Beneath London (2 page)

The shallow print was plain in the light of the torch – a hobnailed boot, the nails forming the five outer points of a pentagram and the five inner crossings. Beaumont quenched the torch in a shallow pool before moving on again as silently as he could, anxious now to make his way toward the surface, and not at all anxious to meet the man whose boot had left its mark in the mud – a man whom he had believed to be dead.

He rounded a bend in the path, but stopped at the sight of a man who reclined on an enormous clump of vibrantly luminescent toads, his flesh and hair and beard aglow with the moth-green hue. The stalks had affixed themselves to him, his right hand and forearm deeply imbedded in the pale sponge. A broad, fungal cap had crept down over his forehead, although his face was still clear of it, and would remain so, for the toads would allow him to breathe.

Beaumont had seen pigs kept alive thus, wounded pigs that had stumbled in among the toads and were imprisoned by them, sustained for years, perhaps forever. He could see the slow heaving of the man’s chest as he drew air into his lungs. His fob-chain was still secure in the pocket of the vest, stained green-black from fungal secretions, the fabric of the vest half rotted away where the chain was pinned to it by what looked to be a ruby stud, although the stone was more black than red in the strange light. A yard away from the imprisoned figure sat the telltale shoe, its hobnailed pentagram visible on the sole.

Was the man asleep? Or was this a mere semblance of sleep, a wakeful death? Perhaps it would be a kindness to shoot him, although he owed the man no kindness. It wasn’t in Beaumont to kill a man, however, even this man, who was already as good as dead. But certainly it made no sense to leave such a man in possession of a pocket watch and chain. He stepped as close as he needed to and hooked the stick-end of the torch beneath the fob-chain. With a careful circular motion he turned three loops of chain around the stick, lifting the watch out of its pocket.

“Father Time lives topside, your honor,” he said in a low voice. “He has no influence here below.” And with that he jerked the barrel upward and away, snatching the watch out of the vest pocket and tearing the chain stud away from the vest.

In that moment the eyes of the captive fluttered open, glowing green and unnaturally wide, a look of terror within them, but without, thank God, any hint of recognition.

ONE

“
O
nly the two maps, Mr. Lewis? And very tentative maps, I must say. They were apparently drawn by someone with only a modest knowledge of the underworld. This is a meager offering, sir, scarcely worth our time.”

Mr. Treadwell, the man who had spoken, wore a smile on his face – a smile that was habitual with him, as if he were in a constant state of subtle amusement. He was a large man with a trim white beard, dressed in brown tweed and with a comfortable look about him. He spoke in a light-hearted, easy tone, though his voice did not at all put Mr. Lewis at ease. Mr. Lewis, a small, pale man with the face of ferret and a tubercular cough, was rarely at ease, although never so ill at ease as he was just now. There was nothing artificial in Mr. Treadwell’s manner, and so Mr. Lewis was utterly incapable of reading him.

“As you can see,” Mr. Treadwell continued, “I brought one of my associates along today. You can call him Mr. Snips – or not, as you see fit. People have called him worse things, certainly.” Mr. Snips apparently saw nothing funny in the quip, for he stared in a bored way in the direction of Admiralty Arch. Mr. Snips’s hair was receding, and he wore a small toupee inexpertly glued on, something that was apparent now in the freshening wind. It might have been comical on anyone else.

They sat, the three of them, on metal chairs around a small table in front of Bates’s Coffee House in what had recently been the Spring Gardens, although it was now an area with islands of lawn and occasional small trees. The day was cool, autumn leaves skittering past on the pavement before lifting into the air and whirling away. Behind them stood the Metropolitan Board of Works building with its Palladian façade, people going in and coming out through the high entry door that had been eccentrically fixed into the front corner of the building. Mr. Lewis, who was employed by the Board of Works, looked from one to the other of the two men, his own countenance slowly taking on an appearance of desperation in the extended silence.

“Snips is a whimsical name, Mr. Lewis, don’t you agree?”

“No, sir. I mean to say… whimsical, sir?”

“You have no grudge against whimsy, I hope.”

“No, Mr. Treadwell, I do assure you.” He nodded at the alleged Mr. Snips, affecting a smile, and said, “I wish you a good morning, Mr. Snips.” The man turned his head slowly to look in Mr. Lewis’s direction, but his eyes held no expression at all and were apparently fixed on some distant object behind Mr. Lewis’s chair, as if Mr. Lewis were invisible.

“Mr. Snips, allow me to present Mr. Lewis of the Board of Works, adjutant to the Minister of Rivers and Sewers,” Mr. Treadwell said. “I very much hoped that Mr. Lewis would find the gumption to make a bold stroke on our behalf after taking our earnest money and then betraying us to our meddling friend James Harrow. It was Mr. Lewis who provided Harrow with the ancient bird recovered from the sink-hole by a common tosher, a wonderfully preserved bird alleged to be aglow with an interesting variety of luminous fungus moss. And now Harrow is anxious to lead an expedition into the unknown realm beneath our city, there to discover we know not what, to our great dismay. But we cannot allow that to come to pass, can we Mr. Snips?”

“No, Mr. Treadwell, we cannot. We
will
not.”

“Mr. Lewis has thought to do penance for his sin by providing us with the odd map, such as you see here, but his efforts are less than enthusiastic. I have it on good authority that Harrow was given a set of first-rate maps, nothing like these mere sketches. His were
secret
maps, apparently, unavailable to the public – the public being your humble servant.” He pursed his lips and shook his head, apparently far from satisfied. “What do you say to that, Mr. Snips?”

