James Blaylock - The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives

He puzzled over it, aware that the gash on his forehead had begun to throb. He couldn’t for the life of him determine what to do next. Why am I standing here with my head in the chest, he asked himself. But only one answer was forthcoming: strong drink. Kraken smiled. “Whisky is risky,” he said half aloud, listening to his voice echo up out of the chest. He was mad to drink whisky. Gin didn’t do this to a man — make a fool of him. He was suddenly desperately afraid. How long had he been here, stooped over the chest? Was the room behind him filled with the faces of his friends, all of them stretched with loathing?

He extricated his head slowly, careful not to start an avalanche of nautical debris. In his hands he held the hidden box. A thrill of fear and excitement rushed along in his veins, washing away all rational thought. There it was again — the voice, tiny and distant, as if someone were trapped, perhaps, in the wall. He could understand none of it. He wasn’t sure, suddenly, that he wanted to understand it, and was smitten with the wild certainty that the voice spoke from within his own head — a devil.

He was possessed. He’d read Paracelsus. It struck him at once that this was almost certainly a matter of Mumia, that the woman who’d lured him to the den where he’d been beaten was a witch. She’d used him, sensing that he was burdened with Mumia from the bodies he’d carted about London in the night. The sins of his past were rising like spectres, pointing at him. He shook with fear. It was more whisky he required, not less. He silenced the tiny voice, clacking his teeth to shut out the noise, then leaped in sudden horror as the noise turned into a fearful shouting.

He banged down the lid of the chest and jumped clear. The outer room was a tumult. That’s where the noise had come from! Kraken peered around the doorjamb, only to lurch back into the comparative safety of the dark room. Kelso Drake stood without, in the open doorway of the shop. He’d come at last. Having Kraken beaten and shot hadn’t satisfied him. He’d come to finish the job. Kraken pressed back into the room, bumping against a closed window. He unhooked the latch, swung it open, and crawled out across the sill and slid into the mud of the alley, where he lay breathing heavily. He stood up, casting a glance over his shoulder at Spode Street, then loped away toward Billingsgate. In a few hours the thronging crowd at the fishmarket would hide him and his prize from his enemies.

The pounding startled the lot of them, except, perhaps, Godall, who wore on his face a look of shrewd curiosity. The Captain took a step forward as if to open the door, but it was thrown open almost at once by Kelso Drake, who smiled benignly and bowed just a bit before striding into the room. Keeble leaped up and threw his coat over Jack’s lap to hide the toy.

Drake stood just inside the door, bemused in his top hat, looking about him at the shop with the air of a man half baffled that such a place could exist, and coming to the conclusion that perhaps it could, given the quality of the men whom he confronted. He swept an invisible fleck from his sleeve and rolled his cigar to the other side of his mouth.

“Light?” asked the Captain, holding a long match aloft.

Drake shook his head and squinted.

“Rather eat them, would you?” said the Captain, tossing the match into a bowl. Keeble had gone white, a peculiarity Drake seemed to relish.

He smiled at the toymaker. “You’ve brought it along, then,” he said, nodding at the half-concealed box in Jack’s lap. “It’s good when a man sees reason. The world is too full of unpleasantries as it is.”

“The only unpleasantry I can see,” cried the Captain, reaching beneath the counter, “is you! Get out of my shop while you can still stand on yer pegs!” And with that he hauled out a braided leather cosh the length of his forearm and slapped it against his ivory leg.

Drake ignored him. “Come, come, my man,” he said to Keeble “Hand it across. The machine will do as well as the plans. My workmen can puzzle it out.”

Jack was bewildered. Only Keeble and St. Ives entirely understood. St. Ives groped beside his chair for the neck of an empty ale bottle. Here was a dangerous man. It quite likely wouldn’t come to blows — that wasn’t Drake’s way. But the man who’d tried to purloin Keeble’s plans was quite clearly the domino player on Wardour Street. They’d best all be cautious. Who could say what sorts of ruffians waited in the shadows outside?

“You’ve had my answer,” gasped Keeble, shaking visibly. “It hasn’t changed.”

“Then,” said Drake, removing a chewed cigar from his mouth, “we’ll attempt coercion.” He stood silently for a moment as if lost in thought. The rest of the company was frozen, waiting for Drake’s pronouncement. But instead of threatening and bribing, he merely tipped his hat and turned toward the door, saying, “ Very pretty daughter, that Dorothy of yours. Reminds me of a girl I had once…Where was it?” He turned once again toward Keeble with a mock questioning look on his face, only to find Jack catapulting out of his chair in a fury. The box flew, Keeble caught it, and Jack punched wildly at Drake, missing the leering face by a foot and sprawling into Godall, who reached across and grasped the Captain’s wrist as he brought the sap back for a swing that would have left Drake senseless.

The millionaire had feinted toward the door to avoid Jack’s blow, and saw the Captain’s attempt out of the edge of his eye. The look on his face changed from leering indifference and amusement to black hatred in an instant, and his hat flew off onto the floor as he checked his feint and jerked around in anticipation of the blow. But Godall still held the wrist of the furious Captain Powers, and Drake recovered, edging just a bit toward the door.

He stooped to retrieve his hat, but the Captain, stepping forward, pinned it to the floor with his peg leg, smashing the crown sideways, then, transferring the cosh to his free hand, flattened the hat utterly with three quick blows.

“That’ll be your head, swabby, if I catch you around here again. You or any of your bully boys. You’re filth — bilgewater, the lot o’ ye, and I’d just as soon stamp you to jelly as look at ye!”

Drake’s grin was palsied. He neglected the hat, turned as if to say one last thing to Keeble, but never got it out. The Captain, jerking free from Godall, struck Drake on the shoulder, sending him sprawling through the open door, then crouched, grabbed at the ruined hat and sailed it out into the night like a flying plate, banging the door shut in its wake. He opened a fresh bottle of ale and poured it into his glass with a shaking hand. Godall sat down. The Captain drained half the glass, turned to his aristocratic friend, and said, “Thanks, mate,” then sat down himself.

Jack was once again possessed of the box. He stared at a spot on the floor, thoughtful or embarrassed. Keeble seemed to be staring at the same spot. St. Ives cleared his throat. “This business is growing curious,” he said. “I don’t half understand why we have to be embroiled in such complications — as if Narbondo’s machinations aren’t enough. Now we have two villains to deal with. We keep the weather eye on one of them, and all along the other one’s watching us. And, I’m afraid, gentlemen, that I’ll have to leave you to it — my train departs King’s Cross Station tomorrow morning at ten sharp, now that the oxygenator is finished. I can’t afford to put if off. Conditions are almost right.”

Keeble waved his hand haphazardly. “Drake is my affair,” he said, sighing, as if he were tired of the whole issue. “I’m not sure I won’t sell him the plans. What difference would it make?”