Tales of the Shadowmen 2: Gentlemen of the Night

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  Temple turned to one of the Constables. “Fresh tea for the four of us,” he said, “and find something toothsome for this man to eat.”

  The Constable’s moustache twitched, but he dared not let the scowl spread across his features. He left without uttering a word of protest.

  “You know as well as I do, Mr. Temple,” Ned went on, “that I never spent more than a few minutes in Jack Hanrahan’s company until this afternoon, when I ingratiated with him purely and simply to obtain information–information which will be of just as much interest to you as it was to me, and which I’m perfectly willing to share, in spite of the ungrateful and insulting manner in which I’ve been treated. I can now give you a more accurate sketch of the causes of the burking epidemic than can possibly be contained in Jack’s fancies and fabulations–although I repeat that I could have given you a far more complete account had you only let me pursue my inquiries further.”

  “That’s as may be, Master Knob,” Temple said. “But Hanrahan has got in first, and he’s given us enough to pack you off to Australia–and enough to hang Germain Patou, if his own people do not want him for the guillotine.”

  “This is all very silly,” Ned told him. “Sit down, Mr. Temple and listen. I’ve seen him, and he asked me to give you a message. I’ve also seen his new arch-enemy, who was equally enthusiastic to find a reliable messenger. There’s a great deal I still don’t know, but if you want to hear what I do know, you’d do better to talk to me man-to-man than continue this charade of bullying.”

  “Did I not hear one of your messages just now, in Sharper’s?” Temple parried.

  “Only part of it–you seemed to be in a hurry, and I didn’t want to be cut off in mid-speech. That would have been poor stagecraft, and Sawney would never have forgiven me. But you’re right–that was the core of the message given to me by Patou’s ungrateful Lazarus, who seems to be trying to reserve the privilege of restoring the dead-alive entirely to himself, at least for the time being. It was intended for the whole world, so I proclaimed it as loudly as I could. The message I was given by the man you once knew as James Davy, on the other hand, is for your ears alone, which I shall be glad to pass on in exactly that fashion, if you would care to ask the other Constable to leave us alone for a minute or two.”

  Temple shook his head. “This is an official interrogation, Master Knob,” he said, “which must be conducted under formal rules of guidance.” Ned realized, a trifle belatedly, that Temple’s manner was not entirely of his own choosing. The produce of Jack Hanrahan’s squealing had obviously made its way higher up the chain of command. Temple was still constrained by circumstance, even though he had been seconded to Scotland Yard.

  “Ah,” Ned said. “I see. My apologies to you, Mr. Temple–although you really did seem to be enjoying yourself just a little, back at Jenny’s. I had forgotten how good you are at playing a part, once you have the determination to do so. Very well–within the framework of an official interrogation, what would you like to know?”

  The first Constable came back in then, carrying a tin tray. It bore a teapot and four mugs, with a sugar-bowl and a jug of milk. There was also a plate bearing some day-old bread and a few slices of ham. Ned sighed, but he was hungry enough to attack the meager meal with some enthusiasm. Temple poured the tea, and passed two of the mugs to the Constables, who nodded in acknowledgement of his generosity. Temple asked all three of them whether they required sugar. The Constables requested two spoonfuls each, so Ned asked for three, calculating that his tour of duty must have been a good deal more laborious than theirs. Temple contented himself with one, but heaped it more generously than he had heaped any of the others, apparently unaware of the insight he was providing into the essential perversity of his character.

  Temple sat down, and waited until Ned had finished the bread and ham. “Where was the girl’s body taken, Master Knob, and by what means?” the detective asked, formally.

  “Purfleet,” Ned said, unhesitatingly. “Aboard a vessel named Prometheus, which sank in Purfleet harbor not three hours ago. You’ll be getting your own reports of that very shortly, I dare say, but it won’t make the Morning Post until the day after tomorrow.”

  “The ship sank?” Temple echoed, already forced to deviate from his planned agenda, though not from his formal manner. “How did it come to sink?”

