Langdon St. Ives: Beneath London Part 14

TWENTY-FIVE.

BOW STREET POLICE STATION.

Alice and Bill Kraken parted company from Mother Laswell on Fleet Street, the two of them bound for the newly built Metropolitan Police Station on Bow Street, Covent Garden, and Mother away down Whitefriars Street toward the river, in search of emanations in the environs of the infamous Mr. Klingheimer's house on Lazarus Walk. They would meet at the entrance to Temple Church an hour hence, and then, if they missed the appointed time, at the top of the following hour.

"You take care, Mother," Bill Kraken said. "This ain't no time for cutting capers. If you see the man Shadwell, make certain he don't see you. Lie low. That's the byword, and we'll all come home safe. I wish you had a pistol in that there bag of yours."

"I've given up pistols, Bill. You know that," Mother Laswell said to him. "I'll take particular care. As for Shadwell, he certainly believes I'm dead. You do the same, Bill. Heed your own advice." They stared at each other for a moment as if finding it difficult to part, which was something that Alice understood very well. As she watched Mother Laswell walk away, she wondered whether Hasbro's notion of dividing their forces was indeed a good idea after all. They were spread thin, as the saying went, although surely there was little danger to her and Bill, who were merely chatting up the authorities for the particulars of James Harrow's death, which should be a simple business.

They continued along the Strand now, and up Wellington Street, garnering odd glances from the people they pa.s.sed. Alice was careful to walk beside Kraken, who had the habit of following behind when he accompanied Alice, as if he didn't want to presume upon their friends.h.i.+p. She was anxious to avoid giving anyone the idea that she was being followed by a dangerous madman. He had a resolute look on his face, his eyes squinting, his fists clenched, his mouth working, his hair wild. It was a dangerous, rope's-end look, as if he might break out at any moment into a rash act, which he very well might.

"I have a plan, Bill, for dealing with the police," she said to him as they drew in sight of Bow Street Station, newly built of stone and with a low iron fence around it. An officer stood outside the door, and there were farm barrows moving past on the street Covent Garden market starting to clear out, most of its business done in the early morning hours.

"I'd be happy if you allow me to deal with this matter of James Harrow. It won't take but a moment for me to learn all there is to know."

"I won't lose sight of you, ma'am, not on your life. If you're a-going inside that there station, then so am I."

"It's a police station, Bill. I couldn't be safer. You, however, have much to lose if you run afoul of the police and were taken up. It would be the end of me if that happened. I don't know what I would do. Think of what you told Mother not ten minutes ago about lying low. I'm asking you to heed your own advice, just as she did."

After a long moment he nodded curtly and said, "I'll stand out front on the street, then, if that's orders, and watch the door for you to come out. They can't take a man up for standing in the road."

"Yes they can, Bill. They can do as they please. You'll find yourself in Newgate Prison if you don't look out. There's a coffee house down the way. You can see its sign hanging over the door. Wait for me there, if you please."

"Aye," he said, nodding again and moving away, shambling past the policeman, who looked him over with a scowl, his hand on the handle of the truncheon hanging from his belt.

"He's in my employ," Alice told the policeman cheerfully. "He's harmless."

"Yes, ma'am," the policeman said, doffing his high hat, his demeanor changing on the instant to a solicitous grin. "Just as you say."

She got that response often enough the unearned appreciation of men who admired her appearance. She didn't find it flattering, but it was sometimes useful. She entered the building, thinking about male gallantry and female charm as she made her way to a desk with a harried-looking police sergeant sitting behind it. There were two people queued up in front of her a distraught woman who was wringing a pair of gloves and trying to talk past a small, stout man who told her to "wait her bleeding turn," while he explained to the sergeant that a man on a horse had forced his cart into a post and broke the cart and the wheel into the bargain. "I want compensation," he said with a heavy nod of the head. "I mean to have it."

"Where is this villain?" the Sergeant asked him blandly.

"He just kept on, didn't he? Didn't look back. Not for a moment."

"Then there's nothing we can do for you, sir."

"But who's to compensate me? I have the right to compensation."

"The right, do you say? You have the right to be thrown into the street for being a d.a.m.ned ugly, slab-sided villain. Compensation, he says! Off with you now. Next! Yes, ma'am, step forward."

The glove-wringing woman pushed forward now and in a broken voice told the sergeant that her young son had disappeared, describing him in a way that might apply to half the boys on earth. He took down the information impatiently, and then asked, "The boy's name?"

"Charles Pickney, officer."

