8. May, 2021

'Teleosaurus'

“Carver!”   The call was urgent.  “Carver, come quick, man!”

My friend, with whom I was working on this venture, turned at once from the people he had stopped to speak to and, raising his hat in apology, went hastily to where Bright, foreman engineer, was shouting from.  I followed.  We had been on our way to view the works when Carver had seen the two ladies perusing the sea from the beach.  I stayed a yard or two back when he went to greet them, knowing his interest.  Not that I approved of it especially.  Miss Sanderson was comely enough, but I did not care for the air of mystery which she affected.  Carver, though, had been intrigued from our first meeting with her shortly after our arrival at the Royal Hotel the day before yesterday.  Miss Sanderson was also staying there with her companion, a Miss Thomas.

We reached the wooden scaffolding and platforms which had been erected against the crumbling cliffs.  Their stability in such a situation had never been guaranteed and the pins and chains hammered in had come loose at the top.

“I told you it would not hold up there!” said the foreman furiously.  “I’ve a man here hurt!”

One of the men who had been aloft working on the top had fallen as it came away.

“Let me see,” I suggested.  “I have been a ship’s surgeon and know something of bones.”  I examined the shaken man, who had had the good fortune to land on soft, dry sand and muddy clay boulders covered in grass tussocks rather than rock, which had absorbed some of the shock.  “The leg is twisted and sprained and will swell badly, but it is not broken,” I said.

“Thank heavens!” cried Carver, who was in anxious distress about his responsibility for this.  “I apologise to you, Bright.  You warned me we were going too high.  I will pay, of course, for any doctoring this man may need.”

The man was carried off on a makeshift litter of planks to one of the carts and taken away.  With Carver and myself looking on, the bottom tiers were resecured with more pins and the workmen carefully lowered the top pieces down again.  At that level, Mr Bright said he was happy with it for this day, but the cliffs were always liable to landslip and it would need checking on each morning before anybody used it again.

“Thank you, Bright,” said Carver, shaking hands with him.  “Then shall we go up this afternoon, as planned, Wyatt?” he asked me.

“I don’t see why not,” I replied.

With this, the two ladies Carver had spoken to came up, hoping that there had not been too bad an accident.

“Your concern does you credit, Miss Sanderson,” said Carver, pleased to see her.  “And I thank you for it, but happily George here reassures me that the damage is not too severe.”

“I am glad of it, sir,” she replied.

Miss Sanderson had a clear, pale oval of a face and her expression carried a subtle melancholy in it, as if her thoughts were always partly elsewhere.  She appeared to be in half mourning, but we did not know what bereavement it was for.  We were too recently acquainted to have asked and she had not told us.  This reticence was not out of place, of course, but I could not help feeling that there was something conscious in both that and her general manner.  Carver felt nothing but sympathy, naturally, being the dear fellow that he is. 

“Do you return to the hotel for luncheon?” he asked her now, ready to offer his arm as escort in an instant.

“Not yet, sir.  I wish to walk upon the long pier.  It soothes my spirits,” she answered as her employed companion stood by.

Whitby had two piers with two lighthouses upon them, an old fish quay on the East side and a new one for promenading tourists on the West Cliff.  The railway had made this a popular destination.  Carver took off his hat to bow in respect of this sentiment of hers and I had, perforce, to follow, nodding also to Miss Thomas, a capable looking young woman, I thought.   Back at the hotel we took a whisky aperitif in the bar.

“I wonder, Wyatt, what we shall find?” exclaimed Carver excitedly.

Carver was an amateur but devoted geologist and fossil collector.  We were here following the discovery of gigantic marine reptiles in the cliffs of this ancient Jurassic coast.  Alum mining for the aniline dyes used now in fashionable dress had unearthed some extraordinary specimens and Carver was hopeful of finding the same.  We had never been here before and found Whitby, in its rugged setting, full of curiosities for such a small town and surprisingly full of commercial enterprise.

The ruins of an abbey and those of a Georgian mansion were high up on the East Cliff.  They looked over the red roofed cottages of an old fishing village clustered about Whitby’s cliff sides and harbour.  It was busy with other industry too; alum mining, ship building, the whaling trade and jet and amber works to name but a few.  On the West Cliff the money of a railway magnet, Hudson, had built a number of grand hotels such as the one we were staying in, for the visitors who were making it a newly fashionable resort.  A whalebone arch led down from ours, The Royal, through the zigzag path of the Khyber Pass to the shore.  A miniature railway tunnel led through the hill too as a level walkway, which I thought was a humorous touch. 

My friend, Henry Carver, had the money to indulge his passion having inherited a few years ago from his father and he lived as a gentleman.  I had not been so fortunate.  Being a younger son, I took on a naval profession and became a ship’s surgeon.  We had known each other at school, however and remained firm friends.  An injury in battle had seen me pensioned off early as, although I could see well enough out of my one good eye, the other had very little vision left in it, and that distorted.  A surgeon carrying out operations in the midst of battle needs two good eyes, so that was that.  I had yet to decide on things going forward and was getting by with a little locum work for a friend of the family together with my pension (which being taken so soon was but little).  Henry Carver, learning from me by letter how I was presently situated, responded with his usual generosity.

“I need a fellow spirit on my fossil hunting adventures,” he wrote back, “ and I am most sorely in need of an amanuensis to write up and label my discoveries.  As I recall,  you are a devoted list maker and meticulous note keeper.  Your company, old friend, would be invaluable to me.  I am going to Whitby on the North East Coast where there are great finds to be had.  The most wonderful fossils have been discovered only recently.  I would dearly love to invite you to join me and if you find it congenial, to ask you to continue on afterwards with me.  There is only mother and myself rattling round in our ludicrous mansion.  Father’s building of it went way beyond what any normal family might require, as you may recall from your boyhood visits when we played in its folly turrets.”

The letter continued very kindly in this vein.  I was more than delighted to accept my old schoolfriend’s invitation, and with some relief.  It would ease my circumstances considerably to join him and so here we were in Whitby, about to begin on our search for buried treasure, for such Henry certainly considered his fossils to be.

We continued talking and sipping our drinks companionably in the bar.

“A fine girl, Miss Evie Sanderson,”  Carver said after a while, turning the liquid in his glass and holding it up to the light.  “And with hair just this shade, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What a fellow you are!” I laughed.  “To admire a lady for having locks the colour of Scotch whisky!”

Carver laughed good naturedly.

“I admire her character,” he said.  “There is something so romantic in her delicacy and reserve.”

“I’ll warrant she writes poetry,” I declared.  “Do not come complaining to me when you have been listening to rhymes about flower sprites by the hour together!”

“Upon my soul, George, you are quite the cynic,” answered Carver with a smile.

“The eye of a doctor, my friend, is always that of a man of science and one who is not easily given to any mawkish sentimentality.”

“I would agree with it in your case,” said Carver, clapping me on the shoulder in his friendly way.  “Come.  Let us take lunch.  Then we will be on our way and you can hammer at the cliffs to your heart’s content with no thoughts of young ladies to trouble you.”

“No thoughts of young ladies do trouble me,” I said.  “And I would it were the same for you.”

