Chapter Thirty-Five

FELIX TOOK A moment to compose himself before returning to the bar. He didn’t want to tip off Mr Tassiter or Ms Stock that anything was wrong. “I need to get another whiskey barrel,” he said. “It’s cold down there.” He opened the hatch behind the bar and climbed down the stone steps into the damp cellar. He pulled on the dented cannonball, swinging open the hidden door to the smuggler’s tunnels. He wished he had a musket but there were none in the Star, and thanks to Vince’s new law, they were almost impossible to acquire on Blackrabbit these days. He hid the baton he’d taken from Tenner in the inside pocket of his long, corduroy overcoat. With a solitary striker-lantern to guide his way, he set off into the bitter, dark tunnels.

The coldness of the air caught his breath. The walls of the narrow tunnel were damp and a sickly, pale green in colour. He had room to stand straight, but just barely. His footsteps echoed along ahead of him. He wondered if the tunnels had been specially cut to stop Vince Knight from passing through them, but realised they likely were far older than him. The tunnels weaved and undulated, and Felix wondered at what point he’d passed under the cemetery. The thought of countless bodies lying still and sightless above his head made him shudder. The light from the lantern caught on stumps and protuberances, casting shadowy faces here and there. He tried not to look at them.

At last, he came to the end, to little Chancewater Cove. And there waiting for him in a sailboat was Mr Sparrow. Felix’s hand touched the baton, just to reassure himself that he hadn’t dropped it in the caves.

“Did you bring it?” Mr Sparrow asked.

Waves crashed, ringing though the cove.

Felix held up the box. “Where is Uncle Gregory?”

Mr Sparrow took his lighting pole and twisted the handle. The top half screwed out automatically, clicking all the while until the whole shaft had doubled in length. He thrust the end into the water and turned it a few times. A few moments later, the water bubbled and boiled as an acorn-shaped submersible—big as a coach, made of oak, and held together with copper rings—ruptured the surface, right against the mouth of the cove.

Mr Sparrow spun a wheel on its side and a hatch opened in the waterproof tank. Sitting inside, Felix could just make out the figure of a man with a bag over his head, sitting bound and gagged. He moved to step onboard the submersible.

“Hold it,” Mr Sparrow shouted. He kept his hand on the lighting pole. “One twist and the whole thing sinks. And I won’t bother closing the door this time.”

Felix stepped back a couple of paces. “Uncle Gregory! Uncle Gregory are you…? It’s Felix, can you hear me? What is this? What have you done to him?”

Mr Sparrow’s boat rocked from the disturbance caused by the acorn submersible. “I told you he was alive,” he said. “Ms Underhay told me about this contraption your uncle uses for smuggling. A fully submersible chamber. Thankfully, it uses a common horological key. Your uncle uses it to store goods he can’t move without fear of arousing suspicion. I doubt he ever expected to be kept inside of it himself.”

“You’re… You’re disgusting,” Felix said. “It’s inhumane.”

“It wouldn’t have been necessary if he’d just given me the bracelet,” Mr Sparrow said. “And it’s not as if he can’t breathe in there. There’s a tube, see? Like a little chimney. It pokes up above the waves, just enough to let air in. If you didn’t know to look for it, you’d never spot it.”

“What is so special about this damn bracelet?” Felix asked. “It can’t possibly be worth that much money.”

“It’s worth quite a lot,” Mr Sparrow said. “My father had the bracelet made as a handfasting gift to my mother. He spent a fortune on it, safe in the knowledge he’d make more fortunes in their years together. The bracelet has haunted me my entire life. I was on board the coach when your parents attacked. I was only a boy at the time. Ten, maybe eleven years old. We were travelling through the woods from our house in the countryside to the harbour when we were set upon by two brigands. They held muskets to us and took everything we had. When they tried to take the bracelet my father resisted and was shot in the arm.

“His arm turned gangrenous and could not be saved. A surgeon had to remove it. My father never worked again. My mother was unable to cope with his change in temperament. We lost our money. Our home. I had to go to sea to earn a living. I hated every moment of it. I was born to smoke cigars in drawing rooms, not smoke fish in filthy holds. My family name held some sway in the C.T.C and I signed on as an officer. My first commission was on a merchant vessel shipping tea across the Atlantic, but the admiralty had other plans. They used our ship to launch surprise attacks on military targets.”

