The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  To the left of the steps is Weitmondl, who makes and sells mother-of-pearl buttons in all sizes. However great must be the natural disappointment of the fisher in the far-off Gulfs of Persia when he opens his oyster and finds no pearl within, he can still take comfort in the thought that the shells, with their nacreous and opalescent interiors, must find their way to the great city of Bella, where Weitmondl will turn them into buttons: all the way from the great buttons which adorn the shirts of coachmen down to the tiny buttons which fasten children’s gloves.

  Facing the steps in the Court of the Golden Hart is the shop of Brothers Swartbloi, who are purveyors of snufftobacco.

  There are other shops, to be sure, in the Golden Hart, but they are of a transitory nature, some of them lasting a mere decade. Florian, Weitmondl, and Brothers Swartbloi are the patriarchs of the place; and of them all Brothers Swartbloi is the oldest.

  The shop contains one chair, in which scarcely anyone dares to sit, a wooden counter, and, behind the counter, a wooden shelf. On the shelf are five stout jars, each the size of a small child. One is labeled Rappee, one is labeled Minorka, one is labeled Imperial, one is labeled Habana, and one is labeled Turkey.

  Should anyone desire a snuff of a different sort, some upstart sort of snuff, a johnny-come-lately in the field of snuff – say, for example, Peppermint! Wintergreen! or Cocoa-Dutch! – ah, woe upon him, he had better never have been born. Words cannot describe the glacial degree of cold with which he will be informed, “The sweet-shop is across the Court. Here we sell only snuff-tobacco.”

  One day comes Doctor Eszterhazy to the shop in the Court of the Golden Hart. He is not walking very fast, in fact, as he has been following someone, and as that someone was taking his own good time, it may be said that Engelbert Eszterhazy, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Jurisprudence, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Literature, etc., etc., was walking decidedly slowly. The man he was following was tall and heavy and stooped and wore a long black cloak lined with a dull brown silk. Now, long black cloaks were not then the fashion, and Lord knows when they had been. It would be supposed that anyone who wore one did so in order to create a certain impression, to draw upon himself a certain amount of attention. In all of Bella, so far as Eszterhazy knew, there were only two other men who went about in long black cloaks. One was Spectorini, the Director of the Grand Imperial Opera. The other was Von Von Greitschmansthal, the Court Painter. And both had their long black cloaks lined with red.

  To wear a long black cloak and then to line it with brown . . . with brown . . . this indicated an individualism of the very highest order. And, as he could scarcely in good manners stop this strange man on the street and confront him with his curiosity, therefore he followed him. Down the Street of the Apple-pressers (no apples had been pressed there in decades), left into the Street of the Beautiful Vista (the only vista there nowadays was that of a series of dressmakers’ shops), down the Place Maurits Louis (containing six greengrocers, two florists, a French laundry, a café, and a really awful statue of that depressed and, indeed, rather depressing monarch), and thence into the Court of the Golden Hart.

  And thence into the establishment of the Brothers Swartbloi, SNUFF-TOBACCO.

  One of the brothers was behind the counter. He looked at the first newcomer, from as far down as the counter permitted him to observe, all the way up to the curious hat (it was made of black velvet and bore a silver medallion of some sort; and, while it did not exactly appear to be a cap of maintenance, it looked far more like a cap of maintenance than it did like anything else). And he – the Brother Swartbloi – permitted himself a bow. The first newcomer drew from his pocket an enormous snuffbox, set it down, and uttered one word.

  “Rappee.”

  The brother took up a brass scoop, reached it into the appropriate jar, removed it, set it on the scales, removed it, and emptied it into the snuffbox.

  The quantity was just enough. One hundred years and more in the business of estimating the capacities of snuffboxes gives one a certain degree of skill in the matter.

  The tall man placed on the counter a coin of five copperkas (the snuff of the Brothers Swartbloi does not come cheap) and a card, allowed himself a nod of thanks, and turned and left.

  His face was craggy and smooth-shaven and indicative of many things.

  When the door had closed behind him the Brother again bowed – this time more warmly. “And in what way may I help the August Sir Doctor?” asked he.

