James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

“ Practice to get it right ,” St. Ives said. “I’m with you there. But practice to what end? Something that justified the expense and labor.” On a whim he brought the ship around in a circle again, in order to take another look at the glass cathedral. “It’s impossible not to have heard of the coming ceremony at the cathedral, but I’m afraid I haven’t paid sufficient attention. Fairly grand, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hasbro. “The Queen will be in attendance along with other dignitaries.”

Below them, men moved about, both inside and out of the building, finishing the work, clearing things away, as visible as fish in a crystal bowl. St. Ives thought again of Mother Laswell’s fears about the lane to the land of the dead, a half-baked absurdity that he hadn’t shared with Hasbro. What would it take , he wondered, to turn the glass cathedral itself into a vast infernal device, perhaps with the Queen herself sitting at the very heart of it?

“If the explosions are Narbondo’s handiwork, as you believe, then there’s certainly a well-defined, lucrative motive,” Hasbro said.

“I have an idea what might justify it,” he said, “although you won’t be able to credit it. Mere logic cannot be brought to bear on it.”

By the time he was through with the tale, they had passed over Greenwich, moving more quickly than ever now, with the wind at their back and the sky an endless pastel blue in front of them. The bent finger of water that was Egypt Bay was clearly visible in the near distance, the uneven green terrain of the Cliffe Marshes stretching away on three sides, cut with sheep trails and dotted with ponds and meadows and thickets.

“What I find unsettling,” Hasbro said, “is that if Narbondo managed to shift the Fleet out of its brick-and-mortar banks today, then he’s very far along in his plans.”

Aside from what appeared to be several piles of rags sleeping in the shelter of a wall, Angel Alley was empty in the early morning, the sun low in the sky, when Jack Owlesby, Arthur Doyle, and Tubby Frobisher arrived. Last night’s vagrants were comatose, no doubt, and there were no screeching rats or snarling dogs to be heard, only the morning noises out on Wentworth Street, which awakened early. They had seen the dirigible pass overhead a short time earlier, which seemed to them to be an auspicious sight, as if things were moving forward in some organized manner now that they knew the whereabouts of Narbondo and of Finn Conrad. Both Jack and Tubby understood Finn to be almost supernaturally competent, and his loyalty knew no bounds, which might easily mean the death of him if he undertook to engage Narbondo alone.

“The door stands open,” Tubby said in a low voice. He pointed with his cudgel at the arched door that led into Narbondo’s penthouse.

“They could be lying in wait,” Jack said, “knowing that we’d simply walk in. The open door is an invitation to an assault.”

“Then we’ll nail their ears to the breadboard and pitch the lot of them through the window,” Tubby said. He pushed the door open and they peered into the dark stairwell. The oil lamps were burned out, and all was quiet above, although they listened for a moment longer before climbing the stairs and walking into the empty room with its crippled table. A broken chair lay on the floor along with shattered dinner plates and splinters of wood and glass from the smashed window, through which the wind blew.

“Take note of that rope bridge,” Tubby said, nodding toward the window. “The door at the distant end stands open.”

“For my money they’ve gone off with no idea of returning,” Doyle said. “It’s little we’ll find here.”

“Here’s something curious,” Jack said, gesturing at the unbroken window opposite, which looked down toward Wentworth Street. Costermongers and a few carriages went up and down among early morning pedestrians. Two blue-coated soldiers on horseback stood on the far side of the street, apparently looking in the direction of the penthouse, which lay largely in shadow, and so there must be precious little that the soldiers could see. Even so, the three men moved away toward the farther room, where they would be entirely out of sight.

“I recommend moderate haste,” Doyle said, “and then away, perhaps across the very useful rope bridge.”

In the back room stood a workbench scattered with odd bits and pieces of things. Two small human skulls, both of them yellow-brown, cracked, and evidently ancient sat at the back of the bench. Both had been trepanned, the circular openings splintered, the skulls useful, perhaps, to hold morbidly decorative candles on a theatre stage, but not for Narbondo’s fell purposes, given St. Ives’s description of the lamps. Alongside the skulls, in a scattering of excelsior, lay pieces of exposed glass photographic plates, small screws and bits of sheet copper, and – strangely – odds and ends of shell casings and lead bullets lying in a heap of what appeared to be gunpowder, as if someone had been loading cartridges.

“There’s an odd smell here,” Tubby said. “Rather like garlic.”

“White phosphorous,” Doyle said, pointing at a porcelain dish with a heap of white dust in it. “Extremely flammable. Highly regarded by anarchists these days, by the way. There are photographic chemicals here also.” He picked up two green-glass, capped bottles and then set them down again. “Ferrous sulfate and potassium cyanide,” he said. He held up a piece of one of the photographic plates and scrutinized it. “Here’s the negative image of a boy’s face in profile.”

“I believe it’s Eddie’s likeness,” Jack said, looking at it. “Why, though?”

“To make the ransom demand more tenable, perhaps,” Doyle said. “They must have had a darkroom assembled, which of course they took away with them.”

“Let’s pray it’s to make the ransom demand more tenable, and not for some other bloody purpose,” Tubby said. “I don’t like this business of the decorated skulls. St. Ives seemed to think that vast sums of money are involved, enough to make child murder seem like a trifle.”

“Here now!” Jack said, reaching into the debris beneath the bench and picking up a small object. “A signet ring, by God. An eagle clutching the letter M in its paws. Highly stylized, but moderately plain for all that. It might belong to anyone.”

Tubby nodded sagely. “One would suppose that all signet rings belong to someone, Jack. I’m going to guess that this particular ring was lost by a man whose name begins with the letter ‘M.’ That excludes our friend Dr. Narbondo. Keep it safe, however.”

There was a clattering from the direction of Wentworth Street, and Tubby stepped out into the adjacent room again to have a look, leaving his two friends to continue their search. “A carriage has arrived,” he said through the door, “accompanied by two more soldiers aboard horses. The door swings open. By God, it’s Keeble’s Dutchman from the look of it, our man de Groot. Tremendous large head with the eyes of a pig. He’s evidently coming on alone. Why would the man do such a thing when he’s brought four soldiers with him?” Tubby walked back into the room.

“I’ll warrant he wants this very ring,” Jack said. “He’ll summon the soldiers quickly enough when he discovers we’re here. Out the back, I say.”

“Nonsense,” Tubby said. “We’ll parlay with the man. Certainly he’s a reasonable creature. The Dutch are great thinkers, although I’m told that they make their shoes out of wood. You two go about your business. I’ll play the man a bit of a prank when he arrives and then we’ll engage him in edifying discussion.”