“That’s illegal,” Felix said.

“The admiralty didn’t care. One day, we raided an ailing Spanish ship. We broke into its hold and imagine my surprise to find sitting amongst it all,” he pointed to the box in Felix’s hand, “that very bracelet.”

Felix’s mind reeled. “What? How could…wait. My parents, the night they left Blackrabbit, they sold the bracelet to pay for their journey. The Spanish attacked the ship they travelled on and stole the bracelet. But that was years ago.”

Mr Sparrow laughed. “It’s probably changed hands a dozen times since then. I stole it before the rest of my crew spotted it. I wasn’t about to let it slip through my hands—the thing that ruined my life. I determined then and there to make it pay. I would bring it back to Blackrabbit—back home—and sell it. I would use it to buy the nice house I always deserved and make a decent life for myself.

“This town used to be rife with fences but your friend Mr Knight put paid to them not so very long ago. So until I could find a buyer myself, I needed work. I heard about the lamplighter job, and I forced Admiral Boon to recommend me for it. I told her I’d go to the newspaper with what I knew about the illegal raids.” His eyes had widened the whole time he spoke until they were pools of white. “Everything was going so well until the bracelet was stolen by your lout of a cousin, Tenner. And I had to beat its whereabouts out of him. And then your uncle, hah, your uncle refused to give it to me! He told me he’d hidden it in the Star. He even told me where, but he’d gotten rid of the only key.

“I thought about tearing the masthead from the building, gutting it, ripping out the metal chest and damn the consequences, but when you arrived with the key to the front door, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, your uncle had sent you the second key as well. When I saw you hand a key over to Vince Knight, I knew what it opened.”

“You had Ms Underhay distract Vince, didn’t you?” Suddenly it become all so clear to him.

Mr Sparrow tilted his head.

“There is no way you could have stolen the key from Vince otherwise,” Felix said. “She knew what you were doing. She helped you.”

“She did. But now all my plans for the future are gone. I can’t stay in Port Knot any longer. I can’t even stay on Blackrabbit. You’re too close to that gorilla, Vince. Nowhere on this island is safe for me, now. I’m going to have to go to the mainland. Look at all the trouble the bracelet has caused, Felix! It’s cursed. The longer either of us has it, the greater danger we’re in. Now—give it over.” He held his hand out.

“Let me get him out first.”

“Don’t make me do it.” Mr Sparrow tightened his grip on the lighting pole.

“I have no guarantee you won’t submerge him again once you have it,” Felix said. “I can hardly run away, not with him in that condition. Let me get him out; then I’ll give you the bracelet.”

“But Mr Diamond, you have my word.” Mr Sparrow moved to turn the pole.

The deep waters lapped at the shore. Felix weighed the box in his hands.

“Don’t,” Mr Sparrow said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t throw it into the sea. I’m not so far gone as to dive in after it. I’ll simply drown your uncle, then come ashore and batter you to death.”

The look in his eye left no doubt in Felix’s mind that he meant what he said. However, if he could coax Mr Sparrow into coming ashore, Felix could pull the baton from his coat and attack him with it. He could keep hitting until he was unconscious. But then what? Roll him into the sea and let him drown? Hardly. Felix was no killer. He could tie him up, help Uncle Gregory back to the Star, then get Vince? Yes, that would do it. That would make sense. Mr Sparrow needed to face justice for his crimes. It galled Felix to think of Mr Sparrow taking the bracelet and getting away with what he’d done. But how could he lure Mr Sparrow out of his boat? What could he possibly offer him? Felix’s throat ran dry and his stomach heaved. Nothing. He had nothing to offer. He tossed the box over to Mr Sparrow.

Mr Sparrow caught it and immediately opened the box. “I honestly expected it to be empty.” He took the bracelet out and checked it over.

“I thought about it,” Felix said. “But you’d have to be incredibly stupid not to check the box before letting me go.”

Mr Sparrow slipped the bracelet into his pocket and dropped the box into the sea. He raised his anchor and took up the oars. He left the lighting pole in place, sticking out of the water and still connected to some unseen mechanism. Oars in hand, he pulled his boat from the cove, to the open sea.

