Langdon St. Ives: Beneath London Part 9

"The way you come in. There's other ways, maybe, but not unless you know where's the keys. Every door is locked from without, you see."

"And you know where's the keys?"

"Beaumont keeps his eyes open when it comes to business that ain't his own, looking out for his main chance, you might say. But he keeps what he knows under his hat till there's need of it. Mind this, though. I live up top, like I said, looking down on the back garden. I won't lock my door while you're in the house, but if they catch you, you don't know me, or else we're both dead."

In that moment there was the ringing of a bell, and Beaumont took Finn's arm and hauled him through a door into what was apparently a storeroom, for there were crates and bales piled high, sacks of flour, cases of wine a dozen places to hide. Electric lamps illuminated the room, hanging on cords from the ceiling. In a trice the dwarf was gone without saying another word.

Finn, listening hard, heard a voice that said, "We're to hunt for a man down below, Zounds, and are to bring him back to Mr. Klingheimer. If he's dead we're to bring his head in a sack. Ten minutes from now at the red door. And mind you're there betimes. His majesty is in a rare old state. It's our heads that'll be in a sack if we don't look sharp, depend upon it."

"I'd pay a farthing to see his majesty's head in a sack," Beaumont said.

"Keep them thoughts to yourself, Zounds. This ain't Liberty Hall. Outside in ten minutes, then."

Finn heard the door shut, and immediately Beaumont returned. "Stay here, Finn," he said. "I'm a-going out with Arthur Bates. Keep hid. When I come back, I'll signal you thus," and with that he warbled out a blackbird's call, uncannily clear. Then he put his finger beside his nose and winked.

SEVENTEEN.

THE GIPSY ENCAMPMENT.

After a steep ascent, the tunnel through which St. Ives traveled took a hard right turning. Abruptly the walls were built of cut stone not the stone that he had found in the ancient downward stairway earlier in his travels, but stones with heavily mortared joints, walls that were quite likely Medieval in origin. Given that he had been walking at a steady pace, checking his compa.s.s along the way, dead reckoning would have it that he was beneath north London, perhaps beneath Hampstead Heath itself, although admittedly the reckoning had been confounded by twistings and turnings and traveling uphill and down.

He came upon an arched doorway with its heavy door standing open on old bronze hinges that were set into the walls with ma.s.sive bolts. A length of wood that pivoted on an iron rod pinned the door shut. Rubbing had grooved a quarter circle into the door where the wood had been s.h.i.+fted back and forth, and St. Ives opened it easily, moving it upward from where it lay against a second short rod. He pulled the door open, and realized that he had come to the end of his journey, or nearly so. The way beyond the door was level, a corridor that led to a short set of stairs. There were fairly fresh clots of dirt on the floor, crushed by the wheel of the cart.

What would be the point in taking out the dead Narbondo, St. Ives wondered as he walked along the corridor. But in that same vein, why take out the living Narbondo? To extract him from the grip of the fungi? Why? Not pity, for Narbondo had neither friends nor living family, aside from Mother Laswell, who had herself tried her best to shoot him when last she saw him, an infamous act only in theory. In truth there was no one alive who would be unhappy to see Narbondo dead.

The thought of Mother Laswell brought to mind the murder of Sarah Wright. Mother Laswell had feared that her own dead husband had been the source of this new trouble, and she had been worried that the man's severed head might have been dug up from beneath the floorboards of Sarah Wright's cottage in Boxley Woods. She supposed, in other words, that someone was actively searching for the head of Maurice De Salles, the stepfather and paternal uncle of Ignacio Narbondo the same someone who had taken the head of Sarah Wright. And now someone had gone to a good deal of trouble to collect Narbondo into the bargain. The several acts might be coincidental, but it would be folly to a.s.sume so.

