A Very Unusual Pursuit (25 page)

Beyond Jem, near the parlour window, stood Doctor Morton. He was reading aloud from a leather-bound book, his voice raised in a monotonous chant that was barely audible over all the shouts and screams. Since he seemed to be fully absorbed in his task, and wasn’t threatening anyone, Birdie made a snap decision to ignore him.

She was busy enough already.

Suddenly the bogle ploughed forward, into the magic circle. Alfred still had his bag of salt, but couldn’t reach down to close the circle because he was being jerked around like bait on a hook. The bogle grabbed Doctor Morton’s brass box, upending it so that Jem tumbled out. Jem groaned. His dark eyes were bulging with fear. Doctor Morton gave a shout of protest when he saw that his trap had been sprung.

The bogle didn’t pay him any mind, though. It grabbed Jem around the ankles. And as Birdie watched, horrified, it plucked him from the floor so that he was dangling upside-down. Then the bogle turned again, spinning around on a kind of oil slick. It held Jem and Alfred suspended, one in each hand, like the dead pheasants downstairs.

Birdie was now standing between the bogle and the dumb waiter. But help was on its way in the shape of Ned Roach, who had entered the dining room and was sidling in her direction. ‘The spear!’ she told him hoarsely. ‘Get the spear!’ As soon as he nodded, she gulped down a lungful of air and began to sing.

Hold up thy hand, most righteous judge! Hold up thy hand awhile.

For here I see me father dear come tumbling o’er the stile.

Her own voice astonished her; it was clear and pure and strong, cutting cleanly through all the commotion. It mesmerised the bogle, which became so still that Birdie finally got a good look at it. She realised that its dragging tail was actually a pair of long, wet, leathery wings. Its legs were rotting stumps. It had the crinkled muzzle of a bulldog, topped by a cluster of lidless eyes. When it suddenly bared its teeth – which sprang up in double rows like blood-drenched spikes emerging from a black, muddy bog – Birdie’s breath caught in her throat. But after a moment’s pause, she kept on singing.

Oh hast thou brought me silver or gold or jewels to set me free,

Or hast thou come to see me hang? For hanged I shall be.

Ned was edging towards the fallen spear, using the table and chairs as cover. Jem’s gag had fallen off. He was twisting and writhing and yelling for help at the top of his voice. Birdie wished that he would stop. It was hard enough trying to be heard over Doctor Morton’s strange, monotonous chanting. The doctor had picked up his brass box; he was standing behind the bogle as if he expected it to climb inside. But the creature didn’t seem to notice him at all.

Alfred, for his part, was trying to empty his bag of salt onto the bogle. He missed because its arm kept flailing around, knocking him against the wall, the ceiling, the book-cupboard, the mantelpiece. His face was turning purple, thanks to the bogle’s tight grip on his collar. He couldn’t speak. He’d lost his hat. As the bogle surged forward, his knee bounced off the folding door.

Birdie retreated a step. Then another. Then another. But she didn’t for one moment stop singing.

If I could get out o’ this prickly bush that prickles me heart so sore,

If I could get out o’ this prickly bush, I’d never get in it no more.

By now Ned was squatting behind the folding door to Birdie’s left. She could tell that he was biding his time, waiting for the moment when he could throw himself at Alfred’s spear without getting too close to the bogle. So she began to move in the opposite direction, edging closer and closer to the dining-room door.

Her plan was to lure the bogle away from Ned, then make her escape into the entrance hall while Ned grabbed Alfred’s spear. Even as she sang to the bogle, she was looking at Ned and miming a stabbing motion. But would he understand what she was trying to say? He was as white as Alfred’s salt beneath the smears of soot and mud that adorned his face.

Oh I have brought no silver or gold, nor jewels to set thee free.

But I have come to see thee hang, for hanged thou shalt be
.

Suddenly the bogle dropped Alfred. Birdie saw him bang to the floor and reach for his spear. Then a giant claw snapped at her, missing her by inches. She screamed and threw herself backwards, just in time. When the claw lunged again, she dodged it by falling over. Rolling onto her stomach, she heard Ned shout.

Next thing she knew, she was sailing into the air, screeching like a parrot. The bogle! It had her! It was going to eat her!

And then, all at once, it popped.

She didn’t realise what had happened, at first. She heard a strange noise and felt a warm shower of goo as she hit the floor with a
thump
that shook every bone in her body. Despite the pain in her arm, however, she immediately jumped up and hurled herself into the entrance hall.

