James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

St. Ives stood looking at the dead man, at the bloody remnants of him, the shotgun blast ringing in his ears. There was a shocked silence among his companions. Finn had recovered from his exertions, but was looking away into the trees now, as if lost in thought. Uncle Gilbert stared at the fallen man, at what was left of his face, clearly surprised and aghast at the butchery that his weapon had wrought. St. Ives guessed that Gilbert hadn’t meant to fire it, that the weapon had surprised him. If that was so, then it might have been any of them that lay dead on the ground – something that a man like Gilbert Frobisher would have a difficult time sorting out. A small gust of wind picked up dry leaves that went skittering away down the path, a reminder that the world was still turning.

“Leave some of these vermin for the rest of us, Uncle,” Tubby said, attempting levity, but his uncle seemed shattered and simply worn out, and Tubby helped him to sit down on a fallen tree, where Gilbert mopped his face with a kerchief and shook his head.

Doyle stepped to his side, peering first into one eye and then into the other and then feeling his pulse. “You’ve had a shock, sir,” he said. “As a medical doctor I advise you to return to your camp. I tell you candidly to keep it in your mind that you stopped a man who was intent upon murdering a boy.”

Gilbert nodded, although his face revealed no alteration.

“This was one of the two from out of the sewer near Blackfriars Bridge this morning,” Hasbro said to St. Ives in a low voice. “I recognize his clothing.”

“Pity he can’t speak,” St. Ives muttered. “We might have persuaded him to tell us something.”

There were footsteps behind them now – old Hodgson, carrying his bird rifle and hurrying along. “I heard the report of a weapon,” he said, “and I knew you weren’t shooting partridge.” Gilbert nodded at him without any enthusiasm, and Hodgson looked at the dead body and recoiled.

“Here’s luck,” said Doyle. “The two of you can go back together. A good bottle of wine will set you up again directly, Mr. Frobisher. Whisky might be more to the point.”

“Just so,” said Hodgson, evidently having come to an understanding of things. “And we’ve cataloguing to attend to. Buck up, old boy.”

Tubby grasped the dead man by his ankles now and dragged him away, into the wood. He returned after a few minutes, dusting his hands. “I predict great celebration among the local vultures,” he said.

“ Buteo buteo ,” Gilbert muttered, stroking his chin now, his gaze unfocused.

Finn stepped across and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I’d like to thank you, sir,” he said. “He meant to murder me, and worse, if you take my meaning. He swore to it, when he caught up with me back in the wood, and he would have had me, too, for I was worn out from running. You put an end to a right villain, sir. His name was the Crumpet, and he’s had his hand in miseries of all variety. I learned just yesterday that he took a dull-witted boy named Spry Jack out of Billingsgate Market, and the boy never came back. All what he done with him, no one knows, nor wants to, but the Crumpet was a black-hearted devil, sir, and no mistake.”

“I can vouch for it,” St. Ives said. “He exploded an infernal device in London early this morning to our certain knowledge. Blew a hole in the wall of the Fleet River, quite likely murdering people in Smithfield. He attempted to murder me some weeks back after he blew up the palm house at the Bayswater Club and killed poor Shorter, the botanist. The world’s a better place now that he’s gone from it, and Narbondo has lost a lieutenant.”

“Not Jensen Shorter of the Horticultural Society?” Gilbert asked. “We botanized together years ago. He was a great man for the lichens.”

“That he was,” St. Ives said. “You’ve avenged Shorter’s murder into the bargain.”

Gilbert shook his head sadly, the news of Shorter’s death adding weight to his unhappiness, although it also added something like anger, which improved his demeanor, for there was less self-revulsion in it now. He looked at Finn and said, “We haven’t met, young man. Gilbert Frobisher, at your service. I thank you for your kindness.”

“This is Finn Conrad, Uncle,” Tubby told him, “one of the most sensible coves I know. He’s got a good head on him, and is honest and brave to a fault.”

“Is that so?” Gilbert said. “Well met, then. I’m happy to have done you a service, although I’ll admit that it was rather abrupt.”

“We’ll just go along back, then,” Hodgson said to Gilbert, taking him by the arm. “Doctor’s orders, old man.”

Gilbert arose, and without a word handed his shotgun and a pouch of shells to Tubby, who took the lot of it.

“You go with them, Finn,” St. Ives said. “You’ve done your part and more.”

“Pardon me, sir, but I have not,” Finn said to him. “I know the trail where Eddie ran off, and I’ve been inside the inn and into the Doctor’s murder room, where there’s the tunnel door. You’ll need me alongside you.”

“I can’t persuade you to take a rest?” St. Ives asked, knowing that he was defeated.

“No, sir, you cannot.”

“So be it,” St. Ives said, knowing from experience that Finn rarely said anything that he didn’t mean. Unless he was tied into a chair, he would be commanded by his conscience.

“And I wanted to tell you about Eddie, sir,” Finn said. “When the Crumpet came for me in the wood, Eddie was already escaped, far down the path and out of sight. But he came back, Eddie did, to try to save me from the Crumpet. He had a branch off a tree, big as he was, and he beat the Crumpet with it. It would have done your heart good, sir, to see it. He ran off then, like I told him to, and I struck the Crumpet with a big stone to distract him and to give me a chance to run off myself. The Crumpet followed me, thank God, and not Eddie, but he was far enough behind so that I ran clear to this spot, where I found you. I’ll never forget Eddie coming on with that branch, sir, to beat the Crumpet. Ever. Not as long as I live.”

Finn stared at St. Ives for a moment, his chest heaving with the emotion of telling the story, but he turned away when he saw that St. Ives was weeping openly.

They set out again, the path leading back to the edge of the bay and around the swerve of the shore. Finn told them of the mill and the charcoal, of Narbondo eating it for breakfast, of Lord Moorgate and the woman named Helen, of George’s kindness and his death at the hands of McFee and the dwarf Sneed, and of Bill Kraken’s surprise appearance from the tunnel, leading to Finn’s escape with Eddie. St. Ives was amazed, although he listened to all of it with growing unease: Kraken shot, but perhaps still alive, God save him, and Eddie alone in the wood with the big pirate abroad.

That Narbondo seemed to have anticipated Kraken’s appearance was unsettling. The man was uncannily prescient. And the death of George struck him as particularly unfortunate – unfair, if there were any fairness in the world, which perhaps there was not. George had tried to redeem himself and was murdered for it. Certainly there was a lesson to be learned there, although it was an ugly one. He had brought violence down upon himself, but perhaps he had found an element of grace and an easier conscience in the end.

Perhaps they’d all of them find just deserts in the hereafter. At present, however, there was only the doing of things. St. Ives saw the inn through the trees now, the moment that Finn pointed it out. He heard nothing at all, however, no sounds of men at work, certainly not any sign of the industry that they’d viewed from the airship, only the cries of the gulls out over the bay.