by Kim Newman
‘Can’t someone end this?’ Maestro Jonsi shouted, in despair.
‘I’ll give it a try,’ I volunteered, and made my entrance.
To give her credit, the Camorrista sister was swift to catch on. And her knife was accurately thrown, only to stick into a scenery flat I happened to jostle in passing. I boomed out the Barrack Room lyrics to ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir’, lowering my voice to deep bass and drawing out phrases so no one could possibly make out the words or even the language.
Marguerite was astonished at this demonic apparition.
Most of the audience, who knew the opera by heart, were surprised at the sudden reappearance of Méphistophélès but, after eight renditions of the ‘Jewel Song’, were happy to accept whatever came next, just so long as it wasn’t a ninth.
‘Those joooo-oooo-wels you muuuuu-ust give baaaa-ack,’ I demanded. ‘Your beau-uuuuu-ty needs no suuuu-ch adorn-meeee-ent!’
I picked up the prop casket in which the jewels had been presented and pointed into it.
With encouragement from Vokins’ clique, who chanted ‘Take them off!’ in time to the desperately vamping orchestra, Bianca Castafiore removed the necklaces and bracelets and dropped them into the casket.
I was aware of commotion offstage. A couple of scene-shifters tried to rush the stage but were held back by non-Italians.
As the last bright jewel clinked into the casket, I looked at the woman in the wings. Malilella drew her thumb across her throat and pointed at me. I had added to my store of curses. Again.
There were Camorra in the wings. Both sides.
So I made my exit across the orchestra pit, striding on the backs of chairs, displacing musicians, knocking over instruments. I didn’t realise until I was among the audience that I had trailed my cloak across the limelights and was on fire.
I paused and the whole audience stood to give me a round of applause.
Clapping thundered throughout the auditorium. Which is why I didn’t hear the shots. When I saw holes appear in a double bass, I knew Don Rafaele was displeased with this diversion from the libretto.
I shucked my burning cloak and dashed straight up the centre aisle, out through the foyer – barging past a couple of scene-shifters on sheer momentum – and out into Covent Garden, where Chop awaited with the cab.
I tossed my mask and cowl out of the carriage as it rattled away.
Cradling the jewel casket in my lap, I began to laugh. The sort of laugh you give out because otherwise you’d have to scream and scream.
That is how I made my debut at the Royal Opera.
XI
After such a day, with two coups to the credit, many a crook would feel entitled to a roistering celebration. It’s usually how they get nabbed.
Your proud bandit swaggers into his local and buys everyone drinks. Asked how he comes to be suddenly in funds, he taps the side of his hooter and airily mentions a win on the dogs. No track in London pays out in crisp, freshly stolen banknotes. Every copper’s nark in the pub recalls a sick relative and dashes off into the fog to tap the plods ‘for a consideration’.
So, in my case, no rest for the wicked.
However, before proceeding to the evening’s amusement, I had Chop drive back to Conduit Street.
I chalked off the latest item myself.
1. The Green Eye of the Yellow God
2. The Black Pearl of the Borgias
3. The Falcon of the Knights of St John
4. The Jewels of the Madonna of Naples
5. The Jewel of Seven Stars
6. The Eye of Balor
Moriarty emerged from his thinking room with sheets of paper covered in diagrams. Finding the celebrated circles and clown-smile squiggles named for the mathematician John Venn inadequate to the task, he had invented what he said – and I’ve no reason to doubt him – was an entirely new system for visually representing complex processes. He was delighted with his incomprehensible arrays of little ovals with symbols in them, stuck together by flowing lines interrupted by arrows.
Indeed, the diagrams excited him more than his latest acquisition. He waved aside the casket of jewels in his eagerness to show off a form of cleverness I was incapable of making head or tail of. If he hadn’t been distracted, he might have taken steps to introduce his system to the wider world. Schoolboys destined for the dunce cap could curse him as the inventor of Moriarty Charts. As it is, Mr Venn rests on his inky laurels.
