“Probably wise of him,” St. Cyprian murmured.
“Yes, you’ve got quite the bad odor about you, Charles. No place for ghouls and ghosts in modern police methodology. Regarded as even worse than the fairer sex, your average phantom,” Robertson-Kirk said, closing the door behind her.
“Ten years on, and they still haven’t admitted it was a good idea to have you around,” St. Cyprian murmured, looking at her. While it seemed dashed odd to think of women serving as police officers, he saw no reason that they shouldn’t. If working with Gallowglass had taught him one thing, it was that there was little appreciable difference in the sensibilities of men and women when it came to the bleaker aspects of life.
“I expect it’ll take another war or three,” Robertson-Kirk said. “That Stanley woman has it well handled, I think. Moreso than I ever did. In the meantime, voila!” She turned back the sheet and exposed the pale, flaccid features of the dead man. St. Cyprian had seen more than his share of corpses in his time, most in a good deal worse shape, and he took the sudden revelation without flinching. “Your chum Melion has a bit of pull, or we’d have run his man in for butchery without a license.” She gestured. “Gurkha knives leave very distinct wounds, comparable to cane-knives. It’s the angle that identifies it, ultimately. But you already knew how he died, didn’t you Charles?”
“The man who did it told me. It’s not this chap’s death I’m interested in, but his life. Specifically, whose orders he was following in the moments preceding his demise.” He leaned over the corpse and murmured, “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Oh really Charles. At least wait until I’m out of the room before you start up with the necromancy,” Robertson-Kirk said, backing away from the table the body lay on. “Just because I believe in it now, doesn’t mean that I wish to see it.”
“No necromancy, I assure you,” he said. “Just a bit of close examination. There is every likelihood that this gentleman is nothing more than a common East End dacoit, of which our fair metropolis has more than its share. But, in my experience, it’s best to make sure.” Carefully he began to poke and prod the body. He pulled the lips aside to peer at the gums, checked behind the ears and in the pits of the arms.
“What are you looking for?” Robertson-Kirk said, after a few moments of this.
“A tattoo, or witch’s mark, ideally. Something to identify his allegiances, if he had any,” St. Cyprian said. “Secret societies and cults have long used such means of identifying members, as you well know. And I have a fair to middling working knowledge of the various marks the local trouble-makers use, right up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Thomas made me memorize them, thankfully.” He glanced at Gallowglass. “I’ve endeavored to pass such knowledge on to the next generation, but, well…I’m not as good a teacher as he was, I’m afraid.” He hesitated, then added, “It doesn’t help that my student thinks that a betting slip is the height of literary achievement.”
Gallowglass frowned. “I read,” she said.
“Yes. Just not the important things.”
“Depends on your definition of important, don’t it?” Gallowglass sniffed.
St. Cyprian rolled his eyes and looked at Robertson-Kirk. “Such is my lot,” he said. “I—hold on, what’s this?” He parted the hair on the dead man’s head and traced a finger along his scalp. “There we are. Ms. Gallowglass, Molly, if you’d be so kind as to gather around and tell me what this tattoo looks like?”
Gallowglass and Robertson-Kirk peered at the spot St. Cyprian had indicated. Gallowglass was the first to speak. “It’s a goat, innit,” she said.
“Close,” St. Cyprian said. “It’s a ram. Aries, in fact, if I’m not mistaken.”
“The constellation, you mean?” Robertson-Kirk asked.
“Possibly, but more likely the astrological symbol—see these markings here, around it?” He straightened and wiped his hands on the shroud. “This man belonged to the Order of the Cosmic Ram.”
“Meaning?” Gallowglass said.
“Meaning, assistant-mine, that we need to go to Mayfair,” St. Cyprian said grimly.
5.
Soho, the West End, London
Melion put down the telephone with a grunt of satisfaction. Ghale had reported that St. Cyprian and Gallowglass were even now racing off in that ridiculous motorcar of his towards Mayfair. A surge of triumphant satisfaction momentarily drowned out the nagging fear that had been growing within him since the theft. “I knew it. I knew it!” The words exploded out of him, puncturing the carefully cultivated serenity of his sitting room. “I told you that he’d done it, the bastard. That fool Fleece has crossed me for the last time,” he growled, pounding the arms of his chair with knotted fists.
