The Black Country tms-2 Read online

  “But if that’s the case, then we have no clues at all. So let’s assume it means something unless and until we discover that it doesn’t.”

  “We don’t even know that this is meant to be Mrs Price. Or, if it is, where the other two are. Mr Price and the boy.”

  “No.”

  “And who is the man she mentions? ‘He means well.’”

  “Yes. But she says ‘He means no harm.’ It could be Mr Price.”

  “That doesn’t tell us where he is. This is a maddeningly imprecise note, Mr Day.”

  “But I don’t think she means Mr Price. She was nervous, positively jumping out of her chair.”

  “Well, three people have disappeared from her village.”

  “She was standing next to her husband the entire time. She kept the note a secret from him.”

  “Her husband.”

  “The vicar. Mr Brothwood.”

  “This is getting us nowhere.”

  “Not entirely,” Day said. “We’ll want to examine that rectory. And we’ll want to do it without letting Mr Brothwood know that his wife gave us this note.”

  “We don’t owe her anything.”

  “No, we don’t. But we have no reason to make her life more difficult. She’s clearly already upset about all this. We’ll tread carefully.”

  “Not so carefully that the little boy dies while we’re being polite to the vicar and his wife.”

  Day sighed. “Of course not. Sometimes, Mr Hammersmith, your single-mindedness is just the slightest bit maddening.”

  Hammersmith grinned and pulled another chunk of bread off the roll on his plate.

  “Is it good?” Day said.

  “Hmm?”

  “The groaty dick.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. I didn’t notice right off, but it has a curious aftertaste. And I feel a bit dizzy.”

  “It’s been a long day, and it’s colder here than it was in London.”

  “True enough, but I’ve been drugged before, and this has the same feel about it.”

  “Drugged? You’ve said nothing about being drugged as we’ve sat here discussing mysterious notes and rectories.”

  “It may not be drugged. I’m only mentioning the possibility that there may be something in the groaty dick.”

  “And if there is? Rose poisoned us?”

  “I think perhaps someone did.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine. I had a bite or two, that’s all, but I recommend you eat only the bread.”

  “I feel all right. I don’t think there’s anything in the beer.”

  “Good. It was probably meant to disguise the taste of the drug. The bitterness.”

  Day rummaged in his suitcase and brought out his Colt revolver. He checked the chamber and nodded.

  “We’ll go downstairs and confront Rose,” he said.

  “What if we don’t?”

  “You mean, let him think he’s drugged us?”

  “Just that.”

  “He’ll know he’s failed when we continue to tramp about his village alive and well.”

  “I don’t think he meant to kill us.”

  “It wouldn’t make a lot of sense, would it?”

  “London would only send more men if we both died or disappeared.”

  “Perhaps the poison is only in your food. They don’t seem to like you here.”

  Hammersmith reached and picked up Day’s bowl. He sniffed it and dipped a spoon into its murky brown depths.

  “Don’t,” Day said. “If it’s got the drug in it-”

  “A bite won’t hurt me. I have the constitution of an ox.”

  Hammersmith tasted Day’s pudding. He spit the bite back into the bowl and smacked his lips. “That’s thoroughly unpleasant,” he said. “He’s overdone it. I don’t suppose he’s ever poisoned anyone before.”

  “And, as you pointed out,” Day said, “the beer might have masked the flavor of the drug.”

  “So we were both meant to succumb.”

  “It would appear so.”

  Hammersmith stood and gripped his truncheon. “This does seem to be a clear indication of Mr Rose’s guilt, sir.”

  “Sit down, Sergeant. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to arrest him just yet.”

  “But I do want to arrest him.”

  “For slipping something in our food?”

  “Well, yes. That seems sufficient grounds.”

  “But without a reason.”

  “Well, sir, we can ask him his reasons once he’s in custody.”

  “Or we can wait and see why he wanted us out of the way,” Day said.

  “What if he’s got the Price family hidden away somewhere?”

  “It doesn’t seem likely. There’s something else going on here. Let’s see what happens.”

  “Of course, he could be trying to kill us, after all,” Hammersmith said. “And he could decide to try again when he sees it didn’t work this time.”

  “Then we’ll arrest him,” Day said. “Eat your bread to soak up the drug in your stomach. Eat mine, too.”

  “Thank you, but if you wouldn’t mind turning your back for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Day turned and pretended to examine the chest of drawers against the window. Hammersmith took a deep breath and stuck a finger down his throat, immediately choking up a small amount of liquid back into the soup bowl. He wiped his lips on his shirtsleeve again and took a long swallow of beer to wash the taste of vomit out of his mouth.

  “You are a hardy sort, aren’t you?” Day said.

  “I do wish people would stop drugging me,” Hammersmith said. “I’m going to have to start preparing my own food and I’m a terrible cook, so that’s hardly better than submitting to all the poisoning going on around me.”

  “It’s your second time. I can’t imagine it’ll happen again. You’re already bucking the odds.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.”

  Hammersmith dropped to his hands and knees and pulled the chamber pot from under Day’s bed.

  “There are still chamber pots in the rooms here?” Day said.

