The Dead Assassin

CHAPTER 28 THE FOG DESCENDS

A great hall in a great house. A hammerbeam ceiling floated fifty feet above the stone flagged floor. Gargoyles crouching high among the shadowed rafters leered down with stony smiles. Family crests and ancient battle flags draped the walls. Suits of armor lurked in shadowy alcoves, gauntleted hands gripping the pommels of their swords, eye slits dark and menacing. All of it, however, was a sham, a fake; for despite the artful counterfeit of age, the artifacts were modern copies, as was the mansion that encompassed them.

A long feasting table commanded the center of the hall, around which assembled a group of gentlemen: distinguished ones judging by the fine tailored suits, gold stickpins, gleaming watch fobs, and polished shoes. Each of them smoked — fat cigars, deep-bowled pipes, cigarettes, so that their combined exhalations fugged the air about them and smoke rose in curlicues to the ceiling rafters. Although several chairs remained empty, the faces arranged around the table were instantly recognizable as the lofty echelon of politicians, bankers, industrialists, and business magnates collectively known as The Fog Committee. The men sat and smoked in dour silence. One fidgeted. Another sighed. All exhibited the exasperation of important men unused to being kept waiting.

The double doors at the side of the hall flung open and a tall, balding man entered, shoe leather squeaking as he strode across the flagstones — the Commissioner of Police, Edmund Burke. His adjutant, Dobbs, entered with him but remained standing by the door as his master folded his long body into the empty chair at the foot of the table. All eyes fixed upon him expectantly, but Burke took out a cigar and made the other members wait, watching in silence, as he snipped the end with a cigar cutter, struck a match, and puffed the cigar into life before turning his attention to them. “My apologies for being late, gentlemen,” he said in his booming voice. “But I was delayed by the fog.”

Several members snickered at the obvious irony.

“Where is our illustrious host?” George Hardcastle, the coal mine owner, bellyached. He was a short, broad man with the appropriately moleish physique of something evolved to live underground.

“No doubt sleeping off an opium stupor!”

The financier, Sir Lionel Ransome, fretted, “We are all fools to follow this man.”

“He serves our purpose…” muttered the judge, and then added darkly, “… for now.”

But the financier’s comment had broken the dam wall of silence and a flood of doubt poured from the committee members.

“He is deranged, clearly.”

“And one we do congress with at our peril.”

“After we seize power, DeVayne must be done away with — swiftly.”

“I agree.”

The police commissioner leaned forward on his elbows and growled, “When this is done, we must wipe the slate clean, so that none of this business can ever be tied back to us.”

The table buzzed with a collective murmur of hear-hears.

A scowl wrinkled the old admiral’s face as he hissed at his neighbors, “Ssshhh! Lest you be overheard.”

The police commissioner chuckled fatuously and countered, “Easy, old man, we are quite alone.” He slouched back in his chair, puffed his cigar and blew a dilating smoke ring up toward the shadowy ceiling. “Only the gargoyles can hear us.”

At that moment, the eyes of the gargoyle on the farthest wall went dark, as the face that had been pressed up behind it drew away, the listener having heard more than enough.

Moments later, a door at the end of the hall opened. Rufus DeVayne entered and walked toward his seat at the head of the table. “Good news, gentlemen,” he announced gaily. “Our rally at St. Winifred’s was a resounding success. I have inflamed the unwashed multitude.” He settled into his chair. “And now to the business of this committee meeting. I refer, of course, to the fog. It needs to get worse, gentlemen. Much worse.”

The industrialist came close to apoplexy. “But I am already burning twice the usual amount of coal in my factory furnaces. Are you trying to bankrupt me?”

“Forget the expense,” DeVayne snarled. “You should be burning three times the normal amount of coal — no, four times. Consider it an investment in your future. The fog is our greatest ally in this endeavor. We are fomenting unrest. Sowing the seeds of chaos. Because of the fog, trains cannot run. Omnibuses are canceled. Carriages abandoned in the streets. Shops must shut early. Commerce shudders to a halt. Most importantly, the fog hampers the police. Even the army cannot move freely. Tomorrow is 13/13. The capital must grind to a standstill beneath a pall of smoke and fog. Then a mob will assemble outside the railings of Buckingham Palace. We have a confederate in the clock tower. At one o’clock Big Ben will strike thirteen. That will be the signal to storm the palace.”

“How many and armed with what?” the old admiral asked.

“A mob of a few hundred,” DeVayne speculated, “armed with knives, clubs, stones, cobbles dug from the road.”

The coal mine owner grew agitated. “Against guardsmen armed with rifles and bayonets? They will be slaughtered in seconds!”

DeVayne laughed. “Oh, I have little doubt of it.”

“What is the point of such a futile effort?” Burke sneered.

