The Elfin Ship (43 page)

‘Perhaps we can come to an agreement,’ he said slowly.

‘Of course we can,’ Escargot stated. ‘As quick as you please. Any number of them. They all begin with your waking up the Professor and Mr Bing.’

‘I’ll need the watch. The fat man took the watch. He’s probably eaten it by now.’

‘Squire!’ shouted Escargot. Not a moment passed before the Squire, squeezing through the arched stone doorway of the alcove, hulked back into the hall. He held what appeared to be a turkey leg in one hand and a tankard of ale in the other. There was a long, crusty loaf of bread shoved in under his arm. His cheeks puffed out like balloons, as if he were storing food against the winter.

‘Give Doctor Selznak his watch, Squire. There’s a good fellow,’ said Escargot.

The Squire lumbered over to where Selznak stood with his head in the noose and peered into his face. He broke off a lump of bread as big as his fist and offered it to him. The Dwarf seemed inclined neither to accept the piece of bread or to refuse it. He just stood there with his mouth clamped shut looking at the Squire evilly. The Squire waved it in front of his nose for a moment, shrugged, tore a great bite out of the turkey leg, and headed back toward the kitchen.

‘The watch, Squire,’ shouted Escargot.

The Squire stopped, set his mug of ale down, and rummaged in his pockets. He brought out the stuffed snake, a rubber lizard, a handful of big marbles, and a glass globe about five inches in diameter, but no pocketwatch. ‘What do you have there, Squire?’ asked Escargot. ‘What’s that big glass ball?’

‘It’s not a watch,’ the Squire said, shaking his head. ‘It’s a marble. A tremendous marble. It’s the Squire’s marble now.’ He held the thing up so that the rays of the rising sun shone through it. The globe seemed to be alive inside, as if an entire universe revolved within. Squire Myrkle stared into the globe, transfixed. The turkey leg in his free hand dropped from his fingers and
thwacked
against the stone floor, falling into the mug of ale and knocking it over.

‘Squire!’ shouted Escargot. ‘The watch, Squire!’ But the Squire couldn’t seem to hear a thing. Bufo, however, dashed out of the kitchen to see what the fuss was. ‘Is it this watch you want?’ Bufo asked, holding the pocketwatch by its chain. ‘The Squire left it on the sink. He doesn’t care much about watches – can’t tell time actually. He says he doesn’t need to.’

‘Give the watch to Doctor Selznak,’ said Escargot, ‘and take that globe away from the Squire.’

Bufo did what he was told. When he plucked the globe from the Squire’s hand, the Squire looked about him, searching for his turkey leg and ale, and was chagrined to see them spread about on the floor. ‘Who’s been at these?’ he asked, casting a suspicious eye around.

‘That fellow over there,’ said Bufo quickly, pointing toward a skeleton. ‘Poor beggar was starving.’

The Squire picked up the turkey leg, pulled a few bits of dust and floor scrap from it, and stuffed it into the grinning mouth of the skeleton which collapsed over backward, the turkey leg protruding from its mouth. ‘Chap’s too thin,’ said the Squire, bending over and pinching at its bony wrist. ‘That can’t be good.’

‘Not a bit,’ said Bufo. ‘Let’s find something more to eat.’ He and the Squire disappeared once again in toward what must have been the pantry.

Selznak stood there fingering the watch as if contemplating some new deviltry. He was obviously loathe to simply give in, but he was undeniably in a tight spot. Escargot decided to have done with the contest.

‘I’m going to hang by my hands from this beam,’ he said. ‘If you make a move toward the rope I’ll drop, and you’ll break my fall when you shoot up into the rafters. If you try to freeze me with the watch, I’ll probably drop anyway and the result will be the same. Do you understand?’

‘Frightfully clever of you,’ said the Dwarf.

‘When I’m all arranged,’ said Escargot, ‘I’ll let you know. You can wake these blokes up and hand the watch over to the Professor. You have nothing to gain by playing me false.’

‘What do I gain by cooperating?’ asked Selznak.

‘You can leave here with your idiotic ape.’

‘I want the globe,’ said Selznak.

‘You’ll have to talk to the Squire about that,’ said Escargot. ‘He seems to like it. It’s just a toy anyhow. Get old Lumbog to make another one. Together you could probably figure out how to do it.’

‘Fine,’ said Selznak. ‘I agree. Shall we get on with it? I have work left undone.’

