“Oh, Tom!” came his wife’s voice from the lounge. “Tom! There’s one of those awful birds at the window!”
Honesty’s carefully trimmed eyebrows rose. A messenger parakeet had never called at his house before, though plenty had tapped at his office window.
He stepped to the lounge door and passed through. The small room was an astonishing clutter of knickknacks and ornaments. His wife, a slim, pretty woman, pointed at the window.
“Look!”
“Leave the room, Vera,” he advised.
“But I want to listen! I’ve never heard one!”
“Bad language. Not suitable. Off you go!”
“Tom, I insist on staying! A little bad language won’t offend me! I tell you what—I’ll listen with my hands over my ears!”
Honesty looked at his wife, blinked, shrugged, and grunted: “Very well. Warned you.”
He slid the window up.
“Message from Detective Inspector nobble-thwacker Trounce and Sir Richard Francis bottom-squeezer Burton,” cackled the parakeet gleefully.
Mrs. Vera Honesty gave a yelp and fled from the room.
“Gather as many cretinous constables as you possibly can,” continued the bird, “and get them to the filthy-cesspit village of Letty Green at the soonest possible moment. They must be in civilian garb and should all be armed with pistols and flying goggles. Avoid the verminous village of Old Ford at all cost, you mucus-bubbler. From Letty Green, the men must proceed in groups of no more than three morons at a time to the Cat in the Custard at Pipers End. It is of crucial importance that all the nose-picking men have visited this public house before sundown. Honesty, you skunk-tickler, this is a matter of national sodding importance and you can’t overestimate the number of constables required. We need a bloody army. I will take full responsibility. Get to the Cat yourself, dirt-slurper, as soon as possible. Bring with you the strumpet Sister Raghavendra of 3 Bayham Street, near Mornington Crescent. Speed is of the essence. Message ends.”
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” exclaimed Honesty. It was one of the longest and strangest messages he’d ever heard issue from the beak of a parakeet.
“Tosspot,” squawked the bird.
“Reply,” snapped the Yard man. “Message begins. Doing as you say. This better be good. Message ends. Go.”
With a colourful flutter the parakeet flew from the windowsill and disappeared into the sky. Faintly, its voice floated back: “Buttock-licker!”
Slightly over an hour and a half later, five rotorchairs landed in a field to the west of Letty Green. Detective Inspector Honesty climbed out of the first, removed his goggles, and straightened his clothing. He retrieved his homburg and cane from beneath the seat, then paced over to one of the other chairs and helped its driver out.
“That was utterly wonderful!” Sister Raghavendra laughed. “Though a little tricky to begin with!”
“You did well! First woman to fly!” replied Honesty.
“Really? No, surely not! Me, the first woman to fly?”
“Perhaps, my dear. Perhaps.”
Honesty turned to the three men who awaited his orders.
“Remain here, Constable Krishnamurthy,” he said to one. “Instruct new arrivals.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then to the other two men: “Venables, Ashworth—come!”
He led the girl and the two policemen to a stile in the hedgerow that surrounded the field and climbed over it into the lane beyond. As they proceeded toward nearby Pipers End, three specks appeared in the sky behind them: more rotorchairs arriving from London.
They traipsed on until, forty minutes later, they arrived at the Cat in the Custard and were shown up to the private sitting room.
“Hello, old fellow!” said Burton, shaking Honesty’s hand. “I want you to listen to what Trounce has to tell you. It will sound incredible but, believe me, every word is true. We must act fast and we’re relying on you.”
Honesty nodded curtly and sat in the chair to which Trounce gestured.
Burton guided Sister Raghavendra out of the room and down into the empty parlour.
“Sadhvi,” he said, placing his hands on her upper arms. “You said you would like to help. You can. But I may be placing you in harm’s way.”
“No matter,” she replied eagerly. “Tell me what I must do.”
Later that morning, a flower seller, wearing a red cloak with a hood, entered Old Ford village and started calling from door to door. It was late in the season and her basket contained only magnolias, hydrangeas, geraniums, a makeup kit, and a pistol.
Business was not good. She made few sales, though all the villagers were friendly. One, a retired soldier who introduced himself as “Old Carter the Lamp-lighter,” informed her that she was the most exotic of the blooms.
Eventually, she came to a cottage at the bottom of the hill on the western edge of the village. There were two bobbies standing guard outside and one blocked her path and refused her entry.
She whispered a few words to him.
He nodded, spoke softly to the second constable, then the two men strolled away and didn’t come back.
Ignoring the bellpull beside the gate, the flower seller passed through and walked along the short path to the front door. She knocked upon it and, a few moments later, it opened.
A short conversation followed.
The flower seller entered the cottage.
The door closed.
Twenty minutes later, it opened and she stepped out. She walked down the path, out through the gate, and back through the village.
Her basket contained magnolias, hydrangeas, and geraniums.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter was sweeping the road in front of his house.
“Sold much?” he asked as she passed.