Who are you? he wondered, ascending now into a small antechamber, scattered with a lumber of ancient furniture: wooden pews, an altar, a cabinet with the door fallen from the hinges. On the cabinet shelves lay what appeared to be sacred vestments, neatly folded and put away many years since, and next to them a chalice covered by a chalice cloth that was more web than fabric, and a censer that hung from a dowel. He was in a priest's hole, of that there could be no doubt, a remnant of England's centuries-long war on Catholicism. He wondered how many priests had hidden here, and whether any of them had escaped into the underworld beyond the arched door. A stone stairs stood in the center of the room forming a landing on top. Above it a large trap-door was set into the ceiling, the wood dark and old but reinforced with iron cleats.

He climbed the stairs, set his knapsack and lamp on the landing, and knelt beneath the trap, putting his back against it and heaving it upward despite his protesting ribs. Dust and debris fell into his hair. He put his hand into the opening and felt the heavy, woven material of a carpet, perhaps weighted with furniture. He heaved on it again, standing as the trap swung upward, dragging the carpet with it, heavy, unseen objects tumbling. He yanked a corner of the carpet past his head, pushed his gear through the opening, and pulled himself through.

The room was apparently a secret chapel. Its ancient needlework carpet, framed in vines and blossoms, bore a coat of arms that of a recusant family, no doubt, that had been threatened with persecution. The trap itself was built of two-inch-thick oak planks with a layer of cut stones fixed atop it, the stones so cleverly cut that the trap appeared to be part of the floor. The rest of the floor was scattered with chalky dirt, and he took a few minutes to sweep it into the cracks around the closed trap, completing the disguise before pulling the rug back over it and pinning it with the pews.

He hurried out of the room and along a corridor, smelling clean night air. Fairly soon he was compelled to turn to the right, where he very nearly stepped into a deep pit. He flailed his arm to catch himself, dropping the lamp into the pit where it smashed to pieces, the light going out. He stood for a moment, catching his breath, realizing that he could see without his lantern. Moonlight shone faintly from above. Some fifteen feet over his head, up a stone chimney, lay an iron grate with vines growing through it. Through the spa.r.s.e, leafy branches he could see two stars in the night sky and the bright glow of the moon. On the floor of the pit below lay the shattered remains of his lamp, in the midst of which was a length of rope with a block tied to it. They had rigged tackle to hoist out the cart easy enough to do if they had brought along lumber to crate it up.

A tall ladder was tilted against the far wall. He could just reach the ladder from where he stood at the edge of the pit, and he pulled it across so that it tilted against the wall beneath the grate. It would be easy enough to climb out through the grate and then heave the ladder back against the far wall in order to keep interlopers out. He stepped onto the ladder, pulled himself aboard, and climbed upward, seizing the grate and pus.h.i.+ng it up and out. He clambered through, hauling himself to his feet, deciding to leave the ladder where it stood. He would want it when they returned to search for Gilbert.

After setting the grate carefully into its depression and ascertaining that he was alone, he walked up to the top of a nearby hill and into the shadows of a grove of trees. He thought that he knew where he was now, and he hoped he knew what he would find. Given the time of year, there was some chance that he had friends hereabouts, although they were gadabout friends, and might already have gone off to winter quarters somewhere. From the hilltop he looked down upon a meadow that contained two small ponds Wood Pond and Thousand Pound Pond on the north end of the Heath. On the rise above Wood Pond stood a dozen gipsy caravans. A fire burned, throwing sparks into the sky, and many lanterns were lit, so that the scene was brightly illuminated. Men, women, and children were active on the green, the entire crowd apparently stowing gear into the caravans, evidently getting ready to move on. Their horses two dozen of them were tethered nearby.

He was certain he knew one of the caravans that of the Loftus family, who had camped on the green at the farm in Aylesford just two months past, picking hops and working in the oast house, helping to dry the harvest. The wagon was bright red and with an arched green roof. St. Ives thought of it cheerfully as Christmas on wheels. The Spaniards Inn, where he and Alice had stayed for several nights some years back, was tolerably close by to the west. Alice, in fact, was certain that their son Eddie had been conceived at the Spaniards and St. Ives had no reason to doubt her. Both of them had a sentimental regard for the old inn as a consequence.

