by David Ashton
It had taken him a time to accustom his Pittsburgh taste buds to liquor other than bourbon, but malt whisky slid down a subtle treat and had a kick like a mule.
By God he needed the drink. It was nerve-shredding when Sophia went off on these excursions into a shipwrecked sea of souls; to this day Magnus did not know whether she was just a brilliant operator who could deliver generalities, then hone them as reaction from the audience dictated, or had some genuine connection to the supernatural.
But he had recognised her talent for connecting with people and the curious enchantment she could lay upon them. Magnus had poured all his energy into promoting that talent and they had become successful in an amazingly short time.
All due to his efforts.
It is thus we take credit for filling our own emptiness with another’s ability.
What had never occurred to Magnus, however, was the fact that since their meeting in San Francisco, Sophia had used him, not the other way around.
It is often so with men and women.
As Magnus lifted his glass he noted that so far Sophia had not said a word and seemed disturbed by manifestations of this night; though that was not unusual, these ‘trips’ to the other world were a rocky ride.
Either that or, like a finely tuned actress, she was exhausted by the performance.
He never knew. That was half the fun. The other half was yet to come because after exhaustion, appetite ensued.
Carnal hunger. But not right now.
She was standing, staring out of the window at a brick wall that surrounded the stone yard to the rear of the hall.
Yes siree. A brick wall.
He sank the rest of the whisky, lit up a cheroot and laughed quietly.
‘That was hell on wheels when these two godforsaken ghosts came shooting through the door.’
Sophia made no response.
‘Hell on wheels,’ he agreed with himself, pouring out a smaller shot.
A restrained tap at the door signalled the advent of the members of the Society no doubt, with a discreet payment to pass over for the guided tour.
‘Enter!’ he called commandingly, sliding the glass a modest distance away as if it was still untouched.
But it was not one of the shrivelled, serious folk who made up the committee. This was a fellow as large as Magnus himself, who filled the doorway like a bear in a cave.
Of course. The behemoth that had scooped up those two little bastards and marched them out into the darkness.
Magnus laid down his cigar and stood up, all civility and gallant as hell.
‘I thank you, sir, for your assistance with these low types. Whom do I have the honour of addressing?’
‘My name is Arthur Conan Doyle,’ said the man, while Magnus could now see that he was young and impressionable, an easy dupe at cards… Pity there wasn’t a pack to hand.
Just a stage-door Johnnie.
‘Well, thank you again, sir,’ said Magnus, not introducing himself since he had done so earlier on a general scale. ‘Is there something more I can do for your good self?’
In other words, my friend, close the door quietly and the spirits be with you in your absence.
Bannerman realised that Doyle was staring past him as if he, a man of some substance, did not exist.
He turned to see that Sophia had swivelled round from the window and was looking directly at their visitor. She had now completely detached the veil and her pale face glowed in the dimness of the room. The violet eyes, pupils enlarged, were fixed upon the intruder.
‘I was most impressed by your…abilities, Miss Adler.’
This gauche observation from a gawking hulk in Bannerman’s estimation deserved little in response but Sophia surprised him by nodding gravely. Usually she had no time for stage-door Johnnies, their appellation for various male admirers who were caught between psychic appreciation and unrequited urges.
‘It is a gift, Mister Doyle,’ she said. ‘A great responsibility. I did not seek it. But I am responsible.’
Doyle had not remarked her soft lilting Southern accent during the evening’s events but found it remarkably pleasing to his rather large pink ears.
His usual mode with young women was a joshing badinage where heavy-handed raillery took the place of finer feelings but it had no application here and he found himself in all senses of the phrase, tongue-tied.
‘I was – as a matter of fact – wondering,’ he blurted out, cursing himself internally for a blockhead and bemused by the force that had driven him to abruptly quit his mother and Muriel’s presence to head for the door through which Magnus had disappeared. ‘If we might discuss…spiritual matters. At some juncture. As it were, at your convenience. Of course.’
All during this Sophia, who had disturbing and deeper thoughts in her mind, found it strangely difficult to take her eyes from his as if some bond was forming between them.
The attraction was not necessarily physical. Magnus more than met her needs and Doyle though of imposing stature was not someone who so far stirred her sensual juices, yet there was something she could not define.
A depth. A darkness. A fear. As iron eats into the bone, something gnawing. She could sense a procession of figures waiting to take possession.
It drew her. A power of sorts.
From Doyle’s point of view, as well as the myriad forces that hurtled him towards this woman he was conscious also of an emanation from the Muse.
Could Sophia Adler inspire creation?
‘Miss Adler has many demands upon her time,’ Magnus Bannerman interposed easily in the silence. ‘If she responded to every invitation then her more important work might suffer.’
The words were smooth but Sophia could sense something else.
Jealous. He was jealous. How ridiculous men are.
‘Leave your card, Mister Doyle,’ she said quietly. ‘I promise nothing. Promises are cheap.’
Doyle’s brow furrowed. He did not have a card. Medical students rarely do.