She shook her head and hurried on.
“Funny,” he mumbled. “The exotic bloom seems to have faded.”
As she exited Old Ford along the south road, a man detached himself from the shadow of a tree and wandered along some distance behind her.
A little while later, the flower seller arrived at the Cat in the Custard in the neighbouring village of Pipers End and sat in the parlour, waiting. The man who’d followed her entered.
“Miss Pipkiss?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered nervously.
“I’m Detective Inspector Trounce. I can assure you that you’re quite safe now.”
Alicia Pipkiss pulled back her hood. Her dark skin was much paler around the edges of her hairline and behind the ears and back of the neck.
“Can I wash this makeup off?” she asked.
A deep and mellow voice from across the room said, “I’ll ask the landlord to heat some water for you.”
A man had entered. He was big and had a fierce, scarred face that was bruised and cut.
“Hello, Alicia,” he said. “I’m Captain Richard Burton. I’m working with Scotland Yard.”
She nodded.
“I have to ask you a rather personal question. I hope you don’t mind.”
She swallowed and shook her head.
“Alicia, do you happen to have a birthmark? Something shaped like a rainbow?”
Alicia Pipkiss cleared her throat and put down the basket of flowers.
She looked up into Burton’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Back in the cottage in Old Ford, Mrs. Jane Pipkiss nee Alsop, onetime victim of Spring Heeled Jack, handed her guest a cup of tea.
Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra accepted it with a smile and placed it on the table next to her chair.
She sat and waited, the tea at her side, a pistol in her hand.
The hundred and eleven men of Letty Green village met on the cricket field at lunchtime to discuss the strange state of the sky. It was filled with streamers of white vapour that were coming in from the south, veering to the west over the little settlement, and dropping groundward to the east.
“It’s comets, that’s wh
at it is!” claimed one.
“You mean meteors!” corrected another. “And they don’t turn in the sky like what these ‘uns are doing!”
“Maybe these ‘uns are a new sort!”
“Maybe you ain’t got no brain!”
The discussion went back and forth for half an hour until it was suggested that they head out of the village to see where the trails of vapour ended. This plan was immediately approved and, arming themselves with shovels and garden forks, broom handles and walking sticks, and the occasional blunderbuss and flintlock, the mob swarmed out of Letty Green, climbed the hill to the west, and stopped dead on its brow. The field below them was filled with rotorchairs.
“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” muttered the villager who’d somehow emerged as the leader of the crowd.
He led them down the lane until they came to a stile that gave access to the field. A man, standing beside it, smiled at them.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Constable Krishnamurthy of the Metropolitan Police—and I have just become a recruiting officer!”
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter had never seen so many strangers in the village. More particularly, he’d never seen so many well-dressed strangers. And even more particularly, he’d never seen so many well-dressed strangers carrying paper bags in one hand, canes in the other, and with small rucksacks upon their backs.
It occurred to him that the road needed sweeping again.
Five minutes later he nodded his head at a smart, paper-bag-carrying stranger and said, “Good day!”
The man nodded haughtily, flourished his cane, and walked on.
Fifteen minutes later another one appeared.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter nodded at him and said, “Good day! Fine weather, hey?”
The man looked him up and down, muttered “G’day!” and pushed past.
When the next appeared, Old Carter the Lamp-lighter stood in his path, grinned broadly, raised his cap, and said breezily, “How do you do, sir! Welcome to Old Ford! You’ve picked a fine day for a stroll! What’s in the bag?”
The man stopped and looked at him, taken aback. “I say!” he exclaimed.
“I do too!” agreed Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. “I say it’s a lovely day to go for a walk with a paper bag under your arm! What’s in it? A picnic, perhaps?”
“Why, yes, that’s it—a picnic! What!” exclaimed the stranger, and made to move away.
“Up your arse!” said the bag.
The two men looked at it.
“Sandwiches?” suggested Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.
“Parakeet,” mumbled the stranger, sheepishly.
“Ah, yes. Training it, perhaps?”
“Yes, that’s right. Training. Seeing how fast it can fly back to London, what!”
“Gas-belcher!” announced the bag.
“Is it a convention?” asked Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.
“A con-con—a what?”
“A convention, old bean. A gathering of the Oft-Spotted Parakeet Trainers of Old London Town? I say, you’re not the chaps who teach ‘em how to swear, are you?”
“Blasted impertinence!” exploded the stranger. “Let me past!”
“I do apologise!” said Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, standing aside. “Incidentally, the fishing’s not good in that direction. No water, you see.”
“The fishing? What in blue blazes are you on about now?”
“There’s a length of netting hanging out of your rucksack.”
The stranger strode away, swinging his cane, his countenance flushed with anger.
“Have a splendid day!” called Old Carter the Lamp-lighter after him.
“Goat-fiddler!” called the bag.
