by G. P. Taylor
‘You gonna help or just stand there?’ he said in a foreign accent that sounded like nothing Mariah had heard before. He
pointed to an alligator bag on the sidewalk. ‘Pick up the case and take it inside – and don’t drop it.’
Without thinking, Mariah did what he said. The case was light and felt as if there was something moving inside – something slithering as if it wanted to escape.
‘Be careful, boy. That is my case,’ the man said as he walked closely behind.
‘Do you go everywhere with Mister Zogel?’ Mariah asked out of nervousness.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Just seems like you do,’ Mariah replied, wishing he had never spoken.
‘I go everywhere and do everything for Mister Zogel. Nothing happens without me knowing – does that answer your prying question?’
Mariah nodded. He could feel his face turning red as the man stared at him.
‘They call you Mariah, yes? That is the name of a girl?’ he asked.
‘It was the name of my father’s best friend. My parents named me after him.’
‘There is much in a name. Mariah makes me think of a little child that needs its mother.’ The man laughed as he spoke. ‘I am Lucius Nibelungen – see, that is a good name, a powerful name.’
‘It’s this way,’ Mariah said in reply as he walked ahead with the alligator case. ‘You’re on the third floor, I’ll show you the way.’
Mariah led the procession higher and higher up the stairs. Lucius began to drag far behind, each step for him like a mountain. The stewards followed briskly. Some stacked the cases on their heads and carried them up the stairs without the slightest complaint. Lucius moaned at every turn until they
reached the final landing. Mariah opened the door that led along the hallway to the room.
‘This is it,’ he said as he walked along.
The door to the suite was already open. Dedalus Zogel stood in the window looking out to sea towards his ship. He had wrapped himself in a black bearskin coat and donned his large straw hat.
‘It’s the biggest one in the world, Mariah. Come and see,’ he said, pointing to the Irenzee. ‘Five hundred feet long and nearly two hundred high – and it’s all mine. Yet I turn green whenever it sets sail. Fancy that!’ Zogel drawled in a voice that spoke as if he’d never left the Carolinas.
Mariah didn’t speak but put the case on the floor and turned to leave. The procession of servants, stewards and hangers on began to fill the room. Finally Lucius Nibelungen walked through the door.
‘Is everything to your liking, Mister Zogel?’ the dwarf said as he pulled on the cuffs of his shirt and straightened his tie.
‘Perfect, perfect,’ Zogel replied as he took a snuffbox from his pocket and lined the powder on his hand and then sniffed deeply.
‘And you have a view of the Irenzee?’ Lucius asked as he fussed about the cases as if he searched for something.
‘In direct communication, Lucius,’ he replied casually as he slipped the fur coat from his shoulders and let it fall in a heap on the floor.
Mariah stood still, not knowing what to do next. He felt trapped and yet wanted to see what would happen. Zogel turned, reached into his jacket pocket and slipped a large white five pound note from his wallet.
‘Take this, boy. Told you I would pay more than Captain Charity – consider it a down payment on our future relationship.’
Zogel held out his hand. Mariah saw a gold ring on his finger identical to the one worn by Inspector Walpole. The design of a square and compass was set in a bed of diamonds.
‘Like the ring, do you?’ Zogel asked. ‘I love diamonds – it’s my hope to own every diamond in the world.’
‘It’s interesting,’ Mariah replied.
‘Seen one like it before?’ he asked.
‘Never … not ever.’ The lie slipped easily from his lips without him feeling a twinge of remorse.
‘You could have one just like this. You can’t buy them – they are given. Given on oath. Work for me and it’ll be the first thing you get – that’s a Zogel promise.’
Lucius coughed. ‘Mister Zogel has to rest – it’s been a hard day. Goodbye, Mariah.’