Overhead the clouds tore along, and now they covered the moon, so that he walked down the hill in darkness until he stepped into the firelight and in among the people, his happy eyes fixed on the red-painted caravan with its green roof and yellow under-carriage. He might have been a ghost, for no one acknowledged his presence aside from two small boys who gave him a strange look and moved away instead of asking for a coin or actively picking his pocket. There was the smell of turpentine in the air, and St. Ives saw that two young women were busy decorating the red spokes of the Loftus wagon in the light of paraffin lanterns. One of them was Theodosia Loftus, to whom he had once given an ill.u.s.trated book of English garden birds. The girl was a fine artist in her own right, and had painted a beautifully rendered black and gold carp for Alice.

"Theodosia Loftus," he said, his voice coming out in an unintelligible croak. Both girls turned to look at him, the one who was not Theodosia leaping up with a shriek and hurrying away, carrying her paint pot. Theodosia, however, looked carefully at him, her face full of surprise and wonder, and then shouted, "It's the Professor!" She hurried toward him, taking his hand and leading him to a keg that stood at the front of the wagon. "Mother!" she shouted, and then said, "Sit down, sir," in a firm voice, compelling him to do so by hauling on his arm.

There was the sound of someone coming out of the wagon Charity Loftus, the mother who peered at St. Ives for a moment, said, "Just you sit still, Professor," and then to Theodosia, "A bucket of clean water." Charity disappeared, returning moments later with a gla.s.s filled with what turned out to be brandy and carrying folded pieces of cloth. The bucket arrived and she soaked the cloth in the water and began mopping his face. "Drink down that gla.s.s," she told him. "It'll restore the senses."

"Adamina took fright, sir, when she saw you," Theodosia said to him. "It looked like you'd been dug out of a grave. Were you beaten?"

"Beaten?" he asked, turning in her direction. "No. Not at all, I'm happy to say."

"Sit still, Professor, if you will," Charity Loftus said. "You're covered in b.l.o.o.d.y dirt, right down the back of your neck, and your poor s.h.i.+rt won't come clean no matter what's done to it." She paused long enough to peer into his face. "You've had your brain pan shaken. I can see it in your eyes. Does the head ache?"

"No, ma'am," St. Ives said, only a small lie. He realized that the entire side of his face must be covered in dried blood. He saw that he was filthy too, now that he looked at his hands in the lamplight. His clothing was streaked with dirt and white dust. He hadn't given his condition a thought. No wonder people fled away at the sight of him. "Is Mr. Loftus roundabout?" he asked.

"He's at Wyldes Farm," Theodosia told him, wringing b.l.o.o.d.y water out of the rag while Charity came at him with a fresh one. "We're wintering there, going on tomorrow morning. A man named Mr. Carpenter has a society, and they've given us leave to stay in our own manner, with the barn open to us when it snows."

"Edward Carpenter, do you mean? The Fellows.h.i.+p of the New Life?"

"Aye, so they call themselves," Charity said, "although the old life suits us well enough. I can't say which Carpenter. Loftus says they've got an excess of bees in their bonnet, to be certain, but they're a peaceable lot what believes that the whole thing is the same, if you follow me, not b.l.o.o.d.y-minded bigots, as are thick among us." She looked carefully at him now and asked, "Does the missus know what's come of you?" And then, without waiting for an answer, she grabbed a small boy who just then appeared in their midst and said, "s.h.i.+pton! Run out to Wyldes farm and fetch home your dad if he ain't already on the way. Tell him the Professor's come among us and is much knocked about."

The boy set out at once, scouring along like a rabbit up a moonlit path through the trees.

"I took a fall earlier today and then had a long tramp of it," St. Ives told her. "Alice doesn't know."

"Ah," Charity said. "And after your fall you took it into your mind to tramp up to Wood Pond?" She gave St. Ives a look, as if this were further evidence that his wits were addled or as if she knew that something was afoot that he didn't intend to reveal. "Was the fall accidental like?"