"Perhaps he was taken up by the police," the sergeant said, and he looked through a long list of names on sheets of foolscap before him.

"No, sir," she said. "He's not been taken up. He's a good boy."

"They're all good boys, ma'am, until they prove otherwise. As I said, his name is not on the list. That decides the matter. Move along now, my good woman," he said, waving her off. "Next!"

Alice watched the woman wander away in a state of obvious confusion and grief. Last night it had been Langdon who was missing, and she recalled her empty helplessness and despair as she lay there in the darkness thinking about it. She wondered what she might say to the woman that would help her, but nothing came to her. To the sergeant she said, "A friend of mine has gone missing, also. His name is James Harrow, and he is a.s.sociated with the British Museum. He was allegedly kicked by a horse near the Swan Lane Pier, the night before last, his body taken away by the police. I'd like to verify that this is true and to discover where the body was taken. His sister has found it impossible to learn meaningful details of the event or the whereabouts of his body."

The sergeant nodded and looked at his list again a long list. "No such name here, ma'am. Wait a moment if you will, and I'll ask Joe Matthews, who works along the river." He arose and went off, pa.s.sing through a door, from which he reemerged a minute later. "Joe tells me that your man is missing, as reported by his sister in Chiswick, like you said. His wagon was burned alongside the river. His body would have been conveyed to a dead house in the immediate area."

"We were told that the body was taken away by the police. Wouldn't there be a record of it?"

"There should be, ma'am, but there is not. His body would have been conveyed to a dead house, like I said, but Joe Walton didn't hear of it."

"Where are the dead houses?" Alice asked.

"They s.h.i.+ft about, ma'am. People aren't fond of 'em, you see. A shed back of a church, perhaps, or the bas.e.m.e.nt of a boarding house that's paid a fee by the Board of Works till the tenants move out because of the stink of the bodies. The Board can tell you better nor me. That's their lookout. It's right up the way, near Admiralty Arch."

"I'll pay them a visit," Alice said. "Thank you, sir. You've been helpful."

She moved away, the line having grown to six behind her, and she heard the sergeant's, "Next!" as she pushed open the door.

She found Bill Kraken pacing on the pavement outside the coffee house, dodging pedestrians, and the two of them set out at once for the Board of Works, which was a matter of ten minutes' walk under the windy blue sky.

Kraken entered the building along with her this time and sat down in a wooden chair by the door to wait. Alice was greeted by a small and very serious woman named Mrs. Green who asked whether she wished to make an official inquiry, to which Alice asked once again after James Harrow's body, whether it had been conveyed to a dead house, probably in the City and somewhere near the river.

"We're not fond of the term 'dead house,'" Mrs. Green told her. "There are in fact three morgues in the general vicinity of the Swan Lane Pier, however."

At that moment a small, narrow-faced man sitting at a nearby desk interrupted, suggesting to Mrs. Green that it was more pressing that she complete the monthly roster and that he would be quite happy to reveal the location of Mr. Harrow's remains.

"Yes, Mr. Lewis," Mrs. Green said, and went away, presumably to do as he asked.

Alice looked at the man attentively enough so that he became visibly fl.u.s.tered. The last time she had seen him had been through a pair of opera gla.s.ses while standing on the deck of the Hedge-pig, moments before the collapse of the Embankment.

TWENTY-SIX.

THE PRISONER.

"Am I a prisoner, then?" St. Ives asked the man whose name was Klingheimer.

"No, sir. You are merely detained in this room for a brief time. I ask your pardon for Dr. Peavy's hasty actions. He is sometimes intemperate when he feels threatened."

"I threatened no one," St. Ives said.

"And yet you ran when you were confronted."

St. Ives shrugged. "It seemed to me that I was the one who was threatened." The man's skin was an unhealthy milky green, much like Pule's, although not so p.r.o.nounced. St. Ives glanced at the several wall sconces, but none had a green shade. There was a faint stink in the air, also the smell of the fungi, without a doubt. It came to him that Klingheimer must ingest the things, and he wondered whether there might be a narcotic quality to them.

A tiny chime sounded, and Mr. Klingheimer removed his pocket.w.a.tch from a vest pocket, glanced at it, and then showed it to St. Ives. "A Patek Philippe," he said. "It's an extravagance, but a man must sometimes satisfy his material desires. I could not resist the perpetual calendar. The watch is warranted to be running a hundred years hence."

