by Avi
“Moreover, Inspector Ratchet suspects that someone is using him—perhaps without his even knowing. Now do you see, John, why I sent you to my great-aunt? Ratchet may catch his spies, but… my debt could well remain.”
“Do you,” I asked, “have any idea who is behind it all?”
“Of course not.”
“Has anyone else besides Mr. O’Doul made an offer for the secret?”
“Mr. Farquatt. That’s what he just spoke to me about.”
“Mr. Farquatt! For what country?”
“France. Does it matter?”
“What did he offer?”
“Three hundred pounds.”
“Do you expect more offers?”
“Ratchet thinks so. As I said, he does not believe either O’Doul or Farquatt has the money to buy the secret. He’s quite convinced there is someone else behind them—a supreme spy, if you will.”
“The same—behind both of them?”
“Whoever put up the money does not care how he obtains the secret as long as he obtains it.”
“Do you know,” I asked, “about an Inspector Copperfield?”
“Never heard the name. Someone working with Ratchet, I assume.”
Not about to explain, I said, “Does Mr. Tuckum know about all this?”
“He is working with Inspector Ratchet.”
“What will happen next?”
“The government has promised that my salary from the Naval Ordinance Office shall continue. Our home goods have not been sold. All this will allow me—and our family—to remain here in relative comfort.”
“Why here?”
“It’s theater, John, grand theater! Creating the illusion that I am helpless.”
I wanted to suggest that he was helpless, but I could not find the tongue to say it. Instead, I said, “Father, what if they cannot find the chief man?”
“Well you might ask. They intend to hold me here until they do find him. I am,” Father said with some pride, “the gate through which all these spies and traitors must pass. A dramatic image, to be sure, but, yes, one might say that.”
“Do you wish to be?”
“Need I repeat the words of that song, ‘Money Is Your Friend’?”
I stared at him, hardly believing all that he had told me.
“But… but what can I do?” I stammered.
“My dear John, it’s you who must discover the primary individual who is behind it all. It’s you who must find three hundred pounds. As soon as you do, we shall be truly free of all constraints.”
“Why me?”
“Then I won’t be at the mercy of Ratchet.”
“How could I do it?”
“Has not my great-aunt Euphemia promised to find you a position?”
“She has, but—”
“Then by all means, take it.”
“Father—”
“John, let us hope that she intends to do more for you. You are the last Huffam. I repeat, that’s worth much. Of course, your mother and sister must remain here, in prison with me. It will be safest. But employment will enable you to live outside. You will be free to go about. You will be able to uncover the one behind this.”
“Isn’t that Inspector Ratchet’s task?”
“But I am not sure how far to trust him. He has used me, John, most cruelly. I don’t doubt he will use me again. And … there is still the debt.”
“Does Mother know all this?”
He shook his head. “John, I beg you, speak nothing of it to her or your sister. Or Brigit, I might add. You know how the women talk amongst themselves.”
He reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper. “Here it is.”
“Here is what?”
“The plan for rifling. The true plan, not a false one.” He unfolded it and laid it out for me to see. There, in his meticulous drawing and writing hand, were a series of numbers, equations, drawings of spiraling lines.
“Why are you showing this to me?”
“I am not showing you; I am giving it to you.”
I recoiled. “Father, I’m sure I should not—”
“John, if something happens to me—now that you know all—you must have it for safekeeping. It will ensure that the family is treated properly. But be careful: If it is known you have it, it might place you in grave jeopardy.”
I stared at him. When he first began to speak, he had rarely looked at me. As his story unfolded, his gestures grew bold, his eyes brightened. Truly, he was relishing this role—as he said, his greatest acting challenge.
Gingerly, I took the paper, folded it, refolded it, and placed it in my pocket.
“I repeat,” he said, “tell no one you have it. It’s you and you alone I trust.” For the first time that day he smiled genuinely.
“What about your gambling?”
