Williams shrugged. ‘Magnetism? Luck? I do not know.’
Horne suppressed his irritation. The man was clearly lying, which in turn indicated that he had something to hide. The question was, what? He looked around the room. A charm, perhaps? A potion? ‘Tell me, Williams, have you travelled extensively?’
Williams gave a hollow laugh. ‘If Brighton is considered extensive, then yes. Otherwise, I have scarcely left London these past 30 years, and am unlikely to do so for 30 years hence.’
Another tack. ‘Friends, then? Visitors from abroad? Souvenirs from other lands, amusing trinkets from faraway places?’
A shake of the head. ‘A business associate from Denmark, a month ago, maybe five weeks. He resided here with me for several days. We drank a lot of wine, talked a little business. That is all.’
‘And did he witness your peculiar talents? Perhaps you allowed him to share in the fruits of your attractions?’
‘No, because I wasn’t like that then ...’ Williams halted, conscious that somehow, suddenly, he had said more than he wished. Horne, however, appeared not to have noticed. ‘A shame. It would have been interesting to check upon his condition. Some of your other friends, perhaps?’
‘No, so far as I have ascertained, I am alone in my afflictions. Certainly my closest circle, business and personal intimates, all are right as rain.’
‘And the women you have entertained these past four weeks? Have you encountered any of them a second time?’
‘There are several I have seen again, should I be anxious to sample a particular joy again. But they, too, seem fine.’
‘Interesting,’ said Horne. ‘So all we need to do now is retrace your footsteps, your activities and your contacts during the ... shall we say ten days that elapsed between the departure of your Danish associate, and your first inclination that something was amiss, and there, I venture, we will discover the cause of your complaints. Tell me, Williams, have you ever succumbed to mesmerism?’
He ignored the sudden pallor that had replaced the man’s once grey expression. ‘It is a simple process, by which you are placed within a waking trance, and led, via a series of carefully structured questions, to reveal memories that your own mind might have dismissed as too insignificant for your consciousness to recall. I believe Scotland Yard make very good use of it these days, when interviewing witnesses to crimes. The tiniest detail can often lead to the most spectacular discoveries.’
Williams nodded. ‘Yes, I know the process. It is all the rage in theatreland. I had no idea it was so efficacious elsewhere.’
‘Very much so,’ Horne continued, grateful to know that he could now embroider the truth even more colourfully. ‘In fact, I happen to know that there is one division within the Metropolitan police that is dedicated exclusively to solving crimes that occurred so many years ago that the perpetrator would have felt himself safe long ago. But the tiniest clue, buried away in a child’s mind, can be extracted from the grown adult’s memory, and I am thinking, if the process can extract firm and incontrovertible remembrances from several decades back, a matter of a few weeks should be child’s play. Now, I happen to be dining with Inspector Toynbee this evening ... you know his name, I’m sure. I will inquire as to the availability of a mesmer and, if we are fortunate ...’
He paused, as though a thought had only now occurred to him. ‘Of course, you are thinking that this line of inquiry will shed light only on the derivation of your peculiar sexual magnetism, which in turn will be helpful only if that is somehow related to your ailment. Correct?’
‘Yes, and I told you before, it is sex that brings me back to life. It can scarcely be killing me as well.’
‘You must humour me, my dear Williams.’ Horne spoke reassuringly. ‘The grapevine, I know, speaks glowingly of my accomplishments. But I can only deduce that which I see clearly, and what I see, on the one hand, is a man with a newly acquired power; and, on the other, the same man with a newly acquired ailment. By every trust placed in my abilities, I would be dreadfully remiss were I not to take those two acquisitions, and balance them against one another. But enough of this idle speculation. Where do you think Bowles has got to with that tea?’
‘Right here.’ Balancing a tea tray awkwardly on one arm, Bowles pulled the heavy door open with the other. ‘I had a little trouble finding the milk. In the end, I went out to purchase some.’