"Someone will be happy to hear it chime in that dim age, no doubt," St. Ives said. "I'll repeat what I said a moment ago: Dr. Peavy had no reason to suspect me of wrongdoing."

"Dr. Peavy is a man who takes considerable risks. In his zeal to get at the nature of things he is unfortunately 'careless of the single life,' to quote Mr. Tennyson. I a.s.sure you that he is a savant, and the results of his experimentation more than justify his indiscretions, although they encourage a certain amount of secrecy."

St. Ives looked past him. He could see a darkening sky through a west-facing cellar window. "'Results,' as you call them," he said, "rarely justify indiscretions that are careless of the single life. Evil most often comes from that sort of indiscretion. Mr. Tennyson would be the first to agree, and to be doubtful about the abuse to his poetry."

"I have no notion of evil as such. Our widely varying notions of good and evil are the central irrationality of humankind the ant.i.thesis of truth, a weakness."

"You sound very sure of yourself."

"I have every reason to be sure of myself. If a man cannot be sure of himself, what can he be sure of?"

"Truth, perhaps, but that's a different matter."

"No, sir. It is the same matter, if a man is in possession of the truth."

"Errant, despicable nonsense," St. Ives said. "My time is quite precious to me at the moment, as you can well understand. I very much want to see my wife, to put it plainly."

"I am delighted to hear you say it, and I hope to accommodate you soon. I myself am to be wed on the morrow to an extraordinary woman. Quite young, in fact, but we're perfectly... aligned in every other regard. Age, I find, is immaterial. You know the girl, I believe." Klingheimer sat back in his chair, smiling as if he were about to say something droll.

"Do I?" St. Ives asked. "What is the girl's name?"

"Clara Wright."

Klingheimer stared at him, smiling, his head c.o.c.ked. "Do I amaze you, Professor?"

St. Ives had no desire to answer the question, which was rhetorical and self-serving. "You murdered her mother, then?"

"Not I, and 'murder' is a hard word. It is true that Dr. Peavy removed her head at my bidding. It is equally true that the head the brain, the mind is the only part of the human animal that matters in the least. The rest is a mere mechanism. It will amaze you to learn that Sarah Wright is still very much alive. You have a baffled look about you, Professor. I'll tell you something that you do not know: Clara was removed from Hereafter Farm shortly after you and your handsome wife left for London. She dwells with me now quite safe and unmolested, I a.s.sure you. My interest in the girl has nothing of an animal quality to it. Marriage to my mind is something something ethereal."

St. Ives nodded, affecting to take the man seriously. He glanced around the small, windowless room. Aside from the two chairs and small table, there was a narrow bed and a wooden cupboard on the wall that stood open some two inches. There were gla.s.s bottles visible in the cupboard, and St. Ives saw that they were filled with the green liquid.

"I have several questions for you," he said to Mr. Klingheimer. "Will you answer them while we wait? I am entirely in your power, after all, and I am quite curious about a number of things."

"I would like nothing better, sir. I detest secrets, especially between men of our stature. Put a question to me. I welcome an inquisition."

"What do you want?"

"I want for nothing. I can tell you, however, that I take a certain joy in manipulating the world to my own ends. All of us do. Even a man who sleeps in a ditch knows in which pocket his pipe resides and sees that his matches and tobacco remain dry. Disorganization const.i.tutes madness. Without our best efforts, we're surrounded by mere chaos. I attend to such matters on a larger scale than our friends who sleep in ditches, however. My own is an ascending scale, I'm happy to say, a trek up Mount Olympus itself. I have not reached the summit by any means, but I have scaled the lesser heights, and even from those vantage points I find the view breathtaking. Clara and I will take the world upon our own shoulders; the two of us will send Atlas packing."

Klingheimer smiled broadly, and it came to St. Ives that the man was unhinged, possessed by a demented grandiosity that made him a candidate for permanent residence in this very asylum. "What put you in mind of Clara and her mother to begin with, given that they lived in obscurity?"

"Clemson Wright, Clara's father, was in my employ a worthless man, but his coming to me was a stroke of luck in the end. When he was far gone in gin, he spoke of his daughter's clairvoyant powers and referred to his wife as a 'witch' a term that he understood to be the literal truth. Dr. Peavy had the pleasure of opening his head. What we found therein was interesting quite convincing at least until the man's unfortunate death, at which point his brain matter would only have been of interest to a cannibal. In short, after I investigated his claims I determined to accomplish two things: I would wed Clara and I would possess Sarah Wright's essence on a platter. What I set out to do, I do."

