Langdon St. Ives: Beneath London Part 1

Langdon St. Ives.

Beneath London.

James P. Blaylock.

As ever, this book is for Viki And for John and Danny, best of all possible sons "Men do not change, they unmask themselves."

MADAME DE STAEL.

PROLOGUE.

THE DARK REALM.

The distances that stretched away on three sides of the great cavern lay in perpetual half-darkness, with absolute darkness above, the invisible ceiling of the cavern supported by limestone columns as big around as forest oaks. Now and then Beaumont could discern the pale tips of stalact.i.tes overhead, conical shadows standing out against the darkness. He could hear the sound of ambitious bats skittering about, which meant that night was falling in the surface world. The ruins of a stone wall built in a long-forgotten time were just visible to the southeast, according to the compa.s.s that Beaumont carried in his pocket.

The track he followed ascended to a secret pa.s.sage on Hampstead Heath very near the Highgate Ponds. It was a four-hour journey, and he intended to complete it before the moon rose over London. He rarely had need of a torch to find his way topside, although he carried one of his own making beneath his oilskin cloak, which he wore against the wet of the upper reaches where the underground London Rivers, the Tyburn and the Westbourne and the Fleet, leaked through their brick-and-mortar floor and through the cracks and crevices in the limestone below, forming other nameless rivers in the world beneath.

Behind him stood the stone dwelling to which his father had added a stick-and-thatch roof many years ago, the thatch well preserved in the dry air in this part of the underworld. The structure itself, which his father had called simply "the hut", was built of stone blocks and was ancient beyond measure. Minutes ago it had been cheerful with lamplight. Beaumont had a plentiful supply of lamp oil in the hut, as well as food jerk meat and salt pork and dried peas, and there was sometimes a feral pig to shoot, although no way to keep the meat fresh. It had to be butchered and hauled topside. It was a mistake to leave a pig carca.s.s close by and so invite unwanted guests out of the darkness. He had seen the leviathan itself not far from this very spot when he was a lad, an immense reptile four fathoms in length with teeth around its snout like the tines of a harrow. Today he had left his rifle in the hovel, wrapped in oilcloth, along with several torches. He had no safe place to stow it topside, and no reason to carry it topside in any event.

The ground stretching away roundabout him glowed with a pale green luminosity now, reminding Beaumont of the wings of the moths that swarmed around gas lamps late at night in London alleys "toad light", Beaumont's father had called the glow when he had first allowed Beaumont to accompany him to the underworld. The "toads" were in fact mushrooms, some of enormous girth and as tall as a grown man much taller than Beaumont, who was a dwarf although these monsters grew only in the deep, nether regions. The older, dried-out toads burned well and were plentiful enough for warmth and cooking both.

Those toads that were living glowed with an inner light, brighter on the rare occasions that they were freshly fed with meat, dim and small if they subsisted on the wet muck of the cavern floor. Fields of smaller toads grew in the shallows of the subterranean ponds where Beaumont sometimes fished. These were the brightest of the lot, dining on blind cavefish that swarmed in the depths. When he was a child, his father had told him that the toads were nasty-minded pookies, fas.h.i.+oned by elves at midnight, but Beaumont didn't hold with elves. He had never seen one, neither in the underworld nor topside, and he had no reason to believe what he hadn't seen with his own eyes.

After an hour of steady travel he entered a bright patch of toads, where he could check his pocket watch, which he had pinched from an old gent in Borough Market. It was past eight o'clock in the morning on the surface. He was weary of the darkness and the silence, which he had endured for three days now. He saw nearby a pool of water glowing with toad light. A misty cascade fell into it from the darkness above, geysering up in the center and casting out a circle of small waves. Despite his weariness, Beaumont stepped across the muddy fringe of the pool to look within to do some fis.h.i.+ng, as he thought of it, although not for the swimming variety of fish.

He had always been a lucky fisherman, as had his father been, finding castaway treasures that had fallen from the underground rivers and sewers that lay in the floor of the world above. There had been gold and silver rings aplenty, some with jewels, and all manner of coins, including crown and half-crown pieces and enough gold guineas to fill a leather bag, which was buried in the hut under rocks for safe keeping.