“What do I
say
to it, Mr. Treadwell?” He regarded Mr. Lewis sharply now, as if memorizing his features. “I don’t
say
a thing. I
ask
, rather: does this man have any family to speak of?”

“Oh my, yes,” Mr. Treadwell said. “Seven children and a loving wife. They dwell in lodgings off Lambeth Road that are surprisingly smart, well beyond Mr. Lewis’s station, one would think. The Board of Works, however, provides wonderful opportunities to better one’s station with very little effort, you see. In this case the betterment was offered up by Dr. Harrow and a wealthy friend of Harrow’s by the name of Gilbert Frobisher, who has been very much in the news recently. Gilbert Frobisher has a deep purse, Mr. Snips, and he has allowed our friend Mr. Lewis to dip into it with an open hand. Mr. Lewis, understandably, has taken a special interest in their desires and very little interest in ours.”

“Then I suggest that we have Mr. Lewis draw straws, here and now, to choose who gets his thumbs lopped off, oldest or youngest child.”

Mr. Treadwell looked appropriately shocked to hear this. He held his upturned palms out before Mr. Lewis in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m afraid that Mr. Snips is a desperate rogue, Mr. Lewis, when the fit is upon him. I’m deeply appalled by his bloodthirsty suggestion.”

“The two maps was all I could reproduce in the moment, Mr. Treadwell,” Mr. Lewis said in a strained voice. “It would take a mort of time to have the Board’s maps copied out fair, and a solid reason for asking it, too, them being secret. This makes four maps in all, sir, this past month, which amounts to very nearly the agreed upon number.”

“Very
nearly
the agreed upon number, do you say? That’s scarcely mathematical, sir. If your banker used such a phrase, you’d be in the right of it to take him to task. But none of us are bankers, thank heavens. Our hearts are not bound in triple brass like the men in the counting houses. Now sir, something has occurred to me that might satisfy Mr. Snips.” He patted his coat pocket, nodded brightly, and drew out a piece of paper. “I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Lewis, as plainly as I can manage. Dr. Harrow’s expedition is to be limited to three men and three men only. You see their names written down here, and I’ll warrant that you recognize all three. Two of them are, of course, Gilbert Frobisher and James Harrow. The third is a Professor Langdon St. Ives, one of Mr. Frobisher’s particular friends. Those three and no others are to be allowed permission to set out on this expedition. It is my wish that you limit the size of the expedition at the
very
last moment. Do I make myself quite clear? The area exposed by the sink-hole will be closed to any but these three men.”

“But Mr. Frobisher has asked permission for a round dozen to accompany him and Dr. Harrow, sir, aside from Professor St. Ives – porters, learned coves from the university, a photographer from the
Times
, even Harrow’s sister. I cannot see how I can …”

“Oh, I can see it quite clearly, Mr. Lewis, and I can see the result if my wishes are ignored. A photographer from the
Times
, do you say? And carrying first-rate maps? Heaven help us. We cannot countenance such a thing, can we Mr. Snips?”

“No, sir. Not for an instant.”

“Here is the way of it, Mr. Lewis. Permission to any but these three must be denied in the eleventh hour, as you value your children’s thumbs. Mr. Snips is unfortunately handy with his pruning-shears, which he keeps carefully honed. Come now, Mr. Lewis! I beg you not to disfigure your features in that antic manner. Keep it in your mind that if you fail us, you fail your family. I’ll thank you to have the four remaining maps in our hands by Tuesday. If you cannot have them copied out in a thoroughgoing manner, then fetch us the original articles – those that you haven’t already passed on to Harrow. Feign ignorance when the time comes to explain to your superiors why they are missing. You are apparently practiced at the art of prevarication. You’ll keep us informed, of course, as regards the Harrow expedition.”

Mr. Treadwell nodded meaningfully in Mr. Snips’s direction now, and Mr. Lewis swiveled his head in a mechanical way to follow his gaze, his face a rictus of fear. Mr. Snips had opened his shirt at the neck in order to reveal a curious necklace – a strand of wire upon which were strung a round dozen withered thumbs.

* * *

A
short time after sending Mr. Lewis back to work, Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Snips leaned against a wooden railing above the Thames and looked down into the void opened by the Great Sink-Hole, as the
Times
referred to it. From their vantage point they could see little of the cave that reportedly led away beneath Upper Thames Street, but they could easily make out the remnants of the fallen buildings and the rubble of broken pavement that lay mired thirty feet below.

An army of men was active along the river: shipwrights, carpenters, masons, and laborers taking hurried advantage of the waning tide, and, in the case of the laborers, of the Crown’s offer of ten shillings a day for ten hours work, many of the men working double shifts to gain the one-crown bonus. A bulwark of posts had been sunk into the Thames mud in a great half circle around the hole. The posts were fitted with strake upon strake of good English oak. The pitch tubs were smoking hot, the heaps of oakum ready for the caulking mallets. A portable crane on a barge belched steam and noise as it placed enormous boulders at the upriver end of the hole in order to convince the Thames to flow around it rather than sloshing into it when the tide rose again.

“Poor Mr. Lewis,” Mr. Treadwell said, although
Treadwell
was not in fact his name, nor was
Snips
the name of the man who accompanied him. “He doesn’t much like the look of a severed thumb.”

“Not many men do, I’ve found.”

“You’re in the right of it there. It’s a persuasive argument. What did Mr. Franklin say? ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ if I remember correctly. I find Mr. Franklin a sad bore with his maxims. What do you think of him?”