Read Online Horatio Lyle by Catherine Webb - Free Book Online Page A

him, Lyle had had the overwhelming feeling of being regarded by an intelligence that could solve eleven-figure natural logarithms in its head and still have room for a biscuit afterwards. So he’d taken Tate in. There didn’t seem any real choice.
    Now Tate sat to complete inattention by Lyle on the steps of the Bank while, below the huge white walls blackened with dirt, the carriages rattled by, and Lyle said, ‘Your name is Thomas?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Tell me about your family, Thomas.’
    ‘We . . . own things, sir.’
    ‘What kind of things?’
    ‘Houses, parks, horses, dogs and counties mostly, sir.’
    ‘What about the Fuyun Plate?’
    ‘I’m unfamiliar with the object, sir.’
    ‘It’s in the Elwick household’s possession in the name of the royal family. It was put into the vault under the Elwick name, and then stolen.’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘How about a sarcophagus? Does your family own a sarcophagus? ’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘You seem very sure of that.’
    ‘My mother refuses to have truck with anything that might once have been organic, sir.’
    ‘No sarcophagus?’
    ‘Absolutely not.’
    ‘That’s interesting. And you’ve never heard of C.R. Wells?’
    ‘No, sir. But I’ve heard of Harry Lyle, sir, I mean of Mr Lyle, and I read all the papers and I think that . . . ’
    ‘Tell me about your family, Thomas. I want to know everything .’
    As they talked, Tate looked at other things. The smells that dominated this part of town were grease from the axles of the carriages, manure and sweat from the horses, and the river. Only a few years ago, Lyle wouldn’t have been able to take Tate anywhere near the river because of the overwhelming stench that rose from the stagnant, scummy waters, but now, somewhere behind the waste and oil and dirt and slime, there was just a hint of salt. Tate could smell the coal burning in Liverpool Street just to the north; and at Blackfriars to the south the leather drying in the tanners’ shops, the steam in the weavers’ factory, the tar on the rigging of the ships, and through it all, something else. Tate sat up, and instantly Lyle ’s eyes flickered to him. Tate sniffed the air, trying to place that strange, alien smell. Then he started to bark. He stood up and trotted away. Lyle stood up too, cutting Thomas off in mid-flow about his sister’s arranged marriage to the second Count of Ihnaticz and how good the trumpet players were in that part of the world, and muttered, ‘Hello.’
    The three of them watched as Tate trotted over to a segment of wall below the towering edifice of the Bank, stood next to it and irrefutably claimed a small part of London as Kingdom Tate. Thomas’s face involuntarily twisted into an expression of disgust. Tess looked bored. Lyle just stared. ‘That is interesting .’
    ‘Ain’t you never seen it before?’ asked Tess in an incredulous voice.
    ‘Yes, but you wouldn’t expect to see it here.’ He started to walk along the pavement towards the wall, while the traffic rattled by and overhead the grey sky threatened rain. Thomas realized that Tess was looking at him with exasperation, and he straightened up and tried to force a polite smile on to his face, as he had been taught to do with all ladies, no matter what their social origin.
    As the first drops of drizzle started to fall, Lyle walked straight past Tate and knelt down carefully on the edge of the pavement. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a long pair of tweezers and a rough paper bag. Reaching down, he completely ignored the stares of passers-by, and picked up the stone lying alone and discarded. It was wrinkled, old and dirtied, with scraps of some kind of fruit, all strands of damp brownness, still clinging to it. He turned it over and over thoughtfully. ‘ Hello .’
    ‘Mister Lyle, are you feelin’ well?’ asked Tess, starting to feel exposed as people stared.
    ‘Teresa, doesn’t it occur to you that in this part of town it’s extremely uncommon to