The Golden Key

by Marian Womack

  ‘An excellent idea.’

  Charles joined him almost at once, but didn’t talk, preferring to busy himself with the weekly copy of Light. This gave Sam time to reflect on what was going on. After some time had passed, Mrs Brown entered to announce that Miss Walton was leaving. Lady Matthews, apparently, had just done so, asking Mrs Brown to convey her regards to Mr Bale. Charles didn’t look hurt.

  ‘She is a very strange woman, Sam, a very strange woman indeed. Let us see Miss Walton out.’

  They went into the hall and found Miss Walton putting on her gloves. Sam wasn’t surprised to see that the red leather case had been intended for her.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Bale. Most generous of you.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all. Miss Walton, if you would be so kind as to wait for a minute, I would like to give you some of our reading material.’

  ‘What a charming offer.’

  Sam thought he detected a hint of mockery in her voice, but Charles went into the library beaming. It was now or never.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, Miss Walton, if that is your name. But I should advise you to be careful: I don’t know Lady Matthews very well, but I won’t allow anyone to harm my uncle in any way.’

  She smiled her dark, knowing smile.

  ‘As usual, you are missing the plot wildly, Mr Moncrieff. Perhaps you have a natural gift for doing that.’

  Confused by the answer, he did not have time to formulate any reply: Charles was coming out of the library.

  ‘Please allow me to express once again our interest in your joining the Holborn Circle.’

  Miss Walton laughed heartily.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Bale, but as I explained in my letter, it is out of the question. I prefer to make my own way.’

  ‘But a young and talented woman, without the protection of a Spiritualist circle! It is unheard of!’ Charles protested, half in jest. Miss Walton smiled.

  ‘Many unheard-of things are already happening, Mr Bale. The twentieth century will belong to us, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You mean to Spiritualism, my dear?’

  ‘Oh yes, that too. Spiritualism will be relevant, in my opinion, as long as it continues to find a common interest with the political reforms that this country needs.’ Sam wondered if the young woman was a suffragette, and hoped not: Charles could not abide them. ‘But I mean women, Mr Bale. The twentieth century will belong to women.’

  Yes, a suffragette!

  Evidently wishing to change the topic, Charles blurted out, ‘Sam, listen: Lady Matthews has invited Miss Walton to her country house in a month’s time, and she has been kind enough to extend the invitation to us.’

  Sam murmured how nice that would be; Miss Walton, already at the door, looked particularly vexed at the idea of his going. Civil farewells were at last exchanged, and she was gone. At last he had solved the young woman’s riddle: Helena Walton was almost surely a thief, and quite probably a confidence artist.

  Sam put his hand to his pocket, to her card. He had the intuition that he and Miss Walton would meet again before the month was up.

  * * *

  Some days passed. Charles was sitting by his desk writing a letter. Its purpose was that of distinguishing The New Occultist Defence League from the London Spiritualist Alliance, with which they had a minor feud involving the virtues and follies of Mesmerism. The London Spiritualist Alliance swore by the practice; The New Occultist Defence League, following a more modern approach, insisted that, in the long decades in which the so-called science had been active, there had not been real scientific proof of any kind as to its benefits, and therefore the label of ‘science’ ought to be removed from it once and for all. Unfortunately, the Manchester newspaper he was writing to, Two Worlds, seemed to have busied itself with muddying this issue, on occasion attributing the sayings and doctrines of one group to the other. The matter was a serious one, not to be taken lightly. A number of important clarifications needed to be made.

  Sam was trying to read, but wasn’t in the mood. Eventually he spoke:

  ‘Charles, I’m curious: Helena Walton.’

  ‘Yes? What?’ Charles seemed a little too vague when he looked up from the angry letter he was penning.

  ‘The young woman you introduced to Lady Matthews. What kind of business brought them together? I was just wondering, why did they meet here?’

  ‘It is no mystery: I simply acted as mediator, knowing both parties. You know me, Sam: I like to lend a hand wherever possible.’

