The Somnambulist

Chapter 13

Mrs. Grossmith bent over the kitchen sink and busied herself with the final dishes of the day, soapsuds swilling greasily about her wrists. With uncharacteristic stealth, Arthur Barge crept in behind her and nestled himself snugly against her amply proportioned frame. Silently he stroked her sagging cheeks, smoothed away a stray strand of iron-gray hair and entwined his wrinkled hands with hers. She said nothing but he could feel her beneath him, trembling and pulsating with secret pleasure. Awkward, graceless, out of practice from years of bachelorhood, he tried to maneuver his mouth around to meet hers. Grossmith made a perfunctory effort to shoo him away, muttering something about the washing-up, but soon allowed herself to be silenced by his ardor, his lips, his plunging, delving tongue.

Hesitant at first, wary, but growing in confidence and vigor, they came blissfully together. Locked in an embrace, they kissed long and hard, resembling two antediluvian lizards mating for the final time on the blasted plains of primeval Africa.

This at least was the colorful image which sprang unbidden to the mind of Charlotte Moon as she stood and watched them from the doorway. She cleared her throat as noisily as she could and, like characters in a farce, the couple sprang apart. Bashful and flustered, Mrs. Grossmith’s cheeks flamed a hectic shade of red, but Barge just stood there dumbly, a smirk flickering across his face, like a schoolboy whose embarrassment is mostly feigned, a child perversely proud to be discovered in the midst of impropriety.

“Mrs. Grossmith,” Charlotte said icily. “So sorry to interrupt.”

“Forgive me, miss.” The housekeeper smoothed down her skirt and fumbled an awkward curtsey. “I thought you’d gone out, with your brother and the policeman.”

Charlotte ignored the question. “Why are you washing dishes? Surely that’s up to the hotel staff?”

“Mr. Moon is my responsibility. I like to look after him the best I can.”

Charlotte passed her a folded slip of paper. “Will you make sure my brother gets this?”

“You’re leaving us?” The housekeeper didn’t sound especially disappointed at the prospect. “Can’t you stay an hour or so? Mr. Moon will be back soon and I’m sure he’d like to say goodbye himself.”

“It’s best I go now.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Quite.”

“Can I ask you something?” Mrs. Grossmith paused uncertainly. “In all the years I have been in his employ, he has never once mentioned you. I don’t mean to pry but-”

“You want to know why?”

“Suppose I do.”

“My brother and I have an unusual relationship. If we spend too long together, things have a habit of happening around us. The kind of things one would prefer not to happen, if you understand me.”

“No, dear. Frankly, I don’t.”

“Believe me, it’s for the best we stay apart.” Charlotte turned toward the door. “Goodbye, Mrs. Grossmith. Mr. Barge.”

Arthur gave a gawky wave of farewell and Charlotte stalked from the room.

“Strange little girl, isn’t she?”

“Can’t say as I noticed,” Barge said. “I was looking at the other lady in the room. The one that has my heart.” He reached out to touch her but Grossmith brushed him firmly aside.

“Later,” she said, stowing Charlotte’s message discreetly in the sleeve of her pinafore. “There’s plenty more pots need scrubbing before bedtime.”

Mr. Honeyman was almost exactly as Moon remembered him — a stubborn, gray-skinned man, permanently harassed. He seemed rather bolder on this occasion, due perhaps to the absence of the gorgon who passed as his wife.

Moon and Merryweather had barely been ushered in before the man started to complain: “I believe I insisted on seeing an official investigator,” he barked, glaring at Moon.

Merryweather did his best to placate him. “I can vouch for his trustworthiness, sir. He’s helped me out on more occasions than I care to remember and I don’t mind admitting there’s a goodly number of villains behind bars today who’d still be out and fancy free if it weren’t for his assistance.”

“Is that so?” Honeyman snapped sarcastically. “I haven’t allowed you into my home, Inspector, so you can stand here and eulogize this amateur. Besides, my understanding is that since that deplorable incident in Clapham, Mr. Moon is no longer considered quite as infallible as he once was.”

“My apologies,” the inspector said gently and changed the subject. “I’ve no wish to hurry you, sir, but could you tell us a little more about the circumstances of your wife’s disappearance? Try to remember as much as you can. Anything might prove important. What may seem an insignificant detail to you, sir, could be a vital clue to the trained eye of a policeman.”

