End of the Century

by Chris Roberson

  Stepping through the wrought-iron gate that separated the door from the sidewalk, Blank let fall the dragon-head knocker once, then twice, waiting for an answer. A short while later, the door opened, and a man stood framed in the light from within. He was about Blank's height, with short-cropped dark hair and few weeks’ worth of beard growth. He had a square chin and well-defined jaw, a narrow nose, and high cheekbones. His face was unlined, but at the same time lacked the unbaked smoothness of youth, and so it was impossible to judge his age; he could have been anywhere from thirty to a well-kept sixty years of age. Evidently not expecting visitors, he was dressed only in shirtsleeves, riding boots, and trousers, his cuffs rolled up to the elbow, in his hand a pipe of briarwood, tobacco still smoldering in the bowl.

  “Yes?” the man asked.

  “Jules Dulac?” Blank replied with a question of his own. He found the man's appearance compellingly familiar, but couldn't place where he'd seen him before.

  The man narrowed his eyes, warily. “Who is it asking?” His accent was odd and difficult to place. It seemed to partake of many different accents, something of French commingled with a little Welsh, the Home Counties mixed with a touch of German. Wherever the man was originally from, it seemed evident that he had traveled, and widely.

  “My name is Sandford Blank,” came the reply, “and this is my associate Miss Roxanne Bonaventure.”

  At the mention of Miss Bonaventure's name, the man's eyes widened. Seeming to forget all about Blank, he took a half step forward, studying her face intently.

  “Miss Bonaventure,” he repeated. “Yes, yes,” he said, nodding slowly, narrowing his gaze. He looked her up and down, taking in her fashionable bicycle suit of jacket and matching bloomers over stockings, before finally coming to rest on her face. “You definitely share the family features. But I've not heard of a Roxanne Bonaventure before.” The man tilted his head back, looking at her down the length of his nose, looking for all the world like a farrier inspecting a horse. “Who was your father, girl? Did Josiah have a bastard about whom Peter was never told? Or did Erasmus live long enough to have progeny, after all?” He snapped his fingers. “You're not from Varadeaux, by any chance, are you? D'où venez vous? Varadeaux? Hein?”

  “Je suis britannique,” Miss Bonaventure said, shaking her head. “Je viens d'Angleterre.”

  The man scowled for a moment, then smiled good-naturedly. “You'll have to excuse me,” he said, chuckling slightly. “I…I have an interest in genealogy and have made a particular study of your surname. I thought I knew of all the Bonaventures currently living in the British Isles and was surprised to hear a name unknown to me.”

  Miss Bonaventure treated him to a smile, though to Blank it seemed that her smile was somewhat forced, as if the man had struck a nerve or given her some cause for concern. “No offense taken, sir,” she said. “On the subject of names, are we to assume that yours is Jules Dulac, after all?”

  The man drew himself up straighter, heels together, and inclined his head in a nod, a formal-seeming gesture. It struck Blank that the man had the carriage of a military officer. “Guilty as charged, miss. Jules Dulac at your service. What might I do for you?”

  “My colleague and I are assisting Scotland Yard in an ongoing investigation,” Blank answered, “and we were hoping you might be able to assist us.”

  “Certainly,” Dulac said, genially. He paused, and then slapped his forehead. “Where are my manners, leaving you out in the street like tradesmen. Come in, won't you?”

  Stepping aside, Dulac ushered them in, then closed the door behind them.

  Blank and Miss Bonaventure found themselves in a large sitting room on the ground floor of the house. But aside from a pair of simple chairs, an occasional table, and a sofa, the room more closely resembled a museum than a residence. More precisely, a museum devoted to the art of war.

  Dulac knocked the ashes from his pipe into a tray and casually packed more tobacco in the bowl from a pouch he pulled from his trouser pocket.

  Bladed weapons of every imaginable shape and size crowded the room, hung on hooks from the walls or in simple wooden display cases that lined the floor: swords, of every imaginable provenance, sabers and scimitars, cutlasses and katanas.

  But there were more than just swords in the collection. One wall was given over to flags, banners, and signets, dominated by a large white cloth upon which was embroidered the VOC monogram of the Dutch East India Company, with the motto “Terra et Mari” above and the words “Fidelitas et Honor” below.

