Justin Richards - The Death Collector

‘I don’t understand.’ Berry laid the bone down next to the one taken from the dead man’s leg. ‘Are you suggesting this man had no elbow? That his joints were not connected?’

‘I am not suggesting anything,’ Sir William Protheroe said. He poked at the bone from the arm. ‘But as Jones surmised this is most certainly not a human bone. In fact, unlike Jones, I recognise it quite distinctly.’

Berry just stared at the bones. ‘Then what …?’ He wasn’t even sure what question he should be asking.

‘This man,’ Protheroe said quietly, ‘has the bones of a dinosaur.’

‘You did what?’ It was difficult to tell if George Archer was more annoyed or surprised.

Eddie had thought they would be pleased. He had waited until Liz arrived at George’s house before stepping out from the shadow of an oak tree on the other side of the street. The door had opened immediately to his knocking, and at first both George and Liz had seemed pleased to see him.

Then he told them what he had done that afternoon. It provoked anger and disbelief from George. Liz went pale and quiet. There was silence for several moments, then both the adults seemed to slump into their chairs.

Eddie perched on the edge of George’s threadbare sofa and waited for further reaction. When there was none, he decided that they must be waiting for him to tell them more. ‘I didn’t use your real names, of course,’ he said, in case that was what worried them.

‘Oh good,’ George said weakly.

‘No, they’re expecting Mr and Mrs Smith.’ Eddie grinned at his improvisation.

‘Smith?’ Liz said. Her voice sounded strained. ‘I don’t suppose they will believe that for a minute.’

‘Couldn’t you have chosen something less obviously false?’ George wanted to know.

Eddie sighed. ‘It’s all arranged,’ he told them. ‘There’s some other people there too, but this Madame Sophia said she can squeeze you in.’ Now came the bit they really wouldn’t like, and Eddie cleared his throat and lowered his voice to add: ‘for only three shillings.’

It looked for a second as if George was about to explode. ‘Three shillings?!’ He blinked and mouthed words that failed to appear, then shook his head. ‘Three shillings ?’ he said again. ‘For something I don’t even want to go to — for a seance?’

‘It’s normally six,’ Eddie said. ‘I haggled them down to a shilling each.’

‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ George said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

‘If you don’t go, you won’t have to pay,’ Eddie pointed out. ‘But I think you should. If this Wilkes bloke is dead and you want to ask him what’s going on and that, it’s your only way.’

‘It’s Percy I’d really like to talk to,’ George said quietly.

‘Percy?’

‘Percy Smythe,’ Liz explained. ‘George’s other friend at the Museum. The man who was cataloguing the diaries. He’s dead too,’ she added.

Eddie laughed. ‘There you are then. Two for the price of one. Bargain. What you complaining about?’

‘I suppose it would do no harm,’ Liz murmured. It seemed to Eddie that despite her earlier protests she was looking forward to the experience.

‘You’re serious?’ George asked in surprise. ‘You think we should go?’

Liz considered a moment, then nodded. ‘What have we got to lose?’

‘Three shillings.’ George stood up thrust his hands into his trouser pockets as he thought about it. Slowly he turned towards Eddie. ‘You said you got them down to a shilling each.’

‘Wasn’t easy.’

George held up his hand and counted on his fingers. ‘Mr Smith, that’s me. Mrs Smith, that’s Liz.’ He waggled the fingers. ‘That’s only two shillings.’

‘You’re forgetting young Master Smith,’ Eddie said. ‘That’s me.’

Liz was on her feet now. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Oh no, no, no.’

Eddie leaped up too. ‘What do you mean, “no no no”? Whose idea was this?’ Eddie demanded. ‘Who arranged everything? I’m coming.’ Eddie folded his arms and sat down.

‘No,’ George said. ‘No, you’re not. This is your chance to get a good night’s sleep. You can have the spare room. It used to be my father’s.’

‘I’m coming,’ Eddie repeated, not looking at either of them.

‘Either George and I go — alone,’ Liz said sternly, ‘or none of us is going.’

There was no changing her mind. George seemed to find the whole thing amusing, which just made Eddie all the more annoyed.

‘I’ll show you the room,’ George said.

They all trouped up the narrow staircase and George led Eddie to a small room that contained a narrow bed and little else. The window gave a view of a tree, its branches dark and skeletal against the grey of the night sky. There was a key in the door and Eddie eyed it suspiciously.

‘You’re not locking me in.’

‘I would hope we don’t have to,’ Liz said. ‘Do we?’

Eddie looked at her.

‘Do we?’ she repeated.

‘All right, I’ll give you my word of honour,’ Eddie told her solemnly. ‘I’m not coming out of that door till you get back. Not unless I ’ave to. Happy?’

‘What do you mean by “unless I ’ave to”?’ Liz mimicked Eddie’s accent, and he smiled despite himself.

‘Well, if there’s a fire, or someone comes to the door, or I need to go for a — ’

‘All right, that’s fine,’ Liz agreed quickly. She took a step towards Eddie, and for a moment he was afraid she was going to give him a hug. But she settled for: ‘Goodbye. We’ll look in on you when we get back and if you’re awake tell you what happened.’

‘I won’t be asleep,’ Eddie told her indignantly. ‘And if I am, you can wake me up.’

Eddie waited until he heard the front door close behind them. Then he went to the window and looked out. The room was at the front of the house, so he could see the dark figures of George and Liz walking down the street outside. He glanced back at the door and sucked in his cheeks as he thought. He had given them his word he wouldn’t go out the door, and Eddie was not one to go back on his promise. His word was his bond, and he sensed that they both knew that.

He waited another minute to be sure that Liz and George had reached the end of the street. Then he undid the catch and opened the window.

The Atlantian Club was only ten minutes’ brisk walk from the British Museum. Sir William Protheroe sat alone in the oak-panelled dining room, thinking carefully through the events and discoveries of the evening. No one joined him for dinner — the people who knew him well enough could also see that he was deep in contemplation. They knew better than to disturb him.

By the time he had finished dinner, Protheroe had already forgotten what he had eaten. He thanked Vespers the chief steward of the club, nodded in greeting to Sir Henry Walthamstow and a few other acquaintances, and made his way back through the chill of the night to the Museum.

He had several ideas about the body, and was ready to start putting them to the test. Protheroe had sent Berry home before he himself headed off to the club for dinner, so the few rooms that constituted the Department of Unclassified Artefacts were dark and empty. He lit the lamps in the main specimen room. Their flames flickered in the glass doors of cabinets and cases, dancing across artefacts that should not, according to science, exist.

But the workbench was bare. The body of Albert Wilkes, and the bones that Protheroe had removed for examination, were gone.

‘Is there anybody there?’ The room was almost totally dark and Madame Sophia’s voice was a ghostly wail that echoed in the gloom.

George had decided that the seance was a waste of time as soon as Madame Sophia greeted ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ at the door and bustled them into her parlour. She gave almost every impression of being a scatty, eccentric lady of a certain age. But her sharp eyes gave her away. George could almost feel himself being sized up by the woman. If she had licked her lips in anticipation, it would not have surprised him.