Mrs Halifax reported that Mad Carew was given to noisy spasms of terror. He was losing faith in the Professor’s ability to save his hide. She’d sent Lotus Lei to the basement with a sixpenny opium pipe which would cost the client seven shillings, in the hope that a puff might calm his nerves. However, at the sight of the celestial poppet, the loon took to gibbering, ‘The brown-skin monks of Nepal have slant eyes.’ In the gloom of the basement, Lotus reminded him of the sect sworn to avenge the stolen eye.
‘Funny thing is,’ I remarked. ‘The Chinese are about the only fanatic race we haven’t offended this week.’
‘I considered adding the Sword of Genghis Khan to our shopping list,’ said the Professor. ‘The hordes of Asia will rally to any who wield it, and I know where it can be found. The Si-Fan would certainly view it falling into Western hands as sacrilege. But the tomb in Mongolia would take months to reach. For the moment, it can stay where it is.’
That was a relief. I’ve reasons for not wanting to go back to Mongolia. Under any circumstances. It’s a worse hole than Bognor Regis.
Discarded on the desk were the cartes de visite of Marshall Alaric Molina de Marnac, Don Rafaele Corbucci and Tyrone Mountmain, Bart. A wavy Nepalese dagger lay beside them, gift of the priests of the little yellow god. The Creeper didn’t run to cards, but the broken-backed corpse left on our doorstep in a laundry basket probably served the same function. Runty Reg wouldn’t be at his post from now on. So, I gathered the interested parties all knew their most precious preciouses were arrayed on our sideboard.
‘I trust we’ve reinforcements coming,’ I said.
The Professor arched an eyebrow.
‘This little lot don’t play tiddlywinks,’ I continued. ‘Runty’s liable to be just the first casualty. Consider that stand which has just set up across the road, feller who’s bawling “Get-a ya tutsi-frutsi ice-a cream-a,” could be a noted opera lover dressed in a white hat and apron. The monks soliciting alms for the poor on the corner creak under their robes – steel jerkins and chain mail long-johns. The friends and relations of the Irishmen we handed over to the peelers this lunchtime are drunker and rowdier than usual in the Pillars of Hercules.
‘It’ll be the Battle of Maiwand out there soon. I doubt that Mrs Halifax standing on our doorstep looking stern will keep the blighters out long.’
Moriarty mused, making more calculations.
‘Not quite yet, I think, Moran. Not quite yet. The constituent elements are volatile, but one more is required for combustion. Now, off with you to Kensington to fetch the Jewel of Seven Stars.’
He patted me warmly on the chest – a unique gesture from him, with which I was not entirely comfortable – and disappeared back into his den.
As few men, I had his trust. Which was terrifying.
Outside, I found Chop by his cab, just about to stick his tongue into an ice cornet freshly purchased from the furious Don Rafaele.
‘Don’t eat that,’ I warned, dashing the cornet into the gutter. It fizzed surprisingly.
More than the usual amount of rubbish and rags were in the street. Some of the piles were shifting. I saw glittering eyes in the trash heaps. Our original Nepalese admirers remained foremost among the array of annoyed maniacs which came along with our Crown jewels.
I climbed into the cab, ignoring the gypsy death signs chalked on the doors, and we were away – for more larceny.
XII
The streetlamps were on, burning blue. Autumn fog gathered, swirling yellow. Chop’s cab rattled down Kensington Palace Road, and drew up at a workman
’s hut erected beside a grave-sized hole in the gutter. Signs warned of a gas leak. Simon Carne had watched Trelawny House all day from inside the hut. He wore another of his disguises, as an old Irishman he called ‘Klimo’. Dialect humour was superfluous to the simple lookout job, but Carne was committed.
Other residences on the street had stone roaring lions flanking their driveways. Trelawny House favoured an Egyptian motif: sphinxes stood guard at the gate, the columns beside the front door were covered in hieroglyphs, and a pyramid topped the porch.
Carne gave a brief report. This evening, Margaret Trelawny was entertaining. Carriages had come and gone, depositing well-dressed people who took care not to let their faces be seen. Their coaches were of quality, many with their distinctive coats of arms gummed over with black paper. Vaguely musical sounds and rum, spicy smells emanated from the house.
‘I’ve managed to secure an invitation,’ Carne said.
He led me into the hut, where two of our associates sat on a purple-faced fellow who was securely bound and gagged.
