The Death Collector

by Justin Richards

  ‘A very hasty job indeed,’ Sir William agreed. ‘In fact they didn’t have time to put him back together properly after whatever they had done to him. They were forced to use bones that came from elsewhere, for example. They hoped no one would notice. I shudder to think to what use Lorimore had put the poor man’s own limbs.’

  ‘And now we find he has this … creature at his beck and call,’ George said.

  ‘Yes,’ Sir Wiliam agreed. ‘I should like to learn more about that. How Lorimore has managed to reconstruct a dinosaur, if that is indeed what it is.’

  ‘A question for another day, perhaps,’ Liz suggested. ‘I don’t fancy trying to examine the brute down here.’

  Eddie was running his hand along the crumbling bricks of the tunnel wall as they shambled along. As Sir William was speaking, Eddie’s hand hit something – a rusted metal bar running down the tunnel wall. He suppressed a cry of surprise and pain.

  There was another bar close after the first. The rust was brittle and sharp, flaking off under his palm. He was about to move on, when he realised what it must be.

  ‘Hang on! It think there’s a ladder here.’

  ‘Good work, young man. I have just one match left for this contingency.’

  A moment later it flared into life, and Eddie could see that it was indeed a rusty iron ladder, set into the wall of the tunnel.

  ‘It doesn’t look too secure,’ George said. He pulled at it experimentally and dust and lumps of old cement showered down from above.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Sir William said.

  ‘And it must go somewhere.’

  ‘So long as it isn’t locked or sealed off,’ George pointed out.

  ‘Well, let’s find out shall we? Eddie.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He took hold of the ladder and pulled himself up to the first rung, testing it carefully with his foot in case it was ready to give way. ‘I’m the lightest so I get to see if it’s safe.’

  ‘Good lad.’

  ‘The question, then,’ George was saying as Eddie hauled himself up the ladder, ‘is what was Glick writing about in that diary? What we have seems meaningless. The answer lies in the Crystal …’

  ‘Maybe he went to a séance with those creepy people,’ Liz said. ‘Saw something in a crystal ball, like Eddie said.’

  Eddie had reached the top of the ladder. It ended in a heavy metal grating, and through it he could see the foggy world outside. Poking his fingers up through the grille, he could feel the cold of the night air.

  ‘Just that one page survived?’ Sir William was asking.

  ‘Lots of pages survived,’ George replied. ‘But most of them were blank. There can only have been that one entry in that last volume.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Liz said sharply.

  ‘It’s hardly important.’

  Eddie heaved at the grille. He could feel it move slightly. Rust and crumbling cement rained down on his head and he coughed and blinked before trying again.

  ‘Hardly important?’ Liz echoed. ‘Did it not occur to you that if there was only one entry in that diary, then what Lorimore is after might well be at the end of the previous volume?’

  With an almighty effort, Eddie managed to heave the metal grating up and out. He shoved it sideways until there was room to squeeze past and out into the deserted street above.

  George’s voice sounded small and quiet as it followed Eddie out of the sewer. ‘I never thought of that.’

  Chapter 16

  It seemed to Eddie that if there was a job that needed doing and which was important or dangerous, then he was the one who got volunteered to do it. The British Museum was a large building, true. But he was sure he could get inside and be able to find his way to wherever Glick’s surviving diaries were stored. He had offered to climb in through a window or sneak round the back or anything.

  But no. George and Sir William and Liz had other ideas. Better ideas. It was all made to seem like a discussion with Eddie as an equal partner. Except he never got his way, while everyone else got theirs.

  Which was why Eddie was outside the imposing main entrance to the British Museum, looking round for whoever Lorimore now had watching the place following Berry’s treachery. They weren’t hard to spot. Two of them – Eddie recognised the type. Large men with beer bellies who would knock you down and steal your wallet and your watch as soon as look at you. Not quick, but strong. If they got hold of him he would be in trouble.

  Despite himself, Eddie found he was relishing the moment, enjoying himself. The two thugs were standing together on the corner of Museum Street, and since they were together they could not keep an eye on the back of the building. Perhaps there was someone else there. It didn’t matter.

