Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

  Almost heedless, because it takes just one exception to disprove a rule.

  Someone watched them go.

  CHAPTER 5

  Carwell

  It took them forty minutes to find what Lyle was looking for, in a quiet side-street near the church of St Anne. In the middle of the road, too narrow for the press of traffic that swarmed around St Paul’s, and overshadowed with bakeries and tailors competing for space to serve the local merchants’ hall, Tate suddenly stopped and began to bark. Lyle picked his way through the horse manure that liberally littered the centre of the street, and smiled when he saw what was causing Tate so much dismay. ‘Here it is.’

  Thomas scurried over, eager to see. He looked at the cobbles and saw only a darker brown stain that reminded him of spilt cough mixture. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Blood,’ said Lyle with some satisfaction.

  Tess sniffed suspiciously. ‘Could’ve come from the meat goin’ to market up at Smithfield, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Good thought, if unwelcome,’ he sighed. ‘I can prove it, though.’ He squatted carefully next to the stain in the street, while passers-by gave him looks of deep mistrust. Thomas started to feel uncomfortable, hoping that no one in this mixture of hawkers, and merchants going to the halls, would recognize him or, worse, report him to his father.

  The thought of his father brought a brief pang of guilt, followed by a sharper pang as he realized this was the first thought he’d had of his father since he ’d followed Lyle. For a second he wondered if he would ever see his father again, or if he was going to be kidnapped, dragged down to the docks and sold into slavery or murdered for his wealth or replaced by an evil twin who would steal his fortune while he was condemned to a life of servitude and . . .

  ‘Thomas, you might be interested in this.’

  Lyle had produced from his pocket a small handful of tubes. He chose one that looked no different from the others, except for a small red dot on the top of the glass, shook it vigorously, thumbed the cork off the top and carefully tipped a few drops on to the brown stain. Immediately, the cobbles beneath it started to hiss. A thick, smelly white smoke rose up from the ground and all three backed off quickly as it drifted up, sizzling on the stone. Lyle coughed. ‘Yes, well, I think that settles the issue, don’t you?’

  Thomas waved smoke out of his eyes and managed to croak, ‘What is it?’

  ‘A little compound that came to me one day while I was trying to repair the privy. Only what’s special,’ said Lyle, instantly warming to his subject, ‘is that it only works on human blood, because when you leave blood to settle, or even better whirl it round and round at very high speeds on a piece of string, you can get a separation effect which isolates certain unique components and . . .’

  ‘So it’s human blood,’ coughed Tess.

  ‘Erm, yes.’

  ‘Well done. What are we goin’ to do now?’

  ‘Follow it, of course.’

  Lyle flapped his hand at the smoke until it finally cleared, and looked down at the cobbles. A small, neat hole had been burnt in the stone where the drops had fallen. He coughed and looked away innocently. ‘I think there ’s another stain over there,’ he said, taking the fascinated Tess and the appalled Thomas by the arm and leading them further on.

  There was indeed another stain, in fact the trail ran intermittently on and off in larger and smaller droplets and pools all the way up the road, disrupted here or there by the erosion of feet or the intervention of traffic, or that traffic’s digested meals. Lyle stood above the largest, most conspicuous line of blood and muttered, almost to himself, ‘All right. I’m stabbed about here,’ indicating with two fingers on his abdomen, ‘I’m bleeding heavily, I’m trying to move, so the blood is falling behind . . .’ For a second his lips moved soundlessly, then he grinned and pointed down the street. ‘He ran in that direction. Towards the river. Which, I suppose, makes sense.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we follow the blood trail and find out where it began.’

  They followed it through winding streets, occasionally losing it, to where the traffic became thicker and thicker around the great cask of St Paul’s cathedral, one half of which was covered in scaffolding that ran right up to the dome as emergency repairs were carried out on the dirty white stone and tarnished green roof. Here the stain was obliterated beneath the press of carts in the street, the drivers yelling at each other to move out of the way, horses neighing and wheels clattering. But by that point, they could guess where it was heading, and Tess ran on ahead, darting and dodging enthusiastically between carts to shout back occasionally, ‘I’ve found another stain! It ’s goin’ the same way!’

