***
Even as William Parry struggled to free himself from the wet, rotting grasp of a former member of London’s indigent population, Ross and Crozier had vaulted with difficulty over one of the enclosing gates between Whitehall and the neighboring rural suburb, having left the Strand sometime before without having luck procuring libation.
“Hey, look...over there.” James pointed past a wrought iron fence enclosing one of London’s many charnel houses. “Isn’t that our old Commander Parry?”
“By jove, you’re right!” The two young men hurried across the muddy streets, delivering much needed aid to the hapless ship’s captain. With broken tree limbs and fisticuffs, they soon had rendered the undead back to permanent death.
“Thank you both.” William recovered, nodding slightly as he recognized their eager faces. “Report please?”
“Oh, um...yessir. Captain Franklin’s in the fresh grave yonder, lying supine.” Crozier answered, “I...erm, suspect he’s pretending to be dead.”
“Are you sure he’s not dead?” Ross added, using a fallen limb from a nearby tree to prod at Franklin’s boot, disrespectfully.
“Doubtful, Mister Ross. Old defense mechanism. Hmm, works on bears, seems to have some effect on the walking dead.” Parry remarked thoughtfully, prodding bodies delicately with the tip of his boot. “Must remember that in the memorandum I’m writing. By the way, do either of you spot my confounded walking stick? It’s a very distinguished one with the head of a polar bear...” He slid in sloughed unmentionable flesh, soft and green like fuzz off fine cheese.
Ross and Crozier looked around dutifully.
“Aha! Found it,” Parry located it beneath a dead Rhododendron. “Let’s carry on then, boys.”
“Um, sir, what about Captain Franklin?”
“Huh? What about him?”
“Shouldn’t we...um...wake him?”
William thought about what a fuss the other man had been putting up, certainly they’d almost met their Maker, but must a gentleman cry like a little girl? “Nah, leave him.” Keeping company with the likes of Captain Franklin didn’t suit his manly image at all!
“Sir!” Crozier exclaimed in alarm.
William chuckled warmly, wiping a spot of distasteful blood off the carved polar bear head on the apron of an unmentionable underfoot. “Couldn’t you tell ‘twas a little joke, Master Crozier?”
“Not really, sir.” Crozier admitted with a raised brow. William Parry wasn’t known to spin yarns. With James’s help, they succeeded in convincing Franklin they weren’t unmentionables and were soon wheeling through the London streets. Recalling the directions to the hotel, they soon arrived outside a once-handsome brick edifice with ominous black wrought iron bars over every window and door. The inner bell cord to ring for service was wrapped around the neck of a portly older gent clad in a somber black duster. His tongue protruded most obscenely from swollen, purpled lips and a few flies buzzed over the film of death in his partially open eyes.
Parry held a stolen handkerchief of Franklin’s over his nose, peering up at the closely curtained windows. Not a light shone in any nor did a sound stir from within. “Seems, even a twelve-gun hotel was overrun, is none safe from this horrendous plague?”
The younger men held their pistols closer, expressions grim. Franklin jangled the gate, discovering a mere latch from the inside kept it secure; everyone knew how an unmentionable couldn’t unlock gates. “Now, look here, William. This poor fellow must’ve contracted the deadly plague or thought to prevent his falling a victim to it...by taking his own life.” In the waning light of a foggy London sunset, Franklin’s expression reflected gentle pity. “But, as far as I can tell, his neck isn’t broken. Which means-”
William understood, brightening. “-That the plague hasn’t reached the hotel.”
“Otherwise the fellow would’ve turned.” Ross finished, coming up behind them. “I don’t like to rush, sirs, but it doesn’t do to linger out in the open.”
They saw the wisdom of this, once an unmentionable dog that William could’ve sworn was the same one that had gone after Scoresby’s carriage, appeared from dead bushes and began barking in a most annoying-yipping way.
“I suppose some functions remain.” He commented in a thoughtful way, leaving the grunt work of gate-opening and body-moving to the boys and Franklin. Once inside the gated enclosure, they hurried up the steps of the shallow porch, first ringing the inner bell, then finding the door unlocked, entered into a lavish foyer.
Raising a finger to his lips, Parry motioned that they should split up to see if anyone remained. Ross and Crozier nodded to show they understood and went separate ways through adjoining doors. Franklin, of course, wouldn’t hear of such a thing and kept to his friend’s shadow like a second shadow, starting at every little noise.
At the handsome walnut wood desk, no concierge waited to book them. The servant quarters were empty as well as the kitchen and the drawing room, Crozier came back to report. Ross spent a little longer, poking through the upstairs rooms, though he did find one locked, eventually trooping downstairs to announce all clear.
“Well, that settles it then.” Parry said decisively.
“What does?” Franklin was almost positive he’d recognized the house as a former residence.
“We’re staying here tonight.”