“The point, gentlemen, is to provide a cover, a smoke screen, a wall of fog such as you have created by burning coal in your factories morn and night. The mob has no chance of taking the palace, but their presence will allow us to enter unmolested. Yea, they will throw the gates open to me.”

“How so?” the coal magnate asked.

“I will arrive in my carriage, an aristocrat seeking sanctuary. My landau is well known to the guardsmen. After all, who else in London has a carriage drawn by zebras?”

“Say you do manage to slip onto the palace grounds,” the commissioner said with unconcealed skepticism. “What then?”

DeVayne took out the long-barreled derringer and set it on the table before him. It drew the eyes of most of the Fog Committee members, but Burke was not impressed.

“A pop gun? Is that your strategy? You’ll never get close enough to the queen to use it. She’ll be surrounded by armed guards.”

DeVayne’s smile couched both indulgence and threat. “I will not act as assassin. The rear of the carriage will contain the monster, concealed beneath a pile of blankets. Once inside the palace gates, I shall unleash the beast. No matter where the queen hides, no matter how many guards surround her, our assassin will seek her out unerringly. Our monster is now unstoppable, unkillable. The queen and the Prince of Wales will die on that day. With no immediate successor, the nation will descend into chaos and the people will turn to us to save them. Conveniently, I will be on hand, fifth in line for the throne, ready and willing to take the reins of power and return stability to a nation in chaos. My first act as king will be to dissolve Parliament, and then we shall sweep to power, unopposed. The remaining members of the so-called royal family will be rounded up and quietly dispatched. Then, once again, an English king will sit upon the English throne.”

“And what of us?” the commissioner asked. “I trust you will not forget us once you wear the crown?”

DeVayne laughed. “You gentlemen know my passions. I desire only the trappings of royalty: the crown, the palace, the land. The nation I will leave in your infinitely capable hands. While you gentlemen steer us back on the path of industrial growth and prosperity, I will be busy redecorating the palace and moving in my menagerie. I can see my lions now, frolicking in the fountains and sunning themselves on the palace steps.”

The double doors opened and Dr. Lamb entered with Jedidiah, the toy maker, following close behind. DeVayne acknowledged them with a nod, but by the severity of the doctor’s expression, it was clear something had gone badly wrong. He sought to end the meeting quickly. “Thank you for attending, gentlemen. Our plan proceeds apace. We reconvene tomorrow for the final act.”

The Fog Committee stood up from their seats and filed out of the great hall, muttering and chuntering. DeVayne remained in his seat, smiling confidently. But when the double doors closed on their backs, he jumped up from the table. “What is it?” he demanded. “I can see from your faces you have bad news.”

By way of answer, Jedidiah drew off his scarf to reveal a neck purpled with five finger-sized bruises. “When the monster returned, it attacked me. Luckily, it had been gone for hours. I would have been throttled to death had it not run out of fuel at that very moment.”

The marquess’s face betrayed his shock. “I don’t understand. How—?”

The doctor handed him a small square photograph of a handsome young woman.

“Who is this?”

“It is a photograph of Vicente’s sister. I know, because while he was in Newgate he looked at the photograph a hundred times a day, rereading her last letter and weeping.”

Jedidiah took up the story. “The monster returned with this picture clutched in its hand and only dropped it to choke me.”

DeVayne thought for a moment and realization lit his eyes. “This is Wilde’s doing; and that walrus-faced friend of his. That must mean—”

“They are still alive,” Dr. Lamb said, finishing the thought.

“Impossible!” DeVayne shook his head. “How could they survive the monster?”

“There’s more,” Jedidiah said. “All the tendons in the monster’s left hand had been severed as if by a scalpel. The knifework was precise, and must have been performed by a person with medical knowledge. No doubt Doctor Conan Doyle.”

Dr. Lamb spoke out, “The monster was clearly affected by seeing the photograph of his sister.” He glared at the toy maker and spoke in a voice strained with emotion, “You told me the thing had no soul. That it retained no memory of its former life.”

Jedidiah shook his head dismissively. “A residual memory, that is all. A scrap of recollection. It is a dead thing.”

“I heard it howl. Like a soul in torment!”

“Enough!” DeVayne spat. He turned away and stood tapping the photograph to his lips, deep in thought. “I underestimated our scribbler friends. We cannot afford to make that mistake a second time.”

“So we try again to kill them?”

DeVayne shook his head. “I have a more reliable method. I know Wilde and Conan Doyle and their weaknesses. We will have the monster kidnap their loved ones: the young woman Conan Doyle is having a dalliance with, and one of Wilde’s children. That will guarantee they stay out of the fray until our new regime is established. After which, they and their families can be collected and lawfully executed as enemies of the state.” He looked to the young doctor. “The monster is repaired?”

Lamb nodded. “A few hours’ sewing.”

“Good. Load the creature in the hearse and go collect them. While they are guests in my dungeon they may provide me with a few hours’ diversion.”