"Perhaps it was not," St. Ives said. "But I'd best tell the tale only once, when Mr. Loftus arrives. "I'm grateful to you for the kindness, ma'am. And this is first rate brandy, to be sure."

"Loftus's brother brought a hogshead of it across the Channel with some men in a boat that was good enough to land him and the barrel in a handy cove in Shelmerston, where we stayed for a time last spring. He shared it out, the brother did, and since then all else is 'swill' to Mr. Loftus. He must have right French brandy now that he's used to it. 'Try something new and the old won't do,' as they say truly enough. There, sir. You look less like a corpse now. Here's Mr. Loftus and s.h.i.+pton, back already. Loftus will have you sorted out."

It was indeed Mr. Loftus, who took in the sight of St. Ives without a shudder, and very soon St. Ives found that there was a fresh gla.s.s of brandy in his hand and cold meat pie and cheese and bread before him on a plate, and it was only by main force that he managed to remain awake long enough to tell his tale, the details much reduced and leaving out all but a hint of an explosion. Very shortly he made his way with Loftus and Theodosia to the Spaniards Inn, a satchel of Loftus's clothing and other necessaries in his hand.

He fell wearily into bed at last, his ribs aching, listening to the nightjars calling outside on the heath and looking at the moonlight s.h.i.+ning on the window curtains. He thought of Eddie and Cleo, tucked away safely in their beds in Scarborough, and in the few moments that it took him to fall asleep he said a silent goodnight to Alice, remembering the happy time they had spent in this very room and how easy it was to forget to be thankful for one's blessings. Some time later he awakened to the sound of rain, which made him all the more grateful to be lying abed.

EIGHTEEN.

SLEEP LIKE DEATH.

Finn awakened from a sound sleep in the storage room, leaning against a very comfortable flour sack against the wall. He had no memory of having drifted off, and he wondered how long he had been at it, wasting time when there was precious little time to waste. He ate his bread and cheese, stood up and stretched, and then walked out to have a look around at his prison. The cellar was large, with several storage rooms. He looked into them, finding the leather ribbons that dangled from the ceiling and that switched on the electric lights when you yanked upon them. He did so and then dropped the strap in a hurry, marveling when the gla.s.s globes switched on like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He was leery of electricity and the buzzing it made, and had heard that it could cook a person like a Christmas goose on the instant. Gaslight was more amenable. In an adjacent, high-ceilinged room he discovered a lumber of furniture wardrobe cabinets and dining tables and heavy, carved wooden chairs with turned legs. Some of it was quite old, the wood dark and dusty and all of it casting deep, mysterious shadows.

He made his way through it to yet another door further on, which he opened, revealing a small room with a narrow cot in it. The bed had a feather mattress, which Finn pushed on before taking a look at a case full of old books leather-bound relics in Latin, one of which bore a date of 1712. It looked to be a hermit's room, with candle sconces on the walls, heavy tallow candles sitting on the sconces and matches in a niche by the door. He lit a match simply to see whether it was good, and the flaming tip broke off and flew away like a comet, landing on the bit of carpet on the floor and smoldering. Finn stepped on it to put it out. It seemed to him that the room hadn't been lived in for an age, but it was a comfortable cell in any event luxurious for a hermit, say, or a highwayman.

He would occupy this room if need be, he decided, if he must spend the night in the house, or two nights, or however many days and nights pa.s.sed before he could leave and take Clara with him. For he had decided that he would not leave Fell House, as he thought of it now, without Clara. Clara's fate would be his own fate. He was certain, or at least hopeful, that Beaumont would not betray him, and equally certain that no one would look into this room, if only because no one had, apparently, for a long time, given the untrodden layer of dust on the floorboards.

