Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

by Hambling, David

  “It should be possible to telegraph India—”

  “Good Lord. Don’t you realise how easy it is to pass for another man these days? I don’t say Victor is a fiction, but I doubt very much whether our Victor is the genuine article. Though he is damnably well-informed about Indian magic… but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  He was certainly getting ahead of me in his hurry to get the story out.

  “You were at the séance. You saw how dangerous that was, how the two of them play with fire? That was a damn fool thing to do and all because they want power.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Power is a dangerous thing—you can turn the tap on, but if you can’t turn it off again, then woe betide you!” He banged his empty glass down for emphasis.

  “To start at the beginning…” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, nodding down at my glass, which was still more than half-full. “Have another?”

  He brought back a brandy with another pint for me and settled himself down. Howard spoke with a sure authority about everything. He seemed very relaxed in a strange place like this, and even when talking to a stranger like me with such frankness. I expected a scholar to be a mousy, bookish sort of man, more hesitant when outside his own academic sphere. But for all that he looked like a librarian, Howard spoke like a brigadier.

  “It was my fate—I won’t say misfortune, or fortune—to come into my inheritance early. My parents left enough money for a comfortable existence without the need to earn bread with the sweat of my brow. And don’t think that I’m not grateful for that every day of my life.” He seemed concerned that I might resent his wealth. “That has given me the leisure and the resources to make a study of certain arts. I’ve made little enough progress, I can tell you. I’ve slaved over incomprehensible books, spent long nights at my workbench with queer mixtures of chemicals… and, in the morning, found I had nothing. But I’ve placed my poor offering on the great altar of Knowledge.”

  “You’ve written some important works, I gather.”

  “Hardly. A few monographs, published at my own expense. They brought me into contact with other scholars, and we corresponded. I know it sounds like a rather arid existence”—he seemed apologetic—”but it suited me well enough. Until, out of the blue, Lavinia contacted me. She insisted that I visit her and meet the Circle. Soon, I was caught up in a whole cycle of speaking engagements, social affairs, and séances. For the first time in my life, I was feted as a celebrity. It was heady stuff for a man who has lived his life in quiet seclusion, and I told them everything I knew—far more than I should have done. That was before I realised how dangerous Lavinia and Victor really were—before I heard the name Roslyn D’Onston.”

  He paused to gulp brandy and confirm that I understood what he was saying.

  “These people,” he said, “these people are not the selfless seekers after knowledge that they pretend to be. Roslyn D’Onston wants to harness the ultimate powers of darkness… I expect you know all about him?”

  Now it was up to me to play my part, to make quick deductions and bluff my way through the interview. “I know very little of him. But my major conclusions have been, firstly, that he has been deceased for some years, and secondly, that he experienced a Christian awakening and turned his back on black magic. So, while the influence of his older self may live on, along with his assumed name, I don’t see that we are dealing with the actual gentleman.”

  Howard bit his lip. “I assure you,” he said levelly, “that Roslyn D’Onston is far from dead and far from reformed. And he is brewing up a foul scheme that will be, dare I say it, injurious to your interests. I know these things from my own, first-hand experience—and that is why I am now in fear for my life. You see, I heard about what happened in the library with poor old Powell yesterday.”

  A vagrant dying of natural causes in a public library was hardly the stuff of news headlines, and the story had not been in the papers. Howard saw my questioning look.

  “One of the members of our Circle was in the library this morning, and they’re talking of nothing else. Naturally, I asked Victor and Lavinia, and they were so cryptic about it that I came right out and asked if they thought there was skulduggery involved. Victor hinted darkly and even mentioned that little trick with green ointment—the death gaze that D’Onston described so vividly in his work on the evil eye in Sicily.”

  “And that is why you are in fear for your own life,” I said.

  He nodded vigorously. “I know too much about their plans, their modus operandi. And I even suspect… but tell me, before I go further… I shan't ask who you're working with or who you report to, but can I know that you'll get word back to headquarters and steps will be taken against that pair?”

