Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  Actually, while we’re on the topic of Lilah’s ideas, the darkie disguise was one of hers as well. I know I must have looked a rare old sight, but even so I don’t think anyone ever recognised me. No, you did, I suppose – eventually – but no one else did, not even Lucy or Rosamund. We went out quite a bit, in fact – Lilah liked the occasional London jaunt, and that’s why she bought the flat above Headley’s shop as a base for our adventures in the centre of town. That’s where the togging-up went on, so I could then cut my dash as the Sultan, you see. Didn’t do the make-up, though – that was very much Lilah’s side of ship. I never worked out what she used on me – damned effective, though, whatever it was – once she’d slapped the stuff on, I seemed a wholly different chap. I wasn’t just that my skin was darker, but it gleamed as well, and the whole structure of my face seemed changed. Very odd. I used to look in a mirror and feel quite frightened of myself. Whenever I asked Lilah she’d just smile and look away, and if I pressed her she’d turn all Mystic East on me. ‘Do not lift the veil,’ you know, all that Arabian Nights sort of stuff. Actually, Jack, for a while I almost wondered if the make-up wasn’t blood – it was a liquid, you see, quite red and sticky, and it had the same sort of smell, like an underdone steak. Of course it wasn’t blood at all, but you can tell how similar it looked from Lucy’s response when she saw the stuff all streaked across my face. Hell of a business, that was. Can you imagine? There I am, innocently indulging in a spot of adultery, and I glance out of the window and there’s my ward looking up at me from the pavement outside. Pretty hairy, eh? Fortunately, Lilah’s on the mark. She smears my face with the cloth, and I give Lucy one further horrified glance, and then I’m hoofing it up the stairs as fast as I can. I wait on the landing while Lucy and some doltish constable are let into the flat, and Lucy starts yelling murder and looking for my corpse. Well, said corpse is tickled pretty pink by this – you know me, Jack, a sportsman through and through, and besides I’m longing to see Lucy again, so I do a bloody risky thing. I sneak back down the stairs; I wait out on the street; then I saunter back up the stairs again and stroll into the flat. And the damned thing is, even though Lilah had only smeared the make-up on, Lucy can’t tell who I am! In fact, she seems positively revolted by me!

  Bloody amusing! And actually, even though she didn’t recognise me at the time, it was splendid seeing the dear girl again. You know she’s had a baby? Or maybe you don’t, in which case I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Oh, well – too late now. But anyway, the point about this offspring is that Rosa blames Lucy’s lover for it, and so Lucy hates Rosa, and so the two of them refuse to see each other and Lucy never comes to visit me. Add to that all the time I’ve spent with Lilah and you’ll see why I was glad to see her face again, because we’ve been virtual strangers for almost a year. I can’t deny I’ve sometimes felt pretty rotten about it. I mean, hang it all, Lucy is my ward, and when you think about poor Arthur and all she’s been through since his death, and her tender years and all that… well – I felt guilty, as I said. That was why I went to the Lyceum, you see. I couldn’t miss her opening night. Stupid of me, really – especially going there on the second night as well. Talk about tempting fate – or rather, talk about tempting you, Jack – you and your mighty calculating brain, honed by years of puzzles and long-division sums. I suppose I must have been pretty easy meat. Ah, well – it’s an ill wind that has no silver lining, or whatever the saying is. You know what I mean. I’ve learnt my lesson, Jack – I can see now what a total and utter fathead I’ve been. I can promise you this, though – there’ll be no more visits to Lilah’s for a while.

  And that’s a gentleman speaking, giving you his word. Dear Rosamund – what a lovely, sweet and forgiving thing she is, and damn it, old man, what a lucky fellow I am, what with the warmth of the family hearth and all that. How could I ever have put it at risk? How could I ever have been such an ass? How could I ever have caused my dear Rosa such pain? Well, thank God for die straight and narrow, I say, and long may I continue on it! I can’t say I regret Lilah, Jack – she was something too wonderful and different for that – but I have had my fill, I realise now.

  Come and visit me, Jack. Call in on my office. It’s damned impressive, and has the largest desk in the history of the world. But then, considering what’s being run from it, I suppose, a largeish desk is pretty much required. But no, shouldn’t boast – the point is that I’m pretty keen to see you, old man. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I would drive over myself right now, but I’m still a bit weak, apparently, and though I’m allowed to work at my desk – (my huge desk!) – I’m not allowed to travel. Damn shame, but there it is.

  All the best, old man. And again, from Rosa and myself – many thanks.

  Until very soon, old fellow,

  Your devoted friend,

  GEORGE.

  Dr Eliot’s Diary.

  7 May. – A hard week, with very little time for either research or thought. Able to work in my laboratory this afternoon, though, and then later read through Kleinelanghorst on cancerous cells. Interesting arguments, but where is his evidence? The same problem I have with my own theories – lack of consistent experiential proof. I seem to be going nowhere. I wish I had samples of the Kalikshutran blood. Then at least I would have something to work on. But as it is, I am hopelessly lost.