“I woke early in the morning,” the man said stiffly, “at around six, as is my habit. Often walk the grounds, you understand. Admire my fish. And she’d gone. It was as simple as that. Taken a suitcase with her and just upped stumps. None of the servants saw her go.”

“You think she chose to leave?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“The suitcase would seem to rule out abduction. Don’t you think so, Mr. Moon?”

The conjuror yawned, bored by the predictable plod of police procedure.

“Mr. Honeyman,” Merryweather persisted, “do you have any idea where your wife might have gone?”

“None. Her whole life was here. I’m worried she might have done something… unnecessary.”

“You’ll forgive me,” Moon said acerbically, “but when I last met your wife she hardly struck me as the kind of woman predisposed to self-harm. Neither did she appear noticeably bereaved. She behaved more as if she was profoundly relieved at being rid of some irritating encumbrance.”

Honeyman turned to the inspector. “This is intolerable. Am I expected to stand in my own home and allow myself to be insulted by this rank amateur?”

“Believe me,” Moon pressed on, “your wife was not in mourning.”

“Can you tell us, sir,” Merryweather said, his voice almost comical in its excessive deference, “had your wife been behaving strangely at all before she vanished? Had she done anything unusual or out of character?”

“She been particularly involved in her church work of late. She’s a great philanthropist, you see. Most devout.”

“Church?” Merryweather said. “Can you tell us the name of that church, sir?”

“More of a charity, I think, properly speaking. Somewhere in the city. Of course, I’m perfectly happy with our little parish church but then she was always far more serious about all that than me. She was quite besotted with this new lot. Lord knows why.”

“The name of the church, sir?”

Honeyman harrumphed. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you without looking it up.”

Merryweather favored the man with his best professional smile. “We’re happy to wait, sir.”

Muttering under his breath, Honeyman trudged from the room.

“Inspector?” Moon said suspiciously. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Merryweather was unable to hide his excitement. “It’s a rare day I’m ahead of you, Mr. Moon, but I fancy this time I might just have managed it.”

“Tell me,” Moon said sharply. “Now.”

“Patience.”

Before Moon could frame a sardonic reply, Honeyman returned, brandishing a sheaf of papers. “Just as I said. They’re a philanthropic organization. Missionaries, I think. Something of that sort.”

“Their name?” Merryweather asked again as he reached for his notebook.

“I have it here.” Honeyman flicked vaguely through his papers until he came across the information. “The Church of the Summer Kingdom.” He wrinkled his nose. “Ridiculous name. You think it could be significant?”

Merryweather scribbled furiously. “Yes, sir. I think it just might be.”

They left with a promise to keep him fully informed of their investigation and strolled outside to the grounds where the Somnambulist was loitering about by the fish pond, listening to a groundsman chatter incoherently on about tree surgery. He gave them a quizzical look.

“The inspector’s keeping something from me,” Moon explained sulkily.

“Wait till we’re in the coach. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

They were halfway back into the city before he finally told them the truth. “You remember Dunbar?” he began as the coach lurched with fearless rapidity in and out of the jostling ranks of traffic. “The Fly’s other victim?”

“Of course.”

“Seems his mother disappeared around about the same time as Mrs. Honeyman.”

Moon sounded almost disappointed. “I see.”

“Wait for it, Mr. Moon. Wait for it. This is the really interesting part.”

“Let me guess,” the detective interrupted swiftly. “She was also a member of this gang of philanthropists — the Church of the Summer Kingdom?”

Merryweather clapped his hands together in delight. “Precisely so.”

“Well, then. It seems at long last that we have a new lead in the murder of Cyril Honeyman.”

The Directorate.

Skimpole had never liked the name. He thought it was ostentatious, pompous and unnecessarily melodramatic. It originated from the founding of the agency in more theatrical times, days of blood and thunder. Since the death of the Queen, Skimpole had harbored hopes that the excesses of the past would not continue into the new century. He felt that a secret organization (if it were to have a name at all) ought to take pains to make itself sound as commonplace and as unworthy of notice as possible — certainly not revel in a title like “the Directorate,” which sounded as though it had been torn from the pages of popular fiction and seemed to him to reek of showmanship and cheap sensation. Dedlock, however, had always heartily approved of the name and, as it happened, considered himself a man who positively thrived upon showmanship and cheap sensation.