  One of the men was smoking a clay pipe. He blew out a stream of smoke that was soon lost in the mist that lingered from the earlier fog. Away from the factories, the air was clearer. They would see Eddie easily. He would make sure of that.

  Hands in his trouser pockets, Eddie set off past the main entrance. He paused under a street lamp, making sure his face was in full view for several seconds. Then, bracing himself to run at any second, he walked slowly past the two men.

  The man with the pipe was knocking it out against the heel of his hand. He looked up as Eddie passed, watching the boy with a bored expression. The other man glanced across too, to see what his fellow was watching. Now Eddie was close enough to hear them. He held his breath, kept walking slowly past.

  ‘Reckon it’ll rain tomorrow,’ the man with the pipe said.

  ‘Never,’ the other man countered. ‘No sign of that.’

  The men lapsed into silence again. Eddie sighed and continued on his way. At this rate he reckoned he could probably walk into the Museum, retrieve the diaries, and walk out again without either one of them paying him any heed.

  But that wasn’t the plan. So he crossed the road and walked back along, whistling. When he reached the two men, he stopped in front of them. The whistling had disturbed their reverie and they both looked at him, bored. One of them glared at Eddie as if to say: ‘Go on, get out of here.’

  Eddie sighed, clearly they weren’t going to realise who he was without help. He dropped his mouth open in an expression of horror and fear. ‘Oh my good God,’ he said loudly.

  The men stared at him, mildly surprised at this outburst.

  ‘Oh my cripes,’ Eddie went on quickly. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the ones Lorimore’s sent to find me, ain’t you?!’

  Realisation slowly dawned on the pipe-smoker, and his pipe fell from his fingers and shattered on the pavement.

  ‘What?’ said the other man, seeing his fellow’s reaction.

  But Eddie was already running – not so fast they had no hope of catching him, but fast enough to stay out of reach. He could hear their uneven gasps as they came after him.

  And at the other end of the street, two shadows detached themselves from the gloom and made their way unseen towards the entrance to the British Museum.

  They went straight to the written archives. George had no idea what had happened to the books that Percy had been working on after the break-in, the fire and his death. But Sir William seemed to know exactly where they would be, having, he explained, returned them there that morning.

  The few volumes that had survived were stacked in a cupboard. George recognised the remains of the final volume with its blackened pages and one curled cover. The other cover was missing entirely. They gathered it up together with the half dozen volumes that had survived unscathed, and several more that had been damaged to a greater or lesser extent by the fire.

  ‘I don’t want to spend too long here,’ Sir William said. ‘The longer we are here, the more of a risk that that scoundrel Berry will clap eyes on us and go running to Lorimore himself.’

  George found a Gladstone bag full of pages of a manuscript in the bottom of the cupboard. He took out the loose pages and stacked them on the shelf where the diaries had been.
Then he put the diaries into the bag.

  ‘We don’t want to advertise the fact that we are removing them,’ he said.

  Sir William nodded. ‘I suggest we take them all and examine them back at the club.’

  They had left Liz at the Atlantian Club. While it only admitted gentlemen as members, and learned ones at that, Sir William was allowed to bring in Liz and the others as guests. The chief steward, Vespers, had shown no trace of surprise at their dishevelled appearance, though his nose wrinkled inadvertently as he got too close.

  ‘May I suggest a private room for your meeting?’ he had offered, and Sir William had been pleased to agree at once. ‘I’ll see if we have one with a washroom nearby,’ Vespers had promised.

  As soon as they approached the club, the door was opened from inside.

  ‘The young lady is installed in your room, sir,’ Vespers told Sir William. ‘I have taken the liberty of having the chef send up a selection of cold platters. I gather from the young lady that she and the gentleman here have not yet dined.’

  ‘We were rather busy,’ George said as Vespers led the way through the foyer and to a small door.

  ‘Back stairs,’ he explained. ‘I gather there is a need for discretion, even here.’

