The Somnambulist: A Novel

by Jonathan Barnes

  “You disappoint me.”

  Moon stayed for another hour or two, mingling half-heartedly with the other guests, yearning all the while to continue his investigations. The Somnambulist, meanwhile, had found himself an empty chair and a jug of milk and had settled down for some serious drinking.

  Moon quit the party as soon as politeness allowed, upon which Lady Glyde took barnacle-like hold of his arm to escort him to the door. They passed Cribb on the way.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Moon. I shan’t see you again.”

  “I suspect I’ll stand the disappointment.”

  A sly grin. “But you misunderstand. This may be the last time I see you but it most certainly is not the last time you see me. A deal has to happen yet before you see the back of me.”

  The conjuror just stared. “You’re gibbering.”

  “I’m a two-legged contradiction, Mr. Moon. You’ll learn.” Cribb gave an oddly wistful little smile, bowed his head once and disappeared back into the crowd.

  “Quite something, isn’t he?”

  “I’m glad he amuses you,” said Moon, as Lady Glyde squeezed his arm a little tighter than was really necessary. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive me. I must go.”

  “So soon?”

  “I’ve work to do.”

  “See you again?” she asked hopefully.

  Moon offered a final, tight half-smile. “Goodbye, ma’am.”

  His obligation for the evening satisfied at last, Moon stepped out into the night.

  He had gone barely five paces before he was stopped by a voice, whining and almost familiar. “Edward!”

  He turned around. Someone stood silhouetted at the doorway — the ugly man.

  “What do you want?” asked Moon, not bothering to hide his irritation.

  Cribb grabbed the conjuror’s left hand and clasped it in his. It was almost certainly his imagination but Moon could have sworn that the ridiculous little man actually had tears bulging in his eyes.

  “Mr. Moon.” He trembled, his voice thick with feeling. “Edward.”

  Moon did his best to extricate his hand but Cribb held it tight. “Please, let me speak. Let me say this. We’ve been through so much together.”

  “Nonsense. We’ve barely met.”

  “Oh, we’ve faced death together, you and I. We’ve looked the worst this city has to offer in the eye and lived to tell the tale. I’d like to say what an honor and a privilege it has been to know you. To…” Choked with emotion, Cribb stopped, gasped in desperate lungfuls of air. Recovering his composure, he finished forlornly: “To have been your friend.”

  Moon assumed the man was drunk and tugged his hand away.

  “You don’t understand me now. But you will. I promise. You’ll regret this. You’ll regret not saying goodbye.”

  Moon strode swiftly away. The ugly man chose not to follow but, sadder and more solemn than before, turned and walked slowly back inside.

  As if by instinct, Moon returned to the site of the murder.

  Despite the lateness of the hour the streets were filled with the same human flotsam that had accosted Cyril Honeyman on his final journey. But at Moon’s approach, they drew swiftly back, aware perhaps that he was not a man to trifle with. The conjuror barely noticed them as he moved, wraithlike, through the alleys and backstreets of the place, heading inevitably for the tower.

  He could feel the weight of the past pressing down upon him as he walked, the waters of history closing about his head. He found himself recalling the notion of genius loci, that fanciful conviction that a place itself materially affects the individuals who pass through it. If this place had any tangible effect upon its inhabitants, then it was surely a malign one. The topography of the district had a uniquely malevolent quality; it seemed to draw to its bosom all that was most loathsome in the city, most monstrous and sinful. The place had a hunger to it; it craved sacrifice.

  Moon reached the silent hulk of the tower, made his way to the top and found it entirely deserted. It was clear that no transients has pressed the place into service as an impromptu boarding house — in an area beset by poverty of the most acute and pernicious kind, this fact ought to have surprised him, though, strangely, it did not.

  The summit was bare now and cleared of rancid food and Moon mused again on the particulars of this troublesome case, the suspicious paucity of physical evidence, the tantalizing sense he had of something greater lurking just beyond his grasp. He sank to the cold floor, fumbled in his pockets for cigarette and lighter and sat and smoked as the night slipped away, cross-legged, eyes tight shut, like some latter-day Buddha waiting patiently for he knew not what.