  Better luck with the Rotherhithe affair, though even that is not entirely solved, and there are aspects of the mystery which still concern me. But at least George seems to have learned his lesson; I have emphasised to him that he should keep away from Lilah – and if he can only stick to his word and not go back to her, then any future danger should be minimised. He had written to me earlier in the week, and seemed remarkably recovered from all his experiences. It is appalling, though, to think he is a Minister – the more conceited he grows, the more stupidly he seems to behave – the same George Mowberley, then. And yet… not altogether. For when I arrived at Grosvenor Street to visit him last night, I found that he was still, as he had claimed to be, exceedingly weak; indeed, so weak that I am astonished he has been attending to his work at all, for at Cambridge he would go to bed at the slightest excuse, and yet now he is slaving like some driven thing.

  ‘It is his Bill’, said Lady Mowberley in a private aside. ‘He believes that it will make his career, and yet if it kills him what happens to his prospects then?’ She asked me to have a word with George; I willingly obliged. But all my arguments were laughed away; George insisted there was nothing the matter with him, and when I continued to press the issue he challenged me to test his health and identify anything wrong with him. I did so, and could find nothing obvious, I admit. Yet how to explain his weakness, which remains so evident? On a sudden intuition, I checked him for any sign of scarring. The only scratch I could find was down the side of his neck, but George claimed it was a shaving cut and I see no reason to dispute his assertion. I could therefore only advise him, as a doctor, not to work too hard – at which he laughed, as well he might have done, for he is not used to hearing such advice from me.

  When Lady Mowberley retired, George talked to me more about Lilah. His passion for her was evident, yet to my relief he did seem wedded to his resolution not to see her again. Much general breast-beating, and praise of his wife. I asked him how his work was progressing without Lilah’s help. He shrugged and seemed offended, then muttered that I had taken his letter too literally – he was not really dependent on her presence by his side. He laughed rather forcedly. Then, when I asked him whether Lilah might not be from a region on the Indian frontier, he laughed a second time and spluttered most indignantly. ‘Why the devil should she be?’ he asked.

  I explained; I pressed him on the matter of Kalikshutra. I asked him, for instance, whose idea it had been to name him as the Rajah of that kingdom on the Lyceum register – his own, or Lilah’s? George frowned and thought. ‘My own,’ he muttered at length. ‘Yes, definitely, my own, my own, my own.’ This phrase repeated with increasing asser
tiveness. ‘You see, Jack,’ he added, as though worried that I was still not convinced, ‘Kalikshutra is a kingdom covered by my Bill. I have been busy deciding what its status should be. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that its name was on my mind. Don’t you think?’ He glanced up at me; I made no reply. ‘And also,’ he said hurriedly, ‘there were those jewels, the ones I bought from Lilah – you remember them? Well, they were from Kalikshutra too.’

  I smiled faintly at this. George leaned forward. ‘What the deuce are you implying, Jack?’

  I shrugged. I didn’t answer him at first. Instead, I asked him what he was proposing for Kalikshutra in his Bill.

  He looked indignant. ‘You know I can’t tell you that’

  ‘Very well,’ I replied, ‘then I apologise. But all the same, George, I was just wondering… the work you’ve been doing on Kalikshutra – did Lilah by any chance help you with that?’

  George stared at me in silence for a second or two; then he shook his head and laughed again. ‘For God’s sake, Jack, I’ve told you, she’s a woman – she doesn’t actually understand politics.’ He boomed uproariously at the very idea, and the conversation gradually drifted to other matters. Occasionally, though, I observed a faint frown on his brow, which I chose to interpret as a hopeful sign; if George had really never considered what I had suggested to him, then it was high time that he did. I hope that it will genuinely encourage him to stay away from this mysterious Lilah; I write that not just out of concern for Lady Mowberley’s wounded feelings, but for George himself. I am not certain what it is exactly that I dread; there are many strands here, and perhaps I am afraid to see what pattern they may form. I have sometimes thought of Huree: he would have an answer – he would identify the pattern for me. But of course he would be wrong; and I can’t waste my time with impossibilities. There is only one thing of which I am certain: this mystery is yet to be fathomed to its depths.

  All this I was thinking in my cab last night, journeying back from the Mowberleys. Oddly enough, even as I was pondering the case I was struck by a sense I have had before that someone – or something – was watching me. Of course, I know that such a feeling is invariably irrational but nevertheless, so overpowering did it grow last night, that I leant out from the window and scanned the street behind me. I could make out nothing; it was dark by now, and even the gas lights were shrouded in curls of purple mist, while the street itself was full of traffic. I laughed at myself for being an idiot, and sat back again inside the cab. Nevertheless, when we reached the Whitechapel Road I paid off the hansom and proceeded to Surgeon’s Court on foot. The noise of traffic soon died away; before the turning to Hanbury Street, I ducked inside a tenement door and waited to see who might follow me. No one came; I was preparing to return to the street when suddenly I heard the splashing of hooves and the slicing of wheels through die Whitechapel mud. A hansom passed me; as it did so, a curtain was drawn back and I saw a face at the cab window, staring at me. A second, and it was gone; but I had recognised it all die same. It was the face I observed before by Bishopsgate – the woman’s, blonde-haired, exceedingly pale. I must assume, therefore, that my intuition had been correct, and that she had indeed been following me. I do not know why.

