Langdon St. Ives: Beneath London Part 5

"Wright understood them to be deadly serious, and he asked the man for a day to consider how to accomplish the task, for he knew that the girl Clara would likely spurn him, and he needed time to puzzle out what to do. The man agreed. Clemson Wright came straight to us, in fear for his own life and the life of his daughter. Fortune, however, was with us. Constable Brooke had just ten minutes earlier reported the murder of Sarah Wright by telegraph. Sergeant Bingham and I were in the coach bound for Aylesford as soon as the story was out of Wright's mouth."

"And we mean to be back in London by supper time," Sergeant Bingham put in. "You lot can take that to the bank. Stand aside now and let us do our job and there won't be trouble." He picked up his valise at that point, opened it, and blithely removed a straight-jacket. "We've heard that the girl is given to fits."

Detective Shadwell shrugged. "It's unfortunate," he said, looking straight at Kraken now as if taking particular notice of his face, which was petrified with fury. "Sergeant Bingham is anxious to do his duty, once he knows what it is. He's tenacious in that regard."

"The girl ain't in no condition to do nowt," Kraken said. "What I say is that you two servants of the people fetch Constable Brooke and bring him back along to Hereafter. We'll wait for him and for the Professor, too, who is right now looking into this business out at Dr. Pullman's. Professor St. Ives will get to the bottom of it quick enough see if he don't. There ain't no tearing hurry. Not now there ain't. The girl won't be murdered while Bill Kraken is with her. And G.o.d-d.a.m.n your supper," he said to Sergeant Bingham. "Them chin whiskers look like they was shaved off the a.r.s.e end of a Berkshire hog. Put that d.a.m.ned filthy garment back in that there bag or by G.o.d I'll hang you with it."

"Watch yourself, cully," Sergeant Bingham warned, shaking his head.

Detective Shadwell held up a restraining hand. "Take the pot off the boil, gentlemen!"

"Yes, Bill," Mother Laswell. "For heaven's sake do as he says. For my sake, Bill. We all want what's best for Clara."

A change came over Kraken, who slumped a bit, shook his head tiredly, and said, "I'll fix up Clara's bag," his words evidently surprising Mother Laswell as much as they surprised Alice. "Right is right," he said, "and legal is legal. I lost my head, gents. We can follow along into London on the train first thing in the morning and see that Clara's treated fair."

"That's eminently sensible," Detective Shadwell said to him. "I thank you for your cooperation, sir. We'll get this sorted out, I a.s.sure you. Clemson Wright might be a viper, but he'll lead us to this criminal gang, whom we believe to have perpetrated a string of murders and mutilations. We'll see justice done for the girl and for her mother."

"Aye," said Kraken. "That we will. Fetch in the squeakers," he said to Mother Laswell. "They won't ken what's happening. Get 'em out of the way."

He pushed through to the doorway into the parlor, Alice stepping back into the parlor herself to allow him to pa.s.s. It came to her that she had been occupying doorways most of the afternoon, watching but doing little or nothing to help. She saw Kraken whisper into Clara's ear now, the girl immediately walking across the room, sighting as ever over the crook in her bent elbow. She opened one of the French windows and stepped out. The rain was nothing but a light mist now, but the ground was muddy, and the wind blew in through the open cas.e.m.e.nt.

Alice crossed the room to close the window, watching as Clara lifted her skirt with her free hand and hurried across to the door in the side of the barn, where Ned Ludd the mule again stood guard. Ned turned to follow Clara into the darkness when she let herself in. The entire business was puzzling, but when she looked for Bill Kraken he had disappeared down the hallway, deeper into the house. She returned to the kitchen, wishing to heaven that Langdon would arrive.

Mother Laswell was herding the children in through the kitchen door just then, past Alice and away up the hall, leaving Alice alone with the two men. Detective Shadwell gazed at her silently, his face blank, while Sergeant Bingham helped himself to another handful of walnuts, winking at Alice as he did so, a look of plain l.u.s.t on his face. She responded by staring hard back at him until he looked away. Neither of the men was worth the price of yesterday's newspaper as far as she could see. Sergeant Bingham was a mere thug, and Detective Shadwell nothing but a hollow-headed mouthpiece. The Metropolitan Police must be a sorry lot if these two were representative samples.