  ‘That’s to your credit, of course.’

  It was clear he would not get more information from Charles. Should he press his uncle? Sam could sense that there was more to the connection with Lady Matthews, a story of some sort. He had the vague recollection of his uncle collaborating with some titled lady in some enterprise years back. He did not recollect the particulars and, in any case, the notion was odd, even fanciful—their part of the world was farming country. But he had remembered visiting a place, a kind of factory by the coast, with a large arm pumping in and out of the North Sea. He had a distinct recollection of his tiny hand engulfed in Charles’s, a small chubby child with short pantaloons standing next to the older man. His uncle’s partner had been a lady of great wealth; could it have been their reclusive neighbour? The adventure, whatever it was, probably connected with the new fashion for steam power, had not prospered, and Sam had not been back at that spot in decades.

  But, far from the old lady, it was the younger woman who intrigued him and, he eventually came to realise, who could provide him with the information he craved.

  That afternoon Sam went to visit John Woodbury, paying a long-overdue visit to the old man’s newly refurbished establishment in Cecil Court. The Little Haunted Bookshop specialised in books on Spiritualism, psychic research and its related sciences, as well as bewildering phenomena in all their possible manifestations. It also boasted a little printing press in the back, from which some small pamphlets condemning Spiritualist fraud had been published.

  Sam found Mr Woodbury writing notes in a thick dusty ledger.

  ‘My friend! What a welcome sight!’

  Woodbury insisted in giving him a tour of the cramped premises. Once Theosophy, Magnetism, Clairvoyance, Psychology, Mesmerism, Phrenology, Psychical Research, Astrology, Spiritism, Spirit Communication, Phonography, Agnosticism and the inevitable Vegetarianism had been dealt with, Woodbury insisted on showing him the latest book arrivals, among them Towards a Science of Immortality: Heat-Death of the Sun, and a New Dawn for Mankind, the lengthily titled monograph by none other than Count Maximilian Justus von Daniken Bévcar. Sam found himself compelled to buy a copy.

  Mr Woodbury intrigued him. He was a genuinely zealous prosecutor of tricksters and fakes, who seemed to have many other interests outside of his work for the SPR. Once the business was done of admiring and interesting himself—as much as he was capable—in everything he was shown, Sam asked Woodbury if he knew the mysterious Miss Walton. Woodbury smiled oddly, a gesture Sam refused to read much into as he drank the cup of tea that the older man had prepared for him. Nonetheless, he seemed happy to respond:

  ‘She has gained the reputation of being a “respectable vessel” for communicating with the shadows. She is a serious young woman, the granddaughter of Ovid Walton.’

  ‘The classical scholar?’

  ‘Exactly. Miss Walton is educated—the last thing one would expect in a medium, if you ask me.’ Or in a woman, Sam thought he meant.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She studied at Girton, by all accounts with the full support of her grandfather. Afterwards she trained briefly in one of the London hospitals, I think.’

  ‘She trained as a nurse? Nothing odd in that!’

  Woodbury smiled his crooked smile again, full of square teeth.

  ‘Oh no, my friend. The woman trained to be a doctor, of all things!’

  ‘Is she a doctor, then?’ Sam refused to be scandalised by the notion; this wa
s the twentieth century.

  ‘She was expelled from her studies. A little bit of a scandal, if you ask me, although I can’t remember the particulars right now…’

  That was all the old man was prepared to share, it seemed.

  * * *

  That night Sam was feeling particularly restless, and he decided to go out for a drive around the city to clear his thoughts. His new motorcar had proved an adequate distraction, as the delicate machine seemed to need a lot of care even to perform its minimal duties. Charles, of course, did not approve of cars, feeling that the hubbub they created was distasteful to the spirits.

  Before Sam knew what he was doing he found himself crossing the Western Bridge in the direction of the Waterloo Variety, where he sat in the empty bar while a performance was taking place, listening to the cackling laughter. A well-known voice sounded at his back.

