End of the Century

by Chris Roberson

  “The Huntsman!” Galaad shouted, seeing the thin red blade the rider held aloft.

  But as the rider thundered nearer, Galaad saw that he'd been wrong. This was not the same strange figure they'd faced in Llongborth, though it bore the same red sword and was followed by the spectral dogs of wrath. This rider was larger than the Huntsman had been, and while the Huntsman had been hairless, the rider's face was covered by a full red beard, his long red hair streaming behind him as he rode. And while the Huntsman's face had been frozen and immobile, the rider's face was clearly expressive, mouth open in a defiant snarl. Only the skin of his cheeks and forehead could be seen, and this little corpse white, while the rest of his body was entirely encased in some sort of close-fitting red armor that shone dully like metal but bent freely without joint or hinge.

  Whoever the rider was, though, it was clear he meant harm to the seven.

  As the rider drew nearer, Galaad remembered the White Lady's warning—beware the Red King!

  THE NEXT MORNING, Blank and Miss Bonaventure returned to London. As soon as their train arrived, they deposited their overnight bags at the house in York Place and immediately checked the Blue Book for a listing for one Peter R. Bonaventure. They found an address in Earl's Court, not far from the museums, and before they'd managed to shake the dust of Taunton from their feet were back out the door and in a hansom cab on their way. They'd discussed the matter on their return trip from Somerset and had come to the agreement that the details of Professor Bonaventure's expedition, whatever they were, simply had to strike at the heart of their investigation. If they could learn from this other Bonaventure what it was in his report that was worth a man's life, they might be able to divine what motivated the Jubilee Killer and put an end to his spree before he struck again.

  Unfortunately, it was not to be, at least not on that day. When they arrived at the address in Earl's Court they found the house standing vacant, the furniture covered in sheets and dust lining the mantle. The servant who'd answered the door, who'd been left in charge of the household in his employer's absence, explained that Professor Bonaventure's wife had only recently given birth to their first child, a son they named Jules, and that together the family had gone away to the continent to visit the mother's relations. According to the servant, the Bonaventure family had left London some three months before, in the early part of March.

  Naturally, the servant knew nothing of any report, nor of any crystal chalice, and was sadly unable to provide a temporary address at which his employer might be contacted, as he received his instructions by mail on an irregular basis and had no clear notion where the Bonaventures’ journeys had carried them.

  So, after two days of travel, to Taunton and back, Blank and Miss Bonaventure found themselves only with more questions, and not the answers they sought.

  Having spent a considerable amount of time in close quarters, Blank and Miss Bonaventure repaired to their separate homes, agreeing that it was in the best interests of their respective temperaments to spend a brief period apart. On his return home to York Place, Blank found a number of invitations to dinners and parties waiting for him, this being the first Friday evening after the Queen's Jubilee, but he felt more inclined to hermit a bit.

  In amongst his post was a note from Superintendent Melville. At Blank's suggestion, Melville had tasked a constable to keep watch on the movements of Mervyn Fawkes, given his suspicious behavior when interrogated, but evidently the man had yet to put a foot wrong and gave no indication of being anything other than what he seemed: a slightly addled man who worked in the Crystal Palace.

  Blank was all out of sorts. He felt as though he'd reached an impasse in his investigations. He had succeeded in turning up new information in the days past, but had been singularly unsuccessful in extracting any usable intelligence. He found himself mired in facts about everything from the folk beliefs of the ancient Britons to the most recent technological innovations of the moving picture industry but could not manage to unravel the skein sufficiently to produce any comprehensible pattern.

  With only a single lamp burning in his library, Blank got a slender case down from a high shelf. Undoing the clasps, he swung the case open on its hinges and revealed the flute within, nestled in black velvet. A cylindricalbore ring-key, cast in silver, the flute had been manufactured from silver by Theobald Boehm himself. Checking the action of the keys, Blank raised the flute to his lips and began to play.