"I've fetched the bag," Kraken shouted from behind her, but when he strode past into the kitchen he was carrying a rifle at port arms. "A bag of cartridge, I mean to say. This here's a Henry rifle," he said, swinging it downward and pointing it between the two. "You gents is just leaving, and you ain't a-taking Clara Wright. If Constable Brooke says we're to take Clara into London, then so be it, we'll do as he says, but she ain't a-going with the likes of you. And you can take that to the bank, you wh.o.r.eson b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

Sergeant Bingham reached into his coat, and Kraken aimed the rifle at his face and took a step forward as if to drive the barrel through the man's eye.

"Stand down, Sergeant!" Detective Shadwell said. "And you take that rifle out of here, Mr. Kraken. You're confounded in your mind by this turn of events. I would be, too, perhaps. But you're treading on..."

"I'm a-going to tread on you two humbugs, Mr. Shat-well. See if I don't. Let's take this out into the yard, gents, the three of us and Mr. Henry. Mother Laswell don't allow no gunfire in the confines of the house. So if I've got to shoot you two down like dogs, it had best be outside under the sky where you can bleed into the dirt."

"Be reasonable, sir...!"

"Get out!" Kraken yelled at Shadwell in a voice fit to carry in a hailstorm, and the two men turned and went out, Kraken following, muttering to himself.

"Keep your temper, Bill!" Alice said to his back uselessly, since he had already lost it. Then she saw that Bingham had left his valise, so she picked it up, crammed the straitjacket into it, and walked to the kitchen door, which stood open. The valise suddenly infuriated her, and she felt a great liking for Bill Kraken, who was at risk of undoing himself. The two policemen had already climbed into their brougham, both of them bl.u.s.tering at Kraken and uttering threats. He still had the rifle up, sighting down the barrel.

Alice pitched the valise through the kitchen door just as Sergeant Bingham hied-up the horses and made a turn in the yard between the house and the barn. Kraken, evidently caught up in a desire to shoot something, fired repeatedly into the valise, making the bag hop and skitter, and then stood and watched the brougham as it drove away down the lane in the direction of Aylesford.

St. Ives was still considering his duty to Mother Laswell, when, halfway along the lane to the farm, he heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Moments later a brougham pa.s.sed, necessarily close by and clipping along. One man sat inside, the other drove, both of them dressed in police uniforms, which, given the nearby gunfire, was a curious business, or so it seemed to St. Ives. The man within the brougham looked hard at St. Ives, as they pa.s.sed, his face in shadow, but he glanced away when he perceived that St. Ives was returning his gaze.

TEN.

LEAVING FOR LONDON.

"Mother informed me when I visited this morning," Alice said, "that Bill is ready to take Clara into the marshes if the two men return today. He won't give the girl up, nor will Mother." Alice tilted a cheval gla.s.s and looked into it, pinning up her hair.

St. Ives nodded. "Quite right, too, for Bill's own sake as well as Clara's. That caper with the rifle was unwise, although it was effective. I hope they consider my suggestion that they spend a quiet month or two in the north." He had a small pile of clothing laid out on the bed, and his large portmanteau open next to it. Sunlight shone through the windows, and the weather was fair again, but could no longer be mistaken for summer. "Two shirts should do the trick, I believe."

"Two shirts?" she said. "We'll be in London the better part of a week, Langdon. You're descending into a pit in the earth that's filthy with Thames mud. Four shirts is more to the point, and put in your sack coat and a topcoat."

"Of course," St. Ives said. "Sack coat and topcoat it is, and the Monticello boots, I think. I've scarcely worn them since Tubby brought them back from Connecticut. Their soles are made of vulcanized rubber, a wonderful purchase on slick pavement." He sat thinking for a moment and then said, "I honor Bill Kraken immensely, you know, for his tenacity, but he's on thin ice here, Alice if in fact the two men in the brougham were on the up and up."

"Indeed. But were they? I wondered at the time how they knew that Clara Wright had fits, as they put it. They had just come down from London, after all. I wonder how did this doubtful band of murderers determine that Clemson Wright was Sarah Wright's husband? Wright is a common name."

