In an instant Lockwood was lying on his front, peering at the remotest portion of the wall. His flashlight turned on. “I see the hole. There’s something shining in it. It’s quite far in—would be hard to reach…”
Holly screamed. She was gazing at the door. There, halfway up, pressed against the glass: a huge white hand.
Lockwood jumped up. “George, snap out of it! We’ll need your strength for this. Take a look.” He tossed the flashlight to George, and in the same motion took his rapier from his belt.
Fingers curled around the edge of the door. The nails were broken and fouled with dirt.
George sprang over the pile of wood and lowered himself down beside me. He squinted into the cavity. “I see it….It’s a jar of some kind. But the pipe’s in the way.”
Lockwood flicked his coat back; he was checking the equipment on his belt. “Break the pipe if necessary.” He walked across the room. “The rest of you, get inside the circle.”
I rose to my feet. “Lockwood,” I said, “what are you—?”
“I’m going to buy George some time. Get in the circle, Lucy.”
The door was opening; a vast black shadow spilled through it like a lolling tongue. Lockwood threw a salt-bomb into the crack; there was a horrible high-pitched scream. Then he had slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind him.
Holly, Kipps, and I were transfixed, staring after him—
Ding-a-ding-a-ding!
All three of us cried out, all three of us turned. It was the silver bell, swinging wildly on its wires of zinc and spider-silk.
“Oh, it rings now?” I cried. “That thing is so useless, George!”
George was lying on his back, head out of sight. “Well, don’t blame me! Blame the Rotwell Institute! They’re selling any old junk!”
“Just get into that hole!”
“Got a tap wrench?”
“No! Why would I? I don’t even know what it is!”
“It’s this bloody pipe that’s the problem—I can’t pull the thing out.”
I was staring at the door. Shapes moved beyond it; I heard thuds, slashes, and again and again that keening scream. None of us had gotten into the circle as Lockwood had ordered, and now we saw the chains sliding sideways on the linoleum floor. The chains had been folded over, but not tied. The outer one whipped away; the inner one held firm. A force blasted out across the kitchen, toppling the candles, making us stagger where we stood. For an instant I saw Lockwood’s outline thrust back against the glass, then he was gone. The whole house seemed to shake.
“We have to go and help him, Kipps,” I said.
Kipps didn’t seem to have moved since Lockwood had left the room. His face was white. He gathered his wits. “Yes. We must. Come on.”
“Lucy!” That was George, from below.
“What?”
“Got a spanner?”
“No! I’m not a plumber, George! I’m an agent! Agents don’t carry spanners!” I was halfway to the door.
“It’s all right! It’s all right! I’ve broken through the floorboard…I’ve almost gotten it out…” Something grated against brick; George’s legs thrashed from side to side. “There!” He sat up, holding a jam jar wreathed in cobwebs. It glinted an unpleasant white. “Get me a Seal!”
Holly was already standing by; she had a silver net in her hand.
Beyond the glass, a vast and swollen shape lurched toward the door.
The handle turned.
Holly dropped the net, swathing the jar in silver.
The door swung slowly open—
—revealing only Lockwood, leaning against the wall. His coat was dusty, his hair plastered over one eye. His right arm was slack, his right hand bleeding; from his left, his rapier hung loosely, trailing along the floor. We stared at him. He stood there, breathing hard and grinning, alone in that empty hall.
It turned out, once we’d inspected him, that a bruised arm and cut hand were the worst of what Lockwood had suffered, inflicted when he was blown back against the door. Perhaps he was a little quieter than normal; otherwise, physically, he was quite unharmed. While Kipps went to find a phone box to summon a Night Cab, he sat on the porch and let Holly fuss around him; meanwhile, George and I pulled our remaining equipment out onto the lawn.
When we were packed up, I went to stand beside Lockwood.
“Didn’t we do brilliantly?” he said. “I think even Kipps is impressed, and that takes some doing. Thank you for agreeing to help us out tonight, Luce.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Not a problem.”
“Did you take a peep at the Source? Did you see what it contained?” The jam jar, securely wrapped in silver and ready for its final journey to the furnaces, sat a little way off, shimmering under the stars.
“George told me. Lots of human teeth.”
“A special collection of them. Must have been dear to Guppy’s heart.”
“How nice. Well, it’s over now. I’m glad we did the job.”
“It was good to team up with you again.” Lockwood smiled at me, then looked away into the garden. I could sense he was about to speak. “Actually, Lucy…”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering something—”
“Yes?”
“Do you have any of that chocolate left? I saw you’d started a bar earlier.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course. Here, take it all.”
Lockwood wasn’t normally one to overdose on sweet stuff; he left that more to George and me—or used to, when we worked together—but he tore the silver paper away and ate the whole bar, piece by piece, until it was all gone, staring sightlessly into the night. I thought he looked very tired.
When he’d finished, he gave a sigh of satisfaction. “Thank goodness for you, Lucy. Holly never carries chocolate, and George has always scarfed his before we’re out of Portland Row. But I can always rely on you.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m glad to be of service. And you’re right,” I went on, in a sudden rush. “It’s great we got a chance to work together again. I’m really glad we could—Oh, and here’s Kipps, back already….He made good time.”
A Night Cab had pulled up at the end of the drive, its horn blaring. Lockwood was slowly getting to his feet. The time for talking had passed.
Except for one last thing.
“Lockwood,” I said, “when you went out into the hallway…”
The final smile was weary. “Lucy, you really don’t want to know.”
We ended up needing three taxis. Lockwood, Holly, and Kipps took the first one, carrying the Source off to Clerkenwell, while George and I waited behind with the bulk of the bags. When the other cabs came, I’d head to Tooting, he’d go to Portland Row. It was the parting of the ways. We sat on a garden wall opposite number 7.
“George,” I said, after a while, “you’ll know this kind of thing. Mummified heads. How common are they?”
George being George, the question didn’t faze him. “As psychic artifacts? Rare. Has to be the right conditions for mummification: either very dry, or containing certain chemicals, like you get in peat bogs. Can’t have much air, else the microbes get to work. Why?”
“No reason. Just I heard of two recently, and I was wondering how likely it was, that’s all.”
He grunted but said nothing. Silence enveloped us.
“George,” I said again, “what Lockwood did back there—”
“I know.”
“It was brilliant, yes, but also—”
“Crazy?”
“Yeah.”
George took off his glasses and rubbed them on his sweater as he always did when considering something disagreeable. It was a different kind of rub than the one he used when he was excited, agitated, or simply being a know-it-all. I’d forgotten how clearly I could read him. If you’d hidden his face and simply showed me his glasses moving on his shirt, I could easily have told you his mood.
“Yes,” he said, “and the really bad thing is that I wasn’t at all surprised. This is typical behavior for him now. Lockwood’s more reckless than ever. He throws himself into everything like he doesn’t care. Most cases we go on, I don’t have time to even do a quick background check, let alone research the haunting.”