The Harvest Man

by Alex Grecian

  “I like your rhymes.”

  “Do you really, Walter?”

  “No, I really do. I think they’re just the thing for children.”

  “I do hope you’re being honest with me, because—”

  “I am.”

  “Good. Because I want to publish.”

  “Publish? Publish your poems?”

  “I want to do a book of nursery rhymes. Fiona’s convinced me to do it. I’m going to ask her to illustrate it for me, if she’s willing. We can work on it together, she and I.”

  “Why, that’s a wonderful idea,” Walter said.

  Claire’s eyes widened and her cheeks pinked up. Walter was suddenly worried she might cry and he didn’t understand why.

  “Making a book is the very thing for you,” Walter said. “And with your father’s connections . . .”

  “Oh, my father,” Claire said. “He doesn’t like the idea at all.”

  “Ah. Well, who cares? Who cares whether two aged relatives like your nursery rhymes that are meant for children? Entirely the wrong readership you’re testing these things out on. Read them to a child. We have two of them under our roof at this very moment. Well, actually, we have four, but the babies are probably too young to give you proper comments.”

  “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. I’ll see what Robert and Simon think of them. They’re darling boys, Walter. I’m so glad you found them.”

  “They don’t seem to have reacted much to the death of their parents. That worries me.”

  “They will. And we’ll be here to comfort them when they do.”

  “I’ll have to turn them over to the proper authorities today.”

  “Please, let’s wait a bit longer. Surely they can spend another night here. It would be good for them.”

  Walter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. The house was crowded enough already. They didn’t have room for two more. To keep the brothers any longer seemed irresponsible and possibly illegal. But perhaps Claire was right. One more night in a proper home, surrounded by people who cared about them, might not be so bad for the poor boys. He nodded. “I need to make some inquiries about their placement anyway. I suppose we can wait a little longer.”

  38

  Alan Ridgway was tired of waiting. He had two very specific tasks set him by the man in the shadows and here was his opportunity to fulfill both of them at once. He’d abandoned the tree he was using for cover when the clever old guard on Day’s porch had noticed him. Instead, he had spent the afternoon loitering in a doorway down the road and he couldn’t tell who was coming and going through the rain. He knew, though, that Walter Day was at home, that his wife was home, too (she never seemed to leave the house), and that the old man was still standing at his post by the door. That was good enough for Alan. He thought he had seen other people arrive, but he couldn’t wait any longer for them to leave. He was soaked through.

  He had his blade in his hand by the time his foot hit the first step outside the house. The old man moved forward, blocking the door, holding up a hand.

  “Here, you. What’re you—”

  Alan ran at him, yelling over the top of the guard’s query. “Die, Karstphanomen!”

  Alan stabbed him in the throat. The old man fell to his knees, and Alan lost his grip on the knife. He grabbed for it and saw that the guard, even though he was dying and should have simply given up, was scrabbling for his revolver. The hilt of the knife was slippery with blood and rain and Alan had to try twice before he managed to wrench it from the old man’s throat. A gusher of blood spurted up and over Alan’s arm, sprayed over his face, got in his mouth—metallic and salty—and the guard stopped trying to find his gun, stopped moving entirely. He toppled face forward and slid partway down the steps, his feet angled up in the air. Alan almost laughed, it looked so comical.

