Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘Charity – you are safe,’ shouted the Marquis DeFeaux. Mariah looked up. On the balcony above them was the Marquis, and safe in his arms was Biba. ‘Any news of Casper?’ he asked.

  Charity looked back to the sea and said nothing.

  ‘How did you get here?’ Mariah asked the Marquis.

  ‘It was the goodness of the wind and the fortune of Tharakan,’ he said. ‘We were blown over the horizon and straight towards the Ketos. Tharakan brought the balloon down on the back of the ship. The only injury was to my wife. She broke her jaw. Quite fitting really, considering.’ The Marquis looked down at Mariah. ‘I owe you a debt of gratitude, Mariah Mundi. You saved my child.’

  The Marquis let go of Biba and bade her to stay where she was. He walked down the steps and took Charity and Mariah to one side. The throngs of passengers from the Triton littered the deck in dishevelled but thankful huddles.

  ‘Is he dead?’ the Marquis asked boldly.

  ‘He saved my life,’ Mariah replied knowing he spoke of Casper Vikash. ‘He had been beaten by Markesan and his men – he would not have lived.’

  The Marquis looked to the deck.

  ‘He was a good son. I am only ashamed that I could not share him with the world. These are sad times, Mariah. People are people regardless of the colour of their skin. I am thankful I have one child left. Despite my riches, my life has been such a bitter experience,’ he said solemnly as he took Mariah by the hand.

  Mariah could feel the warmth of his fingers. It was as if the Marquis wished to impart something to him but words would not suffice. He looked him in the eyes.

  ‘He was brave to the last,’ Mariah said.

  ‘I am sure of it,’ the Marquis replied. ‘As in life so in death.’

  ‘Lorenzo Zane and Ellerby abandoned the ship before the explosions,’ Charity said.

  ‘We saw the Bicameralist pass over the ship en route to New York. I take it you think he was responsible?’

  ‘The Zane Generator didn’t work,’ said Mariah.

  ‘I know,’ replied the Marquis. ‘That is most probably why I was set adrift. I had argued with Zane about the very thing. He told me I was mad – to be patient and that his ship would win the race. I knew he was lying. I had the Captain turn the Ketos. Sad, what people will do for money – especially for gold.’

  ‘The gold is quite safe,’ Charity said to their surprise.

  ‘But it was stolen from the Triton – a blackmail,’ said the Marquis, quite astonished.

  ‘It was never on the Triton to be stolen. It rests in Coutts Bank, Pall Mall, London,’ Charity replied with a smile.

  ‘But I saw it loaded onto the lifeboat, ingot by ingot,’ he replied.

  ‘That is what you thought you saw. The Bureau knew of a plan to steal the gold so I took the liberty of replacing it with lead and gold leaf,’ Charity said. ‘The money is quite safe.’

  ‘And I took the liberty of winning the Ketos back from Lord Bonham when we played poker last night,’ said the Marquis. ‘One thing troubles me – Markesan … Does he work for Zane?’

  ‘It is certain,’ Charity said quietly. ‘Until he is captured then none of us are safe, and I am sure he is now on the Ketos.’

  [26]

  Grimm & Grendel

  MARIAH had never seen anything like the crystal ballroom of the Ketos. If he had thought that the Triton was grand and magnificent, the Ketos was astounding. The ballroom was three storeys high with a vast crystal chandelier that moved like a procession of stars across the night sky. The walls were decorated with gigantic crystal mirrors. In the centre of the room was a mahogany dance floor that remained level, regardless of the pounding of the sea, having a balancing mechanism that counteracted the movement of the ship. On a night like this, that didn’t matter. The sea was still calm. Mariah’s last glimpse of the ocean had been when the Marquis DeFeaux had invited Charity and Mariah to dinner. He had told them to be there within the hour and had arranged fresh clothes for them both and a cabin in which to change.

  Mariah had wanted to ask Charity more about him being his father. He was sure that Casper Vikash had wanted to save him from harm. He had waited for the right moment but, like so many things, that moment never came. Now they stood at the entrance to the crystal ballroom and waited to be seated.

