Medi-Evil 3 (10 page)

 
“They’ll put you on the gibbet alive for this,” Judge Prendergast said.

 
“Maybe, but you won’t decide that, my lord. Now gentlemen, if you’ll all stand together.”

 
Of the three men,
O’Calligan
and the judge were beside each other, but Rupert was a good three feet away, close to his sister’s bedside divan.
O’Calligan
saw at once what the plan was. “Don’t!” he shouted. “Nobody move. He only has a single blast in that blunderbuss. If we stay apart, he can’t kill us all.”

 
“One step ahead of me again, Captain
O’Calligan
,” Cedric said.
“As you wish.”

 
With a sudden move, he grabbed the nearest candelabra and flung it at the bed-curtain, which went up in a roaring sheet of flame. More by instinct than decision, Rupert leaped away from it – and found himself next to the judge and the Irishman.

 
O’Calligan
shouted, but it was too late. Cedric already had the blunderbuss at his shoulder. His finger was on the trigger, and then, suddenly, he was grabbed from behind.

 
It was Van
Brooner
.

 
But the Dutchman was still dazed, his face battered and bloody, and Cedric, though old, was wiry and strong; he slammed an elbow back, catching Van
Brooner
in the broken rib, severely winding him, dropping him to the floor. He raised the blunderbuss again, but in that split-second of distraction there was a blur of twirling steel, and, with an ugly
thunk
, something embedded itself in the servant’s throat.

 
The eyes bulged in his dour face, and the firearm slipped from his fingers.

 
He tottered there, looking down in disbelief at the ornate hilt of the Moorish dagger quivering under his chin. Then his knees buckled and he toppled forward.

 
Immediately,
O’Calligan
and Rupert turned and tore down the burning hangings, hurriedly stamping them out. Judge Prendergast continued to stare at Cedric’s body and at the weapon that had slain him. “A life of clandestine warfare,” he remarked. “Indeed it
has
served you well, my Irish friend.”

*

The following morning, the cloud cover had cleared and a winter’s sun shone coldly from a blue but glacial sky. The wastes of
Exmoor
lay silent under a glistening mantel of pristine snow.
O’Calligan
and Judge Prendergast stood out on the porch, awaiting the help that Rupert, having ridden for
Minehead
at first light, would hopefully soon bring.

 
“I should have
realised
straight away once we found the bell-pulls in the under-stair wardrobe,”
O’Calligan
said with self-reproach. “We’d dismissed Cedric as a suspect because we saw him outside the drawing room shortly after hearing Lady
Lightbourne’s
bell. Once I knew the bell-pulls were much closer to hand, I should have reconsidered him.”

 
“One thing that puzzles me about him,” the judge replied, “is that it’s only been known for three months or so that the Prince of Orange intended to invade. How could someone like Cedric have planned everything so meticulously in so short a time? How did he train the animal, or build its bolt-holes?”

 
O’Calligan
pondered; the same thing had been troubling him.

 
“Canny men like Cedric see events coming from way off,” he eventually concluded. “One wouldn’t have had to be a genius to
realise
that King James wasn’t going to last on the English throne. Likewise, one wouldn’t have needed a calculating mind to understand what that would mean. Even so,” and his brow furrowed, “it makes me wonder if Lady
Foxworth
was more involved than Cedric has admitted.”

 
“Oh come now,
O’Calligan
,” the judge snorted, but the Irishman shook his head.

 
“Cedric said it himself. She walked the thorny paths, indulged in Machiavellian games. Maybe this plan to kill her brother was hers after all, a failsafe just in case James was overthrown … and the loyal servant only opted to include
her
in the roll-call of death once I’d escaped the creature and it became apparent the game was up?”

 
“Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure,” the judge said.

 
“No,”
O’Calligan
agreed. “In that respect, villainous old Cedric was quite successful.”

A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

Hammersmith horror causes concern

The Metropolitan Police have denied that the horrible attack on a young governess in Hammersmith Gardens last Wednesday evening has anything to do with the mysterious person known as ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’.

 
Mary Perkins, (18), of Lower
Stretham
Road, was in the company of two infants when she was set upon by a man who is said to have leapt clean over a 12ft hedge and landed directly in front of her. She was then assaulted, and one of the children knocked over with such force that it lost a tooth.

 
The Metropolitan Police have always professed the official belief that Spring-Heeled Jack is a myth. The bizarre street-robber, who is said to don a black cloak and sometimes either a green mask or ghastly stage make-up, is allegedly capable of jumping clean across streets and even over houses with a single bound. When stories first emerged about him some 40 years ago, it was a sensation. However, in the intervening years between then and now, reports about him have only appeared sporadically.

 
He has supposedly been sighted in cities as far afield as Coventry, Birmingham and Liverpool, but the centre of his activities always appears to be London.