  Close behind her, Thomas made a great effort to study each particular stain that Tess found, bending over and looking as thoughtful as he could, without actually disgracing himself by running. Lyle and Tate followed slowly after, Lyle with his hands buried in his pockets, Tate with his paws buried at least in a pair of hypothetical pockets.

  The blood led directly to the Bank of England, and suddenly stopped. So did the group. Tess pouted. ‘Is this it?’

  Lyle studied the smeary pavement, and said, ‘I think I can see a larger stain here. Very faint. And . . .’ He hesitated, suddenly aware that there were other things in the world apart from him and the thoughts in his head.

  Tess said impatiently, when Lyle didn’t move, ‘And? You were sayin’ somethin’ an’ then you all sorta stopped.’

  ‘I was going to say that this much blood in one place is more than I would have expected from the injuries Carwell received.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t entirely know.’

  They waited. Finally Thomas said tentatively, not wanting to sound like a fool, ‘Didn’t you find the fruit thing here, sir?’

  Tess stared at Thomas as if he was mad, and for a second Lyle did too. Then Lyle started to laugh, a sudden, quiet sound that grew to a delighted roar. They both stared at Lyle. Even Tate looked a little surprised. Lyle clapped his hands together. ‘Of course! They waited here and stabbed him the second he brought the goods! It was cold last night - they probably got hungry and bored! Why not eat something?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Come on!’ He turned and started marching back the way they’d come.

  ‘Where are we goin’ now?’

  ‘To find the other end of the bloodstain!’

  Tess groaned. But Thomas, all thoughts of his father gone, felt more excited than he had in a long time.

  And down by the river, in the thick, green-brown mud that bends and rises around each footprint, smothering ankle and knee in essence of squelch, the passage of the sun across the sky burns away a shadow that has fallen beside a docked boat.

  And the cry goes up: ‘Sarge! There’s another body over here!’

  They found the far end of the stain in a quiet, dark street just above Blackfriars Bridge. They also discovered a larger pool of blood which, Lyle declared gleefully, was ‘Probably straight from the jugular.’

  Then, to Thomas’s horror and Tess’s exasperation, he said, ‘Right, children, I want a volunteer to go and ask people what they heard last night, sometime between midnight and three a.m.’

  ‘What do you mean, ask people?’ sighed Tess.

  ‘As in knock on their doors and be pushy.’

  ‘Must we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They’ll laugh at me.’

  ‘They might laugh at you,’ said Lyle sagely, ‘but I’m sure they won’t laugh at Thomas.’

  Thomas realized they were staring at him. And they were grinning.

  Left with Tess in the gloomy street that stank of mouldering laundry, stale water and tar, Lyle stared at the dark brown stain on the ground that indicated Carwell’s last living point in space and time, and felt something rise up in him bordering on anger. He was surprised at himself - usually these things were just scientific anomalies to be studied, and others could be angry. But as people jos
tled past him, some even walking on the bloodstain darkening the pavement without realizing what they did, he felt a certain anger at the world, not just at the murderer. He wanted to stand up and say, ‘Don’t you realize a man has slit another man’s throat in cold blood? Don’t you realize what this says about people in general?’ He didn’t. He stared at the ground and thought furiously.

  ‘What you thinkin’, Mister Lyle?’

  He didn’t answer. He thought, Carwell and Bray. Bray and Carwell. And Jack Carwell too, the younger brother who always followed Gordon Carwell into whatever venture, whatever peril. Was he a part of it too? The bloodstain by the Bank was large, the direction of the blood not quite right for a disabling wound, something like that would kill instantly, but Carwell ran . . . where Gordon Carwell goes, Jack always follows . . .

  They agree it between them - Bray as the inside man with the keys, on a take of the percentage, Carwell as the thief. Bray wouldn’t have access to the vault itself, but Carwell gets round that, gets into the vault.