"Perhaps Clemson Wright's involvement is a mere invention."

"I'm inclined to believe that it might be," Alice said, "although we mustn't make unwarranted a.s.sumptions about Shadwell and Bingham, especially if Bill Kraken is in the room. He's easily provoked."

"Invariably against provocative people, however, which is certainly a virtue of some variety, as well as a great danger."

"In any event, Bill and Mother have decided to do as you suggest," Alice said. "She has a friend in Yorkshire, a very secluded residence in the West Riding, where they can remain hidden from all and sundry. The sooner they leave the better, I told them, and they agreed to leave this very day."

"Was there no hint of an accent in the taller of the two men this man Shadwell? Fringe whiskers, perhaps? A pince-nez? A Mediterranean cast to him? Spoke foreign, perhaps?"

"Not a bit of it."

"I saw him briefly when we pa.s.sed on the road, although he was in shadow. It was obvious that he looked very intently at me, as if taking particular notice, almost as if he knew me, although I'm fairly certain I've never seen the man in my life."

"Bill revealed that you were looking into the murder, I'm afraid, and that your return was imminent. That must have attracted his attention, and he wanted to know what sort of interloper you appeared to be."

"Conceivably," St. Ives said, moving toward the window. "Look here, Alice. Here's Finn Conrad coming along atop Dr. Johnson, reading a book. I believe he's returning from Hereafter Farm, or that Johnson is returning from Hereafter Farm, bearing Finn. He told me that he meant to offer his condolences to Clara today."

Alice stood up and joined him, the two of them watching as Finn swung along, gnawing on a cylinder of Dr. Johnson's sugar cane. "Finn is a highly romantic lad, you know," Alice said, "and I don't refer to his literary tastes."

"Finn? He's rough and ready, perhaps, and can do anything he sets his mind to, but romantic? Why do you say so?"

"Women have an eye for that sort of thing. He's been across to see Clara more than once, you know; any makeshift errand will provide him with an excuse."

"To see Clara? I'm astonished, Alice. No, I put that wrongly. But one wouldn't have thought... I mean to say that I simply had no idea of it. A woman has an eye for such things, do you say? What does your woman's eye say about me? Am I romantic, then?"

"Certainly you are, dear, when your mind isn't taken up with sink-holes and Paleolithic avifauna. Just yesterday you complimented me by saying that I looked like a frog. That's worthy of a sonnet, surely. Finn is almost certainly sweet on Clara. He's sensitive, or so Mother Laswell tells me uncommonly so. He might easily perceive that Clara is fond of him, that she sees things within him that aren't visible on the surface. You'll admit that we often love the creatures that love us, human beings included. It's no great mystery. Mother told me that Clara can see evidence of it in Finn's 'golden halo,' as she calls it."

"The boy sports a golden halo? I'm baffled by this sort of talk, Alice. It conveys very little meaning to my mind. But if Mother Laswell says that it's true, then so be it, golden halo or no golden halo. I've doubted her before and I've turned out to be a fool. I now possess what might be called a variegated skepticism."

"It's mother's belief that we all have such a thing an aura, she calls it."

"Does she now? An 'aura'? What else did she have to say about it?"

"Only that Clara can see them, as could her mother, although the rest of us cannot."

"Is that so?" St. Ives asked, as they watched Finn ride out of sight, heading toward the barn. A boy on horseback appeared now, trotting up from the road along the pleached wisteria alley, clearly visible beneath the leafless vines. He was a telegraph messenger from the look of his coat and cap.

"Hasbro will receive the message," St. Ives said. "I'd best see to my packing before you accuse me of being a slow-belly."

Very shortly a bell chimed, and St. Ives stepped to a speaking tube on the wall and listened at it for a moment. "Ten minutes," he said into the mouthpiece. "I'll fetch it down." To Alice he said, "We haven't a moment to lose. Gilbert will meet us at Cannon Street Station at six o'clock, along with James Harrow, who will bring the celebrated great auk for us to see. Apparently Gilbert has his own jolly surprise for us."