  Alan thought the whole operation had gone well. Aside from shouting his message at the old man and a few grunts and thumps, it had been a relatively silent affair. He spat out the old man’s blood and fished in his pocket for the piece of blue chalk the man Jack had given him. He tried drawing a circle on the porch, as he had been told to do, but the conditions were not ideal, too wet. The chalk clumped and refused to make a smooth line. He was trying, down on his knees grinding the chalk back and forth in a semicircle on the brick, rain running down the back of his neck and into his ears and splashing down in the old man’s blood, when the door opened and Alan looked up to see two little boys staring wide-eyed down at him. A pretty woman appeared behind them, grabbed the boys, and pulled them back into the house. Almost immediately, as if he had been caught up behind the others, a tall thin man with feminine features rushed out through the door and, without pausing for even a second, launched himself from the top step and barreled into Alan, sending him sprawling over the body of the guard. Someone shouted out the name Nevil! Alan bumped his head hard on the bottom step and rolled to his side, pulling on the dead man’s arm, yanking the body up and over him for protection. He heard children crying from somewhere inside the house and a female voice again, this time screaming for someone named Henry! The thin fellow pushed the body away from Alan, but then made a deadly mistake. The thin man bent and checked the old guard for signs of life. Alan could have told him the chap was dead. It was obvious.

  Alan lunged at the thin man, his blade at the ready, but a piercing scream startled him and he looked up to see yet another stranger in the doorway. This time, a blond girl with a long graceful throat. Alan changed course immediately and bounded up the slippery steps at her. A small storm of black and white feathers, claws, and a sharp little beak swarmed around Alan’s head. He batted at it and someone called out the name Oliver. The bird disappeared. But the thin man was behind him now and had apparently satisfied himself that the old man was indeed quite dead. Alan’s scalp felt as though it had caught fire. The thin man had a fistful of his hair and was yanking him back. Alan had no opportunity to brace himself and the thin man threw him back down the porch stairs and was on top of him in a flash. The thin man had acquired a stout tree branch from somewhere on or near the porch and now had it raised above Alan, about to bring it down on his face. Alan reacted, jerking his head up into the thin man’s nose. A gusher of blood, and Alan rolled away, got his feet under him, and brought his arm up, blade ready. The thin man was on his knees, disoriented and dizzy, bleeding heavily from his nose and blind with rainwater running into his eyes. Alan held the blade in both hands and thrust his knife arm down with all his might at the back of the thin man’s neck.

  He heard something crack, a loud retort that seemed to be everywhere around him in the pouring rain. His head jerked back. He dropped the knife. He blinked hard and tried to remember what it was that had been so important only a moment earlier. There was a thin man hunched over on the ground in front of him. The man turned and Alan saw that he was quite good-looking, but his nose was bleeding. Alan smiled at the handsome man and then he saw bricks rushing up at him and everything was dark.

  39

  Day waited a second before he put his Colt revolver away, but Alan Ridgway didn’t move. He lay still at the bottom of the steps. Day bent and looked at McKraken. The old man’s eyes were open and sightless. Rain drummed off them, bouncing and spattering on his cheeks. Day put out his hand and closed McKraken’s eyes for him.

  “I thought you’d use your new sword,” Hammersmith said. He was out of breath and spoke each word as if it pained him.

  “You’d’ve been dead by the time I got down these steps.”

  “I’m hard to kill.”

  “True,” Day said. “Next time I’ll wait and use the sword.”

  “I should have come out the door quicker than I did.” Hammersmith stared down at McKraken’s body. “Was he a good man?”

  “I didn’t know him well,” Day said. “But Sir Edward thought highly of him. And he volunteered to guard my family. Nobody asked h
im to do that.”

  “At least there was one man at the Yard who believed Jack posed a danger to you.”

  “Now I wish he hadn’t. He might be alive and enjoying his retirement.”

  “It’s how I want to go someday,” Hammersmith said. “I never wanted to retire.”

  Hammersmith’s nose appeared to have stopped bleeding, but the front of his shirt was thick with blood. Day was pleased he hadn’t given Hammersmith one of his own shirts to wear, per Mrs Carlyle’s suggestion.

  “Take off your shirt, Nevil, and let’s have a look. I’m concerned you may have opened your wound.”

  Hammersmith shook his head. He held up a finger and caught his breath before he spoke. “No, my chest feels like it’s on fire, but I think I’m all right. I didn’t feel anything tear open. This fellow’s in much worse shape than I am.”