[ 9 ]
The Towers
THROUGHOUT the day the black cart went back and forth from the Prince Regent to the quayside. It drudged through the rain as it brought more and more cases for Dedalus Zogel, Lucius and their servants. The dwarf stood at the door of the hotel and checked each delivery against a parchment list that he ticked with a quill pen. As more cases arrived, more guests left. A large crowd had gathered in the square outside the hotel. Many had come to watch the richest man in the world unload his belongings; others had heard the street-corner rumour that Captain Jack Charity was poisoning his guests and that they had all begun to explode.
By three in the afternoon, an old man in a plaid suit had filled a tray of vials with fire dust and sold them as the remains of Baron Hoetzendorf. He entertained the crowd with the story of how he had seen the Baron explode before his very eyes and that this dust was proof of the first case of spontaneous combustion.
By four o’clock, another man began strolling up and down with a sandwich board while proclaiming at the top of his voice that the end of the world was coming and that eventually
everyone who didn’t believe would explode in divine rapture. He stopped at every turn and shouted ‘We’re doomed!’ before walking off and repeating his protestation again and again. By evening, the only people staying at the Prince Regent were Zogel and his intriguing entourage.
Outside the crowds grew troublesome as even more people came to see if the cold fire would consume more guests. The photographer waited, flashgun at the ready, in the hope of catching a picture of someone about to spontaneously combust and shower the crowd with fiery dust. As the rain drizzled, disappointment grew.
Mariah waited by the door and peered outside. He kept one eye on the crowd and the other on the lobby. Mrs Mukluk slept as usual. She snored loudly and gasped for breath and every now and then belched in her sleep. Mariah looked out for Sacha. He had seen her once that day. She was quiet and didn’t speak. He had tried to smile, but she looked away and when he spoke she grunted a curt reply. Every time he went near she just turned away. It was as if something lay heavy on her mind. It was more than the argument of the night before – it was just as much her fault as his – he would wait, he said to himself … Mariah wanted to say that he was sorry but couldn’t think how. He said the word in his mind but somehow it could not come to his lips. It had always been the same – a stiff lip in everything. At the Colonial School he had never been allowed to say what was in his heart. ‘Feelings are for girls,’ the headmaster would say to any boy with the merest glistening of a tear. ‘Boys of the Colonial School keep these things to themselves – we are men of the future – the Empire …’
No matter how much it hurt or what the pain was, Mariah had been told to keep it locked away and this is what he had done.
Sacha had never been that way. You could tell her heart from
the look on her face, he thought as he looked at the crowd and listened to Mrs Mukluk’s high-pitched snoring. That afternoon Mariah had prepared the theatre for the evening performance. Sacha had loaded the cannon, filled his magical jacket with rabbits and pigeons and set the trap door. Before he had a chance to apologise she had gone. He had looked for her throughout the hotel, but she was nowhere to be found.
The Prince Regent was ghostly empty. As Mariah’s magical performance had been cancelled when the last guest had left, he had nothing to do. He had taken the disappearing pigeons and the vanishing rabbits and put them in their cages and now waited like everyone else to see what would happen. It was as if the hotel had suddenly become another world. Zogel was a remarkably quiet guest; he stayed in his room and had not been seen since his arrival. His servants saw to everything and even tasted his food before he would eat it. Lucius, however, appeared to be e
verywhere. Once he had checked in all the cases and trunks, he walked every corridor of the hotel. He had even come into the theatre and for a while had watched Sacha and Mariah as they worked silently.
It had been there that Mariah had noticed something strange about him. Whilst watching them, it appeared that Lucius was in the habit of talking to himself. He muttered wherever he went and could be seen to be listening to a voice that only he could hear. He would stop as he walked and then look up, listen and mutter a reply. Mariah thought him to be quite mad.
Now, as Mariah watched the door, he saw the dwarf appear in the lobby. Lucius was alone. This was unusual as he was always escorted everywhere by two servants who walked a pace behind. He stopped for a moment by the grand staircase, and looked about him.
