The House That Jack Built

by Robert Asprin

  Kaederman headed this time for Gate Three, the principle entrance to Surrey Commercial Docks. And once again, his delaying tactics with the black powder backfired. A horse-drawn fire engine, bells clanging madly, charged through, followed closely by four more. The fire engines completely blocked the way as they swung into the dockyards. Trapped inside the walls, Kaederman turned north toward the warehouses alongside Albion Dock. River police had taken up the hue and cry, as well, shouting at the fire officials to send word for another squadron.

  "We've got us a bloody arsonist!" a policeman behind Skeeter yelled, fury lashing his voice. "Damned Fenian bomber, blew a shed of gunpowder to hell! Try and head him off at Gate Two . . ."

  Rain slashed down across Skeeter's face in blinding gusts and unpredictable squalls. The mud under his boots sent him slipping and sliding for purchase in the choppy mess. At least it washed the reeking stuff off his face. Kaederman didn't try any delaying tactics at Albion Dock. He passed the warehouses and a gang of startled stevedores at full tilt, racing for Gate Two and escape. They charged past another huge basin in a straggling, strung-out line, then Skeeter caught up to Doug Tanglewood and Margo. They ran—as he did—with guns clutched in wet, muddy hands.

  "If he gets out of this dockyard, we're sunk!" Skeeter gasped.

  "Looks like we're sunk, then!" Margo spat back.

  Kaederman had just slipped through Gate Two, with Armstrong hard on his heels. Skeeter put on a burst of speed and drew ahead. By the time Skeeter shot through Gate Two, a second squad of river police had put in appearance, running north from the direction of Gate Three. They were still in the distance, however, nowhere close to Kaederman. He was just visible on Rotherhithe Street, dodging past startled pedestrians on the pavements, cutting around large groups by ducking into the street. Horses flung their heads up and reared, shrilling a sharp protest at his erratic flight. Skeeter had just caught up to Armstrong when Kaederman cut sharp south again, leaving Rotherhithe Street.

  "Where the hell is he going?" Skeeter gasped. "The river police are down that way!"

  For a long moment, Armstrong didn't answer, too busy dodging past a protesting carthorse and its cursing driver. Then a startled expression crossed the detective's face. "Surely not?"

  "What, dammit? Where's he heading?"

  "The tunnel?"

  It took a few seconds for Skeeter to call up his mental map of the area, memorized before leaving the station, then he had it: Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Thames Tunnel, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. Twelve hundred feet long, it had taken eighteen years and countless lives to build. It was also the only way to get from Rotherhithe's Surrey Docks to Wapping without detouring to London Bridge—or swimming.

  "Isn't that a railway tunnel now?" Skeeter asked as they ran, heading helter-skelter straight for the tunnel's entrance.

  "Yes! Trains from London to Brighton, owned by East London Railway Company. But the railway uses only one of the tunnel shafts! The other's still a pedestrian tunnel!"

  "Aw, shit, you are kidding, right? If he makes it to Wapping . . ."

  Unfortunately, Armstrong was not kidding.

  He was also correct. Sid Kaederman plunged into the circular structure that housed the Rotherhithe entrance to the Thames Tunnel and vanished from view. They followed at a run, clattering past startled men and women in working-class garb. Skeeter and Armstrong pounded their way through the vast entrance, with Margo and Doug Tanglewood on their heels.

  The entrance was a circular shaft at least fifty feet across. Skeeter peered past wrought-iron railings as they plunged down the broad, double-spiral stairs. The shaft was a good eighty feet deep and Kaederman was already halfway down, plunging three and five steps at a time. Skeeter's muddy boots skidded on the stone treads. Down and around, in a broad, lazy spiral, a dizzying gyre that would prove fatal if he put so much as one foot wrong. Down, down to goblin town . . .

  He was beginning to pant for breath when they finally reached the landing where the double spiral came together. Half-a-turn more and they were on the ground, paving stones clattering underfoot. The Thames Tunnel loomed before them, a double-barreled shotgun nearly a quarter of a mile long. The air was dank, foetid, cave-like. The tunnel walls exuded a chilly sweat, moisture running in tiny rivulets like the condensate on a beverage glass. Twin tunnels receded into infinity, dimly lit at regular intervals with gas lamps. Railway tracks ran down the center of one side.