  “I assume indoor water closets haven’t yet come to Blackhampton. At least, not all of it. Still, this ought to do,” Hammersmith said. He poured both bowls into the big pot and looked around for a place to dump it out.

  “Huh,” he said. “They’ve blocked the window.”

  “The chest of drawers. I thought putting it in front of the window was merely an unfortunate use of the space.”

  “It was done to keep us in here.”

  “Further evidence that the drug wasn’t meant to kill us. If we were dead, we wouldn’t try to climb out the window tonight.”

  “Probably not. At any rate, I can’t dump the contents out the window, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with the scent of groaty dick in your room.”

  “It’s not altogether unpleasant,” Day said. “If I have to put up with a scent, I mean.”

  Hammersmith shoved the chamber pot back under the bed. He and Day sat and ate the bread, washing it down with the strong ale. Hammersmith yawned. “We were supposed to fall asleep quickly,” he said.

  “The question is why?”

  “Our host is hiding something from us,” Hammersmith said.

  “Then I think it behooves us to find out what that might be.” Day stood and held out his hand, and Hammersmith handed him his plate. Day chuckled. “You still managed to get a bit on your sleeve there.”

  “I know. I did it practically on purpose. I think you planted the notion in my head.”

  “I’m devious that way.” Day put their plates and glasses on the tray with their bowls and opened the door long enough to set the tray in the hall. He came back into the room and closed the door.

  “We should be very careful in those woods tonight,” he said. “They’ll think we’re sleepy, so we’ll watch them for mistakes. But no unnecessary chances.”

  “Agreed.”


  “I mean it, Nevil. You are not invincible. You have a tendency to leap before you properly think a situation through.”

  “I’m touched that you worry about me.”

  Day shook his head and smiled. He searched his pockets until he found his flask and took a deep swallow from it. He held it out to Hammersmith.

  “Take a drink. It’ll kill the poisons.”

  “No, thank you, sir. I’d prefer tea.”

  “Of course. But brandy will keep you healthy.”

  Hammersmith took the flask and raised it in a mock salute to Day. He took a swallow and handed the flask back. The two men stood and looked around the room.

  “Well,” Day said. “Are you ready to go and risk our lives in the woods behind an unsettling village in the middle of the night?”

  “It’s what I live for,” Hammersmith said.

  “Then after you, Mr Hammersmith.”

  He swung the door open and waved the sergeant through, then stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. The two men stepped over the tray of empty bowls and steins and walked to the staircase. Without a look back, they headed down into the flickering darkness of the inn.

  11

  Fires banked forty feet into the air, throwing the landscape into sharp contrast and spreading shadows of the four men across the snowy fields. Constable Grimes led Day, Hammersmith, and Calvin Campbell past the furnaces, which worked night and day, smelting ore and creating the slag that bordered every path. Day and Hammersmith had seen the furnaces from the train windows when they arrived, but the effect was much more dramatic in the dark. Everything was indigo and white, and as they drew nearer the forest, shadows capered beyond the tree line, a fairy dance for the unaccustomed audience.

  Day let Hammersmith and Campbell walk ahead. The two men seemed to have found an easy camaraderie based on their shared fear for the life of little Oliver Price, but Day wasn’t ready to trust the stranger yet. He held out his hand in front of Grimes to slow the constable down.

  “Tell me about him.” Day nodded in the direction of Campbell’s back.

  “Nothing much to tell,” Grimes said. “He’s been around the village for a week or two. Staying at the inn. Studying birds of the region, he says.”

  “Rose doesn’t like him.”

  “Rose likes him well enough,” Grimes said.

  “He didn’t want Campbell with us out here.”

  “No,” Grimes said. “You misunderstand. It’s nothing to do with Mr Campbell. He’s probably harmless enough.”

  “Then what?”

  “I think Mr Rose was trying to protect you.”

  “But you just said that Campbell’s harmless.”

  “Not from Campbell. It’s only that most of the people round here are superstitious. Rose is the same as any. He didn’t want you out here tonight.”

  “I’d say he didn’t. He drugged Sergeant Hammersmith and me.”

  “Drugged you?”

  “Put something in our supper to make us sleep.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to harm you. He doesn’t always think. They’re good people here, they really are, but they’re closed off.”

  Day didn’t say anything. He waited.

  Grimes sniffed and looked at the trees ahead of them. “You understand I’m not one,” he said.

  “One what?”

  “Like the others in Blackhampton. I don’t believe in the. . I don’t think the same things about it all.”

  “Rose thinks he knows what happened to that family, doesn’t he?”

  “Not just him. Lot of the folks here do.”

  “That’s why you sent for us?”

  “I had to. I couldn’t find that family myself. And nobody else wants to help.”

  “So where does Rose think they are?”

  “Down below.”

  “In the mines?”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes him think that?” Day said.

  Grimes said nothing.

  “Should we be down in the tunnels,” Day said, “rather than out here in the woods?”

  Grimes shrugged. “I didn’t say I thought they were in the tunnels.”

  There was another long silence. The two of them walked on. They drew up alongside Hammersmith and Campbell, who had stopped at the tree line where the snow abruptly ended.

