The Death Collector

Chapter 17

Mist still hung heavily over the sloping ground of the park. It shimmered and shivered in the light breeze, like a moving blanket of smoke. The grass was wet with dew and the moon struggled to find its way through the thinning clouds. The Crystal Palace stood majestic in the moonlight. Its glass walls glinted and glistened, reflecting pale ghosts of the hazy parkland.

Sir William led them along one of the paths that swept down the hill and round the Crystal Palace towards the lake. Despite the fact that they were probably the only people in the entire park, they still spoke in hushed whispers.

‘Do you know where we’re going, sir?’ George asked.

‘It has been a while,’ Sir William admitted, ‘but yes, I think I can recall the way.’

‘What are we looking for?’ Eddie asked.

‘An iguanodon,’ Liz told him. ‘A dinosaur.’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘I expect you’ll know it when you see it,’ George replied.

‘Big and lizard-like,’ Liz said. ‘Remember?’

Eddie did remember. ‘And it’s a statue, right? And somehow we have to get inside it?’

Sir William paused. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘You know I hadn’t really considered that. I wonder how we can get it open.’

‘It depends how the thing is put together,’ George said. ‘We may need to come back with tools.’

‘Or we could smash our way in,’ Eddie suggested.

‘With our fists?’ Liz said. ‘What’s it made of, this statue?’

Sir William led them off the path now, over the wet grass and into a thicker patch of mist. ‘Cast iron, brick, stone …’ His voice faded with him into the night. Eddie and the others hastened after him.

‘We won’t need tools,’ Eddie muttered to George. ‘We’ll need a gang of navvies.’

The ground rose, disappearing into the mist. They were skirting a small lake when Eddie heard the noises. The bank was steep and the grass was slippery, so they were all concentrating on keeping their balance.

‘It’s just along here somewhere, I feel sure,’ Sir William called back to them.

But Eddie had stopped. ‘What’s that?’

They all stopped and listened. The sound was muffled by the heavy air, but in the silence they could all hear it — the distant sound of people talking, of undergrowth and branches being forced aside.

‘They’re looking for us,’ Eddie knew instinctively.

‘We can’t be sure of that,’ George replied quietly.

‘Why else would they be here?’ Eddie said. ‘In the middle of the night?’

‘It does seem likely that somehow we have been traced or followed,’ Sir William admitted. They were all talking in hushed tones now.

‘Then let’s get moving,’ Liz whispered.

They hurried on along the bank for several minutes, and it seemed — to Eddie’s relief — that the voices and sounds receded into the night behind them. After a while, Sir William stopped, pointing up the steep slope. A large dark shape loomed up above them, barely more than a charcoal silhouette in the mist that rose from the lake beside them.

‘Ah, here we are.’ Sir William stepped aside, at the base of the rocky outcrop. Above him, through the mist, a shape was forming — gaining substance as Eddie got closer. A scaly, reptilian head thrust out of the gloom. A vicious spiked horn protruded from the creature’s nose, and large glassy eyes regarded Eddie suspiciously.

‘The monster!’ Eddie gasped.

‘What? Oh nonsense,’ Sir William told him. ‘It’s just the statue of an iguanodon. And not terribly accurate at that, from what we now know. The iguanodon was a dinosaur that lived on our Earth many years ago, Eddie. Despite what we have seen tonight, or think we have seen, the last dinosaurs became extinct long, long ago.’ He paused to examine the monstrous head, towering above him, glistening with condensation.

Sir William walked slowly round the statue, tapping at its side, its belly, its back with his cane. ‘Yes, here, I think,’ he decided. He was kneeling at the back of the creature, almost hidden in the undergrowth that sprawled out on to the rock. ‘Bring that stone, will you?’ he said to George, gesturing to a large, heavy lump of rock lying at the base of the outcrop.

‘We don’t have long,’ George said as he picked it up.

‘They’ll hear us trying to break in,’ Liz pointed out.

Sir William suggested that George use the heavy chunk of rock to try to break through the underbelly of the statue. ‘Here, you see?’ he pointed out the spot to George. ‘You can feel where the metal is worn slightly smooth, and there is a joint where the plates do not quite meet. The elements have begun to take their toll.’

