Sensation

by Thea Devine

  His first meeting with Wyland was indelibly impressed in Kyger's memory. Wyland was nothing like he'd imagined—and everything that the quintessential bred-in-the-bone aristocratic Englishman was supposed to be.

  And Wyland was worried. The outcry over Anthony Venable's death was almost fanatical in its intensity, and it was growing every day instead of diminishing with time. It had already been two weeks since it had happened.

  -"They want answers, and I don't mind telling you, there are no answers. Not the press. Not the general public. Nothing. The man was found alone in his house, dead, after apparently spending the night—or nights—at Bullhead Manor, No one has pried that out yet, because no one would swear to it. There's some kind

  of code of honor among those who patronize the—establishment.

  And someone like Venable.. . Well, no one will talk to anyone

  official, you can be sure of that. But that is the first place you

  must start.

  "This is the point: that man had a grip on the sou! of the coun­try and it won't let go, even in death. We need this to die down. Quickly. And all our efforts to contain it have only exacerbated the problem.

  "So we need someone unattached and unencumbered who can move about more freely than a government agent or a Scotland Yard investigator; in other words, someone not known in the usual circles to infiltrate and investigate certain aspects of Tony Venable's life to find the thing that will push this death out of the

  public consciousness so we can bury the bastard for once and for all,

  "Someone like you, Mr. Galliard."

  Someone like him, a well-heeled itinerant second son of a thieving diamond miner, who had nothing to lose and nothing to gain by sifting through the detritus of Anthony Venable's life to find anything that would make his loyal public despise him. That, in sum, was what Wyland was really saying in his circumspect way. Find the idol's feet of clay and chop them out from under his memory.

  Simple.

  And the first thing was to spend a few nights in lubricious splendor at the Bullhead and try to root out some proof Venable had even been there. That alone might make a difference in the public perception of him, but it seemed so unlikely that a man like Venable would have been so careless, or so utterly indifferent to his public image and the expectations of those who revered him. Or would he?

  But in the end, Kyger discovered nothing at the Bullhead ex­cept an unexpected appetite for sex that diminished rapidly after the third day, and an edible virgin who had vanished into his dreams.

  Thank you, Lujan.

  "So there it is." He was seated in Wyland's office, giving his

  report, except there wasn't much to report. "No one admits to seeing Venable anytime anywhere at Bullhead that I could dis­cover. Ever."

  Wyland steepled his fingers. "And yet—and yet, our best in­formation is that he was there. Well, my boy, it needs more inves­tigation. Witnesses can be reticent with strangers. They can tell you things without telling you things. They can seem to be telling you the truth while they are actually leading you astray. I under­stand you are, as a novice in the game, feeling your way into Venable's life and circle. Just keep in mind, this death is a case like no other. The reverence for him grows, it's nearly of religious proportions already, and they'll be venerating him like a saint be­fore you can blink an eye. So find the thing that will stop it, Galliard. Anything that will stop it."

  Anything that would smear and sully Venable and diminish the zeal of those who would make him a martyr. Anything that would vilify him, slander him, and bring him down to the ground, like the idols of old.

  That was the mandate, nothing more, nothing less.

  And if there was another side to the story? He didn't care.

  The money was too good. The mystery was too intriguing. And the memory of the edible virgin was seared in his soul. Definitely the man for the mission.

  Zabel was suspicious. Angilee hadn't said a word about Wroth which was highly unusual, and she was too quiet as she drank her tea, ate her breakfast, and sat wrapped in thought.

  "Well, "he said finally.

  Angilee looked up. "Did you say something?"

  This was very unlike Angilee. Her silence was unnerving. Her calm demeanor raised Zabel's hackles. Something was up, he could feel it in his bones. "I just wanted to say—we'll be having luncheon with the Vandermarks this afternoon, and then tomor­row evening, we will pay our respects at a memorial gathering for Anthony Venable."

  "Really? We're not lunching with Wroth today?"

