The Burying Ground (23 page)

But then he wondered if he should retrieve them at all. If he delivered them up to Lavinia, would she really leave Perry alone? Would she and Cherub dig up the money and leave the country, never to be heard of again? Or would she merely present him with another demand, another extortion, another threat? Without doubt, the safest course of action would be to keep the secret to himself. If Hands ever discovered what Lavinia was up to, the trail would lead straight to Yorkville and Thaddeus. Luke would save Perry if he could, but not if it put his father in danger. He would have to do some careful thinking before he did anything at all.

He went back to the lodge where Sally had joined Thaddeus at the table.

“What do you think?” Thaddeus asked.

“I think the best place to wait is by the chapel.”

“Agreed. You can go first.”

Luke could see that his father had settled comfortably with the teapot. In fact, Thaddeus seemed supremely comfortable with his new pastime of drinking tea in the Spicer kitchen whenever he could. Luke was sorry that he had been so little company for Thaddeus since they'd come to Yorkville. There had been so many difficulties, so many preoccupations. But these were being cleared away, one by one, and Luke resolved that from then on he would make more time for his father. Time was something he would now have with the epidemic over. And with no Perry to distract him.

Sally went to bed at ten. “If anything happens, give a shout,” she said. “Morgan will be disappointed if he misses any excitement.”

“I'll try, but I can't promise. A shout would warn intruders, as well,” Thaddeus pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose it would, wouldn't it?” She sighed. “Poor Morgan, he's been so overwrought by this whole thing. You'd think someone was trying to walk off with one of the twins, the way he's been carrying on.”

“We'll do our best to alert him if anything happens,” Luke promised.

Shortly after eleven o'clock, Thaddeus dragged his chair over to the window. “I'll watch from here,” he said. “You can go outside.”

The last thing Luke felt like doing was sitting in the damp grass, but he supposed that having suggested the idea of posting a guard in the graveyard, the least he could do was to play out the charade. He grabbed the old fustian overcoat he had brought with him and walked out to the chapel, hunkering down in the lee of it as best he could. Lavinia said that Hands would be along for his money sooner rather than later, but Luke doubted that anything would happen on the one evening he had decided to lie in wait. He pulled his hat down over his head as far as he could and pushed the collar of his coat up to protect the back of his neck against the damp chill of the August night.

While he waited, his mind wandered around and through the events of the past few days. They had been momentous, on any number of counts. He no longer had to fear that some strange intelligence would reach Dr. Christie's ears and endanger not only his employment, but his future prospects. He had solved Morgan Spicer's puzzle, and Lavinia Van Hansel's as well. Quite by accident, of course, and he could scarcely tell anyone about it or claim the victory, but it was an accomplishment nonetheless. On the other hand, he had once again embroiled himself and his father in the affairs of one of Toronto's most dangerous men and managed to destroy a friendship that had barely begun. The life of a village doctor was proving to be anything but uneventful.

As he waited, Luke felt himself drifting into a half-conscious doze, his thoughts darting here and there until, unexpectedly, they settled on the causes of typhoid fever. He knew the outbreak in Yorkville had to be related to the summer's drought, and although current medical convention pointed a finger at Toronto's sewer, the facts as Luke knew them didn't quite fit this theory. The Spicers used city water regularly, yet none of them had fallen ill. The Christie household did as well; in fact, most of the citizens of Yorkville were dependent on Toronto water. Not so in the villages farther north. Most people there had wells. Not all of them were inexhaustible like the one in Daniel Cummer's willow grove, and Thaddeus said that he had seen people taking water from the millponds. But there had been far fewer cases of typhoid in the north.

What were the other sources of water in Yorkville? There were any number of streams and creeks that meandered across the escarpment, Luke knew, but they had dried away to nothing in the drought. When they were running they spilled into the ravines below and from there to the waters of the Don River — except where they were held up by the dam that created the pond by the brewery. The pond that Andrew Holden had grubbed through, looking for specimens to sell to Christie.

Luke's first patient had been Andrew Holden's son.

