The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs by James P. Blaylock

to Langdon.”
    “What of the emerald?” I asked.
    “The emerald doesn’t interest me, Jack. It only interests Doctor Narbondo. My husband is my sole interest, but he doesn’t interest Narbondo at all, except as a means to an end. When the end is achieved…” She shrugged, looking out over the sea as if St. Ives were somewhere beyond the horizon.
    “We’ll find him,” I said, starting downward again while the weather was clear. The trail doubled back toward the east, although some distance ahead it was apparently blocked by a great slab of chalk that had slipped from above and which stood precariously among a litter of boulders. The handhold ended there, bolted to the slab. Perhaps it started up again beyond. If the Tipper had seen us above him when the fog lifted, he might easily be waiting for us, hiding behind the great rock. It would be a simple thing for him to reach out and give us a hearty push when we edged around it, and us with nothing to hold onto but sea air.
    But Alice made it clear that it was go on or go back for the two of us, and she was clearly in no mood to go back. We approached the great slab warily. The trail was littered with a scree of chalk and flint now, which chattered away downward with each step. The Tipper would certainly hear us approaching if he were hidden up ahead. But now that we were closer, I couldn’t for the life of me see how he could have climbed past the slab, unless he were some variety of ape, for it thrust out over the ledge that it stood on, almost in defiance of gravity, the cliff face angling inward below it.
    It wasn’t until we were two or three steps from it that we saw the dark crack of the cavern mouth, which would be completely hidden from above and below both. It lay behind the slab itself. From out to sea, it would appear to be merely a long shadow cast by the slab and the overhanging cliff. But it was a cave mouth right enough, and we stood looking into the dark interior in utter silence, listening hard but hearing nothing but the calling of gulls and the sighing of the ocean below.



Chapter 11
     
    Uncle Gilbert 
    Parlays with the 
    Lighthouse Keeper

     
    The blow that felled Tubby was the last that the keeper would strike, for as soon as Tubby no longer stood in the way, Uncle Gilbert stepped forward and skewered the man in the shoulder, wrenching out the sword and drawing it back, watching the belaying pin clatter to the paving stones. The keeper’s face had a stupefied look on it, his doom writ plainly on Gilbert’s face.
    “Greetings from Captain Sawney!” the old man shouted, and swung the sword at the keeper’s neck, lunging forward to throw his vast weight into the blow. But the keeper wisely dropped to the stones, sitting down and rolling sideways, and the sword passed harmlessly through the air, spinning Uncle Gilbert half around. The keeper scrambled away crablike, lurching to his feet and grasping his shoulder, backing away onto the meadow and turning to run before the old man was after him again.
    It was then that Hasbro loomed up out of the fog, holding the pistol. Tubby was just then coming round, his face awash with gore, as was Uncle Gilbert’s, who stood there panting for breath, his chest heaving with exertion. After a moment he walked the several steps to the fallen sheath and once again turned his sword into a cane. Tubby heaved himself up with an effort, and they made their way to the cottage, the door standing open now.
    “By God someone’s come out of here while we were busy,” Tubby said. “He must have been hidden by this bloody fog.”
    “Perhaps,” replied Hasbro, who looked into the interior warily, his pistol at the ready as they entered. It was a single, open room, with a fireplace dead center in the opposite wall, burned-down logs still aglow. A bedchamber stood off to the side, built as an open, lean-to closet with a curtain half drawn across it and a long cord hanging down alongside to tie it back. The door