The Stone of Madness

by Nick Baker

  ‘Surely not, Nicolas?’ said Olberry mockingly. ‘How can that be possible in an organisation such as yours?’ Olberry smiled menacingly, enjoying Fox’s disquiet. ‘As interesting as this news is, Nicolas, what’s it got to do with the theft?’

  ‘For someone to go missing like this is most unusual,’ replied Fox defensively. ‘Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of this man, is, to say the least, concerning.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Price.

  ‘Michael Styx is a gifted cryptographer. In fact, he’s probably the most talented we have. He joined us just over a year ago and he’s already made a big impression. He has an incomparable talent for deciphering codes from ancient texts that were previously considered unbreakable. He’s already conducted vital work for the organisation and is currently working on a code of his own, which, I’m led to believe, is being touted as unique. He’s formulated a potentially unbreakable code that may herald an unprecedented breakthrough in modern cryptography.’

  ‘He sounds like an intelligent young man, Nicolas. Someone you should nurture,’ said Olberry with a liberal dose of sarcasm.

  Fox ignored the slight. ‘Unfortunately, Styx went missing just over a week ago. We’ve no idea where he went. He seems to have vanished into thin air.’

  ‘It’s not like you to have so little information, Nicolas,’ said McKenzie genially.

  ‘No, indeed,’ replied Fox. ‘He should’ve come into work as usual after the weekend.’

  ‘Young men go missing all the time, Nicolas. If he’s only been gone a few days, what’s there, er, to worry about?’ said Strange casually.

  ‘Surely his family can help with his whereabouts,’ interjected Sir Robert.

  ‘Therein lies the problem,’ said Fox. ‘Styx lives with his mother. She’s his only living relative. She requires regular nursing care when he’s at work and relies on him totally the rest of the time. We know enough about Styx to appreciate that he wouldn’t just disappear like this. He’s devoted to his mother. What’s more, when he failed to turn up for work, we began to make enquiries. It appears he was in dire financial straits and was borrowing heavily to pay for the cost of his mother’s medical care. I’m afraid he was unable to meet the repayments.’

  ‘Do you think he’s been compromised?’ asked Price.

  ‘We strictly vet all of our employees before we recruit them, and so I didn’t initially, Henry, no, but now, having heard your tale, I’m not so sure. It seems too much of a coincidence that a gifted cryptographer goes missing at around the same time as this manuscript of yours.’

  ‘It certainly seems worrying,’ said Price grimly. ‘You must do everything you can to find him, and as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Fox, ‘I’ll get on to it immediately.’

  ‘It would appear, Henry, that you’ve no time to lose if you’re to get hold of this book before anyone else does,’ said McKenzie. ‘I believe we should draw this meeting to a close.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’ said Isaacson.

  As Price rose from his chair, Fielding cleared his throat. It was an unpleasant, guttural sound that reminded Price of the behemoth of a dredger he had observed on his way to the meeting, ceaselessly furrowing a navigable channel along the river.

  ‘I think we ought to take a moment to sort out the Council vacancy,’ said Fielding. ‘I know this isn’t a scheduled meeting, but in light of these developments, it strikes me as even more important that the position is filled. It’s been some time, after all, and I’m sure we could do with a full complement if, as you suggest, we’re facing a new challenge. What do you think?’

  Several heads on Fielding’s side of the table nodded their assent. Price withdrew a pocket watch and glanced at it apprehensively.

  ‘I need to be at the airport by early afternoon, but I suppose there’s time. I know today’s meeting was rather ad hoc, but I see no reason why we can’t conduct the vote now. Isaacson?’

  ‘Well … it’s a little unusual, but so long as everyone else is in agreement.’

  Fielding’s eyes narrowed. ‘If you’re in a hurry, Price, I’m sure we could conduct the vote without you,’ he said, the look of chronic pain on his face metamorphosing into one of sly cunning.

  Price gave Fielding a tired smile. ‘That won’t be necessary, Monty. It won’t take long, after all. I think we should proceed,’ he said, nodding at Isaacson.