‘And it never will be done, most of it,’ said Escargot. ‘Ready on this end. No pranks now, or you won’t be a dwarf any longer.’

Selznak, with a cold look in his eye, poked the button atop the watch with his thumb, and Jonathan found himself scrambling up off of his pile of bones with such energy that he nearly piled head on into the Professor who leaped forward, finishing the lunge that had been cut short and dashing across to snatch the watch from the Dwarf’s hand.

The task was obviously easier than the Professor supposed. There was no struggling or fighting involved. Selznak was trussed up and very clearly didn’t need to be grappled with. The Professor pulled himself up short once he had the watch, a look of amazement on his face. ‘What the –’ he said, seeing Yellow Hat and Stick-a-bush there and seeming to observe the noose around Selznak’s neck for the first time. But he hadn’t time to say much more.

There was wild activity all through the hall. The goblin lying near the stair sprang up and, with its fellow, rushed about in circles as if having run mad. The skeletons all woke with a jerky start, and one rose unsteadily to its feet, astonished by the turkey leg in its mouth. It pulled the thing free, losing a couple of teeth in the process, and dropped it to the floor.

The Squire and Bufo wandered in out of the kitchen and watched in amazement as, one by one, the odd collection of goblins and skeletons found the open window and door and made off into the morning. From outside could be heard a cacophony of wild squawks and screes as the animals in the cages celebrated their freedom, following the goblins into the woods. The pig-bird in the corner yowled once, then looked about to gauge its effect. The Squire went over and poked several lumps of bread through the cage bars, and the thing was immediately satisfied, apparently liking the look of the Squire. It seemed to be a pleasant enough mutant.

The Professor held the watch at arm’s length, handling the thing as if it were an infernal device. ‘It was the watch!’ said Professor Wurzle. ‘It must have been the watch!’

‘It is that,’ said Escargot. ‘Every bit of it.’

‘I can see that,’ said the Professor. ‘But I mean for the past who knows how long. Where have I been? I was here all along, right?’

‘That’s right. All along. Frozen,’ Escargot explained.

‘Astonishing!’ the Professor looked the watch over with new interest. ‘Absolutely astonishing.’

‘Hold him now,’ said Escargot, ‘while I get down from the ceiling.’ He appeared a few moments later on the stairs, the cloak of invisibility under his arm.

‘Where did you think you were?’ Jonathan asked the Professor.

‘Why I don’t know,’ said the Professor. ‘Right here, I suppose. But one moment you were diving into the bones and I was set to lunge for the watch, and the next, here we all are.’

‘You didn’t see any of it?’ asked Jonathan, perplexed.

‘Any of what?’

‘Of the Squire and the ape and Lonny Gosset and everything?’

‘I can’t say that I did, did you?’

‘Every bit,’ said Jonathan. Then, after thinking for a moment he said, ‘Almost every bit. There was one point there I’m not sure of.’

‘This is odd,’ said the Professor. ‘Dreadfully odd. What are we going to do with the good doctor?’

‘He goes free,’ Escargot stated flatly.

‘I don’t at all agree with that,’ the Professor objected. ‘We should hold him until the elves arrive.’

‘You hold him. But first he goes free; then you can catch him again. I stick to my bargains.’

‘What bloody bargain?’ asked the Professor. ‘I don’t know anything about any such bargain.’

‘The bargain I made when you were stiff down here,’ said Escargot.

Jonathan and Dooly bent over Lonny Gosset, who was showing signs of stirring. ‘I agree with Mr Escargot,’ said Jonathan. ‘This has been ghastly enough already. Let’s have done with it. Give him his hat and stick and ape and send him on his way. Without the watch he doesn’t amount to such an incredible lot anyway.’

‘Why did you make such a wild bargain in the first place?’ asked the Professor. ‘You had him. All you had to do was truss him up and wait it out.’

‘Because,’ said Escargot, ‘I have no intention of waiting anything out. You gentlemen will have to give Twickenham my best. Tell him I’ve taken his coat to have it cleaned and that it worked admirably. Tell him that if he has any other villains to subdue he can look me up. It’s been pleasant working with you lads. I don’t regret it a bit.’

‘Are you leaving, Grandpa?’ Dooly asked, abandoning Lonny Gosset. ‘When are you coming back?’

‘Come spring, Dooly lad. In April you and I will take a bit of a cruise. How does that sound?’

‘It sounds fine,’ said Dooly proudly. ‘Don’t take no nickels, Grandpa.’

