The Vesuvius Club

by Mark Gatiss

  ‘Miss Bella Pok,’ he muttered.

  ‘Thank you, Charles,’ I said between gritted teeth. ‘You may take the rest of the day off.’

  ‘Oh!’ he cried, clasping his hands to his bosom. ‘May I, sir? Oh, how kind of you, sir.’

  ‘That will be all, Charles,’ I said firmly. He went out and slammed the door.

  ‘Bella! How wonderful to see you! Pray accept my apologies for him. It is so devilishly hard to find good servants these days that one accepts even the most rough-edged and bothersome.’

  ‘I thought he was rather sweet,’ she said sunnily.

  I was slightly breathless and my head ached. ‘Well, well, no doubt that is your pleasant disposition. I fear I do not appear at my best…’

  She took in my tousled appearance and sleep-shocked hair and waved away my apologies with a yellow-gloved hand. I took it and kissed it fervently.

  ‘You are safe! That is all that matters!’

  ‘You got my note, then? It was a foolish thing I did. To risk my life when I had so much to look forward to.’

  Smiling indulgently, she lifted the white veil from her face. I felt my pulse quicken at this renewed view of her beauty. ‘You are very bold, Lucifer,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I have offended you!’ I groaned. ‘It is only that I had hoped so much that when I got back to England we might…’

  She sat next to the bed and took my hand in hers. ‘Rest assured, dear Lucifer, that I have not forgotten you.’

  I smiled happily.

  ‘Now,’ she said, settling herself. ‘How on earth did you come by these dreadful injuries? I want to hear all about your adventures!’

  ‘Oh?’ I said wearily. ‘Really?’

  Impressions of the extraordinary events of the past weeks began to crowd my brain, all of them tinged in a volcanic glow. I thought of coming up with an entirely neutral version of events, concerned with sketching trips and abandoned canvases and amusingly dreadful restaurant fare but Bella deserved better than that. She knew I had some dark secret.

  ‘Lucifer?’

  I opened my eyes. ‘Was I drifting?’

  ‘So it seems,’ she said concernedly. ‘Are you quite well?’

  I winced suddenly and she moved to my side, noticing, beneath my dressing gown, the bandages that swaddled my chest.

  ‘Oh you poor, poor darling.’

  I made a stoic face. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

  She shook her head. ‘I shall fetch you a drink.’

  ‘Well, it is the hour for vermouth,’ I smiled.

  She took my hand and squeezed it. Moments later she had returned with two glasses.

  I took the one she proffered gratefully.

  The glass was almost at my lips when I suddenly felt curiously uneasy. It was not the ache in my shoulder, nor the fatigue of having so many visitors, nor even the effort of my recent tumble with young Charlie. It was a strange, indefinable something and it caused me to set the glass down on the counterpane. ‘Think I’ll save it for a moment. Don’t want it to go to my head.’

  Bella shrugged. ‘As you please.’

  I looked at her steadily and nodded towards the glass. ‘Aren’t you joining me?’ I said lightly.

  The young woman shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

  She seemed to become aware that I was staring at her. Bella’s pale, slender throat made a noticeable undulation and she looked down at me, smiling. Then her face changed with the suddenness of a mask falling away. She balled her hand into a fist and punched me hard directly in my wound.

  I gasped in pain and shock and fell back against the pillows. At once, Bella had picked up the whisky glass and was prising my mouth open. My head swam with nausea as I felt her fingers stealing into my mouth and the edge of the glass tapping against my teeth.

  ‘Drink it!’ she hissed. ‘Drink it, you bastard!’

  There was nothing but steel in her voice now and the lovely eyes had turned cold.

  I pushed at her but I was so weak that she forced me back on the bed. Risking some kind of fearsome rupture, I rolled off the bed and fell to the floor.

  Bella at once stalked towards me, holding the glass in both hands.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I screeched. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Drink it, my dear. It is prussic acid. There will be a little pain but soon you will be insensate.’

  ‘Bella!’ I cried, trying desperately to stand. ‘What is wrong? It is I, Lucifer Box!’

  ‘Pauvre petite,’ she murmured. ‘You pursued me like a goat from the day we met, didn’t you? And never once did you guess at the truth.’

  ‘Truth? What truth?’

  She put down the glass and from her dress produced a dainty pistol which she levelled at my chest. She laughed. It was that gay, musical laugh I had grown so fond of. ‘You remember a chase by coach through London?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I drove that coach! I! I sent the venomous insect to your home! I did it all, to get my revenge on you!’

  ‘On me?’ I said, all innocence.

  ‘I believe I once told you I am Dutch by birth. That is not quite true. I am Afrikaans. I lived in Pretoria till I was nine. Just me and my beloved father. Everard Supple!’

  I shook my head desperately. ‘Who?’

  ‘Can you have forgotten so soon? The man you gunned down in cold blood! I know, Mr Lucifer Box, I know all!’