  “You wouldn't happen to have some interest in weaponry, would you, Mr. Dulac?” Blank asked, easing himself onto one of the plain wooden chairs.

  Dulac smiled. He pulled out a silver vesta case, on which were engraved his initials, “J.D. ,” and a stylized dragon's head, like that which served as the doorknocker, and striking a match against the case, held it to his pipe. “It's an interest bordering on mania, I suppose you could say,” he said, around short puffs, drawing the flame into the bowl, “but with little else to occupy my time, it seems harmless enough.”

  In spite of the martial tenor of the room, though, it was clear that it had been the site of lighter pursuits, as well, as evidenced by the number of empty bottles stacked unceremoniously beneath the occasional table, and the cut glass tumblers and half-full bottles arranged on the table's surface. His pipe clenched between his teeth, Dulac fixed himself a generous glass of whiskey, and with a glance offered drinks to Blank and Miss Bonaventure, but they declined politely with a shake of their heads.

  Miss Bonaventure moved nearer the wall, admiring an Aztec club lined with tiny obsidian blades. “You put most museums to shame, Mr. Dulac, at least in regard to matters martial. I dare say you have more here than the British Museum has ever put on exhibit.”

  “It's an avocation, nothing more.”

  “And your vocation, Mr. Dulac?” Blank asked. “I take it you have traveled quite extensively with a Professor Peter R. Bonaventure?”

  “Yes.” Dulac nodded. “For some time now. We share a passion for the untrammeled places on the globe, for unspoiled wilderness and forgotten lands.”

  “But you don't travel with him now?” Miss Bonaventure asked, taking a seat.

  The man chuckled and flounced down onto his sofa, his arms resting on the back, the whiskey in the glass threatening to spill over the rim. “Where Peter now goes, I cannot follow.”

  “And where is that, precisely?” Blank asked.

  Dulac's grin widened. “Matrimony. I've neither the talent nor the inclination for it, I'm afraid. I pledged myself to a woman, long ago, and have never seen a reason to seek the company of another.”

  “So no family then, Mr. Dulac?” Miss Bonaventure glanced around the spacious room and indicated the stairs leading to the upper floors.

  Dulac's smile faltered, and a cloud passed across his features for a moment and then was gone. “Once upon a time, perhaps,” he said, his voice sounding far off. “But only for a short while, and never again. There are some things that, once lost, can never be regained.”

  Miss Bonaventure pulled what appeared to be a lady's undergarment from behind the cushion of the chair in which she sat and held it up for inspection, her eyebrow cocked.

  Dulac smirked, tilting his head to one side, and held his arms up in mock surrender. “Which is not to say that I haven't sampled the goods on offer, from time to time, but there's a world of difference between leasing and owning, if you take my meaning.”

  It was clear from the empty bottles and the lacy bit of abandoned finery that Dulac had indulged himself in the days or weeks previous, which presented a contrast to the formal reserve suggested by his military bearing, to say nothing about the martial aspect of his collection. But Blank had more pressing matters to attend than to play alienist to a strange man with a compulsion for weaponry. “Tell me, Mr. Dulac, do you recall a man by the name of Fawkes, by any chance?”

  Dulac raised an eyebrow. “Fawkes, is it? Ther
e was a Geoffrey, as I…” He stopped short and shook his head. “No, I misremember. A Mervyn Fawkes. That's right. Mervyn Fawkes who accompanied us on an expedition to…Well, an expedition for the RGS, some years ago.”

  “That would be the one to the ‘floating island,’” Miss Bonaventure asked.

  Now both eyebrows raised, and Dulac looked at her with considerable surprise. “Why, yes, it would.” He pursed his lips, thoughtfully. “I thought the RGS had elected to keep that matter under board, but it appears I was mistaken.”

  “And what can you tell us about Mervyn Fawkes?” Blank asked.

  Dulac shook his head. “Very little, I'm afraid. I never saw him again after our return to port. I understand that he was…not quite right…for some time thereafter, but I never knew what became of him.”