  ‘I am afraid so, Vespers. Rather tiresome, but unavoidable I fear.’

  The stairs were bare polished wood, and emerged from a narrow and inconspicuous door on the first floor of the club. Vespers led them down an oak-panelled corridor to a rather more imposing, heavy wooden door.

  ‘The Plato Suite, sir.’ He leaned forward, and added quietly: ‘There is a washroom attached. I can organise a change of clothes if that is required.’

  ‘Good notion, thank you.’ Sir William beamed. ‘Yes, very kind of you.’

  ‘Not at all, Sir William. I’m not sure what we can do for the young lady, especially as it is getting rather late, but rest assured we shall make every effort to accommodate.’

  ‘And discreetly, if you would, Vespers,’ Sir William implored.

  ‘Discreetly’ was hardly a description of Eddie’s arrival at the Atlantian Club.

  He had led Lorimore’s two thugs round most of Holborn and twice down the Charing Cross Road before he grew bored and decided that he had given George and Sir William more than enough time to retrieve the diaries from the Museum. He put on an extra burst of speed, rounded a corner, and ducked into a narrow alley.

  Almost a minute later, the two men passed the end of the alley. They were struggling to draw breath, close to exhaustion. Neither of them noticed the dark opening where Eddie was hiding in the shadows as they puffed past like steam trains.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ one of them gasped.

  ‘Must be round the next corner. Come on, or we’ll never catch him.’

  Eddie gave them plenty of time to get clear before slipping out of hiding and setting off back down the street in the opposite direction. Sir William had given him the address of the Atlantian Club, and Eddie knew the road. But he was unprepared for either the imposing entrance or the tall uniformed doorman who stepped out as soon as Eddie approached.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the man asked. His tone implied that he doubted very much that he could.

  ‘Yeah,’ Eddie told him from several steps lower down, ‘I’m meeting me mates here.’

  ‘Mates?’ The man’s nose wrinkled.

  ‘George and Liz,’ Eddie said. The man seemed unmoved. ‘And Sir William Something-or-other.’

  This had an effect. The man came down the steps to meet him. ‘You’re with Sir William’s party?’ he asked quietly, looking round to make sure no one could hear them.

  Eddie nodded, surprised at the change in the man’s attitude.

  The doorman sniffed, and made a face. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Now you mention it, I can tell that you are. Will you come with me please, sir? Sir William is expecting you.’

  Inside, Eddie was impressed by the foyer with its panelled walls and marble floor. The doorman led the way, and finally he was shown into a large room dominated by a huge oval table that was so highly polished that the ornate ceiling was reflected in its wooden surface.

  ‘I gather this young gentleman is with you, Sir William,’ the doorman said.

  Sir William, George and Liz were seated together at the table. Half a dozen leather-bound books were piled up in front of them. Others were lying open. Sir William rose to greet Eddie.

  ‘Indeed yes, Stephen. This is Eddie – a vital member of our team. Thank you so much for showing him up.’

  The doorman smiled and left them to it. Sir William beckoned Eddie over to join them at the table. Eddie noticed that they had all changed their clothes, but he said nothing. They might offer him starched, uncomfortable clothing too. Or worse, a wash.

  But the others were more keen to explain what they were doing than to worry about how Eddie looked or smelled.

  ‘This is the penultimate volume of Sir Henry Glick’s diary,’ Sir William said, pointing to one of the books open on the table. ‘The last entries must come soon before the contents of the destroyed final volume. Here,’ he said pointing to a fragment of charred paper which Eddie recognised, ‘is all that remains of that volume, apart from blank pages. And we can draw several conclusions concerning what Glick was writing about.’

  Eddie read the fragment aloud – to prove he could read as much as anything.

  ‘… now know which came first, and I can prove it.

  The answer lies in the Crystal …’

  ‘Now,’ Sir William went on, ‘if we look at the previous volume we find that the final entries concern preparations for a dinner on New Year’s Eve 1853 in the Crystal Palace Park.’