  He was putting me in a false position entirely. Like Victor, Howard had read some significance into my possessing the ring with the green star-stone, and that had been further magnified. He must have known of my presence in the library with Yang—we were such an unlikely pair that he would know us from the sketchiest description—and had obviously linked us together as agents of some occult grouping. Instead of being a debt collector and sometime clerk, I was part of a conspiracy. Given that I was working with Yang, who was a bona fide member of the Si Fan Society, he was not so far from the truth.

  “I can’t guarantee action,” I said. “That decision would be taken by the appropriate persons.”

  Howard flashed an easy smile. “Of course, of course. Though I dare say you might have a hand in action that does get taken, what?”

  I gave a modest half nod, and he launched into the next part of his address. “I did a few calculations. I dare say you did the same—Roslyn D’Onston would be eighty-three years old this year. Of course he didn’t die.” He waved the idea away as though it was an irritating fly. “As a doctor, D’Onston had endless access to medical forms, and there’s nothing easier than slipping a death certificate into the records. He could have acquired a body easily enough if he actually needed to fill a coffin.”

  “And you think he’s now operating under the name of Victor? But D’Onston’s much too old to be him.”

  “Think on,” he said, “and you’ll see another possibility. Wouldn’t you say that Lavinia is rather mannish, rather tall and masculine looking? She’s the right age. To D'Onston, flesh is simply clay that he can mould to his will. Male and female are mutable to him, like Tiresias of old.”

  He allowed the words to sink in a minute. “Now you see the diabolical genius of it. Who would ever suspect a harmless old lady who dabbles in spiritualism of being a famous black magician?”

  “It’s quite a proposition,” I said. “And what is her, or should I say his, purpose?”

  “You don’t recall the days of Jack the Ripper, I suppose.” Howard, who looked no more than thirty, had barely been born at the time, and surely his family did not discuss grisly murders at the dinner table. “It was a reign of terror like no other. Women were plucked from the streets in his grim harvest. All London was in an uproar. The Ripper slipped through the fingers of the police time after time. If he gained the power he sought”—his voice dropped to a breathless whisper—”he’d be capable of anything.”

  “You believe D’Onston is the Ripper then?”

  “The Ripper showed what a man could do if he just had the will to see the thing through.” Howard’s eyes were bright, and he breathed louder. “D’Onston’s power would multiply with his harvest. All London would be grist to that mill, all flesh living and dead, what transmutations might he not do…” He seemed excited and appalled at the same time.

  “I see.”

  Howard kept looking at me expectantly, but after a minute, when I said nothing more, he nodded, interpreting my silence as the stoicism of a military man faced with a new mission.

  “You know what to do, don’t you?” He slid a small key across the table. “There, that’s the back door key to Maycot. If you strike suddenly, you’re sure to win—physically, she’s just a weak woman. But y
ou mustn’t let her speak. One word, one look could be fatal. Now, I’ve already stayed too long. I must fly!”

  With no more ado, he drained his glass and marched off, plucking his coat from the rack and flinging it around his shoulders as he passed—an exit worthy of the West End. It left me quite overwhelmed. Howard was not at all the man I had taken him to be.

  “Evening, Harry.” It was Reg, holding a glass and a bottle of Bass. The remnant of froth on his moustache indicated this was not his first beer. He nodded at the empty chair. “Mind if I…?”

  I was grateful to see him, as he was someone who I could discuss the matters of the day with. I hoped he might help me get my muddled thoughts in order and make some sense of it all.

  “I hear you’ve been chasing around the East End,” he said, pouring his ale carefully. I have observed this eccentricity—of wanting to pour your own from the bottle—among several who have served overseas for long periods. “And Yang came to some harm in the process.”

  Arthur’s spies had been keeping tabs on us. I gave Reg a brief account of the day. He nodded at parts of it, frowned at others.

  “That sounds like the Wu brothers,” he said, when I described the three members of my inquisition. “They deal in tea and silks coming one way, cotton and gin the other—a very prosperous business, by all accounts, and a noble family, too. Their father was the Emperor’s cousin. That’s why he had to go into exile.”

