I have to be silenced, and possibly sacrificed, so that the Esoteric Order of Dagon may continue to flourish and the worship of Dagon may go on unhindered.
But I shall thwart whatever plans they have for me. My revolver lies in front of me on the table and there is a single bullet still remaining in the chamber!
RICHARD RIDDLE, BOY DETECTIVE IN “THE CASE OF THE FRENCH SPY”
by KIM NEWMAN
I
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“ GOSH, DICK,” SAID Violet, “an ammonite!”
A chunk of rock, bigger than any of them could have lifted, had broken from the soft cliff and fallen on the shingle. Violet, on her knees, brushed grit and grime from the stone.
They were on the beach below Ware Cleeve, looking for clues.
This was not strictly a fossil-hunting expedition, but Dick knew Violet was mad about terrible lizards—which was what “dinosaur” meant in Greek, she had explained. On a recent visit to London, Violet had been taken to the prehistoric monster exhibit in Crystal Palace Park. She could not have been more excited if the life-size statues turned out to be live specimens. Paleontology was like being a detective, she enthused: working back from clues to the truth, examining a pile of bones and guessing what kind of body once wrapped around them.
Dick conceded her point. But the dinosaurs died a long, long time ago. No culprit’s collar would be felt. A pity. It would be a good mystery to solve. The Case of the Vanishing Lizards. No, The Mystery of the Disappearing Dinosaurs. No, The Adventure of the Absent Ammonites.
“Coo,” said Ernest. “Was this a monster?”
Ernest liked monsters. Anything with big teeth counted.
“Not really,” Violet admitted. “It was a cephalopod. That means “head-foot.”
“It was a head with only a foot?” Ernest liked the idea. “Did it hop up behind enemies, and sink its fangs into their bleeding necks?”
“It was more like a big shrimp. Or a squid with a shell.”
“Squid are fairly monstrous, Ernest,” said Dick. “Some grow giant and crush ships with their tentacles.”
Ernest made experimental crushing motions with his hands, providing squelching noises with his mouth.
Violet ran her fingers over the ammonite’s segments.
“Ammon was the ram-headed god of Ancient Egypt.”
Dick saw Ernest imagining that—an evil god butting unbelievers to death.
“These are called ‘ammonites’ because the many-chambered spiral looks like the horn of a ram. You know, like the big one in Mr. Crossan’s field.”
Ernest went quiet. He liked fanged monsters, giant squids and evil gods, but had a problem with animals. Once, the children were forced to go a long way round to avoid Mr. Crossan’s field. Ernest had come up with many tactical reasons for the detour, and Dick and Violet pretended to be persuaded by his argument that they needed to throw pursuers off their track.
The three children were about together all the time this summer. Dick was down from London, staying with Uncle Davey and Aunt Maeve. Both were a bit dotty. Uncle Davey used to paint fairyland scenes for children’s books, but was retired from that and drawing only to please himself. Last year, Violet showed up at Seaview Chase unannounced, having learned it was David Harvill’s house. She liked his illustrations, but genuinely liked the pictures in his studio even more.
Violet had taken an interest in Dick’s detective work. She had showed him around Lyme Regis, and the surrounding beaches and countryside. She wasn’t like a proper girl, so it was all right being friends with her. Normally, Dick couldn’t admit to having a girl as a friend. In summer, it was different. Ernest was Violet’s cousin, two years younger than her and Dick. Ernest’s father was in Africa fighting Boers, so he was with Violet’s parents for the school holidays.
They were the Richard Riddle Detective Agency. Their goaclass="underline" to find mysteries, then solve them. Thus far, they had handled the Matter of the Mysterious Maidservant (meeting the Butcher’s Boy, though she was supposed to have a sweetheart at sea), the Curious Affair of the Derelict Dinghy (Alderman Hooke was lying asleep in it, empty beer bottles rolling around his feet) and the Puzzle of the Purloined Pasties (still an open case, though suspicion inevitably fell upon Tarquin “Tiger” Bristow).
Ernest had reasoned out his place in the firm. When Dick pointed the finger of guilt at the villain, Ernest would thump the miscreant about the head until the official police arrived. Violet, Ernest said, could make tea and listen to Dick explain his chain of deduction. Ernest, Violet commented acidly, was a dependable strong-arm man… unless the criminal owned a sheep, or threatened to make him eat parsnips, or (as was depressingly likely) turned out to be “Tiger” Bristow (the Bismarck of Bullies) and returned Ernest’s head-thumping with interest. Then, Dick had to negotiate a peace, like between Americans and Red Indians, to avoid bloodshed. When Violet broke off the Reservation, people got scalped.
It was a sunny August afternoon, but strong salt wind blew off the sea. Violet had tied back her hair to keep it out of her face. Dick looked up at Ware Cleeve: it was thickly wooded, roots poking out of the cliff-face like the fingers of buried men. The tower of Orris Priory rose above the treetops like a periscope.
Clues led to Orris Priory. Dick suspected smugglers. Or spies.
Granny Ball, who kept the pasty-stall near the Cobb, had warned the detectives to stay away from the shingle under the Cleeve. It was a haunt of “sea-ghosts”. The angry souls of shipwrecked sailors, half-fish folk from sunken cities and other monsters of the deep (Ernest liked this bit) were given to creeping onto the beach, clawing away at the stone, crumbling it piece by piece. One day, the Cleeve would collapse.
Violet wanted to know why the sea-ghosts would do such a thing. The landslide would only make another cliff, further inland. Granny winked and said, “Never you mind, lass” in a highly unsatisfactory manner.
Before her craze for terrible lizards, Violet had been passionate about myths and legends (it was why she liked Uncle Davey’s pictures). She said myths were expressions of common truth, dressed up to make a point. The shingle beach was dangerous, because rocks fell on it. People in the long ago must have been hit on the head and killed, so the sea-ghost story was invented to keep children away from danger. It was like a BEWARE THE DOG sign (Ernest didn’t like this bit), but out of date—as if you had an old, non-fierce hound but put up a BEWARE OF DANGEROUS DOG sign.
Being on the shingle wasn’t really dangerous. The cliffs wouldn’t fall and the sea-ghosts wouldn’t come.
Dick liked Violet’s reasoning, but saw better.
“No, Vile, it’s been kept up, this story. Granny and other folk round here tell the tale to keep us away because someone doesn’t want us seeing what they’re about.”
“Smugglers,” said Ernest.
Dick nodded. “Or spies. Not enough clues to be certain. But, mark my word, there’s wrong-doing afoot on the shingle. And it’s our job to root it out.”
It was too blowy to go out in Violet’s little boat, the SS Pterodactyl, so they had come on foot.
And found the ammonite.
Since the fossil wasn’t about to hop to life and attack, Ernest lost interest and wandered off, down by the water. He was looking for monster tracks, the tentacle-trails of a giant squid most likely.
“This might be the largest ammonite ever found here,” said Violet. “If it’s a new species, I get to name it.”
Dick wondered how to get the fossil to Violet’s house. It would be a tricky endeavour.