The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  Grainger, Toby, and Mr. Tyre were not near enough to draw Herrick’s attention, yet Mr. Tyre hesitated and held back, stopping in the corner of the walls.

  “You know what is beyond that gate?” Mr. Tyre whispered.

  “I know,” said Grainger calmly, “and suspect that you know or guess yourself, else you would not have assisted me this far. So why scruple when we stand this close to our mark?”

  Mr. Tyre tugged at the threadbare cuffs of his coat. “I wish I knew where Roarke was. Surely these smokes and alarms will startle him. I had thought, Mr. Grainger, you planned to make your escape.”

  “There is no escape from accusation and pursuit if I leave this thing behind me,” said Grainger.

  Mr. Tyre sighed. “I expect not. But you are bolder than I.”

  “Come,” said Grainger, “be cheerful! Roarke is a wise bird and will return when he is ready.”

  He turned to Toby and passed something into the boy’s hand. “Here, you have run many errands for many masters. This is the last for me. I have a token here that will secure my passage. Take it and say it is a final message from Dirk Tallow. You will be my surety.”

  Then he said, “I must ask that you occupy Herrick here. Under no circumstances must he be allowed to pass up the tower. I will leave the best means to secure that end to your discretion.”

  Mr. Tyre said, “I believe we may occupy him, once you are gone up.”

  They shook hands. With Toby, Grainger crossed the last few yards to the gate. He tarried behind the boy, with every sign of confusion and reluctance. Herrick loomed before them, frowning. While Grainger waited, Toby spoke to Herrick, pointed to the yard and sky. When Herrick shook his head and crossed his arms, Toby swore and showed him something attached to a scrap of ribbon from his pocket. Herrick yielded the ground before the stairs, but Grainger alone was permitted to pass.

  GRAINGER CLIMBED the worn stone steps of the Bell Tower, neither hurrying nor lingering. With each step he recalled the deep nights of winter and chess by the flicker of candlelight, and manifold other incidents and fragments of memory: phrases, hints, clues, and circumstances. As he passed the slots that admitted some air and light to the stairs, the shouts and cries of the crowd in the prison yard reached him. Turning, on the other side of the tower he glimpsed the rooftops and lanes of The Steps. There, columns of smoke, the faint and erratic movements of lights, dull reports, and rising voices blunted by the distance, suggested similar riots and disturbances. The sun was slinking away behind clouds of blue and black, gashed as if with great tears, beyond which fragments of the darkling sky showed. Out of the confusion of his thoughts, his mind, as surely as the anchored ship turns to the current, turned to Cassie. But whatever path she trod then, with whatever companions, was beyond the prison walls, and that he could not see.

  He passed the last step. The door to the high cell was before him. He set his hand to the latch, and finding it unlocked, passed through.

  Beyond was the same broad chamber, set against the square corner of the tower, with the same shadows on the walls, and the same collection of dull and disregarded furniture, arranged to create the impression of ease. Mr. Ravenscraigh was reading in his chair, a little from the table to catch the stray film of light admitted by the high casement. He glanced up as Grainger entered. In that singular face, sardonic, watchful, humorous, aged, and yet bearing traces of both force and dissipation, there was not a sign of surprise or dismay, only the same cool, appraising eyes and mocking mouth.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Grainger,” said Ravenscraigh. “You show a nice concern for my well being.”

  “You are occupied,” said Grainger, with a slight bow.

  Ravenscraigh closed the book in his hand. “The philosopher here, with the uncouth name of Smith, I note, has propounded a very pretty phantasy of the marketplace, steeped in pure reason, in which men follow the clear light of their self-interest instead of proceeding, as we usually do, knowing only our wants and inclinations and opportunities as through a glass, darkly.”

  “I am surprised you have a mind at present for philosophy,” returned Grainger, “and are not more concerned at these disturbances.”

  “Philosophy, sir,” began Ravenscraigh, with a faint, chiding smile, like a clergyman in possession of an excellent new theme for a sermon, “sustains me in these little instances of unrest. I am as perfectly serene before it as any onlooker, and therefore you should have no need for concern as to my safety.”