Then he remembered that he had scratched some words out for a joke to impress his brother Innes as regards his new station in life. It was on a dog-eared rectangle of cardboard he had fashioned from an offcut sewing pattern of his mother’s.
A fumble in the pocket produced the object, which he handed to Bannerman as intermediary.
The American read it with some difficulty; the handwriting was deliberately ornate and flowery to amuse the young reader.
‘Arthur Conan Doyle. Doctor of Diagnosis,’ Magnus said flatly.
‘Well, I will be one day, ‘Doyle grinned suddenly, to all appearances like a young man without a care in the world. ‘That is my intention.’
‘I am sure you will succeed,’ remarked Sophia, dryly.
Doyle made a little circular motion of his forefinger to Bannerman who was holding the card as if had just busted a promising flush.
‘The address is on the back,’ offered Doyle. Innes had insisted upon that.
How can you be a doctor, without a proper spot for consultation?, the lad had scornfully pronounced.
Memory made Doyle smile.
His little brother.
Bannerman said nothing.
Sophia made no move and the young man realised he had outstayed his welcome.
Yet he could not leave without one question.
‘At the end…’ he said. ‘Why did you scream?’
‘Did I?’ replied Sophia. ‘Or was it someone else?’
She dipped her head to signal goodbye and Doyle bowed somewhat jerkily then exited, crashing the door behind.
Magnus laughed; loud enough that someone might hear had they lingered outside.
‘Dime a dozen,’ he announced, crumpling the card between his fingers to throw carelessly on the ground.
‘Pick it up,’ she said.
Magnus laughed incredulously.
‘Pick it up.’
Finally he did so, making a great production out of teasing out the thin, creased cardboard and handing
it over to her with a little bow.
Sophia put it away carefully into a pocket of her dress. He noticed that her hand was trembling.
‘Never seen you do that before,’ he remarked idly.
‘Do what?’
‘Scream. Fill your lungs and let rip.’
He’d had to think quickly and stall for time while she sprawled akimbo, but he was good at that. Yet still he did not know what was real and what was not with this woman.
One thing for sure. She put a strange dread into him. Along with desire. One fed upon the other.
Sophia smiled and he began to relax. Not long now and he would be the master while she wriggled like a catfish.
No doctor had a cure like his.
He moved closer, not too close, just enough to let her feel the heat emanating from a vigorous man.
‘What did you see?’ he asked softly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘To let it rip like that.’
She passed her tongue over those little rosebud lips like a child.
‘A face I recognised.’
‘From when?’
‘Not long ago. Not long at all.’
A few days past she had disappeared into the depths of the city and would tell him nothing on return.
This was, like the scream, unusual to be sure.
Magnus was suddenly surprised by a shaft of panic. As if the world was spinning out of control.
Why had he made such a play over Doyle? Sure, he was a big hulk but he was no threat, just a kid. And yet he, Magnus, had reacted as if under attack.
Or was it nothing to do with Doyle?
Deeper.
Of late he had been suffering blackouts. Time vanished and he could not remember what had happened. And always when he came out of it, Sophia was leaning over him. She told him he had slept like a dead man. Afterwards he was under the spell of a blinding headache.
Sophia watched the thoughts pass behind his eyes like clouds. As for her, the decision was made.
Surely as a sign from above.
Vengeance.
‘Shall we return to the hotel?’ she said. ‘I have sore need of privacy.’
She reached out her hand to run it down the side of his neck, the nails scratching lightly on his skin. Magnus Bannerman had known many women but no-one to set his blood aflame like this one. Her body wrapped around and he forgot everything but his desire.
He pulled her in, tight and fierce, as if he might crush her, bones and all.
Sophia closed her eyes. That was what she wanted. That was what she hungered for. All the way back to a day in the hot sun when she had turned fifteen.
A day in the sun.
When her mother betrayed the memory of a good man.
But now it was October in Edinburgh and time for a reckoning.
There was one voice still to hear.
She had waited all her life for that voice. Now she would bring it forth.
Time for a reckoning.
13
And when night
Darkens the street, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
That night a series of events took place to put a smile on Satan’s countenance.
Each was connected to the other by intangible lines, as if a spider’s web of violence and deceit were being spun over the city, where a movement such as that of a fly twirling itself into sticky oblivion as struggle created its own winding sheet, provoked another action in response.
Two card-trumpers sat in the Rustie Nail tavern down by the docks and schooled their features not to reflect an inner malicious glee as they watched the mark once more take the bait.
They had lured him in with a common enough ruse; the simple ones are oft the best.
One pretended to be drunk, quarrelsome but with money to burn, the other amused, good-natured, not even wishing to take this fool’s gold as he dealt the cards in an alcove.
It was hidden from the main maelstrom of vagabond whores who had flocked to the place because a ship had just docked from Holland and the tarry breeks also had money to burn. Wild women and cheap whisky make a jolly Jack Tar.
