“Astounding!” Challenger said, stepping closer. “You, Sir, are a positive miracle. I have never seen the like.”
“After tonight you never will again,” Kane replied. “Kindly keep your distance! I am not a museum exhibit to be gawped at.”
Challenger raised a bushy eyebrow. “I was hardly gawping, Sir. I am Professor George Edward Challenger, a foremost authority on … Well, almost anything you might choose to mention. So when you have my attention you might bear in mind it is the attention of the very best.”
“Never heard of you,” Kane replied. “But then I have very little time for experts. Their inability to agree the truth makes me want to chew their faces off.” He looked to Johnson. “And what facial non-conformity are you trying to hide, eh? Given what you see before you, you must be a very ugly man indeed to stay so bashfully covered.”
“I’ve had a few complaints in my time, it’s true,” Johnson said.
“But it’s my anonymity rather than your comfort that I’m trying to preserve.”
“We all have our secrets, Kane,” I said. “And the better they are maintained, the less we need to worry about each other.”
“But you already know all my secrets I think,” said Kane.
“I doubt that,” I told him. “I doubt that very much.”
“I’m sure we have better things to do than stand here talking,” Mann said. “Might I suggest we get on with them?”
“Quite so,” I agreed. “I suggest you let us know the area we’re heading in and I’ll have Billy commandeer us a pair of cabs.”
“King’s Cross,” Kane said. “We can walk from there.”
“Very well,” I replied, before calling to Billy.
Kane turned to Mann. “And who are you?” he asked. “You have the unwelcome smell of the constabulary to you. I made it clear to Mr Holmes that I didn’t wish there to be any official law enforcement here this evening.”
“Then he followed your wishes,” Mann replied. “I’m a private agent, much like Wiggins here. Though I do most of my business in the country.”
“Hmm …” Kane gave another loud sniff. “I can smell it on you— greenery and mud. I don’t like it.”
“Then I shan’t make the mistake of inviting you to tea,” Mann replied.
I stepped into Watson’s room, helping myself to his revolver. If the night went as I hoped, I would be able to hand it to him in person.
Billy called up to us that he had secured transport. Cautiously, with Kane back beneath his veil, we made our way down onto the street.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I travelled with Kane in one cab while the rest followed on behind. I was unwilling to let him out of my sight and it gave the others a chance to converse more openly. In actuality this probably meant that they had to listen to Challenger talk at them. I wondered if I might be fortunate enough to discover that Johnson had been forced to throttle him before we reached our destination. It would certainly allow the rest of the evening to pass more peacefully. Sadly, this was not to be the case.
Once we arrived at King’s Cross, Kane led us behind the station and into the warren of backstreets that huddle around the railway tracks.
Shortly, we descended to the track itself, walking carefully beside the rails. Every few minutes a train would pass, pistons hammering in a percussive, chaotic row.
“Mind yourselves,” Kane said, as if we needed warning. “It gets darker along here where the cut deepens and the trains will rip you from your feet without their drivers even noticing. We are nothing but flies buzzing around an elephant’s ear.” He had a rather poetic turn of phrase when he turned his canine mind to it.
“I saw a man lose his arm once,” Johnson said. “Had too much to drink hadn’t ’e? Fell down next to the track, stuck his arms out to stop his face from hitting the ground. Boom!” He mimed a train sweeping past. “Bad timing and the 13.14 to Colchester had it off just below the shoulder. Didn’t even slow down, probably had no idea it had happened. The bloke in question was a bit slow on the uptake himself, mind you, only noticed a problem when he shook his fists at the driver and found himself one short.”
Wiggins laughed at that just as another train made its deafening way past.
After a few more minutes, Kane halted the party and pointed at a drainage cover in the ground.
“Our entrance,” he announced, pulling a short crowbar from a pocket inside his coat.
“Allow me,” said Challenger, taking the crowbar from him and flipping up the drain cover as if it weighed nothing. He handed the crowbar back to Kane, smiling. “It’s not just my brain that’s powerful,” he said.
“No,” Kane agreed. “Your personality is just as indomitable.”
“Now then,” said Wiggins, “let’s try and keep this as friendly as possible, shall we? No doubt there’s enough down there waiting to do us harm without our fighting amongst ourselves.”
Kane didn’t reply just gestured towards the uncovered hole. “After you.”
Wiggins looked to the hole, and the top of the ladder just visible within it, and sighed. He glanced at me, looking for the confirmation to go ahead. Naturally I gave it.
Mann followed Wiggins, then Johnson, then Challenger— somewhat irritated at having to wait his turn. Finally there was only Kane and I left on the surface.
“I think you should go next,” I said to Kane, “just so you can tell them which way we should be walking.”
“Still don’t trust me, eh?” Kane replied.
“Naturally not,” I replied. “I’m not an idiot after all.”
Kane offered that disturbing grin of his, a smile that spoke of animal hunger rather than humour. “We’ll see about that,” he replied, and began to climb down the ladder.
I descended after him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Descending into the tunnel we were hit by the oppressive air, not just the reek of the sewer water that rushed by but also the heavy sense of age and damp. The world from above rarely made itself felt in these long chambers. Fresh air, the cool, clean scent of a winter’s breeze, these were things that had never intruded down here. This was a world of waste and rot, Moreau’s world.
“I’ve been in some unpleasant places in my time,” said Challenger, “landscapes terrible and dangerous. I have choked on the sulphurous outpourings of an active volcano, the fetid aroma of freshly gutted buffalo, the assault on the nostrils that is Delhi at high summer. And yet this is undoubtedly the most foul smelling, and unappealing.”
“We are not here to act as tourists,” Kane said. “We are here for business.”
“And dark business at that,” agreed Wiggins.
“On the subject of which—” There was the scrape of a match and Johnson lifted up an illuminated lantern “- We’ll be needing a bit of extra light.”
“If you can’t manage without,” Kane hissed. “Though I would have preferred not to present such an obvious target. They will see us coming from some distance away.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t see for a foot in front of my face without it,” Johnson said. “So we’ll have to manage, wont we?”
I could see Kane’s point but thought it particularly ill-advised to stumble around in the dark. “We cannot manage without light for now,” I said, “so we might as well accept the fact and get moving.”
“Many expeditions are a matter of compromise,” Challenger said as we began to work our way along the tunnel. “I remember, during a particularly arduous trek along the banks of the Amazon, I was forced to …”
“Must he talk all the time?” said Kane. “You can hear his bellowing for miles, I’m sure.”
Of course, I agreed with Kane on this point, not that Challenger gave me time to admit as much.