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Yes, Teresa?’

  ‘What you thinkin’?’

  ‘I’m thinking . . .’ How did he manage to get the letter of approval from the Elwick house? The right seal, the right stamp? ‘A letter from the Elwick family would be hard to forge. You’d have to have an original to work from, the right paper, the right seal, the right signature.’

  ‘You think the bigwig knows?’

  ‘The bigwig?’

  ‘Thomas,’ she said with a shrug. ‘The bigwig.’

  He frowned, and shrugged half-heartedly. Something was itching at the back of his neck, something stirring deep inside that made him want to find a dark doorway to hide in. He scanned the street distractedly, and thought, Carwell must have been acting on orders.

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Would you break into the Bank of England without a specific target?’

  ‘Not bl . . . not likely, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘And inside you wouldn’t steal a stone plate?’

  ‘Hell . . . uh . . . no. Not if someone weren’t payin’ me.’

  ‘That ’s it. Carwell had to be paid, someone had to pay him to steal the plate, otherwise why would he do it? Someone had to be out there to take the plate, someone who can pay a lot, risk a lot for a plate.’

  ‘Like Lord Lincoln?’

  ‘Like Lo . . . Teresa, that is not a helpful comment.’

  ‘Sorry, Mister Lyle. But . . . if Mister Lincoln wants it, then you said it’s gonna be important, ain’t it?’

  ‘If they want the Plate badly enough to break into the Bank,’ murmured Lyle distractedly, ‘perhaps they wait outside?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Besides, no one eats exotic fruit in this part of town - few people eat it at all. Luxury, decadence, money, eating while you wait for Carwell to come out with the Plate, at night when no one else is watching.’

  ‘Coo-ee, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Teresa?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘If someone paid you a sovereign to steal something, and asked you to hand it straight over, would you?’

  ‘Depends how big that person’s knife were, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘If you thought you could get two sovereigns instead of one, would you go to the drop-off with the item?’

  She thought about it. Finally she said, ‘I might’ve given it to someone. To hide, an’ all. So that they couldn’t hurt me. ’Cos I wouldn’t have it.’

  The silence dragged.

  ‘They killed Carwell. But Carwell might not have been carrying the Plate.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘They let him run after they’d stabbed him and then they killed him, like . . .’

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Something must have gone wrong, that’s the only reason Bray would have gone so quickly underground. Carwell was clever, he knew that Bray going under would have drawn unnecessary suspicion to him, so something must have gone wrong. Carwell got stabbed by the people who paid him to steal the Plate and Bray’s probably still got the Plate and . . .’

  ‘Mister Lyle!’

  He jumped, looked round and realized people were watching him. He coughed uncomfortably, and turned away to study the nearest wall, trying not to whistle nonchalantly. There was no proof, he knew that. There was instinct, and it was right.

  And just behind that instinct, he had another, more uncomfortable feeling: of being watched. He turned and scanned the street, but those who had stared at first were now drifting by again, uninterested in anything except their daily lives. Still the itchy feeling persisted, like something he couldn’t scratch at the back of his neck. He looked down at the pavement and saw, in the gutter, a small flash of orange. He hesitated, then slowly squatted and picked it up carefully by the corner. It was orange peel, dirty and hard. It lay a few feet away from the pool of blood, and was discoloured by something more than just natural processes. He put it carefully into the paper bag, next to the fruit stone.

  Someone, he decided, had a taste for fruit.

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Teresa.’

  ‘You seen him yet?’

  ‘The man in the crooked top hat hiding in the doorway?’

  ‘Oh. You seen him.’

  ‘Teresa, I have a little job for you.’

  Thomas was elated, for a number of reasons. Firstly, because the second he’d walked into the bakery and said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am?’ the lady behind the counter had assumed he was the Heir Apparent, and started gushing over him in a cockney dialect so unintelligible it had been all he could do to keep nodding and smiling. This nodding and smiling had so delighted the employees of the bakery that they had begun clapping and rejoicing, saying that at last fortune had come to them with an aristocratic jacket and an aristocratic accent, and so buoyant had they been at receiving, for the very first time, a ‘client of breeding in our ’umble store’ they had insisted on showing him their full selection.