  “It was attacked by a party of raiders, including both living and dead-alive,” Ned told him. “To begin with, the crew thought it was an attempt to seize the ship, but it wasn’t. The fighting was a mere diversion, to distract attention from a petard placed at the water-line. The intention was to sink the vessel, in order to prevent its further use.”

  “Its further use in the stealing of corpses?”

  “No–its use as a means of escape. When the master of the Prometheus found out that you were on his trail, Mr. Temple, he immediately decided to pack up and leave. No matter how great his need for an abundant supply of dead people was, I doubt that he would ever have come within 50 miles of London had he not assumed that you were a broken man, incapable of taking any further interest in him.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Temple demanded, bluntly.

  “I told you–the man you once knew as James Davy. The viper you nursed in your bosom, who extracted all your secrets by stealth and turned them against you. The man also known as the bandit Tom Brown and as Comte Henri de Belcamp–being fully entitled to both names, by reason of his rather remarkable birth and upbringing, although he appears to have renounced them forever. I believe that he was calling himself Arthur Pevensey at the time of his probable death, masquerading as a Cornishman.”

  “What do you mean by at the time of his probable death?” Temple asked.

  “He was lured aboard the Prometheus two or three minutes before it blew up. There were survivors, but I didn’t see him among them.”

  “Did you see his corpse, then?”

  “No–but I doubt that General Mortdieu will consent to revive him, even if it is still in good condition. General Mortdieu does not seem to me to be the kind of person likely to repeat his predecessor’s worst mistake.”

  “And who is this General Mortdieu to whom you refer?”

  “The cleverest and most ambitious of the dead-alive, resurrected by Germain Patou and Arthur Pevensey in Portugal, probably not far from Lisbon. He had another name when he was alive, of course, and claims to know what it was. I have a suspicion of my own regarding that item of information, but I doubt that it matters any longer. Now he is General Mortdieu, hero of the Revolution against Death and Emperor of the Dead-Alive. He says that he has no wish to make war on England, or on any nation of the living, and I am inclined to believe him, for now. As to the future... I have given that matter some thought while I was en route to London, in spite of being frozen half to death, and it seems to me that it depends on whether the dead-alive can breed. I did not have the opportunity to consult Monsieur Patou on that question.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Temple said.

  “You will, when you’ve had time to think about it. Point one: the dead can now be brought back to life–not all of them, but some. Point two: the dead-alive have trouble remembering who they were before they died, and most seem in need of considerable re-education–but at least some can recover all of their memories and the power of their will. Point three: in consequence of points one and two, the world has changed, utterly and irrevocably. Point four: at present the so-called Arthur Pevensey and the so-called General Mortdieu are squabbling over the secret of reviving the dead, evidently having different views as to how the advent of the new race should be managed. I do not know what either of them intends, but I know that it is a matter of small importance. Point five: if the dead-alive can reproduce their own kind, they are a new species, potentially capable of replacing humankind as overlords of the Earth. If not, then we are the larvae from whose corpses they must hatch as flies–in which case, they must continue to indefinitely cherish u
s as we cherish our children, if ever they do wrest political control of civilization from our hands. Point six: for the moment, you probably think that I am mad, and may even wish that I were–but that does not matter in the least. Whether you believe me or not, the world has changed, absolutely and forever.”

  There was a brief silence, while Ned and Gregory Temple each took several sips of sweet tea.

  “You are perfectly certain that the dead can be resurrected?” Temple said, with only the slightest inquisitive inflection.

  “I have not seen the process from beginning to end,” Ned admitted, “but I did see the factory in which the dead are prepared for their return to life, and I witnessed a key stage in the resurrection process. I am far more certain now that it can be done, and has already been done a hundred times over, than I was last night after seeing Sawney Ross turned grey.” As he finished this speech, Ned felt his breath catch in his throat, and he coughed to clear it.

