Death and the Arrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

in.
    “Murder!” he shouted. “Another strange murder in the town!” All eyes in the coffee house turned from Tom and his father to the newsboy.
    “Was it arrows again?” shouted Dr. Harker, keen to make the most of the interruption and calm the tempers of his two friends.
    “No, sir; strangled.” A murmur went round the room.
    “Then why ‘strange’?”
    “Well, sir,” said the youth, “now, I’m glad you asked. I says ‘strange’ ’cos although he didn’t have the arrows, he did have the card.”
    “Explain yourself, lad,” said the doctor, but before the youth could speak, Tom yelled, “Who was it that was killed? Who was it that was killed?” The cry was so sudden and so passionate that it silenced the room. Dr. Harker and Tom’s father stared at him.
    “What is it, Tom?” said the doctor.
    “Who was it that was killed?” repeated Tom, quietly now, tears in his eyes.
    “There ain’t no need for shouting,” said the newsboy. “I ain’t no—”
    “Just tell the lad, for goodness’ sake!” said Dr. Harker.
    “All right, all right. As you’re so interested, like; his name was Pigeon, Padget . . . no, no, wait, Piggot. Yeah, that’s it—William Piggot.”
    Tom stared ahead like a madman. He shook his head and mouthed the word “No” soundlessly. A great black wave seemed to crash over him and he thought he might fall over. His father rose to his feet and started toward him, but Tom spun round and stopped him in his tracks with violence in his face. He took out the watch and tossed it across the room toward him. “There,” he said coldly. “Keep it. I never did deserve it.”
    “Tom,” began his father.
    “He . . . was . . . my . . . friend!”
    “Tom!” called his father, but Tom was already out the door and running for all he was worth through the dark and twisting lanes, screaming out in a bitter rage of sadness until his heart was fit to burst or break.

A FUNERAL IN THE RAIN
    London hardly noticed the passing of a boy like Will. The great city lumbered on its busy way, untroubled by the loss of yet another of its poor children, closing up over the gap he had left. Soon it would be as though he had never existed.
    Or so things might have been, had it not been for Tom Marlowe. Whatever his father might think — and he and his father had barely spoken since their argument in the coffee house—Tom felt a bond with Will that even death could not break. He was true to his word, and with Dr. Harker’s help, he used the money Will had given him to buy a coffin; Will would not be surgeons’ meat.
    On a day of constant and fitting drizzle, Will’s young body was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Bride’s on Fleet Street. As the church bells chimed, a flock of jackdaws burst from the steeple, calling out and flying off toward the river, and a seagull cried forlornly from a nearby chimney top. The church spire jabbed the sky.
    The only face in the graveyard that was not downcast belonged to the sexton, who leaned against the wall at a respectful distance, puffing on a clay pipe, leaning on a shovel, waiting to fill in the hole he had dug the day before. One grave was much like another to him.
    The rain blackened the headstones and soaked into the heap of clay beside the grave; it mingled with the tears of the mourners as they said their goodbyes to Will and turned away. Tom found it hard to leave the grave-side but let himself be led away by Dr. Harker. The sexton tapped out his pipe and picked up his shovel.
    Will Piggot had been a popular character and the churchyard was full of the most extraordinary-looking people—molls, rogues, and cutpurses—but Dr. Harker had greeted them all with the same civility as if they had been Justices of the Peace. He had taken control of the proceedings as Will’s father might have done, had he not drunk himself to death five years before, and it was greatly appreciated by all who came—particularly Tom, who could never have managed