The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs Read Online Free PDF

Inn

     
    St. Ives apparently hadn’t slept at all, but had sneaked out at dawn and roused the innkeeper again. He had asked about the Tipper, and although the innkeeper had warned him against the man, St. Ives set out down the road in the direction of the Tipper’s shack with a sleepy John Gunther to show him the way.
    “That must have been three hours ago,” I said incredulously.
    “Nearly to the minute,” the innkeeper said, and then he went on to tell us that John Gunther had returned shortly with the missive, but with instructions not to rouse us, but to wait until we’d come up for air. And so it was done. The innkeeper had seen to it. He went out again, promising breakfast and coffee, which sounded distinctly more palatable to me now than it had only a few minutes earlier.
    “He’s left us in port,” Tubby said, slumping into a chair. “And by design. He could as easily have sent the boy back at once to rouse us. For God’s sake, man, read the letter, and we’ll know why.”
    I tore it open straightaway, although there was no hurry, as it turned out. “Tubby and Jack,” the letter read. “I’m going on into Heathfield without you. I ask your pardon for my deceit, but I can tell you that there is nothing else to be done. I’ve made a ruin of things in every possible way, and it’s my business to sort things out if I can. With the idea of departing at first light, I paid a visit to the Tipper, where he lives below the miners’ houses at the bottom of the High Street. The man was unhappy to see me, but he was game enough when he had three of my guineas in his pocket and more promised. He resolutely refused to lead anyone but me into Heathfield. The entire company is out of the question, he maintains, with the roads and paths guarded as they are. He has been in and out twice in the past two days, and it was a close business—work for a cat, he said, and not an elephant.
    “Of course I didn’t tell him what I was about, and he affected not to care, so long as he received six guineas in all. When we reach our goal, I’ll release him from his obligation. He’s agreed to return to the inn, find the two of you, make his report, and receive the second payment, which I’ve entrusted to John Gunther, the stable boy, who is a good lad. By that time, God willing, I’ll have thwarted Narbondo’s plans and Alice and I will be making our way south to Dicker to look up Tubby’s uncle.”
    I heard Tubby gasp at the mention of Dr. Narbondo’s name, but I read on without pause and with precious little surprise:
    “When you’ve paid the Tipper his due, you’d do me a service by leaving straightaway for Dicker yourselves, for we’ve got further business to attend to in the south. If we’re not there by sunset this evening, then I’ll leave the two of you to your own devices.
    “Many things have become clear to me, Jack, and it’s high time that you and Tubby know all. It was Ignacio Narbondo himself who sent the false missive from Dundee, luring us north. I did him the foolish service of dawdling for two weeks, scrutinizing the nonsense that he himself had planted for the very purpose of manipulating me. And it was Narbondo who murdered Busby and stole the gems and his apparatus, suspicion naturally falling to the Prussians. To put it simply, I fear that Narbondo has made use of Busby’s Second Ray—a madness ray. I cannot explain the effect of the ray, but I suspect that the gravitational distortion of the energy’s waveform provokes a complimentary distortion in the activity of the brain. You’ll recall that Busby’s portable laboratory was often set up on a prominence. The old Belle Tout Lighthouse at Beachy Head might answer. If it does not, then the device might well be set up within the cliff itself, perhaps in a cavern, where the chalk walls would facilitate the acceleration of the ray, which I fear is impervious to the horizon. That would explain the curious matter of the Explorers Club.