The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs by James P. Blaylock Page A

anything out of the way happens at the Tipper’s shack tonight, perhaps you’d be good enough to know nothing at all about it or about the three of us either.”
    “I ain’t heard nothing,” he said, making a key-turning motion in front of his lips. “I hate the bloody Tipper. Nothing but cuffs and curses from the likes of him, and him a bleeding midget, begging your lady’s pardon.”
    “And don’t let the mail coach go on without us,” Tubby said, giving him another half crown, which he accepted gleefully, it apparently being his lucky day.
    With that we left our bags in his care and went along down the High Street in a singular hurry, but silent as phantoms, past two blocks of miners’ cottages, with more set behind them in rows. The village was quiet on the damp Sabbath evening, people staying indoors, which was to the good if Alice had some sort of mischief on her mind. She has as much pluck as does St. Ives, although she is, if I might say it, far easier to look at than the Professor, who is growing tolerably craggy as the years pass. Alice has what might be called a natural beauty, which strikes you even if she’s just come in out of a storm or from mucking about in the garden. She’s moderately tall, very fit, with eyes that are just a little bit piercing, as if she sees things, you included, particularly clearly. Her dark hair is perhaps her best feature—perpetually a little wild and refusing to stay pinned down, something like the woman herself. I write all this in the interests of literary accuracy, of course. My own betrothed, Dorothy Keeble, a beauty of a different stamp, would tell you the same about Alice, who has become her great good friend.
    The Tipper’s hovel sat conveniently alone, a good distance below the rest of the village, partway down a grassy decline: our good luck, for we wouldn’t be easily heard or seen. It was just as the boy had described it, right down to the junk pile and the badly hung door with its makeshift hinge, which you could see easily enough in the moonlight that shone on the front wall. We were crossing the last patch of ground when we saw a glim of light inside the hovel, right along the edge of a curtain, as if someone had opened the slide on a dark lantern to see what he was about.
    “ Here’s a bit of luck,” whispered Tubby. “He’s sneaked back after his swag, I’ll warrant, before clearing out. I’ll just see to the front door, and you two go around to the back, eh? He’ll have a bolt-hole. No doubt he’ll make for the woods.”
    We set out without a moment to spare across the wet grass, thankful for the curtains on the window, which would hide us as well as they would hide the Tipper, if it was him mucking around inside. Tubby of course carried his blackthorn stick with him, but I had no sort of weapon, and neither did Alice. There in the weedy trash, however, lay a serendipitous length of rusted pipe, which I snatched up in passing. Despite my rough treatment aboard the train, the idea of similarly bashing anyone with a length of pipe didn’t much appeal to me, although the idea of the Tipper slipping away from us appealed even less, and I was determined to do the useful thing.
    We had scarcely taken up our position outside the rear door when there was the crash of the front door coming down, a shout from Tubby, and the sound of running feet. I raised the length of pipe and was moving forward when the door flew open and the Tipper hurled himself down the several wooden steps, wearing a slouch hat and carrying a canvas bag. He was clearly intent upon making for the safety of the woods, which would have been easy enough if it were only Tubby in pursuit. I stepped in front of him, however, crouching down, drawing back the piece of pipe like a cricket bat. He endeavored to slow himself, but gravity had helped impel him down the steps, and now the hillside was doing the same. He rushed at me headlong, swinging the canvas bag and slamming me on the