The smile vanished. He placed a hand on his heart. And in his actors voice he proclaimed, “From this day forward—I swear to you—I shall never do so again.”
As if in a play, from somewhere in the prison, a bell began to toll, as if for a funeral.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It means that those who are not required to stay here must leave in an hour. They call it the stranger’s bell.”
In truth: Never did I feel more a stranger to my father than at that moment.
CHAPTER 32
I Look Beneath the Stone
When I left Father, I was not quite sure how to behave with my mother, sister, Brigit, or Mr. Farquatt. Perhaps they had not changed, but I had. I knew so much more than they.
“What could have possibly taken so long?” Mother demanded.
“Did you get Pa to accept Mr. Farquatt?” asked my sister.
And from Brigit: “Did Mr. Huffam tell you what he intends to do?”
I looked at them as if they had spoken a foreign language. I might have tried to explain all Father had said, but there was his strong caution not to speak to them about any of it. So I kept my silence. Besides, Mr. Farquatt was standing right next to Clarissa, intently gazing at me with his bland, childlike face.
“Mother,” I said, “he wishes you to reside here. With him.”
“Here?” she cried.
“Here?” my sister joined the cry. “In prison?”
“That’s what he said.”
“That’s unacceptable!” said Mother, and she flung open the door to my father’s cell and rushed in. My sister and Brigit followed.
That left me alone with Mr. Farquatt. We looked at each other, wondering, no doubt, what the other knew.
He made his little bow. “Is there any hope for me?” he asked.
I do not know how he meant the question, realizing, as I did, that it could be taken in any number of ways. In truth, it was unnerving just to look upon a man whose features revealed so very little. Was he my sister’s suitor, my future brother-in-law, or merely a French spy bent on stealing England’s greatest military secret?
The best I could say was, “I’ll need to talk to my father again. If … if you can tell me where you reside, I’ll be more than happy to keep you informed.”
He considered this suggestion, allowed himself a tiny smile, and made his customary little bow. “Master John, I do so appreciate your every kindness. It’s for your sister, I’m sure. Better than have you troubled by coming to me, I shall make certain I remain in constant contact with dear Mademoiselle Huffam. You can reach me that way. Now, I must bid her adieu.”
Adieu. With that French word, he joined the family in the prison cell.
From that moment on—though no hostile words had been exchanged—I was sure we understood each other: We were enemies.
Left alone, I longed to think through all I had been told by my father. All the same, I remembered asking Sary to wait for me beyond the gates of the prison. It occurred to me that she might be a great help in doing what I needed to do, though in just what fashion, I was unsure.
I went back to the main courtyard. Eve
n as I did, the City church bells began to chime, proclaiming the eight o’clock hour. I was certain Sary would be waiting.
Not seeing Mr. Tuckum handy, I approached one of the guards. “I beg your pardon, sir. My father, Mr. Wesley Huffam, is a prisoner here. Am I free to come and go?”
“You may go, but know you must be back—if you are staying here—by nine o’clock. The gates are locked for the night then.”
He escorted me to the first door, called through it, and it was opened. I stepped forward, the door shut behind me, and I found myself in the dim vestibule.
“You’ll be good enough to sign out or make your mark,” the guard said to me, gesturing toward the table.
I picked up the pen and searched for my name. I found it with the other family names. There was a row of them, mine preceding Brigit’s, as she was the last to sign. I gasped. There indeed was Brigit’s name, her whole name:
Brigit O’Doul
O’Doul!
I stared at it for such a long time, the guard asked, “Is something the matter, boy?”
“No, sir,” I managed to say. I scribbled my name and then, eyes averted, stood trembling before the next door, which was opened for me.
In moments I was standing outside the prison, trying to still my pounding heart.
Brigit O’Doul.
What could it mean? I immediately recalled the exchanged look outside the court between Brigit and Mr. O’Doul. In my mind’s eye I saw his face. I saw hers.
Brother and sister!
