Twelve Minutes to Midnight Page 6

  He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder at one of the drunks, who had now staggered noisily to his feet. The stumpy man lurched towards them with an outstretched hand, the sleeve of his threadbare brown overcoat flailing as he begged for change.

  “Spare us a couple of pennies for a pint,” he slurred.

  Penny ignored the man, her gaze firmly fixed on the door to the pub.

  “We’ve got to go inside – find out what they’re doing there.”

  Alfie shook his head as he looked down at Penelope’s clothes: the fine embroidery embellishing her black cloak with its fur-lined collar and velvet trim. Even though her boots were muddied and worse, they were still recognisably fashionable.

  “You can’t go in there looking like that,” he told her. “They’ll spot you straightaway.”

  “Drink!” the drunken man demanded as he tugged on Alfie’s arm.

  Penny scowled, anxious not to waste any more time on the tavern’s doorstep whilst the answer to Bedlam’s mystery could be uncovered inside.

  “So what are we supposed to do?”

  IX

  The pub was crowded. Dingy red curtains were half-drawn across its small cobwebbed windows, peering like two bloodshot eyes at the darkness within. A motley mob of rivermen, vagrants and thieves thronged the long room, the taller amongst them stooping their heads beneath the low ceiling. A scrum of figures hemmed in the bar at the far end, squeezing their elbows between the empty gin measures, ale quarts and glasses piled up on the metal counter, as they shouted their orders at the barmaid. In reply, her mouth snapped open with a snaggle-toothed leer as she slopped another round of drinks in front of them.

  The brim of the cap pulled low over her eyes, Penny looked down at the long brown overcoat she was wearing, her own clothes hidden beneath. It smelled as if something had died inside, but the itch crawling down her back made her fear that something was still alive. Alfie led the way as they pushed through the press of people, grunted mutters of protest impeding their path.

  “Where are they?” she hissed in Alfie’s ear, as she stepped over the lolling figure of a pale thin man, his threadbare pockets turned out and emptied.

  Before Alfie could answer, Penny felt a hand snake into her own pocket, its fingers grasping in search of a purse. Swiftly turning, she grabbed hold of the hand before it had the chance to slip away. Struggling to free himself, a scrawny boy stared up at Penelope, his eyes filled with defiance.

  “Keep your hair on,” he whined, “I didn’t take nothing.”

  The boy was only a year or so younger than Penny, the top of his head reaching up to her shoulder. He was dressed in an ill-fitting jacket that hung down to his knees, its bulging pockets hinting at the things he had already pilfered.

  “You were trying to rob me,” Penny replied indignantly.

  At the sound of her cut-glass accent, the boy started in surprise. He caught a glimpse of the fine embroidery hiding beneath the collar of Penelope’s overcoat.

  “You’re a proper bit of frock, aren’t you,” he hissed. “Well, don’t think you can rub me in to the peelers.”

  Before Penny had a chance to respond, the boy kicked out, his boot striking her ankle. With a yelp of pain, Penny released her grip on his hand and the boy darted back into the crowd, disappearing amongst the throng of drinkers.

  “Are you all right?” asked Alfie, glancing back in concern. Around them, the shrieks and bellows of the crowd had swallowed Penelope’s cry of pain, nobody paying it the slightest bit of attention.

  Penny nodded, a blush of embarrassment rising to her cheeks.

  “I’m fine,” she replied through gritted teeth, ignoring the throb of her ankle. “Let’s find Bradburn and Jenkins.”

  With a grin, Alfie motioned towards a hodgepodge of beer-stained tables clustered around a miserable-looking fire. At one, Jenkins sat glumly sipping a mug of ale, whilst the burly frame of Bradburn loomed over him. From beneath the brow of her cap, Penelope could see the orderly’s lips moving in a constant snarl, but she couldn’t hear a single word over the babble of voices that filled the room.

  “We’ve got to get closer,” she said.

  Keeping her head low, Penny bustled her way towards the fireplace and then hunkered down at a table a few feet away, her back to the two men. As Alfie joined her, she strained her ears to make out the sound of their voices.