  Grainger moved a little within the chamber and leaned against a stout oaken dresser with an idling air. “But that is the curious thing, is it not,” he said, “that you, a gentleman of simple means and genteel habits, should have no fear, even at this hour, of being molested or robbed while the vilest felons roam unchecked about the cells?”

  “Alas,” said Ravenscraigh, “they know my simple means and habits but too well. A man who has nothing cannot be robbed. And besides: I am the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol. Such sentiments as they bear me, owing to my age, I suppose, and my long sojourn within these walls, preclude my being harassed.”

  “And yet,” said Grainger, unmoved, “in a prison so wild, changeable, and ungoverned, is it not more likely that something else checks them?”

  “How so?”

  “I mean that strength, fearlessness, a violent temper are also respected within the Bellstrom.”

  Mr. Ravenscraigh looked down at the book in his hands. “Surely,” he murmured, “you do not ascribe these qualities to me?”

  “You, who walks without fear in the vilest portions of the gaol, who sits in judgement over the Rogues’ Tribunal, who commands the most brutal footpad and cutthroat with a whispered word—aye, there’s a puzzle for those who would read it.”

  “You speak in ciphers,” said Ravenscraigh.

  Grainger stepped away from his lounging place by the door. “Did you not once say to me that murderers are generally accounted honest?”

  “Perhaps I did. I have found it so.”

  “I have found it so myself. But what if the rumour had it, that the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol was also held on a charge of murder, pending evidence, and so confined by his many enemies? Would not the shadow of that great crime stand over and magnify his eminence?”

  Ravenscraigh smiled with the greatest mildness. “It would, if his conduct reflected the charge.”

  “Do you deny it?”

  “I have many enemies,” said Ravenscraigh, setting the volume aside, “both subtle and persistent, who at the time of my first imprisonment did much to blacken and obscure my name.”

  “A nice equivocation! But to speak plainly, the moneylender and gambler, Airey, was found dead under your roof, his life cancelled by an unknown hand, and the whole suspicion of it closed upon your head.”

  “It is true, my youth was a dangerous and reckless one.” Ravenscraigh permitted himself an exhalation of regret. “I followed many dark paths, and I met Calvin Airey by the way, and he exerted a terrible influence on my course.” The voice was firm, though he seemed to attend his own thoughts.

  “But my dear Mr. Ravenscraigh,” said Grainger, with a shake of his head, “in this gaol you are no more a murderer than I am.”

  The fencing-master, touched in a bout by a student; the chess-player, checked in a country inn by a mumbling parson: both might register, for a moment, a low glance of mingled surprise and fury, and in an instant correct themselves, with a wry smile of resignation, as Ravenscraigh did. “I fear, Mr. Grainger, you compound rumour and attribution with intent.”

  “I grant our cases are not the same. I merely observe that your arrest is directed by no court and no jury, that you are no sort of felon but a politic debtor, entered here at his own choice, and licensed to depart again by his own choice. An excellent matter of policy, for while you are held on one debt you cannot be charged with another. A most convenient policy, that you may go about the town if you choose, on a ticket-of-leave, with one or two stout bailiffs, and conduct what b
usiness you may, and wreak what havoc you can upon your creditors, and not one of them can touch you.”

  The older man was upright and attentive. The uproar of the prison, diminished by the thick walls, sounded little more than the rattle of stones turned by the waves at the base of a cliff. It was growing dark outside, and yet shouts and sometimes the clatter of horses’ hooves rose from the streets far beneath.

  Ravenscraigh sighed. “Your words are flattering to my ingenuity, but as you see, I live in a state of poverty and repentance.”

  “But as a debtor with the gaoler in his pocket—and Master Swinge does treat you with peculiar deference—what could you not achieve? In so many years, you could wait out your creditors. You could let them slide into penury under the burden of your debts. You could conduct your own business unmolested, with perfect thrift. Set up your proxies. Install them in your own house, if you will. You were a man of position and ambition. Under these circumstances, what could you not do to restore your fortune, to acquire wealth, property, connections, influence…”

  “Mr. Grainger,” said Ravenscraigh sharply. “You grow tedious, and spin out this trifling speculation altogether too far.”

