Part 10 (1/2)

He thought about Clara, whose weeping had been happiness. She knew now that there was help at hand. She had spoken to him without hesitation, which meant something to be sure. He was glad to be here, a willing prisoner in this house, although when it came to him that he was glad that Clara was here also, he dismissed the idea as shabby, and for a moment he was confounded by such feelings.

When he pushed past Doctor Narbondo's cabinet, he looked into it and saw that the green mushrooms were glowing brightly, generating their own light. Narbondo reclined among them as if on a divan, so that the open box looked like a curiosity from one of Mr. Uffner's freak shows at Piccadilly Hall. His mouth was closed, but green bile leaked from the corners of it into his beard, which glowed faintly, as did his hair. His eyes were open now, and no longer as dull as they had been. He stared into the infinite, however, and Finn wondered whether his mind was at work or was empty. He was paralytic, to be sure. Finn held a finger as close as he dared to Narbondo's face and moved it back and forth. For a moment the man seemed not to see it, but then he blinked, and his eyes s.h.i.+fted toward the moving finger. Finn dropped his hand and retreated into the storeroom again, wis.h.i.+ng that he hadn't called attention to himself.

A real weariness was descending upon him, his long nap having been a temporary respite, and he made his way past the shadowy furniture and through his own humble door, which he secured behind him, determined to eat one of Mr. Klingheimer's plum puddings and to pack his creel with another before falling asleep.

NINETEEN.

THE HALF TOAD INN.

Alice St. Ives sat at a table in the public room of the Half Toad Inn, Lambert Court, Smithfield, a wood fire burning in the grate, the night wind moaning beneath the eaves. The room was wainscoted in old oak, with gas-light sconces on the walls and heavily framed paintings of s.h.i.+ps at sea. On the right-hand side of the hearth hung two etchings of old Smithfield, rendered by Hogarth a century and a half ago. Despite these homey trappings, however, there was an uneasiness in the air, or so it seemed to Alice, who had scarcely touched the gla.s.s of port sitting in front of her. She was thinking of her husband, as she had been doing almost without pause all day where he might be, whether injured, his tenacious spirit and strength of mind. She had made an effort to shun all thoughts of his possible death: there was no reason whatsoever to a.s.sume that he was dead.

She was aware, however, that she was forcibly keeping the idea at bay, and she wondered how long her defenses would prevail. She a.s.sured herself that he had found his way out of more difficult straits a dozen times. She sipped from her gla.s.s of port now and gazed through it at the flames in the hearth.

She had seen the catastrophe on the river quite clearly, thank G.o.d. Langdon had been far down into the pit, Gilbert, poor man, not nearly so far along. She was convinced that the explosion that had precipitated the collapse had occurred near the surface, where the stone ceiling of the cavern was relatively thin. It was possible, entirely possible, that Langdon had been far enough beyond it to have survived, in which case there was no reason to suppose that he was... to come to any conclusion at all.

She regarded Miss Bracken for a moment, who sat alone at a table playing a game of Patience and cheating with abandon. Alice recalled her breathless question at the time of the collapse: ”Where is my Gilbert?” There had been nothing calculating in her tone, merely heartfelt dismay. Alice thought again of the theft of the spoons, wondering whether Miss Bracken was like the crow on her astonis.h.i.+ng hat, compelled to pick up and h.o.a.rd s.h.i.+ny objects. Miss Bracken had been a victim of nerves this afternoon and looked destroyed now, but she seemed less grief-stricken than wary of Tubby afraid, perhaps, that he would put her out into the windy night. It seemed unlikely, for Tubby's mind and heart were taken up with the loss of his uncle and for the unhappiness between them. Tubby was currently upstairs, overseeing the removal of Gilbert's bags from the room that Gilbert no longer required, and which had just recently been booked by two men who now sat near the fire drinking wine and waiting for the room to be tidied.

Uncannily, a newsprint broadside proclaiming the death of Gilbert Frobisher and the ”famous natural scientist and explorer Langdon St. Ives” had been hawked along the embankment and elsewhere in the city within a few hours of the collapse, complete with an ill.u.s.tration of the sink-hole and a discussion of the explosive miasma that had almost certainly been ignited by the burning lantern. The theory was sensible more sensible, no doubt, than Alice's suspicion of the lurking man and an infernal device but it did nothing to restore her husband to her, and she wondered why the flash of the explosion hadn't apparently occurred in the vicinity of the lantern.

St. Ives was something of a footnote in the lurid account of the tragedy, for Gilbert Frobisher, whose wealth was inestimable, had recently brought into London a vast great Caribbean octopus that he had intended to house in a vivarium above Allhallows near the mouth of the Thames. And so he had become something of a celebrity.