  “By supplying him with four ounces of Imperial.”

  Small purchases at Swartbloi’s are wrapped in newspaper, when not decanted into snuffboxes. Larger purchases are wrapped in special pleated-paper parcels, each supplied with a colored label. The label shows a gentleman, in the costume of the reign of Ignats Ferdinando, applying two fingers to his nose; his expression is one of extreme satisfaction. These lables are colored by hand by old Frow Imglotch, whose eyesight is not what it was, and the results are more than merely curious: they are proof of the authenticity of the label and of the product.

  “I had the honour of seeing the August Sir Doctor some months since,” said the Brother, “when I was at Hieronymos’s” – he named Eszterhazy’s tobacconist, the source of the famous segars – “obtaining of our usual supply of Habana clippings for our famous Habana snuff-tobacco. I am wondering if the August Sir Doctor is giving up segars in favor of snuff . . .?”

  He was a dry, thin sort of man, with a few dark curls scattered across a bony skull. Automatically, Eszterhazy took a sight reading of the skull, but it did not seem very interesting. “Ah, no,” he said. “It is for one of my servants – a saint’s-day present. However, were I to take to taking snuff, be assured that it would be the I-have-no-doubt-justly-famous snuff of the Brothers Swartbloi. Who was that gentleman who was just in here?”

  The brother, with a bow at the compliment, passed the card over.

  MILORD SIR SMIHT

  Wizard anglais

  Specializing in late hours & By appointment

  In a very elegant copperplate hand had been added: Hotel Grand Dominik.

  “One does hear,” the brother said, “that the British nobility are of a high and eccentric nature.”

  “So one does. Often,” Eszterhazy agreed. It might not have been high, but it would certainly have been eccentric for a member of the British aristocracy to put up at the Hotel Grand Dominik. He reflected, not for the first time, he knew, and not for the last, he expected, on the persistence of the Continental usage of milord, a rank not known either to Burke or Debrett. As for the name Smith, no one to the south or east of the English Channel has ever been able to spell it right, nor ever will.

  He put down his money and prepared to depart; now that he knew where the stranger was to be found, it was no longer necessary to dog him about the streets.

  He looked up to find a familiar, if not a welcome, expression on the face of the brother, who proceeded as expected: Might he take the very great liberty of asking the August Sir Doctor a question? He might. Ah, the August Sir Doctor was very kind. But still the question was not forthcoming. Eszterhazy decided to help him along; most such silences, following such questions, followed a certain pattern.

  “If the question involves past indiscretions,” he said, gently, “I should represent that Doctor LeDuc, who has a daily advertisement in the popular newspapers— It is not that? Well. If the question involves a failure of regularity, I should recommend syrup of figs. What? Not that, either? Then you must come right out with it.”

  But the man did not come right out with it. Instead, he began a sort of history of his firm and family. The first Brothers Swartbloi were Kummelman and Hugo. They were succeeded by Augsto and Frans. And Frans begat Kummelman II and Ignats.

  “I am the present Kummelman Swartbloi,” he said, with an air of dignity at which it was impossible to laugh. “My brother Ignats – he is at present in the mill, salting the Turkey – has never married, and it does not seem that he ever will. My wife and I – she
is the daughter and only child of my late Uncle Augsto – we have been wed for fifteen years now. But there have been no children. After all, no one lives forever. And how would it be possible, Sir Doctor, for there to be no Brothers Swartbloi in Bella? How could we leave the business over to strangers? And . . . and . . . there are so many medicines . . . One hardly knows where to begin. Could the August Sir Doctor recommend a particular medicine, known to be both safe and effective?”

  The August Sir Doctor said very, very gently, “I should instead recommend my colleague, Professor Doctor Plotz, of the Faculty of Medicine. You may mention my name.”