He took out a torch and used the stick end to s.h.i.+ft the stones, and saw straightaway a fused ball of coins the size of a large orange. He waded out into the water and picked it up, then quickly waded back out again and shook the water from his oiled boots. Crouching by the edge of the pool, he broke up the ball of coins against a rock, swirling mud and debris from them, and carefully collecting them again from the bottom. He counted them as he did so: one hundred and forty-two Spanish doubloons. That they had come to this place was uncommonly strange: birds of a feather, mayhaps, the way they were gathered together. But they were clearly meant for Beaumont to find and no one else, which he knew absolutely because he had found them.

He stowed them away and set out again, moving upward along a muddy game trail that had been trodden flat by feral pigs, some of them prodigiously large, judging from their hoof-prints. But these prints were old enough. They didn't signify. And pigs were a noisy lot that stank; they wouldn't take him unawares.

Just as he was telling himself this, he saw the impression of a boot-print, half trodden out by the pa.s.sing of the pigs. He stood still, unsettled in his mind. Rarely had he seen such a thing before, not this far beneath, not unless it was a print of his own boot, which this was not. He tried to recall how long had it been since he had taken this particular way to the surface two years, perhaps. He moved on slowly, peering at the ground until he found a print of the toe of the boot, almost too faint to make out in the dim light, for the nearest cl.u.s.ter of toads was now a good way ahead of him. He had to be certain, however, of the thing that he feared he was surprised to feel his heart beating so and so he removed his cape and drew a torch out of his bundle, lighting the beeswax-soaked rope with a lucifer match and shading his eyes from the brightness.

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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 G.o.d, any hint of recognition.

ONE.

MR. TREADWELL AND MR. SNIPS.

"Only 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 a.s.sociates 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 faade, 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.s, 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 bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+rt 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: s.h.i.+pwrights, 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 s.h.i.+llings a day for ten hours work, many of the men working double s.h.i.+fts 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 oak.u.m 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 slos.h.i.+ng 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?"

"I don't know him, unless you mean Sidney Franklin, the prizefighter. I knew him when he was tap-boy at the Lamb and Kid near Newgate. He was a good lad, but had his eye gouged out and his back broke in his bout with Digby Rugger. That put an end to his capers in the ring. He died a beggar."

"I suspect that we're referring to different Franklins. But speaking of pugilists, I'm not entirely fond of your new mate, Mr. Bingham. He's weak, deceptive, and deeply stupid. By 'weak' I refer to his mind, of course."

"His fists have come in handy a time or two. I can keep him on the straight and narrow."

"Can you now? I'll hold you to that. When you go into Kent a week from now, watch him carefully. If he becomes a hazard to navigation, sink him. You'll collect his portion of the profit if you do. The decision is yours to make, although I advise you to consider it thoroughly."

"What if this Professor St. Ives won't play cricket?"

"He will. Harrow's expedition will draw him into London. St. Ives put paid to Narbondo's capers with Lord Moorgate, which cost several of us a pretty penny, and he's a neighbor of the Laswell woman, who, as you know, mustn't be allowed to interfere with our goals, but at the same time St. Ives must not be harmed. I have use for him. I do not resent St. Ives for his efforts, mind you. He's a do-gooder, widely known as an honorable man, which is his chief weakness. That being said, we had best not underestimate his considerable intellect and his penchant for what is commonly called heroics. No, sir. St. Ives can be a right dangerous opponent, although also being a humble man he does not characterize himself that way, which has led others into stupidities, Ignacio Narbondo among them. I repeat that he must not be harmed. As my agent you'll avoid stupidities as you value your life."

TWO.

A GOLDEN AFTERNOON.

It was a rare autumn day in Aylesford, Kent, the year 1884, a cloudless blue sky in November after a long week of Indian summer, the warm breeze stirring the lace curtains through the open cas.e.m.e.nt. Langdon St. Ives sat in his easy chair with his feet on a cus.h.i.+oned footstool, his copy of the Times open on his lap: more news of the vast sink-hole that had collapsed a section of the Victoria Embankment several weeks past, swallowing shops and houses near Blackfriars Bridge.

The collapse had occurred very near the site of the destroyed Cathedral of the Oxford Martyrs, a debacle that had almost cost St. Ives his life a little over a year ago, not to mention the lives of his wife Alice and his son Eddie. The Metropolitan Board of Works had managed to dam the river edge of the sink-hole, stopping the Thames from emptying into it at high tide, and planned to stuff it full of asphalt, sand, and gravel at the first opportunity.