The sharpers called themselves Mister Evans and Mister Todd. The game was vingt et un, where the object was to add your card values as near to twenty-one as possible without going squandered. A fancy name for over and bust.
The nearest to twenty-one was the winner, unless a natural took place: that is, an ace plus ten or court card.
Easy rules.
Any child could play.
The banker dealt the cards. That was the good-natured Mister Evans. The drunken Mister Todd bet against.
Both took the part of cattle merchants who had sold their beasts for strong profit at market and were whiling away the time in rough surroundings before heading back to their respectable lodgings, thence, next morning, to the Borders where their rustic wives waited to herd them once more into the pen of domesticity.
The odds of the game were in favour of the banker because if the scores tied he won, but Mister Todd did not seem to recognise this fact, protesting noisily at his continuing ill fortune.
Mister Evans shook his head as Mister Todd, whose two cards totalled fifteen, called up for another twist and went spectacularly squandered as a jack of spades turned over.
As designed, this attracted the attention of a small portly man who was standing nearby, observing the larger more raucous belles de nuit with a certain hunger.
The man wore a bowler hat and had a completely forgettable face with small beady eyes, which glittered as he watched the cavorting melée.
But he did not relish such rough company it would seem, so when Mister Evans caught his eye to smile his apology for his companion’s membership of the bad loser’s club the portly man came over to observe matters.
After two further defeated hands, Mister Todd went to relieve himself on the misty late-night cobblestones and Mister Evans suggested that the gentleman might like to join in the fun.
His friend needed to be taught a lesson. There might even have been the slightest suggestion of envy on Mister Evans’s part as he described the absent micturator having a larger farm, the result of a bovine inheritance from a providential marriage.
A greedy glint in the small ratlike eyes as the first bait was taken.
To begin, Mister Smith, as the mark so named himself, did very well indeed. Then the wagers increased. The bank changed hands as Mister Todd, puffed up with irritation and his own importance insisted that it should, over to him.
But his cards stayed the same, worsened by bad decisions and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the laws of gambling probability.
Mister Todd then demanded a doubling of stakes as was his banker’s lien, and the other two were happy to comply.
But suddenly, as if night had changed to day, the accepted order was reversed and Mister Todd began to enjoy the most incredible run of luck.
He drew five to a count of sixteen; naturals and court cards followed him like obedient sheep and as the other two strained to recoup their losses, the stakes were doubled yet again. Good money after bad.
The pocketbook of Mister Smith, a previously bulging receptacle, which clever Mister Evans had noted as he stood beside him at the bar while the little man paid for his beer, complaining that it stood no comparison with good London ale, began to shrink like a punctured bladder.
Mister Todd defied the odds of gambling and gravity as he swayed over the table to collect his winnings, face apparently red with alcohol, clumsy with the cards; surely it was only a matter of time?
A silent message the apologetic Mister Evans signalled as they pushed their stakes into the middle. All his money in the little man’s case; but this hand he sat proud on twenty, the cards face down, hidden to all but Mister Smith.
Mister Evans went bust. Squandered. Sadly.
The banker turned over thirteen, an unlucky number. The next
card up was four. Seventeen. Not enough to vanquish the two face-down cards. But of course, the banker did not know the value of the hidden hand. Twist or stand?
If he stood pat, Mister Smith would win. For a moment the man hesitated and then with a careless sweep of the hand turned over the next card.
It was a four again. Twenty-one. A boozy roar of triumph from the banker and an exasperated sigh of annoyance from the nice Mister Evans.
Mister Smith turned away abruptly as if he could not bear to look at the loss and, at that moment, the sharpers made a fatal error.
One winked at the other, confident that the man’s back had no eyes to see. But there was a dirty cracked mirror in the opposite empty booth to reflect this collusion.
Yet when Mister Smith turned back, nothing in his face indicated what, if anything, he had seen.
His hand however, slid down the side of one plump little leg, while his face screwed up in puzzlement as if he could not believe what had just happened with the cards.
Mister Evans opened his mouth to compose words of consolation; he himself had lost as well and who could believe that this uncouth fellow might stumble upon such a change of fortune?
Who could believe?
The words never passed his lips.
The little man made a sweeping gesture under the table and both men seated on the other side froze as if an icy hand had been laid upon them.
The money was scooped swiftly up and then some words were finally uttered.
‘Thank you, gents.’
Having said this, Alfred Binnie turned and made his unhurried way through the swirling smoke and heaving bodies of the Rustie Nail.
The paralysis of their nether abdomens being sliced through by a razor-edged knife that might disembowel an ox, held the two sharpers in suspension for what seemed like an eternity.
Both looked down and saw the blood seeping out of the deep cut in their lower bellies through the thick material of the tweed trousers worn to support the pretence that they were from the outlands of Jedburgh or the like.
Then the pain bit in and their groans mingled with the frenzied whoops of the tavern throng as two of the mariners burst into an impromptu hornpipe.
One of them reeled backwards and crashed into the alcove.