  "Which tunnel?" Skeeter gasped as Tanglewood and Margo bounded down the last few steps to join them. "Which one did he go down?" They listened intently at each entrance for the echo of footfalls. The chugging of water pumps growled and echoed. They couldn't distinguish anything like a sound of running footsteps against the background noise.

  "That one!" Armstrong finally decided, pointing to the pedestrian tunnel. "I doubt he wants to risk meeting a train. He's no coward, but he's no fool, either."

  Dank, chilly air closed in as they pelted down the echoing brickwork and stone tube in pursuit. A few handcarts loaded high with coal and wooden crates jockeyed for space in the narrow tunnel. Gas lamps gave plentiful if rather dim light the length of the shaft, which had been constructed as a series of connective arches beneath the river. Nearly forty-five years old, the long pedestrian tube remained the province of footpads, thieves, and innumerable prostitutes who led a troglodyte's existence beneath the river. They passed sleeping drunks huddled in the brick archways, women who'd set up stalls at which tawdry goods and cheap jewelry could be purchased. Ragged children begged for money. A pair of roughly dressed men eyed them as they shot past, then thought better.

  A train deafened them as it roared past on the other side of the brick supporting wall. If Kaederman had chosen the other route—or if they had—they'd have been crushed under the wheels. Then they were through, emerging on the Wapping side of the river, somewhere to the east of the great London Docks. The eighty-foot climb up the dizzying double-spiral of the Wapping shaft, a twin of the Rotherhithe entryway, winded Skeeter badly halfway up. He staggered on with a stitch in his side and cursed Kaederman with every upward step of burning thigh muscles. They caught a glimpse of him from time to time on the way up, moving doggedly toward the street high above.

  The raucous noise of workaday Wapping drifted down in distorted echoes and clangs, human voices and riverboat whistles and the slam of cargo being offloaded at the docks. The rumble and clatter of freight wagons mingled with the roar of the train chugging through the tunnel far below. Then they reached the street. Sunlight, dim and watery, replaced the gaslights of tunnel and shaft. Rain was still pouring in wind-blown gusts. A vast throng of people and horses and overloaded carts clattered wetly through the narrow streets, past ships parked at dead-end roads.

  "Where is the son of a bitch?" Armstrong gasped, face contorted with frustrated anger. "We'll never find him in that stinking mess!"

  Skeeter was too busy dragging down enough air for his starving lungs to answer. They started asking passers-by and finally obtained a lead from a ragged and muddy girl of twelve, totting bunches of bedraggled flowers in a basket over her arm. She pointed down Wapping High Street. "Cor, 'e went that way, mister, knocked me down an' never said nuffink, spilt me flowers all over the frog, 'e did, ruint' the lot, and never 'pologized, neither . . ."

  Skeeter tossed a couple of shillings into her basket, eliciting a soprano squeal of astonishment, then pelted down Wapping High Street through the driving downpour. They finally caught a glimpse of Kaederman—just as he made a flying leap at a cart rattling smartly northward. He caught the tailboard and dragged himself in. The cart shot forward at twice, three times the speed a man could run. Cursing, Skeeter and the others lagged farther and farther behind, searching for some transport of their own. For an entire block, Skeeter staggered along with a butcher's knife of a stitch in his side, beginning to despair. Then a shopkeeper who'd clearly arrived a short time earlier came out to back his horse and cart up onto the pavement, unloading a pi
le of crates directly into his shop.

  Skeeter dove toward the horse with a gasping cry of relief. A quick snatch at the Bowie knife concealed under his coattails, a few slashing blows at harness straps, and the startled horse was free, front hooves coming up off the pavement as it tried to stand on rear legs. "Whoa, easy there . . ." Skeeter stepped up onto the cart pole, its front end digging into the street, and threw a leg over, clutching the grip of the fighting knife in his teeth until he could slide it back into the sheath. The shopkeeper shouted just as Skeeter urged the horse forward with knees and heels.

  "Hey! Wot you doin', that's me 'orse!"

  Skeeter kicked the nag into startled motion even as he dug banknotes out of a pocket and tossed them onto the street as payment. "Come on, let's go . . ." Obedient, if puzzled, the horse slanted an ear back to catch the sound of Skeeter's voice and broke into a shambling trot, probably its top speed while harnessed. A solid thump of heels sent the horse into a surprised canter, stiff-legged and jolting from the unaccustomed gait. Skeeter gained ground rapidly on Kaederman's cart, while the shopkeeper screamed curses after him.