"My bags are already on the veranda, Mr. Slow-belly," Alice told him, looking into the mirror one last time in order to arrange a black straw bonnet on her head. There was a spray of dried flowers sewn to the band of her bonnet, pinned with the spring dun fly that she had tied yesterday. "Finn's bag is there, too. I told him that we would take it along with us so that he was unenc.u.mbered when he followed along tomorrow." After a moment she said, "You seem pensive. Are you worried that we're shirking an obligation to Mother Laswell and Bill by rushing off to London?"

"Perhaps, although I very much hope not," St. Ives said. "And by staying at home we would shirk an obligation to Gilbert and to science, although those are perhaps obligations of a lower order. I'm persuaded, however, that Mother Laswell and Bill will do what's best for Clara, and in any event we'll be back from our little London journey many weeks before they return from Yorkshire."

Finn Conrad, holding Hodge the cat, cheerfully waved the chaise down the wisteria alley, mud flying from under the wheels. He put Hodge onto the ground, and the two of them set out toward the barn in order to feed and water Dr. Johnson, and to muck out his pen, which Finn did daily. Johnson, a very particular sort of elephant, liked clean quarters, as did Finn, who neatened up his own cottage every morning, shaking out the rugs and sweeping the floor. Hodge disappeared once they were in the barn looking for mice, no doubt and Finn set about hauling the dung and dirty straw out in a barrow to the heap fifty yards distant, running the barrow along over the path as quickly as he dared. Three weeks ago he had overturned the barrow, gone straight over the handles, and landed in the muck, and the accident was still fresh in his memory, although he had managed to wash it out of his clothing.

It was just past two o'clock, and the fish in Hampton Brook would be growing hungry in another hour or so. Alice had taught him to tie his own flies, and he had invented three new varieties and was anxious to give them a trial. In the barn he filled the five-hundred-gallon tank from a standing pipe, and then shoveled apples, carrots, cabbages, sugar canes, and dried hops into the enormous food bin while Johnson watched him with a keen eye, snuffling at the back of Finn's neck with his trunk. The elephant was deeply greedy, and mustn't be allowed to grow hungry. A hungry elephant was an unhappy elephant.

He filled a second, smaller bin with buns and loaves yesterday's wares from the baker in town. Johnson dearly loved a bun. The baker's lad made daily deliveries, as did the greengrocer, who obtained the sugar cane from London once a week, shipped in from the West Indies, and bales of peanuts when he could get them. The carrots, apples, cabbages, and other fruits and vegetables were grown right there on the farm by Mr. Binger, a brilliant gardener, who had taught Finn about irrigation, fertilizer, and how to prune the roses and apple and cherry trees in late winter. Mr. Binger had gone into Aylesford to dine with his sister today, as he did every Sunday afternoon, and wouldn't be home until some time in the evening.

"All laid along, as you can see," Finn said to Johnson, handing him an apple, which Johnson took delicately with his trunk. Hodge came out of the shadows with a rat in his teeth now, and Finn left them to their respective dinners, heading back across the lawn toward his cottage to fetch his fishing pole and creel and his copy of Black Bess, the story of d.i.c.k Turpin the highwayman and his gallant horse. Finn dearly loved a horse story, and to his mind Black Bess was the true hero of the tale. It was no mystery that the book's t.i.tle was the name of the horse. He took a pocket-sized notebook out of the drawer in his desk, and a piece of sharpened pencil some four inches long, just in case he found it necessary to write something down.

It wouldn't be a bad thing, he thought, to fish his way to Hereafter Farm, arriving in time to see the family off, which would give him an opportunity to say goodbye to Clara again. He sat down on the side of his bed and thought about not seeing Clara during the time she'd be away. He was surprised at the degree of longing that welled up within him, and he wished that he had a gift for her something to remember him by. She had given him the copy of Black Bess, had put it in his hands herself. It was plain bad luck that he had finally come to know Clara just when she was going away.