  Mrs. Grossmith’s many years of service had inured her to her employer’s eccentricities, practically immunized her against his quirks and idiosyncrasies. Consequently, her near-hysterical reaction on Moon’s return home was no small cause for alarm.

  “Mr. Moon!” she wailed. “Where have you been?”

  “That’s no business of yours.”

  “No need to be rude,” she snapped.

  There was a long pause. Moon sighed. “My apologies. What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “There was a man here for you. All night.”

  “Who?”

  “Gave me the proper chills, he did. Right upset me. He was a little man. All small and white.”

  “An albino?”

  Grossmith scrunched her face up in a frown. “I think that’s the word.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just that he wanted to see you and that it was important.” She reached into her apron pocket and passed him a small white rectangle of card. “He left you this.”

  Moon glanced down. “It’s blank.”

  “I know. I asked whether it was a mistake but he said no, that you’d understand. I don’t mind admitting I was worried. What kind of a man leaves a card like that?”

  Moon tossed the thing onto the kitchen fire where it was satisfyingly consumed by the flames. As it burned, he came to a decision.

  The Somnambulist shambled into the room, his monolithic frame swaddled in a florid purple dressing gown. Moon bade him good morning; the Somnambulist yawned in response.

  “I’m canceling the show tonight. It’s time we went on the offensive.”

  The Somnambulist stretched and yawned again. He scrawled a message.

  WHERE

  When he heard Moon’s reply, the Somnambulist lost his bleary-eyed torpor and found himself suddenly and uncomfortably wide awake.

  They waited until dusk before leaving the theatre, creeping past a disapproving Mrs. Grossmith and in inebriated Speight already settling down for the night. Moon raised his hat in greeting, to which the man managed a sottish sort of reply.

  A coach waited for them a few minutes’ walk from Albion Square. Moon and the Somnambulist climbed silently aboard, saying nothing to the driver who sat draped in black, his face obscured by muffler and scarf. He was an associate of the inspector, a fellow renowned for his tact and discretion.

  “Tonight is a hunting expedition,” Moon explained once they were inside. “We’re after information. Just fishing. I don’t want a repeat of your behavior last time.”

  The Somnambulist nodded sagely.

  “But if things become unpleasant — as I fully expect they might — I trust I can rely on your… expertise?”

  Another nod.

  “”Thank you. There’s no one I’d rather have by my side on these little excursions.”

  The giant smiled shyly in response and the coach rattled on through the night.

  Less than half an hour passed before they arrived at their destination, a squalid alley deep in the bowels of Rotherhithe. This was an evil place, a collection of vile tenement buildings, doss kitchens and tumbledown slums. The streets were putrid with the stench of neglect and its people seemed more animal than human, their faces grimy, leprous and grizzled. It was a part of the city that cried out for civilization, for mercy and — yes, I do not hesit
ate to use the word, however unfashionable you may happen to find it — for love.

  Midway down the street, amongst a row of crumbling houses leaning drunkenly together, between a pub and a lodging house where the very poor paid tuppence a night for the privilege of sleeping slumped up against a rope, stood an establishment well known to Edward Moon. An aged, drunken Lascar stood guard, and as they approached, Moon nodded politely — just as one might to a doorman at the Ritz, to the gatekeeper of some exclusive club of which one is a lifetime member. The Lascar studied them with rheumy and suspicious eyes but, too inebriated perhaps to offer much resistance, let them pass without comment. They walked down a crooked, well-worn staircase into the main body of the building, its poisonous heart, a gigantic cellar reeking of sin — the notorious opium den of Fodina Yiangou.

  The cellar was wreathed in a fog of livid yellow smoke and the floor was thick with human bodies: contorted, ugly and unnatural. A young man sat lost in some heaven or hell of his own creation, the very portrait of ruin, mouth agape, eyes wide open, pupils shrunk to pinpoints. Hunched beside him was a broken-down soldier, still dressed in the scarlet livery of his regiment, filthy and ragged from years of neglect. Their hands like claws, they clutched feebly onto their opium pipes — granters at once of ecstasy and torment. Made drowsy by the poppy, they lolled listlessly on their couches, their pale, pasty faces illuminated by the light of the oil lamps, helpless as puppets shorn of their strings. Moon and the Somnambulist picked their way amongst them, and almost as one the men shuddered as they passed.