Horne smiled at him gratefully. ‘Well, you have returned at a most opportune moment. Our friend here, our patient, has consented to place himself in the hands of a mesmer. I will be attending to the arrangements tonight, and hope to have this matter at an end – or, at least, have an ending in sight – by Wednesday at the latest.’ He poured himself a cup of tea, and drank it down quickly. ‘Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have some rather pressing business to attend to elsewhere in the city.’
Bowles stood, Williams too, scrambling to his feet to block Horne’s route to the door. ‘Before you leave, Mr Horne, there is one thing I ...’ he stumbled for the correct word. ‘I forgot to mention. Please wait here.’
Horne looked over at Bowles. ‘I assume you heard everything?’ he asked quietly.
‘Of course,’ Bowles chuckled. ‘There was plenty of milk already in the kitchen.’
Williams returned, a package beneath one arm, heavy from the look of it and very solid. He handed it to Horne. ‘I will say nothing of the contents of this package,’ he said solemnly, ‘except to ask that you inspect them before you take any further steps. Should you discover the answers to your questions here, I will gladly undergo whatever remedies you might recommend. But should you fail to do so, I request only that you return to me my property, and allow me to pursue my cure in other avenues.’
Horne weighed he package in his hands. ‘I will agree to that,’ he replied after a moment’s thought. ‘And you, Dr Bowles?’
‘There is the matter of my fee,’ Bowles murmured, but Horne raised a hand. ‘If I am wrong,’ he said, ‘I will take care of that. If I am wrong.’ He bade both Williams and Bowles a warm farewell, then stepped out into the evening cold, buttoning both coat and collar against the fog that was already sending probing fingers into every nook and cranny, and peering through the gloom for the lights of a cab. Damn this neighbourhood. He wished, momentarily, that he had accepted Bowles’ offer of a lift, but that would have meant surrendering both conversation and possibly even the package to the Doctor’s curiosity. Better, Horne assured himself, that he travelled home in silence, and inspected his gift alone.
Fleetingly, he recalled the manner in which he had spent the earlier part of the afternoon, and he wondered, would he be allowed to resume where he left off, the next time he saw Lady H_____? Or would her fertile mind have concocted another passionate treat, to supersede all that had gone before?
Not for the first time, as he abandoned the search for a cab, and set his footsteps towards the Underground, he marvelled at the sagacity of the woman, her intuitive understanding of both her own sexuality and his. Too many women, in both his professional and his personal experience, equated a man’s sexual needs to the frequency of his demands, never even imagining that his demands might merely be the overflow culmination of so many unfulfilled needs. Lady H_____ knew better. It was intuition, not insistence, that told her when to act. Twelve days of Christmas, twelve exquisitely lust-filled packages to unwrap. He quickened his pace, almost racing the last few hundred yards towards the warm glow of the station entrance. The sooner he was home, the sooner he could unravel Williams’ mystery. And the sooner he had the answer, the sooner he could return to Lady H_____.
The clock above the mantel chimed twice. Horne drained his glass of Ricard and looked down at the blotter spread over his desk. Barely a patch of white paper remained, beneath the acreage of doodles – spurting cocks, bountiful breasts, tight buttocks – with which his subconscious had amused itself, while his mind turned the box over and over.
Its function was clear. It took only a rudimentary
knowledge of medieval Hebrew script to decode the inscription carved into the lid, and even had that failed, the ornamentation left nothing to the imagination. He was reminded of the tiny obscenities with which monkish illuminators once decorated the margins of their Psalters and gospels. Barely commented upon by modern-day scholars, those little doodles were, to Horne, the most fascinating feature of those centuries-old volumes, a reminder of a time when the pleasures of the flesh, unclothed by the modern aversion to prurience, were as natural to look upon as any portrait of a Saint, or pastoral scene.
The carvings here were equally crude, equally proud. A man – the same man in every scene, to judge from his clothing and the shape of his beard – here administering to two women at one time; there lying spread-eagled while an Amazon either urinated, or ejaculated, over his naked chest; here taking his pleasure between two enormous breasts; there being slowly strangled while hands pulled his penis to orgasm. ‘Asphyxia, coprophilia ...’ he recalled Williams’ words, as the man described his own sexual adventures. No need to wonder now how the poor soul imagined such activities in the first place.
