Death and the Arrow (6 page)

THE TEN-KILLED CAT

The next day, Tom and Dr. Harker were crossing over London Bridge on their way to Southwark. When they reached the middle, they paused to take in the view: the city was bristling with church spires and wearing St. Paul’s like a crown. To the west, the river bustled with little boats, barges, and ferries. Watermen shouted, sang, and cursed below them, and two young rakes cheered as they shot the rapids that formed as the mighty Thames was squeezed through London Bridge’s many arches. Tom crossed to the other side to see if they had fallen in, but the skill of their boat-man had seen them safely through. A group of builders on the south bank gave them a ripple of applause. One of the rakes stood up, bowed ostentatiously—and fell in, to hoots of derision. Tom laughed for the first time since Will’s death.

Dr. Harker put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a view that always sets my heart to racing, Tom,” he said. He was looking past the commotion below at the mass of ships at anchor, their masts like a forest. “The sights those ships have seen, lad: islands of ice in the cold northern seas, the pyramids of old Egypt, the temples of India—a world of wonders. Oh, Tom, would that I were a young man again, I’d sail on the next tide.”

“You’re not so old, Dr. Harker,” said Tom, smiling.

“Thank you for that, young Marlowe, but I fear my traveling days are behind me. When my wife was alive, I could not wait to return. Now that she is dead, I have lost the urge to go. Strange, isn’t it? But wherever I went, I brought something back for her, something I thought would amuse her. Without her, traveling seems somehow less important. She was a marvelous woman, Tom. She would have been very fond of you, I’m sure.”

“And I of her, I hope,” said Tom.

“You must remember what your father lost when your mother passed away, Tom,” Dr. Harker went on. “I know that loss and the pain of it.”

“Yes,” said Tom. “I know it. I just wish he could... I don’t know...”

“Be more like your mother?” suggested Dr. Harker.

Tom smiled. “Did you know my mother, Dr. Harker?” he asked.

“I did not have that pleasure, Tom, sadly.”

Tom looked off into the distance. “Sometimes . . . ,” he said with a slight choke in his voice. “Sometimes I can hardly remember what she looked like.”

Dr. Harker put an arm round Tom’s shoulder. He looked back toward the ships and sighed. “It doesn’t matter if you forget her face, Tom. She’s in your heart, lad. Even when I sailed away for months at a time, my Mary was always here,” he said, patting his chest. “And she still is.”

“I wish I could sail away sometimes,” said Tom. “You’ve done so much, Doctor, and I’ve done nothing. I’ve been nowhere. And I’ll
never
do anything or go anywhere.”

“Come now, Tom. You’re young yet, surely.”

“But that’s just it,” said Tom. “I’m young. Too young. My father would never let me go. And he needs me. He relies on me.”

Dr. Harker sighed again. “Here’s my wings clipped by age and yours by youth. But still, if our wings have been clipped, there are worse perches than this, eh, Tom?” The two of them looked out, a breeze at their backs, out past the merchant fleet and the Tower of London to the river snaking its way out to sea.

Tom agreed, and they continued on their way.

They stepped off the bridge and walked along by the river, both a little nervous to be such a long way from their usual haunts. They had not gone very far before they both became aware that they were being followed.

Dr. Harker turned to face their stalker. “I have a sword!” he said grandly.

It was Ocean. “I see you’re still keeping that sword warm, Dr. Harker,” he said with a grin. “But I was thinking as how you might be needing a little company on this here jaunt.”

“We would appreciate that,” said Dr. Harker, smiling.

Ocean led them along the waterfront to a building that leaned at such a precarious angle, it looked likely to fall into the Thames at any moment. Plaster had fallen from the brickwork here and there, and a hole as big as a handcart gaped in the roof.

“Here we are, gents,” said Ocean, pointing to the grimy sign above their heads. “The Ten-Killed Cat.”

An open doorway revealed a steep flight of stairs tumbling down into a basement. Tobacco smoke and the sound of a woman’s tuneless singing rose from below and the three of them gingerly walked down to meet it.

It took a little while for Tom’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. The gin cellar was filled with the smell of sweat and perfume and smoke and the sound of whispering and drunken laughter. The singing they had heard came from a hollow-eyed woman near the bar, sitting with a baby at her breast.

“There’s our boy,” said Ocean, pointing to the corner of the room.

Sitting at a table opposite the door was the man they had come to find. He was no longer dressed as a soldier of His Majesty’s army, but wore a shabby black coat, threadbare at the cuffs, bald at the elbows. His head was bare and covered in a fine stubble; his forehead sparkled with beads of sweat. On the table in front of him, his hand rested on a loaded pistol. He never took his eyes off the door as they walked over.

“Are you Sergeant Quinn?” asked Dr. Harker.

“If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be asking. What do you want?”