  “Do you deny it?” retorted Grainger.

  “I deny the imputation of design. I own to this: that when I was first imprisoned in this place of violence and fear, where only strength and viciousness are respected, it was necessary for me—necessary, I say—to protect myself by not denying the false and uncouth rumours that circulated about my dealing with Airey, and I permitted, never encouraged, others to dress me in the character of a murderer merely to ease my path and maintain what sense and good order I could around me. As you know, Mr. Grainger, a gentleman is subject to countless threats and insults in the prison. I disguised my embarrassment with a greater crime for which I was never charged (though I was held accountable in the public mind), and thereby preserved my honour.”

  “Nicely argued,” said Grainger. “But is it not pertinent that Calvin Airey was found within your doors, with the side of his skull blown out?”

  Ravenscraigh touched his brow. “If you have proofs against me, Mr. Grainger, then lay them out straight. I have grown weary of this intrusion.”

  Grainger grasped the back of the small chair in which he was accustomed to sit during games of chess. “May I?”

  When Ravenscraigh merely waved his hand, Grainger seated himself and resumed: “To describe all the circumstances that led me here would be tedious on any occasion. But I shall lay out all I surmise, and we will see what proofs they contain.”

  Now, Ravenscraigh looked to the door of his cell and the darker stairs. “If it will assist you. I am not otherwise engaged tonight.”

  Grainger shifted and resumed: “I must say that I always had a keen sense of the injustice done to me, and the knowledge of the crime unpunished. But the means and the reason why the false charge was set against me tormented me mightily, and was my daily and nightly preoccupation. Poor Massingham was assuredly murdered, but not by me. Therefore, the reason was everything. And so, through various adventures and incidents, it came to me that Massingham was deep in some miserable plot, compounding speculation and fraud, and his greed had constrained him to conspire against his co-conspirators and threaten them with exposure, with more gain in mind. And yet, who could he expose? Two wicked old usurers, posing as landlords in a genteel house in Staverside? The idea was tempting, but hardly compelling. No…he answered this himself, the wretch: ‘Our real master is a black bird who perches on yonder hill.’…Do you stir? Do you wonder how I came by those words, who might have read them and set them down in turn?”

  “Not in the least. I wonder how you set such store by the boasting words of a fraud and failed rival.”

  “On the contrary, if Massingham knew the secret of the Bellstrom Gaol, there was enough reason to lay the snares that led to his death.”

  “Your witness is curiously informed as to these details,” remarked Mr. Ravenscraigh.

  “My witness is dead,” said Grainger. “He was blameworthy, certainly, but he took on a greater share of the guilt than his own and meted out the punishment with his own hand.”

  “And robbed you, thereby, of his testimony.”

  “His confession was stolen from us within hours of its coming to light, and a good, kindly, conscientious man was injured by it. From memory have we reconstructed parts of the confession, so suggestive in themselves. The speed with which that theft was arranged appalled and frightened me, for I assumed at first it came about because we were watched all the time. Only later did I learn that we had been betrayed by a spy set down in our very midst. That spy reported to the Bells, and was answered by the Bells, and so I was forced to turn my thoughts again to the unseen power within the prison.”

  “And your discoveries, I infer, bring you to me,” said Ravenscraigh, with a trace of mockery.

  “You implicated yourself, long ago. You referred to my honoured father and mother, once, in familiar terms, but when at last my thoughts turned to that connection, I learned about your history. You implied a fellowship with my father that I am certain he would have repudiated. You thought, thereby, to encourage and sustain my sympathies, and blind me to your purpose, which was to keep watch over all I did and thought and planned.”

  Ravenscraigh touched two fingers to his temple. “I hold your father an honourable man. It grieves me to see his son turn aside from his estate and manners. But what you describe is but a poor tissue of hints and insinuation and circumstances.”