Sneaking along from the untended land to the north, a poacher approached the field opposite the Alsop cottage and quietly slipped into the thick border of trees that surrounded it. It was a good field for rabbits but there’d been police outside the cottage these past few days and he’d been too nervous to check his traps. Were the coppers still there? He was going to have a look.
Treading softly, as was his habit, he moved furtively from bole to bole.
Suddenly, a feeling of unease gripped him.
He froze.
He was not alone.
He could sense a presence.
Moistening his lips with his tongue, he crouched, held his breath, and listened.
All he could hear was birdsong.
A lot of it.
Too much!
An absolute cacophony!
“Maggotous duffers! Cross-eyed poseurs! Scrubbers! Bounders! Dirty baggage! Dolts! Filthy blackguards! Decomposing scumbags! Poodlerubbers! Piss-heads!”
The poacher looked around him in bewilderment. What the hell? The trees seemed to have more birds in them than he’d ever known—and they were screaming insults!
“Bastards! Stink-brains! Stupid fungus-lickers! Lobotomised chumps! Tangle-tongued inbreds! Curs! Fish-faced idiots! Balloon-heads! Little shits! Witless pigstickers! Crap masters! Buffoons!”
His unease turned to superstitious dread.
The poacher was just about to turn and take to his heels when an uncomfortable feeling in his neck stopped him. He looked down and his stubbled chin bumped into a wet red blade that projected from his throat. He coughed blood onto it and watched as it slid back into his neck and out of sight.
“My apologies,” said a soft voice from behind.
The poacher died and slid to the loamy earth.
The man who’d killed him sheathed his swordstick. Like all his fellow Rakes, he was well dressed, carried a bagged birdcage in one hand, and had a rucksack on his back.
Little by little, the Rakes had occupied the shadows under the trees around the field and now there were hundreds of them.
By the time twilight was descending over the village, there were no more smart, bag-carrying, cane-brandishing strangers for Old Carter the Lamplighter to accost.
He’d swept the street until it was practically shining. Now he was settling into his armchair to enjoy a cup of tea and a hot buttered crumpet.
He placed the teacup on the arm of his chair, raised the crumpet to his open mouth, and stopped.
The cup was rattling in its saucer.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is happening now?” he muttered, lowering the crumpet and standing up. He crossed to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see, but he could hear an odd thrumming.
Moving to the front door, he opened it just in time to see a plush leather armchair descend from the sky.
It landed across the street from his cottage, the spinning wings above it slowing down, the paradiddle of its motor becoming lazier, steam rolling away.
The noise stopped. The wings became still. The man in the seat pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, lit a pipe, and began to smoke.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter sighed and stepped out of his house. He closed the front door, walked down the path, opened the gate, crossed the spotlessly clean street, stood next to the chair, and said, “Sangappa.”
The man looked up, and with his pipe stem clenched between his teeth mumbled, “Beg pardon?”
“Sangappa,” repeated Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. “It’s the best leather softener money can buy. They send it over from India. Hard to find and a mite expensive but worth every penny. There’s nothing to top it. Sangappa. It’d do that chair of yours a world of good, take my word for it.”
“I do,” said the man, raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes and directing them down the street.
Old Carter the Lamp-lighter ate his crumpet and chewed thoughtfully while he looked to where the lenses were pointing: at the high street’s junction with Bearbinder Lane, the lower end of the village, beyond which fields and woods sloped up to the next hill.
“Bird-watching?” he asked, after a pause.
“Sort of.”
“Parakeets?”
The man lowered his glasses and looked at
the villager. “Funny you should say that.”
“It’s been a funny sort of day. Police, are you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Your boots.”
“Ah. Oh dear.”
“Good for boots, too, that Sangappa is. They’re in the woods.”
“The parakeets, you mean?”
“Yes. In cages, in bags, in the hands of men, in the woods.”
“How many? Men, that is.”
“An infestation, I should say. Is that one of ‘em new clockwork lamps?”
He pointed to a cylindrical object resting in a coil of rope between the constable’s police-issue boots.
“Yes, it is.”
“Do me out of job, that would, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m twice retired.”
“Twice?”
“Yes. Good, is it? Bright?”
“Very bright indeed, Mr.—?”
“They call me Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, sir, on account of the fact that I used to be a lamp-lighter before I retired.”
“I thought that might be their reason.”
“Detective, are you?”
“No. Constable. What else are you retired from?”
“Soldiering. King’s Royal Rifle Corps. They have nets too.”
“As well as rifles?”
“I mean the men in the woods, sir. Nets and parakeets.”
“I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. I’m Constable Krishnamurthy. Your information is most useful. Would you accept a little advice?”
“Only fair, sir. I advised you about Sangappa, after all.”
“You did. In return, my advice is this: stay indoors this evening!”
The policemen and Letty Green villagers left Pipers End as the sun was setting. They moved in a wide, silent arc toward Old Ford and the southern, western, and northern borders of the Alsop field.
Detective Inspector Thomas Honesty led the men to the south.
Detective Inspector William Trounce led the men to the west.