Then I remembered two things she had said. First, when speaking of Ireland and the famine: To live, a people will do whatever they need to do. And at another time: Know that for things held dear to the heart, all kinds of sacrifices must be made.
I then recalled how often she had urged that it be Father, and he alone, who should solve the problem of the debt. I recalled how conflicted she was about Mr. Farquatt. Of course! The Frenchman was her brother’s rival!
And how tense she was about my visit to Lady Euphemia! As well she might be: If my great-aunt gave us money, her brother’s hold upon my father would disappear and he would not get the secret!
“’Ere, what’s the matter?”
I looked around. It was Sary. “You’re lookin’ like you just swallowed a live fish an’ it’s flappin’ round yer belly. Is that what it is?”
“I think I am ill,” I replied.
“’Ow come?”
“I’ve … discovered too many things.”
“Like what?”
“Just … things,” I replied, hardly knowing where to begin.
“Did you find out where that Frenchy Farquit lives?”
I looked at Sary. She was staring at me as if she truly wished to know my thoughts—a friend.
“Can I trust you?” I said.
Sary’s gap-toothed grin bloomed. “Sary the Sneak’ as a reputation for bein’ as true as the Queen ’erself. Maybe more.”
“How more?”
“I don’t think, livin’ as she does, rich an’ all, with all them lords an’ ladies, she knows much ’bout the world like I do.”
I remembered something. “When I asked you who it was that hired you to follow me, you admitted it was a person named O’Doul. But you said, ‘Don’t be so sure he’s a man!’”
“What if I did?”
“It was a woman, wasn’t it?”
Sary did a little jig of glee. “Fooled you, didn’t I? What’s it ’bout boys an’ men? You either ’ates the girls or loves ’em, but you never knows ’em.”
“It was our servant, Brigit, who hired you, wasn’t it?”
“You can think so,” she said, taking obvious delight in my distress.
When I was very much younger, Brigit had often taken me to play at a tiny grass park not far from where we lived. At that park, by the side of the path, sat a stone. Many a time I’d passed it with indifference. After all, it was only a gray, dull, and lifeless stone. One day—for no reason I can recall—I decided to turn that stone over.
To my astonishment, beneath that stone lived a whole colony of ants. Thus exposed, the ants raced about in a confusing, teeming panic. I found it fascinating … but disturbing.
I dropped the stone where it had been and made certain never to turn it over again. But, from then on, whenever I passed that stone, I had only to glance at it to know that beneath it lay a frightful, disturbing world.
The series of discoveries I had just made—my father’s secret life, Mr. Farquatt’s French connection, Brigit’s duplicity—caused me to feel much the same. It was as if I had looked beneath the world I knew only to uncover a whole new world. Indeed, the whole experience—from my father’s arrest to my recent discoveries—had made my old sense of the world, ordered and set, obsolete. It was now changing, different, and … terrifying.
I looked at Sary. By contrast, her old clothes, her crooked-toothed grin seemed honest, open. I wanted to trust her. Needed to trust her. And why not? Mr. Tuckum’s old-fashioned world had failed me. My father’s world had failed me. It was all gammon and spinage. I must turn to something new. “Do you truly know the world?” I asked.
“Go ’head an’ try me.”
“If I tell you many things—private things—can I trust you to keep them to yourself?”
She placed her dirty cap over her heart, tossed her head so her tangled hair fell free, and grinned. “On me ’onor as a sneak.”
I will not deny I was smitten. What I said was, “And can we work together to solve this puzzle?”
“What puzzle is that?”
“I’ll tell you,” I said. “But we need a place to talk. A private place.”
“Follow me,” she said. “I’ll take you to a world you never seen before.”
And she did.
CHAPTER 33
I Visit the Rookery of St. Giles
The darkness was compounded by an eddying haze of thick brown fog, so that even if I had wanted to, I’d hardly have noticed where we were going. In fact, I was completely caught up in relating to Sary all that concerned my father. Now and again she’d ask a question: “When did this ’ere Frenchy, this Farquit, come round to court yer sister?” Or, “Tell me again what Inspector Ratchet said? What’s riflin’? When did that other inspector, the one called Copperfield, show ’imself?”