Henrietta Billson, who with her husband William owned the Half Toad, was just now clearing away the remains of their supper. Gilbert had ordered the removes himself, including lamb from the Romney Marsh and giant rock oysters from Whitstable. But there had been no Gilbert to help eat the food, and even Tubby had made a pitiful job of it. Hasbro had gone out the instant that his supper was eaten, anxious to return to the sink-hole in order to discover whether anything useful had been found out.

Mrs. Billson handed an armload of plates to Lars Hopeful the tap-boy and stood staring at one of the two men by the fire, a small, oily man of perhaps forty years, muscular and veiny, with yellow, curly hair. He was coatless, and he wore blue gaiters. He looked like a racetrack tout rather than any kind of commercial traveler. His partner, a larger, heavier man with a broad face, looked up from his newspaper now and then to stare at Miss Bracken. Henrietta Billson had no use for forward men, and there was a dangerous look in her eye. Suddenly her demeanor changed, and she turned away and disappeared into the kitchen. Alice could see nothing that might have motivated her.

A moment later Mrs. Billson returned, appearing at Alice's chair with the port bottle in order to fill her gla.s.s, although Alice hadn't requested it and it didn't need refilling. In a low voice she said, ”Might we speak a word to you in the kitchen, ma'am, begging your pardon for the botheration? After a minute or so has pa.s.sed, if you will, just for the sake of appearances.” She winked then, indicating that this was something of a conspiracy, and then she jerked her thumb toward the two men by the fire before walking away.

Alice sipped her port and attempted to read a copy of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, which she had found lying on a table. Its humor was lost on her, however, and after several minutes had pa.s.sed she set it down, rose from her chair, and walked into the kitchen, where the Billsons stood waiting for her.

”It's these two men, ma'am,” William Billson told her. ”They might be innocent as babes, or again they might not be. It's not for us to say. They come in this evening from Manchester by rail, or so they said commercial gents and I gave them poor Mr. Frobisher's room, which I had thought was empty. But his baggage was still in it and down they come again to wait while Tubby has gone up to fetch it. The room is next door to your own, ma'am, with a connecting door.”

”The thing is,” Henrietta put in, ”what Bill is a-trying to say, is that one of them ain't from Manchester, and if he's a commercial gent I'll eat my hat. A cutthroat is more like it. Whether he came in on the train I can't say, and as a Christian woman I don't call him a liar, but I just now smoked him as the brother of Jack Penny.”

”Jack Penny?” Alice asked.

”The leader of the Cheapside Boys, them who was murdered this past September right here in Smithfield,” Mr. Billson said. ”Jack Penny was drowned in a horse trough, and seven of his mates was hacked to pieces with cleavers.”

”The Snow Hill Ma.s.sacre?”

Henrietta nodded gravely. ”The man in there drinking our good red wine, the small man, is Jack Penny's own brother, and he's not from Manchester, not by a long chalk, and he's using a false name, because 'is own is tainted. He hails from Coldharbour right here in London, and he swindled my own cousin some years back when he was a butcher in Smithfield Market. When was that, Mr. Billson?”

”I make it four years ago, maybe five, since Penny's been gone from the market.”

”He doesn't know me,” said Henrietta, ”but I'll never forget his face, not after what he took from Betina, and it wasn't just her money that I speak of.”

”What you want us to do is what we're asking,” Billson said. ”I can pitch him out, but I'll need another man or two to do it right. They're likely to cut up rough. It's right strange that they put up at the Half Toad, do you see.”

”It is strange, Mr. Billson,” Alice said. ”But there's no pressing need to pitch them out. They're keeping to themselves for the most part, and the last thing we want is more trouble, nor to call trouble down upon the two of you. I don't much care where they came from or whether they're lying about it or telling the truth. It's none of my business.”

Billson nodded, and Henrietta said, ”Still and all, I've got my eye on them, ma'am, and I've got an iron pan that weighs nigh onto two stone to lay them out with if they ask for it. That man Smythe has a roving eye. His filthy intentions are plain on his face when he looks at your Miss Bracken, although she's no newborn babe herself.”

”I'll just sweep out the room upstairs, then,” Billson said. And with that he went out.

Alice returned to her chair, only to discover that Miss Bracken sat with the two men now and that Smythe had his hand on her knee, although he withdrew it when Alice walked in. Miss Bracken's demeanor had grown cheerful, which wasn't a bad thing, really. Alice soon made out that the three were talking about this morning's cave-in. Jack Penny's brother listened to what Miss Bracken was telling him and shook his head sympathetically. He turned to Alice now, gave her a long, pitying look, and said, ”May I express my desolation, ma'am, as regards your husband's tragedy nay, your own tragedy? My name is Hillman, Ellis Hillman.”