It was late in the working day and they sat in their usual places at the round table, Dedlock doggedly working his way through a bottle of wine, Skimpole struggling with a set of dense and tiresomely exhaustive surveillance reports.

“This is quite like old times,” Dedlock said, all of a sudden gregarious.

“How so?”

“You hard at your studies, me bunking off for a drink.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Like being back at school, isn’t it?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry I spoke.”

The albino went back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Don’t sulk, Skimpole, for God’s sake. You never talk about the old days.” After the consumption of the best part of three-quarters of a bottle, he seemed in a ruminative mood.

Skimpole slammed down his reports on the table. “What news of Madame Innocenti?” he asked, pointedly ignoring Dedlock’s overtures of nostalgia.

“She was last seen in New York. After that — poof! — disappeared.”

“Damn.”

“You’re convinced she was the real thing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. But if there’s the slightest chance she was genuine — and frankly, I can’t believe that all the information she gave us was entirely a string of lucky guesses — then the very last place we want her is New York. Power like that in the hands of the Americans is unthinkable.”

Mackenzie-Cooper emerged from the shadows, dressed in his usual unconvincing guise of a Chinese butcher. “Drink, sah?” he asked, speaking in that risible accent. Irritated, the albino waved him away.

“You should join me,” Dedlock said. “It’s surprisingly good.”

“Far too early for me.” Skimpole turned to Mackenzie-Cooper. “I’ll have a cup of tea.”

The man bowed and disappeared to the back of the room. Although neither of his superiors noticed it at the time, he seemed oddly nervous. Dedlock was later to claim that he saw the man’s hands tremble and shake as though palsied, but this particular detail was one he was only able to recall a number of months after the incident and — suspiciously — during a dinner party at that.

“What’s Mr. Moon up to?” Dedlock asked.

“Following a lead on the Honeyman case. He’s still convinced it’s connected.”

“Do you agree?”

“I’ve learnt by now to trust his instincts.”

Dedlock scratched idly at his scar. “He’s your agent,” he said.

“I shan’t try to interfere. But if Madame Innocenti was correct, then we’ve only got four days left.”

“I hardly need to be reminded.”

“I’m thinking of moving my family out of the city. You know, before it happens. Have you made any arrangements?”

Before he could reply, Mackenzie-Cooper returned with a large pot of tea. He poured Skimpole a cup and, offering the same to Dedlock, stressed in rather more forceful tones than really behooves an underling the efficacy of the drink in combatting insobriety. Dedlock grudgingly accepted and a cup of the rehabilitative brew was set beside his wine.

As Mackenzie-Cooper was pouring, Skimpole swigged from his own cup and frowned. Far too much sugar. Still, he drank again, a bigger sip this time, taking a guilty pleasure in the saccharine rush.

Dedlock leant across to the phoney Chinaman. “You all right, old boy? You don’t seem quite yourself.”

Startled, Mackenzie-Cooper snatched the pot away, clumsily spilling a good deal of its contents in the process.

“Velly sorry, sah,” he muttered, frantically searching his pockets for something to mop up the mess. “Velly sorry.”

“No need to get yourself the up about it. It was an accident.”

At last Mackenzie-Cooper produced a dishcloth, but as he reached across to clean up the tea, he succeeded in toppling his superior’s wineglass. Dedlock cursed as rivulets of tea and wine ran across the table and Niagaraed onto the floor.

“Sorry, sah. Sorry, sah.” Beneath his greasepaint and disguise, Mackenzie-Cooper had begun to sweat.

Dedlock started to clear away the spillage, but barely had he begun before he observed a most curious effect. As the wine and tea combined and intermingled on the table before him, the liquids seemed first to bubble, then to steam and stew in some unnatural reaction.

Mackenzie-Cooper saw it, too. For an instant, they stared open-mouthed at each other, the one astonished that he had been found out by so petty an accident, the other trying desperately to understand the precise nature of what had occurred.