  One suggestive point of correspondence, though. In Lilah too, and in die negress seen by Mary Kelly – a loveliness which is reported to chill the blood.

  11 p.m. – A visit from George. Entirely unexpected; it was late, and George himself was still looking very weak. He came straight to the point. He wanted to visit Lilah, to ask her if she was indeed from Kalikshutra. It seems, then, that my suggestions have indeed been bearing fruit. Disturbed, though, that George should even contemplate returning to Rotherhithe. I repeated all my warnings, then made him sit down and write a letter breaking off his relationship with Lilah for good. I told him to leave it with me – that I would see it posted. He left around midnight, with many words of thanks.

  15 May. – My date with Lord Ruthven. A very remarkable evening, which seems to promise unparalleled opportunities for research. I was late leaving – a lengthy surgery – and it was not until nine that I finally arrived. Lord Ruthven’s home is very splendid but not, I think, much lived in, for the furnishings seemed somewhat sepulchral for a man of his undoubted taste. I asked him if I was correct; he acknowledged that I was, explaining that he did not much care for the English cold. He spoke enthusiastically of Greece. And yet for a lover of sunnier climes he seems remarkably indifferent to the darkness of his home, for many of the rooms were lit by single candles, and even in the dining room the illumination was only fitful. Yet there were enough candles for me to see that, in this room at least, Lord Ruthven had spared no effort or expense, for it was magnificently decorated and the table itself was groaning with food.

  ‘Please help yourself,’ said my host, with a wave of his hand. ‘I don’t have the patience for anything formal,’ I did as he instructed, while a servant girl of astonishing prettiness served us both wine. I am not an expert on such matters, but I could tell at once that it was very good, and when I asked Lord Ruthven, he smiled and agreed that it was the best. ‘I have an agent in Paris,’ he murmured. ‘He sends me only the very finest vintages.’

  I observed, however, that he did not drink much himself; nor, though his plate was full, did he really eat. Yet this did nothing to inhibit my own pleasure in the evening, for Lord Ruthven’s powers of conversation were very great, and I cannot remember a more fascinating or witty host; certainly, not one so young and yet so brilliant Indeed, there seemed something almost unearthly about his attractiveness, and listening to the magical tones of his voice, staring at his beauty lit gold by the flames, I felt that same shiver of uncertainty he had induced in me before – in the theatre, and standing on Lucy’s stairs. Almost without realising it, I began to resist the pleasure that his conversation was giving me, and I was even careful not to drink too much of his wine, as though afraid that it might be seducing me. I began to ask myself what such a seduction might mean: what power Lord Ruthven might choose to exert if I fell; of what enchantments he might be capable.

  And so I grew increasingly restive, and wondered all the more what his purpose had been in inviting me. At length, glancing at a clock and seeing how late it had grown, I asked him to explain his interest in my article, for my curiosity I told him could no longer be restrained. Lord Ruthven smiled. ‘You are perfectly correct to be curious,’ he said. ‘But first we must wait for Haidée,’

  ‘Haidée?’ I asked.

  He smiled again, but didn’t answer me. Instead, he turned to the maid and ordered her to tell Lady Ruthven that Dr Eliot was in attendance in the dining room. The maid went; we sat in silence. I had assumed that we were waiting for Lord Ruthven’s wife; but when Haidée at length came into the room, I saw that she was remarkably old, tiny and stooped, and very pale. She had clearly once been beautiful, though, and her eyes – which were very wide – were still as luminous and bright as Lord Ruthven’s own. But they did not seem as cold; nor did Haidée, though her affinity to him was obvious, fill me with the same strange feelings of uneasiness and fear. She kissed my hand, then went to her chair, sitting there like a wax-work; yet for all her stillness, I found her presence a comforting one.

  Lord Ruthven leaned forward and began to talk to me about my paper. He had mastered the principles well and seemed – which is more than can be said for my colleagues – to be enthused by them. In particular, he was intrigued by my theory of sanguigens, and the opportunities for classification presented by the apparent presence of antigenic substances in red blood cells. He asked me to explain the potential I saw in this discovery for transfusions; I did so, and when I mentioned the need to use compatible blood types he seemed to grow visibly tense. ‘You mean,’ he asked in a low, urgent voice, ‘that the correct sanguigen, extracted from a donor, might combine with that of another man? That is what is required? The correct type of blood?’

  I replied that my research was still in its
infancy, but Lord Ruthven waved his hand impatiently at this. ‘I quite understand your professional reluctance to speak in terms of certainties,’ he told me, ‘but let us just take for granted that we are discussing probabilities. A probability, after all, is better than nothing at all,’ He leaned forward again, his stare unblinking, his pale hand resting on my own. ‘I need to know this, Dr Eliot,’ he said at last. He swallowed. ‘If we could find the correct “sanguigen”, the correct… “blood group” – and if we combined it with my own blood, then would you expect them to be compatible?’