  “Hmm.” Blank nodded. “Late last year, you and Professor Bonaventure carried out an excavation on Glastonbury Tor in Somerset. Is that correct?”

  It was as though a door had just closed in Dulac's face, and the easy smile melted away like ice thrown on a fire. “Yes,” he said simply.

  “We were hoping that you might be able to tell us something about the dig and what it is you hoped to find.” Miss Bonaventure treated him to a smile, but might as well have been smiling at a brick wall.

  “You'd have to ask Peter, I'm afraid,” Dulac said, his tone curt. Then, his manner disingenuous, he adopted an ill-fitting pose as a stupider man. “I just carry the shovels, you know.”

  Blank gave a slight nod, not bothering to pretend he was convinced. “Well, I'm afraid that we can't ask Professor Bonaventure, as he's currently out of the country. You wouldn't know how to reach him, by any chance?” Dulac shook his head. “Pity. We'd consult the report he filed with the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, but it seems that the paperwork was stolen in a robbery some time ago.”

  Dulac's eyebrows raised again, in genuine surprise. “Really?”

  “Mmm,” Blank hummed. “And a man was killed in the process, custodian to the Taunton castle.”

  “I…I didn't know.”

  “And nothing else stolen but that report,” Miss Bonaventure put in.

  Dulac seemed shaken. He took a long draught from his tumbler of whiskey, nearly downing the contents in one shot. Then he wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand, his eyes focused on the middle distance.

  “Tell me, Mr. Dulac,” Blank said, casually, “do you happen to know anyone matching the description of a tall man, completely bald, with chalky white skin and, perhaps, something odd about his eyes?”

  Dulac's head whipped around and, eyes flashing, fixed Blank with his gaze. His fingers tightened in a white-knuckled grip around his tumbler, and for a moment it seemed as if the glass might shatter in his hand. “What…” he began, his voice strained. “What did you just say?”

  “We've been trying to locate a man described to us as tall, hairless, skin of a chalky-white hue, and perhaps something a little odd about his eyes. We think he might be able to answer some questions for us.”

  Dulac's neck corded and his hands shook with what could have been controlled rage or abject fear, or some combination of the two. He stood, suddenly, dropping his glass shattering to the ground, heedless of the noise or the shards.

  “You'll…you'll have to excuse me,” he said, lurching towards the door. Taking a frock coat down from a coat rack in the foyer, he opened the door. “There's something…to which I must attend.”

  Dulac stood in the doorway, almost vibrating with impatience, while Blank and Miss Bonaventure rose and made for the door. Dulac didn't meet their gazes as they passed him and stepped outside but pulled a ring of keys off a hook on the wall, stepped outside after them, and locked the door behind him. Then, the key ring in his hand, he hurried out through the iron gate, turned to the right, and began running up Cheyne Walk. At the intersection with Oakley Street he rounded the corner to the right, heading off to the north.

  Blank and Miss Bonaventure exchanged quick glances and, without another word, took to their heels after him.

  They must have pursued Dulac through the streets of Chelsea and South Kensington for nearly a mile until finally they reached Earl's Court. Dulac had exhibited an astounding degree of stamina, such that Blank and Miss Bonaventure were hard pressed even to keep him in sight, much less catch him up. As it was, they were lucky to see which doorway he turned into, near the intersection of Gloucester and Cromwell Roads, or else they'd have lost track of him entirely. As they drew nearer, though, the doorway standing open, they recognized the address at once.

  This was the residence of Peter R. Bonaventure, which they'd visited the week before on their return from Taunton.

  Reaching the open door, they found Professor Bonaventure's servant standing in the entryway, distressed.

  “Where did he go?” Blank said, seizing the man by the elbow. “Where is he?”

  The servant turned watery eyes on Blank, and then pointed to the rear of the house. “Mister Dulac has gone to the master's storage.”

  Blank released his hold on the servant, and without pausing to explain himself, ran into the house, Miss Bonaventure following close behind.

  At the rear of the house, they found the door wide open, and saw the flickering light of a lantern swinging beyond. Outside, they found themselves in a garden, and at the bottom of the garden was a small, fortified-looking building, and it was before this that Dulac knelt, his head down and shoulders slumped.