With a Greek-wedding clatter, Mackenzie-Cooper threw the teapot to the floor, its china splintering expensively, and ran at full pelt for the exit. Dedlock bounded to his feet (with surprising athleticism for a man of his age) and raced after him, an unexpected blur of motion. Mackenzie-Cooper yelped in fear. Just before he reached the door, the older man rugby-tackled him, hurling his quarry to the ground, pinning the interloper to the floor.

“Why?” he snarled. Mackenzie-Cooper said nothing, his eyes darting about him in fear. Dedlock slapped his face hard. “Why?” he asked again, and the man looked as though he might be about to cry. Another slap. “Why?”

At this, Mackenzie-Cooper began to contort his face, gurgling, dribbling like a teething infant. Dedlock looked on. “What now?”

By the time he realized what was happening it was too late. Mackenzie-Cooper screwed up his face again, swallowed something, then shuddered and convulsed, his face turning a mottled purple, white foam bubbling at his mouth. Seconds later, his body seemed to crumple in upon itself and he spasmed a few times before falling still. Dedlock screamed his frustration. Flinging the corpse aside, he staggered to his feet.

“Cyanide capsule,” he explained (superfluously, in Skimpole’s opinion). He reached across to the spilt tea, dabbed a finger in the pool and smelt it carefully. “There was enough poison in that pot to kill us both. How much did you drink?”

Skimpole lied. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” the albino said, too quickly. “I drank nothing.”

Dedlock nodded vaguely.

Skimpole gazed down at the twisted body on the floor. “Thought you told me he went to Oxford.”

Dedlock bent over the body and rugged away the man’s disguise to reveal not the callow Oriel alumnus they had expected, but a bald, middle-aged stranger, lugubrious-looking, ill and wasted. “Somehow I doubt he’s an Eton man,” he said.

You may be interested to learn that the real Mackenzie-Cooper — a genuine, amiable old Etonian with far too trusting a nature ever to have enjoyed much success as an agent of the Directorate — was found three days later locked in a bathroom in one of the most squalid of the city’s lodging houses, half his head caved in and a look of abject terror on his face. No happy ending, then, for him.

“Who is this?”

“You don’t recognize him?” Skimpole asked, surprised.

“Enlighten me.”

“Declan Slattery. Formerly a Fenian agent till he went independent a few years back. Bit of a legend in the field. Past his best now, of course. Gone to seed. This must be the first time anyone’s hired him in ages.”

“But who?” Dedlock asked. “Who would want us dead?”

Skimpole shrugged. “Could be a long list.”

The Church of the Summer Kingdom was run out of a small third-floor office in Covent Garden which smelt strongly of dust and halitosis. On their arrival, Merryweather, Moon and the Somnambulist were met by a man whose bluff, ruddy-faced looks seemed to owe more to the taproom than the pulpit.

“Donald McDonald,” he said, sticking out a meaty paw and adding with a twinkle: “Me mother had a sense of humor.”

Moon shot him a disdainful look and he withdrew his hand unshaken.

“What’s this about, gentlemen?”

“We’d like to talk to you about one of your flock,” Merryweather said. “A Mrs. Honeyman.”

“I’m so glad someone’s finally doing something. We’re awfully worried here. I’ve been absolutely frantic.”

The inspector took a notepad from his pocket. “How often did you see her?”

“She was one of our most devout members. One of the cornerstones, you might say, a bedrock of our little church.”

“Forgive me for asking” — Merryweather scribbled frantically — “but what is the exact nature of your association with the church?”

“Oh, I’m nothing special,” McDonald said, his modesty unconvincing. “I do a little lay preaching… help out where I can… assist our pastor in his good works.”

“And who is he?”

“It’s him you should be talking to by rights. Our leader, sir. Our shepherd. The Reverend Doctor Tan.”

Merryweather dutifully wrote down the name. “May we speak to this Tan?”

“He’s out of the city at present. I’m a poor substitute, I know, but you’ll have to make do. Normally we’re so much tidier than this.”

Merryweather saw the thick layer of dust blanketing the place and tactfully decided not to comment. “Where is your church, sir? Surely you can’t take services here.”

“Oh.” McDonald sounded vaguely irritated by the question. “We worship… nearby.”