 
On previous occasions, Spring-Heeled Jack’s mischievous antics were regarded as pranks carried out by a theatrical group, possibly at the behest of an eccentric aristocrat. But recently, his offences have been significantly more serious. Scotland Yard’s famous detective division is believed to be looking into the matter.

London Gazette, August 17th 1879

Who ‘the devil’ is Spring-Heeled Jack?

A question everyone is asking at the present time must be: Who is Spring-Heeled Jack?
 

 
Part of popular culture in former decades, and the subject of many a music hall joke, the jumping felon, who, if he exists at all, has been accused of being everything from a deranged athlete to a disguised kangaroo, is no longer making Londoners laugh.

 
Ever since guardsmen claimed to have fired shots at him, to no discernible effect, when he attacked them at the gates to
Aldershot
North army camp three years ago, reports of his activities have taken a turn for the more frightening.

 
Even during his alleged early appearances, as long ago as the 1830s, the curious character, who is described as having blazing eyes and a demonic expression, and is said to laugh maniacally as he bounds away from the scenes of his crimes, was given to disgraceful
behaviour
. He was reported as indecently touching several persons whose goods he tried to steal, while his more recent actions have seen him molest women and tear off their clothes, and beat any man who dares to intervene. He has also been accused of committing burglaries, arson and increasingly violent street-robberies. At least one death has now been attributed to him: a carter in Camden Town was run over by his own vehicle after ‘a flying phantom’ allegedly frightened the horses.

 
But the most alarming aspect of Spring-Heeled Jack remains his astonishing physical abilities. Some of his jumps have allegedly been prodigious. Heights of 35ft have supposedly been achieved, and talk that he has a supernatural, if not Satanic, power is finally circulating.

 
So the question remains: Who can this weird criminal be?

 
It is the opinion of this newspaper that the Metropolitan Police must commence a serious line of enquiry very soon. With so many eyewitness accounts, this bewildering matter can no longer be put down to the idle chatter of drunkards and opium addicts.

Times Community Supplement, February 12th 1881

*

“Colonel
Thorpe,
isn’t it?” the young man asked.

 
Colonel Thorpe glanced up from his copy of
The Enquirer
. The young man was tall and lean but with a straight, sturdy posture and strong, even shoulders. His clothes, though too fashionable for the colonel’s taste, were expensively cut. His face, which was clean shaved, was burned nut-brown and bore just below its left eye a curious triangular scar, though this only slightly marred the young man’s generally wholesome appearance.

 
He spoke again. “I was wondering if I might
sit?
”

 
Colonel Thorpe took out his pipe. Over the last two decades, he’d come to regard this particular corner of
The Union Jack Club
as his own. For the young fellow to have been admitted in the first place however, required that he’d served the
Colours
, which ruled out most of the normal riff-raff the colonel had no time to be dealing with, and anyway, the newcomer’s intensity of gaze – he never once blinked as he stood there awaiting a response – implied that he had some serious purpose.

 
Colonel Thorpe nodded. “Do I know you, sir?”

 
The young man sat and offered his hand. “Charles
Brabinger
, sir.
Of the Uxbridge
Brabingers
.”

 
“Bless my soul, young
Brabinger
!” Thorpe folded his paper and shook hands. “The last time I spoke to your father, you were in Natal.”

 
“My regiment shipped home less than a month ago.”

 
The colonel nodded. Everything now was explained. The triangular scar on the young fellow’s cheek had probably been caused by the tip of an
assegai
spear. “I trust you played your part in thrashing those black devils?”

 
“I did.” The young man hadn’t yet smiled, and he didn’t smile now. “I can’t say it gave me a great deal of pride.”

 
“
Pah
, nonsense!”
The colonel turned in his armchair and
signalled
a waiter to bring more brandy. “An enemy is an enemy. He doesn’t have to possess guns to pose a threat to the lives of the Queen’s subjects.”

 
“I suppose not.”

 
“At any rate, you return to London in the midst of high excitement.”

 
“So I see.” The young man glanced down at the front page of the newspaper. “In actual fact, that’s something I was meaning to speak to you about, sir. I wondered if a gentleman like yourself, who’s shot more than a few tigers in his time, might have some idea what this peculiar creature is?”

 
He indicated the newspaper headline:
Leaping madman seen on cathedral roof
.

 
Beneath it, a lurid artist’s impression portrayed a fellow with truly malevolent features, which included huge, glowing eyes, pointed ears and an evil, V-shaped grin, and wearing a black cape that was folded across his chest like a pair of giant bat wings.

 
“What’s that?” the colonel said. “Great heavens, man! I’m not talking about
this
. I’m talking about Parnell and his wretched Irish militants causing all this trouble in the Commons.”

 
“Ah, I see.” The young man seemed less
enamoured
by the more mundane issue of Anglo-Irish politics.