St. Ives gazed out of the window into the far distance where a line of tall beech trees stood along the edge of Boxley Woods. Among the native trees stood copper beeches that must have been planted in a distant age, given their great size, and the air was clear enough today so that St. Ives could see the distinctly purple foliage, still hanging on. He contemplated the turning of the seasons, trying to prevent his mind from straying to the possibility that his own part in the destruction of the Cathedral had caused a subterranean s.h.i.+ft that had ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Embankment. Perhaps the two events were simply coincidental, he thought. Surely they were. Despite his momentary uneasiness, however, the fair weather pleased him, and the mild breeze was like a tonic.

The dormant hops fields in the near distance made a stark contrast to the fields that had flourished with vivid green plants in midsummer. Small hillocks of soil covered the rhizomes and stubs of last year's vines now, all very tidy and ready for cold weather. The dead vines had been burned, and the buds dried in the oast house and delivered to Mr. Laporte, the brewer in Wrotham Heath. Hasbro, St. Ives's long-time friend and factotum, although by now more friend than anything else, had driven away in the wagon half an hour past to collect the several kegs of ale that St. Ives had negotiated in partial payment for the hops. Hasbro's return would add a celebratory air to the already perfect afternoon.

A portion of the fields had been enriched experimentally with elephant dung, of which they had a fair quant.i.ty. Dr. Johnson, their resident Indian elephant, had been a birthday gift from his wife Alice a little over a year ago, and had proved to be an amiable creature, quickly becoming a member of the family and setting up a strong bond with Hodge the cat, with whom it often took a ramble. Finn Conrad, the fifteen-year-old boy who lived in a cottage on the property, was at the moment teaching the elephant to turn a capstan that opened a broad panel in the roof of the barn. Now and then cries of "Ho, Johnson!" and "Heave away, sir!" drifted in through the windows, along with the ratcheting sound of the mechanism that opened and closed the panel.

The dirigible that St. Ives had at one time intended to levitate through the open barn roof had been destroyed beyond repair when he had deliberately sailed the craft through the gla.s.s lid of the doomed Cathedral of the Oxford Martyrs, of which nothing now remained neither of the Cathedral nor the dirigible. That had occurred a year ago last spring, shortly before the coming of the elephant, and the expense of another dirigible was too great to be considered. St. Ives had purchased a hot air balloon in its stead, soon to be delivered, which would make both the elephant and the moveable barn roof eminently sensible.

"I believe I've got it," Alice said, looking up from her work. She was dressed in duck trousers and a blouse of the same linen, the cloth having been washed with stones until it was soft and pliable. She was tall very nearly six feet in her stockings with long black hair, haphazardly arranged. She showed him a tied fly, which she held by the hook, the fly glowing in sunlight through the window. "It's a spring dun fly. What do you think of it?"

"It's a glorious thing. If I were a fish I'd swallow it right down, regardless of the season." Alice looked remarkably attractive in the linen garments, which she wore only around the house her lounging garb, she called it. His lounging garb was an orchid-embroidered Bohemian morning coat, purple velvet, very exotic, but far past the fas.h.i.+on and worn to a perilous extent, the once-plush nap long ago scoured off at the elbows. "What is the wing feather?" he asked.

She regarded the fly with a happy look on her face. "It's from a starling, darling young, before the feather darkens. There's blue, yellow, and brown in it you can see the colors if you look closely and primrose-colored silk wound around the body of the fly, with a strand of yellow over the shaft of the hook. I'm afraid it's too gay by half, but I'm fond of it as an ornament."

Alice was particularly cheerful today, and the joy she took in tying the flies brought out her natural beauty, despite the magnifying goggles that she wore for close work, which made her eyes appear to be uncommonly large. She was rarely unhappy, thank goodness, for she had a formidable temper when she was offended, especially on someone else's behalf, St. Ives's included. She had, in fact, bashed a man in the back of the head with a three-inch-thick oak plank some four years past when she saw that St. Ives was threatened. He rather liked the idea of being married to a woman who could beat him to pieces if she chose to, which she would not, the two of them still being very much in love. He had never been attracted to the hothouse lily sort of woman recommended by Charles d.i.c.kens (nor had Mr. d.i.c.kens been, apparently).

"Is that your Uncle Walton's notion of a trout fly, then?" St. Ives asked. Izaak Walton, famous among fishermen, was Alice's two-centuries-removed uncle. Her Aunt Agatha Walton had been a keen fisherwoman and amateur naturalist. Alice had inherited her pa.s.sion for fis.h.i.+ng from Aunt Agatha, along with her aunt's house and property when the old woman had died two years ago. The fish inhabiting the River Medway, not two hundred yards from their front door, had no doubt celebrated when they heard that Aunt Agatha, their old enemy, had pa.s.sed away. Now they dwelt in fear of Alice.

