Legion of the Dead (13 page)

I eased myself gingerly down onto the upper boards, taking care not to skid on the frosty wood. From there, it was a simple matter to swing one of the planks round till it rested on the roof opposite. I balanced my way along it, arriving safely at the other side and congratulating myself on having invented a new manoeuvre.

I called it a Hangman’s Bridge.

A quick glance down confirmed that, below me, the carriage lights were still in view, bearing left onto a broader street. I followed them, keeping pace across the rooftops as the carriage and its mysterious occupant travelled through the fog-bound city, until at last I found myself atop the familiar ridged roof of Sunil’s tea warehouse and realized that we were on the Belvedere Mile.

A moment later, my heart sunk. We’d come to Gatling Quays!

To my right was the front of Adelaide Mansions, the light from Ada Gussage’s window hazy in the thick mist. The carriage pulled up in front of the building, and I saw the doctor jump down, wrap his cape around him and tether his fine carriage horse to a lamppost. I wondered whether Ada was watching him as well.

Under the cover of the swirling yellow fog that wound itself round me like a mortician’s shroud, I descended the building and followed the doctor. He crossed the road and went through the cast-iron archway into the graveyard. I hesitated, my heart thumping fit to burst in my chest.

Could I summon up the courage to enter that fearful place a third time? I asked myself. Was this doctor meeting his accomplices? I wondered, or simply returning to the scene of his ghoulish crime?

There was only one way to find out for sure. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to
enter Adelaide Graveyard once more.

Darting along from yew tree to yew tree, I kept myself hidden both from the doctor and from anyone who might be passing. From somewhere close by, I heard the bells of St Angela’s toll. It was midday – though as far as visibility went, it might as well have been midnight. At the far side of the graveyard, I thought I was going to get spotted as the doctor abruptly doubled back – but instead of returning the way he’d come, he squeezed through a gap in the fence where one of the upright rails was missing, then stumbled down the steep slope on the other side.

I held back a minute, waiting for the sounds of slipping and sliding to subside, before going after him. At the bottom of the slope, I looked round me, trying to see which way he’d gone. His footsteps trailed across the wet mud, then disappeared in the direction of the great sewer mouth of Gatling Sump.

Head down, I crossed the upper shoreline.

The tide was out and I could see the shadowy figures of mudlarks scratting out on the flats. Scuffle-hunters and long-apron men were roaming the quaysides, taking advantage of the fog to search for any unattended goods; and in the distance I saw the flashing light of a wrecker trying to lure a passing barge onto the mudflats. Ahead of me, the doctor’s bowed body was next to the sewer tunnel, his head and shoulders swathed in shadow. I crouched down behind an upturned crate.

The doctor was inspecting what at first glance seemed to be a fallen tree trunk that the ebb and flow of the tide had buried, then revealed in the mud. But as I peered through the gloom, I saw that it was in fact some sort of primitive boat or canoe, fashioned from a single tree. The doctor studied it carefully, from blunt stern to rough-hewn bow which, on its underside, bore tell-tale impressions, seemingly seared into the grain of the wood.

I have to confess that bile rose in my throat at the sight of what I knew to be the bite marks of none other than the black-scaled lamprey - that fearsome sea serpent I had battled in the harbour. At last, the doctor seemed to be satisfied. He rose from his crouching position and returned along the mudflats.

Anticipating his movements, I darted up the bank and vaulted over the railings. I hurried back through the graveyard, hardly daring to look at the gravestones on every side. One thing was for certain, I told myself as I reached the gates, just visible in the freezing fog: there’d be no more highstack carriage-chasing for me. When the mysterious doctor got back to his fine two-wheeler and twitched the reins, there’d be an extra passenger coming along for the ride.

Reaching the carriage, I ducked down and employed a neat trick I’d picked up from the street urchins of Hightown. ‘Cobble-grazing’ it’s called, and involves grasping the wheel
springs beneath the chosen vehicle, and hanging on for dear life. In some of the potholed streets in the rougher districts, it’s a recipe for disaster, but on the smooth thoroughfare of Hightown and Carriage Way, it can be exhilarating, believe me.

Grasping the curved springs behind the wheel axle, I wedged my toes into the iron brace of the carriage frame and made myself comfortable. A few moments later I felt the carriage buck and sway as its occupant climbed inside.

The carriage leaped forward, skidded round the corner at the end of Adelaide Mansions and hurtled on down the Belvedere Mile. I glanced down at the bumpy dark-grey road surface speeding past in a blur beneath me. I held on as tight as a barnacle on a barge-hull and tried to determine which way we were going. We turned left, then left again, then right … and before I knew it, I’d completely lost my bearings. Once, I fancied I caught the
whiff of chestnuts roasting on a brazier, which suggested we might be passing through the Theatre District. A while later, I thought I heard the great Bowman bell toll the hour. If I was right, we were heading due north.

I wedged my toes into the iron brace of the carriage frame
.

