The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) Read Free

. .’
    ‘Where? Specifically.’
    ‘. . . an’ when we come back it’ll all be better an’ no one will ever know.’ She beamed, pleased at her idea, and waited for everyone to agree.
    Lyle didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on the dark figure who had clambered nearer and was now fairly distinct in a huge black cloak lined with silk, a top hat so tall and shiny it seemed almost a pity to expose it to hair on one side and rain on the other, and a walking cane, topped with ivory. Behind him trailed a couple of men who had the detachment of people hired to be respectful, but only to one man, and downright offensive to everyone else. As they drew nearer, the dog’s nose twitched and both eyes opened. It stared at the man and started to whimper, trying to crawl, if such was possible, further into the blanket.
    The girl followed Lyle’s eyes, saw what he saw and immediately, without seeming physically to move, attempted to shuffle round behind Lyle and pretend she wasn’t there. The boy looked up, saw the man, brightened and exclaimed, ‘Why, good morning, my lord, is it not a fine morning for a ramble across . . .’
    Lyle put a very firm hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he closed his mouth hastily. The man didn’t seem to have noticed any of them. He stopped on the edge of the crater and peered down into it. Still examining it, he said mildly, ‘Crisp morning, is it not, Mister Lyle?’ Somehow, Lyle was always Mister Lyle. No one had worked out why, but then, no one had ever dared question it either.
    ‘A little cold, Lord Lincoln.’
    ‘I see you’ve been conducting ... experiments.’
    Now the boy too began to edge round behind Lyle, and pretend he wasn’t there.
    ‘That’s right.’ Lyle could have been talking about the weather for all the expression he showed.
    The man shifted ever so slightly, leaning on his ivory-capped walking cane and looking as pained as his limited range of expressions would permit. ‘I wonder,’ he began, voice clipped with vowels so precise they could have taken a job as an acupuncturist, ‘was it entirely necessary to conduct these experiments in the memorial flower bed of Lord Wessex’s third cousin killed in the Crimea?’
    A flicker of something uncomfortable started at the edge of Lyle’s eyes, though he tried to hide it. ‘I’m sure Lord Wessex’s third cousin would have been only too pleased to give of his flower bed for the sake of scientific endeavour.’
    ‘What, pray,’ only Lord Lincoln could give ‘pray’ so many teeth, ‘is this scientific endeavour?’
    Lyle hesitated. Lincoln raised one - just one - eyebrow. In Lincoln’s case, Lyle was willing to believe that the cold menace distilled into that single look was genetic, rather than acquired through the usual hard practice all people secretly undertake to learn how to raise just one eyebrow, and felt his toes start to go numb. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said dully, and led the way.
    A few minutes later, when everyone else was gone, the dog untangled itself from the blanket where it had been snoozing, stood up, looked at the crater, regarded the path its master had taken up the Heath, considered its options, and then very calmly claimed a little bit of Hampstead Heath as forever part of its domain.
    When that was done, it trotted after Lyle, and wondered what mess he was going to get into today.
     
    Hampstead Heath, which was gradually becoming the ambling grounds of the city rich who sometimes felt the need for a little ‘untamed’ space, but without straying too far from their clubs, had recently acquired a new addition to its usually austere hillside. Half-hidden under the night’s snow, a straight stone path dropped rapidly through the heath towards the sprawled grey city below. Someone had driven several large roman candles into the earth beside this path, and filled over the many pot-holes with rickety wooden planks, to create an even surface. Standing at the top of it was a large wooden shed,