Growing tired of the seesaw of their conversation, Moon had begun to examine the room for himself, nosing about the cupboards, shelves and bookcases, openly curious, brazen in his rummagings. A crucifix hung above the door; below it was a discreet plaque depicting a black, five-petaled flower. Printed beside it were the words “If a man could walk through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and found that flower in his hand when he awoke — what then?”

Donald McDonald wandered across. “I see you’ve found our motto.”

“Motto? I’m afraid I don’t see the relevance.”

“Paradise, Mr. Moon. Elysium. The condition to which we all aspire.”

“This isn’t scripture.”

“S. T. Coleridge. The Reverend Doctor’s a great admirer. Our church reveres him and his work.”

“Coleridge?” Moon was incredulous. “Might I ask what kind of church venerates a secular poet?”

McDonald simpered. “No doubt you find that strange. Many do. Though I can assure you that anyone who spends time amongst us soon comes to appreciate our point of view.”

“The flower beneath the crucifix,” Merryweather asked, trying to wriggle back into the conversation. “What does that represent?”

“A motif we’ve appropriated from Greek mythology.” Donald McDonald summoned up a faraway look. “The immortal flower which blooms in Paradise for poets — amaranth.”

“What’s the point of this?” Moon spat. “What is it you people do?”

“We’re missionaries.”

“Missionaries? In Covent Garden?”

“The Reverend Doctor sees no reason to travel out of England when there is so much spiritual poverty, so much pain and deprivation, on our doorstep. London is in greater need of the cleansing light of revelation even than the darkest recesses of the Congo. Our work is done here amongst the forgotten people, those abandoned by the city, left to rot in the slums and in the hopeless places.”

“We’ve heard enough.” Moon turned smartly on his heel and headed for the door. “Come along, Inspector.”

“You will let us know if there are any developments?” McDonald asked, his voice dripping spurious concern, ersatz sympathy. “Mrs. Honeyman is in my prayers.”

The inspector followed Moon from the room. “Didn’t believe a word of it,” he said once they had emerged onto the street. “Man knows more than he’s telling. You?”

“I’m not sure,” Moon admitted. “This latest development is — I confess — unexpected.”

“What was all that business about the plaque?”

“Coleridge,” Moon said mysteriously.

“Is there some significance?”

“Are you a poetry-lover, Inspector?”

“Not seen a word of the stuff since school.”

“Then at least you’ve learnt one valuable lesson today.”

“What’s that?”

“Read more.”

Later that evening, lulled by the rhythmic snoring of his wife, just as he was about to go to sleep, Inspector Merryweather would think of rather an amusing retort to this. But he would know that the moment had passed, and would roll over instead and hope for pleasant dreams.

Moon seemed excited. “Did you recognize the flower beneath the crucifix?”

“Seemed pretty unremarkable to me.”

“We found the same sigil outside the Human Fly’s caravan.”

Merryweather shrugged. “Coincidence?” He looked about him. “Besides, aren’t you forgetting somebody?”

“Who?”

“The Somnambulist.”

Regretfully, Mr. Skimpole put aside his fourth cup of tea since he had left the Directorate for the day, reflecting as he did so that the sound of a teacup clinking into its predestined place on a saucer was one of life’s small but perfect pleasures. There was something indefinably comforting about it, something soothing and warm and British. “Are you sure you don’t know when he’ll be back?”

On hearing the question, Mrs. Grossmith felt a deeply uncharacteristic urge to unleash a scream of rage and frustration — in part at the albino’s bloody-minded persistence but also at a bottled-up lifetime of tireless obedience to the whims of infuriating men. She restrained herself. “No,” she said, trying not to let her irritation show. “I’ve no idea where he is or when he’ll be home. Mr. Moon’s quite capable of disappearing without warning for days or weeks at a time. Once, when he was investigating that Crookback business, he was gone for the best part of a year.”

After the unpleasantness of the morning, Skimpole had wanted to speak to Moon, only to find him vanished. It was at times like this that he regretted honoring his promise to retire the conjuror’s shadow.

“More tea?” Mrs. Grossmith asked, secretly willing the man to refuse.

Skimpole waved the offer away and relief showed immediately in Grossmith’s face.

“I’ve outstayed my welcome, haven’t I?”