It was such a relief to share it all, I held nothing back and answered as best I could—even what I understood about rifling. Not to tell her would make a confusion of all the rest.
She listened attentively.
I hasten to add, I did not reveal that I carried the plan for the rifling in my pocket. I needed to keep my father’s secret as a sacred bond—one last thing I could believe in that existed between father and son.
When I’d finished my tale and looked up and around, I had no idea where we were. “What is this place?” I asked.
“Welcome to me loverly neighbor’ood,” said Sary. “The Rookery of St. Giles.”
I halted. “Why’s it called the rookery?”
“Know all them flocks o’ blackbirds that fly ’bout—masses of ’em? Ugly, scruffy, screechy birds they are, without much song for singin’? Always peckin’ ’bout for bits o’ food? They got to roost somewhere, don’t they? In a rookery, then. Well, it’s the same for ugly, scruffy, scratchy folk like us. We got to roost somewhere too, don’t we?” There was a bitterness in her voice I’d not heard before. “Well then, ’ere we are.”
I peered about. The deep fog and lack of illumination made all indistinct. What I did see was a shadowy, uninviting place, a confused maze of narrow, stifling streets, alleys, and byways. Buildings were crowded together like so many heaps of bricks and sticks, nothing straight, nothing sorted, everything in a state of decomposition, collapse, and disarray. Nothing whole, nothing uncluttered, nothing clean, nothing new, but everything tossed everywhere, abandoned, left to molder away like the wreckage, or so I imagined, that lay beneath the seas.
Though it was November, and raw, only
the odd window was closed. In many a place there was simply a square (or almost a square) hole that might have once been a proper window. Other holes were crudely boarded up, some with paper coverings or with ragged laundry hanging out. Doors, if they survived, hung on broken hinges, locks being, apparently, a lost—or stolen—art.
Such light as existed came from hanging lamps or from broken candles here and there, revealing a jumble of barely readable signs: LODGING FOR TRAVELERS. DRY ROOMS. MILLER’S GIN. CHEAP CLOTHING. USED GOODS. OLD RAGS. LADIES’ LACE MADE HERE. PAPER FLOWERS. LOANS. LONDON MISSIONARY SOUP SOCIETY.
The air was foul, thick with the nose-stopping stench of rotting garbage and putrid waste. Single privies—if one existed—served entire houses. Single water-spigots—with brown, evil-smelling water trickling out—provided for whole blocks of homes. Oh, evil to him whom evil drinks!
People clogged our path: all dirty, all ill clothed, all poorly shod, if shod at all. They were sitting, drinking, staggering, limping, stumbling along, sleeping, clinging to one another, or falling down. Some sang hymns. Others sang vulgar songs. They talked to others or themselves. Mothers clutched naked children to their breasts, while other children, barefooted, followed as best they could. For despite the hour, there was many a hollow-cheeked child upon the street, playing with bits of crockery or oyster shells. Indeed, among the throngs there were more children than adults, yet plenty of old folk, too, in every stage of decrepitude—hands or feet bandaged, many on makeshift crutches. What young and old had in common were bleary-eyed looks of hunger and an air of hopeless neglect and abject misery. Many continually wept, as though their reservoirs of grief were infinite.
Was there nothing healthy? I did see numbers of dogs and cats and rats—the rats, actually, looked fat and sleek.
It was as if all London were a stone, and here was what lay beneath.
“Come on,” said Sary, giving me a yank on the sleeve, for I had been just standing there, agape. She seemed not in the least taken aback.
In a daze I followed as she made a sharp turn down an alley so disgusting and narrow that I might have touched the walls if I’d spread out my arms, which I was loath to do. As it was, I stumbled twice in the dark—but did not want to know over what. Sary kept me moving. I would have been lost otherwise. More than lost: swallowed whole.