It came into his mind that he could make her a gift of an owl that he had carved with his oyster knife, and he fetched it now and put it into the creel, along with the two sandwiches and the bottle of ginger beer that were already stowed there. It was a middling good copy of the screech owl that lived in the hollow tree behind his cottage, and was the sort of thing that Clara could see with her hands, so to say. When she returned they could take a ride together atop Johnson and visit the owl in his tree. He pictured it: Clara perhaps allowing him to hold her hand, her happiness with the gift, the owl in the tree looking down at them, screeching once or twice in order to amuse her.

Eating a sandwich and reading his book as he went along, the creel hanging around his neck and arm, he followed the path that he had traveled just an hour ago on Dr. Johnson's back. He veered off the path toward the wood that stretched along the south edge of Hereafter Farm and made up a good deal of its acreage. The brook ran through the middle of the wood, falling for a time through a wide ravine that was rocky and sometimes steep, but with shady pools and broad shallows that were often full of trout. It meandered out over the sheep's meadow, where there was a gate through the hedge and a path that led to the farm's oast house. He could easily fish his way to the farm's back door before Clara was off to catch the eight o'clock train, and with time to spare.

ELEVEN.

UPSIDE DOWN.

"It's like a holiday," Mother Laswell said, speaking to Clara, but trying to convince herself. "We'll do nothing but read novels and take the air. I've packed Nickleby and Pickwick and also a copy of Mrs. Gaskell's Lois the Witch. I looked into it a year ago but was distracted and never finished it."

Clara nodded, although whether happily or merely out of politeness it was hard to say. She was most often silent always silent in company and more so at the moment, Mother Laswell knew, for her mind was on her mother's death. Best to let her be. It would be some time before any of them saw Hereafter Farm again, and Mother Laswell neatened the room now, intending to leave it just so. There was bad luck in leaving an untidy house. This afternoon they would take the post chaise south to Tunbridge Wells and then a train north through the night into Yorkshire. That had been Bill's idea of a ruse heading south before running north. They had a basket of Alice's pasties and a bag of their own apples along with cheese and biscuits for the four of them to eat along the way. Young Simonides was traveling with them. It might put the boy in some peril, but it might just as likely remove him from peril. There was no saying.

The world was upside down, it seemed to Mother Laswell as she stepped out through the French window and walked toward the barn. In such times as these one had to trust to prayer and dead reckoning when navigating, for the stars were often hidden from sight. The valise that the man Bingham had brought along yesterday lay in the mud against the barn wall like a dead thing, shot to pieces. She'd had Mr. Tully burn the straitjacket on the rubbish heap yesterday evening.

She picked the valise up now, looking at the compartments inside, and saw that it contained nothing apparently of value. There was a flat cloth bag with what appeared to be a set of false eyebrows and what might have been a stage mustache inside, much crimped from being smashed into the bottom of the bag. There were several sheets of paper also, wrinkled and stained as if with coffee or tea. She pulled them out, flattened them, and saw that they were handbills.

She stared at the picture depicted on the bills, confusion in her mind. It was a clear sketch of a man whom she recognized as her own son, Dr. Ignacio Narbondo not his given name dead this past year and more, something she thanked G.o.d for, although it was no doubt sinful. She had last seen him in London, in his lair in the rookery near Flower and Dean Street. There she had attempted to shoot him with a pistol in order to remove his shadow from the light of the world.

She had failed, and perhaps the failure had preserved her own sanity, and anyway he was dead within a few days. The handbill offered a reward for information of his whereabouts. There was an address listed, but it meant nothing to her. St. Ives had told her that Narbondo had fallen into a cleft in the floor of the Cathedral of the Oxford Martyrs when it had been destroyed. Alice had confirmed it. Mother Laswell needed no more proof than that. She wondered, however, whether her dead son was of interest to someone who had taken against him for some other reason someone ignorant of his death.

What was particularly troubling to her was that the handbills were in this particular valise. Given his criminal past, the Metropolitan Police might easily want news of Narbondo if they were unaware that he was dead. The only coincidence, really, the only disturbing thing, was that the handbills had ended up at Hereafter Farm. She wished that the Professor were handy. He would shine some light on the mystery. But he was not, and she would see neither him nor Alice again for some time.