He looked at his guests with a mixture of defiance and satisfaction. They’d arrived not long after St. Cyprian had departed, and Mr. Ghale as well. He’d dispatched his man to follow Charles, and to keep tabs on the investigation. The minute Charles had the proof Melion was certain he would find, he wanted to know about it. And he wanted his guests to know about it as well. A point needed to be made.
“Well, that declaration wasn’t melodramatic in the least,” one of the three other people in the room murmured over the rim of his teacup. He was lean and dressed in clothes which, though of fine quality, looked as though they should have been washed rather than worn. A shock of white hair swept up from his hawk-like features like a halo, and his eyes were the color of penny pieces. “Would you care to shake your fist perhaps? Maybe strike an intimidating pose? Go on, William—it’ll make you feel better, I’m sure.”
“Hush Cornelius,” another of the three, a woman, said with mild disapproval. She was tall for a woman, and dressed in black. Her hair was clipped short and plastered tight to her narrow head like a skull cap. Her eyes were dark and cold, like river-tossed stones and her lips were full and dark. Melion longed to kiss them, though he knew that such foolishness had proved fatal for all three of her previous husbands. “William has every right to be upset. Hermes has gone too far this time. Even I am appalled by his sheer rudeness—stealing something poor William had already stolen once. Why, he’s no better than a bandit.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Melion said, jerking forward to take the woman’s hand. “You are, as ever, the spirit of understanding.”
“Sit down William,” the last of Melion’s guests said, tapping the floor with the silver-plated tip of his cane. Even dressed as fashionably as he was, Saxon Dorr still reminded Melion of a withered willow. His colorless hair, what was left of it, was brushed back from his sunken features, leaving his eyes his most prominent feature. They were by turns gold, amber and yellow, depending on the angle and his mood. “And do stop slobbering all over Amelia. It puts me in a foul mood to see any man play the fool so.”
“Jealous, Saxon?” Amelia murmured.
“Hardly, my dear. Merely thinking of your—Ha!—virtues,” Dorr said acerbically. He turned a yellow gaze on Melion. “Is your man certain?”
“They’re heading to Mayfair. What other reason could there be?” Melion barked. He gestured flamboyantly. “I told you Charles would figure it out. Mind like a steel trap, that boy.”
“There are any number of possibilities as to why they might be going to Mayfair, if you but take the time to think, rather than leaping to conclusions.” Dorr’s thin lips quirked into a thin slash of a smile. “Need I remind you that doing so is how you found yourself in this rather depressing situation in the first place?”
Melion sat back in his seat and glared balefully at the other man. “No, Saxon. You do not,” he growled. Idly he rubbed his shoulder. He could feel the raised crags and deep crevasses of scar tissue even through the silk of his dressing gown. The beast’s bite had sunk deep into his flesh, and if he thought about it for too long, he could still feel the wash of its foul breath across his face. He closed his eyes, banishing all thought of that singular night in Budapest. “I will have my property back, regardle
ss of who the culprit is.”
“Yes, yes, even so this hardly indicts Hermes Fleece or the Order of the Cosmic Ram,” Dorr began testily. “He is still a member of this quorum, until we decide otherwise.”
“Oh we all know it’s Fleece, Saxon,” Cornelius interjected. “We’re the only ones that knew that Melion was bringing that…thing into the country. To be honest, I’d have stolen it myself, if I thought that there was anything to be learned from it.”
Melion glared at the white-headed man. “There is everything to be learned from it!”
“Nothing of merit,” Cornelius said, sipping his tea. “At least not to a man of my interests.” He paused. “Though, I must admit I have considered writing a monograph on the subject of therianthropic allergies—silver, iron, all that rot. A fascinating, if narrow, subject.”