  Isaacson rose and opened a curtain behind him to reveal a door. ‘As per Council protocol, each of you must enter the anteroom alone. You’re required to choose either a black or white ball and place it in this bag,’ he said, brandishing a Hessian cloth sack that he had miraculously procured out of nowhere. ‘As you recall, the vote is to fill the vacancy that arose following Sir Roger Blake’s untimely death. We debated the issue at the last meeting and only one name was deemed worthy of our consideration—Hermes Bing. His election must be unanimous with a black ball equating to a refusal. Now, does anyone else wish to say anything before we vote?’

  ‘All I would say,’ suggested Fox, ‘is that we must deliberate carefully. Although we’re one short of our full complement, it doesn’t mean to say that we should just fill the vacancy regardless.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Fielding, ‘but Bing is a powerful man. He’ll bring experience and expertise, not to mention connections. He’s well-placed to bring even greater strength to the Council and is like-minded … well, at least to some of us here.’

  ‘So you keep telling us, Monty,’ said McKenzie, ‘but don’t forget, his father was an ally of Black’s.’

  ‘Pah! All I keep hearing is this obsession with a dead man. Move on is what I say,’ Fielding replied.

  ‘Your position interests me, Monty,’ said Price smoothly. ‘If we’re to believe those reliable publications, the Comet and the Sting, you and Bing will be at one another’s throats on almost any subject you care to mention.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the press,’ Fielding replied with a sardonic smile. ‘Bing and I agree on more things than you might imagine.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s what concerns us!’ said Olberry in a mocking tone.

  ‘Now, now gentlemen,’ interjected Isaacson. ‘Unless anyone has anything else of value to add, I suggest we begin. Is everyone agreed? Now—’

  At that moment, the double doors burst open and a bedraggled-looking man rushed in, leaving Isaacson’s words hanging mid-sentence. The man looked ill at ease and was gasping for air.

  ‘What is it, Staghorn?’ said Fox irritably. ‘You know you’re not meant to disturb us.’

  ‘S-sorry, sir,’ the man replied, wheezing audibly, ‘but, I’m afraid this is urgent. Professor Price, there’s a call for you. Please, you must come now.’

  Price immediately thought of Lily and felt his stomach lurch. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The phone … a woman … Atropos, I think she said … sounds like someone’s in trouble,’ Staghorn blurted out, still fighting for his breath.

  ‘Atropos? I’m not sure I understand,’ said Price, sounding bemused, but quick as a flash, he was on his feet and rushed towards Staghorn. ‘Which way?’ he demanded as he reached the corridor.

  Staghorn pointed towards a small office on the opposite side of the passage.

  Price hurried through the door. The telephone receiver was lying on the desk amongst sheaves of papers. He lunged towards it, scooping it up in an ungainly motion. ‘Yes?’

  There was a moment’s silence before he heard the unmistakable voice of a woman.

  ‘Price, is that you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, who’s this?’ he replied. A chilling sensation ran down his spine arising from a nagging suspicion that he had heard this woman’s voice before.

  ‘To some I’m known as Atropos,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Atropos?’

  ‘You heard what I said. Now listen carefully, Price. The life of your friend, Cornelius Spydre, is hanging in the balan
ce.’

  ‘Cornelius? What’s happened? Is he all right?’

  ‘That depends on you,’ the woman replied enigmatically. ‘If you wish to help, I suggest you shut up and listen,’ she snapped.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, but if you’ve—’

  ‘If I’ve what?’ interrupted the woman, her voice still sounding detached and remote. ‘I don’t believe you’re in any position to dictate. Now, take my advice and listen if you wish to reach your friend in time,’ she said in a commanding voice. ‘I’ll not repeat myself.’

  Price remained silent despite his eagerness to hear the woman out. After a pause that seemed to go on forever, the woman eventually spoke again, this time with a rasping edge. ‘Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet and mad as a wet hen,’ she said.

  ‘What are you talk—?’ said Price, cutting his words when the call was terminated. He turned on his heels and almost knocked Staghorn over who was standing behind him.

  ‘Is everything all right, sir?’ said Staghorn.

