brought his thick leather crop down sharply on the flank of the off-side lead horse.
“Giddup there!” he cried, whacking it again with a heavy-handed blow. The weary animal lurched forward and called upon the last of its reserve strength and endurance to keep pace with its three team-mates.
Through the sheets of pouring rain, the four galloping horses drew the heavy carriage, the coachman perched high on his box plying his whip to the flanks of the shaft-horses, keeping them well into their collars. His body rode the rough jolts of the carriage wheels dropping into water-filled pot-holes, and he leaned from side to side as the vehicle tipped and tilted around sharp curves and slipped and slithered in the mud.
The two flickering lanterns, mounted one on each side of his hard seat, gave out light enough only to see the rumps of the shaft-horses, and the lantern fastened to a short pole fixed to the pommel of the postilion’s saddle gave off even less light. The coachman murmured thanks under his breath that Ketchell was riding up front, for Ketchell had cat’s eyes and it would take cat’s eyes plus a gill of luck to keep from running into a ditch or straight into a tree or merely overturning as they raced through the blinding storm in the dead of night. It surely had to be a matter of life or death to bring out the three senior partners of the most respected firm of solicitors in the whole of London on a night like this; and to drive four fine horses into a state where only shots in the head would relieve them of their forthcoming misery after being literally run to death, well, he would never have thought it of Messrs. Blatherbell, Poopendal and Snoddergas. Never in his twelve years of service with the firm of Blatherbell, Poopendal and Snoddergas, Solicitors, had he even considered, let alone been allowed to press the sleek, well-groomed animals of the firm beyond the most sedate trot, and his hackles had risen when the three partners had bounded into the carriage and Mr. Blatherbell had pounded on the coachman’s roof flap and shouted, almost hysterically, “The Duke’s castle! Hurry, we must arrive within two hours!”
Two hours! He had sat there almost in a state of shock. Why, in broad daylight on a dry road a well-mounted man could barely reach the Duke’s castle in two hours! A series of raps from Mr. Blatherbell’s cane and his muffled shouts from within had galvanized him into action.
“Use yer leather!” he had shouted to Ketchell, and then lifting his whip high in his huge, powerful hand, had brought it down smartly on the flank of the offside shaft-horse. As the horses sprang off with a clatter of iron-shod hooves on cobblestones, jerking the carriage forward with a neck-jarring lunge, he could still hear Mr. Blatherbell, “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
The coachman did not have to grope for the watch in his jacket pocket to know that the two hours of racing over the deadly, rutted road had nearly come to an end, for not only did he feel the fatigue in his muscular arms but every five minutes since leaving London Blatherbell had thumped on the roof and bellowed that he had so many more minutes to reach the castle.
He breathed a sigh of relief as four lights, two on each side, materialized out of the dark, recognizing them as mounted grooms from the castle come to light his way for the last two miles to their destination. As they sped along the straight, smooth, tree-lined driveway, he rapped lightly on the roof flap, then opened it.
“We’ll be arrivin’ in a shake, kind Gentlemen,” he announced.
“Thank God,” came the squeak of Mr. Poopendal. “An absolute nightmare, these past two hours. Absolute nightmare. Could not have survived it a moment longer. Do you not agree, Mr. Snoddergas?”
Mr. Snoddergas did not answer. Feet planted firmly on the floor, fingers gripping the edge of the seat, shoulders thrust back against the cushion, Mr. Snoddergas was sound asleep, snoring with a buoyant gusto.
Mr. Poopendal peered down from his towering height of six-feet-six affixed longitudinally by one hundred and thirty-two pounds of skin and bones at Mr. Blatherbell’s five-feet-two form gallantly struggling to hold up two hundred and ten pounds of quivering, restless flesh.
“Do you not agree, Mr. Blatherbell?” asked Mr. Poopendal.
“Not more than three minutes left,” said Mr. Blatherbell hoarsely.
“I mean, do you not agree that these two hours have been an absolute nightmare?”
Mr. Blatherbell ran a sweat-soaked handkerchief over his face and turned his ornamented pocket-watch in all directions, vainly trying to read its dial. “Two?” he shouted harshly. “It cannot be. It has to be nearer to three minutes left.”
“Not minutes, hours,” squealed Mr. Poopendal. “An utter nightmare.” He peered again at Mr. Snoddergas, hoping to find him awake, and was struck once more by Mr. Snoddergas’ ape-like appearance. He was five feet-six, a hard-boned, hard-muscled man of forty years of age, the same as Mr. Blatherbell and himself, without the least trace of a waist, the lines of his body running straight up from his hips to his shoulders, shoulders which were square and heavy and held the shortest of necks on which sat a small rounded head covered by cropped hair. His eyes, even when closed, were small and round, and so were his lips and nose and chin. But not his ears. Mr. Poopendal shook his head in wonder as he looked at Mr. Snoddergas’ ears. They were the largest he had ever seen on a man, huge sails which stood straight out like those of an alarmed elephant, measuring almost two-thirds of the distance from his pate to his chin. “Are you awake, Mr. Snoddergas?” he asked hopefully, impatient to explain what a nightmare the past two hours had been.
Mr. Blatherbell came to his aid by jabbing Mr. Snoddergas in his stomach with the point of his cane.
“Wake up, Snoddergas,” he snapped. Mr. Blatherbell could speak in such fashion to Mr. Snoddergas, since he was the senior of the three partners.
The only evident sign that Mr. Snoddergas awakened instantly was the parting of his eyelids by a fraction of an inch. Then his mouth opened wide in a luxurious yawn. “Have we arrived already?” he asked in a soft, sweet voice.
“Already!” screeched Mr. Poopendal. “Two hours of absolute terror, that is what it has been. A veritable nightmare.” He drew his long, black cloak more tightly around himself and tugged down on his silk, stovepipe hat. “I cannot begin to tell you how close to eternity we have been …”
His voice trailed away as the carriage was brought to an abrupt halt. The right-door was jerked open to reveal a line of liveried footmen holding umbrellas. At their head stood a ramrod-stiff, grim-faced butler, impeccably garbed in black tails and striped trousers, a white starched shirt, white bow tie and white cotton gloves.
“This way, gentlemen,” said the butler testily. “Please hurry.” His request was made with only slightly more courtesy than a gimlet-eyed colonel employs while raking down a subaltern who drank the last drop of scotch at the club.
Jumping out of the carriage, they stumbled up the stone steps, the footmen hurrying to shield them with the umbrellas, and then through a massive, brass-studded oak door entrance into a large hall. Other servants waited there to take off their cloaks and relieve them of their stovepipe hats, gloves and canes. With practiced dexterity, the solicitors allowed themselves to be peeled to their cutaways without losing grip on their thick, black brief cases.
“Please hurry,” ordered the grim-faced butler, motioning with an impatient wave of his hand to two footmen carrying gleaming candelabra holding slender, clean-burning tapers. The footmen started walking rapidly across the main hall to a wide, curved staircase leading upward to the first floor, the butler and the three solicitors hard on their heels, their boots echoing loud on the stone steps. At the top of the stairs, the servants turned down a hall to another massive, brass-studded oak door, a twin of the one downstairs, and here they stood aside to allow