‘Isn’t that Henry Wilcox? The colossus of finance?’ I asked.
At mention of his name, Wilcox writhed and purpled further, about to burst blood vessels. Known for sailing close to the wind in his business and personal life, he had just capsized. I kicked him in the middle. When an opportunity to boot the goolies of capital presents itself, only a fool misses it. Karl Marx said that, and it is the only socialist slogan which makes sense to me.
Carne’s men had taken a gilt-edged card bearing the sign of the ram from their captive, and Wilcox’s bag contained a long white robe and a golden mask with curly horns and a sheepish snout.
Obviously, this was my day for fancy dress.
I got into the ridiculous outfit and took the card.
Wilcox protested into his gag. Another kick quieted him.
I climbed back into the cab and Chop made great show of delivering me to the door of Trelawny House.
The knocker was in the shape of a green-eyed serpent. At a rap, the door was opened by a gigantic black prizefighter wearing harem pantaloons. His face and chest were painted gold. I handed over the ram card, which he dropped into a brazier. He stood aside.
I followed the noise and the – slightly intoxicating – smell. Through a hall filled with the usual clutter of elephant’s foot umbrella stands and potted aspidistras gone to seed, down stone steps into a cellar, where scented oil-lamps cast odd shadows. People dressed like silly buggers gyrated to the plinkings of instruments I couldn’t put names to. A proper knees-up.
The large cellar was decorated like an Egyptian tomb. I should say, decorated with an Egyptian tomb. All around were artefacts looted from the burial place of Queen Tera in the Valley of the Sorcerer. Each item cursed seven ways to sunset.
The guests were all of a type with Wilcox. Robes and masks didn’t conceal thick middles, bald pates and liver-spotted, well-manicured hands. Well-to-do and well connected, I judged. Members of Parliament and the Stock Exchange, commanders of manufacturing empires and shipping lines, high officers of the law and the armed forces, princes of the church and our ancient institutions of learning. More money than sense, more power than they knew what to do with.
So, the hostess was working a high-class racket. With marks like these on her lists, Miss Trelawny was well set-up.
Mixed among the robed, masked guests were professional houris of both sexes, immodestly clad in gold paint and little else. They sported Egyptian fripperies: hawk headdresses, golden snake circlets, ankhs and scarabs, that eye-in-the-squiggle design. Some might have been imported from Eastern climes, but I recognised a body or two from the city’s less exotic vice establishments. Mrs Halifax had mentioned a few of her younger, prettier earners had gone missing lately; that mystery was now solved.
At the far end of the cellar was an altar. Two little black boys waved golden palm fronds at the high priestess of this congregation.
Margaret Trelawny dressed to show off her person, though she would stop traffic in a nun’s habit. Already a tall girl, she towered well over six-and-a-half feet with the famous crown of Queen Tera set on her masses of jet-black hair. The headdress consisted of seven intertwined, jewel-eyed serpents with onyx-inlaid cheekguards.
As a connoisseur, I would venture her frontage – judged by size, firmness and ‘wobble factor’ – finer than Lily Langtry’s... and, after a couple of gins, Lily could crack walnuts between her knockers. To display the goods, Miss Trelawny wore an intricate yet minimal bustier composed of interlinked gold beetles. A transparent skirt gathered in a knot under her bare belly. If tautness of tummy were your prime requirement in womanly form, she’d pass the bounce-a-sixpence-off-it test with flying colours.
A big sparkling ruby was set in a ring on her forefinger. The Jewel of Seven Stars looked like a congealed gobbet of blood. Her eyes had a mad, green-and-red lustre. Her commanding – indeed demanding – beauty was uncommon among the milk-and-water ladies of Kensington.
Miss Trelawny danced, which is to say undulated, in a shimmy which drew further attention – as if attention were required – to her broad hips, serpentine stomach and generous bosom.
Beneath an exotic arrangement, I recognised the tune her three-piece slave band was playing. ‘The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid’. You probably don’t know the title – I had to ask a cocaine-injecting trumpet player from the Alhambra – but it’s sung the world over by dirty-minded little boys. You can hear many, many variations on the rhyme ‘oh, the girls in France/do the hoochy-koochy dance... and the men play druu-u-ums/on the naked ladies’ buu-u-ums,’ et cetera, et cetera.