  A swift glance revealed Noah Armstrong halting a hansom cab at gunpoint. Margo and Doug Tanglewood piled in. Then Skeeter gave all his attention to guiding his aging carthorse through the crowded street, cutting and weaving between high-piled wagons, shabby cabs for hire, even a few gentlemen's carriages. Businessmen or merchant traders, probably, come to check on arriving cargo or oversee outgoing shipments. Gaping pedestrians and liveried drivers stared at the sight of a carthorse lumbering past at its top, stiff-kneed speed, trailing harness straps and the end of long reins which Skeeter was looping and pulling in to prevent their being caught in a passing wagon wheel or carriage axle. He had no desire to end his ride that abruptly.

  Skeeter pushed his shaggy mount to a rumbling gallop. The carthorse burst past the boundary between Wapping and Whitechapel, steadily gaining ground on Kaederman. The cart made a right-hand turn, swinging smartly into Whitechapel High Street, which was jam-packed with hay wagons, oxen pulling loads too heavy for horses, and fast-moving hansoms. There was a near-collision that sent Sid Kaederman sprawling against the side. Skeeter saw his mouth move and the cart's driver turned his head sharply. The driver started shouting, then turned to crack his cartwhip at the stowaway. Kaederman's answer was to pull loose his pistol and fire at the irate driver, point-blank.

  Either the jostling spoiled his aim or the driver was one of those down-timers who couldn't be killed, because Sid missed him clean from a distance of twelve inches. The driver, white-faced and still yelling, performed a diving roll that landed him on the cobbled street, spitting curses and running for his life. The carthorse picked up speed without a guiding hand on the reins. Kaederman's transport careened out of control down the congested road. Kaederman, thrown violently from side to side as the carthorse dodged and shied away from other wagons and horses, crawled awkwardly over the seat, trying to reach the reins. Skeeter leaned low over his horse's flying mane and urged the draft animal to greater speed. If I can just catch up while he's distracted . . .

  They raced down Whitechapel High Street in a grim, jolting chase. Kaederman's cart plunged into Whitechapel Road, careering past screaming women on the pavement and cursing draymen who swung violently wide to avoid collision. Children scattered like ants, shouting curses after Kaederman's runaway horse. Truant boys and chimney sweeps scooped up mud clots and pieces of broken brick, hurling them in Kaederman's wake.

  The inevitable disaster struck just as Skeeter pulled alongside. A heavily laden team of drays, moving ponderously down the middle of Whitechapel Road, couldn't swerve fast enough. The driver tried. Tried hard, in fact. He succeeded in pulling his team broadside to the onrushing cart.

  The shock of collision drove Sid's horse slam against the other team's harness poles. Wood splintered. Horses screamed. The heavy wagon toppled. Its driver and a stack of crates six feet high were hurtled under the wheels and hooves of other wagon teams. A human scream tore the wet morning air. The horses were still screaming, crashing down as wood splintered like shotgun blasts.

  Sid's empty cart jacknifed around, airborne. It smashed down across the upturned drayman's wagon. Crates broke open under the force of the cart's landing. Hundreds of shoes and ladies' skirts, cheap dresses and steel bustles, men's trousers, and warm woolen coats spilled out into the mud. Sid, thrown violently airborne by the cart's twisting gymnastics, landed asprawl in a heap of dark, wet skirts on the other side of the broken wagon. The spilled garments cushioned his fall, probably saving his life.

  Then Skeeter's galloping horse, presented with an impassable barrier, jumped the upturned wagon. The horse's rear hocks clipped the top boards, then they landed roughly on the cobbles beyond and slipped on the wet stones. The horse skidded and went to his knees with a ringing scream of pain. Skeeter was thrown forward across the horse's neck. His superb riding skills—mastered on wild, half-broken Mongol war ponies—and a desperate grab at the harness collar kept Skeeter from smashing face-first onto the cobbles. His horse neighed sharply again, a sound of pain and fright, then heaved and scrambled up, bleeding down both torn knees. Skeeter, badly shaken, slid down the horse's forequarters and landed on the wet street.

