James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

There was nothing confounding, it occurred to him morbidly, in a man taking his own life merely out of self-loathing, and he thought of Mother Laswell and the burden that she carried – one son dead, the other a murderer, and she unable and unwilling to forgive herself for having married a bad man. I believe that the entire business is nonsense : his words came back to him now, rekindling his regret, and he uttered a silent apology to the poor woman and a prayer for all of them, although it was cold comfort.

“We’ve both missed our breakfast, sir,” Hasbro said, recalling St. Ives from his musings.

St. Ives nodded, but said nothing.

“I suggest stopping at the Queen’s Rest just ahead, sir, in Wrotham Heath, near the Archbishop’s manor. There’s no value in arriving in London unfed. Old Logarithm will want something, too.”

“A delay would… unsettle me,” St. Ives said flatly.

“Indeed, sir, although the delay would be momentary. It’s a coaching inn on the Greenwich Road, and in deference to travelers they put up food in parcels. Bread and cheese, meat pies, and bottled ale. I’ve availed myself of the fare on occasion, and it’s quite substantial. We’ll be happy to have it an hour from now.”

“No doubt you’re correct,” St. Ives said. “I’ve got no appetite, but perhaps that’s not a virtue.”

“No, sir, perhaps it’s not, if you’ll pardon my saying so. We’ll want our wits about us in London, and we’ll move more decisively if we’re carrying a hamper of food instead of an empty belly.”

The Queen’s Rest soon came into view ahead, its heavily carved and brightly painted sign glowing with sunlight. On any other day it would have been a welcome sight to St. Ives, but this morning it meant nothing. Hasbro drew up in front of it, and the ostler came out of the adjacent stable and took the reins as Hasbro and St. Ives climbed down. St. Ives saw that a man was standing in the doorway of the inn. The man tipped his hat, and St. Ives nodded doubtfully in his direction, thinking that he had a suspicious look about him. He caught himself, realizing that he felt mean and low, stricken with a case of the dismals, as Tubby Frobisher would put it. His natural civility had abdicated along with his appetite and had left him with a vague stupidity and muddled thoughts.

“Water and oats,” Hasbro said to the ostler. “We leave in ten minutes sharp.”

The man nodded and led the horse and wagon in out of the sunlight. St. Ives and Hasbro entered the inn, the public house smelling heavily of hops and baking bread. Two men sat at a table with glasses of beer and a plate of cheese and pickled eggs in front of them. One of them was dark and had chiseled features – handsome, no doubt, in his day. But he had been horribly wounded some time in the past, and was missing an ear and had a long scar from his brow to his mouth, the blade having split open his nostril, which had been badly repaired. He would have been handsome otherwise. The other man, who moments ago had been standing in the doorway, was hatless now. He had a large round head, bald but for a dark halo of curls. He nodded again cheerfully at St. Ives, who forced himself to smile and nod a greeting back. The man was perhaps a bit dense, St. Ives thought, and yet his jolly demeanor improved the general quality of the morning – a useful lesson about the underrated duty of conveying an air of contentment.

The publican came out from the kitchen and at Hasbro’s bidding drew two glasses of bitter from the tap, setting them down on the bar top. To Hasbro’s question of food, he replied, “I have a cold saddle of mutton, gentlemen, turned out in curry and figs, in the Indian style, and a pasty of mushroom and chicken as can be put up quick and eaten in hand.”

“The pasties, I should think,” said Hasbro, “and bottled ale, if you’ve got it.”

“They’ve brought us the new screw-cap bottles, sir, just a week back. Would you like six, or would a round half a dozen suit you?” With that the man burst into laughter with such enthusiasm that St. Ives abruptly felt improved yet again, and he found that he was grateful for his glass of bitter, from which he drank deeply now, his ears fixed on the conversation at the table behind him.

“He was a rum cove if ever I’ve seen one,” one of the two men said loudly enough to be overheard, sounding like the cheerful man with the bald-pate. “I don’t trust a bleeding hunchback, Fred.”

“It’s not the poor sod’s fault that he’s got the hunch, George. And who are you to be calling names, an ugly bloke like you with a head like a melon?”

“It was his face what told the tale, not the hump,” George replied. “I half pity the boy, having an uncle with a face like that. Better to be an orphan than to fall in with Old Poger.”

“You gentlemen speak of a boy and a hunchback,” St. Ives said, turning around anxiously. “I don’t mean to come it the Grand Inquisitor, but did you see these two recently?”

“An hour, perhaps, weren’t it Fred?”

“Thereabouts. Not more. Below Wrothamhill, it was, if you know it, sir.”

“On the Greenwich road?” asked St. Ives.

“No, sir. Gravesend road,” George said. “There was a bridge out – what they call the Trelawney Bridge, after the old squire, built before your grandfather was born, sir. Shattered by an infernal device a week past. Your man the hunchback was set to go roundabout through Stanstead, a considerable delay, but we put him right – showed him the tail end of the old Pilgrims Road. He could fetch the highway again at Hook Green by way of Harvel. Beautiful country, sir, out that way, and a tolerably quick route to Gravesend, although it would surprise you to hear it.”

“Describe the boy, if you please,” St. Ives said. He found that his heart was racing, and it suddenly seemed as if the publican was taking an unfathomably long time.

“Small little fellow,” George told him. “Four years old, roundabout. Dark hair. Needed feeding up. Not at all happy, says I when I saw him. He wore a nightshirt with a vest over top and a cap. The man was his uncle, like we said, taking him into London, and they’d set out early, when the boy was still abed.”

“London by way of Gravesend, do you say?”

“Boat, sir,” Fred told him. “Quick enough when the tide is making.”

“You know the gentleman, perhaps?” asked George. “I beg your honor’s pardon for scandalizing the man. I meant no disrespect.”

“Then what did you mean, you dim-witted sod?” Fred asked him. “You talk out of turn and insult this gentleman’s friend without so much as a by-your-leave. That’s what I’ve been a-telling you. Measure twice, cut once, as the sawyer put it.”

George looked at the table, considerably abashed.

“I am indeed acquainted with the gentleman,” St. Ives told them. “I owe him a debt of some consequence, and I hoped to find him here at the inn.”

“You might catch him yet, if you hurry,” said George. He bit a pickled egg in half and chewed it up heartily. “The man’s wagon had a wheel that was rickety-like. We told him it wanted grease, and to have it seen to before setting out, but he told us to see to our own damned business and let him see to his, begging your honor’s pardon. Like as not he’s sitting by the roadside as we speak, waiting on the kindness of strangers, which would serve him right.”

“And the Pilgrims Road, it’s nearby?” St. Ives asked, his heart leaping again. The publican returned at that moment with the hamper of food and drink, and suddenly time was galloping.

“Easiest way is to catch it before you get into Wrotham proper, sir, on your right-hand side,” Fred told him. “Marked on a stone, it is. It’s not much to look at, a path more than a road, but it soon opens up, and you’ll find no one to impede you if it’s speed you want.”