St. Ives regarded Klingheimer for a moment without speaking. His matter-of-fact tone was appalling, but interesting in a clinical sense. "You knew that I carried a ham and pickled onion sandwich into the underworld," he said. "How did you know?"

"Because an inept man detonated an explosive charge that cast you and Mr. Frobisher to your doom, or so I thought. I sent a party to search for you. The world below is vast beyond belief, however, and we failed to find either you or Mr. Frobisher. What we found was a sc.r.a.p of newsprint that had recently wrapped a sandwich. Certainly that's one of the lesser mysteries."

St. Ives nodded. "No sign at all of Gilbert Frobisher?"

"Alas, none. I tell you that truthfully. Some weeks earlier we had made an exploratory foray into the underworld through a little-known point of access on Hampstead Heath. Perhaps you are now familiar with it. It was then that we came upon the living corpse, if you will, of Ignacio Narbondo. I was amused at the look of surprise on your face when you saw the Doctor in his vivarium in his fungal jungle, if you will." Mr. Klingheimer smiled broadly once again, although the smile was short lived. St. Ives wondered if his facial expressions meant anything at all, or were simply a continually s.h.i.+fting mask.

The door to the antechamber opened and Willis Pule walked in, carrying a silver tray with gla.s.ses, a bottle of sherry, and a half dozen cream tarts. He set the tray on the low table that separated St. Ives and Mr. Klingheimer and poured sherry into each of the gla.s.ses. St. Ives looked hard at the door and then at Pule.

"I adjure you to do nothing foolish," Klingheimer told him. "It is utterly unnecessary. You've come to the place of your song dream, sir. I intend to offer you a n.o.ble position in the G.o.dhead, if you will a minor dukedom on the mountainside, but palatial."

Pule went out again. Mr. Klingheimer tasted the sherry and nodded in apparent approval. "And now a question for you, Professor. When you were finding your way out of the underworld you no doubt took an avid interest in the luminous mushrooms. You must have considered their very interesting effect on the animals they capture a human animal in Narbondo's case. How would you describe them?"

"I would describe them as nondescript, gargantuan, vampiric, predatory, motile relatives of the common field blewit, although this last is mere guesswork. The leech-like tendencies of the fungus are strangely p.r.o.nounced, and they are apparently immune to the rapid growth and decay of countless species of mushroom here above. As you stated, their fluids seem to have the power to sustain life."

Mr. Klingheimer nodded. "I wonder if you can distinguish the faint green pallor to my skin?"

"I can and I have. The effect is even more p.r.o.nounced in Willis Pule. The pallid green tone is consistent with that of the liquid in the fungus, of course."

"Indeed it is. Mr. Pule dines upon them, as do I. Both of us swill the luminous fluids. He was a pioneer, was Mr. Pule a willing subject. The effect is startling a sharpening of the senses, the diminution of age itself, the repair of the flesh. The fungal blood, I mean to say, is nothing less than the elixir of life."

"Immortality, do you mean?"

Klingheimer shrugged. "There is no such thing," he said. "There is, however, considerable ground between mortality and its opposite. One is the fate of mankind and the other the fate of the G.o.ds, all of whom have pa.s.sed away in due time. How old do you take me for?"

"Old enough to have more sense and scruples than you apparently have, if either of those things in fact interest you."

"Fie, sir. Philosophical gabble. What if I told you that I was ninety-three years old? What if I revealed that small doses of the elixir have had a salutary effect upon my health? I purchased a bottle of it many years ago from a man of whom you have some knowledge, and very shortly thereafter I set out to find my own source a great challenge, I a.s.sure you, as was the process of brewing it. It is only recently, however, that I have discovered vast fields of it, as have you, without a doubt, given your trek underground. The pressing of my first harvest yielded a small keg of refined elixir, and now I drink it in quant.i.ty."

"You mean to bottle it like wine, then? Set up as a commercial gentleman in a factory, perhaps."

"Not at all, Professor. I simply mean to possess the elixir in quant.i.ty. I mean to annex the lands in which those fields grow. I'll happily share it with my... a.s.sociates with yourself, if you'd like. I beg you to consider it."

"Your increased consumption is not due to an addictive quality in the elixir? I'm reminded of the perils of chloral hydrate or laudanum."

"Nothing of the kind, sir. It's a noxious brew at first, and it requires an act of will to consume it, even if it's diluted with spirits to cover the flavor and smell. Its result is efficacious, however, one relishes the effect and what it portends, if not the flavor of the swill itself."