"No, it's not Uncle Walton's," she said turning back to her desk and picking up a book that had been propped open with a gla.s.s paperweight. Practical Fly Fis.h.i.+ng the book was t.i.tled. "I ordered it from Murphy's catalogue, along with this batch of feathers, hooks, silk, and wire. It's alleged to be irresistible to a trout."

"The book, do you mean? It must make tolerably soggy reading, although perhaps it's all one to a fish."

She removed the goggles and gave him a look of feigned exasperation, but she couldn't maintain it, and her smile returned to her face.

"You're... irresistible yourself today," St. Ives said to her. "We might repair to the bedroom for a nap, if we find ourselves... sleepy." Their children, Eddie and Cleo, had been taken to Scarborough to stay for a week with Alice's grandmother, old Mrs. Tippetts. Mrs. Langley, who was the St. Ives's housekeeper, cook, and nanny, had gone along with them, being great good friends with Grandmother Tippetts. The house was quiet, in other words, and the empty afternoon stretched before them.

"A nap?" Alice asked. "Are you making love to me? You must be, because you've lapsed into euphemism. Make your meaning plain, for goodness' sake. In what sense am I irresistible? I'm wearing linen trousers, after all, that are stained with paint and glue, and my hair appears to have been pinned up by a madwoman. Is it my wit alone that attracts you?"

"Only obscurely," St. Ives said. "It's the magnifying goggles that make my heart race. You have the eyes of a frog when you wear them. You know that I'm partial to frogs."

"I do know that, although I make an effort not to let it worry me, nor am I persuaded by flattery. Is it too early in the day for a gla.s.s of cold shrub? We'll take it upstairs, perhaps, in order to add to the general dissipation, if I've puzzled out your intentions correctly."

"Yes. I mean to say that you've puzzled them out. And it's not at all too early for anything having to do with dissipation. I'll mix a pitcher at once." He stood up and walked toward the kitchen, hearing in that moment someone coming up the porch steps, and through the front window he saw that it was the postman, who, when he opened the door, gave him two letters and a copy of Cornhill Magazine. He set aside the magazine for Finn Conrad. One of the letters from Scarborough was addressed to Alice, and turned out to announce that everyone had arrived safely and that the seaside weather was satisfactory. The other was from their absurdly wealthy friend Gilbert Frobisher, a retired steel magnate and captain of industry who had recently endowed the avian wing of the British Museum's Natural History building: the Bird Wing, as Gilbert referred to it at every opportunity, always happy to laugh at his own witticism. Gilbert was good company, generous to a fault, and his happy laughter often set others to laughing, which made him value his own humor all the more highly.

St. Ives sat down on the footstool and slit the envelope open with his penknife. "A missive from Gilbert Frobisher," he told Alice.

"The answer is no," Alice said. "You know I'm tremendously fond of Gilbert, but if he intends to lure you away from me again, I'll take a very dim view of it. I'm already taking a dim view of it, and I have no idea of the contents of the letter. Surely he doesn't have another excursion planned. The man is mad with doing things, and he seems to have no alternative but to involve his friends. That's the consequence of retiring from more useful work."

"Not at all. He's just himself returned from his second voyage to the Caribbean," St. Ives said to her, "and he's written to say that someone has found a fully preserved great auk in the cavern left by the sink-hole along the Thames."

"That's worth the three-penny stamp, surely."

"You're correct in that regard. The great auk has been extinct for forty years, last seen in Iceland, I believe. Bones and feathers wouldn't have excited anyone beyond a murmur, although it's moderately strange that it was living a subterranean existence. A preserved bird is something else indeed, Alice." St. Ives read further, and then said, "There's some fungal quality to the whole thing that mystifies Gilbert and his friend Dr. James Harrow from the museum. Harrow is quite a learned man, an ornithologist, you know, and a brilliant paleontologist. I run into him now and then at the Bayswater Club. Gilbert wonders whether I might come into the city to take a look at Harrow's auk, given that I published that monograph on Paleolithic avifauna and have a pa.s.sion for mushrooms and their ilk. He's got permission from the Board of Works to explore the sink-hole cavern along with Harrow. There's little time to lose, because the Board of Works is anxious to begin the job of filling the hole and restoring the Embankment, which is currently in perilous condition."