“Why so?” he asked.

“There is something about that particular one which I do not entirely trust,” I said.  “You know nothing of her at all, Henry.”

“Well, well,” he said.  “We will not argue about it, but I cannot agree with your opinion.  And I will know something of her.  I intend to break through that self-containment of hers one day while we are here and discover what her loss in life has been.”

“If there has been one,” I said.  “We do not know if she is really in half mourning or simply presents as if she is.”

“Why would she do that, you strange fellow?” he asked, laughing at me again.  “I think she is as charming as a dove in her mauve, grey and white silks and they are most becoming to her person.”

“Quite so,” I agreed, as if I rested my case and he laughed again, shaking his head at me and what he considered to be my crotchets about people, for I had always been far less trusting than he.  “As I said, Henry, it is merely the scientist in me,” I added, relenting.  “Pay me no heed.”

“I do not intend to, my dear chap,” he answered amiably enough, and we went in to eat a very pleasant lunch.

The long room of the restaurant had tables in the windows overlooking the harbour to the East side and we were lucky enough to secure one and enjoy the view of the abbey and St Mary’s church with its one hundred and ninety nine steps to the top of the cliff face, which we had climbed arduously the night before.

“Look there where we were yesterday evening,” said Carver.  “It was a most striking vista and what a climb up!  I say, I don’t like the look of the light, though.  I wonder if we are in for a storm?” he added anxiously.

We consulted the waiter, who gave his opinion that if there were a squall it would not arrive until much later in the day and we would be quite safe to begin our work on the cliff face.  Satisfied, we concluded our meal, fetched our equipment bag of hammers and chisels and set off to the beach.  At the scaffold, Mr Bright declared it still sound enough for the operation and we clambered up wooden ladders and platforms which reminded me of rigging and masts on the naval cutters I had served on.

The cliffs were of a soft, mud brown clay set through with layers of shale and it was in those that the best fossils had been found.  Carver had secured us an invitation to see them courtesy of his correspondence with the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society.  We were to go the following day.  We worked away happily enough -  at first finding some fine fossils of the common kind here - ammonites like gigantic snail shells coiled round themselves, belemites (a squid like creature’s bone centre) and ferns pressed into stone.  We had some good specimens and Carver was pleased enough with our start.  The clouds began to gather and a strong wind sprang up so we decided to call it a day, passing our baskets down by rope pulleys to the workman who had stayed with us to assist and would ferry our finds back to the hotel for us by cart.

“I propose that we present one or two of the finest as a gift to the Society’s collection when we go tomorrow,” Carver suggested.  “It would be a politeness in return for their kind invitation.  If you are agreeable, I think we may spend part of the evening cataloguing our finds after dinner?”

“But of course, Henry,” I replied.  “That is what I am here for after all.”

“That and your excellent company, George,” declared Carver, clapping me warmly on the shoulder, as was his friendly fashion.

I was not a demonstrative man by nature myself, but I enjoyed Carver’s spontaneous expressions of affection and he had always been very dear to me.

“If you say so,” I answered with a smile.  “Except when I lecture you.”

“Except then,” he agreed, smiling back.  “Let us walk along the long pier.  It will be grand to have this wind whipping about us and watch it stir up the sea.”

We were warmly enough dressed for it, having set up to work outdoors for the afternoon and we returned back up to promenade level to go along it.  This longest pier had iron balustrades and a wooden walkway raised above a concrete foundation and fishing platform below.  At its centre was the tallest of the two harbour lighthouses.

“I think that will be showing its light for ships tonight” exclaimed Carver as we were buffeted by the wind whipping at our bare heads (for we both had to carry our hats to save them from being blown clean away). 

We strode out along the pier and, reaching the end, saw the grip of the rising squall on the water.  The sea rose in high, grey waves frothing with foam crests.  They rolled up and over like the strongly muscled backs of  living things.  It was a strange sensation to be suspended there at the end clutching at the cold metal rail for security, for it was as if we were out on the sea ourselves.  Turning to look inland, we saw the hurrying storm clouds closing in and darkening every aspect.

“See there.  The rain comes.” I said.  “We must turn back or risk a drenching, Henry.”

“Come, then,” he agreed, and we hastened back along, the wind pushing back at us like strong arms and making us laugh, heads down into it.

It was becoming very fierce indeed.  Passing the first lighthouse, we were soon parallel to the second.  This stood at the end of the old stone fish quay leading out from the East Cliff, bare to the elements and without any railing at all.  On the end of it was a figure, alone against the strengthening gale, with skirts blowing about it.  There was nothing for her to hold on to.

“Why look!” cried Henry in disbelief.  “There is a woman there!  It is not – can it be Miss Sanderson?”

I looked too, the cold wind making my eyes water.  Henry was already racing along but to get to that fish quay meant crossing the swing bridge further down the harbour side and getting to the wooden steps leading down to it from the cottages of Henrietta Street.  I could not tell who it might be standing out there so recklessly, but it was certainly a woman alone.  Henry’s gallantry would not allow her to stay there in danger of being blown into the surging waters and he was rushing to her aid.  I followed as quickly as I could but Carver, being taller and more athletic, was ahead of me.

By the time I reached the steps he was already out on the quay.  The wind was indeed of menacing strength and although the quay was broad and high, it gave no shelter.  I saw Henry reach her and then they both turned to come back so I remained where I was.  Even together, arms linked, I saw the gale made them totter to the side, unable to withstand its driving force but finally Henry brought her to safety, and they climbed the steps up to me.  It was indeed Miss Sanderson, one hand holding on to the bonnet still tied firmly under her chin, the other hooked into Henry’s arm, his own hand placed protectively over hers.  Her eyes glittered excitedly in her pale face.  Perhaps, I thought unkindly, watering from the cold wind like mine and Carver’s.  We passed back through to the street and then sought shelter at the bottom of the Abbey steps and behind the houses.

“Where is your companion, Miss Sanderson?” I asked her with disapproval, for it was not seemly for her to be out alone in any case.

She lifted her chin at my rebuke but made no answer, as Henry spoke at the same time.

“Miss Sanderson!  What possessed you?” he demanded.  “Nobody is out in this weather – had you met with disaster!  It does not bear thinking of!” he remonstrated hotly.

“Oh, Mr Carver.  What is life without danger in it?” she retorted.  “I wished only to feel alive.”

Once more she hinted at grief and death.  Carver said more gently,

“I believe I understand you, but it could have ended quite differently, Miss Sanderson.  I do not think perhaps you realised quite how dangerous this wind is and how exposed to danger from it you were?”

“Perhaps not,” she conceded.  “But you and Mr Wyatt were also out in this weather to see the storm.”

“In company and from a safer place,” he said.  “When I saw you there!  Why, grown men like us could scarcely withstand the force of those gusts.”

“I am a grown woman myself,” she reminded him.  “And perhaps I wished to challenge fate for once.”

“I do not know what reason you could have for doing so,” he said, “but I beg of you not to go out there alone again.”

“I saw the quay and took a notion to walk in the storm on it,” she answered.  “I admit that I am impulsive.   I felt no need of rescue, sir.” 

