11

The Spike

 

George Hobney introduced himself in a hushed voice as he admitted Alfred and Birdie into the Hackney workhouse. At first sight he looked like a typical night porter, gruff and burly, with a square jaw, a straight back, and a solid frame. But close up, Birdie could see that Sarah Pickles had left her mark on George Hobney—or was it the bogle making him so anxious? His mouth kept twitching. His small eyes jumped around nervously as he ushered his guests through the lobby of the main administrative block, which was a three-story brick building with windows set so high that Birdie couldn’t see out of them.

She and Alfred had already spent several minutes trying to find the right entrance. The workhouse itself was a large collection of buildings, ringed by high walls and spread across several acres of land. In the dusky half light, among a tangle of unfamiliar, mean little streets, it had been hard not to get lost.

“The master don’t know nothing o’ this,” George murmured, “so mind you keep quiet.” He went on to explain (very softly) that the master was upstairs in his quarters, and that almost everyone else had gone to bed. “But Mrs. Gudge is in the kitchen. It’s down that passage, third door on the left.”

“Who’s Mrs. Gudge?” asked Alfred.

“She’s the cook. She’ll show you where Fanny saw the . . . um . . .” George hesitated, rubbing his small, neat, gingery mustache. “That thing,” he finished, grimacing.

“It’s fivepence in advance,” Alfred said flatly. “And a penny for the salt.”

While George fished around in his pocket, Birdie eyed her gloomy surroundings. The entrance hall in which they stood had whitewashed walls and no furniture. A dark flight of stairs vanished into the shadowy realm above her head. An invisible clock ticked somewhere close by.

“There’s a lady coming to join us,” Alfred observed. “Name of Eames.”

“She’s already here.” George handed over six pennies. “In the kitchen, with Mrs. Gudge.”

So Alfred and Birdie made for the kitchen, leaving George at his post. The kitchen door was standing open, unlike most of the others that Birdie passed on her way down the passage; all Alfred had to do was steer toward the strip of light that lay across the floor ahead of him. Sure enough, when he reached the door through which the light was spilling, he met a woman on the threshold. She was tall and gangly, all elbows and neck, with untidy hair and a scarred face. Her dress looked like a brown paper bag tied around the middle with string.

“Oh!” she yipped. “Is that—are you—?”

“I’m Alfred Bunce.”

“And I’m Birdie.” Peering past Mrs. Gudge, Birdie saw that Edith Eames was sitting near the kitchen hearth, which was huge and sooty and cavernous. In her subdued gray outfit, complete with kid gloves and a small felt hat, Miss Eames cut a far more respectable figure than she had at her last meeting with Birdie.

“Hello, Birdie,” she said. “Hello, Mr. Bunce.”

“Hello, miss,” Birdie replied warily as Alfred set down his sack.

“I have been talking to Mrs. Gudge about the bogle,” Miss Eames went on, her eyes sparkling, her expression keen, “and everything she said confirms me in my opinion. I believe the creature in question is either a knucker or a hobyah.”

Alfred and Birdie exchanged glances.

“Oh, aye?” Alfred muttered.

“According to my research, knuckers are water spirits known for attacking livestock, as well as people. They live in ‘knucker holes,’ and are native to Sussex. I have been unable to determine whether they prefer hunting at night or during the day.” Miss Eames spoke rapidly, as if she sensed that Alfred and Birdie weren’t very interested in what she had to offer. “Hobyahs, on the other hand, are nocturnal in their habits. They are from farther north and eat children, though I’m not sure if they attack livestock. I also don’t know where they usually live.”

“Aye. Well. That’s very interesting,” Alfred remarked. “But—”

“What I have found out,” Miss Eames quickly added, without letting him finish, “is how each of these creatures has been captured and killed. And in neither case, Mr. Bunce, was a little girl used as a lure.”

Birdie scowled. Once again her livelihood was being threatened. Before she could protest, however, Miss Eames continued.

“According to tradition, the knucker at Lyminster was killed by a huge poisoned pie, which was left beside its knucker hole. Then its head was cut off. The hobyahs, on the other hand, are vulnerable to dogs. They have been known to fall victim to large dogs, and to flee from the sound of barking.” Miss Eames suddenly addressed the cook. “Is there a workhouse dog, Mrs. Gudge?”

“Ah . . . no.” Mrs. Gudge was looking flustered. She kept wiping her bony hands on her apron. “We’ve a lot o’ chickens, see.”

Miss Eames shot a triumphant glance at Alfred, who was growing more and more irritable.

“We ain’t got all night,” he said gruffly. “Birdie’ll tire if we don’t start soon.”

“Yes, but I wanted to tell you that I have brought a pie with me,” announced Miss Eames. Stooping to pick up a basket from the floor beside her, she explained, “Though it’s not a poisoned pie, I thought we might use it to test my theory about alternative baits for your trap.”

Birdie could restrain herself no longer.

“You want to put a pie in my place?” she squawked, flushing bright red. “You think a pie will draw a bogle out of its lair?”

“It’s freshly baked,” said Miss Eames. And as she flipped back the linen towel that covered her basket, a heavenly aroma filled the kitchen.

Even Alfred seemed impressed.