Felix dashed into the cramped and unlit submersible, almost slipping on the wet floor. “Hold tight, Uncle Gregory, I’m here, I’m here.” He pulled off the hood from the figure tied to the chair. His heart sank to his feet. “Iron? I don’t… How are you here?” He removed the cloth gag from Iron’s mouth and untied his hands and legs. “What happened? Are you hurt? How did he get you?”

“He came to my workshop,” Iron said. “He told me he’d changed his mind about the automation of the street lamps.” He rubbed his wrists, still red from the bindings. “When I turned my back he hit me. There was someone else with him. Someone big.”

“Ms Underhay, most likely,” Felix said. “Oh, Iron, I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have been dragged into this. I never thought… I never meant…” He steadied himself against the curved wall of the submersible and gripped his chest. His heart thumped harder than ever before. His stomach churned like the worst winter squall, and he realised his hands had turned numb. He crouched, trying to control his trembling. He knew what was coming, and he knew how to control it, but his mind wouldn’t let him. Iron was speaking, shouting, but Felix couldn’t hear him properly.

Thoughts slipped out of reach, the lantern dropped from his grip, and he fell to his hands and knees. His breathing grew shorter and shorter. He tried desperately to reach for his lifeline, his refrain. “It is…it…it is the waves which break—not I. Not I.” He repeated it over and over, he shouted it as loudly as he could, his voice echoing through the submersible. At last, his breathing steadied. He stood, aware the numbness in his hands came now from pressing them on the wet floor. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry…that shouldn’t have happened. Not in front of you. Not now.”

Iron held him as tightly as he could. “It’s fine; don’t worry. You…”

“No!” Felix said. “No, you’re the one he took; you’re the one who suffered. I have no right to…”

“You feel the way you feel,” Iron said. “You are at the mercy of your mind and body as are we all.”

Felix took Iron under one arm and helped him limp out of the submersible and onto the slippery rocks. In the low morning light, Mr Sparrow raised his sail and drifted off, away from Blackrabbit, forever.

The going back through the narrow smuggler’s tunnels was difficult. Iron was soaking wet from the waist down, likely from when Mr Sparrow and Ms Underhay moved him from the boat to the submersible. He was also weak from his injury and stumbled as they walked. By the time they reached the cellar of the Star We Sail By, Iron had started to shiver uncontrollably. Felix called up through the hatch to Dahlia and Mr Tassiter for help. It took some doing, but they got him to a chair by the crackling fireplace.

“Where did he come from?” Mr Tassiter asked.

Ms Stock and some other customers gathered around.

“He must have been in the tunnels,” one said.

“I thought the tunnels were meant to be a secret,” said another.

“Get back,” Felix said. “Give the man some air. And get his boots off.” He went to fetch some water from a jug.

“His boots? Why?” Mr Tassiter worked at the buckles on Iron’s shoes. He pulled one free, almost losing it to the fire.

Felix gave the water to Iron, who gulped it down. “His stockings too.”

Mr Tassiter did as he was asked. “I don’t see the need for all this fuss.”

Felix took one of Iron’s broad feet in his lap and dried it with a rag from the bar. He worked his thumbs into the sole, causing Iron to moan a little. “Wet stockings are no laughing matter,” Felix said. “I’ve seen some awful things happen to feet kept wet for too long. Dahlia, could you please fetch some blankets from upstairs? Iron, did you lose consciousness at all?” Felix looked into Iron’s eyes and made him watch his finger as he moved it from side to side. “Ship’s cooks have to pitch in with the medical needs of the crew. I’ve treated a lot of head injuries in my time. I think you’ll be fine.” He held a damp rag to Iron’s forehead. “This is my fault.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Iron clamped his hand around Felix’s wrist. “The whole time I was tied up in there, in the tank I made for your uncle, I was thinking about how you’d blame yourself. But listen. Listen to me, Felix—you didn’t do this to me. Jason Sparrow did.”

“Did he… Did he mention Uncle Gregory?”

Iron shook his head. Felix’s mind started to spin and his stomach heaved. He jumped when the front doors of the Star clattered open. A red-faced Vince barged in and demanded to know what had happened.

“I’m glad to see you,” Felix said. “We need to pay a visit to Ms Underhay.”