  "We'll see him at the memorial. Everyone will be there." '

  "And just why are we attending a service for a man we didn't know?"

  "It's the right thing to do," Zabel said.

  "In other words, Wroth will be there."

  "And if he is?"

  "My sentiments haven't changed."

  "Nor have mine," Zabel said sharply, "There will be no fur­ther discussion. Wroth will obtain the license, and the marriage will take place as planned."

  Angilee slanted a shimmering look at him, and Zabel immedi­ately became even more wary.

  "Well," Angilee murmured, "here I am, shelved, so much mer­chandise to be disposed of as my owner sees fit."

  Zabel fidgeted. Disaster was coming, he felt it in his bones. Angiiee took another sip of her tea and went back to staring out the window.

  He couldn't stand it. "My dear girl... I want only the best for you."

  Angilee turned her head to look at him. "You want what is easiest for you. Somehow, sometime, you made this arrangement. When or how I cannot determine, but you are obdurate about proceeding with it. Fine. You have sold me as a commodity, in perfect condition. Fine. So I ask you, dear father—"

  She paused for effect, and Zabel felt a cold chill go down his spine.

  "What if the merchandise is not perfect?"

  He absorbed those words slowly, taking them in like pieces of nougat candy, to be chewed over and swallowed one by one, and then finding what had been a delicious confection had turned sour and clogged his throat.

  "I'm sorry, daughter. I'm certain I misunderstood what you said."

  "You didn't," Angilee said. "But I'll repeat what I said, slowly. I said, what... if... the merchandise is no longer .. . perfect?"

  He was having a heart attack, he was certain of it; every atom of his body constricted, his heart stopped, his breathing height­ened as if he had been running, and the details of the previous night flashed before his eyes—the argument, his ultimatum, his leaving her, the guards, the certainty she would come to her senses...

  And instead—

  Instead—

  HOW???

  He grabbed his chest. She couldn't mean what he thought she meant. She couldn't. There was no way she could have gotten out of the room and away from the hotel.

  So if she meant what he thought she meant, it had to have been one of the hired guards taking advantage of her, of her in­nocence, of her anger, and her determination to spite him.

  But he couldn't believe it. He wouldn't.

  He took in enough breath to bark, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN?'

  Angilee smiled a knowing, triumphant little smile that he wanted to rip from her firm perfect lips—his daughter.—and his heart took a hard, heart-stopping dive to his feet.

  She meant what he thought she meant. Goddamn her, god­damn her—he had no doubt she'd known exactly what she was goddamned doing . .. just to spite him, just to keep him from get­ting what he wanted for a change ... and he didn't want to hear what she'd done, but he needed to hear it from her own lips.

  And Angilee was glad to oblige. She waited, watching him, ex­amining every emotion as he absorbed and comprehended what she said, what she meant, and then she dropped the leaded words one by one: "I mean, Father dear, that the thorns of your pure and precious Southern rose have been stripped away. I am no longer as I was."

  Her tone was jubilant, victorious. She thought she'd won.

  He
stopped breathing again. ... no longer as I was... He would never breathe again until he killed the blackguard who had taken her innocence.

  "WHO?"

  Angilee set down her teacup and smiled. "A faceless, nameless man, Father dear, to whom I am forever grateful for giving me back my freedom."

  But he wasn't faceless—she had only to close her eyes to see his impassive face hovering over hers, asking those too probing questions, holding himself back, giving her the control, the deci­sion, and making the moment more meaningful than it had needed to be.

  Not faceless. And never to be forgotten either.

  This was the end of it, she thought giddily. There was nothing her father could do about this, and surely Wroth would terminate the engagement, things would come back to normal, and she could finally start enjoying this sojourn to England.

  Surely .. . ? She looked at Zabel's face and felt a fulminating moment of terror. His expression had gone rock hard, his eyes glittery as ice, and he was looking at her as if she were a stranger, as if he had no more feeling for her than a stone.

