The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 02]
Page 6
“They says it’s the goblins.”
Kate wanted to laugh, but her chuckle died.
“No, ma’am,” said the elf, “it’s serious. Some ‘ave seen ‘em, they say, then upped and left, walkin’ away from good wages. That’s not a natural thing, ma’am, not with times as they are and honest labour ‘ard to come by.”
“But... goblins?”
“Nasty little blighters, they say. Fingernails like teeth, an’ teeth like needles. Always chewin’ and clawin’, weakenin’ things so they collapse. Usually when there’s someone underneath for to be collapsed upon. The craytors get into the machinery, gum up the works. Them big dynamos grind to a ‘alt with a din like the world crackin’ open.”
She thought about this report.
“You mean this is sabotage? Has Satterthwaite Bulge deadly rivals in the færie business? Interests set against the opening of the Gift?”
“What business is it of yours?”
The elf realised for the first time he had no idea who she was. Her relative invisibility was often an aid in her profession; many forgot she was there even as they talked to her. Now, her spell of insignificance was wearing off.
“Miss Reed is a colleague, Blenkins,” came a voice.
They had been joined by a bear. His presence reassured the elf Blenkins.
“If you say so, Sir Boris,” he allowed. “My ‘pologies, ma’am. A bloke ‘as to be careful round ‘ere.”
“A bloke always has to be careful around Miss Reed.”
She hoped that, in the gloom, Charles could not discern the fearful burning of her cheeks. When he first strolled into her life, Kate was thirteen and determined to despise the villain set upon fetching away her idol, Pamela Churchward. Father was lecturing at London University for a year and Kate found herself absorbed into the large, complicated circle of the Churchwards. The beautiful, wise Pamela was the first woman ever to encourage Kate’s ambitions. Her engagement seemed a treacherous defection, for all the bride-to-be insisted marriage would not end her independent life. Penelope, Pamela’s ten-year-old cousin, said bluntly that Kate’s complexion meant she would end up a governess or, at best, palmed off as wife to an untenured, adenoidal lecturer. Just then, as Kate was trying in vain not to cry, Pamela introduced her princely fiancé to her protégé.
Of course, Kate had fallenhorribly in love with Charles. She doubted she had uttered a coherent sentence in his presence until he was a young widower. By then, courtesy of interesting, if brief, liaisons with Mr. Frank Harris, another editor, and several others, none of whom she regretted, she was what earlier decades might have branded a fallen woman.
Now, with Pamela gone and pernicious Penelope in retreat, she knew the thirteen-year-old nestled inside her thirty-two-year-old person remained smitten with the Man From the Diogenes Club. As a grown-up, she was more sensible than to indulge such silliness. It irritated her when he pretended to think she was still a tiny girl with rope braids down to her waist and cheeks of pillar-box red. It was, she knew, only pretence. Like his late wife (whom she still missed so), Charles Beauregard was among the select company who took Katharine Reed seriously.
“Sir Boris, you do me an injustice.”
The bear-head waved from side to side.
For once, she was not the most ridiculous personage in the room.
“Still, I’m sure you intended to be a very gallant bear.”
She reached up and tickled the fur around his helm. It was painted plaster and she left white scratches. She stroked his arm, which was more convincing.
Blenkins slipped away, leaving them alone.
“There’s a catch at the back,” Charles said, muffled. “Like a diver’s helmet. If you would do me the courtesy...”
“You can’t get out of this on your own?”
“As it happens, no.”
She found the catch and flipped it. Charles placed his paws over his ears and rotated his head ninety degrees so the muzzle pointed sideways, then lifted the thing free. A definite musk escaped from the decapitated costume. Charles’s face was blacked like Mr. G.F. Elliott, the music hall act billed as “the Chocolate-Coloured Coon.” She found Elliott only marginally less unappealing than those comic turns who presented gormless, black-toothed caricatures of her own race. Charles’s make-up was to prevent white skin showing through Sir Boris’s mouth.
He whipped off a paw and scratched his chin.
“I’ve been desperate to do that for hours,” he admitted.
He used his paw-glove to wipe his face. She took pity, produced a man-size handkerchief from her cuff, and set about properly cleaning off the burnt cork. He sat on a wooden toadstool and leaned forwards so she could pay close attention to the task.
“Thank you, mama,” he teased.
She swatted him with the blacked kerchief.
“I could leave you looking like a Welsh miner.”
He shut up and let her finish. The face of Charles Beauregard emerged. Weary, to be sure, but recognisable.
“You’ve shaved your cavalry whiskers,” she observed.
His hand went to his neatly-trimmed moustache.
“A touch of the creeping greys, I suspect,” she added, wickedly.
