“Something the matter?” Speight seemed genuinely concerned.
“Have you ever had everything you ever believed in ruined in a few hours?”
“Can’t say I have, sir, no.”
“Have you ever seen all logic and reason dissolve before your eyes?”
“Again, sir — I’d have to say no.”
“Have you ever been thrust into the most acute existential crisis by the sheer impossibility of the truth?”
The beggar gave Moon an embarrassed look. “P’raps you’d better have a lie-down, sir. Thanks again for the cash.”
With a heavy sigh, the conjuror stepped inside.
Six hours later, slumped at a table in the far corner of the hotel bar, a bleary-eyed Moon watched Arthur Barge shamble amiably past. The detective crooked his little finger and beckoned him across. “Mr. Barge?”
The human toby jug beamed. “Good evening to you.” He walked across to Moon, tripping over a stray barstool as he did so.
“I’ve been meaning,” Moon said with that ponderous solemnity unique to the seriously drunk, “to have a word with you.”
“I suppose this is about me and Mrs. G. She’s a wonderful woman, sir. A real lady. Frisky like, though, when she wants to be.”
Moon steepled his fingers. “Mr. Barge, Mrs. Grossmith has given me years of faithful service. I am not entirely without feeling and I’ve no wish — to dabble for a moment in the vernacular — to see you break her heart.”
Barge chuckled. “Are you asking me if my intentions are honorable?”
“Yes,” Moon said, unsmiling. “How did you know?”
Barge blustered, “Rest assured. I’ll do right by her.”
Moon finished the last of his drink. “You’d better. If I find you’ve mistreated her in any way…” He paused, unable to think of a sufficiently menacing threat. “Believe me,” he finished feebly, “I’ll get you.”
Barge looked back, astonished at this sudden burst of aggression so ineptly delivered. “Sorry if I’ve offended you. Really. I don’t know what I’ve done, I’m sure.”
Moon glared impatiently. “I’ll be watching.”
“I love her,” Barge said meekly, then walked to the exit, narrowly avoiding spilling several patrons’ drinks in the process. He struggled with the door, fruitlessly trying to tug it open when it would have submitted to the gentlest of pushes. Only the entrance of the Somnambulist afforded him an opportunity to escape. He stopped to whisper his thanks but the giant stomped grumpily past without acknowledging him.
When Moon saw his friend, he groaned and pushed aside a few of the legion of empty glasses lined up before him in a vain attempt to disguise the quantity of his drinking. The Somnambulist, however, was in no mood to be fooled. He pulled a stool up to the table, lowered his vast form upon it and wrote furiously on his blackboard, the ferocious tap of chalk on board sounding to Moon like the dull roar of distant cannon fire.
WARE WERE YOU
Moon squirmed. The Somnambulist gesticulated angrily at the message.
“Out,” Moon said and stumbled to his feet. Faltering, he floundered and, his balance unsteady, fell heavily back onto the chair. The Somnambulist ignored these pratfalls.
CRIBB
“Yes,” Moon admitted, a chink of emotion in his voice.
DONT TRUST
Moon looked up. “You recognize him, don’t you?”
STAY AWAY
“I don’t understand. Why won’t you tell me what you know? Why won’t anyone tell me what they know?”
TRUST ME
Moon sighed.
PLEESE
The Somnambulist frantically underlined the word.
Moon clutched his head. “Very well. If it makes you happy. I shan’t see him again.”
The Somnambulist nodded gravely.
“But you promise one day you’ll tell me why?”
The giant shrugged.
“Fine,” spat Moon. “If that’s the best you can do.” And he staggered up and lurched from the room.
Once he got to his suite, in a vain attempt to counteract the effects of the alcohol, her forced himself to consume three glasses of water before collapsing helplessly onto his bed. In the seconds before he passed out he watched, too weak to stir, as Skimpole’s man peered into the room, realized his condition and pulled the door discreetly shut. His last thought was a drunken conviction that the strange events which had filled his life since Cyril Honeyman had fallen from the tower must have a pattern, that they shared some undiscovered connection, were bound together by an invisible plot. He could see only the tiniest part of its design — like looking at a single filament of a spider’s web through a microscope — but he felt certain that all he needed was to step back, gain some perspective and watch as everything came into focus. He tried to keep hold of the idea but he was befuddled by drink and it leapt and wriggled away from him, struggling frantically like a mackerel on a hook until, in the end, he gave in and the darkness came to claim him.