She folded two of the handbills up small. And then, from a pocket in her gown, she removed the cloth purse in which she kept their traveling money, and she put the papers into it. She had no desire to keep her son's likeness close, but the whole business was simply too curious. She would show it to Bill when they had a moment to themselves. She put the other objects into the otherwise empty valise, walked around behind the barn, and pitched it onto the prunings that Mr. Tully was burning, watching as he pushed them around with a hay-fork. Finally she walked back into the house, where Clara still sat in her chair, wearing her darkened gla.s.ses and lead-soled shoes. Her face was a complete cipher. Mother Laswell could not tell whether she was happy to leave Aylesford for a time, or whether it was all one to her. The girl was uncannily stoic.

Mrs. Tully, the gardener's wife, pa.s.sed by hurriedly on her way into the kitchen where she was cooking supper. She and Mr. Tully would stay behind to look after the children. As far as the two of them knew, Mother Laswell and Bill were traveling down to Tunbridge Wells for a long stay with an old friend, a friend who did not in fact exist. Mother Laswell had written out the location of the friend's imaginary cottage on a piece of paper so that anyone who came calling would be able to find her there, if only they could find the cottage, which they could not, it being imaginary a dead end.

"Ten minutes, and we'll be off to Aylesford to catch the coach," she said to Clara, who nodded again. Mother Laswell walked down the hall and into her bedroom, where there stood a little-used door letting out to the side of the house. Bill had just minutes ago gone outside to water the pots of begonias that Alice had given them in the summer. They were in an area favored with afternoon sun and were fairly safe from the depredations of the children's games, although not quite so safe from whitefly and grubs. Mr. Tully had promised to spray them with soap. So many things to fret about, she thought, when one goes away on holiday. Something she hadn't done, really, since she'd gone into London a year and a half ago, and that had been no holiday.

She swung the door open and stepped out onto the small wooden porch in order to tell Bill that all was packed and ready. He lay face down on the ground, however, his arms thrown out in front of him as if he were attempting to fly. There was a b.l.o.o.d.y gash on the side of his head, pooling on the flagstones next to his ear. In her surprise it took Mother Laswell a moment to see it. She stepped down and hurried forward, crying out Bill's name and hauling her kerchief out of her bodice.

A hand grabbed her wrist then a man's hand and she was jolted to a stop. Another hand covered her mouth as the man stepped behind her, and in that moment she knew that she had been a fool, that Bill had been knocked on the head.

Murderers, she thought, and she heaved herself sideways in a vain effort to throw her attacker off balance. She saw his hat fly off, but he held on tightly, so she bit down hard on his fingers, hearing him curse, and then she kicked backward with the heel of her shoe and connected with his leg, although feebly, for she wore only a pair of cloth list slippers. The man pinched her nostrils closed now, and very quickly she was suffocating. He pulled her backward, clipping the back of her knees, so that she sat down hard, and then pulled her own kerchief from her hand, yanked it between her teeth, and tied it off. She made an effort to climb to her feet, but her tormenter pushed his boot into her side and tumbled her over, and then stepped over her and bound her wrists with a length of rope. It was Detective Shadwell.

Of course it was, she thought miserably. She had sensed that he was a bad man, but to their undoing she had ignored her instincts. Shadwell's face was altered, however: his nose smaller, his mustache gone, his eyebrows narrower, his hair receded halfway up his head. It was his eyes that gave him away. He picked up his hat, a jaunty, green-felt affair, and put it onto his head.

Mother Laswell cursed herself for her stupidity. Alice had advised her to leave at once for Yorkshire, but she had dallied, foolishly trying to put things in order before their journey, and now...

The other one, Bingham, came out through the open door at that moment, leading Clara. He closed the door behind him. He carried Clara's jacket folded neatly over his arm, her bag in his hand. It came into Mother Laswell's mind that there was no reason for them to take the girl's bag if they meant to murder her as they had murdered her mother, which they surely had. Shadwell pulled Mother Laswell to her feet, and straightaway he led the way into the trees along a little game trail and out of sight of the house. He held onto the end of the rope that bound Mother Laswell's wrists, the rest of the rope coiled in his hand. Clara followed, her hand on Mother Laswell's shoulder. That was good. With luck they would think that Clara was helplessly blind, although she would have precious little chance of eluding them if she bolted. She must wait for her chance. She remembered Bill now, who might be either alive or dead. She prayed that he was alive, and that he would come to his senses and...