“I cannot agree with you, Miss Sanderson, and I am only happy that I persuaded you to return with me!” cried Henry, still much worked up by the heat of the moment.  “Pray let us escort you to the comfort of our hotel for there will be a downpour at any time.”

“I am grateful to you, sir,” she answered more prettily.

 “Then may I hope that you are glad that I came to you?” he said.  “It was not meant as an intrusion on your chosen solitude.”

“Yes, Mr Carver”, she replied, her hand still resting on his arm.  “I am glad that you came to me.”

“Really!” I burst out, finding this most intolerable.   “Where is your companion?  Where is Miss Thomas?” I asked again.  “I do not understand why you are out alone?”

“I am not, Mr Wyatt,” she said as we set off to walk back as quickly as we could over the bridge to our side of the harbour.  “I sent her for some commissions while I walked upon the battery.”

This was on the West Cliff beside the pier, where cannon were in place against invasion by sea.  The thought, possibly unworthy, occurred to me that from there she would have seen me and Carver coming up to go along the pier.  Had she hurried along and across to that place precisely to be seen by us in romantic peril there?  Surely not, and yet she had spoken of courting danger herself to us.  If so, I suspected she sought an audience for it and that her rashness was not as impulsive as she claimed it to be.  I said nothing, for this might just be my surliness.  I had not liked to see her arm in arm with Carver, he with his hand over hers.  The little drama had thrown them together into a physical intimacy and I felt, however unlikely it was, that she had intended it.  I would keep my counsel for now.

“We should return to the battery again then, for surely Miss Thomas will be worried to find you gone?” said I.

“My companion is used to my ways,” she smiled, as if these were varied and interesting.  “But yes, let us find her.”

We found the young woman waiting in the shelter of the battery wall.

“There you are, Miss Sanderson,” she remarked collectedly.

“Do you have my things, Thomas?”

“Certainly – silk thread, needles and a new thimble.”

“Thank you.”

“You embroider, Miss Sanderson?” asked Carver, seeming to marvel at this ordinary accomplishment.

“I do, sir.  I create my own designs and I have run out of blue for my oriental dragon.”

“How splendid!” he praised.  “May I see it when it is done?”

“It is far from done, sir,” she laughed.  “But perhaps.  If I am satisfied with it.  I set myself high standards.”

“I believe it,” he said warmly.  “As a work in progress, then,” he urged.

“Perhaps,” she conceded, as gravely as usual.

They walked ahead of us as we set off, the first fat drops of rain beginning to tumble from the lowering sky and there was a lull in the wind.  I offered my own arm to the companion as a courtesy, and she took it without any fuss.  We ascended the Khyber Pass as nimbly as we were able, reaching the top of its zig zag steps as the rain fell in earnest.  Carver and Miss Sanderson passed under the whalebone jaw looking into each other’s faces as if it were a wedding arch.

“Look,” I said to Miss Thomas, pointing at the nearby statue of Captain Cook.  “I do not think the good Captain approves.”

“No, sir?” she answered non-committally.

“But I do not think Miss Sanderson would care about it.  Miss Sanderson observes the conventions but likes to go her own way, I think.”

Miss Thomas was too discreet to answer that remark, saying only,

“I must go to her, Mr Wyatt, for we must change out of our wet things.”

It raining hard and the need to get inside being pressing, now was not the time for me to ask Miss Thomas more.  But I would, most certainly, I decided.  Once back inside, the ladies went to their room to change and we to ours.  After a quick look at our fossil finds, delivered washed clean with sea water and packed into a crate on a straw bed, we went down for a drink before dinner.

“I am looking forward to our work on them tonight,” I said.

“Certainly!  I too!” agreed Carver, enthusiastic about our discoveries.

At dinner, we saw the ladies, and afterwards struck up conversation, or rather Carver did, with two other men.  They were fellow visitors here and they too, it appeared, were to be guests of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society on the morrow.  One was an artist, he told us, who had a small exhibition being shown in the Art Gallery part of the club’s museum rooms.  His name was Devlin, and he had the kind of eyes which people speak of as having been put in with a smutty finger.  With an appealing manner and an easy charm to his conversation, I liked him.  The other man, Moreton, whom he referred to as his patron agent looked, I thought, like the very devil – a flash humbug – but perhaps this made him a successful promoter of Devlin’s work.  It was not a world I knew much of.

We introduced them to Miss Sanderson and Miss Thomas, who joined us in the hotel sitting room for coffee after dinner.  Mr Devlin’s paintings gave Carver the notion to invite the two ladies to come with us to see them.

“Miss Sanderson is an artist too, Devlin.  She draws her own designs for her embroidery, you know.”

“Really, Miss Sanderson?  How interesting,” he said politely, turning to her and she met his rather soft gaze with, I felt, some admiration.

Good, I thought.  Carver is not the only man she might pay attention to.  I doubted that Devlin was a ladies’ man, but no matter.

“Oh, my little bits of embroidery,” she said modestly.  “I do enjoy real art, though.”

“Then you must certainly join us tomorrow, Miss Sanderson,” Carver urged again.  “It will keep you from your adventures abroad.”

He gave her a conspiratorial smile and she favoured him with a very slight one in return at this little sally.  I glanced at Miss Thomas but she did not meet my eye so I could not draw her into any covert disloyalty any more than I had managed to by word.

“I would be delighted to accept the invitation”, agreed Miss Sanderson “and will see your paintings, Mr Devlin, with great interest.”

“Excellent,” he replied.  “And how do you find Whitby?” he asked.  “Have you been here before, Miss Sanderson?”

“ I have not, sir, but a rest in sea air was advised for me and this resort and hotel were recommended.” 

Miss Sanderson lowered her head showing the slender curve of her neck and after a respectful pause, Devlin said that he hoped most sincerely that her stay restored her in health and spirits. 

“May I offer my condolences for a loss, Miss Sanderson?" he asked politely.  "For I have observed the colour of your dress and conclude...”  he tailed off sensitively.

She dipped her head further and murmured thanks.  After this, it did not seem fitting to be jolly company and we all bade one another goodnight, Carver and myself returning to our fossils.  I wrote out labels and began our reference notes at his direction.  Perhaps it was this conversation that prompted Carver, when we walked in the small town the following morning for an airing (our invitation to the Society being in the afternoon), to buy a string of jet beads.  Whitby jet was highly prized for mourning jewellery and there were many jet works and jewellery shops selling it.

“Why do you purchase that?” I asked.  “Your mother may not like such a piece now. It is more than two years since your father died and she is out of mourning, surely?”

Carver merely smiled and slipped the string of faceted beads into his pocket.

“Extraordinary, isn’t it, to think that jet is a fossil too,” he said, changing the subject.

“Is it really?” I asked.  “Of what?”

“Why, of the monkey puzzle tree and amber is a fossilised tree sap resin.”

“What astonishing things you know!” I exclaimed, impressed by this.

All was revealed after luncheon with regard to the necklace.  Carver asked Miss Sanderson if she would like to take a turn with him to the lookout point by the statue of Captain Cook and at the same time made to give her the beads.