  Life on board the Ketos appeared different. It was brighter, bolder and more alive. The ship echoed with laughter and the air smelt of lilies and lavender. The crew nodded politely when they passed by and would often stop and engage the passengers in conversation. The passengers from the Triton had been accommodated immediately, the passengers on the Ketos offering to share their cabins and what clothes they had. All in all, Mariah now wished he had travelled on this ship. The only thing that took the thought from his mind was that he knew he would not have met Biba DeFeaux. She was now all he could think of. When he had seen her standing next to her father, his heart had raced. But Mariah had not had the chance to speak to her since their escape from the Triton. He searched the ballroom with his eyes, hoping to get a glimpse of her. She was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Who are we eating with?’ Mariah asked impatiently.

  ‘I presume the Marquis,’ Charity said as the waiter approached with a swagger. ‘He invited us here.’

  The waiter sneered at Charity. He looked at the ill-fitting suit.

  ‘From the Triton?’ he asked. They both nodded. ‘Messrs Charity and Mundi, by chance? This way …’

  The waiter didn’t need a reply. He led them across the ballroom to a large alcove with its own brass-framed picture window overlooking the sea. In the centre of the large leather-clad booth was a long table gowned in crisp white linen. As Mariah approached he saw the Marquis, his wife and a younger man with bright blue eyes.

  ‘Lord Bonham,’ Charity whispered without being seen. ‘He was once an actor – star of the London stage.’

  Bonham got to his feet and began to applaud their arrival. He nodded to the band. Instinctively, they ended the waltz they were playing. Those gathered before them stopped dancing and turned to Bonham. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, friends … We are honoured to have with us Captain Jack Charity and Mariah Mundi – saviours of the Triton.’ Lord Bonham applauded yet again as everyone in the room stood and clapped.

  Charity tried to look grateful. He hated the limelight. Mariah stood in his shadow and stared at the hundreds of faces that looked straight at him.

  ‘Thank you,’ Charity said as he bade them to stop. ‘There were others far braver than we …’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Bonham said as he offered them both their seats at the table. ‘I have heard that you stopped a disaster and saved Biba – what could be more heroic than that?’

  There was something about him that Mariah didn’t like. He sensed Charity felt the same. Bonham was flash and had a smile tinged with arrogance and eyes that never rested upon you. He was taller than Charity and fatter, with twisted locks of auburn hair and a ruddy face. He looked constantly about the room with eyes that danced to see the next and more exciting thing.

  ‘She is a friend,’ Mariah said naively.

  ‘We have had the crew locked away – I hear they abandoned ship and didn’t help the passengers,’ Bonham said, ignoring Mariah. ‘What a dastardly thing – were they French?’

  ‘Is Biba well?’ Mariah asked the Marquis.

  He smiled benignly. ‘She has not taken the news of Casper’s death at all well. And she is still disturbed by her encounter with Shanjing.’

  Mariah attempted a reply.

  ‘Fancy that – the whole world thought he was a puppet and all along it was a man in disguise – a man-mannequin. I would have paid more to see him than watch a ventriloquist,’ Bonham interrupted.

  Mergyn DeFeaux could say nothing. She sat at the end of the table, her jaw wired into a steel cradle. A device looking like a globe of the world had been placed on her head; it held her chin rigidly in its grip and stopped the head from
moving.

  ‘I hope you will soon be well,’ Charity said politely.

  ‘When they crashed, Mergyn hit the deck so hard it broke her jaw,’ Bonham blustered like a schoolboy fresh from vacation. ‘Tharakan landed on top of her and they all spilled out on to the rear of the ship. Best entertainment I have had in years.’ Mergyn DeFeaux winced painfully. Mariah wished Lorenzo Zane could see her now.

  ‘I hear you have lost the ship at cards, Lord Bonham,’ Charity replied hoping the reminder would still his hyperactivity.

  ‘But we play again tonight. This time I hope to win it back,’ Bonham said. ‘DeFeaux tells me the gold is safe in London. Inspired work, Charity, inspired work.’

  The food was served. Mariah didn’t want to eat. He slipped back into the oval bench seat and watched the dancing. He felt as if he were on the edge of a dream. Lord Bonham talked and told tales, seldom stopping for food or breath as one course after another came and went. Mergyn DeFeaux couldn’t eat. She sat quite still. Her head was firmly held in the wired cage that pushed out her cheeks so that she resembled a Thanksgiving turkey.