  “Let’s get in there,” Campbell said.

  Day nodded, and Hammersmith produced a box of matches. He withdrew a long wooden match and lit each of the men’s lanterns. Day looked around at the faces of the three other men. Hammersmith wore his customary expression of determination. Campbell’s face was partially hidden in shadow, and the light from his lantern cast yellow highlights under his cheekbones that made him seem cadaverous and deadly. Day looked at Grimes. The constable’s eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. He had the appearance of a high-strung horse ready to bolt.

  Hammersmith plunged into the forest, his lantern held high ahead of him. Campbell followed close behind. Day grabbed Grimes’s elbow and held him back.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s got you so frightened? What’s got the innkeeper poisoning the police? There’s something you’re all tiptoeing around out here.”

  “It’s nothing,” Grimes said. “Let’s go.”

  “Tell me what Rose has told you.”

  “Let go of me!” Grimes pulled away, and his lantern swung in a wide arc. Day staggered, but caught his balance. The constable shook his head and stared down at the footprints they had made in the snow. “I apologize,” he said. “Disrespectful of me.”

  “Tell me,” Day said.

  “Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” Grimes said.

  “Rawhead and. . What does that mean?”

  “Rawhead and Bloody Bones. He what waits in the mines and takes people. That’s who has the boy and his parents. What Rose and the others think, anyway.”

  “Who is Rawhead?”

  “It’s a children’s rhyme. A monster. Nonsense, really.”

  “But Rose, the other villagers here, they think the monster’s real?”

  Grimes nodded his head and said nothing. Day opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could speak, Grimes hurried past him and disappeared into the dark forest.

  “Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” Day said. He sighed and thrust his lantern into the shadows, and allowed himself to be swallowed by the trees.

  12

  Claire Day had thought ahead and packed a pair of sturdy boots for her husband, along with a short-brimmed hat and a quilted vest. Wearing them now, Walter Day looked out ahead at the dark tangle of low briars and the patches of snow and ice that had gathered despite the canopy of branches above and he counted himself lucky.

  As he did every day.

  He allowed Constable Grimes to lead the way into the dark, wild country. He followed Grimes closely, but kept careful track of Sergeant Hammersmith and Calvin Campbell, who were spread out ahead of him. There was always the possibility that the villagers might lead Day and Hammersmith into the woods and lose them or, worse, do them harm. Of course Grimes had sent for Scotland Yard in the first place. It was a good indication that he wanted to find the missing family. But there was something about Campbell that Day didn’t trust. He was the only stranger in the village, and yet he seemed more concerned than almost anyone else about the Prices. And, most especially, about finding little Oliver Price. Day felt certain the birder knew something that he wasn’t sharing.

  Grimes crunched his way through brambles and around trees, and Day kept up as well as he could. His vest had several pockets, and he had filled them with matches, a compass, a good folding knife, his flask, and his Colt Navy. He was a trusting person, but he wasn’t foolish.

  Snow-covered branches swept low across the path and reached out for him, knocking his hat off and sending a rivulet of freezing water down his collar. A deer rushed across the path in front of him and he stood still, listening to it as it crashed away through the underbrush.
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  A hand on his shoulder startled him and he jumped, then felt a moment of embarrassment. He turned, and the giant Campbell leaned toward him.

  “The path will end soon,” Campbell said.

  “Doesn’t it go far?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see the deer?”

  “Something must have spooked it.”

  “What could have spooked it?”

  “A wolf.”

  “There are wolves here?”

  “Oh, most definitely.”

  “If Oliver and his parents are out here. .”

  “If they’re out here, they’re dead.”

  Day nodded and sighed. “Still, we’ll find them.”

  He turned and saw Grimes tromping toward them, leaves crunching under his heavy boots. Hammersmith followed close behind the constable.

  “The path splits here,” he said. “It might be best if we separated to cover more ground.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to divide our manpower,” Day said. “More of us might be lost.” He meant himself, of course, but he didn’t want to say so and risk looking vulnerable.

  “Two groups of two, then?”

  “I’ll stay with Mr Campbell,” Day said. If Campbell had a secret, he might be dangerous. Best to keep an eye on him.

  “Yes,” Grimes said. “It might be better for Mr Campbell and myself each to stay with one of you Londoners. I’ll go with the sergeant. But we’ll stay close to each other, both groups. Shout out if anyone finds anything.”

  “We’re off this way,” Campbell said. He walked away to the left before the others could say anything.

  Day gave Hammersmith a pointed look, hoping that he had communicated the need for caution, then turned and plunged into the woods after Campbell. When he looked back again a moment later, the other men were gone, swallowed up by the dense skeletal winter wood.

  Campbell’s broad back filled the view ahead of Day. He looked down and saw that they were leaving footprints in the snow, black on grey, and was comforted by the notion that Campbell would not be able to turn him around and lose him in the trees. If that was his goal, Day would be able to trace his own steps back to the tree line.

  They veered to their right so as to keep the other search party nearby, Campbell leading the way. Finally, Campbell stopped and turned and glared at Day.