“That smell’s enough to raise the dead,” he admitted, “but I don’t know as how a bogle’s got the same appetite we do . . .”

“I’ll pay you two more shillings,” Miss Eames blurted out. “A crown in total. Would that be fair?”

Birdie glared at Alfred, who removed his hat, ran a hand through his hair, and said hesitantly, “Aye. That would be fair, on account o’ the risk.”

“It’s too big a risk!” Birdie objected, so loudly that Mrs. Gudge winced and peered anxiously at the smoke-blackened ceiling.

“Shhh! Someone might hear you upstairs!” the cook warned.

Obediently Birdie lowered her voice. “You kill bogles the way boglers always have done, and it works every time!” she hissed at Alfred. “Why change now?”

“Because the old way isn’t necessarily the best way, Birdie,” Miss Eames broke in. “Certainly not for you.”

“It is the best way for me!” Birdie snapped. “What do you know? You’re not a bogler!”

“Nevertheless, I believe that I can help Mr. Bunce shoulder his burden in a more scientific way—”

“Bogles ain’t steam engines!” Birdie interrupted furiously. “Bogles ain’t got nothing to do with science!”

“Please will you all stop shouting?” Mrs. Gudge begged. She sounded desperate. “You’ll have to go if you don’t!”

“Our apologies, ma’am.” Rounding on Birdie, Alfred fixed her with a warning look, his bloodshot eyes hard and cool. “You shut yer mouth now, or I’ll shut it for you.”

Birdie subsided. But she sniffed and folded her arms, making it clear that she wasn’t happy.

“Now, ma’am . . .” Alfred turned back to Mrs. Gudge. “Would you tell me more about this bogle in yer well?”

“I—I’ve not seen it,” the cook stammered. “Someone else did.”

“Where?” said Alfred.

Mrs. Gudge went on to relate that the four missing children had all left their beds late at night. Though the master was stubbornly insisting that they must have decamped from the workhouse, no one else believed it, because the children had been sick and on their way to the infirmary when they vanished.

“The master claims they was never really ill, but that ain’t so, for how can you fake the flux?” Mrs. Gudge said in a high, breathless, troubled voice. “It’s our belief—mine and Mr. Hobney’s—that them children passed too close to the old well near the laundry. For that’s where Fanny Tadgell saw the shape. And since the well’s bin abandoned, it might harbor a shellycoat or some such thing.”

“A shellycoat?” Miss Eames repeated with great interest. Then Alfred frowned at her, and she fell silent.

“How long has the well been abandoned?” Alfred asked Mrs. Gudge.

“Oh, for years. Since the new workhouse were built over the old, and that happened before my time.” The cook’s taut face relaxed a little as she dredged around in her memory. “They say the old cesspit fouled the well, or else some forgotten grave, but why blame a cesspit thirty years old? I say it’s from the manufactory next door, which is where they boil up skin and bones to make gelatin—”

“Who’s Fanny Tadgell?” Birdie interrupted, because she saw that Alfred was getting impatient.

“Fanny?” echoed the cook. “She’s one o’ the paupers as helps with the sick children. We ain’t got more’n two paid nurses, but they’re allus so busy with the old folk, there’s mortal need for extra hands.”

“And where exactly did Fanny see the bogle?” This time it was Alfred who cut her off. “How far from the old well?”

Mrs. Gudge seemed thrown by this question. “That I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

“Ask Fanny?” said Alfred. “Now?”

“She’s in the infirmary. She took a late shift, in case she were needed.” Hearing Alfred grunt, Mrs. Gudge remarked, “I’ll not stay much longer meself, for they expect me back here early tomorrow, and how am I to cook all them breakfasts if I ain’t slept?”

“But can you show us to the infirmary before you leave?” Miss Eames requested in a briskly confident manner that infuriated Birdie. “And perhaps introduce us to Fanny Tadgell?”

“Oh, I’ll do that, miss. You cannot be left to wander about on yer own at night.” Mrs. Gudge cast a worried glance around the kitchen, as if checking that every dish was washed and every flame extinguished. Then she picked up a glowing oil lamp, clumsily knocking against a shelf as she did so. “I’ll take you to meet the girl,” she said, “and when you’re all done, Mr. Hobney will let you out.” On her way to the door, she stopped suddenly and asked Alfred, “It’ll not . . . There’ll not be too much noise, I hope?”

Alfred shrugged. “Bogles ain’t loud, as a rule,” he replied. “Which is why they escape notice.”

“Stealth is their greatest weapon,” Miss Eames concurred—almost, Birdie thought crossly, as if she had a right to say anything.

Alfred pretended that he hadn’t heard Miss Eames, even though his eyes flickered. “I’d not be surprised if the lass had to sing,” he told the cook, much to Birdie’s delight, “but she’ll do it soft and wake no one.”

“Oh dear.” Mrs. Gudge sighed before throwing a feebly apologetic smile in Miss Eames’s direction. “Could you see yer way to covering that pie, Miss Eames? A smell like that could wake the whole men’s ward, never mind any bogle hereabouts.”

“Of course,” Miss Eames murmured, tucking the linen towel back over her pie.

Then she followed everyone else out the door, down the adjoining passage, and into the garden.