‘
Birdie! Wait!
’ It was Ned’s voice, coming from behind her. She was about to respond when she spied Doctor Morton, who was also in the hall. He yanked open the front door, then shut it again in a panic – though not before Birdie spotted a policeman on the doorstep.

Doctor Morton slammed the bolt home, turned on his heel, and charged towards Birdie. He was probably making for the kitchen stairs, and the look on his face was so frightening that, just for an instant, it drove every other thought from Birdie’s head. She froze in terror. And by the time she found her courage again, Doctor Morton was almost on top of her.

Someone else reached her first, though. As the policeman hammered on the front door, and Jem let loose a torrent of oaths, and Ned burst out of the parlour, Alfred suddenly appeared beside Birdie, carrying his spear. He scooped her up with one hand; with the other, he shoved his spear at Doctor Morton’s throat.

‘Take one more step,’ he said in a harsh, icy voice, ‘and I’ll slice you in two.’

The doctor had skidded to a halt. He thrust an open palm at Alfred, as if ordering him to back off, and began to recite something in a foreign tongue. But Ned had already unbolted the front door, which banged open to admit a very tall, burly police constable.

‘Now, then!’ the policeman boomed. ‘What’s going on, here?’

‘There he is!’ a familiar voice cried. It belonged to Miss Eames. She was hovering behind the constable, pointing down the hall. ‘Doctor Roswell Morton! I accuse that man of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment!’

Doctor Morton spun around to face her. He wasn’t looking quite as suave as usual, because his oily hair was in disarray, and his clothes were dishevelled. Even so, when he addressed the constable in his calm, dry, slightly bemused tone he sounded very convincing – or so Birdie thought.

‘Constable, I was called here for a medical emergency, and immediately found myself threatened by a low type with a spear. I believe he and his cohorts were robbing the place . . .’

By this time Alfred had let Birdie slide to the floor. She was still plastered to his side, though, and could feel him take a quick, deep breath. But before he could say anything, Jem cut him off.

‘Help!
Help!
’ Jem cried. ‘Untie me, damn you!’

He was still in the parlour. As the police constable swerved towards it, Birdie tugged at Alfred’s coat. ‘Is it dead?’ she squeaked. ‘Did you kill the bogle?’

‘Aye, lass,’ Alfred replied, without taking his eyes off Doctor Morton. Though Miss Eames had followed the policeman into the parlour, Ned had stayed behind; he was guarding the front door, which was shut again. Birdie could see him out of the corner of her eye, standing there with his legs apart and his arms folded. He looked very frightened, despite his brave stance.

‘I thought there
weren’t
no bogle!’ Birdie exclaimed.

‘So did I,’ said Alfred – and the doctor gave a little start. Birdie saw him do it. Alfred must have seen him too, because he smiled sourly and tapped Doctor Morton between the shoulders with the point of his spear. ‘Aye, that’s right. We lured you into our trap, just like a bogle. You’re not the only one as can set a snare.’ Before the doctor could do more than hiss, Alfred laid his free hand on Birdie’s head and muttered, ‘It just goes to show, lass, that you can’t never be too careful. Not where bogles is concerned.’ And he finally added, in a preoccupied tone, ‘That bogle must have come out o’ the basement and used the dumb waiter to get up here. I wonder if Mr Fotherington ever lost a boot boy?’

Meanwhile, the noise from the parlour had been increasing, with Jem and Miss Eames both jabbering away at once. Birdie caught the words ‘chloroform’, ‘brandy’ and ‘poison’. It crossed her mind that the doctor’s bottle of chloroform had to be somewhere in the house. And although every trace of the bogle was rapidly evaporating, she suddenly felt quite sure that proof of the doctor’s wickedness would soon be found – and that one day it would be used against him in a court of law.

Then the police constable reappeared, with Jem in tow and Miss Eames tagging along behind them.

‘All right,’ the big man trumpeted, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but I can see that something isn’t right, here. And I intend to get to the bottom of it, even if we have to spend the
whole day talking
. . .’

31

FOUR MONTHS LATER . . .

Alfred’s new address was on the sixth floor of a big old house off Drury Lane. To reach it, Birdie had to climb flight after flight of rickety stairs, past rooms full of crying babies, grubby children, toiling dressmakers, quarrelling grandmothers and pale-faced girls with chesty coughs. They all stared at Birdie, who had come straight from her singing lesson in a dress of plaid poplin under a velvet mantle trimmed with silk.