  “But where are the papers?” Jenkins whined. “We agreed – I’d let you take a handful at a time as long as you returned most of them the very next day, but the entire office was empty.”

  The low growl of Bradburn’s voice cut the clerk’s whine into silence.

  “They’re safe, that’s all you need to know. And you keep your mouth shut, unless you want Dr Morris to find out how all those patients’ valuables ended up in a Drury Lane pawnbroker’s shop.”

  Penny heard Jenkins splutter in protest.

  “Now where are last night’s papers?” Bradburn demanded.

  There was a rustling sound. Penny risked a swift glance over her shoulder to see Jenkins pull out a thin brown envelope from inside his jacket and hand it over to Bradburn’s grasping hand.

  “Where are the rest of them?” the orderly snarled.

  “This is all I could get,” Jenkins moaned in reply. “Since the Midnight Papers disappeared, Dr Morris has set up a new system for collecting the patients’ writings. He’s now keeping them in the safe in his own office. These are all I could take before he locked them away.”

  Bradburn let out an angry growl.

  “Well, you need to try harder next time,” he warned him. There came a harsh squealing sound as the orderly pushed back his chair from the table and rose to his feet. “Remember: if you break our agreement, then I’ll break your neck.”

  In the grimy reflection from her tankard, Penelope watched as Bradburn shoved his way through the heaving throng, before his burly frame disappeared out of the door to the street beyond. Left alone at the table, Jenkins buried his head in his hands with a choking sob.

  “You stay here with him,” Penny whispered to Alfie. “I want to see where Bradburn goes now.”

  Leaving Alfie keeping a watchful gaze over the clerk’s dejected figure, she quickly left the pub. Bradburn was already some thirty paces ahead, striding purposefully up the road. Slipping the threadbare overcoat from her shoulders, Penny dropped it back beside its owner, still slumped in the gutter, but now happily clutching a bottle of gin.

  The fog was starting to lift, but Penny stuck close to the shadows as she followed Bradburn’s trail. He was leaving the streets of the riverside slums behind as he headed west in the direction of the more genteel districts of Knightsbridge and South Kensington. The crisp, clean crowds of businessmen and ladies of leisure parted with disdain as Bradburn’s coarse figure passed, but the orderly didn’t even glance back as he strode grimly on.

  Keeping him in sight, Penny hurried down the wide promenade, the shops and houses becoming grander with every step that she took. A young gentleman tipped his hat to her as she passed and Penny felt herself beginning to relax. In the distance, the grand buildings of the Victoria and Albert Museum rose high above the Cromwell Road, the sweeping curves of its architecture partly obscured by scaffolding. Beyond this, lay the British Museum of Natural History, the Imperial Institute and the Royal Albert Hall. She shook her head. This was her territory. What was Bradburn doing here?

  On the opposite side of the road stood a grand red-brick house, its tall windows and fanlights looking down condescendingly at the passing traffic. Bradburn hurried across the road, darting behind a speeding omnibus. Opening the gate, he scurried up the stone steps that led to the front door. Crossing the road after him, Penny sheltered behind the manicured hedge that fronted the property, peeking between its leaves to see what would happen next. She was surprised to see Bradburn ignore the tradesmen’s bell and instead loudly rap twice on the door knocker, the sound of it echoing behind the dark-green door.

  Aft
er a pause, the front door slowly opened and a butler peered out inquisitively. Bradburn spoke briefly, but from behind the hedge Penelope couldn’t make out the words. Then her sense of surprise grew as she watched the butler quickly usher him inside. The door closed with a slam.

  Penelope took a step backwards, looking up at the grand façade of the house. Her eyes swept past its windows and wrought-iron balconies, reaching up for five storeys into the darkening sky. It must be worth over ten thousand pounds. What on earth was a two-bob orderly doing here?

  “Pardon me, Miss.”

  A delivery boy was wheeling a heavily-laden barrow along the narrow pavement.

  “Excuse me,” said Penelope as she stepped to one side to let him pass. “Do you know whose house this is?”

  The young boy glanced up at the red-brick building and sniffed.