A few miles and a lot of arm-jarring potholes later, the carriage clattered over an iron grid and onto the flags of a paved courtyard. Behind me, I heard the creaking of heavy gates rattling shut and the jangling of keys being turned in several locks. The doctor climbed out of the carriage and I saw his muddied boots striding across the courtyard towards a black front door.

Carefully, I unjammed my feet and dropped to the ground. The sound of heavy bolts being drawn back greeted the doctor’s knock on the door of what I saw, as I peered from between the spokes of the carriage wheel, was a magnificent town house, screened from the street by a high-walled courtyard of impressive size, and dominated by a large fountain.

As I watched, the door swung open and out sprang a pair of enormous watchdogs, Tannhauser blues, by the look of them. In two great bounds they were beneath the carriage, their slavering jaws inches from my face as I parried them away with my swordstick.

‘Walther! Wolfram! Heel!’ came a barked command, before an arm reached beneath the carriage, seized me by the collar and dragged me clear.

Looking up, I found myself staring down the barrel of a large-bore hunting rifle.

‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do,’ said the doctor coolly.

I
rose slowly to my feet, clipping my swordstick to the tail of my waistcoat and raising my hands above my head. The doctor, flanked by the two fearsome Tannhausers, marched me across the courtyard and into the house at the barrel of a gun. Leaving the dogs to roam the courtyard, he closed the heavy front door and proceeded to draw deadbolts across it, top, middle and bottom.

‘You’re a tick-tock lad by the look of you,’ the doctor said, his hunting rifle still cocked and his finger on the trigger. ‘How did you come to be skulking beneath the wheels of my Chesney?’

‘I was just cobble-grazing, sir,’ I began innocently. ‘I didn’t mean no harm by it, sir, honest.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ said the doctor levelly. ‘You’re no Hightown urchin. You were following me. Who are you? Are you mixed up in this graverobbing epidemic? Answer me, boy!’

‘No, sir,’ I protested hotly, despite the menace in his eyes and the rifle pointed at my chest. ‘I followed you because a friend of mine told me she’d seen you hanging around the Adelaide Graveyard. I thought
you
might be a graverobber …’ I took a breath. ‘My name is Barnaby Grimes. I
am
a tick-tock lad.’ I fished a business card from my waistcoat and handed it to him. ‘Professor Pinkerton-Barnes at the university can vouch for me, sir. He’ll tell you I’m no graverobber …’

The doctor lowered the hunting rifle and, with a sigh, propped it against a mahogany
hall table. Taking off his hat and cape, he gave a rueful smile, before handing my card back to me.

‘You know, Mr Grimes,’ he said, ‘I almost hoped that you were part of a graverobbing gang. At least that would be a more plausible explanation than the alternative …’

‘The alternative?’ I said.

‘Corpses being raised from the dead,’ said the doctor, ‘erupting up out of the grave …’

‘That’s what I saw!’ I exclaimed. ‘In Adelaide Graveyard!’

‘You witnessed this?’ said the doctor with appalled fascination. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Come, Mr Grimes, there is someone you must meet.’

The doctor looked genuinely concerned, and there was something about his urgent manner and haunted eyes that made me trust him. He gestured for me to follow him.

We crossed the broad oak-panelled hall, the floor laid out in a herring-bone pattern of
polished wooden blocks that creaked as we walked over them. It was cold, and I could see my breath in the grey light which came down at an angle from the small upper windows. Apart from the mahogany table, where the doctor had laid his cape and hat, and a framed water-colour of the outside of the house on the wall beside it, the hall was bare. Our footsteps echoed up the stairwell and round the ceiling.

On the far side of the hall, the doctor stopped in front of the middle of three doors and pulled a key from his pocket. He inserted it into the lock and turned it.

‘Go on in, Barnaby Grimes,’ the doctor said, as he opened the door and stood to one side to allow me to enter. He gestured towards the plump armchairs and sofas which stood in a cluster around a roaring fire. ‘And take a seat.’

Compared with the austerity of the hallway, the drawing room was a treasure trove,
luxuriously decorated with items that seemed to have come from the East. There were thick pile carpets in sumptuous reds, orange and aquamarine across the floor, while directly before the crackling fire, lay a tiger-skin rug, the creature’s great mouth fixed in a permanent silent roar. Framed silk tapestries depicting jungle scenes hung on the walls, a fluted brass chandelier dangled from a chain at the centre of the ceiling and a hinged four-panelled screen stood beside the mantelpiece which was, itself, crowded with memorabilia; gilt-edged crystal, ivory boxes, silver candlesticks and an ebony incense holder carved in the shape of an elephant, with sweet-smelling smoke coiling from the tasselled howdah on its back.

A large oil painting in an ornate gold frame hung above the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of a handsome woman in a white dress, holding a lamp as she tended a wounded soldier in a night-time hospital ward. As I sat
down on a low leather chaise-longue before the roaring fire, and the doctor took his place in one of the two great wingback chairs, I became aware that there was a third figure in the room.

Standing with his back to us, staring out through the bars at the high bay windows, was a stooped aged gentleman with a halo of fine white hair that fell in wisps to his shoulders.