“Not at all.” The housekeeper’s smile was strained but still in place. Strange to think that there was a time when she had found this man a figure of menace.

The albino heaved a maddening sigh and sank further back in his chair. “Changed my mind,” he said. “On second thoughts I’d love another cup. Is there any chance…?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Grossmith said wearily.

As the housekeeper ministered to the teapot, Skimpole murmured: “I almost died today.”

“Sorry?” she asked, palpably uninterested. “What was that?”

Before he could reply, Arthur Barge strolled into the room. “Still here?”

“Evidently.”

“It’s just that I was planning to take Mrs. G. up to town. Give her a little treat. I reckon she deserves it. We’re both men of the world, Mr. Skimpole. I’m sure you understand my meaning.”

“Not entirely, no.”

“Lord knows if Moon will be back tonight. If I were you, I’d go home.”

Grudgingly, Skimpole got to his feet. “Then I’ll go.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him you were here, sir,” said Mrs. Grossmith.

“I’ll be back first thing tomorrow. It’s imperative that I speak with him.”

Barge ushered their guest to the door. “We’ll see you then, sir. I’ll look forward to it.”

The albino had barely stepped from the room and the door closed behind him before the air was filled with squeals of delight, shrieks and wails of lascivious pleasure — the earthy sounds, strangely troubling to Skimpole’s ears, of senescent romance. He rolled his eyes and headed home.

Home, as it happened, was Wimbledon — an hour distant and a world away from the silver-plated comfort of Moon’s hotel.

Unlike Mr. Dedlock, Skimpole had never fancied himself a glamorous or powerful man. Dedlock liked to put on airs, to dress up his job as something exotic and exciting, but Skimpole was happy, proud even, to be seen for what he was — a Civil Servant, and a damn good one. His colleague swaggered through the world as though he was the most important thing in it, but Skimpole had always remained content with his life of quiet duty and routine. That this duty and routine often involved arson, blackmail, espionage and state-sponsored murder seemed not to occur to him.

The Service offered a respectable if hardly generous salary and Skimpole had been able to afford a modest terraced house situated a street or so from the Common. An hour after leaving Mrs. Grossmith in the saggy arms of her suitor, Skimpole let himself into his home and winced at the sounds of revelry emanating from next door. The walls were thin and Skimpole’s neighbors fonder than he of raucous company and popular music.

Above that noise, there came other, more welcome sounds: a persistent tap-tap, a metallic jingle and with it a series of fitful stammers, gasps and wheezes. Skimpole hung up his hat, and for the first time that day, he actually smiled. Limping toward him was a sandy-haired boy, eight or nine years old, sickly and pallid, his progress severely impeded both by the metal calipers which encircled and armored his legs like a homemade exoskeleton and by the two heavy wooden crutches on which he leant for support.

“Dada!” he called plaintively, his voice shivery and hoarse from his exertions. He stopped short, have a pitifully feeble cough and, caught off balance for a moment, tottered uncertainly on his feet. The albino bent down to steady the child and kissed him tenderly on the forehead.

“Hello,” he said gently. “Sorry I’m so late.” He removed his pince-nez from the tip of his nose and filed them away in his jacket pocket.

“Missed you,” the boy murmured.

“I’m home now,” his father said and rose cheerfully to his feet. “Hungry?”

The boy laughed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Skimpole ruffled his hair affectionately and was about to head for the kitchen when, without warning, he was struck by a terrible wrench of pain in his innards, a blistering burst of agony flaring deep in his guts as the poison began to stir. He bit down hard on his tongue to stop himself from screaming, lost for a second in the most acute agony he had ever known. Mercifully, the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

He was in no doubt, of course, as to what it signified.

Poleaxed by grief and fear, Mr. Skimpole surprised himself by weeping. Racked by noisy sobs, he stood in the hallway of his second-rate home, hot, shameful tears running down his face while his son gazed up at him in quiet bemusement all the while.

Meyrick Owsley was pleased with himself. He had waited a long time for this, counting down the days and hours, hoping and praying that the moment would come. For months he had waited, and now, at last, the Fiend was condemned. Tonight was the last time he would ever see Barabbas alive.

“Sir?”

