The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs Read Free Page B

portmanteau, knocking the legs back in, having lost interest in us. He walked off toward the ticket counter without looking back.
    “My God!” St. Ives muttered, knuckling his brow. “Here it is again. Madness springing up like a plague.”
    Tubby gave me a hard look. “Poisoned punch, forsooth!” he said.
    “Should we send to the Half Toad for our bags, sir?” Hasbro asked St. Ives, who nodded decisively.
    “If you’d like another hand,” Tubby said to Hasbro, “I’m your man. I know the way of things down there, and I’ve always got a bag packed and ready. I’ll bring my blackthorn stick, if you follow me.”
    “A generous offer, Sir. There’s a late train south—an hour from now, I believe.”
    “I’ll need half that,” Tubby said over his shoulder, already hurrying toward the street, bowling through the slow-footed like a juggernaut.
    “I’ll fetch the tickets,” I said, and went along in the direction taken by the Peddler, who had apparently purchased his own return ticket and gone about his business by then. I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have given him two shillings for one of his “Austrian-made” timepieces. His consorting with thieves didn’t recommend him, either.
    The man behind the glass sat on a high stool, reading a newspaper. He glanced up at me without expression. “I’m looking for a gent,” I told him, the idea coming into my mind at that very moment. “He might have got off the last train. Large, round head, sandy hair, red-faced. He generally dresses in oatmeal tweed, perhaps a little on the shabby side. He might have tried to sell you a pocket watch before buying a ticket to Hastings.”
    “You’re three minutes late,” he told me. “Your man’s out on the street by now. And you mean Eastbourne, and not Hastings. He bought a ticket on tonight’s train, the Beachy Head Runner.”
    “Beachy Head?” I said stupidly. “Tonight’s train?” He scowled just a little, as if I’d accused him of a lie, and so I sensibly let the matter drop. Perhaps the Peddler had meant Eastbourne by way of Hastings. Perhaps he meant anything at all. Probably he was the fabulous liar of the world, about as genuine as his timepieces.
    An hour later the four of us were bound for East Sussex on the very train that the Peddler himself had bought a ticket for, although I hadn’t seen him board. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I thought. In Eridge we would abandon our train for a seat on the aptly named Cuckoo Line, into Uckfield, where we’d strike out overland on foot toward Blackboys if it was too late to hire a coach. With any luck, the mysterious contagion would evaporate, as it evidently had at the Explorers Club, and our sojourn would amount to nothing more than wasted hours.
    I was deeply asleep, my head bumping against the window, before we were out of London.
    §
    When I came awake in the dim coach, we were sitting dead still, the night outside dark and lonesome. For a moment I had no idea where I was or what I was doing there, but the sight of my sleeping companions brought me to my senses, and I sat in the lovely silence for a time and gazed out the window. I saw that I was looking out on a heath, and I could distinguish a line of trees in the distance, and a star or two in the sky, which was full of scudding clouds.
     
    It came into my mind that I’d soon have to find the necessary room, which was situated aft. I arose quietly and made my way down the aisle, passing into the darkness at the back of the car, and trailing one hand along the wall to steady myself, expecting at any moment that the train would start forward and pitch me onto the floor. Abruptly I ran out of wall, and my hand fell away into a void. I lurched sideways, temporarily off balance, and at once heard a shuffling noise and was abruptly aware that someone—a shadow—was standing near me, hidden by the darkness. A hand gripped my arm, I was pushed sideways so that I spun half around, and before it came into my