  “Course I do,” he replied. “That’s where the Spider Lady of South Kensington lives.”

  X

  Penelope leafed through the pages of Who’s Who, her eyes scurrying over the entries as she searched out the one she was looking for. Next to her on the reading desk sat a stack of reference books: Burke’s Peerage, Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled Classes and other assorted guides to the aristocracy. She leaned forward on the hard mahogany chair, the electric reading light above the desk spilling a warm yellow glow across the pages. From around her came the sound of scratching pens and turning pages, the long rows of desks fanning out around the room filled with readers. Running around the walls, countless rows of books gave the library the snug feel of her home.

  Penny’s fingers paused as they turned the next page, her eye snagging on the entry in the top right-hand corner.

  CAMBRIDGE, Lady; Isabella Violet Hester

  Born 13 Nov. 1876; daughter of Sir William Ross, FRCS (died 1897) and Lady Marie Charlotte Ross; married in 1897 to Lord Cambridge (died 1898)

  Education

  Cheltenham Ladies’ College; King’s College, University of London

  Career

  Travelled extensively in Europe, India and Africa, conducting entomological research into exotic species of arachnids; appointed to the board of trustees of the British Museum of Natural History

  Publications

  Untangling the Web: Observations about Arachnid Behaviour, 1897; Taxonomic Notes of the Spider Fauna of Southern India, 1895; A Morphological Study of Spider Toxins and Venom, 1898; scientific papers and journals, chiefly on arachnology

  Recreation

  Reading, cross-stitch and embroidery

  Address

  Stanley House, 2 Egerton Gardens, South Kensington, London

  So this was who Bradburn had been calling on, mused Penny as she glanced up from the book, a puzzled expression written across her face. Lady Isabella Cambridge – the Spider Lady of South Kensington. But what interest could this aristocratic lady have in a hard-faced orderly from Bedlam, his pocket filled with the patients’ scribblings? She sighed in frustration, causing the reader at the next desk, an old bespectacled man, whose head was bent inches away from his book, to shush her in irritation.

  Penny frowned. She looked back down at the entry from Who’s Who, her eyes settling on the details of Lady Cambridge’s career. A life described in a couple of lines, but she needed to find out more. She painstakingly reread the entry, searching for some clue that could help her –

  travelled extensively … research into exotic species of arachnids … appointed to the board of trustees of the British Museum of Natural History … author of numerous scientific papers.

  Penny clicked her fingers in a sudden rush of realisation.

  “Hush!”

  Ignoring the bookish chorus of shushes, Penny grinned in satisfaction. There was one place she could go to find out more about the mysterious Lady Cambridge. It was time to pay a visit to the museum.

  “This most remarkable specimen is a new genus of the Mantichora, the African tiger beetle. You will see, of course, the mottled green markings on the surface of its shell, a sharp contrast to the uniformly black colouring usually found in beetles of this genus. Note, too, the large curved mandibles which the African tiger beetle uses to seize and crush its prey.”

  The grey-bearded professor pointed with his brass-tipped cane to the image of the emerald beetle which shone from the screen behind him. As he prodded at its sickle-shaped jaws, Penny half hoped that the magnified image of the beetle would spark into life and snap the cane in two. Sitting on the desk at the front of the great hall, the episcope projector whirred noisily, its mechanical drone almost drowning out the professor’s dry as dust voice. Next to this, yet more insect specimens were lined up, ready for their turn in the spotlight.

  Penelope stifled a yawn. She glanced down again at the notice she had torn from the newspaper.

  A Public Lecture on the Entomological Discoveries of the 1899 British Empire Africa Expedition will be given by Professor Alfred Stebbing in the Central Hall of the British Museum of Natural History, on Monday 18 December, at 8.30 p.m. The Right Hon. Sir Edwin Lancaster will chair the lecture and the museum’s board of trustees will be in attendance.

