Tales of the Shadowmen 2: Gentlemen of the Night
Page 39
Temple did not answer that. Instead, he lifted the curtain to look out. “Bexley,” he said. “We’ll be in Greenhithe in a matter of minutes. We’ll need a plan of action, if the Outremort is still at her berth.”
“Action would not be to our advantage,” Ned pointed out, “given that we have no army far our back–or have you mustered one to follow us at the gallop?”
“I’ve summoned agents of two sorts,” Temple admitted, “but I have not the authority to mobilize men by the dozen, let alone the hundred. The show of strength in Sharper’s relied on local men whose commander had his own reasons for making his presence felt there. By noon, I should have nine or ten at hand–but if I can send the right message back to Scotland Yard and Whitehall, I can gather a much larger force by dusk.”
“But you and your men will need to see with your own eyes what kind of crew the Outremort has, and gather firm proof that there are honest citizens in danger... although I dare say you’ll settle for Sam and Jeanie if there’s no one else, no matter how much resentment you’ve stored against them. If only Germain Patou were a Napoleonic spy... but fat George and Louis XVIII are better friends now, are they not, and their secret police forces are presumably hand-in-glove? The Brotherhood of the Deliverance is no more, and even the Deliverance may have become the Outremort...”
“A plan, Master Knob,” Temple reminded him. “I had hoped simply to be able to tell you what I wanted you to do, but I see now that we cannot proceed on that basis. Would you care to tell me what you would like to do?”
“The first thing I would like to do,” Ned told him, “is to find out who the master of the Outremort is. I should also like to know whether Sam and Jeanie are aboard–and, if so, under what terms. What I do not want to do is to instigate any violence of any kind, aimed at anyone. I think we should both be discreet, Mr. Temple, and learn what we can by stealth before we reveal our presence. So, for the time being, I am ready to stay discreetly by your side, and do my best to help you in any covert enterprise that will improve our understanding of the situation.”
Temple shook his head slowly. “You’re a true marvel, Master Knob,” he said. “I apologize for calling you a worm.”
“Thank you, Mr. Temple,” Ned replied, judging that the time had come, at last, to be magnanimous.
Chapter Eight
Aboard the Outremort
The docks at Greenhithe were a good deal busier than those at Purfleet had been, and the Outremort’s mooring was a relatively quiet spot in a hive of activity–so much so, in fact, that the activity to either side had encroached somewhat upon working-space than ought to have been hers. The warehouses along the waterfront provided an abundance of coverts from which observers could keep watch, so Ned Knob and Gregory Temple had no trouble approaching a very convenient position at the entrance to a narrow alleyway running between two such storehouses. A cargo was in the process of being unloaded into one to their left, so the quay in front of it was strewn with tea-chests and various bales, but the traffic from the one to their right was in the other direction, casks of wine being loaded on to a series of carts to be hauled away.
There was no one visible on the deck of the steamship, but there was a carriage standing on the quayside with its horses still in harnessed, tether to a trough. The animals had been given feed-bags, but they seemed to have consumed the oats therein.
“Waiting for passengers,” Temple opined. “Perhaps to return your friends to Covent Garden.”
“Perhaps,” Ned agreed.
Temple took a small naval telescope from his greatcoat and extended it to its full length. The steam ship was no more than 40 paces away, but he evidently wanted to magnify the portholes in the hope of being able to glimpse something within.
“I can make out a grey head in one of the spaces aft of the engines,” he reported. “There’s another–but it’s impossible to tell whether either is Ross or the giant. A human head might be easier to identify. Judging by the conformation of the ship, there must be at least one cargo-hold in the stern, but whether the port-hole where the head is visible is in a separate section or lighting the hold I can’t tell.”
“Her fire is burning low,” Ned observed, studying the smoke drifting from the two funnels. “They’d be stoking her up by now if they intended a swift departure. They’re lying very low, though–if they’re not waiting to put anyone ashore, they must be waiting for others to come aboard.”
“Her launch is missing,” Temple said. “There’s no way of knowing whether your friends really were brought here, although it’s not unlikely that it set out on some other ferrying mission once it had deposited them.”
Ned nodded his head. If this was Mortdieu’s vessel rather than John Devil’s, and the dead-alive had contrived to extract James Graham’s magical baths from the cellars before the house in Purfleet was torched, along with their electric batteries, the salvagers would have had to ferry them across the river for want of a convenient bridge. That would have required several journeys in a launch. Greenhithe was a good deal closer to Purfleet than Tilbury, but it would not have been the work of a mere hour–even by night, when the traffic was far less heavy than it was now. On the other hand...
“Here’s someone,” Temple muttered, cutting into Ned’s speculations. Two men had emerged from below the steamship’s decks into the bow, where the gangplank was situated. They were not grey men, but perfectly ordinary sailors; they were dark-skinned, but Ned could not identify their country of origin. They seemed to be arguing as they crossed the gangplank, but not angrily. They untethered the two horses from the trough, but did not bother to climb up into the driver’s seat before leading the animals away along the quay.