“I hope you will not mind, but I took the liberty – I thought you might like to wear them when you dress your hair.  It is a simple friend’s gift, given in sympathy,” he added hastily, so that she would not feel compromised by the present.  Her face cleared of its slight hesitation and she took them

“Thank you, Mr Carver,” she said with modest dignity.  “That was most kind of you and I accept them in the same spirit with which they are offered to me.”

I could see that Carver felt he had addressed the advantage which he believed Devlin had taken last night by offering Miss Sanderson his sympathy.  Carver had avoided making any direct reference to a loss, believing it might  cause her distress..  He had shown now that he understood her situation.  I thought it a quixotic act and quite unnecessary, not to say inappropriate but although I frowned, I said nothing.  Instead, I addressed Miss Thomas, who would have to chaperone her mistress.

“Miss Thomas, would you care to take my arm and we may walk also?”

“Of course, sir,” she answered.  “And thank you,” her tone suggesting that as a companion, she had no real decision in such things.

So again I offered Miss Thomas my own arm and we all walked out together to admire the view, for the morning had dawned fair after yesterday.  Then we strolled a short way along the West Cliff.   There was a little time to pass before we went to see the society’s exhibition.  I made sure to fall behind with Miss Thomas so that, with the breeze coming off the sea, our voices would not carry to the couple walking ahead.  I asked her if she liked her situation.

“I must have one, sir, and so I consider myself lucky in it,” she replied neutrally.

“Have you been with Miss Sanderson for long?” I asked next.

“No, sir.  The position was advertised when Miss Sanderson was due to take her convalescence.”

“Ah,” I said.  “After her loss.”

I studied the lady’s face, but she was aware of it and kept a composed expression, saying nothing.  She knew that I was probing and was keeping her counsel about her mistress.

“I wondered how you felt about her exploit yesterday?” I pressed on, nevertheless.  “It seemed a strange thing to leave you knowing nothing of where she had gone and to walk out like that on the pier so recklessly in that dreadful wind!”

“It is not my place to have an opinion on it,” she answered carefully. “Miss Sanderson says, sir, that she must act on impulse at times to feel that her own heart still beats.”

“She said something of the sort at the time,” I conceded.  “Most romantic of her.  You would not do such a thing yourself, I imagine,” I added with a smile.

“Indeed not, sir, but I cannot comment upon Miss Sanderson’s actions, as I am sure you understand.”

“I imagine that if you did, you might have a great deal to say, Miss Thomas, but I respect your professional discretion.”

Miss Thomas smiled as if that might indeed be so, which I rather liked and I felt I had had a little success here after all.  I might make an ally of Miss Thomas yet and the way Carver was indulging his feelings, I was concerned that interest was rapidly becoming infatuation.  I owed it to my constant old friend to look out for him and I determined to do so.

“What was Miss Sanderson’s loss, Miss Thomas?  I scarcely feel I can ask her for she gives only hints.”

“I believe it was grievous, sir, but she does not speak of it to me and never has done so.”

“Not speak of it?  To her own companion?”

“Miss Sanderson employs me, sir.  Why should she confide in me?  I respect her privacy in the matter.”

“And you think I ought to also ,” I added with a laugh.  “Well, you are quite right, I suppose.  You must forgive a fellow’s curiosity about it.  I think only of my dear friend, Carver by asking about it, I assure you.”

“Indeed, sir,” she answered neutrally and so there I had to leave it.

Carver and the lady in question had now stopped and turned back and we all returned inside.  Carver and I went to fetch the fossils we had chosen to bring as a gift and the hotel’s cab trotted us to our destination.  The collection was housed in a fine building with several rooms devoted to it and we were made very welcome by the gentlemen of the society.  Carver was soon engaged in animated conversation and we marvelled at the skeletons of marine reptiles on display, a plesiosaur and an ichthyosaur with a long sharp blade of a beak like a distorted dolphin.  The finest of all was a gigantic crocodile that had predated the seabed’s creatures, but it looked nothing like the skull of today’s beasts (and I had shot several in my time abroad with the navy).  The society men said that this too had been rather dolphin like in life, but it was positively enormous and most impressive.  It was one of the first things discovered in the alum mines along the cliffs we were exploring ourselves. They had named it a ‘teleosaurus.’

Next, we went through to the gallery where we found Devlin.  I was glad not to see Moreton with him.  He had not spoken much the previous night and said nothing offensive when he did, but I had very much taken against him as some kind of charlatan.  I asked where he was and was glad to learn that he had already left about some other business.

“I hope he represents you fairly, Devlin,” said I.  “I think there is something sharp about him.”

“Wyatt is rather quick to judge at times, Devlin.  He does not mean any impertinence by it,” Carver said hastily, in case I had given offence.

Devlin looked at me with an interested expression, perhaps startled by the warmth of my tone but really, I could not help it.  I did not like to think of his sweetness being taken advantage of by a man like Moreton.

“I am an old navy man, Devlin,” I said, “and I speak as I find I am afraid,” I said gruffly.

“You meant it kindly, I am sure,” he answered in his cordial way and so the moment passed off easily.

My words were quite overshadowed, though, by the reaction of Miss Sanderson to two paintings of Devlin’s which had been done as companion pieces.   They were oils in the bright, pre-Raphaelite style which was very à la mode.  In the first, a gowned young woman with a thick plait of russet hair was reading a letter, her expression full of a fond emotion imbued with sadness.  In the second, she was turned the other way, head cast down and carrying a small, baby sized bundle in her arms, a medieval door very firmly closed behind her.  It was titled ‘Broken Word?’ 

We all admired them and speculated on the different layers of meaning which might be found in the depiction.

“Has the poor creature been abandoned?” asked Carver.  “First reading a letter of love and then, misled, being outcast?”

“You assume the bundle to be an infant, Henry,” I said.  “Yet it may be that she only now steals away to be with her lover and knows she is leaving all, and her reputation, behind.  Hence her downcast stealth.”

“Stealth?  I do not see that in her aspect,” said Carver.  “Surely the painting’s title gives it its subject matter.”

“There is a question mark after it, though,” I pointed out.

Devlin smiled but did not enlighten us, enjoying the discussion.

“And yet, sirs,” put in Miss Sanderson, who had been gazing upon the work soulfully, “how can we know what her letter contained?”  She spoke in a soft, confiding way as was her habit, as if her words were always full of hidden meanings of their own.  “She reads it as if it may bring her sad news.  Death may separate sweethearts too.”

Carver looked at her with the deepest sympathy at this, clearly assuming she spoke of a personal such disappointment which might explain her half mourning and regret, her speeches about needing to feel her own heart still beating.

“Death before dishonour, perhaps, though, instead, eh?” I said with a rather brutal humour.  “Is that why she creeps away, to some sad suicide?  Come, Devlin, put us out of our misery.  What is the subject as you had it in mind when you painted it?”

Devlin shook his head a little mischievously, enjoying the sparks flying up and the stir his work was causing.  Miss Sanderson continued to view the painting with empathetic interest.

“No.  I think it depicts the flight from a broken heart, Mr Wyatt,” she said with a sigh.  “Which a person cannot really escape.”

