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

shoulder with it, knocking me sideways. I swung my piece of pipe as I fell, clipping him neatly on the back of the leg behind the knee. The bag flew out of his hands, sailing away toward Alice as he sprawled forward. Alice picked the bag up, and the thing was done.
    Tubby came out then, puffing and blowing like a whale. “Looks like a pawnbroker’s shop inside,” he said.
    Miraculously, despite his tumble, the Tipper still wore his slouch hat, which Tubby plucked from his head now, cuffing him twice across the face with it. “You’re in the presence of a lady, you goddamned rascal,” he said, and then he sailed the hat away down the hill, where it settled over the top of a moonlit stone. The Tipper looked at us hatefully, a human bomb about to detonate.
    Alice tugged open the drawstrings of the bag and peered inside, reaching in and pulling out two of the asbestos caps and tossing them to me. “Sydnee’s silver,” she said, taking another look. “Tableware and candelabra.” She reached inside and drew out a clasp purse, which she snapped open. “Jewelry—Sydnee’s jewelry—and a good lot of coin. Here’s my broach, too, and my necklace….”
    “You crawling piece of filth,” Tubby said to the Tipper, raising the blackthorn stick menacingly. The Tipper cringed away, certain that he was about to be pummeled, but Alice sensibly shook her head at Tubby.
    “Into the house with him,” she said, “quickly.”
    In an unwise moment I latched onto the Tipper’s coat, twisting it in my fist and yanking him to his feet. More quickly than I could follow, he snatched a dirk from a scabbard in his boot and took a swipe at my arm, tearing through the sleeve of my coat. I felt the blade slice through skin, a sharp pain, and a wash of warm blood on my forearm. In my surprise I let go of the handful of coat and reeled back, sitting down hard. The Tipper lurched away toward the woods again, running like a hare. Tubby swarmed past me in pursuit, but it was an uneven race, and by the time I had joined in, gripping my bleeding arm, the Tipper had already disappeared into the shadow of the forest.
    Tubby returned, looking immensely unhappy. I could do nothing but apologize, although of course there was no point in it. None of us had seen the dirk, after all, and it might have gone even worse for one of us if things had fallen out differently. “I’m all right,” I said, when I saw Alice’s anxiety. I pressed my coat and shirtsleeve hard against the wound and gave her my best smile.
    In we went without another word. The Tipper’s lantern was still lit, sitting where it had sat when Tubby pried open the door, which hung out across the threshold now, aslant the bottom hinge. The place was littered with stolen goods—porcelain objects, bric-a-brac, paintings, furs and other garments. The Tipper had been a busy little thief. How he intended to flee with the goods I can’t say, unless he had a cart waiting somewhere. Perhaps he had returned merely to take out the coin and the jewelry and meant to leave the rest. We didn’t have time to puzzle it out, for we couldn’t brook any delay. Our mail coach would soon be standing idle on our account, and we had an aversion to calling attention to ourselves and even more of being left behind.
    We dressed the wound on my arm with gin and with a silk scarf as a bandage and went out through the back door again, shutting it after us, Alice carrying the canvas bag. I felt first rate, I can tell you, despite my sliced-up arm. We had put our hands on the swag and had two more caps into the bargain, should we need them. We hadn’t ended the Tipper’s depredations, but we’d taken some of the wind out of his sails—real progress, it seemed to me, and the whole job hadn’t taken a half hour.
    The coach waited in the yard, the horses stamping and whinnying, the wind out of the south with the faint smell of salt on it. John Gunther stood with our luggage looking anxious. When he saw us he