Blaylock, James P - Langdon St Ives 02 (17 page)

 
          
 
"I'm an insurance agent," he said,
glancing back down the hallway.
"Lloyd's.
There's
a question or two ..."

 
          
 
"Of course," I said. So that was it.
Captain Bowker was under investigation. I swung the door open and in he came,
looking around the room with a slightly appalled face, as if the place was
littered with dead pigs, say, and they were starting to stink. I didn't like
him at all, insurance agent or not.

 
          
 
He started in on me, grilling me, as they say.
"You were seen talking to Captain Bowker today."

 
          
 
I nodded.

 
          
 
"About what?"

 
          
 
"Ice," I said. "My name is Adam
Benbow, from up in Harrogate. I'm a fish importer down on holiday."

 
          
 
He nodded. He was easier to fool than the
captain had been. I was bothered, though, by the vague suspicion that I had
gotten my name wrong. I had, of course. This morning it had been Abner. I could
hardly correct it, though, not now. And how would he know anyway? What
difference did my name make to him?

 
          
 
"We're investigating the incident of the
downed ship. Did you talk to him about that?"

 
          
 
"Which ship?"

 
          
 
"The Landed
Catch,
sunk off Dover days ago. What do you know about that ship?"

 
          
 
"Not a thing. I read about it in the
papers, of course. Who hasn't?"

 
          
 
"Are you acquainted with a man named
Langdon St. Ives?" he asked abruptly. He half spun around when he said
this, as if to take me by surprise.

 
          
 
It worked, too. I sputtered there for a
moment, blinking at him. And when I said, "Langdon who?" the attempt
was entirely worthless. I was as transparent as window glass.

 
          
 
He acted as if I had admitted everything.
"We believe that Mr. St. Ives is also investigating the business of the
Landed Catch, and we're wondering why."

 
          
 
"I'm sure I don't know. Who was it again?
Saint what?" It was worthless pretending, and I knew it. I had to dummy
up, though. I wasn't about to answer the man's questions. St. Ives could do
that for himself. On the other hand, I suppose it was pointless to insist that
I didn't know St. Ives. The man was onto my game, what with the false names and
the Harrogate business.

 
          
 
"What did you see, exactly, at the
icehouse?"

 
          
 
''See?
Nothing.
The
man wouldn't allow me in. He seemed anxious, to tell you the truth.
Like he didn't want me snooping around.
He has something to
hide there; you can take that much from me."

 
          
 
"Something to hide, you think?"

 
          
 
"Bank on it."

 
          
 
The man nodded, suddenly jolly, grinning at
me. "I think you're right," he said. "He's hiding something
horrible, is what I think. These are dangerous waters.
Very
rocky and shallow.
He's a subtle man, Captain Bowker is. My advice is to
steer clear of him. Leave him to us. He'll be in Newgate Prison waiting to
swing, if only for this morning's shooting."

 
          
 
I must have jerked my eyes open when he said
this last, for he grinned at the look on my face and nodded, pursing his lips
so that his mouth almost disappeared. "You were a lucky man," he
said. "But you're safe now. We're onto him, watching him from every angle.
You don't have to hide in your room like this."

 
          
 
"I wasn't hiding, actually. I . . ."

 
          
 
"Of course, you weren't," he said,
turning toward the door. "Quite a welcome you've had. Don't blame you.
Look me up.
Binker Street
."

 
          
 
He was out the door then, striding away down
the hall. I shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed, studying things out.
I understood nothing—less than before. I was vaguely happy, though, that someone
was watching the captain. Of course it must have been him who had fired the
shot—him and his cowboy upbringing and all.
Much more likely
than my hansom cab lunatic.
I could see that now.

 
          
 
There was another knocking on the door. It's
the agent, I thought, back again. But it wasn't. It was the landlady with a
basket of fruit. What a pleasant surprise, I remember thinking, taking the
basket from her.
"Grape?"
I asked, but she
shook her head.

 
          
 
"There's a note in it," she said,
nodding at the basket.

 
          
 
From Dorothy, I thought, suddenly glad that
I'd made the reservation at The Hoisted Pint. Absence was making hearts grow
fonder.
And quickly, too.
I'd only left that morning.
There was the corner of an envelope, sticking up through the purple grapes and
wedged in between a couple of tired-looking apples. The whole lot of fruit lay
atop a bed of coconut fiber in a too-heavy and too-deep basket.

 
          
 
It was the muffled ticking that did the trick,
though—the ticking of an infernal machine, hidden in the basket of fruit.

 
          
 
My breath caught, and I nearly dropped the
basket and leaped out the door. But I couldn't do that. It would bring down the
hotel, probably with me still in it. I hopped across to the window, looking
down on what must have been a half-dozen people, including St. Ives and Hasbro,
who were right then heading up the steps. I couldn't just pitch it out onto
everybody's heads.