Mariah quickly stepped into Mrs Mukluk’s office so he could not be seen. He listened to the small footsteps as they
crossed the lobby. The door creaked as a blast of cold night air blew in. It slammed shut as Lucius stepped outside. Mariah looked at the sleeping Mukluk, who by now was sprawled over the desk. He took a sheet of paper from the letter rack by her head and scribbled a note that he folded neatly and pushed under her nose. Then he grabbed a bellboy’s coat from the back of the door and slipped out of the hotel.
It was cold, but the rain had stopped and the night sky was clearing from the west. Lucius was walking briskly towards the town. Mariah followed him down by the Market Vaults and along Sepulchre Street. He began to feel uneasy. Charity had told him not to leave the hotel; Titus Salt had said leave the night to Packavi. But now he was walking through the empty streets as he followed Lucius, even though with every step his mind told him to go back. Thoughts of Packavi flashed in his memory as the voice of the assassin plagued him again and again.
Mariah thought it strange that the man should go this way. There was nothing here to be seen. The road didn’t lead to the harbour, and yet from the speed he walked Lucius obviously knew where he was going. Soon they had begun to climb the steep hill from the town to the castle. It led through even darker, narrower streets. The houses were jammed so tightly that not even the night sky or the stars could be seen. Each doorway had a shadow, every passageway some terror.
Mariah stopped, as the urge to turn back grew more intense. It nagged at him like an aching pain. Far ahead he could see Lucius turn the corner. Mariah heard the gate to the cemetery creak slowly open. Taking a deep breath he followed on, keeping to the shadows. As he approached a passageway he would wait, look into the blackness and then dart across, sure a hand would dive from the darkness and take hold of him. But as he went on his fears began to calm. He smiled and shrugged his
shoulders, scolding himself for being afraid. All he knew was that he had to find out what Lucius was doing.
Very soon he got to the entrance of the graveyard that surrounded the old church. The gateway was draped in thick strands of green ivy that hung like ropes from the bars of the railings. Mariah twisted the brass handle, pulled slowly and slipped inside. Lucius was nowhere to be seen. The pathway ran up a gentle slope. A solitary lamp cast a dim light upon the path and the tall gravestones. Dotted here and there were stone sepulchres that looked like peculiar small marble houses.
He listened; in the distance he could hear Lucius talking. The voice echoed from grave to grave, so that Mariah could not understand what was being said. Mariah crept silently through the tombs.
There, in the shadow of the lamp, by the wall, was Lucius. He was kneeling by a grave, one hand upon the stone, the other tracing the name carved in the surface: OTTO LUGER.
Mariah wondered how Lucius could know of Luger and why he should want to visit his grave. He tried to get closer to listen to what he was saying. Lucius stopped and looked up as if he had heard a noise. Mariah cowered behind the door of a tomb.
‘Who is there?’ Lucius shouted. ‘I know someone is there – you have not done a good job of following me.’ He took a small pistol from the pocket of his coat and pulled back the firing hammer. ‘If you don’t come out, I will shoot.’
Mariah was trapped. He pushed the door of the tomb. It opened with a jolt and a hiss of stale air.
‘I know where you are – I can see your shadow,’ Lucius said as he walked warily towards him. ‘Come out.’
Mariah slipped into the tomb – it was cold, dank and smelt of the meat cellar at the Colonial School where Felix had once locked him overnight in amongst the hanging carcasses.
From outside he could hear Lucius speaking. Mariah had no
time to close the door of the tomb. Quickly, he climbed over the lid of an old coffin on the topmost shelf and slid down the side against the wall.
‘This is your last chance – come out or I will shoot,’ Lucius said.
Mariah heard the tomb door slide further open. Stone grated on stone as it was pushed wider. He lay deathly still, not wanting to breathe.
‘Very well,’ said Lucius as he peered into the darkness. ‘If you want to play games …’ The door to the tomb grated shut and the metal catch dropped into place. ‘See if you can follow me now,’ Lucius said as he walked away.