  The Hotel Grand Dominik has come down in the world since the days when it formed a stop on the Grand Tour. Long after having ceased to be fashionable among the gentry, it retained an affection on the part of the more prosperous of the commercial travelers. But it was at that time near the East Railroad Terminal. It is still, in fact, near the East Railroad Terminal, but since the completion of the Great Central Terminal, the shabby old East only serves suburban and industrial rail lines. Consequently, the commercial travelers who stop at the Grand Dominik either are very uninnovative or very old and in any event very unprosperous, or else they are merely unprosperous by reason of such factors as not selling anything worth buying. In fact, for some several years the Grand Dominik has stayed open solely because its famous half-ducat dinner, served between eleven and three, is deservedly popular among the junior partners and upper clerks of the many timber firms who still hold out in the adjacent neighborhood. The rooms are thus ancillary to the hotel’s main business. So the rooms are, in a word, cheap.

  They are also – no management having been vigorous enough to undertake architectural changes – rather large. Milord Sir Smiht sat in a chair and at a table in the middle of his room, lit by the late afternoon sun. The rear of the room was dim. One caught glimpses of an enormous bed, hugely canopied and reached by a small stepladder, of an antique clothes press, a washbasin of marble and mahogany, a sofa whose worn upholstery still breathed out a very faint air of bygone fashion – and a very strong odor of present-day Rappee snuff – although it was actually rather unlikely that this last came from the sofa, and vastly likely that it came from the wizard anglais himself.

  Who said, “I’ve seen you before.”

  Eszterhazy said, “You left a card in the Court of the Golden Hart, and so—”

  “—and so that was why you followed me halfway across Bella, because you knew I was going to leave my card in a snuff shop. Eh?”

  The conversation was in French.

  Eszterhazy smiled. “The milord is observant. Well. It is certainly true. My interest was aroused by the distinctive, I may say, distinguished appearance—”

  The milord grunted, took out an enormous watch, glanced at it, shoved it across to where his visitor could see it. “My terms,” he said, “are two ducats for a half-hour. It has just now begun. You may ask as many questions as you please. You may do card tricks. You may spend the entire time looking at me. However, if you wish the employment of the odyllic force, then we should commence at once. Unless, of course, you are willing to pay another two ducats for any fraction of one-half-hour after the first.”

  Eszterhazy wondered, of course, that anyone so seemingly businesslike should find himself a wanderer in a country so distant from his own – let alone a lodger at the Hotel Grand Dominik. He had learned, however, that the role which people see themselves as playing is not always the same role in which the world at large perceives them.

  “To begin with,” he said, taking one of his own specially printed forms from his pocket, “I will ask Sir Smiht to be kind enough to remove his hat for the length of time which it will take me to complete my examination—”

  The Englishman gazed at the forms with the greatest astonishment. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “I did once, long ago, at Brighton, to be sure, pay a phrenologist to fumble and peer about my pate – but I never thought that a phrenologist would pay me for the privilege!”

  “Ah, Brighton,” Eszterhazy said. “The Royal Pavilions – what an excursion into the phantastique! Do you suppose that the First Gentleman of Europe might have been the first gentleman in Europe to have smoked hasheesh?”

  Smiht snorted. Then his face, as he began to take his hat off, underwent a certain change. he completed the gesture, and then he said, “Brighton, eh. I suppose you must speak English, although I don’t suppose you are English?”

  “As a boy I often spent my holidays with the family of my aunt, who lived in England.”

  “Then let us cease to speak in French. Much better for you to struggle than for me. Furthermore – if you have been in England you ought to know damned well that the title Sir never precedes the family name without the interposition of the Christian name, although in such instances as that of Sir Moses Montefiore one would employ another terminology – a point which I cannot get across to the Continental mind, confound it! I consent to milord, because it is, I suppose, traditional, as one might say; and I submit to S-M-I-H-T because I realize how difficult the T-H is to speakers of any other language except Greek and I suppose Icelandic . . . speakers? spellers . . .?”

  Here he paused to draw breath and consider his next phrase, and Eszterhazy took the opportunity to approach him from behind and gently place his fingers on the man’s head. He was slightly surprised when the other went on to say, “Anyway, the baronetcy absolutely baffles the Continent of Europe – small wonder, I suppose, when every son of a baron here is also a baron and every son of a prince here is also a prince. No wonder the Continent is simply crawling with princes and barons and counts and grafts – no primogeniture, ah well . . . Now suppose you just call ’em out to me and I’ll write ’em down, can’t read this Gothic or whatever it is, so you needn’t fear I’ll get me back up if you decide I’m deficient in honesty, or whatever, Just say, oh, second down, third over – eh?”