  “Lotus-eaters,” the conjuror murmured. His companion gave him a quizzical look, but before he could write anything in reply a stooped Oriental materialized beside them, his face cracked and raw as though ravaged by some hideous disease.

  “Mr. Moon?” His voice was thickly accented, insidious, sly.

  The detective bowed politely.

  The Chinaman jabbed angrily at the Somnambulist. “Why he here?”

  Moon did his best to placate him. “The Somnambulist has come as my guest. You have my word he’ll be on his best behavior.”

  “He not welcome,” Yiangou insisted.

  “Don’t say that,” Moon grinned toothily. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  Yiangou snarled. “What you want?”

  “What do I want?” Moon asked nonchalantly. He moved toward the Oriental and pinched his pug nose hard between forefinger and thumb. “I want information, Mr. Y. I trust you’ll be happy to oblige.”

  The Chinaman yelped in reluctant agreement.

  “Capital,” said Moon, releasing his nose. “Now let’s see if we can manage a more civilized conversation. I’m investigating the murder of Cyril Honeyman.”

  Yiangou nodded sullenly.

  “I’m sure a man of your intelligence could hazard a guess at my next question.”

  Yiangou laughed. “You must be desperate to come here,” he said. “I think you fail. You fail!”

  “I never fail,” Moon replied stiffly.

  “Clapham!” The Chinaman cackled triumphantly. “I think you fail there.”

  The shadow of the Somnambulist fell across Yiangou, and the Chinaman immediately fell silent.

  “I want names,” Moon demanded, “anything you might have heard. Any whisper, any clue let slip by one of your poppy-addled clientele. Every evil thing in London comes through here at some time or another. One of them must know something.”

  Yiangou gurgled a sigh. “I no help you, Mr. Moon.”

  “I could persuade you.”

  “I think you could not.”

  Moon glared. “Do you know something?”

  The Chinaman gave an elaborate shrug, only to give himself away by giggling.

  “You do!”

  He shook his head.

  “Given our long friendship, Mr. Yiangou, I rather think you owe it to me to say.”

  Yiangou simpered.

  “Alternatively,” suggested Moon matter-of-factly, “I could ask my friend here to break your fingers one by one.”

  “Ah.” The Chinaman sighed. “I been told to expect you.”

  He clapped his hands and two burly men appeared by his side, stripped to the waist, awesomely muscled, prolifically tattooed, glistening with perspiration. Yiangou snapped his leathery fingers. At this signal both men drew out alarmingly vicious-looking swords and advanced toward Moon and the Somnambulist.

  “You’ve been told?” the conjuror said thoughtfully. “By whom, I wonder?”

  One of the men lunged eagerly toward him, his blade cutting the air inches from Moon’s face.

  “You’re making me nervous, Mr. Yiangou. And you used to be such a generous host.”

  The man swung his sword again and Moon took an instinctive step backwards, silently berating himself for not bringing a gun with him. He gulped and wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple.

  The other thug brandished his sword at the Somnambulist who, unlike the conjuror (never at his best in any physical confrontation), stood resolutely firm.

  “Run away!” Yiangou squealed as Moon muttered something about the better part of valor. “You come to me,” the Chinaman went on. “You threaten. You disturb my customers. You aggravate for many years.”

  “I can close you down any time I like,” Moon protested, rather out of breath. “The only reason you’re still here is because you’re of use to me.”

  It was quite the wrong thing to say. Yiangou clapped his hands. “Bored now,” he said, and the thugs moved in for the kill, their eyes aflame with the promise of murder. Moon leapt aside as one of them tried to skewer him, but was forced back against the wall. Exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t last much longer.

  But still the Somnambulist stood firm. The other man ran roaring toward him and, like some especially ferocious javelin-thrower unable or unwilling to let go of his spear, thrust the blade deep into the giant’s belly.