  In moments, he was lost in remembrance. Blank had scant few memories of Roanoke, before the coming of the Croatoan, before Michel Void found him wandering alone through the village, the only one spared the ravages of the ego-destroying mind virus. He carried in his mind portraits of his parents, Dionys and Margery, but he could not now be sure if the images of them he recalled were their actual appearances or else false recollections he'd created in the years since to fill the empty space. But one of the clearest, most pure memories he retained of those early years was of his father playing his flute for the children of the village, Virginia and himself the youngest among them. That simple lilting memory had lodged in Blank's young mind, penetrating like an earwig and refusing ever to be dislodged. Years later, Blank had heard it again, played by a Scottish navvy who labored in the construction of the Marc Isambard Brunel's tunnel, and learned that it was the tune to a Scottish ballad, the story of a border reiver who plied his bloody trade in the debatable land for kith and kin.

  He played that tune now, in the dimly lit library in York Place, all alone with his books and memories. He thought of those long-dead border reivers, and of his father Dionys, who had fled the justice of the debatable lands with his pregnant wife, looking for a better home across the sea. He thought of Virginia, and all the rest lost to Croatoan, and what would have become of him, barely three years old, had Monsieur Void not marched out of the trackless wilderness and offered him a second chance at life, albeit in the thankless and unforgiving service of Omega.

  All of these things he thought, as he played, and the shadows grew deeper around him.

  The next morning, Blank awoke feeling surprisingly refreshed. There was something cathartic to giving oneself in to the most morose of remembrances, wallowing if briefly in the deep pools of self-pity and remorse. Facing his vexations in the light of a new day, he found renewed optimism, one might even say hope.

  With a lightness to his step and a smile on his lip, he sauntered to Bayswater, to the Bark Place home of Miss Bonaventure.

  This being Saturday, Mrs. Pool was at her liberty, and Miss Bonaventure was left to her own devices. So it was that Blank was unsurprised to find his associate dressed in nothing more than bloomers and a brassiere, head uncovered and barefoot, dancing back and forth in her front room, a button-tipped foil in hand, shadow fencing.

  Miss Bonaventure was the New Woman, incarnate, there was no question about that. Even so, Blank often found that, in private, away from the prying eyes of the public or the huffing disapproval of her day maid, his associate often took liberties that would scandalize even the most radical of her fellow New Women. Just as often, though, Miss Bonaventure would catch herself doing so and quickly fall back to the more acceptable outrages of the contemporary feminist.

  This was precisely one of those moments. On first admitting Blank into her home, Miss Bonaventure seemed unconcerned to receive a visitor in such a state of undress, much less one of the opposite sex. It was only after seeing Blank's amused smile and raised eyebrow that she seemed to realize her circumstance and hurriedly put on a man's shirt which lay draped across a chair back. With this casual concession to propriety, Miss Bonaventure resumed her shadow fencing, practicing her parry and riposte.

  “I thought not to see you today, Blank,” she said, only slightly winded by her exertions. “I take it you simply can't live without me?”

  “Miss Bonaventure,” Blank said, dropping onto the sofa, resting his bowler hat on his knee, “you have long since become indispensable. If we part, it is only that I reacquai
nt myself with your absence, that I might appreciate your presence all the more.”

  Miss Bonaventure lunged, skewering her imaginary opponent, and then recovered, coming once more en garde. “You stoop to flatter, Blank, but I'll not contest. Now, does some new intelligence bring you here this morning? Some new facts come to light regarding our investigations?”

  Blank shook his head, but smiled. “Not new intelligence, my dear, but perhaps new perspective. We have spent so much time afoot, these last weeks, in surveillance and skullduggery, interview and interrogation, that we have forgotten the all-too-often tedious work of research. If we are unable to locate your namesake, this Professor Bonaventure, and likewise unable to obtain a copy of his report which the murderer snatched from the Taunton castle, then perhaps we might locate in other documents references which might help us triangulate the missing information we seek.”