  The servant appeared at Miss Bonaventure's side.

  “The master had it built,” the servant said, unprompted, “to store all the treasures he brings back from his travels. Mr. Dulac has been by to check on it, regular, in all the time the master's been away. Though, come to think of it, it's been some weeks since we've last seen Mr. Dulac. And now he shows up, all wild-eyed, and barrels through the house without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  Miss Bonaventure gave the little man an affectionate pat on the shoulder, consolingly, and then she and Blank crossed the garden to stand behind Dulac.

  The windowless building appeared to be made of sturdy stone, and the door was of thick-timbered oak, banded in iron and closed with a massive padlock. Or rather, it should have been. The padlock, though, which should have hung from the iron ring through the crossbar, was in Dulac's hands, cleaved neatly in two. To all appearances the lock had been severed, the door opened, and then the whole affair closed back up again, so that on first glance it would have appeared to be whole and unmolested.

  “I'm a damned fool,” Dulac said, his voice low, and Blank knew he spoke as much to himself as to them. “To wait so long, to find it, and then to think my job done just because I'd locked it away behind stone and iron.” He shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut. “When first we brought it back, I checked every day, just to make sure I hadn't dreamt the whole thing. Then every week, at least, to make sure it was safe and secure. Then, Peter went away with his wife and little Jules, and my visits became more sporadic, losing more and more of my time in spirits and the soft embrace.” His fingers wrapped around half the severed lock, Dulac pounded his fist into the ground with an audible thud. “Six weeks it's been since last I came to check. Six weeks since he's snatched it away from me, after all this time.”

  It was clear that Dulac hadn't opened the door but having discovered the lock severed knew what he would find within. Gingerly, Blank stepped around him, and pulling the crossbar free, opened the door, the hinges swinging noiselessly. If he had to guess, Blank would suppose that the thief had oiled the hinges when breaking into the storage to prevent the squeal of iron on rusty iron from announcing his presence.

  In the dim light that leaked from the lantern outside into the windowless space within, Blank caught glimpses of the items secured within the storage and saw that the servant had not been far wrong to call them treasures. Gold masks, skulls of jade, totems, and relics from the world wide. And in the center of the room a sort of plinth, atop which w
as a card which bore the words “CRYSTAL CHALICE, GLASTONBURY TOR, OCTOBER 1896” written in a neat hand. Behind the card, in the thin layer of dust that covered the plinth's top, a bare place was dimly visible.

  Miss Bonaventure appeared at Blank's elbow. “Dulac has made another abrupt exit, Blank. Thought you'd like to know.”

  Blank glanced around the dimly lit space and nodded. He found himself curious to paw through the collection and see what other trinkets and wonders had been found on the professor's various expeditions, but he hadn't the time to indulge the notion. Turning, he and Miss Bonaventure headed back towards the house.

  The servant still stood at the back door, eyes wide and startled.

  “You'll probably need a new lock,” Miss Bonaventure said, handing him the severed halves of the padlock. “Which way did Mr. Dulac go?”

  The servant pointed through the house to the front door.

  Blank pushed up the brim of his bowler with the silver-chased head of his cane. “Much obliged, my good man.”

  By the time Blank and Miss Bonaventure were back out on the street, Dulac was nowhere in evidence. Hardly winded from his sprint from Chelsea, he clearly had untapped reserves of stamina, and had raced away into the dark night.

  “He's probably gone back to Cheyne Walk,” Blank said, peevishly. “Shall we give pursuit and see if we can't get some answers from him?”

  “I don't know, Blank.” Miss Bonaventure pointed in the opposite direction, up Gloucester Road towards Kensington Gardens. “I suspect we might be otherwise engaged.”

  Blank turned and looked in the direction she indicated.

  There, a hundred feet or so away, stood a tall figure dressed in a shabby black suit. It had been the new moon the night before, the skies overhead dark, but in the light from the gaslit streetlamps the figure's skin appeared so white it seemed almost to glow, his eyes hidden behind smoked-glass spectacles. He was completely hairless, even lacking eyebrows, but the nails at the ends of his thin fingers seemed curious long and sharp.