For the moment, I entertained the possibility that Margaret Trelawny was – as she claimed – wicked Queen Tera reborn. She possessed at least one demonstrable supernatural power. In her presence, I suffered a prominent inconvenience in the trousers. I believe this condition was shared by not a few of the other gentlemen present.
I was drawn through the crowd, as if by magnetic attraction... or an invisible thread knotted about my gentlemen’s parts. I was gripped by tantalising, almost painful desire. I had to concentrate on the real object of my visit – the ruby. Its redness grew large, tinting my whole view. I suspected there was something funny in the incense.
All about, houris were groped by guests and responded with a fair simulation of wild abandon. Divans were set aside for continuance of these activities, several already in use by knots of two or three – or, in one rather dangerous-looking conjunction, five – dedicated, conscience-free revellers.
Some masks had slipped. A prominent social reformer and a tiresomely staunch advocate of female emancipation were sandwiching a slave-boy; the maiden ladies who signed their petitions and wore their banners would probably disapprove. A magistrate known for harsh sentences was bent over a wooden horse, taking a spirited whipping from two Cleopatra-wigged tarts.
Jam jars of sweet, sticky cordial were passed around, suitable for drinking or smearing. I forgot myself and took a swallow of the stuff, which seemed laced with gunpowder.
I had a notion that Margaret Trelawny wouldn’t give up her prize as easily as Bianca Castafiore.
The music rose in frenzied crescendo. The dancing – and other activity – in the room became faster and faster. Someone indeed played drums on the posteriors of unclad maidservants, slapping with more enthusiasm than skill.
I was near the altar-dais now, and the crowd was thicker. A girl with bared teeth and wide eyes tore at my robe, but I discreetly kneed her in the middle and threw her aside. She was pounced on by a provincial mayor who wore his chain of office and nothing else.
Miss Trelawny’s exertions were extraordinary.
My inconvenience throbbed like a hammered thumb.
Then, a gong was struck, resounding throughout the cellar. Everything stopped.
Masks came off, en masse. I made no move to doff mine, but it was gone anyway.
Margaret Trelawny took a scimitar and lashed
, precisely, at my head. I was unharmed, but unmasked. No, not quite unharmed. A line across my forehead dribbled blood. I clamped a hand to the wound.
My imperious hostess held a blade to my throat.
‘Balls,’ I said, with feeling.
XIII
I woke in darkness, wearing clothes not my own. Not even clothes, I realised as my senses crawled back. Tight wrappings which smelled of mothballs. I wriggled and found my legs tethered together and my arms bound to my chest. I was bandaged all over! I shifted my shoulders and banged against confining walls.
With a grinding sound, darkness went away. Something heavy shifted and I was looking up at Margaret Trelawny. Next to her stood a fork-bearded cove I didn’t recognise, wearing a steel balaclava. I lay in an Egyptian sarcophagus, trussed like a mummy.
‘Apologies for the “rush job”, Colonel Moran,’ my hostess said. ‘Before wrapping, you should have had your heart, lights and liver removed to be placed in canoptic jars and your brains pulled out through your nostrils. Revival of the arts of Egypt proceeds slower than I would like.’
Why had they wrapped and entombed me, then taken the trouble to reopen the sarcophagus? Miss Trelawny must want something from me before I was buried for the archaeologists of 3,000 years’ hence to exhume and put on display. I swear, the maledictions upon Moriarty’s Crown jewels are a Sunday stroll compared to the curses I’ll lay on those fellows. Beware the wrath of Basher Moran, you unborn tomblooters!
The party had broken up. I hoped not on my account.
I couldn’t get that da-da-daaaah-da-da ‘Streets of Cairo’ whine out of my head. Oh, the girls in France...
‘I’ll be humming it for days,’ I said. ‘Don’t you hate it when you get a tune stuck?’
Margaret sneered, magnificently. She still wore her queenly vestments. This angle afforded me a fine view of those excellent teats. With every breath, metal scarabs seemed to crawl over all that pink poitrine. My bandages stirred, which was all I needed. My hostess was less likely to be flattered by the response than swat the swelling with her scimitar.