“I believe time heals, if it is allowed to do its work,” I replied.  “Or grief becomes no more than a morbid fascination.”

“Wyatt!” interjected Carver.  “I believe you are uncivil!”

“I apologise, then.  I believed us to be engaged in hypothetical debate.”

Miss Sanderson said, rather shockingly,

“But the meaning is surely in the title, is it not, Mr Devlin?  What is a broken promise otherwise?  The lovers are separated by fate or deed.  And perhaps a man’s honour may not always be relied upon by a lady, I fear.”

“Not mine!” declared Carver stoutly, though clearly taken aback by this indelicate speech from an unmarried woman.

“I am sure your honour would never be put to such a test, sir,” she answered.  “I speak figuratively of the picture, of course, as Mr Wyatt says.”

But did she, I wondered because again she sighed as she spoke? 

“Great heavens, Miss Sanderson, a real gentleman would never compromise any lady!” said Carver.

This was certainly true of him, but I could not say the same of everybody I had known.  A life visiting different ports enabled many a dalliance to be flitted from.  Breach of promise, should that later arise, rarely came to anything.  The slenderness of Miss Sanderson’s figure did not suggest that she had ever born a child herself to my practised eye.  Yet saying what she had hinted at its truth, if not of herself, then perhaps of someone close to her.  I wondered if a wronged sister had died in childbirth, perhaps, and that this was the reason for her half mourning instead of a dead husband to be?  Perhaps the child died too, and it had been a double tragedy?  I told myself off for being drawn into what I considered to be Miss Sanderson’s ability to create a mysterious fantasy and one which, if that were the scenario, could never be admitted to in polite society anyway, so we would never know..

“Devlin – you painted it – what is the real story?”  I asked again.

“Miss Sanderson has interpreted it quite correctly.  The lady has been ruined by false words.”

“She carries a bundle, certainly,” I said.  “But who is to say that it definitely a baby?”

“I wished to suggest it and Miss Sanderson has shown me that my aim has been realised.”

“Wyatt, you are the most literal chap a person could ever meet,” said Carver.  “You must allow for artistic license, dear fellow!”

“I see what I see,” I said, looking hard at Miss Sanderson.  “And furthermore, I see no point in veiled references.”

“And that is why you are a ship’s doctor and not an artist, Mr Wyatt,” said Devlin with a smile, seeming rather amused than annoyed by my declared philistinism.

“No longer.  Retired, Mr Devlin.  I am Mr Carver’s secretary for the present.”

“And his very good friend,” said Carver.  “I think it a fine work but a sad subject.”

“It is a common enough story,” I said.

Miss Sanderson gave her small smile and continued to look upon the work in silence as if much moved by it.  This was the kind of thing which I did not trust about her.  To imply an intimate knowledge of such an affair would leave her reputation in tatters if it related to any relative of hers and so I dismissed it.  Nor did I believe she had cruelly lost a fiancé in the past.  She said she spoke only of the painting and so be it.  We moved on to look at other works, some by Devlin and some by other artists.  I thought that there was no doubting his talent and told him so most heartily, which pleased him, I could see.  Carver asked if the paintings would be for sale and he (Devlin) said that they would be.  I hoped Henry was not going to put in an offer for the ‘Broken Promise’ with some notion of giving the pictures to Miss Sanderson.  I would not put it past him but perhaps the subject matter would prevent him from giving her something far more inappropriate than I had already considered his present of the jet beads to be.

Back at the hotel later and alone over our pre dinner whisky and sodas, Carver said,

“I wonder – I hope such a fate has not befallen anybody close to Miss Sanderson?  She spoke with such feeling.  She has perhaps lost her own betrothed?  Or her mourning must be for a near relative and her words made me wonder if perhaps a beloved sister…?  It is not a thing she would have spoken of at all except for being unexpectedly moved by that painting, I believe.”

“I am certain that she would not have, for the idea would never have entered her head otherwise,” I said, although I had briefly shared the same thoughts, which I did not admit to.

“What do you mean by that, Wyatt?”

“I mean that in my view Miss Sanderson is very capable of giving nuance to nothing at all, given the opportunity, and speaks for effect.  She meant to shock and hint further at some mysterious tragedy in her life.”

“Oh, come, Wyatt.  You are too hard upon Miss Sanderson,” rebuked Carver.

“She feeds your sense of romance about her, Carver, that is all.  Let us look at the facts.  She sees a painting and speaks in such a way as to suggest a painful personal knowledge of either lost love or betrayal.  We already know that she courts disaster and creates drama.  Her words aroused your protective instinct and showed her that you are most definitely a man of your word.  My caution to you is not to walk further into entrapment!”

“Wyatt!  You go too far.”

“Perhaps, but you are much too trusting, my dear Henry, and in my view far too good.  Would your mother welcome such a person, if there were questionable morals in the family somewhere, as your wife?”

“My wife?  My dear man, I have no intention of marrying anybody for some years yet!”

“Then I should be careful that you do not find yourself accidentally promised,” I said drily.  “To my mind, that was the real meaning of that conversation in the gallery.  Miss Sanderson wished to see if you are a man you can be trusted to honour his word.  Now that she knows you are, I urge you most strongly to step back from this folly!”

“Folly, indeed!” exclaimed Carver, becoming heated now and seriously annoyed by my judgement of the young woman he had a tenderness for.  “I will thank you to leave me to conduct myself as a gentlemen and I would be grateful if you would do the same!  If you were not my dearest friend, I should take very great exception to your words about a lady!”

I laid a hand on his arm.

“Pray do not.  We were always fire and ice, you and I, temperamentally.  Consider me nothing but a bracing dash of cold water upon your ardent nature.  I only urge common sense after all.”

“Oh, common sense!” he exclaimed.  “That was always your watchword.”

“It once saved you from many a fight at school when you had risen to the bait,” I remarked.  “If you recall?”

“True,” he laughed, softening.  “And yet you could remain calm under the greatest provocation!”

“I appear to be,” I said.  “Which is not the same thing at all.”

“Very well.  I will rein in my imagination as to Miss Sanderson’s reason for being in mourning,” he agreed.

“Even Miss Thomas does not know the reason for it.  I asked her this morning,” I said.  “So what do you make of that?”

“Why nothing, as the woman is a servant at the end of the day.”

“Perhaps there is nothing to be made of any of it,” I said, dousing my cigar

“I despair of you, Wyatt, I really do,” said Carver, but more indulgently this time.  “She may confide in us one day but until that time, let us refrain from unworthy speculation.  I see where your reservations spring from, old friend, but have no fear.  I would not offer you the security of a home with the danger of a new wife’s arrival turning you out of it and your position, I assure you.”

I flushed deeply, for he had hit a nerve.  My motives were, perhaps, not as entirely transparent as I liked to think, and I was upset me to be reminded of my dependency.  Perhaps I was not so unlike Miss Thomas after all. 

“You shame me, Carver, with such a suggestion,” I said unfairly.

“I am sorry for speaking in haste,” he replied immediately, for Carver could not stand to be on bad terms with anyone for very long.