  Peering back over her shoulder, Penny scanned the great hall yet again, searching for any sign of the enigmatic Lady Cambridge. Countless rows of chairs stretched back across the mosaic floor, their seats filled with bearded faces. Young men with dark, wiry whiskers, elderly gentlemen with white, fluffy beards; not a single face belonged to a member of the fairer sex. Above their heads, the hall’s high-vaulted ceiling was lit with an amber glow, sculptures of terracotta monkeys scampering across its soaring arches. At the front of the hall, behind the lecturer’s raised stage, a central stone staircase swept up to the galleries above.

  As yet another hideously enlarged insect filled the screen, Alfie sneaked back into the empty chair next to Penny at the end of the front row. He had dressed for the occasion, with a borrowed suit jacket and tie covering most of the ink stains on his shirt front. Tugging uncomfortably at this tie as he settled in his seat, Alfie turned towards Penny.

  “Have you found her?” she asked him, her voice low to avoid the hushes of the audience around them.

  Alfie shook his head.

  “I’ve been up and down every row. The place is packed to the rafters, but the only woman I saw was a charlady dusting the exhibits at the back of the hall.” A cheeky grin crept across his face. “I don’t think that could have been your Lady Cambridge.”

  “But she’s on the museum’s board of trustees.” Penny frowned. “The advertisement said they’d be here.”

  “Maybe she got bored and went home.” Alfie nodded towards the professor as he fussed over the episcope. “I mean that feller don’t half go on a bit.”

  On the screen behind the projector, the image of a large black spider with strange silver markings across its back slowly flickered and faded to black. For a moment there was silence as the whirr of the episcope died away, then Professor Stebbing stepped back from the machine and the audience in the hall broke into a polite round of applause.

  Leading the plaudits, a portly gentleman in a long frock coat rose from the front row and stepped on to the lecture stage. His jowly face was clean-shaven except for a pair of grey-whiskered sideburns that crept across his cheeks like inquisitive caterpillars. Penelope recognised him straightaway from his portrait hanging in the Central Hall – Sir Edwin Lancaster, the Director of the Museum.

  As he motioned for quiet, Sir Edwin’s voice boomed out across the great hall.

  “I would like to thank Professor Stebbing for the learned insights he has shared with us this evening. Many more samples from the British Empire Africa Expedition are still to be un-boxed and catalogued and once this task has been completed, then perhaps we will have the pleasure of hearing more about the fascinating creatures that creep across that vast continent.”

  Lifting his head, he gestured up towards the pillars of the first-floor gallery that looked down on the great hall. The eyes of the audience fol
lowed his gesture and Penny saw with surprise a row of figures seated behind the balustrade.

  “I would also like to extend my thanks to the board of trustees for their support of this expedition,” Sir Edwin continued. “Its success was due in no small part to their contributions, in particular the very generous donation that Lady Cambridge made to the expedition funds.”

  Penelope strained her eyes against the lights that hung beneath the gallery. She could just make out the figure of a lone woman seated amongst the beards and stuffed shirts of the other trustees. This must be Lady Cambridge. The woman was dressed in a stiff-necked black gown, her face half-hidden by shadows, but Penny still caught a glimpse of her youthful beauty. It was the same face she had last glimpsed beneath a veil in the corridors of Bedlam.

  “Now as this evening draws to a close,” declared Sir Edwin, clasping his hands together as he looked out over the audience, “all that there remains for me to say is to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Goodnight and God bless.”

  Another round of applause rippled through the great hall, as the audience slowly rose to their feet. They began to shuffle towards the stone archway at the rear of the hall, eager to be the first in line for the hansom cabs waiting at the exit. Penelope kept her eyes fixed on the figure of Lady Cambridge.

  Whilst the other trustees stayed in their seats, Lady Cambridge had risen to her feet. With a cursory nod, she bade them farewell, then turned and walked along the gallery. As her shadowy figure flitted between the gothic pillars, Penny rose to her feet.

  “Come on, we’ve got to follow her.”

  While the straggling crowd headed for the exit, Penny led Alfie in the opposite direction. They skirted the stage at the front of the hall where Sir Edwin was deep in conversation with Professor Stebbing, neither of the two men noticing them as they slipped past. As they reached the bottom of the grand stone staircase, Penny squinted up into the shadows that lined the long gallery, desperately trying to keep Lady Cambridge in sight.