Sparks glowered at her, but she proudly stood her ground. When Doyle snorted, trying to stifle a laugh, Sparks shot him a venomous look.
"Sorry," said Doyle, turning the laugh into a cough. "Perhaps staying on here is not such a bad idea, Jack."
"You will have your opportunity to contribute, Miss Temple," said Sparks, ignoring Doyle entirely. "Only with the understanding that I entirely absolve myself of further responsibility for your safety."
"Understood," she said, and thrust out a hand. Sparks stared at her hand for a moment as if it were a lobster claw and then shook it, once, hard.
"So what will we do then, Jack?" asked Doyle. "The brothers have during the afternoon each made a most interesting discovery," said Sparks, moving away to the window.
Both men had by now climbed back to their feet, hats in hand. Barry, Doyle noticed, had a good deal of difficulty removing his eyes from Eileen.
"Train pulled into the station, three o'clock sharp," said Barry, turning on the charm. "Webb Compound and one passenger car. Special from Balmoral. Royal seal."
"Was there a royal on board?" asked Doyle, alarmed.
"Just the one: Prince Albert—"
"Young Eddy?" asked Stoker, aghast.
"Himself. He was met by carriage and driven off to the
southeast."
"You'll recall that Sir Nigel Gull, former physician to the prince, is one of the List of Seven," Sparks reminded Stoker.
"What could he be doing here? Do they plan to kill him?"
asked Stoker.
"There's the waste of a perfectly good bullet," said Eileen.
"And are you acquainted with the prince personally, Miss Temple?" asked Sparks.
"As a matter of fact, I am," she said, rolling another cigarette. "I spent an evening in Eddy's company last year after he saw me perform Twelfth Night in Bristol."
"One can't fault him his taste," said Barry gallantly.
"The man's got the mind of a Guernsey," said Eileen. "Put a pint in him, and he sprouts more arms than an octopus—"
"Thank you for that edifying report," said Sparks.
"Not at all," said Eileen, and held up the finished cigarette. Both Barry and Larry rushed forward with lit matches before Doyle could even get one out of his vest.
"Larry, would you care to share with us what you've found out today?" said Sparks, with a disapproving schoolmaster's tone.
"Right, sir," said Larry, blowing out his match as Barry had beaten him to Eileen. "Goresthorpe Abbey is mysteriously deserted, no one about these three days past, as Mr. Stoker has so astutely sussed out. So how do we finds the Right Honorable Bishop Pillphrock and where he's got to? A grocer and his goods; that's the life's blood of any household. I spent the afternoon chatting up the dollies in the local shops—mind you, I'm no Barry, but I get by—and following outward along the lines of supply, I learn the Bishop has repaired to a secluded slice a' heaven down the coast where, judging by the considerable volume of provisions purchased and delivered, he must be, as we speak, playing the country squire to a goodly number of guests."
"The Bishop's own estate?" asked Doyle.
"No, Sir John Chandros's," said Sparks.
"Correct, sir, and as it happens, sharing the grounds of this same estate is a factory that produces—"
"Mother's Own Biscuits," said Doyle.
"You're miles ahead of me, sir," said Larry modestly.
"What is the name of the estate?" asked Doyle.
"They call it Ravenscar," said Larry.
"And it's to the southeast, past the ancient ruins," said Doyle.
"Correct once again," said Larry.
"Where Prince Eddy was likely taken from the train station," added Sparks. "And adjacent to Ravenscar is the tract of land General Drummond purchased from Lord Nicholson."
"We must go there immediately, Jack," said Doyle.
"Tomorrow's business," said Sparks, looking out the window at the falling snow. "Tonight we pay a visit to the ruins of Whitby Abbey."
"You can't be serious—in this weather?" asked Stoker, "Your attendance is not required, Mr. Stoker," said Sparks, picking up the shotgun. "However, I should like to borrow
your gun."
Barry, all this while, had been taking the opportunity to size up Eileen as she smoked her cigarette, towering a good five inches above him.
"I've seen you someplace before, haven't I?" he said with
a confident grin.
Eileen cocked an amused eyebrow at the little man. Perhaps Barry's reputation is not overstated after all, thought Doyle.
Armed with lanterns, a shotgun, one pistol, and five sets of snowshoes procured from the inn, Sparks, Doyle, the brothers, and Eileen—Stoker having elected to exercise the better part of valor—set out in the dark for the ruins of Whitby Abbey. The bulk of the storm had passed, and the wind had expired; snow fell straight down and more gently now, to depths in excess of a foot and a half. Thick clouds obscured the moon. Smoke poured uniformly from the chimneys of the huddled houses they passed; curtains drawn, almost no light escaping to the ill-defined streets. The night was broken by nothing but the soft crunch of snowshoes on fresh powder and the vaporous columns of their breath. Navigation was problematic at best; the travelers felt sealed in a mute, hermetic sphere of white.
Slogging up the hill demanded patience and stamina. Sparks took the point, consulting a compass to maintain their bearings against the sheer cliffs to their left. Barry and Larry kept a rear guard with the other lanterns, while Doyle walked beside Eileen in the middle. She wore pants, boots, and a coat borrowed from Sparks's wardrobe. Her stride was long, steady, and brisk, and the climb seemed dismayingly less arduous to her than to Doyle himself, who welcomed each of Sparks's frequent pauses as an opportunity to reclaim his
wind.
Half an hour passed before they reached the cold, dark contour of Goresthorpe Abbey; no change in its lack of occupancy was evident. A formation of curious rectangular shapes studded the snowfield before them. Doyle realized it was the
heads of the cemetery's gravestones peering out of the drifts. Following the turn of the rectory grounds, they moved through a stand of trees and were soon confronted by the craggy black outline of the ancient ruins looming on the crown of the hill above. As devoid of life as its sister building below, the old sepulcher emanated a visceral menace considerably more threatening than life's mere absence.
"Nasty-looking piece of business," said Doyle quietly.
"All the better to strike fear in the hearts of poor, ignorant parishioners with, my dear," answered Eileen in kind.
Sparks waved them forward, and they attacked the final leg of the ascent. The slope was steeper here, and it more than once required the collective efforts of the group to pull each other up and over the sharpest inclines. With the last of these banks surmounted, they found themselves on a flat plane level with the ruins. Their lamps bled a pallid light on the crumbling walls, which were black and harrowed with age. Its doors and windows had long since been ravaged by time, and in many areas even the roof had fallen victim, but the overall impression imparted by what remained of the abbey was one of tremendous sturdiness and power. A slow circum-ambulation of the structure revealed both its impressive scope and its builders' fantastic indulgence of detail. Every ledge, cornice, and lintel was adorned with nightmarish Gothic statuary, embodying every imaginable species of night-dweller: kobold, incubus, basilisk, and hydra, lich, ogre, hippogriff, gremlin, and gargoyle. This fearsome menagerie had suffered far fewer insults from the passing centuries than the walls they swarmed over, each now patiently collecting a mantle of snow that did nothing to diminish their dread presence. Placed here to ward off demons, not to welcome them, remembered Doyle from his history books. Or so one hoped. He couldn't keep from regularly glancing over his shoulder to see if any of the creatures' dead eyes were tracking them.