  “Exile—why?”

  “Hardly germane to our present inquiry. What happened then?”

  When I got to the scarred man sticking skewers into Yang and the fight with the wrestler, he let out a low whistle.

  “That’s a turn up for the books.” Reg slapped me on the shoulder. “And you beat him man-to-man! Well, I never did… I’d heard stories, but never knew anyone who’d actually seen them. Xiongshoo Mang, the blind assassins, the death-dream-walkers! Good grief, Harry. “

  He insisted in buying me a drink and explained that the blind men were a sort of mythical Thuggee sect that Chinese used for dirty work. These night stranglers were consecrated to an idol from childhood. They built up the strength in their wrists, and their tolerance for pain, by hanging from a bar for hours every day. They always carried out their killings under cover of darkness. They moved noiselessly, navigated by touch, finding their victims by the sound of their heartbeat and the warmth radiating from them. They could strangle a man and slip away without waking his sleeping wife next to him.

  “That’s a vile way to use blind children.” I often passed the Normal School, where they taught the blind to be piano tuners.

  “They’re not blind when they start,” said Reg. “It’s an evil cult. They say no man ever faced the Xiongshoo Mang and lived. That may be an exaggeration, but still, you are a very lucky man, Harry. Or a very valiant one, I should say.”

  “Why did they need someone like him to apprehend a little fellow like Yang?”

  “Never try to figure the Chinese out, Harry,” Reg advised. “East is East…They’ve got wheels within wheels, and you’ll always end up behind them. Their lot—the Yellow Emperor’s Clan—torture Yang because his lot in the Si Fan have tortured one of their lot. Because their lot tortured one of his lot. It all comes out in the wash. These feuds go back centuries, and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop them. That’s something you have to learn. They’ve tumbled Yang now, and I don’t expect he’ll be staying here much longer if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “You didn’t tip them the wink, did you?”

  “Not me!” Reg chuckled at the idea. “I tell you, the Si Fan never forget a grudge; they just keep adding to the list. The fellow that tipped them off—he’ll be found one day, next week or next year or in ten years' time, with his tongue cut out by the Si Fan. They spy on each other and betray each other and torture each other. It will out sooner or later.”

  “Will they be after my blood?”

  Reg sipped his ale thoughtfully before shaking his head. “They respect a strong man. You’re just a hired soldier. Chinese soldiers change sides all the time depending who pays them, it’s expected. But betrayal – that’s another matter! Anyway, now he knows they’re after him, I expect Yang will be off soon enough.”

  Reg seemed well satisfied when he left. For Reg, seeing the back of Yang would be enough to settle the matter, but I was not so sure. I did not think Yang was stirring up mischief. His object was Roslyn D’Onston. Powell struck stone dead in the library was a sign that D’Onston was alive, ruthless and in possession of uncanny powers. And if there was any truth in what Howard said, D’Onston would kill again and again in pursuit of some hidden purpose. It was difficult to put this in words for Reg, and Arthur would be equally dubious. Only Yang was likely to understand.

  I was content enough when I made my way back home later that night, but my sleep was not a peaceful one.

  I woke suddenly in the early hours, a thing I rarely do. Usually, you can tell what’s woken you easily enough—a dustbin lid blown off, or fighting cats. I lay listening, but the night was completely still.

  I rolled over to look at the luminous radium dials on the alarm clock. Something was wrong with the conformation of my bedroom, which seemed to press closer on me than it should. The wall had moved somehow, or perhaps the wardrobe. I reached and switched on the bedside light.

  Towering over me like a wall of flesh was the fat Chinese wrestler. He stood with his arms folded, big and motionless as a granite pillar. His face was bruised where I had hit him that afternoon.

  At the click of the light switch, he unfolded his arms and reached for my throat. I jumped violently and woke up—really woke up this time. My room was empty. I checked under the bed and in the wardrobe and locked the door. Even then, I did not feel entirely safe. After I climbed back into bed, I kept opening my eyes at intervals to reassure myself that it had all really been a dream.