  ‘No, I’m afraid it’s not,’ replied Price gravely, still vacantly holding the telephone in his hand. He rapidly dialled Spydre’s number and waited with a burgeoning sense of unease. The engaged tone rang out.

  He turned to Staghorn still waiting patiently behind him. ‘Could you organise a taxi to pick me up? Oh, and tell them to make it snappy. Just one more thing, Staghorn,’ he continued as he rushed towards the exit, ‘tell Isaacson I’ve had to leave. You can also tell him that I’m happy for the vote to proceed. He’ll understand.’ And with that, Price was gone.

  14

  THE STONE OF MADNESS

  The Gates of Delirium

  THE TAXI PULLED UP outside the row of four-storey buildings located in the exclusive Mayfair district. Price jerked the door open and called out the destination’s address. ‘I’ll pay you well if you get me there in double quick time,’ he snapped as he leapt inside the vehicle.

  Without a second glance, the cabbie gunned the vehicle and set off.

  The trip to Spydre’s bookshop was a fraught affair as Price willed the battered cab towards its destination. The busy late morning traffic hindered their progress at every turn and the journey seemed to go on forever. As the taxi weaved in and out of the slow-moving traffic, Price recalled the conversation he had held with the mystery caller. He still had an uneasy feeling that he had heard the woman’s voice somewhere before, but he just could not recall a time or place.

  ‘To some I’m known as Atropos,’ he mouthed quietly to himself, repeating the words the woman had used to introduce herself.

  Atropos. He wondered what it could possibly mean and whether the caller had been toying with him. As the taxi lurched violently one way and then the other, he tried to summon up the distant memory of Greek mythology he had learnt at school.

  He recalled that Atropos was the oldest of the Fates, the three female gods who supervised, rather than determined, destiny. She was also known as the ‘inflexible’, choosing the mechanism of death of every mortal and cutting the thread of their life with her abhorred shears.

  Price shook his head. He was not sure what awaited him at Spydre’s bookshop, but as the cab traversed short-cuts and back streets he did not recognise, a feeling of dread manifested in the pit of his stomach.

  After what seemed like an age, the black cab swung into Curiosity Street. The vehicle’s wheels screeched in protest as the driver hauled on the steering column and braked hard to avoid an unsuspecting pedestrian who had ventured into the road.

  ‘Anywhere in particular, gov?’ the cabbie called out cheerfully as if nothing untoward had happened.

  Price pointed to a spot a short distance along the street. ‘Just there’ll be fine. How much do I owe you?’ he said, reaching into his pocket.

  Price was out of the taxi the moment it halted. He paid the man well, handing him a hefty tip for the swiftness of the journey. He headed for the bookshop and glanced at the filthy window that was still masking the same old books that had been on display just a few days before.

  Price scanned the door for signs of forced entry, but all appeared intact apart from some scuff marks on the bottom rail where visitors had used a well-placed boot to push on the door. As he stepped across the threshold, an object caught his eye, glinting in the sunlight. Pinned to the door jamb was a large, distinctive moth with striking rows of brown, yellow and blue stripes running along its abdomen. Its upper wings were shades of shimmering browns that contrasted starkly with lower wings of vibrant yellow. Price frowned at the sight of the strange specimen skewered through its thorax but immediately identified it as a Death’s-head Hawkmoth. The moth was a rare visitor to the British Isles and had a sinister reputation as an omen of death, causing the dread he had felt earlier to return with a vengeance.

  He entered the vestibule and waited, listening for sounds of life from inside the shop. He suppressed an urge to cough in the musty atmosphere that habitually pervaded the place before passing into the tightly enclosed bookshop. The room was deserted, yet Spydre’s overburdened desk remained the same, hemmed in on all sides like a tiny island amidst a sea of books. He noted with a humourless smile that the whisky bottle and glasses were gone. The book displaying the brightly coloured plates of reptiles and lizards had also disappeared, and in its place was an encyclopaedia carefully propped open to reveal an illustration of the same moth he had just seen pinned to the door. An insidious chill seeped into his bones as he stared in horror at the caption below the beautifully adorned picture. Acherontia atropos, it read. There was that name again: Atropos; first the mystery caller and now the moth sharing a name inextricably linked with death.

