*
A half dozen automatic rifle barrel’s greeted them as they emerged from the portal into the small circular room in the North Tower. Pierce stopped immediately only to have everyone behind him bump into his back.
“Stand down!” ordered Tiberius’ familiar voice as he walked through the crowd of armed men. “Lord Pierce, welcome back. Is it done?”
“It’s done.”
“Very well,” he acknowledged without fanfare. Despite Bufford being a deranged madman bent on changing the history of the world for the worst, he was still a Member of the Hunt. Protocol had to be maintained. “Lord Lodge would like to see all of you for a quick debrief. I’ll have my men take your bags to your rooms.”
They followed Tiberius through the North Tower and then across the bridge to the main part of the Manor. The halls were still quiet, prompting Sean to inquire about the hunt.
“The hunt continues,” Tiberius answered without looking back. “I think Drummond picked a difficult target on purpose to give Bufford and Cleaver more time to disappear.”
“How is that little weasel?” Pierce inquired, remembering their last encounter.
“Dead. He hung himself in the cells downstairs with his own shoelaces.” The sombre pronouncement was delivered with equanimity, eliciting a silent response in return.
“Anything else happen while we were away?” MacDuff asked his friend after a few moments as they crossed the Main Hall.
“Dr. Cleaver is missing; my men have searched the island but have not come up with anything so far.”
“That’s troubling,” observed Pierce with trepidation. He was sure that Cleaver had helped or encouraged Bufford in his unsuccessful plan. Therefore it stood to reason that his disappearance was part of a larger and well organized strategy.
Tiberius only made a cursory knock on the door of Lodge’s office before opening it, letting everyone enter first. He followed them in, but remained standing by the door. Lord Lodge was reading some documents at his desk, puffing away on his long pipe in deep concentration. He continued like this for a few moments, making Pierce wonder if he should say something.
“Please sit down all of you,” Lodge said without looking up before Pierce could speak. After they had all settled in, Lodge finally looked up. Although Pierce had only known the Master of the Manor for a short while, he felt as though the man had aged dramatically since their first meeting. “It is done then?”
“Yes sir,” Pierce replied evenly for the group. He then began explaining all that had happened, with other members filling in the blanks as he went. They recounted the discovery of the tunnel and the Courted Anne, and their escapades at the ball. MacDuff took up the narrative with his and Sean’s adventure in the harbour bar and their timely rescue from the sea. Pierce picked things up again with the discovery at the hotel manager’s office and of his encounter with Ivan in the basement.
Lodge remained generally silent, asking the odd pointed questions throughout. He accepted their answers readily, motioning them to continue in order to keep the story flowing as much as possible.
Finally Pierce came to their assault on the Courted Anne, and the various roles they played, eliciting a whistle from Tiberius as they finished.
“I suppose I could have brought Bufford back…” Pierce allowed, second guessing his instincts at that moment.
“I’m sure you did what you thought right, lord knows he deserved it,” Lodge replied graciously. “He would have only been coming back to a cell in the basement. To be honest I don’t know what we would have done with him if you had brought him back.”
Pierce nodded grateful for Lodge’s acceptance, but not with a wholly clear conscience.
“Well gentlemen, and lady,” Lodge corrected swiftly acknowledging Jane. “You have done the Manor and potentially the world a great service. I’m not sure what kind of reward I can offer, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”
When he finished Tiberius opened the door, signalling an end to the debriefing. They all stood up together, but only Pierce refrained from moving towards the door.
“Everyone head up to my room and have Melrose get whatever you want from the kitchen or bar,” Pierce called to the group as they filed out of the room. “I’ll be up in a bit.”
Pierce then sat back down across from Lord Lodge as Tiberius closed the door behind them. He then walked over to a sideboard and poured some drinks without taking orders. He returned to Lodge’s desk with three large whiskeys, setting one on the desk and then passing one to Pierce before sitting down beside him.
“You owe me some information,” Pierce demanded, before Lodge could speak. “I completed the mission and now I want to know what this place is and what I’m doing here.”
“I see,” Lodge accepted as he set his pipe down and picked up his drink. He took a miniscule sip and then looked to Tiberius. “How much have you told him?”
“Practically all I know my Lord,” he replied, grimacing slightly under Lodge’s stern gaze before regaining his composure. “He deserved to know.”
“Very well,” Lodge accepted stoically, taking another drink before refilling his pipe. “I shall tell you both about the real history of this place and of my real relationship with Dr. Cleaver.”
“That would be nice.”