  I got to thinking again about the fight with the wrestler and what I could have done and how I would defend myself if we were to meet again. There was the ice axe on my dressing table, but that was cumbersome for a close fight. Then I recalled some knuckle-dusters, which Arthur had issued me as a contingency for a particular job. I had never used them, knuckle-dusters being dangerous things to carry or use, and they had lain neglected ever since in a bottom drawer. I fetched them out and put them over my hands. They were cold at first but soon warmed, and the weight was a comfort.

  I slept badly until the morning.

  Chapter Eight: An Interview at the Convent

  The next morning, Yang was in a charcoal-grey suit with narrow pinstripes, and apart from some stiffness in his shoulder, he looked as good as new. I know I never looked so well the day after a fight though, unlike Yang, I did not disguise the bruises on my face with powder. Iodine was as far as I ever went.

  He was not his usual energetic self though. “Yesterday,” said Yang quietly, “you rescued me from an unfortunate situation..”

  I was painfully aware how embarrassing that must be for Yang. He had suffered the supreme loss of face of being humiliated in front of an inferior and then requiring that inferior’s help. He was, in his own way, the proudest of men. The whole episode must have wounded his pride severely.

  “Yes,” I said. “I really am very sorry about that, Mr Yang.”

  Yang opened his mouth, and closed it again. Then he let out an unexpected bark of laughter. It must have been the look on my face as I apologised for saving his life that did it.

  I laughed as well, but two seconds later Yang had resumed his poker face. There might just have been the faintest lines at the corners of his mouth. “I accept your apology, Mr Stubbs,” he said at last and extended his hand.

  We shook hands. Yang no longer had that long nail on his little finger. It must have broken off somewhere in the struggle.

  “You fought well,” he said simply.

  I told him about my meeting with Howard the previous evening and how Lavinia had been unmasked as
Roslyn D’Onston—according to Howard anyhow. Arthur might not have appreciated my sharing that intelligence. On the other hand, Arthur had asked me to help Yang, and that was what I was doing.

  “This places me in a difficult position,” I said. “I need to know what action you plan to take with this person. But you understand that, whatever kind of feud your people may have with Roslyn D’Onston, the law here is still the law.”

  “In China, foreigners are not subject to Chinese law. If, for example, you were to murder someone in Shanghai, the local police could only hand you over to the British Embassy. A curious quirk of our colonial history.” Yang spoke lightly but with animation. “Of course, the moral justice of the universe is another matter. Like water, it runs in its own way regardless of human concerns.”

  “That’s as may be.”

  “Roslyn D’Onston shot a Chinese man in California over some gold,” Yang added.

  “That’s a matter for the American authorities.” It was a pompous thing to say.

  Yang shook his head. “Mr Stubbs, Roslyn D’Onston is a very powerful individual—more powerful than Powell guessed. My many efforts have not located him; he leaves ripples, but that is all. He is as elusive as water in water.” Like Jack the Ripper, I thought, who stayed invisible with all London looking for him. “If I were to confront this woman, I could prove nothing. And if she truly is D’Onston…” Yang shrugged. “The likely outcome would be my death.”

  “Why did you come here, if not for revenge?”

  “My superiors wished to make D’Onston show himself. I could have arrived quietly. I did not need to advertise myself by sending a letter, and parading in distinctive clothes and car.”

  He took another drag on his cigarette, waiting to see if comprehension would dawn.

  “They sent you as bait,” I said. “That’s a rotten thing to do.”

  Yang gave another shrug, indicating his life or death was not worthy of consideration. “There is a story about a traveller chased by a tiger to the edge of an abyss. The man took hold of a vine and started to climb down when he saw an angry dragon at the bottom of the abyss, and when he looked up, the tiger was lashing its tail above. As he hung on, a mouse started to gnaw away at the vine he was clinging to. The man was ready for death when he noticed a wild strawberry growing next to him, so he plucked it. It was the sweetest he had ever tasted.”