‘I never mess with them, Dooly. Not Theophile Escargot.’ And with that revelation Escargot pulled his cloak on and disappeared. Jonathan heard his feet scrunch across toward the door and down the stone steps. All was silent when he reached the grass outside.

Selznak picked up his pipe and staff and went over and prodded the Beddlington Ape. Like Lonny Gosset, the ape revived and stood up shakily, looking about as if lost. With the ape in tow, Selznak followed after Escargot, not looking at any of the rafters or linkmen, but making good his escape before any of them changed his mind and decided to make an issue of his departure. Outside he stood for a moment on the drive. Then he whacked his staff against the stones savagely. A blast of cold wind swirled roundabout him, blowing his cloak in a rush of sailing autumn oak leaves. When the wind died away the Dwarf and his ape were gone.

‘We shouldn’t have allowed him to leave,’ the Professor said.

‘We were probably lucky that we didn’t force the issue,’ replied Jonathan. ‘Who knows what capers he was likely to cut?’

Lonny Gosset moaned and held his head in his hand. The Squire offered him a loaf of bread, but he didn’t take it. He looked at the Squire in amazement and sat on the bench that the Professor and Jonathan had tossed in through the window.

Jonathan rummaged in his bag and hauled out the four coins once again. He laid them on the hearth, each facing a different direction, then turned each to face the other. The fish on the coins shimmered and seemed to wiggle a bit and fade. Tiny beams of rainbow shot out and revolved about like the little rainbows thrown by a prism dangling in a sunlit window. The fish blinked away, the coins seemed smooth and empty as glass, and then, on each of them, a puffy-cheeked face appeared wearing a pair of enormous fishbowl spectacles. There could be no doubt as to who it was, looking about the hall there from the vantage point of the four coins.

There was the noose, dangling empty. There were Jonathan and the Professor, awake and healthy. There, in the Professor’s hand was the pocketwatch, no longer, obviously, in the possession of the Dwarf. The Moon Man smiled, winked, and vanished.

‘Let’s go,’ said Jonathan. ‘Our job’s not done until we get those cakes home.’

Lonny Gosset was in no shape to walk through the swamp, so they put him on one of the linkmen’s ponies. They shut the oaken door of the tower, not bothering to put out the fire in the fireplace or to investigate the upper reaches. Jonathan had had enough of Hightower Ridge. Professor Wurzle gathered up his ruined oboe device, and, as they left, said that come spring he intended to return and poke around in the tower a bit more extensively.

And so off they went toward town, winding along through the swamp which wasn’t half so forbidding by day as it had been by night. Hobbs sat in a chair on the boardwalk in town, drinking a morning cup of coffee. He seemed amiable – far more so, in fact, than he had on their trip downriver. Upon being informed of the defeat of the Dwarf and his goblins, however, he smiled and nodded and said only that Dr Selznak was one of his best customers – his only customer, actually. Jonathan told him that with any luck trade would pick up noticeably in the next few weeks, and Hobbs was happy to hear it. They left Lonny Gosset in Hobbs’ care and hastened away toward Hinkle Creek, but not until the Squire had brought up Hobbs’ supply of pecan twirls and a couple dozen eggs. Besieging towers, apparently, had a stimulating effect on the Squire’s appetite.

The raft was untouched. The bushes were still heaped about the deck and twined through the mast, and there were no signs of goblins – no fishbones or bits of scrap and trash. Jonathan, the Professor, and Dooly all encouraged the linkmen to come along upriver with them to Twombly Town for the Christmas holidays, but the link-men very graciously declined. They had, after all, their own families and celebrations to attend to at home, and they’d be several days still on the river road before they crossed over into linkman territory. And perhaps more importantly yet, they had sent word on from Snopes’ Ferry that a linkman army must be raised and marched to Stooton, and that they’d meet that same army along the road after they’d dealt with the party of goblins who had stolen the Squire’s marbles bag. That was the first mention of the lost marbles bag, and it gave Jonathan a tolerably good idea. Anyway, Bufo pointed out that with the flight of the Dwarf and the recovery of the watch, the evil in Stooton could no doubt be overcome without the aid of the Squire’s army. In fact, no longer being held in thrall by the Dwarf’s enchantment, the goblins at Stooton were likely already on their way back upriver to the Goblin Wood. Bufo pointed out that armies are well and good when a menace is abroad in the land, but when it’s not, then no one with any sense would want to pretend it is. The sooner the army could be disbanded and sent home, the better off everyone would be.