“Not at all,” I said, with a distant graciousness. 

I knew he would not speak of it again for fear of wounding my feelings.

“Come, old man, let us shake hands like the good friends we are and go in for our dinners!” he said with all the warm candour which came so naturally to him, holding out his hand and I took it.

“Certainly,” said I. “All this idle gossip is women’s work and not for men like us!” which successfully made him laugh.

Miss Sanderson wore the jet beads in her hair at dinner,  which I observed from the nearby distance of our own table, as did Carver, but both of us chose not to remark upon it to one another.  We did not see Devlin that night since he was meeting Moreton somewhere else to be introduced to a Whitby merchant who was interested in having his portrait done, he had told us earlier.  He was glad to have the prospect of an actual commission.  I was pleased for him and said so, which again seemed to please him in return.  I felt that our acquaintance was developing rather nicely.

                                               ***

The following day we returned to our digging but this time not so successfully.  We found a few fossils, but they were small and not of the best quality.

“No matter,” said Carver as we prepared to finish and repair back to the hotel.  “We will dig further in tomorrow.  I will ask Bright to move the scaffolding further along if we have no joy after that.  A costly business but well worth it, I think.”

We walked up through the tunnel built through the hillside of the Khyber Pass and stood at the top admiring the view across the harbour to the abbey.  Black clouds were gathering heavily again, and we thought another storm squall would soon be on its way.  In this we were mistaken.  A great tempest blew up instead and many of us guests (including Miss Sanderson and Miss Thomas) went to the pier, whose gates were shut to stop anyone from going on to it, to watch the storm surge of the great waves crashing over it.  The force of it and the cold wind soon drove us back to the Royal and we watched from the windows as lightning zipped across the vista, vast thunder crashes and more downpours following on.  Even the hotel, a big and solid building, seemed shaken to its foundations by the storm.  Miss Sanderson showed no fear of it but Miss Thomas was rather quiet and I felt that she was made nervous.

“It will soon pass,” I told her.  “It is too fierce not to blow itself out soon.”

“I am glad of that, Mr Wyatt,” she answered.  “But how are you so certain of it?”

“I was a ship’s surgeon in the navy, Miss Thomas.  Retired now”  I pointed to my dud eye as being the reason for it.  “But, trust me,  I have plenty of experience of the sea in all weathers.”

“You were hit in battle, sir?” she asked.

“I was, struck by a shell fragment while tending a wounded man on deck.  This was the result.  I can see very little through it which is no good for a surgeon needed in battle.”

“That is a great shame, sir, and a cruel mishap when you were going to a man’s aid,” she said.

“It was simply my job, Miss Thomas,” I said, and I could see that she approved of this practical and modest view.

Good.  I wanted to have the friendly regard of sensible Miss Thomas, as I was in no way reassured that my friend Carver was safe from himself with regard to Miss Sanderson.

“Excuse me,” she said now with a frown.  “But I see Miss Sanderson is about to step outside to see the storm and I must fetch her outdoor mantle.  She has no thought for her health at such times.”

There was exasperation in her tone, which I was pleased to note.

“She is lucky to have you at hand,” I said.

In spite of an outdoor cloak being brought while Carver did his best to remonstrate with Miss Sanderson about her intention to go outside, the hotel manager prevented her at the last, for the door had been barred.

“I am sorry, Miss Sanderson but I am responsible for all the guests’ safety.  Forgive me, but in such dangerous weather, with every risk of lightning strikes at such a high point as we are situated in here, I must ask everyone to remain within.”

“I understand,” she was forced to say, and she hurried to the stairs at once to return to her room saying, “I must look at it from the window at least from this tame world!”  leaving Carver standing where he was and Miss Thomas following after her.

“What a troublesome creature she is, Carver!” I exclaimed.  “I hope you do not let her upset you.”

“Not at all,” he replied a little stiffly, for he was put out to have been walked away from so abruptly, I could see.

“Come now, let us have another brandy,” I suggested.  “I see Moreton and Devlin have returned and are over there together.”

“You do not like Moreton.”

“No.  But Devlin is a very pleasant fellow.”

“Miss Sanderson said to me after going to the gallery that his eyes are as blue as the turquoise silk she is using for her oriental dragon,” said Carver.

How his mind ran on her!

“Very poetic.  I had not noticed Devlin’s eyes,” I mocked untruthfully.  “From which, I take it, that you do not care to speak to Devlin tonight?

“Not especially,” he answered.  “And I am not at all sure that I will buy one of his paintings, either.  I think mother would find it garish.  And the ‘Broken Promise?’ is simply immodest.”

I smiled to myself at this.

“Then let us ring for a brandy from our rooms and return to working on our collection instead,” I said.  “It is what we should be about, and I am looking forward to learning more about those creatures we saw today from you.”

We had plenty of reference materials, for Carver had had a trunk sent on to us from his own library.  Easily cheered by that prospect, Carver agreed, and we spent the rest of the evening on that task.  The storm passed and the day dawned with blue skies again for the present.  Going down to carry on with our work, we arrived wondering if the scaffold would still be standing.  Bright’s men had done a thorough job though, for it did, although there had been a landslip from the cliff to the rear of it and further along, boulder clay and grasses strewn upon the beach.  As we looked, I saw something, a big snout of some sort sticking out.

“Look there, Carver!” I cried.  “Is that not one of your marine reptiles?”

“It is, and a mighty one by the size of the skull that shows!”

“Success!” I cried.  “Let me go up first.  I am smaller and lighter and if the scaffolding rocks will be in less danger of a fall.”

He agreed for he was too excited not to want one of us to go up to it and could see the sense of my proposal.  I went cautiously up as far as I dared to and reached to clear some of the soft clays away from the fossilised bone.  A great empty eye orbit showed and a row of savage looking teeth.

“It is magnificent, Carver!  A great triangle of a head like those crocodiles we saw yesterday but it is even bigger, I think.  What a beast it will be when we get it out!”

Clambering down, I stood guard while Carver went to Bright’s builder’s yard on the harbour to fetch him and some workmen to aid us.  After some discussion, a couple of the workmen were lowered on ropes from the top and the scaffolding was repinned to the exposed cliff, moved further back.  News had spread fast, and we had a crowd of interested onlookers coming and going, the first to arrive the usual cluster of young boys eager for a curiosity to see. 

We worked on in the greatest suspense to free the Teleosaurus we had found.  Its impressive size become gradually more visible, and it was decided to disarticulate the remains by disinterring the head first.  Carver was keen to get some photographic plates made to record the discovery in situ before that and I offered to approach the town photographer, who had a studio nearby.  He was excited to hear of our find and by the opportunity, so hurried back with me carrying his box camera. 

While Mr Sutcliff, the photographer, spoke to Carver, I replied to the questions of some of the crowd.

“What is it?”

“It’s a monster!”

“It is an ancient sea crocodile,” I told them, as Sutcliffe set up in the best vantage point for taking photographs.

“A crocodile!  In Whitby?” jeered a lad.

“Yes, these were once tropical waters.”

“The North Sea?  Tropical!”

“Indeed it was.  There are fossils like this being found all along these shores,” I told them.