Melion half-rose from his chair. “A fascinating subject,” he grated. “This is my life you’re talking about, you pompous fool.” He clutched at the old wound. It always ached when he grew upset, which was becoming a more common occurrence than he cared to consider. He staggered, as a wave of pain rippled through him. Amelia was on her feet in an instant. She guided him gently back to his chair. He felt the anger drain from him as he stared into her strange, cold eyes.
“Calm yourself, William. We are your friends. We only wish to help,” she said.
“Fleece was my friend. Or so I thought,” he croaked. The anger flooded back, and with it, a wave of red dappled black that squirmed at the edges of his vision. He pushed her away. “First he denied me any help, and now he’s stolen my property! And don’t try any of your parlour tricks on me, Amelia. I’m not one of those wilting violets you have in your Gorgon Society.”
“William, right now, any one of those ‘wilting violets’ could easily handle you,” Amelia said as her eyes flashed with anger. “But if you do not wish my help, all you have to do is say, and I will go.”
“Then go, dash it!” Melion snarled. Amelia stepped back, her face stiff with shock. “All of you go,” Melion continued, his eyes bulging from their sockets. He writhed with convulsions, and felt at once sick and terribly hungry. The arm rests of his chair cracked and splintered in his grip as great, heaving coughs ripped their way free of his straining lungs.
He sagged back as the tip of Dorr’s cane caught him in the chest. Dorr stood over him. “Miss Glossop, Mr. Flamel, I believe it is best if you both take your leave. I shall stay, and see Mr. Melion through his fit.”
Amelia hesitated, as if she were reluctant to leave, but Cornelius took her arm and said, “Escort me out, Amelia. Soho is no place for an unescorted gentleman such as myself.” He smiled crookedly at Melion as they moved towards the door. “Do remember to take your medicine, William.”
When they had left, Dorr stepped back. “Really, William,” he murmured. “Bad form, that. We are all friends here, are we not? Is our brotherhood not forged of bonds stronger than blood?”
Melion glared at him for a moment, and then dropped his eyes. His breathing slowed and he sat back wearily. “My apologies, Saxon. I am…overtired.”
“And with good reason,” Dorr said. “I am reminded of a folktale from my ill-starred youth. The story about the boy with the fox in his belly. How that fox gnawed and gnawed…”
“Saxon please,” Melion said, covering his eyes with a trembling hand.
Dorr lifted his cane, tracing Melion’s chest and then catching his chin with the silver tip. Melion flinched, but raised his eyes to meet Dorr’s own. “How that fox gnawed and ate, until the only bit of the boy left was his skin, which the fox wore to the ball.” He sighed and set his cane down. “It’s a shame that our junior member failed to discern anything that might help you with your problem during that debacle in Whitechapel at the beginning of the year. You’ll have to remember to thank your friend Charles for that.”
Melion shook his head. “Eddowes was unstable, and the thing he brought into the world even more so. There was nothing to be learned from such a monster, and we are well shed of those fools in the Whitechapel Club.”
“So you say now,” Dorr said. “We are lucky that your friend Charles is not so assiduous in seeking the solution to lingering mysteries as some previous occupiers of his office have been, in years past. If he were, he might have discovered our hand in that particular business.”
Melion closed his eyes and thrust his fingers into his tangled hair, scrubbing at his scalp. Dorr was correct. It was lucky for them, and him in particular, that Charles had a lackadaisical approach to his function. He frowned. No, better to say that he knew when to let certain matters lay, as several of his predecessors had not. Drood and his shimmering crystal egg, Beamish and his hunt for the worms in the earth; Thomas, however, had known what mysteries were worth solving, and which were for avoiding entirely. Melion hoped that St. Cyprian would continue to show good sense. But if not…he looked at Dorr.
“What about this business, Saxon? If it comes back on us, if Charles should discover something…” Melion began. Dorr cut him off with a gesture.
“It will not, and he will not. And if he does, well…” He smiled unpleasantly. “There are…options open to us.”
Mayfair, City of Westminster, London
Mayfair spread along the eastern edge of Hyde Park, curling towards Marylebone and Soho. It was mostly expensive residential flats, some moreso than others. The well-to-do occupied it even as the Romans had reportedly done more than a thousand years before. St. Cyprian navigated the Crossley towards a parking spot and parked.