He returned to the storeroom and began s.h.i.+fting crates and boxes to see what food lay about: jars of deviled ham, it turned out, and marmalade, pickled oysters and bacon, tightly wrapped Christmas puddings and sugar-loafs. He filled an empty sack with provisions and then returned to his room. The empty sack could be packed under the door to block the light of his candles. Satisfied, he went out again, switching off the lights in the furniture room, and shutting its door and the door to the storage room, making sure that there was nothing visibly out of order nothing that would give him away. He thought of something that Beaumont had said to him when he had asked the dwarf about finding a way out of the house. "The way you come in," had been the answer, served up without a thought.

He stood beside Narbondo's cabinet now, the Doctor looking as if he were unhappily asleep. The lift shaft stretched away overhead, and Finn saw now that it went far aloft into the top of the house, no doubt. They could haul things to and from the storerooms if Narbondo's box was s.h.i.+fted, which would be easy enough, since it was on wheels and could be removed to the carriage house. A wooden ladder ascended the entire height. The shaft was illuminated, which was convenient to be sure, although he wondered whether someone climbing the ladder himself, say would throw a shadow.

The ladder itself was let into the wall so that the lift would slip past it without hindrance. On each floor, adjacent to the ladder, stood the wrought-iron gates that closed the shaft off from the rooms onto which it opened. For a long moment, someone climbing the ladder would be visible from within whatever room lay beyond the gate. He stood contemplating this for the s.p.a.ce of ten seconds and then decided that there was no better time to investigate. If he was in danger of being discovered, he could climb back down easily enough, but he must know the way of things if he was to be of any use to Clara.

He ducked into the ladder niche and began climbing, very quickly rising to the level of the first gate, beyond which lay darkness. Opposite stood the double doors that let out into the carriage house. A dim light shone between the doors. He could smell horses and feed and leather, and he wondered whether the doors were locked.

From his foothold on the ladder he leapt out ape-like and grasped the lines that raised and lowered the lift, swinging straight on across to the other side, clinging one-handed to a stanchion on a narrow ledge while he pushed on each of the doors in turn. They were locked. The way was closed to him.

He swung back across to the ladder, grasped a rung, and climbed again toward the next floor, where a lighted room stood beyond its wrought-iron gate. He stopped to listen before he climbed any higher, but he heard nothing at all, and so he continued upward until he could see that the gate closed off a broad, illuminated hallway, empty of people. He tried the latch, discovering happily that this gate was unlocked, although clearly it mightn't remain so. Dim voices sounded now, perhaps approaching, and he hauled himself quickly upward again toward the third floor another lighted room, quite clearly occupied, for a man's voice spoke from within with evident authority the voice of an admiral, he thought, used to being obeyed.

Finn could see the part of the speaker's head and broad shoulders long white hair, an old man it would seem, although if he were an old man then he was tolerably fit his shoulders as powerful as his voice. Perhaps it was Mr. Klingheimer, who had demanded a sack with a man's head in it. Another unseen man spoke, denying that he had committed some folly that he had apparently just been accused of. In the next moment he heard Beaumont's voice for it could be no other.

"It's as Mr. Shadwell said, your honor. We went down right deep at Deans Gate. But the deeper we went, the wider the way, so to speak, like a funnel downside up, until it was something like being sent out to find a man on the streets of London its own self. You're a-going north while mayhaps he's a-going east. Way leads on to way, do you see?"

"I'm fully persuaded of it, Mr. Zounds. Be so kind as to return to the cellar to see that everything is s.h.i.+p-shape. Narbondo is visiting Dr. Peavy again tomorrow morning, so you'll be quit of him. In the meantime, you can leave the toads, as you call them, to tend to themselves. I'll look in on the heads. Your time is your own tomorrow, then a holiday. Remain within the confines of the property, if you will, in case I have need of you."

There was the sound of a door shutting, and then the man who Finn supposed was Klingheimer said, "And so in lieu of the head of Professor St. Ives you've brought me this sc.r.a.p of soiled news-print reeking of pickled onions and Smithfield ham."