  Everard Supple? Everard Supple! It seemed incredible. The old fool I’d killed all those weeks ago as a routine assignment. But how could she have found out? This was just the sort of thing Joshua Reynolds was meant to protect me against!

  ‘Supple was your father?’

  ‘Yes! A great man. A man whose feet you were not worthy to kiss!’

  I wasn’t having this. I struggled to my feet, tears of agony springing to my eyes. ‘A dangerous anarchist!’ I yelled. ‘I despatched him because he planned to assassinate the foreign secretary!’

  Bella’s eyes blazed in fury. ‘I will not listen to your lies! I only know that I have spent these last weeks planning how best to despatch you, Box. I was not sure, at first, despite my information, that you were responsible.’

  ‘Information?’

  ‘My father’s diplomatic contacts.’

  ‘Ah,’ I gasped. ‘Spies.’

  ‘I had no idea how I might engineer a meeting and then your little advertisement came along. It was too perfect. I came to your studio and I confess I could not believe you to be a killer. And then…’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘There, amongst the paints and brushes, I saw it. My father’s glass eye!’

  ‘Ah –’

  ‘And then my heart hardened, Mr Box. I swore I would destroy you!’

  ‘You didn’t manage very well, did you?’ I piped up, eyeing the door. Despite my weakened state I was going to make a break for it. Fool! Why had I sent Charlie away? There were hotel staff about. But could I make it in time? If I could but raise the alarm…

  ‘Unlike you, Mr Box, I am not a professional murderer.’

  I looked at her with as much stoicism as I could muster. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. ‘Beg for my life? I won’t do it, my dear. You must know me well enough by now. I may be a cad but I’m not a coward. I stand by what I did to your father. I should do it again.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘You must understand, that I am a servant of His Majesty’s Government. I never kill without taking the greatest pains to ensure that what I’m doing is right! Of course I feel for you and your loss but you must believe me when I say your father was a dangerous fanatic.’

  ‘And what does that make you! The fêted artist, the dashing dandy. But by night – philanderer, sodomite and assassin!’

  As a thumbnail sketch of me that wasn’t half bad.

  Bella aimed the revolver at my face and cocked it. ‘And so…farewell…’

  Then things moved very quickly. I sprang forward, throwing the deadly contents of th
e whisky glass towards Bella’s face. Her arm shot up defensively and the liquid splashed harmlessly over the sleeve of her gown. An instant later she fired the revolver, but I had already thrown myself to the floor and, gasping in pain, rolled over and behind my easel.

  Bella skittered towards me. I grabbed at a pot of brushes and flung it at her. The glass shattered against the wall and the pistol spat fire again.

  I scrambled under a chair, the pain of my wound making me giddy, and struggled to think. I would never make it across the room alive.

  ‘Come out, come out wherever you are!’ cried Bella with a kind of dreadful gaiety.

  She dragged the easel aside on its squealing castors and my ludicrous hiding place was exposed.

  ‘What an ignominious end, Mr Box!’ she crowed. ‘Now, Papa! You shall be revenged –’

  All at once, and to my utter astonishment, the bedroom door flew open and Charlie launched himself on to Bella’s back.

  The two of them careered around like a carousel, Bella’s skirts sending painting materials flying. She bellowed alarmingly and began to twist her arm from Charlie’s grip so that she might get a clear shot at him.

  ‘Lucifer!’ cried Charlie. ‘Quick!’

  I needed no prompting. I dashed out from under the chair, grabbed at a half-finished canvas and cracked Bella viciously under the jaw with it. She toppled backwards and Charlie fell from her, the gun grasped in one hand. He threw the weapon to me and I had raised it ready to fire when I stopped dead.

  Bella had fallen back against the dresser and now stood stock still. Her shaking hands flew to her back and came away bloody. She sank to her knees, seemed to pause for a moment, and then pitched forward on to her face with an awful gurgling moan.

  Stuck in her back was the lance of that frightful spelter statue she had drawn so prettily on the first day of our acquaintance.

  Charlie dashed to my side and lifted my head on to his knee. Fatigue and nausea were washing over me. ‘Charlie…’

  We both watched as a torrent of blood as red as lava began to flow from Bella’s back, drenching her gown. Then her eyes turned glassy and she lay still.

  ‘This is meant to be my day off,’ said Charlie. ‘Who do I talk to about overtime?’

  I looked him directly in the eye and managed a smile. ‘Charlie, what can I say?’

  He stroked my hair with uncommon gentleness. ‘All part of the service.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you mentioned that, Charlie,’ I murmured, managing to prop myself up on one elbow. ‘You know, my pal Beardsley always said that his indisposition made him frightfully horny. No doubt one is not quite in control of oneself when one’s glands are up.’

  I smiled what my friends call, naturally enough, the smile of Lucifer.

  Images are removed here