But taking possession of a Wishing Box was one thing. Allowing oneself to become, in turn, possessed by it was another, and that, he was now convinced, was what lay at the heart of Williams’ dilemma. For a Wishing Box should never be regarded as a benign gift. Even in the most light-hearted children’s tale, it is a demanding master, one that expects something in return for every favour it dispenses. In some tales, it is the soul that it devours. In others, it is the less specifically delineated life force. And the more it takes, the more it requires, until finally its slave is dead, at which point ... the legends say that the spirit of the box then flies free, to pass onto the next phase of its own supernatural existence. And that of the dead man passes into the box, until some future owner inadvertently releases it.
Horne had no reason to doubt the legends. Few such tales sprang up around anything less than a kernel of truth and, in his experience, the more unlikely that kernel appeared, the more likely it was to be true. But, if that was the case with this particular box, it scarcely over-exerted itself in its quest to ensnare its next victim. Nowhere on the casing, so far as Horne could see, was there any form of instruction as to how to physically activate its powers.
Some, he knew, were controlled by speech, but any sense of foolishness that Horne might originally have felt, as he sat demanding the box afford him the ability suck his own cock in comfort, was swiftly replaced by exasperation.
Other boxes required physical contact – a stroking or rubbing was the most common; the myth of the magic Arabian lantern, producing a genie when polished correctly, sprang from the same pool of Semite folklore as the Wishing Box, for what was a genie after all, but an anthropomorphic manifestation of lust? But no amount of manipulation could make any difference.
The box was empty, so there was no clue there. Or was there? It was a box, after all, and what are boxes for? What could he possibly place inside that might activate its own resident djin? He considered a handwritten demand, but dismissed it immediately; clearly, Williams was a tolerably educated man, but he certainly would not know the precise Hebrew phraseology that certain of his requests would demand ... Horne himself was unclear on a few of them.
By the time he did finally scrawl his desire on a scrap of paper, in straightforward English and with no regard for the niceties of language, he did so as much out of exasperation as hope. Until he caught sight of his own penis rising before him, until he needed only incline his head a little, to engulf the tip between his lips – as easily, he thought, as he might suck his own thumb. But not, he noted dispassionately, as comforting.
He filed that thought away for future contemplation, brought himself to a hasty climax, watched as that mighty erection faded back into his loins, and then reached towards the great stack of books that teetered by his elbow. He understood what ailed Williams; he had a strong suspicion how to cure the man, too, by forbidding him ever to use the box again – which would not be difficult, for Horne fully intended to retain the box for himself, as payment for his labours.
But the knowledge that another ... soul? Spirit? Person? ... remained trapped within, and might now be condemned to remain there forever, that was a fate that he could not countenance. Gently, he patted the smooth wooden lid; solicitously, he spoke to it. ‘I will break the curse. I swear it.’
Dawn, however, found him still buried in his books, and the following dusk found him beginning to regret his promise. Twice, he had dispatched Lady H_____’s emissary from his doorstep, once with a vague promise to contact her later, the second time with some terse words that he also now regretted. Horne’s own staff, informed that he did not expect to be home throughout the holidays, and that he would fend for himself should he change his mind, had long since departed for their own family festivities. Finally raising himself from his studies, noting at the same time that he was dreadfully hungry, Horne draped his cloak round himself and stepped into the street, bound first for the post office, to telegram Lady H_____, and then for a tavern where he could enjoy a warm meal, some favourable company and, most of all, a respite from his travails.
Freeing the spirit itself was not a problem. The difficulty was in ensuring its survival. Like a butterfly in its chrysalis stage, the spirit gathered strength at its own pace, according to its own needs, and could fly free only when that process had been completed. It was clear from Williams’ condition that freedom had been in sight; the intensity of Williams’ last few assignations, relayed to Horne as they spoke yesterday, evidenced the spirit’s growing strength and, perhaps, impatience.