“Good grief, Katie,” said Charles, “you’re worse than Mycroft’s brother!”
“I’m right, though, am I not?”
“There was a certain tinge of dignified white,” he admitted, shyly, “which I estimated could be eliminated by judicious barbering.”
“Considering your calling, I’m surprised every hair on your person hasn’t been bleached. It’s said to be a common side effect of stark terror.”
“So I am reliably informed.”
He undid strings at the back of his neck and shrugged the bear-suit loose, then stepped out of the top half of the costume. The cuirass, leather painted like steel, unlaced down the back to allow escape from straitjacket-like confines. Underneath, he wore a grimy shirt, with no collar. High-waisted but clownishly baggy furry britches stuck into heroic boots that completed the ensemble.
“The things you do for Queen and Country, Charles.”
He looked momentarily sheepish.
“Charles?”
“I’m at present acting on my own initiative.”
This was puzzling and most unlike Charles. But she knew what had brought him here. She had seized at once on the “news-worthy” aspect of the Gift.
“It’s the goblins, isn’t it?”
He flashed a humourless smile.
“Still sharp as ever, Kate? Yes, it’s Blenkins’s blinkin’ goblins.”
The hammering and tower-raising continued. The electric lights fizzled on again, then out. Then on, to burn steady. Charles instinctively stepped back, into a shadowed alcove, drawing Kate with him.
Bulge flapped a list of “to do” tasks at the elves. Mr. Sackham was presently at the receiving end of the brunt of Uncle Satt’s opprobrium.
“What do you know that I don’t?” she asked Charles.
“That’s a big question.”
She hit him on the arm. Quite hard.
“You deserved that.”
“Indeed I did. My apologies, Katie. Life inside a bear costume is, I’m afraid, a strain on any temperament. When the Gift opens to the public, I should not care to let a child of my acquaintance within easy reach of anyone who was forced, as the ‘show-business’ slang has it, ‘to wear a head.’ An hour of such imprisonment transforms the most patient soul into Grendel, eager for a small, helpless person upon whom to slake his wrath.”
“You have my promise that I shall write a blistering expose of this cruel practice. The cause of the afflicted ‘head-wearers’ shall become as known as, in an earlier age, was that of the children employed as human chimney-brushes or, as now, those drabs sold as ‘maiden tributes of modem Babylon.’ A committee shall be formed and strong letters written to Members of Parliament. Fairies will chain themselves to the railings. None shall be allowed to rest in the Halls of Jus
tice until the magic bears are free!”
“Now you‘re teasing me.”
“I have earned that right.”
“That you have, Katie.”
“Now this amusing diversion is at an end, I refer you back to my initial question. What do you know that I don’t?”
Charles sighed. She had sidestepped him again. She wondered if he ever regretted that she was no longer tongue-tied in his presence.
“Not much,” he admitted, “and I can’t talk about it here. If you would meet me outside in half an hour. I am acting on my own initiative and honestly welcome your views.”
“This goblin hunt?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Part only?”
“Part only.”
“I shall wait half an hour, no longer.”
“It will take that to become presentable. I can’t shamble as a demi-bear among afternoon promenaders.”
“Indeed. Panic would ensue. Men with nets would be summoned. As an obvious chimera, you would be captured and confined to the conveniently nearby London Zoo. Destined to be stuffed and presented to the Natural History Museum.”
“I’m so glad you understand.”
He kissed her forehead, which reddened her again. She was grateful her blushes wouldn’t show up under the electric lamps.
* * * *
iv: “a pale green ribbon”
A full forty-five minutes later, Kate was still waiting in the park. On this pleasant afternoon, many freed from places of employment were not yet disposed to return to their homes. A gathering of shopgirls chirruped, competing for the attention of a smooth-faced youth who sported a cricket cap and a racy striped jacket. Evidently quite a wit, his flow of comments on the peculiarities of passersby kept his pretty flock in fits.
“With her colourin’ and mouth,” drawled the champion lad, “it’s a wonder she ain’t forever bein’ mistook for a pillar box.”
Much hilarity among the filles des estaminets.
“Oh Max, you are so wicked... you shouldn’t ought to say such things...”
Kate supposed she was redder than usual. The condition came upon her when amused, embarrassed, or—as in this case—annoyed.
“I ‘magine she’s waitin’ to be emptied.”
“The postman’s running late today,” ventured the boldest of the girls.
“Bad show, what. To leave such a pert post-box unattended.”
Charles emerged from the Gift at last, more typically clothed. Most would take him for a clubman fresh from a day’s idleness and up for an evening’s foolery.
As he approached, the girls’ attention was removed entirely from Max. Their eyes followed Charles’s saunter. He did such a fine job of pretending not to notice that only Kate was not fooled.