The killer slumped in the corner of his cell, elephantine, all but naked, luxuriating in his wickedness and sin. He had prized his stash of beauty from its hiding place in the wall and had spread before him a dozen or so of his favorite items — rings, coins and Moon’s tiepin amongst them. “Come in, won’t you?” he said, barely bothering to look up. “I was just admiring my collection. Flashes, little fragments of beauty in a world of misery and care.”

Owsley looked disdainfully at the meager pile. “I’ll make sure they’re distributed to charity after your death.”

“My death. Has it come already?”

Owsley grinned. He seemed hungry suddenly, cruel, his mask of servility wrenched aside. “In a manner of speaking.”

I fear I may not have been entirely honest about Mr. Owsley.

Barabbas seemed not to notice the change in his disciple. “When?” he breathed.

Owsley licked his lips. “Now.”

The prisoner made no attempt to move away, but rather slouched further onto the floor. He scrabbled in front of him to gather his collection and clutched it to his heaving, blubbery chest. “It’s you, then?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Me,” Owsley snapped back. “It’s always been me.” He bent over the convict, malevolence boiling off him in ugly black waves. “You should have accepted our offer. You could have had lysium. Instead you chose this.”

“I know my level,” Barabbas murmured. He added, almost conversationally: “Can I ask you something?”

“I suppose.”

“Why now? I had hoped to see how everything turns out.”

“You ought never to have given him that book.”

“Edward will work it out. His faculties are almost the equal of my own.”

Owsley laughed. From his pocket he drew out a long, slender surgical knife, coolly vicious, precision-tooled for death. “Your punishment has been decided,” he snarled, relishing the drama of the moment. “And the sentence is death.”

Barabbas yawned, waved a pudgy hand languidly. “Then get on with-” he began, but before he could finish, Owsley, his face convulsing with pleasure, plunged the knife deep into him. Barabbas gave a wet gasp. Owsley twisted the blade, pulled it loose, then thrust it in again. The fat man moaned and a trickle of blood emerged from his mouth like lava, staining his lips and teeth a murky scarlet, spattering messily down his chin.

Still alive, he whispered something to his disciple that even Owsley, in all the innumerable times he had rehearsed and played this scene out in his head, had not forseen.

“Kiss me.”

Owsley had never killed a man before. He felt overwhelmed by the power of it, caught up in the giddy thrill of his transformation, possessed by the sublime transgression of the deed. No doubt it was this which made him think he would be safe and assured of his invulnerability as he leant forward to kiss Barabbas full on the lips. Triumphant, drunk on his murder, he was about to pull away when he felt the dying man stir. With one vast hand, Barabbas held firm his erstwhile servant’s head; with the other he reached for his stash of beautiful things and pulled free Moon’s tiepin, sharpened and honed in anticipation of this inevitable moment. Owsley thrashed and flailed as, with his final flicker of strength, Barabbas brought the pin up to Owsley’s throat and dragged it pitilessly across, feeling the arteries snap with a series of satisfying pops. He closed his eyes as a torrent of blood gushed stickily onto his face. Meyrick Owsley tried to scream in rage, agonizing pain and frustration, but could succeed only in gurgling. Helpless, he fell onto his former master and they lay there a while in a macabre embrace — mutilated, ragged things, bound together for the underworld.

Just before he died, Barabbas tried to whisper the name of the man he loved, an act which had always seemed to him to be appropriate before the end. Whenever he had imagined his death, he had always envisaged an attendant degree of pathos, for it to play out as the sort of strange and tragic scene which might inspire some artist to daub a study in scarlet or a poet to pen a mournful stanza or two. Much to his disappointment, as he lay choking on his own blood, his life dripping away from him with a terrible speed, he found himself too weakened even to speak.

Consequently, the Fiend died silent.

Merryweather and Moon found the Somnambulist in the first place they looked — the taproom of the Strangled Boy. The pub had withstood the worst of the fire, but across the street the theatre remained a blackened, burned-out husk, bleak testament to Moon’s failure.

The conjuror bought his friend a pint of milk and asked, as politely as he could, why he had disappeared. The Somnambulist took out his chalkboard.

SAW SPEIGHT

“Speight?” Merryweather peered nosily over Moon’s shoulder. “The tramp?”

The giant nodded.

“How was he?” asked Moon, slightly bemused.

