A Very Peculiar Plague (18 page)

Instead, she became a little overbearing.

‘Kindly refrain from making remarks like that, Jem,’ she scolded. ‘It is not seemly to draw attention to another person’s moment of weakness.’ Before Jem could do more than pull a sour face, she turned to Alfred. ‘What is your plan, Mr Bunce? Do you want us in the scullery?’

‘Not yet,’ Alfred replied. Then he addressed the two children. ‘’Tis a long room, and a narrow one. I’ll be laying a ring o’ salt at each end, then standing in the middle, by the door.’

Jem blinked. Birdie exclaimed, ‘There’ll be
two
circles?’

‘Aye.’ Alfred paused, then added, ‘In case there’s two bogles.’

‘Oh,’ said Birdie.

‘T’ain’t likely,’ Alfred went on, ‘but we must be prepared.’

‘And how do you propose to prepare for two bogles?’ Miss Eames demanded, with an edge to her voice. Jem could tell that she disapproved of the whole enterprise. When he looked at her stiff posture, her white face, and the fierce way her black brows were knitted over her flashing eyes, he was amazed that she had come at all.

During their brief wait in the infirmary, while Alfred was smoking and Miss Eames was pacing up and down, Birdie had revealed to Jem (in an undertone) that there had been a raging argument at Mrs Heppinstall’s house. ‘Miss Eames said as how I wasn’t to come,’ Birdie had whispered, ‘so I told her I’d come no matter what. And then she said she’d lock me in my room, and I said I’d get out. But it were Mr Bunce as made her see reason. He told her it would be safer for
you
if I came, since there might be two bogles. And he asked her if she wanted to see such monsters roaming loose in a school.’

Remembering this, Jem wasn’t surprised when Alfred gravely informed Miss Eames, before entering the passage, that he would be using Jem as reserve bait in case more than one bogle came through the scullery door. ‘The first’ll be heading straight for Birdie,’ Alfred said, ‘but if a second comes in afore its mate’s bin dealt with, Jem’ll lure it to the opposite end o’ the room.’ Hearing Jem gasp, the bogler quickly tried to reassure him. ‘You’ll be in a closed circle, lad. There won’t be no gap for the bogle to break through. Understand?’

‘Ye-e-es . . .’

‘I’m reckoning it’ll stand puzzled just long enough for me to kill the other,’ Alfred continued. ‘Providing you sing to it, Jem.’

‘And if you’re wrong?’ Miss Eames interrupted.

‘If I’m wrong, the lad’ll be safe enough. He’ll have salt all round him, like a wall of iron.’

‘But what if salt don’t work no more?’ Jem’s voice was a high-pitched squeak. ‘If they’re hunting in packs now, mebbe other things have changed as well . . .’

Alfred dismissed Jem’s fears with an impatient gesture. ‘If the salt should fail, you’re as fast as a ferret. I’ve no fears for you.’ He glanced at Birdie. ‘And you’re to join the lad in his circle, if you cannot reach the door.’

Birdie nodded in a businesslike manner.

‘What must
I
do?’ Miss Eames wanted to know. ‘Block the entrance?’

‘You’re to stay out here,’ Alfred replied. Then he began to address the whole group, his gaze moving solemnly from face to face. ‘Arter what happened in the viaduct, I ain’t about to take no chances. Which is why you’ll all stay mum while I’m in the scullery, laying down the salt. For we don’t want no bogles popping up ahead o’ time, do we?’

Jem shook his head. He couldn’t have said a word even if he’d wanted to; his mouth was too dry. Something about the dark, echoing kitchen made him very nervous. So he stayed close to Miss Eames, sweaty and silent, as Alfred busied himself in the scullery. No one spoke for at least ten minutes. The only sound was the sighing of wind in the chimneys.

When at last Jem and Birdie were allowed into the passage, they had to scurry past Alfred – who stood with his spear in his hand and his back to them both, on the threshold of the empty larder. It was a nasty moment. The passage was pitch black, and as narrow as a drainpipe. But it opened onto a room much bigger than any normal scullery: a long, damp, windowless space with a vaulted roof and strange niches everywhere. Jem realised at once that this room hadn’t been built as a scullery. There weren’t enough shelves, for one thing. The sink looked like an afterthought, and the light was very bad. As for the large, iron rings embedded in the ceiling, Jem couldn’t imagine what
they
were for. Hanging runaway boys, perhaps?