“He must have a letter thatdesperately needs postin’,” said the amusing youth.
“If you will excuse me,” said Charles, raising a finger.
He walked over to the group, who fluttered and gathered around Merry Max. Charles took a firm grip on the youth’s ear and dragged him to Kate. The cap fell off, revealing that his cultivated forelock was a lonely survivor on an otherwise hairless scalp.
“This fellow has something to say to you, Kate.”
“Sorry,” came the strangled bleat, “no ‘ffence meant.”
Now someone was redder than she. Max’s pate was practically vermilion.
“None taken.”
Charles let Max go and he fell over. When he sat up again, his congregation was flown, seeking another hero. He snatched up his cap and slunk off.
“I suppose you expect me to be grateful for your protection, Sir Boris?”
Charles shrugged. “After a day in the bear head, I had to thump someone. Max happened to be convenient. He was making ‘short’ jokes about Jack Stump earlier.”
“I believe you.”
He looked at her, and she was thirteen again. Then she was an annoyed grown-up woman.
“No, really. I do.”
Charles glanced back at the Gift.
“So, Mr. Beauregard, what’s the story? Why take an interest in Uncle Satt?”
“Bulge is incidental. The mermaid on the front of the ship. Oh, he’s the one who’s made the fortune. But he’s not the treasure of the Treasury. That’s the other fellow, the mysterious cove...”
“B. Loved?”
Charles tapped her forehead. “Spot on. The artist.”
“What does the B stand for?”
“David.”
“Beloved. From the Hebrew.”
“Indeed. Davey Harvill, as was. B. Loved, as is.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“Young Davey is a singular fellow. We met eight years ago, in Herefordshire. He had an unusual experience. The sort of unusual that comes under my purview.”
It was fairly openly acknowledged that the Diogenes Club was a clearinghouse for the British Secret Service. Less known was its occult remit. While the Society for Psychical Research could reliably gather data on cold spots or fraudulent mediums, they were hardly equipped to cope with supernatural occurrences which constituted a threat to the natural order of things. If a spook clanked chains or formed faces in the muslin, a run-of-the-mill ghost-finder was more than qualified to provide reassurance; if it could hurt you, then the Ruling Cabal sent Charles Beauregard.
“Davey was lost in the woods and found much older than he should be. I don’t mean aged by terrible experience, your ‘side effects of stark terror.’ He disappeared a child of nine and returned a full-grown man, as if twenty years had passed over a weekend.”
“You established there was no imposture?”
“To my satisfaction.”
Kate thought, tapping her teeth with a knuckle. “But not to everyone’s?”
Charles spread his hands. “The lad’s mother could never accept him.”
She had a pang of sympathy for this boy she had never met.
“What happened after he was returned?”
“Interesting choice of words. ‘Was returned?’ Suggests an agency over which he had no control. Might he not haveescaped? Davey was taken in by his older sister, Sarah Riddle. Maeve Harvill, Davey’s other sister, also went into the woods. She came out like her normal self and was embraced by the mother. Sadly, Mrs. Harvill died some time afterwards. I have questions about that, but we can get to them later. Sarah, herself the mother of a young son, became sole parent to both her siblings. By then, Davey was drawing.”
“The færie pictures?”
“They poured from his pencils,” said Charles. “He does it all with pencils, you know. Not charcoal. The pictures became more intense, more captivating. You’ve seen them?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Quite. That’s down to Evelyn Weddle, the Vicar of Eye. He took an interest, and brought Davey’s pictures to the attention of a Glamorgan printer.”
“Satterthwaite Bulge?”
“Indeed. Bulge, quite against his nature, was captivated. The pictures have strange effects, as the whole world now knows. Bulge put together the first number of his Treasury. It made his name.”
“Who writes the copy?”
“At first, Weddle. He’s the sort of the poet, alas, who rhymes ‘pixie’ with ‘tipsy’ and ‘færie’ with ‘hurry.’ Don’t you hate that diphthong, by the way? It’s one step away from an umlaut. What’s wrong with f-a-i-r-y, I’d like to know? The vicar was so flattered to see his verses immortalised by type-setting that he cared not that his name wasn’t appended. He fell by the wayside early on. Now, Bulge has many scribbling elves—though he oversees them all, and contrives to imprint his own concerns upon the work. All that business about washing your hands, respecting princes, and punishing servants. Leslie Sackham, whom you saw dancing attendance, is currently principle quill-pushing elf. They are interchangeable and rarely last more than a few months, but there’s only one B. Loved.”
“Is this golden-egg-laying goose chained to an easel?”
She thought of the illustrations, wondering if she would see them differently now she had some idea about their creator. They had always seemed portals into another, private world.