Mariah was in complete darkness. He waited until he was sure that Lucius had gone. Then as quietly as he could he pulled his way from his hiding place and slid over the lid of the coffin and onto the floor. He pushed at the door to the tomb: it didn’t move. He tried again, this time forcing it as hard as he could – there was nothing. He sat on the floor and wondered what to do next.
He thought of Felix and the night he had been trapped in the meat cellar at school. The hours had dragged slowly by and Mariah had got colder and colder. It was only when he had been locked in the cellar for five hours that he had discovered how to escape. He had taken the edge of a copper penny and prised open the screws on each hinge and opened the door. Mariah felt inside his pockets now – they were empty.
Blindly, he felt around the tomb – there must be something he could use, he thought as he reached out. Stacked on either side were three coffins, each on a separate shelf. At the farthest end of the tomb was a solid wall, at the top of which Mariah noticed a faint chink of light. He climbed on the shelves and braced himself astride the coffins. He could feel a draught upon his face. With the tip of his golden finger he began to dig
at the crumbling plaster between two slabs of marble. It came away easily and the light grew brighter. Within a minute he could see the street at the far side of the graveyard. There under the gas lamp was Lucius.
It appeared that he was waiting at the bottom of the driveway that led up to a boarding house just below the entrance to the castle. Mariah could see the four towers and large front door. Lucius walked up and down as if he were waiting for someone.
It was then that he heard the sound of a carriage on the cobbled street. It was old and rattled as if the wheels were about to drop off. As it came into view, Mariah could see that it was being pulled by one horse. It walked slowly as if it cared not when it would arrive. The carriage stopped and a man got out and opened the gate of the boarding house and stepped inside. Lucius followed and together they disappeared into the dark shadows of the trees.
The carriage turned and slowly trundled into the night. Soon, Mariah could hear it no more – he was alone.
He could see a stack of coffins at the side of the tomb, each with a name and date etched into a brass plate on its side. He read them one by one and felt as if those inside could hear his thoughts. Mariah tried the door again – he wanted to scream, but knew that if he was found he could not explain why he was there. He thought that Lucius might come back and shoot him dead. He shivered.
‘Should never have come,’ he said to himself to break the silence. ‘Should have stayed in the Prince Regent.’
There was a sudden noise from the graveyard as the gate opened. Footsteps followed quickly as three men ran up the path. There was a thump against the door of the tomb.
‘Listen here,’ a voice said outside. ‘We shares what we get – equ
al like.’
‘We shouldn’t be doin’ it – ’tis wrong, it is,’ said the voice of another.
‘They’re dead and dead men can’t tell tales and dead men don’t care if we pick their pockets and snatch their jewellery. I was told she was buried in a gold necklace and that’s enough to keep us all for a month.’ The man laughed as he spoke.
‘Remember, we take them out one by one and open them up. Take what they’ve got and be gone. If anyone comes we split up and meet at the Merchant Inn – and if you get caught say now’t.’
‘What if they come and –’ said a voice quietly.
‘What if who comes?’ the man asked.
‘Their ghosts,’ the other replied. ‘I’ve never robbed the dead before.’
‘Dead is dead – they can’t come and get you,’ said the man, and then there was a loud crack as he forced the lock from the tomb door. ‘Quiet now – we have work to do and money to spend.’
‘What if they –’
‘Shut up and push on the door – look, a knife wedged under here.’
There was a scraping sound as the knife was pulled from under the door. Mariah knew the men were grave robbers and he didn’t have time to hide. He stepped back and waited for the door of the tomb to open.
‘I knew her,’ said the man feebly. ‘She had a tongue as sharp as a razor and she wouldn’t like this.’
‘She’s dead – dead, do you understand?’
‘But –’
‘Money is money and at least the dead don’t put up a fight. Give me the lamp.’
The door to the tomb opened slowly. Mariah quickly rolled in the dust and stretched out on the floor by the side of an old coffin, stiffening himself like a corpse.
‘Look – the cheapskates even put one in without a box. Grab him by the feet and make sure he doesn’t fall apart,’ said the man as he cast the lamp across him and turned away.