  ‘Sam!’ Frederick Edgington had appeared out of nowhere. His presence was not particularly desired at that moment. However, Sam had to admit that the friendly face calmed him a little. ‘What are you doing here, tonight of all nights? Look, it’s not a good day to be seen here… There’s been some bad business at the back!’

  That was exactly what he didn’t need: the gossip; all the rottenness of illicit relations between cabinet members and second-rate actresses.

  ‘I’m collecting all the chaps together quietly, and we’ll remove ourselves to the Advancement for the Century Society dinner in Pall Mall. A bunch of us were going anyway, hence the tails,’ Frederick explained, showing off his impeccably stylish outfit.

  ‘Do you want me to come?’ Sam was feeling rather pathetic. He resented himself; he resented Helena Walton: the woman didn’t seem to have any intention of vacating his head. Jim was, as usual, hovering behind Freddy, and Sam had the notion, not for the first time, that Viola’s cousin was keeping an eye on him. What on earth was Jim doing in London, anyway? He was getting quite bored of the young man’s presence. At some point, the tacit agreement not to mention the river incident would be abandoned, and they were going to have a fight. Sam almost wished it would be tonight. At Oxford, Sam had been something of a boxing hero; he still boasted a scar over his left eye that some women found darkly attractive. Out of all his opponents, one stood out, a strong Hungarian, the son of a baron, who had possessed a particularly devilish right arm. He had almost knocked him senseless once, the fiend.

  ‘Sam? The dinner? You may find it interesting—it is in honour of the man of the moment, Count Bévcar!’

  Of course, the ubiquitous Bévcar. Sam now had a copy of the Count’s book by his bed, although he had made no attempt to start reading it.

  He finished his glass of champagne, the fifth—or was it the sixth?—at a gulp.

  ‘Why is he such a popular fellow?’ he asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be if you promised eternal life, resurrection, putting your soul into some younger, more able body?’

  Sam’s interest was suddenly piqued.

  ‘And how on earth can he do that?’

  ‘Ancient shamanistic techniques. Transmutation! What would you say of having the late Queen’s soul transplanted into another body? Or perhaps bringing Albert back?’

  Sam had read about shamanism in college, and knew of its dark pursuits. Freddy was starting to look impatient. And Jim kept looking intently at him.

  ‘Look, my friend, I was trying to avoid telling you, but… the truth is that the police will be here any minute, old man! This place is about to explode! Someone has been attacked, one of the theatre workers! He might not survive, the poor fellow… No one has said anything yet—they do not want to provoke a stampede—but the police are on their way.’ Freddy’s tone while he explained all this was conspiratorial, not devoid of excitement. He grabbed Sam firmly by the shoulder and ushered him into the foyer, where a group of young men clad in expensive dinner jackets was headed for the main entrance, leaving those less in the know to deal with the forthcoming upheaval. By now Sam felt too drunk to drive, but Jim sat obligingly in the driver’s seat. A couple of police vans were arriving at that moment, and there was a bit of a commotion by the door of the Waterloo. But they were safe. Men like them usually were, Sam mused, hating the thought. Someone put a flask into his hand and he drank a gulp of warm liquid that tasted like watery rum.

  They drove through the winding streets, which kept twisting and twisting, until they reached the club. The bronze plaque on the doorjamb showed a star surrounded by a circle, a sign that with a burst of alcoholic lucidity Sam recognised as the sun. The plaque read: THE TRUE DAWN. Where had he heard that name before? He remembered: it was one of London’s many Spiritualist circles, one that had adopted Bévcar as their leader and guide.