His own experience, too, imparted something more than the spirit’s mere compliance – Horne had expected nothing more than the ability to bend his own spine a little further than usual, to briefly inherit the physical peculiarities of those India Rubber Men whom the freak shows so delighted in exhibiting. Instead ... Smiling, he wondered how Lady H_____ might respond, were she to disrobe her Ambrose and discover that monster awaiting her? Then he wondered what Lady H_____ might make of the box itself? It would certainly add a sparkle to her Christmas stocking – and he stopped dead in the street, all thoughts of telegrams, food and relaxation evaporating from his mind as he turned and ran back to his home.
The spirit gained its strength by granting wishes, and took its freedom from their fulfilment. But the legends spoke of the box having only one owner, whose entire soul must be extinguished before the spirit’s was complete. What if it had more than one master? If it had ten, twenty, a hundred? Would the spirit still gather strength, were it to take a mere sample from each of them, instead of everything from one? Every year, on mid-winter’s eve, Lady H_____ staged a grand Christmas party, with upwards of a hundred guests filling the grand ballroom with excitement, noise and, because she so actively encouraged the kind of social mingling that other parties affected to camouflage, unbridled sexuality. It was certainly worth a try.
‘What fun, Ambrose.’ Lady H_____ rarely giggled, but she seemed as dizzy as a schoolgirl as Horne outlined the ‘party game’ he had devised as a small part of the evening’s entertainment. Of course he had not told her his true intentions, just the rudiments of its nature. ‘As every guest enters the ballroom, they must write their dearest sexual fantasy on a piece of paper, and slip it into a box, telling nobody what they wrote. It is my belief, based upon my own studies of human nature, that the act of writing such intimacies will release certain pheromones, that will naturally attract any like-minded passerby.’ He paused, vaguely uneasy at opening his personal reputation to such random scrutiny, but confident that Lady H_____ would tell nobody of his scheme.
‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘I was inspired by your wonderful gift to me – assuming that you still wish me to receive it, after my shocking behaviour yesterday?’
Lady H_____ nodded. ‘I have heard far worse when you are engrossed in your work,’ she assured him. ‘And tonight’s gift, I assure y
ou, will leave you weak at the knees. But, might I inquire of you the nature of the quest that demanded you leave one gift half-opened and another still firmly wrapped up?’
‘That, too, I hope, will be revealed to you as the evening progresses,’ Horne smiled, as he took her in his arms, and gently kissed her. ‘But I hear the first of your visitors arriving. I trust there is sufficient ink and paper to hand?’
Lady H_____ offered him her most withering glare. ‘I have organised parties before tonight, Ambrose. Now, be off or be quiet. I must welcome my guests.’ Ambrose chose to be off. Ever the perfect hostess, he knew that Lady H_____ would not be content until even the very last latecomers had been welcomed as effusively as if they had been the first to arrive. He watched, too, with satisfaction, as newcomer by newcomer, the Wishing Box was filled with scraps of paper, each one witness to the most fervent delights of the cream of London society.
He had not intended to add to the pile himself; with no way of knowing just how great a toll each fulfilled wish exacted, he considered one to be more than enough. But, as the evening wore on and he saw the ballroom, once full, begin to slowly empty out, as couples abandoned their waltzing for a dance of a different kind, his resolve began to falter. What sort of researcher would he be, after all, if he did not experience at least a little of the ecstasy that had so paralysed the wretched Mr Williams?
He gazed around the room, and his eye fell upon Lady H_____, deep in conversation with the day maiden, Nancy. Were there two more alluring women in the room than they? They could almost be sisters, he smiled to himself, divided by a certain span of years, of course, but clearly united by secrets that ran deep as blood. Walking to the main entrance, he took a pen and paper. ‘My Lady and Nancy. Together, tonight.’
He was about to place the slip into the box when he felt a hand on his arm. He turned; an elderly couple stood before him, the man in white shirt and pince-nez, his accent a harsh mix of Cockney and Yiddish, the woman silent but beaming. ‘I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you,’ the old man was saying. ‘She doesn’t work anymore. She’s free.’ He turned and beamed at the woman alongside him. ‘And we thank you for that, and for all that you did.’
The Erotic Return of Ambrose Horne Page 9