"His sandwich was wrapped in it, Mr. Klingheimer. What else could it mean? It's a living man who eats a sandwich. There's a bit of crust on it."

"What of the fat man, then? Have you a theory?"

"Dead, I'd warrant."

"You'd warrant it? You're a confident man, Mr. Shadwell, to give me your warrant. Mind that I don't take it out of you in the form of a pound of flesh. Mightn't the fat man have eaten the sandwich, then? Among living ent.i.ties, fat men are inclined to eat sandwiches above all others, or so reason leads us to believe."

"If that fool Lewis had used slow-match instead of quick, we'd have found them as we planned and had our way with them," the man named Shadwell said evasively. "He brought the roof down before they'd even set out."

"Mr. Lewis's foolishness doesn't enter into this discussion, not at this moment. I'm wondering about your foolishness, Mr. Shadwell. The girl Clara refuses to speak or eat, you know, and that disappoints me. My efforts haven't persuaded her, although I believe she'll come around in time. Her reticence is your doing, it seems to me."

"She's mute, sir."

"Don't you believe it, Mr. Shadwell. She's merely willful. She's also evidently terrified and believes herself to be among people who mean to harm her. We do not mean to harm her. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. I treated her kindly. Indeed I did."

"You were asked to enact the roll of the Metropolitan Police while in Aylesford. You were to have the girl's best interests in mind a great help to her adoptive family, deep sympathy for all and sundry. That called for a measure of subtlety and a pleasant demeanor. What went awry?"

"That oaf Bingham set off the Laswell woman's man, by name of Kraken. He attempted to murder the both of us with a rifle, which put paid to the police ruse, and we had to turn to more persuasive methods."

"That was unfortunate. The police ruse, as you refer to it, should have been simple to carry out. Did Clara witness these persuasive methods?"

"We kept her well clear of it."

"Did you indeed? You and I seem to be surrounded by incompetent men on all sides: the fool Lewis, the oaf Bingham. Perhaps we need a thorough turnout, a house-cleaning. What do you think of that, sir?" Shadwell apparently didn't think much of it, for there was a long silence before Klingheimer continued. "You'll recall that I expressed my doubts about Mr. Bingham several weeks ago. You insisted that you could keep him on the straight and narrow. Those were your very words, I believe."

"This man Kraken is unhinged, Mr. Klingheimer. The two of them fell out when Bingham lost his patience."

"Mr. Bingham's patience was not his own to lose. His patience belonged to me, since I was his employer. I a.s.sume that you dealt with the oaf Bingham yourself, as I asked you to?"

"He's dead."

"And the Laswell woman?"

"Dead, too."

"And their ghosts won't blow back into London on the whirlwind now that you've sown the seeds of the storm in Aylesford? There were no witnesses to their deaths, I mean to say?"

"No, sir," Shadwell said without hesitation. "I hid the bodies in the woods."

"You're lying somewhere, Mr. Shadwell. Perhaps everywhere. I'm quite aware of it. But you no doubt believe that it is in your best interests to lie, and certainly it's sensible for a man to do what is in his best interests when he's sure of himself. By that same token, a man who is sure of himself must be strong enough to carry the weight of his own self opinion. It is unfortunate that this business in Aylesford was mishandled, but there's nothing ruinous in it if you've put it right as you claim to have done. That said, I'll thank you to speak to Mr. Lewis this very day. Once again I'll ask you to practice subtlety, Mr. Shadwell, if you have any of that commodity about your person. Simply remind Mr. Lewis of his duty and of the necessity of thinking before he acts. Tell Mr. Lewis to send young Jenkins to me post-haste if there is any news at all, but, as ever, advise Mr. Lewis not to tell Jenkins anything of our affairs. And remember that we do not want Mr. Lewis to fall into a state of desperation. We want him to remain malleable. Do you understand me? Do not remove his appendages nor threaten violence against his wife. Mr. Lewis's spirit is on the wane, I fear."

"Yes, Mr. Klingheimer," Shadwell said. "I've been two days without an hour of sleep, however, and..."