  Poverty-stricken children, shrieking women, and idle louts from nearby gin palaces descended on the wreckage, a swarm of devouring locusts intent on carrying off as much as they could cram into their arms, toss over their shoulders, stuff into gunny sacks, or simply pull on over their own clothes. Hundreds shouted and cursed and scurried for the choicest pickings, using prybars to open unbroken crates or simply hauling them off, contents unseen.

  Kaederman's horse, badly wounded, was lunging, trying to climb over the backs of the toppled drayman's horses. All three animals were down, kicking and neighing shrilly, trying to regain their feet. Harness lay tangled, fouling their legs, which kept them from scrambling up. A man in a blood-stained leather apron hacked at the harness leather with a broad meat cleaver, trying to free the trapped animals. Wagons and carts, blocked by the wreckage, piled up on either side, their drivers shouting curses or jumping down to help shift the broken cart and wagon out of the way. Someone mercifully shot Sid's mortally wounded carthorse, ending the agonizing, bone-grating screams. Skeeter—limping where metal harness fittings had torn a gash through his trousers and thigh—hunted through the wreckage for Sid.

  Kaederman had regained his feet, bleeding from cuts down his face and arm. His coat was torn, smeared with mud and dung slurry from the street. The hired killer stumbled, visibly dazed, through the crowd of riot-happy scavengers, then drifted erratically toward the edge of the road. He staggered at every step, clearly having wrenched a knee on landing. He was still running, though, moving raggedly and glancing over one shoulder to locate Skeeter. At least with a bad leg, he couldn't run fast or far.

  Skeeter abandoned his own injured horse and fought his way on foot through the near-riot. A hansom cab shoved and clawed its way forward along the crowded pavement, scattering irate pedestrians into the jam of wagons and carts on the street. It halted six feet behind Skeeter's limping carthorse, which an opportunistic girl of fifteen was leading swiftly away. The cab disgorged Margo, Douglas Tanglewood, and Noah Armstrong; the latter tossed a wad of bank notes to the driver before jumping down to join the pursuit.

  "He's heading that way," Skeeter pointed as they slithered through the crowd of spectators and fighting scavengers. "Hurt and limping, but still on the move." The up-time killer had reached a three-story, eighteenth-century structure that might have once been a grand house, built of grey-painted stone and mellow brick. Coal smoke and soot had stained wide windows and trim a dingy grey. Kaederman peered through the windows, clearly trying to decide whether he should bolt inside or continue down the street. A semicircular, cross section of metal from what might have been the rim of a wagon wheel or maybe a large bell, had been mounted above the door.

  Kaederman spotted them and
thought better, limping past the entrance and rounding the corner to parallel a whole series of longer and lower, grey-painted buildings attached to the rear of the main structure. Skeeter and the others had already reached the corner when Kaederman found a set of double doors into the third building back, a three-story factory of some kind, judging from the noise and the smoke bellying up from a forest of chimneys. A wagon and team of horses stood in the open doorway where men drenched with sweat were loading heavy crates. Kaederman sidled past and plunged into the dim interior beyond.

  Despite his own limp, Skeeter was at those wide double doors in a flash. On his way through, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a sign painted in neat white letters: Whitechapel Bell Foundry, est. 1420, these premises since 1570, home of Big Ben, Bells of Westminster, the American Liberty Bell . . .

  The appalling noise and stench of a nineteeth-century smelting plant struck Skeeter square in the face. Intense heat rolled outward in a visible ripple, distorting the foundry's interior for just a split second. Then he was inside, breathing the fumes of molten metal and burning charcoal. Rows of windows high up did little to dispel the gloom. The vast, clangorous room, fully three stories tall, remained in near darkness, aided and abetted by the wet, cloudy day outside.

  Men shouted above the crash and slam of immense machines, heavy conveyors, and the boom of newly cast bells being tested for trueness of sound. Molten bronze—and possibly iron and silver and brass, judging from the color of the ingots on those conveyors—glowed in immense vats, surging like volcanic rock, seething and malevolent in the near darkness. Enormous, pulley-driven crucibles of liquified metal swayed across the room some eight feet above the foundry floor, moving ponderously down from the smelting furnaces to row after row of casting molds, some of them six and seven feet high. Filled molds were jammed and crammed to either side, forming narrow aisles—canyons in miniature—stacked high to cool.