  Miss Bonaventure parried an imagined blow and riposted. Then, satisfied with the motion, she drew herself up straight, tucking her foil under her arm and dabbing the gleam of sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her overlarge shirt. “Just what documents would those be?”

  “This Peter Bonaventure has some reputation as an explorer, I've discovered, and has filed any number of reports to the Royal Geographical Society over the years. I propose that we avail ourselves of the society's library and peruse Professor Bonaventure's filings, beginning with the most recent and working our way back, in the hope of uncovering some indicator of what the missing report might contain.”

  Miss Bonaventure paused in wiping her brow, her forearm frozen over her eyes. Then she lowered her arm slowly and fixed Blank with a steady gaze. “I take it this isn't to be one of those instances in which you consult your Whitaker's and have the answer in a trice.”

  Blank shook his head. “Sadly, no. By my best estimates, we'd have some dozens of lengthy, dusty, long-winded reports to review.”

  Miss Bonaventure sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. “Oh, the things I endure in exchange for your company, Blank.”

  Blank shrugged. “I can only offer apologies, my dear. I'm a tedious rogue, I'm sure.” His grin broadened. “Whyever do you put up with me?”

  Raising an eyebrow, quizzically, she said, “Why, Blank. It's because you amuse me. Why else?”

  As it happened, the offices of the Royal Geographical Society were closed for the weekend, and so it was Monday morning before the pair were able to gain admittance. Located at Number 1, Savile Row, just around the corner from the Royal Asiatic Society, the society's headquarters was an imposing structure, made even more so by alterations and additions made since the society had taken up residence. Atop the roof was a small astronomical observatory, the Map Room was unrivaled in its collection of charts, maps, atlases, and globes, and the stacks had in recent years been expanded with a new upper library on the second floor. It was here that Blank and Miss Bonaventure found the myriad reports filed by Peter R. Bonaventure over the years, and here where they spent the following days, morning, noon, and night.

  They had learned, through an examination of Blank's social directories and references, that Peter Bonaventure was not a member of the Royal Geographical Society, though he had been offered a fellowship some years before. For reasons of his own, Bonaventure had declined the offer. If he was not a member in good standing in the Hytholoday Club, an exclusive society of explorers, it would be easy to assume that Bonaventure was simply not a “joiner,” as the Americans would say; as it was, one had to conclude that something in the policies or practices of the RGS impelled Bonaventure to decline the proffered invitation.

  They also learned that, prior to the birth of his son Jules earlier that year, Peter Bonaventure had lived an apparently ceaseless life of travel, journeying to the four corners of the globe, not once, but repeatedly. Bonaventure was a tireless explorer, autodidact, and polymath, who studied language and legend with the same passion with which he pursued geography and geology. In addition to a number of monographs on geographical subjects, he had penned his own translation of a book of medieval Arabic poetry, a survey of Indonesian mythology and folklore, a ethnological memoir of the year he spent living among the native Te'Maroan people of Kensington Island, a study of the history of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, and an as-yet uncompleted and unpublished history of swordsmanship.

  Miss Bonaventure received this information with an expression something like pride, as if Peter Bonaventure was in fact a member of her family and not simply an unrelated namesake. For his part, Blank was sorry that his and the professor's paths had never yet crossed, as he sounded a singular individual. With any luck, when this business was over and done and Peter Bonaventure and his family returned from the continent, perhaps Blank would be able to make his acquaintance. Such a man might well be of some use in Blank's plans for the future which even now were slowly beginning to unfold.

  What Blank and Miss Bonaventure were unable to find, however, in this mountain of printed material, was any hint as to why Professor Bonaventure had taken it in his head to dig holes atop Glastonbury Tor, hunting the source of ancient British myths.

  As a matter of course, Professor Bonaventure had filed any number of reports on his excursions and expeditions with the RGS, apparently as much out of a desire for there to be some record of his findings, should some unfortunate fate befall him in the field, as in the hope of benefiting the organization itself. The most recent of these dated to the autumn of 1896, some months before the excavations at Glastonbury Tor had begun, and sadly included no reference to any research in Somerset or mention of Gwynn or Nudd or Annwn or any such mythological oddities.