Sleep did not come so easily in Newgate.
Barabbas stank and he knew it. Matters have come to a terrible pass when the stench and toxicity of one’s own perspiration are enough to make one nauseous. Owsley had procured him many favors, but it seemed that a decent bath was beyond even him.
Barabbas yawned, scratched at his shaggy beard and shuffled his elephantine bulk across those few paces that measured the floor of his cell. It was quiet now as the clock moved into the slow hours of the night — the only time when the shrieks and lamentations of his fellow inmates died down. The next cell was currently occupied by a member of a fundamentalist Methodist sect who occupied his time in endless repetitions of the Lord’s Prayer, occasionally interspersed for variety’s sake with a small selection of the better known psalms. The man must have fallen asleep shortly before midnight, exhausted and hoarse from his day’s labors, as Barabbas had heard nothing from him for almost an hour.
“Meyrick?” he hissed. “Are you there?”
Owsley’s face appeared between the bars. “Always,” he murmured, his tone that of a patient mother soothing a particularly obstreperous child.
Barabbas sighed — a rattling, skeletal sound. “I’m bored. Do you have any conception of what it’s like for me in here? The miserable, numbing tedium of it all.”
Owsley’s voice was as obsequious as ever. “Yes, sir, I do sympathize.”
“A man of my brilliance incarcerated in a space not fit for beasts. A coruscating intellect penned in with criminals with nothing to do but wait. It’s one of the great tragedies of our age.”
“Indeed, sir.” Was there a hint of resignation in Owsley’s voice? A glimpse behind the disciple’s mask, a momentary revelation of a man long-suffering, put upon, resentful? Perhaps.
“When will Edward come again?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“When he comes, I’ll—”
“Yes, sir? What will you do?” Just the faintest undertone of sarcasm, barely detectable.
“I’ll tell him everything.”
This had an unexpected effect on the listener. A thoughtful pause, then the carefully worded reply: “I should not advise such a course of action.”
Barabbas spluttered. “I don’t ask for advice. Yours is not to reason why.”
Owsley, unruffled but insistent: “You would regret it.”
“You are my creature. Never forget that.”
But his disciple did not reply, and the prisoner heard only soft footfalls as Owsley padded away down the corridor in discreet abandonment of his post.
“Meyrick!” Barabbas shouted, but still the footsteps receded frustratingly into the distance. “Meyrick!” he screamed, desperate and confused at this sudden, inexplicable dereliction. “Come back!”
Too late. He heard the faint rattle of keys, then the uncaring clang of the iron door as Owsley left the innards of the gaol and headed back toward the outside world.
“Meyrick!” Barabbas rattled the bars of his c
ell in despair, then threw himself onto the stone floor, on the brink of tears. He heard a loud rustling from the next cell — a moan, stumbling footsteps, followed soon after by the first, familiar words of Psalm 130: “Out of the depths I cry to thee…”
At last Mrs. Puggsley’s establishment was shutting up shop after twelve exhausting hours of business. Mina (always the darling of the salon) had been in great demand, and after dealing with her last john of the night she was grateful to walk downstairs to the reception room, hoping to sit with the other girls, gossip, chat and share a glass of wine or two. She was surprised, then, to find no trace of them but only Mrs. Puggsley, who sat on her usual chair, her vast buttocks drooping gelatinously over the seat. A prim, precise, pale-skinned man stood over her.
Puggsley gave a weak smile. “Mina, my dear.” She coughed, and as her enormous frame shuddered in sympathy, she wheezed like a worn-out steam train bound for the scrap heap. “I’ve sent the other girls away.”
“Away?”