  “And so it would remain,” said Grainger, “had I not found out your spy.”

  “My spy, indeed!”

  “I mean the wretched boy who was so anxious to impress himself on Dirk Tallow’s disreputable crew that he spied on the engagement of honour between Mr. Massingham and myself, and reported the outcome so the trap might be set. The same spy who betrayed us when the confession was discovered. The spy who reported to Dirk Tallow, and Dirk Tallow, in his turn, was beholden to the thief-taker, Brock, and entangled in all his schemes, and I know Brock to be your servant, by whose word you were spared the gallows.”

  “You might say, therefore, that it was I who answered to Mr. Brock, since our stations are now reversed,” said Ravenscraigh, with a quibbling air, as if he were a lawyer arguing a finer point of the evidence with a promising student.

  “Quite so,” allowed Grainger, “for your life rests with Mr. Brock’s testimony. And yet, by the same token, is not Mr. Brock perjured, a conspirator whose reputation and freedom rests on your silence? You profit together or hang together, by that light. What is the case, then, on which you both depend? A man is found with a bullet through his pate, in a room where the door has been locked on the inside? A pretty conundrum, the instances of which may while away a great many evenings in a great many genteel drawing-rooms. But a prisoner’s logic is not so fantastical. As I lay upon my bed and looked at the cell door, it came to me that, had I the key, I could walk out of the door and lock it on the outside. I could meet another in the corridor, and pass the key to him. And that person could return, break in the cell door with a great hue and cry, and in the confusion drop the key on the inside of the door, as if it had been carelessly left there by the distracted suicide within. And so a murder is neatly palmed as self-murder.”

  “It is a nice speculation, but hardly conclusive.”

  “Then consider this,” said Grainger, “that Mr. Brock reads his orders from a paper under the cover of the Black Claw; that Dirk Tallow knew and feared the Black Claw; that to a man, the villains and wrongdoers in the Bellstrom will answer the Black Claw; nay—Piers Massingham himself, foully murdered, had in his possession a letter bearing the Black Claw, which set down the time and the place of his execution. And it is the Black Claw that has admitted me, by many a weary turn, to your cell.”

  From his pocket, Grainger removed the note he had taken from Dirk Tallow the night before: a folded scrap of paper, bound by a tattered ribbon, wit
h the black circle of wax still upon it.

  “How came you by that?” said Ravenscraigh, starting forward.

  “Thou most politic fool!” exclaimed Grainger. “So many pawns to move upon the board, and if one should escape your attention, the whole game falls asunder!”

  The old man clenched his hands and seemed to shrink within his clerical suit, and only the closest observer could have detected the flash of cunning and watchfulness in his faded blue eyes. “I see your purpose now, Mr. Grainger.”

  “Very prescient of you!”

  “You mean to secure your pardon by throwing guilt on another by this extraordinary contrivance. I admit, I have had some business connected with my estate (which is administered by factors), and somehow you have found this out. And now, using this ludicrous forgery, you mean to cast a pall of guilt upon me. I warn you, it will not stand, sir.”

  Ravenscraigh made to rise, and Grainger did not show any inclination to stop him. “If it is your notion to call Herrick, you may find him otherwise engaged.”

  “Mr. Herrick is a very formidable person.”

  “But he is not an adept thinker, and the circumstances of the riot will cause him some confusion,” remarked Grainger. “But I assure you, I am not here to make false allegations or to manipulate evidence. But I am singularly curious to know why you inveigled me in this conspiracy.”

  “Do not, I entreat you,” said Ravenscraigh, “flatter yourself so far as to presume that any design or close-kept vengeance of mine encompassed your ruin. You were snared in circumstances of your own making and bound in the traps of pride and heedlessness. You and young Massingham were cut from the same cloth—indolent, touchy, vain—and if you went letching after the same girl, it is no surprise that you should come to murder between you and call it honour. My only regret is that you were not competent enough with a blade to put Massingham out of my affairs.”

  “You do not deny that you and he were embarked in some black business together?” said Grainger sharply.