Sutcliffe had disappeared under his box camera cloth and taken plates of the beast as it was.  Next the enormous creature’s fossil skull was heaved out by the workmen and lowered down.  Sutcliffe took another plate of Carver posing next to it like a dragon slayer.

“Join me, Wyatt?” he invited.  “You saw it first.”

“No, Henry.  It is your find,” I said, refusing to steal any of his glory.

So it was I who was on hand when, on either side of Mr Moreton who was escorting them both on his arm, Miss Sanderson and Miss Thomas arrived to gaze upon the spectacle in awe.

“This is a rare thing!” said Moreton.  “I wonder if Carver will be persuaded to let me represent him when looking to make a sale of it?”

“For a fee, no doubt!” I said caustically.

“A modest one, sir.  A man must make his own living too.  But I would see him get a very good price for it.”

“Aren’t you rather too busy with Devlin’s affairs?” I asked.

“Mr Devlin has a commission for the present.  Which I secured for him,” said Moreton mildly.  “So I am quite at leisure.”

I was not pleased to hear it, for without any real foundation for it, I had mistrusted the fellow on sight.

“Why, it is quite extraordinary!” exclaimed Miss Sanderson.  “And it has been here all this time just waiting to be found?”

“For millennia, Miss Sanderson,” Carver called across.  “Along with many other such prehistoric giants!  We must be careful in our excavation.  The cliffs are even more precarious after that storm.”

“But the bones are not fragile?”

“They are petrified but extracting the whole will be tricky.”

The head now packed up and ready to be transported, the question was, where to?  Should it be taken to our rooms or, being such a rare treasure, taken direct to the museum for safekeeping with its fellows while the rest of the work was undertaken?  Carver believed it should go to the museum and it did not occur to me to question Moreton’s urging for the same at the time as it seemed quite sensible to me.  It was an enormous thing and far too heavy to manipulate around a hotel.

“You must be careful they do not lay claim to it, Henry,” was my only caution.

“I am sure the gentlemen would not dream of doing so if I did not offer it to them.  I must consider what is the right thing to do – present it or sell it.  But then, I do have a wish to keep it in my own private collection when we have the whole of it.”

“Sell it, man!” urged Moreton.  “There is a very great market for this kind of thing at present.  I would be happy to broker a deal on your behalf if you would allow it?”

Carver looked at me and demurred again that he would have to think about it.

“I would not welcome having such a ferocious looking beast in such close proximity to me at the Royal Hotel,” said Miss Sanderson with a shudder.  “I am sure I would have night terrors about it.”

The lady’s sensibilities being paramount with Carver, this made the case for him entirely that the fossil skull with its empty staring orbits and enormous teeth should be transported to the society’s museum to be examined at leisure there.

“After all, they will have room to store the rest of the skeleton when it is brought in and what fun we will have reassembling it together, Wyatt!” he exclaimed in great excitement.

I had to smile at his boyish enthusiasm for the project.  Moreton and the ladies departed and we made our arrangements for transport, having sent a message on up ahead about our great find to the good gentlemen of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society.  Mr Sutcliffe packed up his camera and promised Carver the plates as soon as he had developed them.  Carver paused the workmen while we transported the head.

“We will tackle the rest tomorrow, gentlemen,” he said.  “When we get to the tail, Wyatt, we shall see its size, but it is a behemoth of a beast, I am quite certain of it!” he said admiringly.

Leaving the workmen to pack up, we set off to walk up after the cart to the fossil museum and private art gallery.  Some of the society’s members met us there and after comparing ours with existing specimens, it was agreed that this was an altogether more gigantic animal and would be a most extraordinary find.  Excitement about the giant crocodile continued in all quarters throughout the day, it being the talk of the town, and our return to the hotel was in triumph.

At dinner that evening, Miss Sanderson wore the jet beads again in her hair and I heard Carver discreetly compliment her about them this time.  They murmured together in the hotel sitting room over coffee, while Miss Thomas worked at a net purse nearby.  Once or twice she looked up and, meeting my eye watching the pair, glanced at them consideringly herself.  I did not think it a development that either of us cared for.  After all, we both had our positions to consider.

The following morning, there was great consternation after we received an urgent note at the hotel.  The head of Carver’s giant crocodile had vanished from the club room museum!  I said, of course, that it had been an inside job, but Carver was astounded and could not credit such an ungentlemanly act being conducted by the club members, who declared themselves to be equally astonished.  Something occurred to me.

“Moreton!”  I cried.  “He has access to the building due to Devlin’s exhibition.  What if he has taken it to sell himself, greed being too great to wait?  You were far from certain about wishing to part with it at all, or if you did, that it might be a gift to the museum from you!  Come to think of it why was the fellow about at all yesterday with the two ladies?”

“I expect he heard the news at the hotel and came down to see, as everyone did.  That is what Miss Sanderson said to me last night.”

“Let us enquire for him at once,” I said, but the hotel manager at the desk told us that Mr Moreton had departed early that morning, saying he was required by Devlin’s patron to visit and view progress.

“I suppose, after all, Wyatt, that Moreton did not expect us to complete getting the whole crocodile out for several days,” suggested Carver.  “And means to speak to us on his return.  We must not leap to conclusions.  The news of our discovery was widely known in the town and there may be others interested in making a profit from it.”

“If he returns,” I said.

“Oh, confound you and your suspicious nature, Wyatt!” exclaimed Carver, who was deeply rattled.  “You see conspiracy at every turn!”

“It is my military training, Henry,” I said calmly.  “I see stratagem where you see honesty in people as open as your own.”

“Perhaps so,” he conceded.  “Certainly, it is missing.  What will the rest be without the head?  We must go down to the works and secure it.  It may be,” he added hopefully, “that it turns out other members of the society took a decision to move it for some reason.”

“Well.  Let us hope so,” I said, leaving him with what I considered to be his illusions.

Here, Miss Thomas appeared and seeing the two of us, enquired if we had seen her mistress.  We had not so far that morning, we said.

“I cannot see her outdoor things in our rooms and think she must have taken an early walk before breakfast.  She likes the mist at dawn.”

“I can believe it,” I said drily.

“We are going directly to the cliffs and will tell her you seek her if we see her,” said Carver. 

“Is anything amiss?” enquired Miss Thomas.

We told her of the disappearance of the fossil head, and she expressed the greatest surprise.

“Miss Sanderson will be very grieved on my behalf,” said Carver.  “She knows what that discovery means to me.”

Their intimacy was certainly growing, as both I and Miss Thomas had remarked, I think.  When we reached the cliffs, it seemed that nature had taken its course and another great erosion landfall might have freed the monstrous crocodile for us.  It was still early and so none of the workmen had appeared as yet.  Carver rushed down to seek the fossil bones among the debris of fallen mud and grass and yelled up excitedly that he found many scattered there and had every hope of putting the vast majority of the giant crocodile together again.

“Marvellous, Carver!  Now we need only retrieve the head from Moreton!” I called down to him.