  Temple shook his head. “If you were to repeat this story in court tomorrow, you’d be presumed to be a madman,” he observed.

  “Tomorrow,” Ned agreed, “denial will still be possible. In the longer term, it will not. More than a hundred people saw Sawney come into Jenny Paddock’s last night, some of whom had seen him hanged. There are ferrymen sheltering beneath London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge who’ll be glad to tell you about the passengers the Prometheus sometimes used to carry after darkness fell. There’ll be crewmen from the Prometheus herself trying to find new berths tomorrow morning, who’ll be more than pleased to explain why. And even if all of those people should happen to be more anxious than I am to avoid being called a liar for telling the truth, we may be certain that General Mortdieu does not intend to hide his Empire of the Dead-Alive forever. If nothing else, they will want... well, I suppose I ought not to call it new blood, since the dead-alive have something other than blood in their veins, but I dare say that you can follow the logic of my argument now that I’ve set it out for you.”

  “It sounds impossible,” Temple said, flatly.

  “Yes, Mr. Temple,” Ned replied. “It does. Indeed, it was impossible just a little while ago, but it is impossible no longer. We stand on the threshold of a new era, and all the firepower in the British Empire cannot hold it at bay. Ours will be a century of multitudinous resurrections, and we might as well try be proud of the fact.”

  Temple hesitated again, then said: “Where exactly, in Purfleet, was the girl’s body taken?”

  “To a house on the east of the town, standing in its own grounds and surrounded by a high wall. It has three stories at the front, four at the back, because the ground falls away so steeply. It also has a further set of vaults beneath the basement, where Germain Patou’s equipment was sited until this evening. You will recognize the equipment easily enough if you can get there in time; as Jack Hanrahan has probably told you, it once belonged to James Graham’s Temple of Hymen and Health. Not that I’m endorsing anything else he may have told you, mind.”

  “What do you mean by if you can get there in time?”

  “Mortdieu is stripping the place as we speak, of anything useful to his campaign,” Ned told him. “He has a ship of his own–at Tilbury, he said, although I would not put it past him to tell a fib or two in the interests of putting his adversaries off his trail. I have no idea where he will steer his ship once it sets sail, but he said he would be gone within 48 hours, of which at least five must now have elapsed.”

  “You seem to take a remarkable relish in all this, Master Knob,” Temple observed, perhaps speaking entirely for himself for once.

  “Do I?” Ned riposted. “Well, perhaps I do. I am a radical, you see, Mr. Temple, and a great enthusiast for Jacobin science and the philosophy of progress. I like to think of the order of things being upset, in the hope that it might make way for something better. Is that really such a crime, even in the eyes of a loyal lackey of the state?”

  “If the reawakened dead really were stalking our streets last night,” Temple said, leadenly, “and are about to overrun the world in years to come, I could not call that progress.”

  “That is because you are an old man, Mr. Temple,” Ned said, cruelly, “and a man of the old order. I, on the other hand, am a young man of the new order. Perhaps our positions will be reversed in a short while, if you should choose to join the ranks of the dead-alive, or are rudely press-ganged into their company. Perhaps you will be able to think of it as progress then.”

  Temple shook his head, as if to clear it of unwelcome ideas. “You really are serious, aren’t you?” he said, wonderingly. “I never had a moment’s doubt that Hanrahan was lying through his teeth, but you actually mean what you say. Either you are mad, or you’re telling the truth.”

  “I’m an honest man, Mr. Temple,” Ned told him, regretfully. “Too honest for my own good, on occasion. He promised that he would bring you back from the dead, if you can put the past behind you and make a new start. That was the message he asked me to give you.”

  “Mortdieu?”

  “The man who once posed as John Devil the Quaker, and still takes some pride in wearing the badge of that office. He might be able to fulfil the promise–Germain Patou may have been a vital element of the partnership to begin with, and Mortdieu will presumably take the opportunity to capture him, but he must know more than enough to set up in business again, provided that he still alive.”