“Not going far,” Temple opined. “Probably collecting supplies. No need to leave the quayside, if they know where to go. It’ll take time, though, if they’ve a complex shopping list.”
“Here’s more of them,” Ned said, as a second cart drew up at the spot from which the first had departed. This one was laden with various goods packed in boxes, bales and barrels. The job of unloading it would have been completed very quickly had half a dozen men come out from the steamship, but it would not have been a diplomatic move for the grey heads Temple had glimpsed through the aft portholes to show themselves on such a busy quay in broad daylight. The only man who emerged from hiding was a ship’s officer, obviously a European, who set about issuing instructions to the two sailors aboard the cart. They complained, but he ordered them to get on with the work.
Temple and Ned watched intently, hoping that someone else might come out, if only for a moment. They were watching far too intently, as it turned out, for they did not hear the man who crept up on them from the far end of the alleyway until he was close enough to put a pistol to Gregory Temple’s head.
“Forgive me, Mr. Temple,” the ci-devant Comte de Belcamp said. “I have no wish to harm you, but I feared your reaction to the sight of me.”
Temple stared into the barrel of the weapon as though it were a cobra poised to strike.
Ned, by contrast, looked John Devil up and down, astonished to find him not in the least damp or bedraggled–although he was not wearing his Quaker hat. “You have a remarkable immunity to fire and flood, my friend,” he said.
“I hope you are my friend, Ned,” the blond man replied, “For I lost a fair few last night–more to desertion and kidnap than death, thank God–and can spare no more. I need to take my old ship back, and I need to rescue Germain Patou, who I believe to be a prisoner on board. You can imagine the insult I felt when I found out what vessel it was that Mortdieu had obtained in order to hunt me down. The ship is stolen, by the way, and illicitly renamed, so I have perfect right to reclaim it.”
“Given that you are legally dead, Monsieur de Belcamp,” Gregory Temple said, acidly, “even this radical scoundrel could not claim any such right on your behalf. According to Ned, your wife still thinks herself a widow, and you cannot pretend to be working on her behalf.”
“He is hoping to have nine assembled by noon,” Ned told him, “but he has not made contact with any as yet.”
“And does he intend to try to seize the ship from Mortdieu?”
“His plan is not yet developed,” Ned replied. “For the moment, we are simply gathering intelligence–but I doubt that he will let the vessel depart, if he can prevent it, and he probably has the authority and the means if he can get a message back to Westminster.”
“Then it’s as well I happened along, for I have more intelligence than the pair of you could gather in a fortnight, even with the aid of a trawler. Will you get down on your knees, Mr. Temple.”
“No,” said Gregory Temple. “Blow my brains out if you must, but I will never kneel to you.”
“I’m not asking for worship,” John Devil replied. “I’m asking for you to take up a position in which Ned can conveniently tie your wrists to your ankles, to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“I will not,” Temple said, stubbornly. “Blow my brains out, if you so desire.”
The ci-devant Comte shook his head wearily. “Tiresome as ever,” he repeated. “Suit yourself.” Then he put his fingers to his lips, and whistled the old signal, which Ned Knob had first heard in Jenny Paddock’s in March 1817.
Had Ned had the chance, he would have demanded that John Devil hold off for a discussion, and he was sure that he could have convinced his former master not to do anything stupid–but John Devil really was laboring under the delusion that he was a man of fine intelligence, and was determined to act the idiot as only a vain man could.
Events unfolded in a tremendous hurry. The two men who had been unloading the cart in to the Outremort’s deck were both on the quay, each burdened by a bundle taken from the back of the cart. There were a dozen other men within five paces, stacking up goods that were being unshipped from the neighboring vessel–but eight of the dozen, it seemed, were John Devil’s men, for two of them immediately leapt on the Outremort’s sailors, while two more went or the officer on the deck. The other four swarmed aboard, armed with billhooks and cudgels. More men were already converging on the gangplank from the other side, where the work of loading up carts at the second warehouse had also served as a cover for the infiltration of the ci-devant Comte’s remaining followers.
“Who loves me, follow me,” John Devil muttered, as he joined his crew. Ned opened his mouth to protest, but he could see that it would do no good, so he rocked back on his heels fully prepared to watch and wait. He realized too late that Gregory Temple was not so wisely hesitant. The detective brought a metal whistle from his own pocket, and blew the long shrill blast upon it that the policemen of London used to summon help. Now more men came running, from both ends of the quay–but only four of them that Ned could count.
Temple did not pause to shout out any orders before he hurled himself after his nemesis, avid to grab him from behind now that the pistol was no longer pointed at his head.
“Imbecile,” Ned muttered. “You had only to do nothing for a little while, and you could have taken control of the situation once your men were fully gathered–but perhaps it will work out for the best.”
The bandit was too quick for the policeman; by the time Gregory Temple had gained the deck, John Devil had disappeared below decks, into the narrower half of the vessel, where the crew-quarters were probably located. The noise of shots was immediately audible.
All along the dock, work stopped as honest laborers paused in honest wonderment. When the four policemen arrived at the end of the gangplank, though, they paused, having no idea who their appointed adversaries might be.