Luckily, the rings were placed within easy reach of each other, so Jem knew that he could always use them to swing along like a monkey if he had no other choice. But the closed circle of salt wasn’t quite so comforting. It lay to his right as he walked through the door – and it looked much smaller than the unfinished circle to his left.

He found himself hoping that the bogle wouldn’t have very long arms.

‘Ssst!’ Alfred had positioned himself beside the door to the passage. He hissed at Birdie, then waved her towards the larger ring of salt. Jem immediately went to stand inside the smaller ring. He kept his eyes on the door, which was the only way out. Alfred’s glowing lantern had been left in a far corner. So had his hat and bogler’s bag.

Jem took off his own cap just as Birdie burst into song.

Oh! ’Twas on the deep Atlantic, in the equinoctial gales,

That a young feller fell overboard, among the sharks and whales;

He fell right down so quickly – so headlong down fell he –

That he went out o’ sight like a streak o’ light, to the bottom o’ the deep blue sea.

In such a confined space, Birdie’s voice seemed incredibly loud. She looked too small to be producing a noise so clear and powerful, as she stood with her back to Alfred, a little mirror flashing in her hand. Jem couldn’t see her face from his side of the room. All he could see was a slim, dark silhouette, touched here and there with gold where her hair was spilling from beneath the brim of her bowler hat.

But he knew that he shouldn’t be letting his eyes stray towards Birdie. His job was to watch the door. So he concentrated on the rectangular void beside Alfred, while Birdie filled the air with a cascade of silvery notes.

The boats went out to look for him, and we thought

to find his corpse;

When he came to the top with a bang and sung in a voice sepulchrally hoarse,

‘Oh, my comrades and my messmates all, pray, do not grieve for me,

‘For I’m married to a mermaid at the bottom o’ the deep blue sea.’

Jem wondered vaguely if Birdie had learned the song from her singing-master. He didn’t recognise the tune, though it had a jaunty, popular ring to it. No doubt Josiah Lubbock would have known its name; he was probably familiar with all the latest music-hall compositions . . .

Jem hadn’t yet told Alfred that he’d had dealings with the showman. Though there’d been plenty of time to come clean while they were all in the infirmary, patiently waiting, somehow Jem had been unable to broach the subject – perhaps because he’d feared that Alfred wouldn’t take it well. Jem was dreading the bogler’s reaction. It would be harsh, he knew. There would be heated words. A beating, perhaps. Even dismissal . . .?

Jem suddenly caught himself teetering on the very brink of despair – and realised that the bogle must be nearby. It had to be; nothing else could have made him feel like this. And Birdie, he noticed, had become slightly breathless.

He told us how when he first went down, the fishes all came round he,

And they seemed to think, as they stared at him, that he made uncommon free;

But down he went, he didn’t know how, and he thought, ‘It’s all up with me!’,

When he came to a lovely mermaid at the bottom o’ the deep, blue—

The bogle moved fast. One moment everything was still; then a blurred shape burst over the threshold. Jem caught a glimpse of pulsing red bladders – peeled pink flesh – grinning layers of teeth. He saw giant claws lunge towards Birdie.

A split second later, Alfred moved. There was a flash of white salt. Birdie jumped. The bogle roared. Alfred hurled his spear.

The
BANG
was deafening. It was so loud that Jem blacked out.

When he came to his senses a moment later, he was flat on the floor, staring up at an iron ring in the ceiling. For a moment he lay there, stunned. Then he remembered the bogle and sat bolt upright, gasping for breath.

Across the room Alfred was climbing to his feet. Miss Eames had suddenly appeared; she was bending over Birdie, who was on her knees, looking dazed. Though Miss Eames was moving her mouth, Jem couldn’t hear her. Not through the ringing in his ears.

There was no sign of the bogle. It hadn’t left a single stain, smell or scratch. And no other bogle had emerged from the larder to take its place.

‘
Bzzzz-bzzz-bzzz-bzzz
,’ Miss Eames was saying. But Birdie was shaking her head irritably, like a dog with ear canker.

Baulked, Miss Eames turned to Alfred. ‘
Bzzz-bzzz-
wrong?’ she asked, her voice hoarse with dismay. ‘What was that terrible noise?’

Alfred didn’t reply. He was too busy grimacing as he thumped one side of his head with the heel of his hand. So Jem spoke for him.

‘It were a bogle,’ said Jem. ‘It popped.’ Then, relieved that he hadn’t gone deaf after all, he added, ‘We should get out, afore another comes along.’

‘I don’t expect there’ll be another,’ Birdie croaked. ‘Ain’t nothing like a dead friend to put you off yer food, and I don’t believe there’s a bogle in all London as didn’t hear
that
one die.’

