Justin Richards - The Death Collector

Terrifying roars echoed round them as they raced down the passageway and out into the street. Eddie was almost crying with relief as they emerged.

‘We were lucky to escape,’ George gasped.

Eddie was about to answer when a dark figure stepped out of the fog. Strong arms wrapped round him and dragged him backwards.

‘Not as lucky as you think,’ Blade’s voice rasped in Eddie’s ear.

He didn’t think, just acted. He kicked out backwards, struggling to break the man’s grip. But Blade was holding on tight to his coat.

‘Run!’ Eddie shouted to George. ‘I’m right behind you.’

Blade grunted and gripped Eddie all the more tightly.

Eddie fought and kicked, and with a sudden, fluid movement, he ripped his arms out of the sleeves of his jacket, leaving Blade to fall backwards, holding only his coat.

Eddie caught up with George, and together they ran as fast as they could down the road. They did not stop running until they both collapsed, gasping for breath. The pale fog closed in around them like a shroud.

‘What are you doing here?’ Liz was surprised to see George and Eddie. She was helping Marcus Jessop work out the design for the backdrops when her two friends ran into the auditorium.

Excusing herself from Jessop, Liz climbed down from the stage as decorously as possible, and made her way up the aisle to where George and Eddie were looking around with interest.

She listened with mounting amazement and anxiety to their story. She glanced at the small contraption with its two metal plates and winding key which George proudly showed her. None of them noticed the sound of the back door of the theatre opening distantly and then banging shut again.

‘So you thought I might be in danger?’ she said when they had finished.

Eddie and George were sitting together in a row of seats, near the back of the theatre. Liz was in the row behind them, facing towards the stage as they talked.

‘Well, of course,’ George said. ‘After they came for us, we worried they would also be looking for you.’

‘We tried your home, but your father said you were out,’ Eddie told her.

‘So we guessed you’d be here,’ George finished, proud of his deduction.

Liz nodded. ‘Lorimore knew who you are because you went to see him. He knows you have, or had, the page of Glick’s diary. But until now he didn’t know who I am, or even that I exist.’

George sighed with relief. ‘I suppose that’s true.’ Then he realised what she had said. ‘What do you mean, “until now”?’

Liz was looking past George and Eddie. ‘The man with the scar is talking to Marcus on the stage,’ she said.

They turned to look, just in time to see Marcus Jessop nod and point down into the auditorium, to where they were sitting. As the man with him turned, the stage lights caught and illuminated the pale scar running down his face.

‘Run!’ Eddie shrieked.

Blade was already leaping down from the stage and heading rapidly through the theatre.

George and Liz leaped to their feet and stumbled into the aisle. Eddie was over the seats and waiting at the back of the auditorium.

‘But, how did he find you?’ George asked as they ran through the foyer.

Liz opened the main doors, slamming them behind after they had all come through. ‘He didn’t,’ she said angrily. ‘He followed you.’

‘Oh.’ George was crestfallen. ‘I thought we’d escaped.’

Liz led them across the road and they ducked behind the end of a wall almost opposite the theatre. After a few seconds, Blade emerged from the theatre. He looked up and down the street, peering into the fog. They heard him curse out loud, before hastening away.

‘They let us run to see who we’d go to. Once we’d escaped they thought it was easiest just to follow,’ Eddie realised.

‘So now they know where you live, and where I live as well as about the theatre,’ Liz pointed out.

‘We could go to Sir William, at the British Museum,’ George suggested.

‘That’s where you work,’ Eddie said. ‘So they’ll know to watch there too.’

‘And they could very well be watching Sir William anyway,’ Liz added.

‘There must be somewhere we can go until they stop looking,’ George said.

‘If they ever do,’ Eddie mumbled.

Liz did not reply. Somewhere in the distance, muffled by the fog, she heard the roar of a train. Except that somehow she knew it was not a train at all.

Sir William had his hand on the door knob before he realised there was someone already in his office.

He hesitated, hand poised ready to turn the knob. It was Garfield Berry that he could hear — the distinctive nasal tones. He did not know why Berry should be in his office, but it was no matter. Except …

Except that Berry was talking to someone. And not even Berry was permitted in Sir William’s office without his permission. And now he came to think about it, Sir William had left the office locked, the key was still in his pocket. Berry had no key, not that Sir William knew about anyway.

As he stood there, trying to make out the muffled voices from behind the door, several things occurred to Sir William. He remembered how he had thought his papers had been moved yesterday. How on several occasions he had wondered if things on his desk had been examined. How he had once found Berry in his office when he was sure he had left it locked. Berry had insisted the door was open and he had been looking for Sir William.

His hand dropped as he made out some of Berry’s words:

‘… back soon. He won’t be expecting us …’

The other voice was low and gruff. It was harder to make out, but Sir William caught odd snatches of what it said:

‘… can’t go back to the theatre, or to Archer’s house …’

Sir William stiffened at this. He pressed his ear to the door, struggling to hear more.

‘What about the woman?’ Berry was asking.

‘We’re watching her house too. That urchin doesn’t live anywhere so far as we can tell. But we have another way of finding him, don’t you worry.’

‘So you think they might come here?’ Berry said.

‘It’s where Archer works. And we are pretty sure that Sir William High-And-Mighty Protheroe is also involved with them.’

Sir William smiled at that. He certainly was involved, and getting more involved by the moment.

‘Mr Lorimore got my letter?’ Berry asked. ‘About the body, with the copy of Sir William’s notes? And Archer’s address?’

The smile faded from Protheroe’s face. Lorimore — so now he knew for sure. And he was right, someone had been through his papers. He had suspected that idiot Defoe, not the apparently loyal Berry. He stepped back from the door and considered his options. To confront Berry and the other man now would perhaps be to overplay his hand. As it was, they did not realise that he knew Berry was working against him.

No, he decided, better to leave them to their intrigue while he decided how to help Archer and his friends. But first he would have to find them — before Lorimore did. Sir William made his way back out of the British Museum and towards the Atlantian Club. The night was drawing in and he could do with a spot of dinner. He lived alone in a big, old house some miles away so the club was convenient and he had no one expecting him at home. Dinner, and a glass of wine to lubricate the brain while he considered where George Archer might be found. If necessary he could stay overnight.

He continued to pursue the problem as he sat alone in the club dining room and tucked into his steak and kidney pie. It was clear that Archer could not go home, nor could he go to Miss Oldfield’s house. The theatre — wherever that was — was also off-limits. The boy Eddie was of no fixed abode, so that was no help. He might have all kinds of dens and haunts where he could take George Archer and Elizabeth Oldfield, though he doubted any of them would be very salubrious.