And what? Bill could have no idea where they had gone. No one had seen the two men arrive, evidently, nor had anyone seen the lot of them leave. She stumbled on a tree root and very nearly fell, but Shadwell, whatever his name actually was, pulled on the rope and held her up, and once again she trudged on, more helpless even than poor Clara. Low sunlight shone through the trees, which were mostly bare now that November was upon them. The trail led toward the back of the farm she knew its course well enough past the oast house, which many years ago had been the site of her dead husband's laboratory, although it had burned when Mother Laswell herself had lit it afire while attempting to put an end to her husband's experiments into vivisection, the last of which had been perpetrated on the body of their own son. Would that she had burned it ten years earlier, she thought. Would that she had murdered the man in his sleep.

They skirted the sheep pastures, entering the woods at the point where the brook flowed out onto the meadow. There the ground became uneven, the path edging around boulders and beneath fallen branches. Mother Laswell's slippers weren't made for rough walking, and the handkerchief pulling at her mouth was increasingly painful now, her mouth dry. She tried her wrists against the rope, but to no avail.

After a weary time they stopped, perfectly hidden from the world. The stream formed a wide pool here, with sandy banks on both sides that ran along for fifty feet or so. Come the winter rains the stream would drown the banks, and then it would be midsummer before they reappeared. A beech tree rose straight skyward on the outer edge of the bank, which was cut away by the moving water. Shadwell led Mother Laswell to the tree and bound her to it, taking several turns around her body with the rope before tying it off.

"I told you to cut another fathom of line, d.i.c.k," Bingham said. "She's as broad as she is tall."

"We'll melt the fat off her right enough before we're through," Shadwell said, and he stepped behind a heap of boulders and dry limbs and pulled out a shovel with a long iron blade, spearing it into the sandy soil and pressing it home with his boot. He withdrew two f.a.ggots of wood from the hiding place now and set them at Mother Laswell's feet, and then gathered sun-dried brush and leaves, tucking them in and around the bundles. "That should do," he said. "When the fire gets hot, the tree will go up like a torch and she'll roast fore and aft, the witch."

Clara had begun to moan, softly, rocking forward and back, and putting aside her terror. Mother Laswell wondered what it was that had set her off. The meaning of the bundles of wood and Shadwell's b.l.o.o.d.y-minded comment were clear enough to a sighted person, but Clara couldn't see the bundles without the aid of her elbow. It was something else that she sensed, something buried beneath the bank, perhaps. Despite her lead-soled shoes, she felt it.

Mother Laswell was certain she knew just what it was. The two men had searched for it beneath the floorboards of Sarah Wright's cottage, but hadn't found it. In the end she had told them. She closed her eyes and focused her mind. There was nothing she could do to save Clara or herself. Sarah Wright had been compelled to reveal her secret, and whatever she had revealed was understood by Shadwell to be true. Nothing Mother Laswell said even if she could speak would convince them otherwise. The head was buried under the streambed, and the two men meant to unearth it. Clara was their lodestar.

She realized that she was breathing shallow and fast, and was growing light-headed. She would fall if it weren't for the rope binding her to the tree. She closed her eyes to calm herself, picturing the clear water of the pond on the farm where she had lived as a girl, the waterweeds growing in the depths, the silver fish darting about, appearing and disappearing, glinting in the sunlight. Her breathing slowed, and her head cleared, and she opened her eyes to witness what was coming to pa.s.s.

"Do you hear me, Clara dear?" Shadwell said now. "I'm right certain you're not deaf. We mean for you to find what's hidden beneath the stream, what your mother buried with her own two hands a dead man's living head, if such a thing can be imagined. So remove those iron shoes and walk about the sh.o.r.e, girl. Your old mum told us what was buried here before she pa.s.sed into h.e.l.l, and I can tell you that she was happy enough to go. The fat woman will travel that same road, girl, unless you do as we ask. We mean to burn her alive, you see, but only if you're troublesome. You can save her life if you have a mind to, and your own life into the bargain."