Thaxton smiled. “I had heard as much, to tell the truth, from Dr. Warren. ‘If you are wise,’ he said, ‘you will not dispute religion with Dr. Darwin. If you are wiser yet, you will not dispute anything with him.’ ”
The men climbed back into the coach and drove slowly on through Milburn, to Thaxton’s house north of the village. Before they went inside the big stone-built structure, they again took a long look at Cross Fell, rising vast to the northeast.
“It’s clear today,” said Thaxton. “That means that the Helm won’t be on the fell, and Anna won’t be seeing or hearing anything tonight. Dr. Darwin, I don’t know what your diagnosis will be, but I swear to God that the next twenty-four hours will be the hardest for me of any that I can remember. Come in, now, and welcome to Heartsease.”
Darwin did not speak, but he patted the other man sympathetically on the shoulder with a firm hand. They walked together to the front door of the house.
“They are taking an awfully long time.” Richard Thaxton rose from his seat by the fire and began to pace the study, looking now and again at the ceiling.
“As they should be,” said Jacob Pole reassuringly. “Richard, sit down and relax. I know Erasmus, and I’ve seen him work many times in the past. He has the greatest power of observation and invention of any man I ever met. He sees disease where others can see nothing—in the way a man walks, or talks, or stands, or even lies. And he is supremely thorough, and in the event of dire need, supremely innovative. I owe to him the lives of my wife, Elizabeth, and my daughter Emily. He will come down when he is satisfied, not before.”
Thaxton did not reply. He stood at the window, looking out at the inscrutable bulk of Cross Fell. A strong northeast wind, harsh and gusting, bent the leafless boughs of the fruit trees in the kitchen garden outside the study window, and swirled around the isolated house.
“See up there,” he said at last. “The Helm is growing. In another two hours the top of the fell will be invisible.”
Pole rose also and joined him by the window. At the top of the fell, a solid bank of rolling cloud was forming, unmoved by the strengthening wind. As they watched, it grew and thickened, shrouding the higher slopes and slowly moving lower.
“Will it be there tonight?” asked Pole.
“Until dawn. Guarding the treasure. God, I’m beginning to talk like Anna. It’s catching me, too.”
“Has there ever been any real treasure on the fell? Gold, or silver?”
“I don’t know. Lead, there surely is. It has been mined since Roman times, and there are mine workings all over this area. As for gold, I have heard much talk of it, but talk is easy. I have never seen nuggets, or even dust.”
Jacob Pole rubbed his hands together. “That’s meat and drink to me, Richard. Fiends or no fiends, there’s nothing I’d like better than to spend a few days prospecting around Cross Fell. I’ve travelled a lot farther than this, to places a good deal more inhospitable, on much less evidence. Yes, and I’ve fought off a fair number of fiends, too—human ones.”
“And you have found gold?”
Pole grimaced. “Pox on it, you would ask me that. Never, not a pinch big enough to cover a whore’s modesty. But luck can change any time. This may be it.”
Richard Thaxton pushed his fingers through his black, bushy hair, and smiled at Jacob Pole indulgently. “I’ve often wondered what would take a man to the top of Cross Fell in midwinter. I think I’ve found out. One thing I’ll wager, you’ll not get Dr. Darwin to go with you. He’s carrying a bit too much weight for that sort of enterprise.”
As he spoke, they heard the clump of footsteps on the stairs above them. Thaxton at once fell silent and his manner became tense and somber. When Erasmus Darwin entered, Thaxton raised his eyebrows questioningly but did not speak.
“Sane as I am,” said Darwin at once, smiling. “And a good deal saner than Jacob.”
“—or than you, Richard,” added Anna Thaxton, coming in lightly behind Darwin. She was a thin, dark-haired woman, with high cheekbones and sparkling grey eyes. She crossed the room and put her arms around her husband. “As soon as Dr. Darwin had convinced himself that I was sane, he confessed to me that he was not really here to test me for a consumptive condition, but to determine my mental state. Now”—she smiled smugly—“he wants to do some tests on you, my love.”
Richard Thaxton pressed his wife to him as though he meant to crack her ribs. Then her final words penetrated, and he looked at her in astonishment.
“Me! You’re joking. I’ve seen no fiends.”
“Exactly,” said Darwin. He moved over to the table by the study window, where an array of food dishes had been laid out. “You saw nothing. For the past hour, I have been testing your wife’s sight and hearing. Both are phenomenally acute, especially at low levels. Now I want to know about yours.”
“But others were present when Anna saw her fiends. Surely we are not all blind and deaf.”
“Certainly, all are not. But Anna tells me that when she saw and heard her mysteries on Cross Fell, it was night and you alone were with her upstairs. You saw and heard nothing. Then when you brought others, they also saw and heard nothing. But they came from lighted rooms downstairs. It takes many minutes for human eyes to acquire their full night vision—and it is hard for a room full of people, no matter how they try, to remain fully silent. So, I say again, how good are your eyes and ears?”
“I tell you, they are excellent!” exclaimed Thaxton.
“And I tell you, they are indifferently good!” replied Anna Thaxton. “Who cannot tell a rook from a blackbird at thirty paces, or count the sheep on Cross Fell?”
They still held each other close, arguing across each other’s shoulder. Darwin looked on with amusement, quietly but systematically helping himself to fruit, clotted cream, Stilton cheese and West Indian sweetmeats from the side table. “Come, Mr. Thaxton,” he said at last. “Surely you are not more prepared to believe that your wife is mad, than believe yourself a little myopic? Shortsightedness is no crime.”
Thaxton shrugged. “All right. All right.” He held his wife at arms’ length, his hands on her shoulders. “Anna, I’ve never won an argument with you yet, and if Dr. Darwin is on your side I may as well surrender early. Do your tests. But if you are right, what does that mean?”
Darwin munched on a candied quince, and rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. “Why, then we no longer have a medical problem, but something much more intriguing and pleasant. You see, it means that Anna is really seeing something up on Cross Fell, when the Helm sits on the upland. And that is most interesting to me—be it fiends, fairies, hobgoblins, or simple human skullduggery. Come, my equipment for the tests is upstairs. It will take about an hour, and we should be finished well before dinner.”
As they left, Jacob Pole went again to the window. The Helm had grown. It stood now like a great, grey animal, crouching at the top of Cross Fell and menacing the nearer lowlands. Pole sighed.
“Human skullduggery?” he said to Anna Thaxton. “I hope not. I’ll take fiends, goblins and all—if the Treasure of Odirex is up there with them. Better ghouls and gold together, than neither one.”
“Tonight? You must be joking!”
“And why not tonight, Mr. Thaxton? The Helm sits on the fell, the night is clear, and the moon is rising. What better time for Anna’s nocturnal visitants?”
Richard Thaxton looked with concern at Darwin’s bulk, uncertain how to phrase his thought. “Do you think it wise, for a man your age—”