“I am not the founder of the Hunt as everyone believes,” Lodge continued, ignoring Pierce’s sarcasm. “I was recruited much like everyone else here. I had become bored with my life and was recruited by a fellow intellect, a Professor in fact. I had achieved a fair amount of success assisting the Metropolitan Police with some of their cases. However the majority of my time was spent ignoring pleas for help from what seemed like the majority of London. The solutions were so simple that I felt my mind was dulling. Until I faced off against this Professor. He staged a few incidents to see if I was as good at detection as people said. I not only foiled all of his plans, but discovered his existence before he was fully ready to reveal himself. As I was the first recruit to impress him in this way; he immediately offered me a position at the Manor. Bored with my life and with no real family connections I agreed.”
Pierce had drained his drink quickly and walked over to the sideboard to refill it, not entirely enthralled with the story to this point, despite it sounding slightly familiar. Tiberius meanwhile had not touched his drink, slightly stunned to be hearing Lodges true story for the first time in their long history together.
“We faked my death, a necessary device due to my small amount of fame, or in some views, my notoriety. We then travelled to Geneva, where I had my first experience through the portals to this place. The Manor was not as you see it now, but still quite impressive.
“As I said I wasn’t the founder or even the first recruit. When I arrived there were six others, all of them thoroughly devious men of poor quality of character. They all had various schemes of world domination to be achieved through the abuse of the power within the North Tower. A number of people had once told me that I would have made the world’s greatest criminal if I had ever desired it. I suppose that’s what the Professor saw in me and which led to my recruitment. He wanted my powers and skills to aid his destructive plans and thought that I’d adapt to my surroundings.”
“He was wrong?” Pierce interjected, his attention growing.
“Very wrong,” Lodge shot a quick smile in reply, his clever eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Within a few years I had replaced the Professor as the head of the Manor and had removed most of the others. Realizing that I needed help in order to continue, I recruited Tiberius here, along with some others. The rest he told you.”
“Tiberius didn’t know how or why you picked recruits as you did. To be honest I don’t see any connections either, except that they’re all bad people part of nefarious or downright evil organizations.”
“I’ve made understanding the criminal mind my life’s work,” Lodge began explaining as he leaned back, almost like a college lecturer. “I saw in th
is place the opportunity for the greatest study of all time, with the added bonus of removing some undesirables from the world. Anyone can commit a crime or atrocity for themselves; personal gain is the ultimate motive. A man steals to become rich; a woman murders her husband so she can remarry. It was this sort of common crime that drove my ennui in London. But here at the Manor I could collect the truly grandiose criminals of all time. So I picked some of the truly malevolent groups of the Western world from which to pluck my specimens.”
“I noticed in the Hunt Room that the membership wasn’t very culturally diverse,” Pierce challenged, setting his empty glass on the table. “No Genghis Khan’s, no Pol Pot’s, not even an African dictator type. Are they not evil enough to be worthy of you’re study?”
“Indeed they are, however I had no insight into their cultures and would have observed them through Western Christian lenses,” Lodge continued his lecture. “Despite my travels through the portals, I’m still truly an English Victorian at heart. What I perceive as criminal in an unfamiliar culture, might be completely acceptable to them. I couldn’t muddy the waters with this potential bias, so I concentrated on what I knew.”
“So you planned on using this place as a giant laboratory with which to study the human condition, vis-à-vis the criminal mind?” Pierce summed up, hoping he had followed correctly.
“Indeed. I’ve gathered a very good collection of specimens, displaying some of man’s worst attributes. Each member of the Hunt was picked to study a certain characteristic.”
“Really?” Pierce asked, now fully engrossed and thinking of the Members he’d met. “De la Gena?”
“Religious zealot.”
“Zeidt?”
“A soulless capitalist, who will do anything for wealth.”
“Sirinova?”
“A misguided scientist, who puts her discoveries above her patients.”
“What about Schell, is it just because he was a Nazi?” Pierce asked doubtfully.
“No, it was because he wasn’t a Nazi.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I just listed off different personality types that could apply to a number of Nazis. They used the uniform or the organization to fulfill those roles; kill Jews, gain wealth, create super humans, and so on. But Schell represented the true danger and horror of the Nazis. “
“How?”
“Schell was, probably still is, a good man in general. His criminality was that he turned a blind eye to the injustice he saw around him. He followed along, too scared to speak up, while the world burned around him. He represents the good man who allows evil to flourish,” Lodge stated sadly, a look of melancholy that was quickly replaced. “And he was meant to be you.”
A Malevolent Manner (Patrick Pierce #1) Page 105