“So, why Mayfair?” Gallowglass asked, as they got out of the motorcar.
“Remember that business in Maida Vale a few months ago? That rancid little mummy-enthusiast named Gladstone?” he asked.
“The one what got his wheeze-box ripped out?”
“That’s the trolley, yes,” St. Cyprian said with a grimace, “He was a member in good standing of the Order of the Cosmic Ram.”
“Order of the which now?”
“The Cosmic Ram—Aries, or, perhaps Amon-Ra, depending on which mythological underpinning you prefer.”
“They worship goats?”
St. Cyprian looked at her. “What? No, don’t be ridiculous. They worship the spirit of the ram, not an actual ram. It’s infinitely sillier,” he said dismissively. “And anyway, they don’t worship it in the common sense of the word. Rather, they’ve taken a page from Blatavatsky’s book and knicked a bunch of elements from half a dozen places in order to create an awkward approximation of an ethos that makes Rosicrucians look sensible. That’s not the problem, however.” He shook his head. “They’re militant, to put it politely. The late, unlamented Gladstone sent his pet mummy to throttle the leaders of several other, smaller and on the whole, more benign occult societies. The members of those societies then joined the Order, likely out of fear of getting the same. Their numbers have increased in a worryingly exponential fashion over the past few months.”
“So why haven’t we stopped them?” Gladstone said, stopping to peer into the window of Allen’s of Mayfair. St. Cyprian pulled her away from the butcher shop.
“Because unilateral punishment is against my moral code,” he said. Gallowglass cackled. St. Cyprian threw up his hands. “Fine. Because I would rather not start a war that I can’t finish, if you must know.” He looked hard at her. “I’m one man. A duo, at best, if we count you. If I went around tilting at every shadowy windmill, I’d miss the actual threats that seemed determine to chew on the sensitive bits of His Majesty’s subjects. Which is why I need you to be on your best behavior for the next hour or so, if you please. No unlimbering of the artillery, yes?”
“Yes you want me to, or yes, I won’t?”
“The latter,” he said sternly. “Don’t shoot anyone unless I tell you to.”
“I hardly ever do that anyway,” Gallowglass protested.
“The key word there is ‘hardly’,” St. Cyprian said. He shook his head. “If the Order is involved with this theft, t
hat means there’s more to it than William was letting on. And I want to find out what.”
Up the street, a brass band, seemingly composed of ex-army men to go by their dress, played a lively tune for the pedestrians. The world had dealt harshly with those who had the gall to survive the War and not be earning an officer’s pay. Faces of men he’d served with flashed through his mind and he wondered how many of them were in a similar situation. Far too many, he suspected.
St. Cyprian pulled out his billfold and dropped a handful of notes into the hat provided for such a purpose. The trumpeter’s eyes widened as he realized how much St. Cyprian had put down, and he made to leave off playing, but St. Cyprian was already striding away, Gallowglass following at his heels.
“Lot of dosh to drop,” she muttered.
“What good is a stipend that never gets used, what? Besides, it’s the little acts of charity which fortify a man’s soul,” he said, not looking at her. Gallowglass didn’t reply. They left the band behind, and passed a gaily painted hokey-pokey cart, where an ice cream vendor plied a number of customers with his wares. Gallowglass nudged him.
“Speaking of charity,” she said.
St. Cyprian shook his head, but threaded his way through the crowd of overly-sticky children to buy two portions of ice cream. As he passed Gallowglass’ treat to her, he used his own to gesture towards a residence across the street. “There it is,” he said. The terraced townhouse had a brick front, with a white painted door and windows. It was three stories, but he knew that there was a substantial cellar as well, where the Order of the Cosmic Ram held weekly meetings to discuss whatever it was they discussed. “The Mayfair residence of one Dr. Hermes Fleece, High Shepherd of the Order of the Cosmic Ram.” He extracted his pocket watch and flipped it open. “Given the day, and the hour, I’m almost certain that we’ll be interrupting a gathering of the inner circle. They take tea together on Wednesdays.”
The Jade Suit of Death (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist Book 2) Page 4