  As the others talked, Mariah watched the dancers. They swirled back and forth with seldom a foot out of place. In their own way they were mesmerising. They allowed him to dream comfortably as if he were barely part of the dinner gathering. Bonham talked, cigars were lit and the dancing slowed. The lamps on the chandelier were dimmed and a starball glittered, sending shards of light hypnotically around the room.

  It was then that Mariah noticed a rather odd couple dancing in the far corner of the room. Unlike the others who swept about the ballroom floor as if they were wildebeest on a savannah, these two kept to one place.

  The man who danced appeared to be very uncomfortable, as if he wore the shoes of someone else. His partner, a tall woman with a billow of curls, dragged him around and around in smaller circles.

  Mariah gulped and took a sharp breath. He stared at the man in disbelief and shuddered. Charity was engrossed in conversation with the Marquis as Bonham talked on, not realising that neither was listening. Mariah stared and stared.

  ‘Mr Grimm,’ he muttered to himself as he remembered the man who on several occasions had tried to kill him. ‘It can’t be.’

  But there was no doubt – it was Grimm. Mariah could never forget a face, especially one as sharp and keen as Mr Grimm’s. This had been the man who with his partner Grendel had assisted Gormenberg and then the wicked Bardolph in all their treachery. Yet even though they had been the enemy of Jack Charity and the Bureau for so long, Mariah pitied them. They had left England to start a new life in San Francisco. He now knew that they had chosen the Ketos on which to make the journey.

  It was when Mariah gave particular attention to Mr Grimm’s dancing companion that he realised who it was. Under the fine long dress and bouffant curls lurked another familiar face. This was Mr Grendel. His nails had been trimmed and face shaved, but the eyes – the eyes that stared through you as if they looked on another world – were the same.

  Mariah looked to Charity and wondered if he should interrupt him to tell him the news. Grimm and Grendel danced to an even darker place in the shadows. Mariah watched them intently. They seemed to be actually enjoying what they were doing. Grendel made a particularly fine lady. So much so that he even caught the admiring eye of a drunken Hussar standing nearby.

  Mariah slipped unnoticed from the table, followed by a small waiter with a towel over his arm and a glass of soda on a silver tray. Charity, the Marquis and now Bonham had drawn close together, deep in conversation, wrapped in a cocoon of thick blue cigar smoke. He crossed the ballroom, weaving in and out of the dancers until he came to near where Grimm and Grendel danced passionately. Grendel swirled Mr Grimm until his feet spun from the floor. Grimm giggled as he danced. Mariah thought he had never seen anyone so happy.

  The music was silenced. Grimm turned to applaud and then stopped. His hands were motionless. He stared as if he had seen a ghost.

  ‘Is it really you?’ he asked Mariah as Grendel pulled a fan from his purse to cover his face.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Mr Grimm,’ Mariah said as the music started again for the next dance.

  Grimm looked at Grendel.

  ‘We are undone,’ he hissed feverishly as his face turned crimson.

  Grendel fanned frantically. He stared at Mariah and then to the door as if he were about to take to his high heels and run.

  ‘You are on a ship, Mr Grendel,’ Mariah said as he took a step closer to avoid being trampled by the hoards of dancers milling around him. ‘There is nowhere to hide. Anyway, I wouldn’t stop you. Not when you’re trying to make a new start in America.’

  ‘Is Captain Charity with you?’ Grendel asked, resting the fan on his nose.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Mariah as Grendel took a step further into the shadows.

  ‘And the Bureau of Antiquities?’

  ‘Everywhere – as we speak,’ Mariah said as he grinned elfishly.

  ‘Then, Mr Grimm, we are certainly undone and shall be returned to England for our crimes.’ Grendel sat heavily on a chair and sighed.

  ‘But we were to start a new life away from all that we had done. I would never have killed you – you do know that. I did have my chance but would never have done it,’ Grimm pleaded.

  ‘Then why did you work for them?’ Mariah asked. ‘You knew Gormenberg was a madman and Bardolph a murderer.’

  ‘They knew things … things about Grimm and I that would have made life very difficult,’ Grendel said as he looked up at Mariah, knowing that it was pointless lying. ‘Leaving England is all we can do. Now you have found us life will be over.’