”No, Mr. Hillman, you may not,” Alice told him, refraining from calling him ”Mr. Penny.” ”There is as yet no tragedy to be desolated about, and I have little regard for a stranger's unaccountable desolation in any event. I'm certain you mean well, but I'd much rather speak of something else or nothing at all. Preferably nothing.”

”Just so, ma'am,” the man said, touching his finger to his forehead before saying, ”I'll name my particular friend, Mr. Smythe.”

”Charmed,” Mr. Smythe said, nodding to her.

The two men returned to their wine and to Miss Bracken, and in the brief silence that followed Alice heard the rain pecking against the windows and the crackling of the fire. She had a thumping headache and a weariness that made her long for her bed. Did she owe it to Miss Bracken to keep her company? She decided that she did not. The silly woman could do as she pleased indeed, had apparently been doing so her entire life and would continue to do so whether Alice or anyone else approved of it. Alice drank the last of her port and was just setting the gla.s.s down when Tubby Frobisher appeared on the stairs gripping his walking stick in a determined manner.

His face, Alice saw, was rigid with anger, and he strode determinedly to Miss Bracken's chair and said in a clear, even voice, ”I'll ask you to return my uncle's property, ma'am, whatever your name might be. Certainly it is not Bracken.”

”What's that?” asked Miss Bracken. ”What bleeding property, you bag of suet?”

”Gilbert Frobisher's jewelry. The lot of it. It was in an ivory case inlaid with gold. I saw you coming out of his room earlier in the day. Deny it at your peril.”

”By G.o.d I won't deny it. My gloves and scarf were in Mr. Frobisher's trunk, if you must know. I took what belonged to me.”

”The jewelry box contained a diamond cravat-pin, cuff links, s.h.i.+rt studs, and a brooch, all with the Frobisher hedgehog crest, all solid gold, the diamonds quite valuable, as was the box itself, which was fas.h.i.+oned by Castellani. You have taken the box and its contents from his valise, ma'am. There's no conceivable point in denying it. You saw your opportunity this afternoon, and you took it. If you return them to me this instant and promise to be gone in the morning, I'll pay you two-hundred pounds and let the matter lie. In deference to my uncle I will not put you out onto the road on a night such as this, but if you are not gone in the morning, I'll summon the police.”

Alice was stupefied, although her first inclination was to suppose that Tubby was correct in his accusation. Anger, of course, might have twisted his thinking, since Miss Bracken was his chief source of regret the wedge that had been driven between him and Gilbert. Tubby saw her as a devil, and understandably so if it were true that she had stolen Gilbert's jewelry. But was it true? Again Alice considered the silver spoons, the brazen manner in which Miss Bracken had dropped them into her bag. But the spoons were comparatively trivial compared to the jewels, and mentioning them now would needlessly inflame Tubby.

”Come, madam,” Tubby said. ”Own up to it unless you'd rather hang.”

”I take offense to your blackguarding this good woman,” the man who called himself Hillman said. ”What proof do you have for this accusation? The police will ask the very same question, mind you. Have you any evidence, sir? Your plain dislike for this poor woman does not const.i.tute evidence.”

”He has nothing,” Miss Bracken said, staring Tubby down. ”He has taken against me because his uncle, who was a good man, loved me more than him. This b.l.o.o.d.y whale who calls himself a man was p.i.s.sing himself to think that I might come into a portion of the old man's money some day. But I won't have a groat now, will I? Not now. How can I when the good man is dead? And yet you hate me anyway, don't you, Mr. b.u.mfiddle? A woman with naught but a bra.s.s farthing who's been kited away from her home where she was happy. That's the truth of it. You and your mean offer of two-hundred pounds when you've just put ten millions into your pocket! What do I say? I say you've taken the jewels yourself, if there was any jewels. Because why? Because you want to use them against me. You're a jealous, mean pig, who can lord it over a poor, friendless woman like me. Shame on you. The great shame of the world!”

With that she burst into tears, hauling a kerchief out of her bodice and mopping her eyes. Tubby was struck dumb, much of his anger having drained away with her tirade.

”Here, now. You've got the two of us as friends, Miss,” Mr. Smythe said to her. ”Never you forget it. We'll stand by you, sure enough.”

Alice realized that Henrietta Billson had come into the room carrying her cast-iron frying pan, which was broad enough to cook a Christmas goose. She looked confused, however, as if not certain whose head to flatten.

”By G.o.d, I'll sort it out this very moment,” Tubby said, having recovered his wits. ”But I warn you, madam, that my offer is about to evaporate. I intend to search your bags. Anyone who chooses can come along as witness.”

”No one chooses to walk with a t.u.r.d,” Miss Bracken said to him, and blew her nose into her kerchief.