  ‘Which came first …’ Eddie repeated, barely paying attention to the others. ‘Sounds like a riddle.’

  ‘It is a riddle,’ George agreed. ‘But the answer is not as straightforward as “Which came first, the chicken or the egg.” We’d thought of that.’

  ‘So what does it mean?’

  ‘It’s the word “Crystal” that we think is important,’ Liz said.

  Sir William was nodding enthusiastically. ‘As Miss Oldfield pointed out, it is odd that Crystal should be capitalised. Unless it refers to a proper noun.’

  ‘A what?’

  Sir William waved aside Eddie’s question and pushed the last surviving volume of the diary in front of him. He jabbed his finger at a piece of card that was gummed on to one of the pages. There was a drawing on it – a large bird with huge leathery wings stretched out in flight. Its beak was more like a crocodile’s mouth, filled with sharp teeth.

  ‘A pterodactyl,’ Sir William said. ‘A flying dinosaur, from the time before history even began.’

  There was writing on one of the outstretched wings which Sir William read aloud. ‘Mr Waterhouse Hawkins,’ he paused to explain: ‘He was Director of the Fossil Department at the Crystal Palace.’

  ‘Crystal,’ Eddie realised. ‘You think—’

  But Sir William was reading again:

  Mr Waterhouse Hawkins requests the honour of

  Sir Henry Glick at dinner in the belly of the

  Iguanodon at the Crystal Palace on Saturday

  evening December the 31st at five o’clock 1853

  – an answer will oblige.

  George leaned forward and turned the page. ‘And here,’ he said to Eddie, ‘Glick writes that he was asked to address the guests at that dinner, and he seems excited. He has something he says will “astonish and astound” them.’

  Eddie nodded. He could see why they thought the scrap of writing from the final diary might relate to this same event. ‘So what,’ he asked, ‘is an ig-wan-o-dan?’

  ‘An iguanodon,’ Sir William corrected him.

  ‘It’s a sort of dinosaur,’ Liz said. ‘A huge reptile, like a lizard only enormous, from prehistory.’

  ‘And you eat dinner in them?’

  Sir William laughed. ‘Generally not. But following the Great Exhibition, severa
l life-size models of recently discovered dinosaurs were cast and are still now situated in the Crystal Palace Park. That creature that pursued us earlier this evening was I believe derived in some way from a dinosaur.’

  ‘Where do they live?’ Eddie asked, amazed. He had never heard of such a thing, let alone seen one. Not until that week anyway.

  ‘They died out many many years ago. Perhaps millions of years ago. We don’t know much about them, even now eighty years after the discovery of the first dinosaur bones and skeletons. We don’t even know how they reproduced.’

  Eddie was struggling to make sense of all this. ‘So this Glick bloke knew something about dinosaurs. And he was invited to dinner in one where he told everyone else what it was?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Sir William corrected him. ‘You see, while Glick did indeed attend the dinner, it seems he was taken ill and left before he could make his speech. Though in fact his diary gives a slightly different interpretation.’

  George was holding the diary and turned to the very last page.

  ‘That scoundrel Richard Owen antagonised me so very much with his rather self-satisfied account of his achievements I felt physically ill. Not once did he spare a thought for Messrs Mantell or Buckland, or even Cuvier, much less give them any iota of praise or any hint of acknowledgement. It quite put me off my food. And by the time it was my turn to say a few words I had decided not to waste my breath on these selfish fools. I made my apologies and left, explaining with as much irony as I could muster, that I felt quite ill. To my subsequent dismay I left in such a hurry that I neglected to be sure I had with me the very item I had gone there to present. And when I checked the next morning, I found that in my haste, I had dropped it. Though of course it is not lost for I know precisely where it now is, and the irony makes me smile.

  So, instead, I shall present my startling discovery within this diary. Or rather the next volume of this diary for as you see we have reached the final page. So the next volume will bear witness to the matters that Owen and his cronies forfeited that night.’

  ‘So what was it?’ Eddie asked, excited now despite not really following everything he’d been told.