Liberator Of Jedd

A scream filled the mile-high tower. It shook on its foundations, trembling like a reed as a vast black wind blew through it. Blade hacked grimly away.

The tower spire was in darkness now. Dense black clouds enveloped it. Lightning drove golden forks into the gloom. The brain moved and heaved beneath Blade. He kept on cutting away in a frenzy of hate and fear. He was gouging out huge gobbets of brainstuff and flinging them aside. The brain lunged upward in the tank, like a fish leaping, and Blade clung for his life. In his ears, in his brain, was one long ascending scream of terror and death.

Then new pain. Blade was stricken, paralyzed. He dropped his sword and it slid down the brain and into the tank. Blade sank to his knees as the pain ripped him into shreds. His head left his body, torn away by lightning, and the top of the tower parted and Blade's head was propelled up and out into the night sky. He hurtled toward the moon, full and splendid, a mammoth gold piece in the sky. And suddenly, writ large across the moon in Gothic script, in Lord Leighton's crabbed hand, he saw the words — Welcome Home, Richard.

Chapter Nineteen

Police Constable William Higgins was within six months of taking his pension and retiring. He was a big man with a comfortable girth, one of the old school of London bobbies, and what he lacked in formal education he more than made up in tact and patience. Thirty years on the force taught a man something. If it didn't there was no hope for him.

So many years on the force also taught a PC to recognize a gentleman when he saw one. A toff, a nob, boffin — call them what you would, there was always something indefinable, and definitely recognizable, about them.

PC Higgins' beat led him down Whitehall into Parliament Street and thence, by a left turn, into Bridge Street and onto Westminister Bridge. On this night, with Big Ben just gone ten and a raw mist drifting up from the Thames, Higgins huddled into his uniform greatcoat, settled his helmet more firmly against the wind and paused to look down the nearly deserted bridge. It was not a night for pleasure strolls.

PC Higgins made a deep sound in his throat that sounded like, «Oh, er— Lord lumme! Looks like a bloody jumper.»

Cautiously, walking as softly as his large and heavily-shod feet would permit, he began to approach the tall, elderly man who stood, both hands on the bridge parapet, gazing down at the tide sliding muddily down to Graves-end.

As the constable drew near he heard the man talking to himself. The accents were well bred, definitely upperclass, and PC Higgins knew he had a gentleman to deal with. He continued his stealthy approach, hoping to get an arm around the man before he could rouse himself and jump. Careful, Higgins warned himself. Some of these leapers were pretty spry and determined, once they made up their minds to do the Dutch.

One last step and he closed a big hand around the man's arm and sighed with inward relief. Had the blighter now.

The man was indeed a toff. Elderly and distinguished in appearance, but with his Homburg at a rakish slant and his tie loose at the collar. From him, as he turned quietly enough to face Higgins, came a strong waft of whiskey that made Higgins wince. Drunk. Drunk as Billy-be-damned.

«Here now,» said PC Higgins. «What's all this, sir? Won't do, you know. A gentleman like you must have a better place to loiter than this cold and blasty bridge. Eh, sir? Shall we be getting along to it, then? I'll walk a way with you and find a taxi.»

«We saved him.»

PC Higgins released his grip on the man's arm and stared. «Saved who, sir?» He cast a look over the parapet at the turgid river gurgling beneath the arches. What in bloody hell? Was there somebody down there after all?

«We saved Blade,» said the tall gentleman. «He came back to us dying of plague, you know, but we saved him. Narrow thing, though. If it hadn't been for the drugs we had flown in from the States we would have lost him. Goddamn his Lordship to hell!»

PC Higgins tapped him on the shoulder in a kindly ma

«I have been walking,» the man said. «Walking and walking and walking. I must have walked over half of London. And I have been drinking.»

PC Higgins had his moments. He smiled now and said, «Do tell me, sir. It's the last thing I would have thought.»

«I have, though,» the man said. He fell in step with the constable, who still held him lightly by the arm. PC Higgins breathed easier. It was going to be all right. No trouble of arrest. Now if he could find one of those sodding cabs that always disappeared when you needed them most.

A gust of Scotch blew into his wind-reddened face. The tall old man said, «I suppose you want some identification, officer. My name is J.» He made no effort to produce his wallet or cardcase.

Higgins let it pass. J was good enough. Drunks came up with some mighty queer answers.

«I've been drinking all night,» the man said. «Drinking and drinking and drinking. Making a fool of myself. Don't care. Couldn't help it. Glad I did. Because they saved him, you see. Saved Blade.»

PC Higgins nodded. «You told me, sir. Now if we could step along a bit livelier, sir? I've still my patrol to finish.»

«He came back raving and near dead,» said the man. «Took the fools forever to diagnose plague. Can't really blame them, I suppose. Like bubonic and yet not bubonic. Couldn't find the bacillus pestis, you see.»

«I'm sure,» said PC Higgins and rolled his eyes skyward. You got all kinds. He thought of the snug cottage in the country, just purchased with his savings, and of the roses he meant to grow. Five months to go. Only five months. Lord gimme strength, he prayed.

They left the bridge and the constable cast around for a taxi. Not an effing cab in sight. Naturally. He took the man's arm again and led him gently down Bridge Street. There was an all-night stand down Whitehall a way.

«He was yellow,» said the man. He pulled his arm away from the constable and pointed to a traffic stripe glinting in the street lights. «As yellow as that divider strip.»

PC Higgins made comforting sounds. «Now, now, sir.

No need to dwell on it. I'm sure the gentleman is going to be all right.»

«He will. He is going to get well. But no thanks to them, to those fools of doctors. They thought he had simple jaundice. I had to do it! I had to insist that they make a culture and find a growth media, search for some sort of bug. You'd have thought I was the doctor. And it was his Lordship, damn him to hell; but give credit where it is due, it was Lord L who got the drugs in from the States.»

PC Higgins turned his face away from the blast of Scotch breath. Enough to make a man drunk just smelling it.

«I am very drunk,» said the man.

The constable nodded heavily, gravely. «That you are, sir. Bed is where you belong. Just as soon as we find you a taxi.»

«I am drunk, drunk, drunk,» said the man. He skipped a few steps, whirled, leaped into the air and clicked his heels, then faced the constable. «Haven't been this drunk in forty years. Since I came down from Cambridge. Did I tell you my name was J? Are you going to arrest me?»

PC Higgins tipped back his helmet and scratched his balding brow. Lumme! This gent really had his load on. Where in the bunking hell was a taxi? The cabstand, now looming into view, was deserted.

«No need to arrest you, sir. Unless you become disorderly, and I'm sure a gentleman like you—»

The man called J leaned toward the constable, supporting himself by clinging to a lamp standard. His eyes were glazed and owlish. He said, «A gentleman like me does some very queer things, constable. Things you wouldn't dream of — things you wouldn't want to dream of!»