SUIT

“He was wearing a suit?” Moon asked carefully.

SMART

“Are you sure?”

The Somnambulist nodded, evidently frustrated.

BANK

“He was outside a bank?” the inspector offered.

The Somnambulist shook his head vigorously.

“He works in a bank?” Moon asked, incredulous.

The Somnambulist nodded gratefully.

Merryweather snorted. “Preposterous.”

CAMOUFLAGE

“Camouflage?” Moon was about to ask the meaning of this when the faint cry of a paper boy floated in from outside.

When he heard the headline, Moon dashed out of the pub and into the street.

“Horrible Murder in Newgate!” the boy shouted again. “The Fiend Is Dead!”

Moon seized a paper and riffled furiously through it. When his friends ran out to join him, the found him staring dully down at the newsprint, tears edging the corners of his eyes. Discreetly, they kept their distance. Moon let the paper fall from his hands and drop onto the street, where it was trampled underfoot, sodden, torn and kicked away, another piece of city flotsam. Suddenly, acutely aware that forces of coincidence were marshaling themselves against him, Moon stood alone and silent. Then he surprised himself by laughing. There was no humor in the sound, no genuine mirth, but in the face of all that had happened it seemed to him by far the most logical reaction. To the impartial observer, of course, it may have appeared more like the act of a man whose sanity, like desert earth baked dry, has begun at long last to splinter and to crack.

Through it all, the old man sleeps beneath the city.

Some conscious part of him may be aware that things are changing in the streets above, that events are progressing toward their inevitable crisis. Perhaps he knows that he will soon have to stir from his slumber and face the waking world. But for now he remains mired in dreams.

First, he is a young man again, in the company of friends, before any of them had been touched by life’s realities. Southey is with him — brave, dear Southey — at a time before his betrayal and their feuds. Their talk is earnest, too solemn, perhaps, but typical of the way they were.

The old man sighs and stirs uncomfortably in his sleep, remembering happier times.

The young men talk of their hopes and ambitions, of the great experiment. Southey speaks loftily of a brotherhood, of their plans to escape and perfect themselves.

The dreamer sees himself talking fervently, fire blazing in his eyes, of poetry and metaphysics and the need for a better world.

Susquehanna. The word surfaces without warning. It means nothing to him but he enjoys the sound of it, its pleasing rhythm. He repeats it to himself. Susquehanna.

Then Edith emerges beside Southey, interrupting them with cake and wine, and the old man sees that the chasm between them is already widening. Sara brushes up against him and he is distracted. The dream shifts again.

He is old now, his friendships withered like fruit on a rotten vine, the clear vision of his youth fogged and obscured by the compromises of age. He is a different man, gripped in the coils of penury and afflicted by an evil longing. Naked to the waist, his breeches pulled down below his knees, he sits straining over a privy, clenched and groaning, sick in the knowledge that he has afflicted this poisoning, this acrimony of the bowels, upon himself, that he is to blame for his condition. “My body is deranged,” he writes — his madness the product of a fondness for medicine, a folly, a treacherous lover in whose thrall he has been too long held tight. He mutters to himself as, humiliated, he sits and heaves and pushes.

At last, he returns to the garret room in Highgate, to Gillman and the boy. Ned is there, not so young now. He holds out his hand. Feverish and dying, the old man takes it. He tells Gillman to leave them, and the doctor, respectful of his patient’s whims, obeys.

Ned seems fearless of him now that death stares back through the old man’s eyes. He wants to tell the boy what he means to him, how the boy has brought him to life again and rekindled his dreams. Surprisingly, for one so voluble in life, he cannot find the words. He stutters awhile, then contents himself with clutching the proffered hand, but he is sure nonetheless that the boy — this special, chosen boy — knows. He has bequeathed to him a legacy. Ned is to be his successor, his champion. He squeezes his hand, blinks back a few final tears.

Gasping in his sleep, shuffling uncomfortably on his iron cot, the dreamer knows the end is near.

Perhaps, if he were aware of the passing of time, the exact chronology of his incarceration, he might care to know precisely how long he has left before he wakes.

But I have faith in you. You’ll have worked it out by now, I’m sure.

Four days. Four days before the dream ends, the old man wakes and the city falls.