  “First down, first over,” said Eszterhazy.

  Without moving his head, the Englishman reached out his long arm and made a mark in the first column of the first row. “I was christened George William Marmaduke Pemberton,” he said. “Called me George, was what me people called me. Marmaduke Pemberton was a great-uncle by marriage, long since predeceased by the great-aunt of the blood. Made dog-biscuit, or some such thing, grew rich at it, or perhaps they were digestive biscuits, doesn’t matter. As he’d never gotten any children on Aunt Maude and never remarried after she died, couldn’t get it up. I suppose, rest of me people they thought, well, let’s name this ’un after him and he’ll leave him all his pelf, you see, under the condition of his assuming the name of Smith-Pemberton. Baronetcy was to go to me oldest brother. Well, old Marmaduke left me beans, is what he left me, rest of it went to some fund to restore churches, sniveling parsons had been at him, don’t you see.

  “Second down, fourth over, very well. Tenny rate, say what you will, always tipped me a guinea on me birthday, so out of gratitude and because I couldn’t stand the name George, have always used the style Pemberton Smith. Can I get any Continental printer to spell Pemberton correctly? Ha! Gave up trying. Now, as to the odyllic force or forces, in a way it began with Bulwer-Lytton as he called himself before he got his title – ever read any of his stuff? Awful stuff, don’t know how they can read it, but he had more than a mere inkling of the odyllic, you know. What’s that? Fourth down, first over, dot and carry one. And in a way, of course, one can say, ’t all goes back to Mesmer. Well, tut-tut, hmm, of course, Mesmer had it. Although poor chap didn’t know what he had. And then Oscar took a Maori bullet at a place called Pa Rewi Nang Nang, or some such thing, damn-able is what I call it to die at a place called Pa Rewi Nang Nang, or some such thing – sixth down and four, no five over, aiwah, tuan besar. Next thing one knew, Reginald had dived into the Hooghli, likely story, that, and never came up – ’spect a croc got him, poor chap, better mouthful than a hundred scrawny Hindoos, ah well.”

  George William Marmaduke Pemberto
n Smith fell silent a moment and helped himself to two nostrils of Rappee snuff.

  “And what’s the consequence? Here is my sole remaining brother, Augustus, heir to the baronetcy. And here’s me, poor fellow, name splashed all over the penny press, because why? Because of a mere accident, a Thing of Nature, here am I, as I might be here, demonstrating the odyllic forces before a subcommittee of the Royal Society, one of whom, Pigafetti Jones, awful ass, having kindly volunteered to act as subject, dis-a-pears! – leaving nothing but his clothes, down to the last brace-button, belly-band, and ball-and-socket truss – Well! After all. Is this a scientific experiment or is this not? Are there such things as the hazards of the chase or are there not such things as the hazards of the chase? First off, laugh, then they say, very well, bring him back, then they dare to call me a char-la-tan: ME! And then—”

  Dimly, very dimly, Eszterhazy remembered having read, long ago (and it had not been fresh news, even then), of the singular disappearance of Mr. Pigafetti Jones, Astronomer-Royal for Wales. But what he was hearing now provided more details than he had ever even guessed at. It also provided, if not a complete explanation for, at least an assumption as to why “Milord Sir Smiht” was and had long been wandering the continent of Europe (and perhaps farther) a remittance man, as the British called it. That is, in return for his keeping far away and thus bringing at least no fresh local scandals to his family’s embarrassment, the family would continue to remit him a certain sum of money at fixed intervals.

  It was still not clear, though, if he were already a baronet or was merely assumed to be because his father was one. Or had been.

  And as for the odyllic force . . .

  “Forces,” said the tall old Englishman, calmly. “I am quite confident that there is more than one.”

  And for the moment he said no more. Had he read Eszterhazy’s mind, then? Or was it merely a fortuitous comment of his own, in his own disjointed manner?