  "So . .. you've played your little trick, my girl, and got your­self pierced, pricked and pummeled, God knows where and with whom, and you thought you'd get around me. Well, let me dis­abuse you of that notion right now. It was all for nothing, your little insurrection. Nothing will change. I'll see to that. There are ways and means to get around it, but you never thought of that. You never thought your dense old father knew about things like that. All you cared about was disobeying my wishes.

  "Well, so you did it. And it's your loss, my girl. You'll never be able to get it back, but that's no skin off my hide. The marriage will go forward, just as we planned, only now I will make certain that you are contained and controlled and under my thumb until it does."

  Angilee's stomach lurched. This wasn't quite the scenario she'd imagined; it was a disaster, and he didn't care, and she'd suffered all that pain and humiliation for nothing. Oh, God, dear God...

  And Zabel wasn't done with her either. He was looking at her speculatively, as one would eye a bug, almost as if he were rumi­nating on a further punishment for this disruptive and disrespect­ful insubordination.

  And found it.

  He smiled, unpleasantly, Angilee thought, horrified. And his

  words made her skin crawl. ,

  "From this moment forward, you will have no more money at your disposal. You will never leave this room but that you are in my company, or Wroth's. And when I must attend to business, I'm afraid, my dear girl, that I'm going to have to chain you to the bed and lock you in your room."

  She was so stunned, she shrieked, "WHAT?"

  "You will be chained up. Nothing onerous, my dear. I wouldn't want to damage the ,.. uh—merchandise. Just a cuff around your wrist, attached to something you can't wriggle out of. I'll provide you with everything you need in the event I must see to business out of the hotel, and it won't be that uncomfortable. And at night, well, I'll figure that out."

  She flew at him with her fists pummeling him. "Are you crazy? Why? Why? I'm your daughter, for God's sake."

  Zabel held her off, feeling smug and in control for the first time in years. "No, you're not. You're chattel, my dear. Inanimate, in­human, without feelings to consider, and mine to dispose of as I will."

  "Father—?"

  "The thing is done," Zabel said. He picked up the call indica­tor. "We'll cancel that luncheon. I've lost my appetite anyway, and so it will be much more profitable to take care of the arrange­ments to contain you here. And I must think about tomorrow night since you've so high-handedly destroyed the trust between us. It will put a crimp in my plans for the moment, but in the end, it will be for the best. And it may very well turn out that you won't leave this room until the very day of your wedding ..."

  Tony Venable was everywhere. Storefronts festooned with mourning and his black framed photograph; letters to and stories in the newspapers; random citizens on street corners demanding answers to the cause of his blasphemous death; posters on tele­graph poles hawking rewards; church services devoted to eulogiz­ing him, and mourning and grief everywhere still, after weeks of unrelenting demands for his murderer to hang.

  What was it about this man? Kyger mingled with the crowds, listening, observing, asking questions.

  "God, he was so ... magnetic."

  "He listened."

  "He wanted to help us all."

  "He was going to make the decisions so we wouldn't have to."

  "He knew what was best for the country, for certain."

  "He was as good as God ..."

  "He ... He ... perfect, he was for the little people. .. He was one of us ... He was going to rein them in ... make the country benevolent for everyone ..."

  "Did you ever hear him speak?"

  "He was mesmerizing. You couldn't not listen to him ..."

  "His ideas were phenomenal, and included everyone—"

  And more ...

  "The son of a bitch wanted to take over the country." "Did any of you really listen to what he was saying? He was a damned demagogue."

  "No, no—you're wrong—get him away... Tony Venable wasn't like that—" The merest dissent roused the crowd to a fever pitch. They ran the heretic down, pummeled him, kicked him, left him writhing in pain. Refused to hear anything but their own version of what Tony Venable was to them and could have been to the world.

  It was a fascinating thing to watch, terrifying to be in the midst of such frenetic devotion to just such a man. Tony Venable, even in death, was that powerful.

  And the speculation over the murder was ongoing and con­stant,

  "Who—?" "Why—?" "Did you hear ... ?" "I heard..."