We all supply him
, Andrew had said.
I sold him a big bullfrog in the spring.
Had Andrew been infected with typhoid at the pond and somehow carried it to his son? But then why hadn't Andrew himself fallen ill? Had Caleb Johnson gone hunting there, too? Caleb had been his mother's only source of income. It stood to reason that he would try to bring in a few extra coins by catering to the local doctor's eccentric hobby.

The miasmic fumes from every privy and commode and fouled creek, and even from the decomposing bodies of the Burying Ground itself, must somehow be carried down through the layers of rock to concentrate in the pond below. Was it possible to be infected just by dabbling in polluted water? Luke's medical training told him that this was nonsense. Infection was carried through the air, not the water. Still, he thought, Christie should tell his hunters to stay away from the pond, just in case. Tell them to look for something besides toads and salamanders.

And then his mind finally grew weary of problems and he slept.

He had no idea how much time passed, except that when he came fully to again, the moon was shining through a thin veil of clouds. He looked around at the bizarre shadows cast by the swaying branches and the marble gravestones. These were almost perfect conditions for a covert midnight raid.

And then, as if he had conjured it, he saw a light bobbing by the cemetery's northern boundary fence.

He rolled over onto his knees and glanced at the window of the lodge. There was no way to tell if Thaddeus was watching, and no way to creep to the back door without running the risk of alerting the intruders. Luke would wait to make a move, he decided, until they got a little closer. Then he could only hope that his father hadn't simply fallen asleep in his chair.

The light disappeared and for a moment he thought he'd been mistaken, that it was simply someone walking along the side of the building adjacent to the Burying Ground. Then, as the moon broke fully free from a cloud, he could just make out two figures creeping into the graveyard. They had needed the lantern, he realized, to provide light to climb the fence.

He watched as the two worked their way across the vacant section of ground, and then they veered suddenly and he lost sight of them. Moving as carefully as he could so as not to make any noise that might signal his presence, he rose to his feet and stepped to the other side of the chapel. He had trouble locating the figures again in the darkness until he caught a glint of light from the shuttered lantern. They were stopped at a grave not far from Isaiah Marshall's, in a row where Luke had found three stones with marks scratched on the back. He listened for the sound of shovel striking earth, but the wind had risen and the rustle of leaves masked any noise the men made. It would be easy digging tonight. The ground was soft and sodden from the recent rain.

He glanced back at the lodge in time to see the door open slightly. Thaddeus was awake after all, and judging from his caution, he had seen the lantern, as well, but his view of the trespassers' current position would be blocked by the chapel. Luke stepped back until he was sure he was out of sight, then waved his arm at Thaddeus. He was unsure what to do. If they rushed at the men now, they were likely to be outrun, and the opportunity to apprehend them would be lost. He debated creeping over to the lodge to consult with his father, but then he would run the risk of being seen. He glanced at the lodge again. Thaddeus was motioning him to move to the rear of the chapel. Luke sidled along the stone wall until he reached the corner of the rear wall. From this position he would be able to more effectively cut off the intruders, should they bolt the same way they had come. Luke wasn't sure what his father had in mind, but he crouched, tensed and alert. He would be ready for whatever it was.

Now he could hear the faint
scritch scritch
of a shovel, then a muttered oath, followed by the hissed admonition, “Shut your trap, Cuddy.”

After long minutes of watching, Luke had to step back from the corner and stretch his limbs, cramped already from his inadvertent doze and made worse by his hunched position by the wall. Then he peeked around the corner again as he heard the dull thud of the shovel striking wood. He glanced at the lodge door, but could discern no signal from Thaddeus. Surely his father would make a move soon. The grave robbers were well and truly caught in the act now.

Then, as the moon rose a little higher in the sky, Luke saw someone climb over the fence that separated the cemetery from the Tollgate Road. He shot a glance at the intruders. Only the head and shoulders of one of them was visible. He was well down in the hole he'd dug. The other stood over him, but his attention was fixed on the metal box that his accomplice was handing up to him and he didn't notice that someone was creeping toward him through the shadows cast by the stone monuments.

