The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs Read Free

roundabout, until we were vaguely surprised to find ourselves on Victoria Street, the broad arch of the great railway station looming before us. Coaches and dogcarts clogged the boulevard, and rattled away in either direction, and there was a great noise of people coming out of the station and going in, the entryway illuminated by gas lamps flickering in the damp wind. We still had our umbrellas hoisted, although the rain had mostly stopped without our realizing it. I can’t imagine that I had said anything to St. Ives that was worth more than two shillings, but perhaps I had distracted him from himself, which was something.
    Hasbro and Tubby had already entered the station, and we steeled ourselves and walked into the bustle and clamor of the crowds, the hissing of locomotives, and the smell of wet wool and engine oil. The hour had come, and Alice’s train along with it, rolling slowly into the station at that very moment, its journey at an end. The doors opened, and people descended to the platform, scores of people, from Croydon and Tunbridge Wells and points south, making their way out toward the street past heaps of luggage. For the space of some several minutes we were certain that Alice would momentarily appear among them. Then the crowd dwindled, and the platform cleared. For a time there was no one, until one last harried passenger got off—a commercial traveler by the look of him—carrying a portmanteau and with a head like a pumpkin and eyes like poached eggs. That was the end of the exodus. No Alice.
    “Gents,” the commercial traveler said to us when he hove alongside and dropped anchor, “I’m in the timepiece line.” He took his portmanteau in both hands and shook it, four metal legs telescoping from the bottom. A hidden drawer sprang out, revealing a velvet-lined compartment full of tolerably dusty and tarnished pocket watches. He smiled in a toothy and unconvincing way, his shop set up on the instant and open for business.
    St. Ives had fully expected something unpleasant this night—longed for it, even—but Alice’s non-arrival was beyond his ken. He stood blinking, completely at sea, loosed from his moorings and apparently unaware that the timepiece salesman stood before him, wearing worn tweeds and grinning into his face. Tubby was not unaware of the man’s presence, however, and he said, “Shove off, mate,” in a tone calculated to be understood.
    “Of course,” the man said. “I can see you gents are preoccupied. I… Say!” he said, suddenly bending forward and gaping at the professor. “Ain’t you that chap St. Vitus? Wait! That isn’t it! St. Ives! I knew I’d get it! I had the good fortune of perusing your likeness in The Graphic , sir, some months back. Story about a sort of enormous skeleton…? On the riverbank, I believe it was, out in Germany. I’m honored, sir.” He thrust out his hand, looking admiringly at St. Ives. Then, slowly, his visage took on the air of commiseration. “Asking your pardon, sir,” he said, more quietly now, “but you ain’t waiting for a Heathfield traveler, are you? You look worn down by care, as they say.”
    “What do you know of Heathfield travelers?” I asked him. I’ll admit that I didn’t like the look of him, although I myself had written the account published in The Graphic concerning our exploratory trip down the Danube the previous year, from which we had returned with a giant human femur and a lower jaw set with teeth the size of dominoes. At least our watch salesman had the good sense to have read the piece.
    “Only that there weren’t no Heathfield travelers aboard, mate,” he said in my direction. “Not tonight there weren’t. The train went past Heathfield like a racehorse. Scarcely slowed down.”
    “Why would it do such a thing?” Tubby asked. “Damned strange behavior for a train.”
    The man hesitated for a moment, and then looked around conspiratorially. “They’re keeping it on the quiet,” he said in a low