  And he had bought a hot cross bun.

  A hot cross bun. Never in his whole life had he been allowed to buy such a treat, never had he bought something with his own hands, and now it was between his fingers and he could just eat it, in the street, taking large, undignified mouthfuls and Father would never know! This triumph had swelled him with confidence and, as a result, he had knocked on a whole five doors with half the bun still in his hand and demanded in a voice booming with authority, ‘Ma’am, I am here to enquire about a murder.’ ‘Enquire about a murder.’ It was a phrase he’d never thought he could say. The words felt mature and weighty, big fat words that you could toss on to a barge and watch chug upstream with stately grandeur. It was the ‘enquire ’ and it was the ‘about’ and it was the ‘murder’. In fact, it was probably the ‘a’ too. He had been so full of satisfaction at the sudden rush of responsibility that when he got to the sixth door and the woman who answered it said, ‘Really? Was that what the carriage was about?’ he hardly noticed.

  This led to the second cause of his elation. He scampered back to where Lyle was leaning against a wall, staring up at the thin elusive break of sky in the dark street with a thoughtful expression, and immediately began his report in as adult a voice as he could. His chest heaved, his shoulders bulged, his voice resounded with authority as he barked, ‘Sir, I have information, sir.’

  Lyle looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Good,’ he said in a tone that, even to Thomas’s ears, sounded slightly too bright to be true. ‘What is it?’

  He recited it carefully. ‘Mrs Farse, who lives by the butcher’s, said she heard the sound of a carriage late last night. She could-n’t sleep because of a toothache and claims she roused herself to find a drink. Well, sir, she says she remembers the carriage, sir, because it was so late, and because you rarely get many objects that sound like that down here, at least, she thinks you don’t, and she remembered hearing the horses, sir, and running feet. Personally I think that if she really did have a
toothache then . . .’

  ‘Did she look out?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but it was very dark.’

  ‘Well, what did she see?’

  ‘She saw a carriage, sir.’

  ‘Really.’ Lyle ’s face was unreadable.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Thomas blurted, aware that he was starting to lose some of his authority. ‘She saw a four-seater, sir, with two horses, standing there, but the driver wasn’t sitting on it and the horses weren’t moving.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘It all looked black to her.’

  ‘Including the horses?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did she see any people?’

  ‘No, sir, but she says the window was down on one side of the carriage and there must have been someone inside because there was a white-gloved hand resting on the window!’

  ‘It might have been someone ’s disembodied hand,’ suggested Lyle mildly. He saw Thomas’s hurt expression and added, ‘This is very useful. Do carry on.’

  ‘Well, after a minute she saw the driver return, dressed up formally, sir, in livery.’

  ‘Black?’ suggested Lyle.

  ‘Yes, sir. And he was carrying a bag. She said she saw the driver look through it, then whoever was in the carriage also looked through it. And she says she saw gold, sir.’

  Lyle brightened. ‘Just gold?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No stone bowls radiating cultural significance, by any chance?’

  ‘No, sir. She was very specific. Just gold, through and through. The man inside the carriage seemed to get angry. She thought she heard shouting.’

  Lyle was by this point grinning ear to ear. He slapped Thomas on the shoulder. ‘Excellent!’

  ‘Then the carriage drove off, sir.’ It seemed, to Thomas, like a bit of an anti-climax.

  Lyle, however, looked ecstatic. ‘This is excellent news, lad! Well done.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You ever think of being a detective?’

  And Thomas thought of another world, foggy and vague round the edges, that he knew existed, but had never seen; and after all those hunts and all those dances and all those evenings sipping tea to the gentle patter of rain and polite conversation, he remembered sitting up in bed when everything else was asleep, and swearing that he would make a difference. ‘All the time, sir,’ he whispered.