Now Fawkes heard stealthy movements from down below and was wide awake at once. It was that sound which had disturbed the horses. Fawkes was used to the stable noises, the sound of exhaled breath, the creak of the wooden stalls during the night. But this was a human being.
He took hold of an iron bar which lay beside the bed, kept there for just these eventualities. A ladder led up from ground level to rest against one of a pair of cross-beams that supported the planks or flooring of Fawkes’s quarters. There was no light in the stables but Fawkes’s eyes were used to the dark, and he could just make out the uprights of the ladder from where he lay on his bed, snugged against the end wall. He listened as a first, experimental foot was placed on the bottom rung, then a second foot on the second rung, and so on. The ladder creaked slightly.
Fawkes waited, lying on his back, his head turned sideways to watch the top of the ladder, his right hand gripping the iron bar. Fawkes was not frightened. He did not scare easily. The advantage lay with him, since he was awake and the intruder did not know he was awake. Besides, he had an idea who it might be. In due course, a cap and a head appeared at the top of the ladder.
‘Stop right there, mate,’ he said. ‘I can crack you over the nut before you get a foot higher in the world.’
‘Why’d you want to do that, Seth Fawkes?’ said the head. ‘I mean you no harm.’
‘I know you and your games.’
‘Well, I’m a-coming up now.’
The head grew to a pair of shoulders, then added arms, torso and legs. There was something monkey-like about the figure which now drew itself over the edge of Fawkes’s living quarters. Meantime, Fawkes had swung from his bed and was fiddling with an oil lamp. But he kept the iron bar within reach just as he kept an eye on the new arrival until he had got the lamp hissing and glowing.
‘How’d you get in here?’ he said.
‘Through the door. And, before that, over the wall, Seth.’
‘It’s a high wall,’ said Fawkes. He was so unused to being called by his first name, rather than the more customary Fawkes, that to hear it was as odd as being addressed by a stranger. Yet the man sharing his little eyrie in the stables was, regrettably, no stranger.
‘Leaped it, didn’t I,’ said the intruder, referring to the wall.
‘Regular spring-heeled Jack, aren’t you, Adam?’
‘Enough of the complimenting. It’s a bloody cold night out. Got anything warm to drink?’
Fawkes had a bottle of port, filched from his master. Reluctantly, he uncorked it and passed it to the other man. He watched as Adam swung himself round so that he was sitting with his legs dangling into space. He observed that Adam was wearing a kind of knapsack, which gave him a hunched appearance. The other man threw back his head and tilted the bottle to swallow, exposing his neck and his Adam’s apple. A single blow there would do it, thought Fawkes.
Adam put down the bottle. He wiped his mouth. He looked slyly at Fawkes as he handed back the bottle.
‘I can guess what you’re thinking,’ he said.
‘Guess away.’
‘One quick push and I’d topple off here, wouldn’t I?’
Almost right, thought Fawkes, though it was more of a blow than a push that he was considering.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ he said, aloud.
‘To pay me back for that little joke on Salisbury station,’ said Adam.
‘Joke? Oh, that little joke. You pushed me on to the line.’
‘You were not pushed but fell. Just toppled off the platform when you saw me coming.’
‘You speak as if you was out strolling. Saw you sneaking up rather.’
‘Anyway, there was no danger, no train coming. You got up and vanished. No harm done. Just my bit of mischief after a good day out.’
Fawkes recalled that recent day out. He’d come in by train from Downton to visit a certain padding-ken or low boarding house run by a Mrs Mitchell. Fawkes had an understanding with Mrs Mitchell which went back many years. After their session together he’d ended up in the pub called The Neat-Herd (but universally known as The Nethers). There he had encountered Adam, not for the first time. They’d drunk quite a bit before Fawkes had to leave for the Downton train. Adam had been in an especially sprightly mood and had accompanied Fawkes to the station, darting around in the black garb he favoured. He was like a devil on wheels. Fawkes thought he’d got rid of him finally but his shadow had played that last trick on him on the station platform, bursting out to surprise him like some silly kid. Fawkes had been pissed enough to topple on to the track but retained enough of his wits to scramble out of the way pretty damned quick.
‘You do like mischief and games, don’t you, Adam?’ said Fawkes now, squinting down his forefinger as if he were aiming a gun. ‘You always have liked a spot of mischief.’
‘Keeps me going,’ said the other happily.
There was an irritating bounce to Adam, as if he was never going to be troubled or put down by anything. Seth Fawkes knew that bounce only too well. He said, ‘What do you want here?’
‘Your master asleep?’
"Spect so. Most honest people are at this hour.’
‘Your master honest? Ha!’
‘Beware of your tongue.’
‘I know Mr Percy Slater and his honesty. Didn’t he commission me to do a little job of breaking and entering a man’s room in a hotel because he wanted to know what documents that man was carrying? Letters and such to do with the honest Slaters.’
‘You should thank me for that commission, Adam. It was me as put your name forward to my master, knowing he wanted a spot of dirty work done.’
‘Well, thank you, Seth Fawkes. I am forever obligated to you. That shows you don’t bear me any hard feelings for that bit of larking about at Salisbury station. Your mistress now, is she at Northwood House tonight?’
‘Mrs Slater is not here from one year’s end to another, as you know. She stays in London.’
‘What about the old woman?’
‘You mean Nan? You can say her name.’
‘Does she sleep tight?’
‘Don’t know, Adam. She don’t sleep here in the stables anyway.’
‘We won’t be disturbed then.’
‘Disturbed in what?’
‘We’re going on a little search,’ said Adam.
He shrugged the knapsack off his shoulders and unstrapped it. He drew some sheets of paper from it and began to study them.
‘Pardon me,’ said Fawkes. ‘You may be going searching, but I am staying here. For I have noticed that it is the middle of the night.’
‘Then we shan’t be seen.’
‘We won’t be able to see neither.’
‘We shall. The night is clear. No mist, no fog. There is a little moon to light our way.’
‘Whatever you want to do you can do by daylight.’
‘Too much risk. Besides, you know I like the dark. I work better then.’
‘I’m staying here,’ said Fawkes, but he spoke without conviction.
‘Pardon me but you are not staying here. I need your head. You know the way to Hogg’s Corner?’
‘It’s not a corner but a few oak trees behind the house. I don’t know why it’s called Hogg’s Corner.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said the other. ‘That’s where we’re going.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got a little scent that’s atickling my nostrils, a scent coming from Hogg’s Corner. You can bring that lamp with you.’
‘Don’t need a light. I know this place like the back of my hand.’
‘But I don’t after all this time,’ said Adam. ‘Besides I may want to do a spot of reading later. You got a spade in here?’
‘There’s a shovel for mucking out with,’ said Fawkes.
‘That’ll have to do. Get it as we go. And give me a swig from that bottle again. Have one yourself while you’re about it.’