Mrs. Puggsley shuffled uncomfortably. “For their safety.”
“Where?”
No reply. Mina transferred her attention to the pale man. “I’ve seen you before,” she said boldly. “You’re a friend of Mr. Gray, aren’t you?”
“Oh, we’re old pals,” he answered and smiled the way Brutus might have smiled the day he wielded the blade.
Mina began to fiddle absently with her beard, a nervous habit from childhood she had never quite managed to suppress. “What’s going on?”
Mrs. Puggsley turned toward her. “Please,” she said gently. “Go.”
“Tell me what’s happened,” Mina protested, despising herself for the plaintive quality in her voice.
“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” the pale man said smoothly. “Your usefulness has come to an end.”
Puggsley made a strange, uncharacteristic snuffling sound.
“I’ve decided to close you down. A terrible pity. But needs must…”
Mina looked at her employer, hoping for a denial, for some shred of hope, but the woman was unable even to meet her gaze.
“You’ve been a great help. Mrs. Puggsley says you were quite his favorite. The details you supplied were invaluable.” He paused to readjust the pince-nez that perched ridiculously on the tip of his nose. “It would be no exaggeration to say that there are those in the highest echelons of government who are grateful for your assistance.” He gave an oleaginous smile. “Take heart. Even a wretch like you can serve King and country in your way.”
“Get out,” Puggsley said to Mina, hoarse now, almost whispering, not bothering to hide the desperation in her voice or stem the rising tide of hysteria.
“I suggest you take your mistress’s advice. In a few minutes’ time this place will be in flames. The Directorate has scheduled it for demolition.”
Mrs. Puggsley did not move.
“My credentials as an arsonist are impeccable. You might say I’ve an eye for catastrophe.” He smirked again but, still silent, Puggsley did not stir. Mina gazed at this tableau in horror.
“Do you know,” the pale man said conversationally, “I fancy I can already smell the smoke.”
Mina turned and ran, fleeing out into the street, bent almost double with sobbing, tears stinging her face and trickling down her beard.
She left Goodge Street and was some way toward Tottenham Court Road when she saw the smoke, stopped and thought of going back. Her loyalty was about to win out over her instinct for self-preservation when a gang of men rolled rowdily out of a nearby tavern and began to point at her and laugh. Her decision made for her, she did her best to ignore their derision and hurried onwards in the hope of finding some sanctuary in the city. As she walked she felt a cold, implacable certainty that, whilst the pale man was even now returning home, Mrs. Puggsley had never left her chair and sat there still, the flames licking about her feet, toying with her hungrily, her great fat frame shuddering and sweltering in anticipation of the inevitable roast.
Moon woke three hours after he had lost consciousness, stumbled to his feet and vomited copiously in the basin. He washed the worst of it away and as the yellowed water spiraled down the plughole it seemed to mock him, chuckling quietly. He sank back onto his bed and surrendered himself to the pain, the interior of his skull assailed by battering rams, limbs rubbery like blancmange, mouth Sahara dry.
When he opened his eyes again, the physical pain had subsided but the tempest in his head was worse than ever. All at once the events of the past few months seemed to round upon him, jeering and ridiculing, crowding out his thoughts. He looked at the spotless, soulless luxury of his bedroom and under the influence of an ineluctable compulsion began — quite deliberately and with clinical precision — to smash it all up.
Mr. Skimpole arrived an hour later, perspiring, ill-tempered and smelling faintly of smoke. He was greeted at reception by the hotel’s manager and by the man he had assigned to watch Moon. What they had to tell him did not raise his spirits.
He knocked at Moon’s door but, predictably, got no reply. He tried again (still no answer), then gestured to his man to break it down. Ignoring the shrill protestations of the manager, the fellow did so in a single attempt.
“Mr. Moon?” Skimpole called out irritably. “Please come out. I’m not in an especially patient mood.”
Moon emerged, not entirely without guilt, from the bathroom.
The suite was almost unrecognizable — glass strewn indiscriminately about the floor, lamps smashed, curtains gouged and torn, paintings brutalized and defaced, the carpet pulled from its fitting and thrown against the wall like a great wave lapping at the corners of the room.