  "... new information..."

  "... from a friend of someone high up at Scotland Yard ..." "—found with a weapon in his hands ..." "No, found with—the death mark ..." "...the sign..." "—the sign.

  Whispers about the sign .. . barely audible—the sign ... The sign, the death mark. Found with the death mark ... the sign, carved in his chest, ..

  Palpable fear .,. some of them knew about the sign.

  What sign? What was the sign?

  Shhhh ... don't breathe a word of it. Don't. They wanted to stop him; they wanted to kill whoever got in their way. He was on his way to overstepping their influence, their control.

  They found him with the sign ...

  . .. it was a number ... a slash ...a fish hook ., . check mark . . . the death mark ... Carved in his chest... You don't talk about the sign—everybody knows, nobody talks .. .

  Somebody talked, breathing it in Kyger's ear as he hunkered behind him, hidden in the threshold of a shop on a worn little street back behind all the expensive shops where the gentry spent their money. Shhhh ... The sibilant sound was barely audible in his ear because his informant could be murdered just for knowing that much.

  What, what did he know? He knew the one thing Kyger's money would buy—lots of money, the only reason he'd risk his life and reveal what was always simmering under the skin .. . the sign ...

  Shhhh ... sacred seven ... shhhhhh—he could die and a thou­sand pounds wouldn't save him—shhhhhhh—he never said the words ... or God couldn't save him .. .

  A hard shove at Kyger's back—and Kyger pitched forward onto his knees—a kick to his ribs—seven blows ... did he hear it, feel it, count it—did he imagine it—had he heard it someplace be­fore . .. ?

  . . . he'd never know. He descended into a fog of semi-consciousness before his informant was even gone ...

  There was to be a private memorial for Anthony Venable the next night. This was something the public was not to be privy to or the sanctuary where the service was to be held would have been stormed by thousands.

  Only those of a certain level of influence had been invited to attend.

  Wyland had got all the particulars and everything Kyger needed for legitimate entree. The invitation was waiting at his rooms in Cauldwell Gardens, which he had taken immediately a
fter leaving Waybury House that first night of his return, and be­fore his initial contact with Wyland.

  They were serviceable enough rooms in a part of Town that was not too pricey and all he needed for the moment. He had a bedroom, a sitting room, a bath, and the wherewithal to make a pot of tea, toast some bread, or heat a tin of soup. It was enough.

  The invitation, which he'd propped up against the mirror on his dresser, was engraved on thick vellum:

  Join us in a solemn memorial in remembrance of Anthony Venable, who passed from this life so tragi­cally on ... at the Sacred Sanctuary, 7 p.m.

  Seven. And Sacred.

  All mentioned within the invitation to the event: The Tony Venable Event.

  He stared at the name. Venable. Immediately this jumped out at him: Venable's name was composed of seven letters ...

  . . . seven again ,.. no—sacred seven. Surrounded by sevens.

  Where had he heard seven before this?

  And the death mark. What was the death mark? The number seven? No, that was too simple. Was it that simple? Did it herald a coming death, or was it a symbol of the one who committed the murder?

  Seven.

  He began dressing for the event. Too many sevens all in the course of a day. Where had he heard seven?

  You'll want the invitation, Wyland wrote in his instructions, and you'll want to watch and see if there's any other kind of sign or identification required. I shouldn't think so. But it's best to be wary and observant.

  Sign ... he was surrounded by signs and sevens. He took a hansom cab to the Sanctuary, which was an ornate edifice attached to an unobtrusive church just over the bridge on the outskirts of Town. The amazing thing was, there wasn't a crush of carriages or anything overt to indicate there was any­thing momentous going on behind those ornate brass doors.

  Rather, there was a cadre of police personnel stationed several blocks away, in all directions, halting traffic, vetting the guests, and sending each carriage forward to the Sanctuary one at a time, so as not to call any attention to the building.

  The backup wasn't noticeable: the arrival hour had to have been staggered. Just that much attention to the small details was impressive.