Gregory Temple was already embroiled in a brawl on the deck–although no one there seemed to know which side he might be on, and he was therefore not subject to any immediate or deadly attack. He tried to push the wrestling sailors out of the way in order to follow his quarry, but there simply was not room. He called to his subordinates for help, and they rushed to his aid, evidently forming the opinion that, since all the men on deck was in their commander’s way, every one of them must be a heinous criminal. The policemen started laying about them with their truncheons, to the left and to the right, hitting anyone and everyone save for their master–with the inevitable result that anyone and everyone began hitting them and their master.
“Things will be much better ordered under the Republic,” Ned observed, sadly. “If the dead-alive can conduct themselves more seriously than this, I shall be glad to cast my vote for their election to the National Assembly.”
The combined efforts of the two sets of combatants and the policemen had already resulted in four men being knocked down, three more thrown overboard, and a small group of defenders retreating to the doorway that gave access to the bow of the ship. There was now a considerable quantity of empty space on the deck now, and the gangplank itself was clear.
Ned scurried forward, crossed the gangplank, and made his way aft to the part of the deck that had not yet seen any movement at all. There he searched or a second means of ingress to the spaces below deck–and having found a hatch, made his descent into a well flanked by two big doors. He tested one at random, found it to be unlocked, and opened it.
He stepped into a capacious cargo-hold–or, at least, into a space that had been designed as a cargo-hold, although it had evidently been pressed into service as passenger accommodation. By the yellow light of two oil-lamps, he saw 16 grey men and one man who had not yet died sitting meekly on the floor, all awake and somewhat agitated.
The man who had not yet died was Germain Patou. His hands were tied behind his back, and his ankles bound together. Ned whipped out his knife, and sawed through the bonds as quickly as he could.
“The deck’s clear, at present, Monsieur Patou,” he said. “You may make your escape in safety.”
“I cannot leave them!” Patou retorted, indicating his companions with a brief turn of the head. “What is happening, Monsieur Knob? Is it Arthur?”
“I fear that Arthur Pevensey may have gone the way of all his other aliases,” Ned said. “He is in a piratical mood, I fear. Do you know if my friends are aboard?”
“In the port hold, twin to this one,” Patou said. “Please go–I need to calm these people.”
The dead-alive had not menaced Ned in any way; their disturbance was fear and anxiety, not anger. He nodded, and closed the door behind him as he went to its mirror-image. The second door was similarly unlocked, and the second space was a duplicate of the first–except that there were two humans sheltered there as well as a similar company of grey men, and three people standing: Sam Hopkey, Jeanie Bird and Sawney. None of them was tied up, so Ned folded up his knife and put it away.
“Ned!” cried Sam. “Come in and shut the door–there’s a battle royal raging beyond the engine-room, it seems. You might get hurt.”
Ned did as he was bid. “I only came aboard because I feared that you might be hurt,” he explained. “I think we might be able to get out if we made a run for it–but Sawney would have to stay behind, for there’s a crowd on the dock, and I don’t know how they’d react to the sight of a grey man.”
He watched Sam and Jeanie turn inquisitive eyes to the man who had been their dearest friend and second father, and knew that there was no question here of any kidnap or evil seduction. In all of this confusion, one thing at least was perfectly plain. When Sawney had said that he had come to Jenny Paddock’s because he wanted to see the people who had meant most to him in his previous life, he’d told the simple truth–and he’d come back for exactly the same reason, evidently with Mortdieu’s permission, if not his actual encouragement. Sam and Jeanie must have come with Sawney to say goodbye, before he went away on a sea voyage
from which he might not return for many years.
Sawney’s grey lips twisted into a faint parody of a wry smile. “Best go, Sam,” he said, softly. “Don’t fear for me–I have my mind back now, and my feelings too. I have what I need, thanks to you, and what these others need in me. I can play the man, now, as the part deserves to be played.”
“Sawney, old friend...” Ned began–but then the door that he had closed behind him burst open again, smashing into his back, and sent him tumbling upon the planks that formed the floor of the hold.
Ned twisted as he fell to look back over his shoulder, and saw that it was John Devil who had come tumbling after him–but he had to wait a second more to see who had shoved John Devil, and was following closely behind, apparently intent on killing the man who seemed so very hard to kill.
It was neither Gregory Temple not Mortdieu; it was the giant named John, wielding a club in one hand and a machete in the other.
The giant had been meek when Ned had seen him last, but he was not meek now. The black dots in his strange eyes seemed unnaturally sharp, perhaps because the eyes were protruded slightly by wrath. His face was scored along one side where a bullet had ploughed through his exotic flesh, tearing a groove into which Jeanie Bird might have been able to insert a slender forefinger. The wound was leaking viscous fluid, which foamed as it bubbled out, as unlike blood as anything that could conceivably surge in any creature’s veins, driven by a human heart.
John Devil’s pistol was empty now, and it made a very feeble club. Even so, the ci-devant Comte de Belcamp was determined to come to his feet and face his pursuer–to die hard, if he had to die at all.