  He stifled a further cough as he examined the dusty bookshelves in search of the passageway Spydre had used to enter the room. He spotted a thick bell rope crudely nailed to an upright, and a shaft of light penetrating a small gap between two adjacent bookcases. He gave the rope a stout tug, and the bookcase slid smoothly towards him, allowing a swathe of artificial light to flood the room.

  ‘Cornelius,’ he called out as he hurried along a passageway that sloped gently down to a voluminous room stacked with mountains of books haphazardly arranged from floor to rafters. A narrow shaft of sunlight filtered through a window high on the opposite wall, illuminating a low archway visible through a cloud of dancing dust motes. Price sprinted towards the arch, drawn by a rhythmic knocking emanating from the room beyond.

  As soon as Price entered the cramped office, he knew that something was seriously wrong. Spydre lay slumped across the desk, instruments and papers strewn haphazardly about him. His body twitched uncontrollably in tandem with his wristwatch repeatedly striking the desk.

  Tap … tap … tap. The sound was like a harbinger of doom.

  Price’s boots thudded on the wooden floorboards as he rushed towards his friend.

  Spydre stirred and looked up to reveal a lop-sided, brightly flushed face. He stared blankly at Price through widely dilated pupils and feral, unseeing eyes. ‘Who is there? Is that you, Luschka?’ he croaked in a voice that was hoarse and strained. ‘The crows have escaped … come with me, I will show you,’ he said, struggling out of the chair.

  Spydre staggered to his feet and swayed unnaturally, flailing his arms as he vainly tried to steady himself. He fell back into the chair, overwhelmed by a bout of insurmountable vertigo that only served to increase his agitation.

  Terror was etched on his face as he looked beyond Price. ‘See, there they are. Those demonic beasts,’ he rasped, pointing at the dim, yet perfectly still space above Price’s head.

  Price edged towards his friend and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be frightened, Cornelius. It’s me, Henry,’ he whispered, but the effect was anything but calming and sent Spydre into a fury of agitation, thrashing his arms wildly about him.

  ‘Look! He is amongst them. Do not let them fool you. See …’ Spydre said, pointing once more into the empty void.

 
; ‘What is it, Cornelius?’ Price asked.

  ‘It is the Raven King. He holds the key in his vicious talons! There, see, he leads them. Do not let them approach. If they breach the gates, then I am doomed. Pleeeease, help me!’ Spydre cried plaintively.

  Price stood rooted to the spot, helplessly confused by his friend’s futile pleas.

  ‘Aaaagh! The gates have fallen,’ Spydre screamed. With sudden finality, his head lurched forwards and struck the solid oak desk with a loud thump. After a brief spasm, the tremor was banished from his tormented body as he lapsed into the depths of unconsciousness.

  Price leant over and stroked Spydre’s hot, dry face, and noted with dismay that he had a raging fever.

  You poor old man. Who’s inflicted this mischief on you? he silently asked his immobile friend.

  ‘Think!’ he said as he slid a hand onto Spydre’s neck, feeling for a pulse, which was thready and fast.

  ‘Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet and mad as a wet hen,’ repeated Price inanely. The mystery caller had predicted everything he was witnessing, albeit in riddles. Now, looking at Spydre, he intuitively guessed that his friend had been poisoned.

  As he considered this, Spydre’s pulse began to race, and after a flourish of impossibly rapid beats, the pulse vanished, a herald that was both ominous and final. Moments later, after a great heave of his chest, Spydre stopped breathing.

  Price knew that his friend was dying. If he was going to save him, he had to act now and with absolute conviction. He lifted the old man from the chair and laid him flat on the floor in the confined space of the office. He knelt down beside him and removed the shirt loosely draped around Spydre’s torso. He placed the flat of a palm onto his friend’s exposed chest and closed his eyes, allowing his consciousness to flood into the body spread-eagled before him. From the first intimate touch, his fears were confirmed. He sensed the taint of corruption coursing through Spydre’s poison-wracked body, a man teetering on the brink of mortality.