  The Somnambulist looked down at the wound, his face a picture of mild curiosity, looked up again and smiled. His would-be assassin gazed back in disbelief and then in real terror as, without betraying the slightest outward sign of pain, the Somnambulist strode forward, thrusting himself further onto the sword to reach his attacker. Expecting his quarry to fall at any moment, the man kept tight hold of the hilt but still the Somnambulist came relentlessly on, unstoppable as the sword slid smoothly into his belly and emerged unstained on the other side. The man held tight until the Somnambulist was almost upon him, when, shrieking inchoate curses, he let go of his weapon and ran in terror from the scene.

  Disturbed by the noise of the rumpus, some of the opium slaves started to stir in their sleep, a few shambling to their feet, mumbling and howling confusedly. Yiangou squealed in frustrated rage and barked an order to his remaining servant. Foolishly, but with admirable loyalty, the man ran at the Somnambulist and buried his sword in his back. The giant swatted him easily aside and, still unflinching, plucked both blades from his body. Just as at the Theatre of Marvels, the swords were clean of blood. Moon walked to his side.

  “Thank you,” he gasped. They turned to face Yiangou. “Now. Who the devil told you to do that?”

  Numbly, the Chinaman shook his head.

  “Mr. Yiangou,” Moon said reasonably, “you said someone had told you to expect me. All I want is a name.”

  Yiangou seemed terrified. I can’t, Mr. Moon, I can’t.”

  “Very well. I’ll just have to ask the Somnambulist to be gentle with you. But as you’ve seen, he’s not a man who knows his own strength.”

  One of the pipe smokers, a whiskery fop who had hitherto lain silent, suddenly lumbered to his feet and yelled something unintelligible into the air. Startled, Moon and the Somnambulist turned toward him, but as they did so Yiangou saw his opportunity and took it. He ran, vanishing from sight almost immediately, disappearing deep into the warren of his establishment. The Somnambulist set off in pursuit but Moon called him back.

  “No good. Yiangou knows this place far better tha
n us. I fear we’ve lost him for tonight.”

  The Somnambulist seemed disappointed.

  “Are you all right? That must have taken its toll even on you.”

  The giant frowned.

  “You don’t look well. I think we should get back.”

  They left the opium wrecks behind them and headed home, looking forward to the broth Mrs. Grossmith had promised to prepare for their return, but as the coach drove into Albion Square, they saw Detective Inspector Merryweather waiting on the steps outside their lodgings. He stood next to Speight, evidently uncomfortable in the vagrant’s company, even if the latter seemed in the midst of lively conversation, talking loudly and gesticulating at his perennial sandwich board.

  SURELY I AM COMING SOON

  REVELATION 22:20

  “Gentlemen!” Merryweather called out as the pair descended from the cab.

  “Inspector.”

  “What have you been up to this time?” he asked, eyeing their torn and bloodied appearance.

  “Solving your case,” Moon replied, a little tartly.

  “It’s bad news.”

  The conjuror sighed. “Go on.”

  Merryweather drew himself up to his full height and paused dramatically.

  “Well?” Moon was in no mood for theatrics.

  The inspector swallowed hard. “There’s been another one.”

  Chapter 7

  As the coach sped back into the city, Merryweather explained it all.

  “What was his name?” asked Moon. He seemed alert again, re-energized, whilst the Somnambulist, exhausted by the battering the night had already given him, had begun to drift off into a pleasant doze.

  “The victim’s name is Philip Dunbar. Wealthy. Like Honeyman, an only son, an idler and a wastrel. Like Honeyman, he fell from the tower.”

  “The same site?” Furious, Moon clenched his hands into fists.

  “Dunbar was lucky.”

  “Lucky? How?”

  “He survived, Mr. Moon. He survived.”

  Philip Dunbar lay close to death. He may once have been a handsome man but now it was almost impossible to tell — teeth smashed, face ruined, he writhed helplessly on the bed, its sheets already stiff with sweat, blood and urine, more like some shattered beast than a young man whose whole life had stretched uncomplicatedly before him only hours earlier.