  There was a small round hole in the back of Alan Ridgway’s head. Hammersmith rolled him over, pushing him with the toe of his boot. There was no corresponding hole in Ridgway’s forehead. The bullet was still somewhere in his skull.

  “He’s still breathing,” Hammersmith said.

  “You’re joking,” Day said. He picked up his new cane from where it had fallen over McKraken’s legs and limped down the steps. He and Hammersmith stood over Alan Ridgway and watched his chest move up and down. It was hypnotic. Neither of them moved.

  “Walter?”

  He looked up. Claire was at the front door.

  “Everyone . . .” Day said. He felt very tired and had to start his sentence over again. “Is everyone all right in there?”

  “Physically, yes,” Claire said.

  “Where’s Henry? We could have used his help out here.”

  “The boys were upset, Robert and Simon. They saw what happened to poor Mr McKraken and Henry refused to leave them.”

  “Ah,” Day said. “That’s commendable, I suppose.”

  “Those boys didn’t need to see this,” Hammersmith said. “They shouldn’t have been out here at all.”

  “No,” Day said. “No, they shouldn’t have. I was wrong. I should have taken them to the authorities first thing this morning. They wouldn’t have been here.”

  “No, you were right, Walter,” Claire said. “They need to be around people who care about them. They’ve already seen worse than this.”

  “We’ll talk more about it,” Day said. “Claire, please go inside and keep everyone there until we get this mess sorted.”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue with him, but then thought better of it. She stepped back and closed the blue door, shutting Day and Hammersmith out in the rain with the two bodies.

  “He’s moving,” Hammersmith said.

  Day tore his gaze away from his front door and looked down at Alan Ridgway.

  “He can’t be moving,” Day said. “It’s only the rain.”

  But as he said it, Alan Ridgway’s eyes opened and he smiled up at them. His lips moved. With some difficulty Day lowered himself to his knees and leaned in closer.

  “I didn’t hear you,” Day said. “What did you say?”

  “It wasn’t me.” Ridgway’s voice was so soft that Day could barely hear him over the pattering rain on the footpath. There was a deep purple bruise spreading fast over Ridgway’s forehead and his eyeballs seemed to be filling with blood. “I was only the messenger. It was always you, Walter Day. Jack chose you, not me.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “Lost,” Ridgway said. “Lost and gone forever.”

  Day stared at Ridgway. He no longer felt the damp of the rain or the discomfort of his leg. Instead, he felt a chill running along his spine, an electric thrill of fear and excitement. He stared and did not move until Hammersmith’s hand on his shoulder broke the spell of Ridgway’s words.

  “Well, he’s dead now,” Hammersmith said. “He’s finally stopped breathing.”

  “Was he really breathing? Did he really speak?”

  “I don’t know how,” Hammersmith said. “He had a bullet in his brain.”

  Hammersmith was still holding the tree branch that, until recently, had served as a makeshift cane for Day. He used it to brace himself and helped Day back to his feet. Day felt dizzy and the pattern of raindrops pelting past him was disorienting. He wanted to lie down, but instead he turned to Hammersmith and tried to read his expression.

  “Did you hear him? Did you hear what he said to me?”

  “No. What did he say?”

  Day hesitated and then shook his head. “It was gibberish. The ravings of a dying man. I couldn’t make sense of it.”

  “Just as well,” Hammersmith said. “I don’t think I care what he thought at the end. I know right where he’s headed to now and he can burn there.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  “We need to send for the police. For more police, I mean.”

  “If I hadn’t already been inclined to move away from this place, I’m sure this would be the last straw. My neighbors will want me gone. Too much excitement lately for Regent’s Park Road.”

  “Let’s have someone fetch Tiffany round here so we can get these bodies off the street.”

  “Here’s a boy now.” Day raised his hand and a young man, perhaps Robert’s age, trotted up to him.

  “I have a message for Walter Day,” the boy said.

  “What?” Day was momentarily confused. He had a message for the boy to take, not the other way around.