“Devil take the man if it was him!” cried Carver and here, he stopped and looked more closely at something.  “Great heavens!  Miss Sanderson!  Wyatt, she has fallen and lies here unconscious!  You must go for help immediately!  I will stay with her.  She must have come to see, curious about it and tumbled from the dangerous ground!  She cannot have been here very long.  She breathes and her pulse is steady!”

It was not for nothing that I had remained above, for the discovery was not news to me.  I too had walked out early in the morning, considering what I might do to address the situation between Carver and Miss Sanderson, and I had seen her cloaked figure moving close out to the edge through the drifts of sea mist.  My action was the work of a moment after a swift check behind and about me.  She made no sound, and I was certain none had seen me thrust at her.  I returned at once to the hotel now and raised the alarm.  Rescuers and the hotel doctor were sent immediately down to where Carver waited with her.  Miss Thomas appeared again, and I said,

“Miss Thomas, it seems your poor mistress has met with an accident and fallen from the cliff.  She lives but  I cannot help but be reminded that those who court danger may find it.”

She gave me a very clear eyed look and said,

“I will send immediately for her father to bring her home and offer my services as nurse.  I have some skill in it.”

“I think you will be needed, then, for some considerable time, Miss Thomas.”

“I hope so, sir.  I would wish to continue in her service,” she continued without any inflection at all.

“As will I in supporting poor Carver to piece the rest of the crocodile together although the head is stolen from him.”

“That is very sad too, sir.  Now I must go.”

“Let me escort you down,” I offered and so we arrived together.

It was as impossible to read anything into Miss Thomas’s words as ever.  I had naturally noticed, though,  that when Miss Thomas had appeared that morning asking if we had seen her mistress, her own shoes were very wet and drops of mist water clung about her.   Furthermore, I had checked on Miss Sanderson before leaving her and she had not been unconscious then, moving and murmuring.  I had felt it safe to leave her for a passer-by to find.  Now, she sported a large bruise upon her temple and was quite insensible.  I felt sure that Miss Thomas had followed, witnessed the fall and acted herself to wound her mistress enough to require her long term further care of her.  If so, the companion was quite as culpable as I.  Neither of us needed to speak of it to know it but then, we had a common end in securing our positions.

Miss Sanderson being safely removed to the hotel and declared, though in some danger, not at immediate risk, it being more a concussion than anything else due to falling upon softly grassed boulder clays tumbled into a hillock below where she fell, Carver and I returned to the matter of the crocodile.

“Sutcliffe’s plates, Carver!” I cried.   “There will be your provenance for it being your find when the skeleton surfaces.  Let us put notices out to all the palaeontology circles about it.”

He brightened at this, and though the loss of the teleosaurus head had been overtaken by Miss Sanderson’s accident in his mind, I knew his interest would not be lost in the greatest find he had ever made. 

“We must go and see him,” he said, “and Bright too to get the scaffolding safely taken down while the cliff face is shored up.  I feel a responsibility for all of this by our finding that skeleton monster, and we cannot have any more people put at risk here.  We must have the rest of the fossil skeleton retrieved at once and taken up to the museum.”

I agreed and we set off about arranging the tasks.  Once all was taken away, we went to see Mr Sutcliffe, who had developed his photographic plates successfully.

“You see, Henry?” I declared.  “You will find it again!”

Miss Sanderson was removed to her home, still sedated and I doubted that she would have any recollection of what had passed.  I hoped not, for Miss Thomas’s sake as much as my own.  Henry promised to write to her father, but the distance was great, and I had every expectation of Carver being too occupied in being lionised for his discovery and with the drama of the theft of the head to pursue his interest in her too deeply.  In this I guessed correctly.  Henry did indeed make a gift of the giant crocodile to the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society and although the head remained separated from the whole and Moreton did not reveal his hand while the hue and cry was on, being absent altogether, a plaster cast was made from the photographic plates which evidenced its great size, so that it could be seen in all its glory. 

We remained there for several weeks, continuing our excavations, with Henry giving lectures by invitation.  He found an ichthyosaur, which helped to make amends for the loss of the giant crocodile’s skull.  When Devlin returned from his painting commission to retrieve his exhibition pictures, the two of us renewed our burgeoning friendship and Carver and I both declared we knew he had no hand in the theft of the crocodile’s skull.  It being agreed that Moreton was not to be trusted, I offered my own services to him as representative.

“I have a good head for business, Devlin, if I know nothing of painting itself,” I told him.

When he left, he thanked me for my offer, and I knew that he would contact me again about it.  I took up my position with Henry Carver and lived in his home.  Miss Thomas continued in her own situation,  as I learned from Henry’s occasional letters to Miss Sanderson’s father.  Miss Sanderson’s own senses remained in a nervous disorder and she was still not fit to be visited, confined to being carried about or in an invalid chair.  There was some spinal fault following her fall which baffled the medical men who could find no cause for it, although she was expected to walk again eventually.  With the possible exception of Miss Sanderson, although personally I was sure that she enjoyed her ill health as a validation of her fragility and being fussed over, I believed that we all continued to prosper. 

With that in mind, I penned an invitation to Mr Devlin to stay with us, for Henry now wished to have a portrait of his mother painted.  Whatever rancour he had felt briefly with regard to Miss Sanderson’s interest in the painter had vanished, for it was not in Carver’s nature to hold any grudge and anyway, his own affection had become more that of friend to unfortunate invalid.  I looked forward to the visit with great pleasure, and I was certain that Mr Devlin did so too.

Eventually, news came of an attempted sale of the head of the teleosaurus by a private and unnamed owner.  The expert it was offered to recognised it and contacted Henry at once.  The private owner claimed to have bought it in all innocence and a reward was paid to them out of Henry’s considerable funds.  Order and the giant crocodile were all, in the end, restored.  When he wrote to Miss Sanderson to advise her of the news, however, she remembered nothing about the teleosaurus at all!

“Perhaps the blow has knocked some sense into her fanciful head,” I growled from behind my morning newspaper when Carver exclaimed over it.

Devlin, who was present, smiled and Carver just shook his head.

“Get along with you, Wyatt,” he said.  “You will pretend to have a heart of stone, but I know otherwise.”

Devlin looked as if he agreed but he said nothing at the time, just smiling at me again and I met his eyes over my newspaper with an answering smile of my own.  Although Carver did not suspect it, if Devlin ever thought there had been more than one crocodile at work in Whitby, he never said so.  Of Moreton, there was no further word but then, since I had known him to be venal enough for me to orchestrate the theft with him in secret, I did not expect there to be any.  He could play the long game and in the end had been paid well for his services via Henry’s reward, as I had promised.  I had seen at the time of our discovery that there was every need to distract Henry from Miss Sanderson and had not expected the second opportunity to do so, that of her own accident, to fall into my hands quite so easily.  But then, one cannot leave everything in life to chance, can one? 

Seeing Miss Sanderson at the cliff edge, I had remembered the workman’s fall on our first day at the scaffolding, or I might not have thought of it at all.  What Miss Thomas had had in mind, I really could not say, and nor did I have any intention of ever asking her.  Even if I did so, no doubt she would be as unrevealing about it as was customary to her discretion.  We were all as we were, with better things to come, and that was quite good enough for me.