“May we sit down?”

“You may dance like the Queen of the May so long as you do not block my view.” The three men sat down. Tom could not help following the sergeant’s gaze toward the open door and the light that leaked in from it.

“We are seeking information,” said Dr. Harker. “We believe you may be of some assistance.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” said the sergeant. “But ask away. It passes the time, and I’ve wanted for company these last days.”

“A friend of ours was killed. We seek his killer.”

“Do I look like a wise woman? How would I know who killed your friend? I never saw one of you before this day and I have only recently returned to these shores.”

“It was a recent murder,” said Ocean.

“Even so...,” said the sergeant. “What business is it of mine? I know nothing about it.”

“This friend of ours, he had a Death and the Arrow card on him when they found him.” For the first time, the sergeant looked at Dr. Harker—but only for a second before returning to his vigil.

“You know something of the Death and the Arrow murders, do you not?” said Dr. Harker.

“Some,” said the sergeant, pulling a Death and the Arrow card from his pocket.

“If you know the killer,” said Tom, “please tell us where we can find him.”

“If I knew where to find him,” said the sergeant, “do you think I’d be sitting here waiting for him?” With that he ripped the card into pieces and tossed them onto the table next to the gun. “And here I wait. Man or Devil or the Reaper himself, I’m ready.”

“But you think you know what he is, don’t you, Sergeant Quinn?” said Dr. Harker.

“And why would you say that?”

“Because you identified the body. You saw the arrow and you had seen many like it before, had you not, when you served in the Americas?”

“Who... Who are you to tell me what I know?” said the sergeant.

Dr. Harker reached inside his coat and, with a flourish that made everyone round the table leap back in astonishment, he produced the tip and broken shaft of the arrow given to him by Dr. Cornelius.

“It was a Mohawk arrow, was it not?” he shouted, and drove the point of the arrow deep into the tabletop.

A ROBBERY IN AMERICA

Tom, Dr. Harker, Ocean, and the sergeant all stared at the arrow tip jutting from the grimy wooden planking. The blade picked up the yellow glow of a nearby candle and shimmered as it trembled back and forth.

“This is the arrow that was taken from the first victim—from Bill Leech’s body,” said Dr. Harker. “You knew him, did you not?”

“That I did,” said the sergeant, mesmerized by the arrowhead. “That I did. He was trouble to me alive as well as dead. He was no more born to soldiering than I was to play the fool. Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s the rest of it.” Onto the table he tossed a broken arrow shaft with a set of feathered flights.

“It’s a perfect match,” said Tom.

“You broke this off, did you not,” asked Dr. Harker, “when you identified Bill Leech?”

“I did. I knew that workmanship, that heathen craft. I’d seen Mohawk arrows aplenty in my time.”

“But not in London.”

“No,” said the sergeant. “Not in London, that’s very true. You’ve traveled in those lands?”

“I have,” said the doctor. “Many years ago.”

“But what’s all this got to do with this friend of yours that got done in?”

“It was him that put the cards in their pockets,” said Tom.

“Pickpocketry was his art,” added Ocean.

“A diver, was he?” said the sergeant. “But was he arrowed too?”

“No,” said Tom. “He was strangled. Please tell us what you know.”

The sergeant once again took his eyes from the doorway and looked at Tom. He smiled a wry smile and turned back. “I do have an ache to tell someone,” he said. “Though, Lord knows, no one ever seems to benefit from the telling of the tale.”

“All the same,” said Ocean, “sing out. Let’s hear it.”

“Very well, then,” said the sergeant. “Leastways then when Ezekiel Quinn disappears from the world, there’ll be some who know his story.” He called out for another jug of gin and then sighed deep and long. “So here it is, boys, the Last Dying Speech of the Condemned.” He was still looking at the entranceway but he seemed to be seeing something else.

“Well now, friends, it all goes back some years, back to the soldiering I did in the last war against the Frenchies in those godless lands across the waters.” He thanked the serving girl, who had brought him a fresh jug, and poured himself a drink. “The savages that live in those woods are fearsome cruel, I can tell you, and the French made evil use of them in that war.” He looked at Tom. “Be thankful that those eyes will never see the sights that these have, lad.” Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The sergeant took a long drink and filled his cup again.

“Well, on with my tale. As we were in the service of the Crown, so were we in its pay. The bags of silver came all the way from England and it was given me as a duty to ensure the safe passage of this money to our troops inland. The silver was to be transported in a wagon guarded by eight outriders. I was to lead them.”

“All that silver must have been a temptation,” said Ocean.

