Across The Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories

“What? What did you say?”

“Malthan never made it past the village,” Ripton muttered. “I handed him over to two of Hodgeman’s particular pals at the crossroads. Orders. I had to do it, to maintain my cover.”

Nick was silent, his thoughts on the sad, frightened, greedy little man who was now probably dead in a ditch not too many miles away.

“Hodgeman said you’d never follow up what happened to Malthan,” said Ripton. “He said your sort never did. You were just throwing your weight around, he said.”

“I would have checked,” said Nick. “I would have left no stone unturned. Believe me.”

He looked around at the ring of fire. Sections of it were already dying down, generating lots of smoke but little flame. If Malthan had managed to send the telegram six or more hours ago, there might have been a slim chance that the Abhorsen…or Lirael…or somebody competent to deal with the creature would have been able to get there before they ran out of things to burn.

“Hodgeman’s dead now, anyway. He was one of the first that thing got.”

“I sent another message,” said Nick. “I bribed Danjers’s valet to go down to the village and send a telegram.”

“Nowhere to send one from there,” said Ripton. “Planned that way, of course. D13 keeping control of communications. The closest telephone would be at Colonel Wrale’s house and that’s ten miles away.”

“I don’t suppose he would have managed it anyway—”

Nick broke off and peered at the closer group of people and then at the central muddle, wiping his eyes as a tendril of smoke wafted across.

“Where is Danjers? I don’t remember seeing him at the dinner table and he’s pretty hard to miss. What’s the butler’s name again?”

“Whitecrake,” said Ripton, but Nick was already striding over to the butler who was issuing orders to his footmen, who in turn were busy feeding the fires with more straw.

“Whitecrake!” Nick called before he had closed the distance between them. “Where is Mr Danjers?”