  Turning from the most recent reports, Blank and Miss Bonaventure worked their way backwards, one report after another, digging back through the dusty stacks of the RGS library, searching for any clue.

  Thursday afternoon, after more than three days of near-continuous study, Miss Bonaventure finally chanced on something of interest which, while it did not relate to Glastonbury or Somerset or British myth, seemed to have real bearing on their current investigation.

  The report detailed an expedition in 1885, some twelve years before, when Peter Bonaventure had been commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to investigate reports of a new island sighted some few hundred leagues from the coast of Ireland. Chartering a steamer ship, the Clemency out of Liverpool, Professor Bonaventure had searched the area and found what he described in the report as a large floating object. Not an island, it was organic rather than mineral, and though the report was vague on the point, the language used conjured images of a mat of seaweed and driftwood inadvertently lashed together by wind and wave and drifting aimlessly upon the oceans. In any event, the mass was solid enough for a landing party to go “ashore,” and Professor Bonaventure led a small party in rowboats.

  In the end, Professor Bonaventure reported that there was little of interest on the “island” and advised commercial sea vessels to steer clear of the area until it had floated elsewhere, doubtless in the hope that the organic matter which constituted the object would not foul their propellers. In a note appended to the report, the chairman of the RGS issued a blanket denial for any future request to investigate the object.

  The report mentioned four names, two of which Miss Bonaventure and Blank found of considerable interest. The first two, those of the crewmen who had accompanied Professor Bonaventure in the landing party, were inconsequential. The other two were Professor Bonaventure's traveling companion on the expedition, Jules Dulac, and the representative of the Royal Geographical Society who had accompanied the expedition, one Mervyn Fawkes.

  The link between Fawkes and Professor Bonaventure, previously unsuspected, was an illuminating one. Blank remembered coming across the brief mention in Fawkes's biographical detail of an incident on an expedition for the Royal Geographical Society in 1885, after which Fawkes was a patient for a time at Colney Hatch, but in the days of coughing in the dust knocked loose from files and folders in the
RGS library he'd never imagined there might be a connection. Fawkes was suddenly a much more likely suspect as the Jubilee Killer, whatever his motives.

  Blank intended to journey to Crystal Palace or to Fawkes's lodging house in Camberwell right away. But Miss Bonaventure pointed out that the Jules Dulac of the 1885 report was very likely the same Dulac who had assisted Professor Bonaventure in his excavation on Glastonbury Tor, as Bulleid reported.

  “I'd come across a reference to a ‘Jules’ in some of the reports,” Miss Bonaventure commented, rubbing her bleary eyes, “but for some reason I'd just assumed that the professor was referring to his son.” She wore a hangdog expression. “Precisely how he was referring to his infant son in reports up to ten years old, I can't imagine.”

  “You're tired,” Blank said, patting her shoulder in a consoling gesture. “I likely skimmed right across those sorts of references myself without even noticing them. We've had precious little sleep the last few days and reviewed thousands of pages of material, so we can't be blamed for missing a word or two, can we?”

  She brightened somewhat. “Well, shall we check the Blue Book and see if we can't find a listing for a Jules Dulac?”

  Blank smiled. “Miss Bonaventure, we should alert Frank Podmore and the SPR, as I believe that you've been reading my mind.”

  A short while later, Sandford Blank and Roxanne Bonaventure stood before a house in Chelsea, just as the sun was beginning to set in the west. The house in particular was humble compared to its more grandiose neighbors that faced the Thames up and down Cheyne Walk but would have stood out as respectably large and sturdily built if relocated to another address in the city. Three stories tall, with three curtained windows on each floor above the ground level, the house was constructed of dark red bricks that seemed almost black in the dying light, the mortar between them gleaming like ivory. The door was also white, with a curious knocker in the shape of a dragon's head.