It was Morgan Spicer. Thaddeus must have sent him out the front door of the lodge to make his way along the front of the Burying Ground. As Luke watched, Morgan snaked stealthily closer, until he was no more than twenty feet from the grave. Suddenly he jumped up and shouted. The man holding the lantern dropped it and ran toward the back fence, the other scrambling out of the grave to follow him. Luke broke into a barreling sprint across the graveyard, vaulting headstones as he ran. When he shouted, the intruders realized he was on a course to intercept them and they abruptly changed direction, running for the west corner of the grounds. Morgan anticipated this move and was there to cut them off. And then suddenly Thaddeus appeared from behind the chapel, blocking their exit to the south.

The men circled around Morgan, hoping still to reach the western fence, but in the dark and their hurry, they failed to see the mound of earth that was heaped up over Caleb Johnson's grave. One of them tripped over the end of it and tumbled to the ground. The other stopped to help him to his feet.

The man's head was down, focused on lifting his partner, and he didn't see Thaddeus running at him from one side, or anticipate the bone-jarring tackle that knocked him flying. Luke ran forward, too, ready to jump on either of the culprits should they attempt to rise.

But the men lay there, blinking and confused by the sudden ambush.

“Who are you?” Morgan demanded. “Why are you digging up my graves?”

Thaddeus grabbed the lantern, unshuttering it to cast full light on the men's faces. One of them was Hands, just as Luke expected, but he was taken aback to realize that he knew the other as well. It was the same man who had been in the cabinet-maker's yard the night Hands was shot, the same man who had chased the Lewises halfway across Toronto. The man on whom Luke sicced a guard dog so they could get away. The scars were still there on his face — ugly, sunken welts that had healed badly over the flesh that had been ripped away. Hands would not be the only one wanting revenge on the Lewises.

Hands looked in bewilderment from Thaddeus to Luke. It was Cuddy who recognized them. “I know you. I know you both!” His face settled into an angry sneer. “You're the two who set the dog on me. Hands and I have been looking for you. And here you are, fallen right into our laps.”

“I think you've fallen into ours,” Thaddeus pointed out. “We'll be sending for the constable now.”

“I don't think so,” Cuddy said. And then, before anyone could step forward to grab his arm, he pulled out a gun and waved it menacingly at Luke and Thaddeus. He scrambled to his feet, and then, still pointing the gun, reached down with one hand to pull his boss upright.

Van Hansel retrieved his hat and brushed the mud from his trousers before he fixed Thaddeus with an appraising stare. “It is you. Well, well, well. Where's the girl? The one who shot me?”

“Long gone,” Thaddeus said. “I have no idea what happened to her.”

She had fled across the border, Luke knew. Surely she was safe now, or was Hands's reach that long? He didn't know, but he would follow his father's lead and claim ignorance of her fate.

“We'll have to see if we can help your memory along a little,” Hands said. “And I expect Cuddy wouldn't mind some time alone with the pair of you, as well. You quite ruined his good looks when you sicced that dog on him, you know. He may want a little revenge of his own. Turn around and walk slowly toward the gate.”

Thaddeus appeared to stumble a little as he turned, and Luke reached out to steady him. Morgan had been standing to one side, seemingly forgotten, and as soon as Cuddy's attention was drawn by Thaddeus's movement, he rushed forward. But he was a little too far away to take Cuddy by surprise, and too small to knock him down. Hands caught at Morgan's jacket as he flew by. It was enough to send Spicer tumbling to the ground. Hands dropped on top of him, dug his knee into Morgan's stomach, and transferred the grip of his good hand to Morgan's throat.

“I've got him, Cuddy,” Hands said. “You take care of the other two.”

Cuddy waved the gun. “Start walking, and no funny business this time” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

They had taken only a step or two when the night erupted with shouts. Luke heard Sally yell, “Get back here!” He heard the shrieks of small children. He heard Cuddy yell, “What the …” And he heard Hands's roar at Morgan to hold still. After that everything seemed to happen at once. Four small children shot past the chapel, their white nightgowns billowing out behind them. They looked rather like angels, Luke thought, identical freckled angels spilling out from the tiny church to exact their vengeance on the mortals before them. Or demons, maybe, risen up from the depths of the graves. Either way, they presented an unsettling spectacle.