  By now, Temple had ceased to make any pretence that this as still a formal interrogation, conducted under official rules of guidance. “You cannot possibly know how difficult it would be,” the old man whispered. “To put the past behind me, I mean. You do not know what that man tried to do to me.”

  “Yes, I do,” Ned assured him. “I don’t know exactly how he set about it, but I know he did whatever he could to leave you in Newgate a broken man. You were too strong for him, though. You came back from the dead, just as he did, without the necessity of Germain Patou’s magical fluid and electric shocks. He’s a different man now–and I think you know as well as I do how utterly he can change, when he steps from one role into another. It wasn’t you who defeated him, remember–it was the burning of his steamship by riotous natives in Africa. That, and love.”

  “Love!” Temple spat out the word as if it were an oath.

  “Yes, love. If he had not loved Jeanne, and wanted so much to be worthy of her love... he really did want to change history, you know, so that he might be innocent of the murders of Maurice O’Brien and Constance Bartolozzi–not for his own sake, but for hers. He really did want to annihilate Tom Brown: not to be him any longer, and never to have been him at all. He really is a man who can put the past behind him and make new starts–but then, he’s a younger man than you, and one who believes in progress. Perhaps his belief is not yet as strong as it might be, but I think I might be able to help him in that respect, if I were given the chance.”

  Gregory Temple closed his eyes. The expression on his face was impossible to fathom, but it was not that of a man who could yet begin to believe in progress.

  “What did you find at the address in Stepney?” Ned ventured to ask.

  “Enough to tie Patou into half a dozen burkers,” Temple told him, willingly enough. “But we didn’t find the address of the house in Purfleet–you did better there.”

  “I probably did better with Jack Hanrahan too,” Ned said. “I persuaded him that I was his friend, so he talked to me as honestly as he talks to anyone. I still won’t be your spy, Mr. Temple, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be useful to your inquiries. I haven’t joined forces with John Devil either–I’m still my own man, and I’m more curious than ever to know more about the world that is to come. If you release me, I’ll do what I can to find out more about Mortdieu’s plans–and John Devil’s too, if ever I see him again.”

  Gregory Temple shook his head again, this time very tiredly. “The interview is over,” he said to the two silent Constables. “Take Master Knob down to the overnight cells�
��he looks as if he’s in dire need of a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’d be a deal more comfortable in my own bed, Mr. Temple,” Ned opined.

  “I doubt it,” Temple said. “I know where you live–but I don’t doubt that Hanrahan was lying about your involvement in his crimes, trying to reduce his own guilt by imparting it recklessly to others. I’ll try to persuade my superiors that you’re too useful to lock away. With luck, I’ll be able to release you in the morning. In the meantime, you probably do need that good night’s sleep. I hope the cells won’t be too noisy for you.”

  “Mr. Temple,” Ned said, “you’re a gentleman, and a wise one too. I always thought so. That’s why he admires you so.”

  “He tried to destroy me with a series of lies,” the detective murmured, “and very nearly succeeded.”

  “The extent to which a man will go to wreak destruction,” Ned said, soberly, “is the most accurate measure of his fear. Oddly enough, no one ever tries to destroy me–their first instinct is always to give me messages to carry. I wish I could be proud of that, as well as glad.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Road to Greenhithe

  The beds in the cells at Bow Street Police Station were by no means famous for their softness, and the cell block was even noisier than the street where Ned Knob lived, but Ned was not a man used to a thickly-padded mattress, silken sheets or silence. He slept tolerably well.

  The establishment was not famous for its breakfasts, either, but Ned was quite satisfied by the hot sugared porridge he was brought at 6 a.m., and the tea that came with it was perfectly drinkable, even though it had only one spoonful of sugar in it–and not one that had been heaped by Gregory Temple.

  Ned also made full use of the bowl of hot water and the brick of soap that the turnkey brought him–he was, after all, still Gentleman Ned Knob as well as Red Republican Ned, and he was determined not to conduct himself like any common jailbird.