  ‘Why should that be?’ Mariah asked.

  ‘Wanted men, that’s what we are,’ Grimm replied sadly, as if a full understanding of his life flashed before him.

  ‘Only if someone saw you. All I can see is a gentleman and his lady dancing on an ocean voyage. I see no villains – or detectives,’ Mariah said as he laughed.

  Grimm looked tearfully at Grendel.

  ‘Do you mean –’ Grimm asked.

  ‘Forgiven,’ replied Mariah. ‘As far as I am concerned. But you better keep out of Captain Jack’s way until New York.’

  ‘Confined to cabin,’ Grimm chirped thankfully.

  ‘Never to be seen until Pier 91 on the Hudson River,’ added Grendel. ‘Why are you here?’

  Mariah was taken by surprise. He hadn’t thought he would be asked this question by Grendel.

  ‘Bureau business,’ he said politely, knowing he should say no more.

  ‘You wouldn’t be looking for a Mr Markesan, would you?’ Grimm asked. He could see from the look on Mariah’s face that this was the case. ‘Thing is,’ he went on, ‘I once saw Gormenberg talking to a man called Markesan at the Prince Regent. It was not long before you arrived. Next time I saw him, he was getting off a lifeboat and onto the Ketos … I couldn’t believe my eyes. Now it all makes sense.’

  ‘So you know what he looks like?’ Mariah asked in disbelief.

  ‘Would never forget a face. You know me, Mariah. I am a detective,’ Grimm said proudly as if it were a badge of honour. ‘Funny thing was that he didn’t stay close with the passengers. It was as if he’d done something on the Triton.’

  ‘And,’ Grendel added, ‘I saw him clearly. Accompanied by a man dressed as a clown.’

  A waiter stepped forward, as if from nowhere. He looked at Mariah and offered him the glass of soda.

  ‘With the regards of Captain Charity,’ he said as he disappeared quickly.

  Mariah thought nothing of taking the glass and drinking from it. The soda was ice cold and bitter and fizzed in his mouth. Grimm and Grendel saw the look on Mariah’s face. It was as if he was reliving all that had gone on in the circus – the colour bleached from him and his head swam as he stared at the floor.

  ‘Did he do something terrible?’ Grimm asked, his voice swift and concerned.

  Mariah nodded. The heat of
the room seemed suddenly to clutch at him with burning fingers. His collar tightened and hands throbbed with pain.

  ‘Then you better be finding him, Mariah. You look not well – I’ll tell Charity,’ Grendel said as he stood up and took a step forward.

  ‘No … I just need some air. I don’t know what it is,’ Mariah said as he handed Grendel his glass and stepped towards the doors. The waiter followed. He pushed a trolley covered with half-eaten desserts.

  Grendel watched as Mariah pushed open the doors to the deck and stepped outside.

  ‘Do you think he is well?’ he asked Grimm.

  ‘We will have to stay in our cabin until we are in New York. I can’t see Charity being so charitable.’ Grimm laughed.

  Grendel turned again. Mariah was gone. He sniffed the glass from which Mariah had drunk – there was the faint aroma of beetroot and burnt wax.

  ‘Poisoned! The waiter,’ he said as he gave chase. ‘Quickly, Grimm – he has Mariah.’

  The detective realised what had taken place. Mariah had been given laudanum. They rushed from the ballroom.

  From the far side of the ballroom Charity saw the commotion. ‘Grimm!’ he shouted as he leapt to his feet and ran after them.

  Grimm and Grendel were ahead of him. Despite being six feet tall, wearing a long dress and stiletto heels, Grendel was quite sprightly. He was a yard faster than Grimm, who found it difficult to run. Ahead of them they saw the waiter running with the trolley of food. An arm flopped out from underneath the white cloth.

  ‘Look, he has him,’ shouted Grimm as they gave chase through the promenading passengers taking the night air.

  ‘Stop! Stop that man!’ Grendel shouted in a deep voice as a woman looked at him and then fainted.

  They ran on. Grimm and Grendel chased the waiter and Charity chased them.

  The waiter ran faster. The trolley was out of control but he soon reached the end of the deck. Grimm saw him pull Mariah’s limp body from under the cart.

  ‘No!’ screamed Grendel as he careered towards the waiter at great speed on the polished deck.