‘Let’s get a move on then,’ Eddie said. The cold was getting to him now. He had no jacket and the damp mist had eaten into his clothing so that he was shrouded in a chilly aura.

The first blow echoed metallically round the park, bouncing back from beyond the lake. The faint sounds of the distant search stopped at once. Then they started again, immediately louder and closer.

‘Let’s hope it takes them a while to get a bearing on us,’ Sir William said as George laid into the underbelly of the beast with renewed urgency and vigour.

‘The echo may help,’ Liz said, between blows.

Eddie was stamping his feet to try to keep warm. ‘We might have to leg it,’ he said.

‘It is possible we were followed from the club,’ Sir William said. ‘So if we do have to make a run for it, and we get separated, then I suggest we meet back at the British Museum. It should be empty by now. They will have let poor old Berry go home to his family once they discovered where we were.’

The next blow made a different sound — cracked and discordant.

‘I felt it give,’ George said excitedly. ‘I think it’s going.’

After several more blows, George set down the rock and worked at the ragged metal with his bare hands. It had torn along the joint and he managed to wrench a whole plate of metal free, revealing a dark opening in the underside of the statue. ‘I can get my arm right inside,’ he said. ‘It is hollow.’

‘Excellent, excellent.’ Sir William clapped his hands together in delight. ‘Can you feel anything?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘We shall have to get right inside to search,’ Liz said. ‘Or,’ she added, turning pointedly towards Eddie, ‘someone will.’

‘No way,’ Eddie said at once. ‘Really no way. At all. Not ever.’

George had emerged from under the statue. He was listening carefully, head cocked to one side. ‘They must have heard the noise. I think they’re coming.’

‘We can’t just leave,’ Liz said desperately. ‘Not now.’

‘How big is the hole?’ Sir William demanded. ‘Maybe I can — ’

‘You can’t,’ George told him.

Now they could hear running feet, trampling through branches and long grass. Shouts of anger and elation as the hunters found their trail.

‘We’ve got about half a minute,’ George hissed. ‘At the most.’

Everyone was looking at Eddie. His arms were folded and his expression was set. He stared back at them. ‘Half a minute,’ he muttered. ‘Oh give us a leg up, will you?’

‘What am I looking for?’ he asked as he scraped and scrambled through the jagged tear in the statue.

‘I am afraid I really don’t know,’ Sir William whispered.

Eddie stifled a cry of pain as his knee caught on a curl of sharp metal. He slumped forward into the darkness, his every move echoing hollowly round the black interior of the creature. The belly of the beast. Slowly and carefully he crawled forward. There were bracing struts — like roof girders — running round the inside of the statue. Heavy, sharp bolts held them in place. They were painful when you crawled over them, as Eddie quickly found.

‘Anything?’ Liz’s voice hissed up through the hole.

‘No,’ he hissed back. He reckoned he had crawled round a good part of the interior by now and found nothing inside it at all that was not part of the structure.

Then a shout — not a voice Eddie recognised. ‘They’re here!’

‘Oh corks!’ he heard George exclaim.

Then Sir William’s urgent: ‘See you back at the Museum, Eddie. We’ll try to lead them away. Good hunting.’

‘Get Mr Blade,’ the voice shouted again, so close that Eddie thought it might be inside the statue with him. Running feet, the clatter of pursuit. Eddie lay as still as he could, not daring to move, not daring even to breathe.

After what seemed for ever, he turned round carefully, staring into the close blackness in the hope of making out the hole where he had come in. But he could see nothing.

His hand touched something. Something hard and round and heavy. It rolled away from him, sounding like a large glass marble inside a tin can. The noise was louder than thunder in the confined space.

‘What was that?’ said a voice that sounded uncomfortably close. ‘Where did that come from?’

Eddie’s hand found the stone again — it was about the size of an orange, and he lifted it carefully, gently, silently. The only weapon he had. The moon must have broken through the clouds again, for now he could see the uneven hole in the floor about four feet in front of him.

And as he watched and held his breath and grasped the stone tightly, first a large hand, then a whole arm reached in through the hole. Searching, feeling its way towards Eddie as he sat and shivered in the darkness.