"Sleep is very like death, Mr. Shadwell. I myself make a practice of shunning it if ever I can. I'll thank you to seek out Mr. Lewis at once. Then by all means sleep if the fit is upon you. And one thing more: Alice St. Ives and her entourage have gone to ground at the Half Toad in Smithfield. Send Penny and Smythe to the inn in the guise of commercial travelers. They're to keep their eyes and ears open but are to remain out of the way not speaking unless spoken to. Mrs. St. Ives and Frobisher's nephew are no doubt in a dangerous state of mind. Make certain that Penny and Smythe understand this. In short, if St. Ives finds his way out of the pit, then he will surely contact his wife. When he does, I must know of it. If he does not, then he has not found his way out of the pit, and you must descend once again with the dwarf to seek him out."

After a moment there was the sound of the door shutting, and silence reigned. Finn heard Mr. Klingheimer's footfalls and a chair sc.r.a.ping upon the floorboards. Finn contemplated what Klingheimer had said about the Professor why he might want the Professor's head. Why, in fact, had he any interest at all in the Professor, who was apparently dead or lost underground.

There was the sound of a blackbird trilling Beaumont's signal and Finn was tempted to climb back down and join him. But Clara occupied a room right above him now. She was alone, mourning her poor mother, starving herself, with no idea that she had a friend nearby. He made up his mind and climbed quickly upward to the very top of the ladder. From there he looked downward and saw Beaumont far below, looking back up at him. His life was in the dwarf's hands. So be it. He waved at him by way of greeting. Beaumont waved back and then disappeared. If he meant to play Finn false, then Finn would soon find out.

He slipped the latch on the fourth-floor gate and pushed it open, entering a long hallway with several doors. At the far end stood the stairs that Beaumont had spoken of. He listened hard at the first door he came to, but there wasn't a sound, either from within the room or from roundabout him. He had an aversion to spying, but he set it aside and peered through the keyhole. There was a lamp burning in the room, and although he didn't see Clara, he saw her strangely soled shoes on the carpet near the foot of the bed.

"Clara!" he said, but keeping his voice low.

Clara's stockinged feet appeared as she swung herself off the bed and stood up. She remained quite still, however, and said nothing.

"It's Finn. I've come for you." His heart swelled as he said this, and he was glad when she hurried forward now and knelt at the door. She gave out a great sigh, and he heard the sound of her weeping.

"You needn't speak unless you choose to, Clara," Finn said to the keyhole. "I've got but a moment and then I have to hide myself. We've a friend in the house, or at least I believe so. If they come for me in the next minute, then I'm betrayed, and I'll be of no help to you. If they do not come for me, then be aware that there's a bearded dwarf named Beaumont in the house who is a right good man. We must trust him. Professor St. Ives and Alice and Hasbro are in London, and I mean to get their help if I can't win the both of us free. You are not alone, I mean to say. We need a key and a way out of this place, but I'll find both. I followed your coach from Aylesford on old Ned Ludd, and I'll not return to Aylesford without you. I've promised Mother Laswell as much."

"Mother is alive?" Clara asked.

"That she is," Finn said, happy to hear her voice, which he had never heard before. Not once. It was a beautiful voice, he thought. "I came across Mother along the stream, and untied her." He realized now that Clara had begun to weep again, and the sound silenced him.

"I knew you would come," she said at last. The conviction in her voice made him happier than he had ever been. It was momentary, however, for a door shut hard, perhaps in another hallway on this very floor. Clara apparently heard it, too, for she said, "Run, Finn."

Finn ran quietly, down the hallway and back through the gate, which he closed before dropping down the ladder, sliding rather than putting his feet on the rungs, and slowing himself with his hands, which quickly grew hot. He dropped like a stone past Mr. Klingheimer's room; there was nothing to be gained by creeping past. Within moments he landed in the cellar. He looked upward, but saw no signs of pursuit and heard no hue and cry.