Some of the children started to follow her, whining for money, until she told them to hook it. ‘I ain’t no blooming toff,’ she snapped, ‘and I’ve
just
enough for me ’bus fare home. So you might as well save yer breath.’

Startled by her Bethnal Green accent (which was sharply at odds with her Paddington Green appearance), the children fell back, allowing her to trudge on alone. Alfred’s room was a former servants’ garret, high up under the roof. By the time she knocked on his door, she was red in the face and puffing like a pair of bellows.
If he ain’t home
, she thought,
I’ll be blowed if I’ll come all this way again!

But he was at home. He even smiled when he saw her.

‘Hello, Birdie. Does Miss Eames know you’re here?’

Birdie chose not to answer his question. Instead she folded her arms and scowled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d left the old place?’ she demanded. ‘I had to find it out from Ned!’

Alfred shrugged. ‘I thought Miss Eames might not want you to know . . .’

‘Miss Eames ain’t got nothing to do with it!’ Birdie exclaimed, before correcting herself. ‘I mean, she
doesn’t
have nothing to do with it.’ Still this sounded wrong; after a moment’s reflection, she added, ‘
Any
thing
to do with it.’

Alfred raised his eyebrows and wiped a hand across his scrubby chin. ‘Well, now you’re here, at last, you’d best come in,’ he said, stepping aside to let Birdie cross the threshold. ‘You look a picture, lass. Like you was born to a life o’ luxury.’

Birdie snorted. ‘Luxury! Hah!’

Alfred raised an eyebrow. ‘Ain’t you getting enough jam tarts?’ he asked dryly.

Birdie blushed. ‘There’s no end to the food,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve all the clothes I want, and I ain’t got to cook or clean or carry.’

‘Which sounds like a throne in Paradise to me . . .’

‘It is. And I’m grateful. Truly I am,’ Birdie mumbled. Then she burst out, ‘But there’s so much else I have to do! The reading and the writing and the singing and the speech training . . .’ She shook her head, trying for the moment to banish all thoughts of her new life. In many ways it was easier than her old life, because she no longer had to help kill bogles. In other ways, though, it was much harder. Sometimes she felt as if her head were going to explode with all the information that had been stuffed into it: information about grammar, music, the alphabet, clothes, table manners, ladylike deportment . . .

It was quite a relief to find herself in a place where she didn’t have to keep her back straight or her voice hushed.

‘Is that where Ned sleeps?’ she asked, gazing at the heap of old shawls and coats and blankets that occupied one corner.

‘Aye,’ said Alfred.

‘How’s his cooking?’

Alfred gave her another crooked smile as he closed the door. ‘Not too good. But Ned’s doughty on them stairs. Especially with bags o’ coal.’ Birdie grunted. She had been half-hoping that Alfred’s new living arrangements would fail. It had annoyed her when he’d offered to house Ned, rent-free, in exchange for the boy’s domestic services – though she understood that both of them would benefit. Ned would no longer have to pay threepence a night for a bed in a common lodging house, and Alfred wouldn’t have to darn his own socks. But while she liked Ned well enough, and was glad that Alfred had someone to look after him, she couldn’t help feeling that she’d been replaced like a worn-out shoe. Especially now that Ned had started exhibiting an interest in bogles.

‘Is
that
Ned’s?’ she asked suspiciously – for there was a large and very beautiful doll sitting in one corner. It had a china face, blue glass eyes, and real hair coiled into ringlets. It wore a dress of white muslin and a straw hat.

‘Nay,’ Alfred replied, settling himself onto his old stool. ‘That’s Jem’s.’

‘
Jem
’
s?
’

‘He says he came by it fair and square, though I ain’t convinced.’ Watching Birdie approach the doll, Alfred remarked, ‘If you tip it over, it makes a noise.’

He was right. The doll bleated ‘
Mama
’ when Birdie picked it up – almost causing her to drop it again.

‘I’ll be . . .’ she murmured. ‘But why did Jem bring it here?’

‘Oh, Jem had a notion it would make good bogle-bait, no matter who might be holding it.’ As Birdie frowned, trying to imagine what would happen if you put a little old woman in a magic circle with a talking doll, Alfred continued, ‘Jem’s forever coming here with ideas like that. If you ask me, he ain’t finding a delivery-boy’s life so congenial. You know he’s ’prenticed to a grocer now?’