Skimpole’s tone was careful and even but masked a controlled fury. “What have you done?”
“You’re holding me against my will.”
Skimpole sighed. “We’re on the same side. I acted as I did only because you left me with no other choice. Most of us would kill to live in this kind of luxury. You should see my house. This is a palace by comparison.”
“It’s a prison.”
The albino looked exasperated. “I know you had a difficult time of it yesterday. Clearly you’ve had some kind of falling-out with your new friend. Mr…. Cribb, is it?” Skimpole turned to his man to check the name. “Well, then. I’ll have this room cleaned up and we’ll say no more about it. Surely you want to solve this case as much as any of us?”
“One condition: get rid of that ghoul.” Moon pointed toward Skimpole’s man. “I can’t abide being followed everywhere. It’s not even as though he’s very good at it.”
“Very well. But that’s my only concession. You must stop acting like this, Edward. All I ask is for you to solve this one problem and then you can go back to your old life. If Madame Innocenti is correct we have just eight days left.”
Moon collapsed into the room’s only surviving chair. “If she is correct,” he muttered. “If.” He groaned. “In the past few days I’ve seen things I know shouldn’t be true, things against the order of the world. Things that have no place in a rational universe.”
“May I offer some advice?” Skimpole said gently. “You should do as I do whenever I’m confronted by the weird, by the uncanny, by the unexplained.”
“What’s that?”
“My job.”
Skimpole turned to leave and, as he did so, the Somnambulist appeared behind him in the doorway. Seeing Moon and the carnage which surrounded him, the giant shook his head sadly, pushed past the albino and moved slowly away down the corridor. Moon did not even try to stop him.
When he finally emerged from his bedroom, the events of the past few hours were already receding happily into the past. His encounter with Cribb had the unconvincing quality of fiction about it, like something that had happened to someone else entirely. He washed, shaved, combed back his thinning hair and started gratefully for the Stacks.
The Archivist, at least, seemed pleased to see him. “Heard you’d been recruited,” she said, once Mo
on had been ushered down into the basement by another nameless librarian. “Government work, is it? Mr. Skimpole’s boys?”
Moon had learnt years before not to be surprised by the Archivist’s apparent omniscience, but even he could not help but be startled by the coolly authoritative manner with which she delivered the specifics of his predicament.
“Yes, ma’am. Do you…” He hesitated.
“Yes?” The woman’s sightless eyes seemed to swivel curiously in his direction.
“Do you know Mr. Skimpole, ma’am? Does he… come here?”
The Archivist turned away and began to search a shelf stacked high with moldering copies of Punch, jaundiced WANTED posters and creaking, leather-bound encyclopediae. “Now, now,” she chided. “You know I have to be discreet.”
“What you mean by that, I suppose, is ‘yes’?”
“I can’t prevent you from drawing your own conclusions.”
“No,” Moon said pensively. “You can’t.”
“What are you looking for today?”
“Anything you have on a Madame Innocenti. Clairvoyant in Tooting Bec.”
The Archivist said nothing, disappeared and returned shortly after with two slim volumes. “This is all I have. Seems she’s fallen foul of the law once or twice before.”
Moon thanked her and took them. “Archivist?”
“Yes?”
He paused uncertainly. “Have you ever heard of a man named Thomas Cribb?”
There was no reply. Moon had convinced himself that she had not heard him and was about to repeat his query when the Archivist spoke again, an unfamiliar, quavering tenor to her voice. “One moment. I may have something for you.”
When she returned she was pushing a trolley piled high with records, reports, ledgers, dossiers and sheaves of what looked like nineteenth-century newsprint. She wheezed her way toward him, gripping his shoulder with surprising force to steady herself. Half a dozen pamphlets and a vast, dictionary-sized volume toppled from the trolley.
“What is this?”
“This?” The Archivist gasped for breath. “This is just the beginning. I’ve five times this amount waiting for you.”
The Somnambulist: A Novel Page 13