  “Inspector Tiffany sent me for you, if you’re Walter Day. Said you’d have a cane. That you, then?” The boy glanced uneasily at the bloody bodies, but didn’t look directly at them.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m Walter Day. Tiffany sent you?”

  “Said to tell you they almost have him, the Harvest Man. They’ve got a witness now. Young woman escaped him and Tiffany’s right behind. You’re to come there as quickly as you can.”

  He recited an address from memory and held out his hand. Day rummaged in his pockets, but came up empty. Hammersmith stepped forward and pressed a coin in the boy’s palm.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Would you be willing to carry a message back?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Please tell Inspector Tiffany that I’ll be delayed here. And have a wagon sent round to this address.”

  “For these dead fellows?”

  “Exactly right.”

  “Will do, sir.” The boy turned on his heel and sprinted off into the driving rain. He was lost to sight within seconds.

  40

  It took the police more than three hours to arrive, load the two bodies in a wagon, and take them away. Hammersmith stood over Ridgway’s corpse with McKraken’s umbrella, trying to preserve the evidence, but the steady rain rinsed the blood away into the road. In the end it was decided that there was nothing left on the footpath or the porch for Kingsley to see. He would have to make do with the bodies themselves in his laboratory.

  By sunset, the façade of number 184 Regent’s Park Road had been washed clean, as if nothing untoward had ever happened there. But inside there had been a great deal of activity. Ants scurrying here and there, each with a singular purpose, reconstructing their hill after a careless footfall. Mrs Carlyle instructed the staff on the packing of overnight bags for her daughter and grandchildren. Claire packed a bag for her husband. Henry paced back and forth, checking every door and every window again and again, watching through the rain for danger. The bird Oliver flew from perch to perch after his master, but refused to sit on Henry’s shoulder.

  Fiona took the boys to the kitchen and fed them. When they were calm, she took out her tablet and gave them each a piece of paper and a crayon and let them draw. While they busied themselves, she asked them questions and she herself drew a picture. When she was done, both Robert and Simon were able to recognize in the illust
ration the features of the Harvest Man. There followed another round of food and distraction.

  At half ten, Leland Carlyle arrived with a pushcart. The luggage was loaded and taken away, followed by a procession down the road and across the park to the rental cottage of the Carlyles. Henry returned to his tiny room within the lamppost in Trafalgar Square and Fiona was sent home with a message for her father.

  The new household staff was given a small stipend to find lodging at a nearby inn and number 184 was locked and abandoned.

  “We’ll find a new home for you tomorrow,” Mr Carlyle said. “None of you will come back here again.”

  This time Day did not argue with his father-in-law.

  NIGHT

  Trafalgar Square was quiet. The man Jack emerged from the shadows and walked toward the southeast corner, his boot heels clocking against the wet stones. He paused at Nelson’s Column and saluted, then continued across the square to a bulky lamppost. A bird was perched on the finial atop the rain shield, its head under its wing. It looked up and shook the rain off its feathers and squawked. Jack held a finger up to his lips and the bird went quiet. It cocked its head to the side and watched him with one beady black eye and then it lifted its wings and flew away into the night.

  Jack smiled. When the bird had traveled out of sight, he raised his fist and knocked lightly on the small door that was set in the lower half of the post. He could hear someone inside moving about. He stood in the rain and waited.

  • • •

  HATTY PITT HAD NOT spoken a word since she woke in a hospital bed surrounded by nurses and policemen. There had been a great deal of excitement centered on her for a time, but most of the people had gone now. The policeman named Tiffany had gone off and she could tell he had been frustrated by her lack of speech, but she didn’t care. He had left a constable there by the door of the women’s ward to guard her and she didn’t care about that, either. Anything could happen to her now and it wouldn’t matter. She was a widow at seventeen. What was left for her in life? What did she care anymore about other people or their wants and desires? She had no intention of ever speaking again.