 
          
 
So I sprinted for the door, yanking it open
and leaping out into the hallway. My heart slammed away, flailing like an
engine, and without bothering to knock I threw open the door to the room
kitty-corner to my own, and surprised an old man who sat in a chair next to a
fortuitously open casement, reading a book.

 
          
 
It was Parsons, not wearing his fishing garb
anymore.

 
          
 
PARSONS LEAPED UP, wild with surprise to see
me rushing at him like that, carrying my basket. "It's a bomb!" I
shouted. "Step aside!" and I helped him do it, too, with my elbow. He
sprawled toward the bed, and I swung the basket straight through the open
casement and into the bay in a long, low arc. If there had been boats
roundabout, I believe I would have let it go anyway. It wasn't an act of
heroics by that time; it was an act of desperation, of getting the ticking
basket out of my hand and as far away from me as possible.

 
          
 
It exploded. Wham! Just like that, a foot
above the water, which geysered up around the sailing fragments of basket and
fruit. Everything rained down, and then there was the splashing back and forth
of little colliding waves. Parsons stood behind me, taking in the whole
business, half scowling, half surprised. I took a couple of calming breaths,
but they did precious little good. My hand—the one that had held the basket—
was shaking treacherously, and I sat down hard in Parsons's chair.

 
          
 
"Sorry," I said to him.
"Didn't mean to barge in."
But he waved it away as
if he saw the necessity of it. It was obvious that the device had been destined
to go out through the window and into the sea. There had been no two ways about
it. I could hardly have tucked it under my coat and forgotten about it. He
stared for a moment out the window and then said, ''Down on holiday," in a
flat voice, repeating what I'd said to him on the pier that morning and
demonstrating that, like everyone else, he had seen through me all along. I
cleared my throat, thinking in a muddle, and just then, as if to save me, St.
Ives and Hasbro rushed in, out of breath because of having sprinted up the
stairs when they'd heard the explosion.

 
          
 
The sight of Parsons standing there struck St.
Ives dumb, I believe. The professor knew that Parsons was lurking roundabout,
because I'd told him, but here, at the Apple? And what had Parsons to do with
the explosion, and what had I to do with Parsons?

 
          
 
There was no use this time in Parsons's simply
muttering, "Good day," and seeing us all out the door. It was time
for talking turkey, as Captain Bowker would have put it. Once again, I was the
man with the information. I told them straight off about the insurance agent.

 
          
 
"And he knew my name?" said St.
Ives, cocking his head.

 
          
 
"That's right. He seemed to know
..." I stopped and glanced at Parsons, who was listening closely.

 
          
 
St. Ives continued for me. "He made sure
who you were, and he found out that you had suspicions about what was going on
at the icehouse, and then he left. And a moment later the basket arrived."

 
          
 
I nodded and started to tell the story my way,
to put the right edge on it, but St. Ives turned to Parsons and, without giving
me half a chance, said, "See here. We're not playing games anymore. I'm
going to tell you, flat out and without my beating about the bush, that we know
about Lord Kelvin's machine being stolen. A baby could piece that business
together, what with the debacle down on the Embankment, the flying iron and
all. What could that have been but an electromagnet of astonishing strength?
There's no use your being coy about it any longer. I've got a sneaking hunch
what they've done with it, too. Let's put everything straight. I'll tell you
what I know, and you tell me what you know, and together maybe we'll see to the
bottom of this murky well."

 
          
 
Parsons held his hands out in a theatrical
gesture of helplessness. "I'm down here to catch a fish," he said.
"It's you who are throwing bombs through the window. You seem to attract
those sorts of things—bombs and bullets."

 
          
 
St. Ives gave Parsons a weary glance. Then he
said to me, "This agent. Jack, what did he look like?"

 
          
 
"Tall and thin, and
with a hooknose.
He was bald under his hat, and his hair stuck out over
his ears like a chimney sweep's brush."

 
          
 
Parsons looked as though he'd been
electrocuted. He started to say something, hesitated, started up again, and
then, pretending that it didn't much matter to him anyway, said, "Stooped,
was he?"

 
          
 
I nodded.

 
          
 
"Tiny mouth, like a
bird?"

 
          
 
"That's right."

 
          
 
Parsons sagged. It was a gesture of resignation.
We waited him out. "That wasn't any insurance agent."

 
          
 
The news didn't surprise anyone. Of course it
hadn't been an insurance agent. St. Ives had seen that at once. The man's mind
is honed like a knife. Insurance agents don't send bombs around disguised as
fruit baskets. We waited for Parsons to tell us who the man was, finally, to
quit his tiresome charade, but he stood there chewing it over in his mind,
calculating how much he could say.