‘All the same, we shouldn’t dawdle,’ said Alfred. And he glanced nervously over his shoulder.

22
TELLING THE TRUTH

Miss Eames insisted that they all take the same hackney cab. It wouldn’t put her out, she said; Drury Lane was practically on the way to Bloomsbury. And a cab ride would be
much
more comfortable than a long, crowded trip on an omnibus.

But she was wrong. The cab wasn’t comfortable. It was old and rickety, with broken springs and horsehair sprouting from its seats. The driver kept losing his way. And though everyone was shaken and speechless at the start of the trip, it wasn’t long before squabbling broke out.

Jem was the first to break the silence. He baldly asked for his cut of Alfred’s twelve-shilling fee. Without a word of protest, Alfred handed over sixpence. But when he offered the same sum to Birdie, Miss Eames said, ‘This is the last time. Forgive me, Mr Bunce, but I am fast losing patience. You promised that there would be no more bogling, yet here we are once again, shocked and bruised from another dreadful incident . . .’

Birdie turned bright red. Before she could say anything, however, Alfred frowned at her. For a moment their gazes locked. Then she swallowed whatever was on the tip of her tongue.

‘Why, we haven’t even solved the mystery of the Newgate-Street plague!’ Miss Eames went on. ‘I thought we agreed that you would cease work until we could account for this infestation—’

‘It ain’t just Newgate Street,’ Jem interrupted. As Miss Eames stared at him in the pale light of the carriage lamps, he said, ‘The viaduct’s on High Holborn, remember? And Smithfield Market’s up the end o’ Giltspur—’

‘Smithfield Market?’ Miss Eames cut him off. She glanced from Jem to Alfred, both of whom were sitting opposite her. ‘Have you killed a bogle at the market, recently?’

‘No.’ Alfred took a deep breath. Then, looking her straight in the eye, he admitted, ‘I’ve a job there tomorrow morning.’

Miss Eames flushed.

‘But I’ll not ask Birdie to help me,’ Alfred quickly added. ‘You can be sure o’ that.’

‘She
cannot
help you!’ Miss Eames exclaimed. ‘She has a singing lesson!’

‘Which I could easily miss,’ said Birdie.

Alfred shook his head. ‘Nay, lass.’

‘I could!’

‘You could not.’ His tone was harsh. ‘’Twould be ungrateful. And needless.’ Seeing Birdie open her mouth again, he lifted his hand to silence her. ‘I’ll take Ned.’

‘
Ned!
’ Birdie scoffed. Even Jem was startled.

‘Ned’s already in work,’ he reminded Alfred.

‘Aye. But I’ve chink enough to recompense his master for a day’s absence.’ Alfred paused as the cab hit a rut and threw its passengers to one side. Only after he’d righted himself did he proceed. ‘Ned’s no stranger to bogles. And he ain’t the type to lose his head.’

It was true. Jem had to agree that Ned was a sensible fellow.

‘I still don’t see why you have to do this at
all
,’ Miss Eames protested. ‘Why not wait until we have more information?’ She was speaking to Alfred, her unsteady voice pitched high above the rattle of the wheels. Alfred grimaced. He seemed to be looking for the right words.

It was Jem who finally answered.

‘
I
have more information,’ he volunteered. ‘There’s two bogles on Warwick Lane. One’s in a beer cellar and one’s in the vaults under Newgate Market. I ain’t so sure about the market, but three kids was living in the beer cellar, and they disappeared one day without taking their dunnage with ’em.’

There was a moment’s shocked silence as everyone absorbed this news. Then Birdie demanded, ‘How do
you
know?’

‘I went knocking on doors today, searching for bogles,’ Jem revealed. ‘But I didn’t get no further’n Warwick Lane.’

‘Warwick Lane?’ said Miss Eames. ‘That runs beside Newgate Prison, surely?’ When Jem nodded (surprised that she should be interested in the actual street rather than what he’d found on it), she added, ‘I did wonder if the prison might attract bogles. It is, after all, a place of great misery and despair, full of evil and dissolute men. Could the traditional belief that bogles are demons have its roots in more than their fondness for dark holes? Perhaps they also prefer locations known for death and wickedness . . .’

She looked at Alfred, her eyebrows raised. All he did, however, was shrug.

‘It
could
be the hangings they like,’ Birdie allowed. ‘Or it could be the butchers. There’s a good many butchers doing business around the markets, thereabouts, and for all
we
know, they’re slaughtering their own beef . . .’