said the commodore. ‘She has it bad, she does. Pass me another one of your foul little sweets Jethro, so I can mix it with a drop of the hard stuff.’

Dick saw the bag of Bunter and Benger’s aniseed drops about to exchange hands and he grabbed the commodore’s arm before the old u-boat man could accept it. ‘No more of those for her.’

‘Are you the doctor we sent for?’ asked the man.

‘Doctor my arse. He’s the wicked rascal I told you about,’ said the commodore. ‘Dick Tull, a filthy government officer come along to disturb my quiet.’

‘I know enough about drugging a body and keeping ’em alive enough to answer questions at the end of it,’ said Dick. ‘You give the girl another dose of whiskey and opiates and she’ll die on you. The booze jolted her out of her fit, give the opiates another five minutes to pass through her blood and stop her whispering that nonsense.’

‘I can assure you there are no opiates in any Bunter and Benger’s aniseed drops,’ said the beak-nosed man. ‘That is merely a scurrilous rumour spread by their competitors inside the trade.’

Dick shook his head in annoyance. ‘Who are these two damn jokers, Blacky? A music hall act?’

‘I am Jethro Daunt,’ said the man proudly, as if he was announcing he was a prince among men. ‘And along with my colleague Boxiron, we’re protecting the young Damson Shades here. She is in the care of our agency for private resolutions.’

Private resolutions… a consulting detective with delusions of grandeur. How sodding fine.

‘Then I suggest you care for her elsewhere, Daunt. Amateur hour is over. Blacky, you and I have business to discuss.’

‘Hang your business,’ said the commodore. ‘I told you before; I’m finished with the board.’

‘Truer than you know,’ said Tull. ‘Whatever mess you’ve got yourself into with your old royalist friends, it’s put you on the murder list. The board tossed Rufus Symons’ corpse into the river, and they tried to top me just for reporting that pack of lies you passed on to me.’

‘Been disavowed have you?’ laughed Commodore Black. ‘Your badge melted for scrap. All the shit you’ve done in your life, how can you even tell where the smell’s coming from?’

Dick yanked out the blunderbuss from under his greatcoat, grabbed the commodore’s lapels and shoved him against the kitchen wall, the barrel pushed under his throat. Boxiron lurched forward towards them, but Sadly had a tiny sleeve-pistol out and pointing at Jethro Daunt’s head. ‘Not another step, see. I have got your back, Mister Tull.’

The head of the spring-loaded arm hidden up his sleeve quivered as the little rat-faced man kept the trembling pistol pointed at Blacky’s friend. Bloody Nora. Never knew Sadly kept a sleeve gun. Never knew he had a gun at all for that matter. Never realized he had the balls for it.

‘Your friend Rufus Symons is dead. My old partner is lying back on my bed sliced up like a side of pork belly on a butcher’s slab. The board tried to kill my little acquaintance Sadly here just because I talked with him. Everyone who’s had anything to do with your royalist accomplices has been left for a corpse. I should be one! You think because you’re dying that you’ve got nothing left to live for? Let’s put it to the test. I’ll do you now before the board comes for you. I’ll put a charge’s worth of lead shot through your fat, thick, wealthy head and decorate the expensive tiles of your nice warm kitchen with a new pattern. Blacky red. It could be a new style. What do you say?’

‘Trigger your weapon,’ Boxiron threatened, ‘and you join him in death a second later.’

‘This is not a rational course,’ protested Daunt from the other side of the table. ‘From what you have said I believe our causes are linked.’

‘Shut your cake-hole, amateur. I’m looking for the reason why I’ve been placed on a death list. I’ve not been engaged by a rich widow to track down her bloody missing cat.’

‘Missing pets and errant spouses do not engage my professional interest. Missing citizens who are absent of blood are another matter,’ said Daunt.

The vampire slayings. That’s what the head said, too, the mad old steamer.

‘Lower your wicked gun,’ wheezed the commodore. ‘I wouldn’t insult my gravestone by having it recorded that my life ended at the hands of a two-penny ruffian like Dick Tull.’

You think? Dick pulled back the hammer on the clockwork of firing lock as if he was going to shoot, and then pushed the safety forward. Many would say that would be a fitting end to your life.

As Dick lowered his gun, a loud bell started filling the kitchen with its clamour. ‘You got another houseguest inside here Blacky, sending down to the kitchen for their soup?’

‘Perimeter alarm,’ said the commodore. ‘Someone’s jumped my wall and is coming through the woods.’

There was a series of thumps throughout the house, the kitchen floor shaking as a heavy metal blast door dropped out of a slot within the wall, sealing off the inner courtyard. They’re locked out, or we’re locked in, depending on your point of view.

‘It’s the board, Mister Tull.’ Sadly looked panicked. ‘They’ve come for us.’

‘Surely it could be a fox, good captain,’ said Daunt. ‘A false alarm?’

Another thump, louder, the distant rain of falling rubble following it.

‘Wouldn’t be heavy enough to set off my minefield,’ said the commodore.

‘Bloody hell.’ Sadly looked at the tiny pistol in his hand, as if he was realising this was all he had to stop the dustmen. ‘Mines.’

‘This isn’t my first ride at this carnival, lad,’ said the commodore, opening the door to his pantry and fiddling with something hidden under the shelves inside. ‘I’ve grown mortal tired of receiving the wrong sort of visitor at Tock House. Boxiron, lend me the weight of your shoulder plates here.’

Boxiron and the old u-boat man pushed at the shelves and they swung to one side, revealing a concealed room on the other side, iron railings surrounding a well-like opening in the middle of the floor — spiral stairs leading downwards from the pantry.

A hidden strong room. ‘Where’s your treasure, then?’

‘Is the preservation of your miserable life not booty enough for you, Dick Tull?’ The commodore waved them inside the room, lighting its gas lamps with a spark switch while the steamman and his consulting detective friend carried in the murmuring girl. Once inside, Dick helped the commodore push shut the concealed door. No wonder it was so heavy. Five inches of reinforced metal on the other side of the shelves, riding large rollers across the flagstones.

Sadly was sweating. ‘This isn’t right. We’re as tight as rats in a pipe here. Just like when the dustmen came for me in my cellar.’

‘Tight as the sweet decks of a boat,’ said the commodore. ‘Down the stairs and let’s see if we can’t make a little mischief for them.’

There was another room below, larger, windowless and with a series of doors leading off that that might’ve belonged on a submersible, solid riveted iron with wheel locks to open them. Racks had been built into the walls between the doors, canned food, barrels of water, guns, charges and equipment piled from floor to ceiling. Dick ran his finger along one of the shelves. Not much dust. Less than a couple of years old down here.

‘You are well appointed for a siege,’ said Daunt.

‘Life gives you what you expect,’ said the commodore, lifting a dustsheet off a bank of equipment. ‘And well glad I am for my preparations, too, we’ll give them a few licks before we go down.’

‘That’s the spirit, good captain,’ said Daunt. ‘There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes.’