“That it was, friend; but not to me. I was not always the fallen creature you see before you. But it was not easy to pick men for the task. I chose those I could count on in a fight, whatever else I thought of them. I even chose Shepton, God save me. A more vicious scoundrel you never did see, but what a fighter. He had a scar the whole length of his face to prove it, from his eyebrow to his jaw. An Indian tomahawk, it was. Most men wouldn’t have survived it, but Shepton wasn’t most men. Ah, but what a look it left him with; it made a hard face evil. No one ever forgot the sight of it.” The sergeant shook his head.

“And there was a robbery?” said the doctor.

“Of a kind, yes, there was. We were passing through forests—those forests so vast and so thick of trees, you could hide an army there unseen—when without warning, an arrow struck me in the back. It hit me here, near my shoulder, and come clean through to stick out five inches from my coat.” He pulled aside his collar and filthy shirt to show the scar.

“I swung my horse round to see my men falling to the ground. I heard a shout of ‘Injuns!’ and saw Shepton galloping towards me. When he pulls up beside me, I see he has his hand to his belly and between the fingers there juts an arrow. ‘Get clear!’ he yells. ‘Save yourself! We’re done for!’ Then he gave my horse a slap on the rump and away I went. I thought to myself, Well, he might have been a rogue all his life, but he just saved my life. That I was sure of.” The sergeant took another swig of gin and shook his head. “When the troopers from the camp got there, they found every man dead—those that were there, at any rate. They’d been brutally treated . . . scalped. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Harker. “The cutting off of the skin and hair from the top of the head.” Tom shuddered.

“Yes,” said the sergeant, with a grim look as if he were seeing it happen right there in front of him.

“But you said ‘those that were there,’ ” continued the doctor. “Were not all the bodies found, then?”

“Not all, no. Some had been taken by the savages for some devilish reason. Only their blood-soaked clothes were found.”

“How many were taken?”

“Five. Though what concern it can be of yours I cannot—”

“And was Leech one of those taken?” said Dr. Harker.

“Leech? Yes. I saw him fall and thought him dead. Somehow he must have lived. I can’t say how.”

“And the silver. Was that gone too?”

“The cart was gone when my men arrived. No doubt the Indians were working for their French masters.”

“Maybe so,” said Dr. Harker. “And what action did the British army take over this incident?”

“As soon as I was able, I showed one of our Indian scouts the arrow that had been pulled from me and asked him who had made it. To my surprise, he said it was the work of a nearby village, the work of natives who had never given us any trouble at all. Even so, they would have to be taught a lesson. It’s all these people understand, believe me.”

“You attacked the village?”

“You’ve seen the handiwork of those savages, sir. If we had let them go unpunished, it would have sent a message to their brethren that the British army was weak.”

“So you killed them.”

“Aye.”

“Women and children as well?”

“Aye, she-savages too, and their cubs. I don’t say it’s wholesome work, but it’s soldiering and that’s that. I sleep well enough. Or at least I did.”

“Until you saw Bill Leech’s body?” said the doctor.

“Until then, yes,” said the sergeant. “I had not been in London two days when I saw him. He was alive, then. At first I could not believe my eyes, and so I followed him. I was conspicuous in my uniform, so I was forced to hang well back. As it was, he looked twitchy and nervous. He kept pulling a card from his pocket and looking at it.

“I thought I’d lost him when I turned a corner and found myself in an empty street. Then I heard a commotion coming from a courtyard nearby. I entered it and found two men standing over Leech’s body. One of the men was calling for a constable; the other was looking up—for the arrow seemed to have come from the clouds above—and saying, ‘It can’t be, it can’t be. I was right behind him when he fell.’ And you could see his point. There was only one exit and we stood blocking it. The courtyard was as empty as a preacher’s promise.” He took another drink. “One moment I’m following a man I thought to be arrow-shot in the Americas; the next moment he lies dead at my feet by the selfsame method, a Death and the Arrow card spilling out of his pocket.” He shook his head. “I told the constable what I knew, and the newspapers took up the tale.”

“I think you may have known the other arrow victim,” said Dr. Harker. “He had a musket-ball wound below his right shoulder.”

The sergeant stared at him and shook his head in disbelief. “Benjamin Cooper,” he said finally. “Strong as an ox, he was. They pulled a ball from his back, and he didn’t so much as squeak.” He shook his head again, trying to make sense of it.

“But why did you take the arrow?” said Tom.

“Ah, well, I don’t rightly know,” said the sergeant. “There’s devilry here and no mistake. That arrow was Indian workmanship. Lord knows, I seen enough of it in my time. I ask you, how can that be?” When no answer came back, the sergeant wiped some beads of sweat from his forehead and licked his dry lips. “And that ain’t all. I am being followed.”

“Followed?” asked the doctor.

“I have been followed by . . . by . . . by a
something
. I can’t say what.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said the sergeant, turning for another moment from the door to face them, “as you ask . . . I fear it to be some sort of magical creature let loose on me. I fear it to be a demon.”