  He entered the building with the others and followed them towards a set of dining rooms at the back of the first floor. Everyone was huddled in the vast rectangular ballroom, decorated with fake Egyptian idols and elaborate charms, exaggerated symbols of fertility and rebirth. Someone put yet another drink into his hand. The sickly-sweet taste brought him back to his senses a little, and he recognised several people of consequence partaking in the frivolities: politicians, famous physicians, even a poet he had once admired, generals, businessmen, aristocrats… It seemed that the whole of London was in attendance. What were these men doing, surrounding themselves with these false symbols of power? He knew that some of them had barely a month ago accompanied the Queen’s coffin through the London streets. These men already possessed everything, but they still wanted more: more power, more influence, more champagne, more women. It made him sick.

  The room was decorated with banners depicting a coat of arms, and Sam moved to inspect it in more detail: a wolf standing over a deer, overgrown reeds, a fungus emerging from it in the shape of a star. The wolf was licking the puddle of blood rather than eating its prey, which seemed significant somehow. Sam knew that in some cultures drinking blood was the equivalent to ingesting the heart or the brain, two practices connected with the consumption of the vital impulse, of the energy that animates the creature.

  Some faint clapping filled the room, and everyone turned in its direction. The clash of a gong invited those present to silence.

  ‘And now, the festivities start,’ someone in passing, Freddy, whispered wetly into his ear.

  The butler saluted the peers, generals and majors, the chief superintendent of Scotland Yard, and the rest of the gentlemen present, inviting them to gather around. The men started to move noiselessly, and only then did Sam notice it: a huge circle carved on the wooden floor, with a maze pattern inside it. Once everyone was disposed around it, two servants entered carrying a rug, which they put on the floor and unrolled. It was also circular, and white. The new electric lights were dimmed. A servant in Cossack dress came in, and carefully placed a cushion at the centre of the circle. He also brought out a cage with a sparrow in it, and then a cat, asleep in his arms, or so Sam thought. It took him a few seconds to realise the animal was dead.

  Another clash of the gong preceded the arrival of a man. To the dismay of those present, it was not Bévcar. He was wearing a red Eastern coat, and a necklace of bright yellow daisies. He sat cross-legged on the white pillow, rolled his eyes back, and began his chant. All of a sudden the previously dead cat stood clumsily on his two back legs, utterly terrified. Sam didn’t understand what had happened, until he noticed the sparrow unmoving.

  Some minutes later the man began the chant anew, and this time it was a far more complex sound. The cat fell down once again, and the bird resurrected, as if on cue, convulsing dementedly, hitting itself against the little metal bars, leaving a thread of blood and a flurry of brown feathers.

  Sam would later think that he had witnessed a trick, some collective hallucination, a well-orchestrated illusion. Those poor animals had been used as puppets for their fun. The greenish light that had emanated from the two creatures had brought something to mind; he could not remember exactly what. But he had seen that strange glow before.<
br />
  One thing he wondered: if the force they had just witnessed was real, who could have access to it, and to what ends? And what was Bévcar’s role in all this?

  * * *

  The unnerving demonstration over, Sam left without saying goodbye to Jim, or Freddy, whom he had lost long ago among the many groups of conspirators. He made his way back through empty corridors, shoes clicking against the marble floor, and got out into the frosty night still hearing the clamour behind him, the loud cheers and the standing ovation.

  Outside, Sam was shaking with fear. What had just happened? Exhausted, he bent down and vomited copiously on the pavement. He climbed back into his car, and sat for a moment, holding his arms against the cold. After a few seconds he drove off, allowing the streets to guide him.

  The machine took him into a shadowy London he barely recognised. It was a landscape where the shapes of the buildings and their soft corners seemed to be composed of the fog itself, with narrow gaps between the dimly lit labyrinthine alleys; the city a treacherous and intricate map of little rows put together like spider webs. Streets and avenues were full of people getting in and out of horse-drawn omnibuses that stopped where they pleased, men pushing carts after the day of business, people getting into the Underground. Unbearable. Sam manoeuvred without stopping until he reached emptier areas away from the madding crowd, even if they seemed to him imbued with that same dismal aura of decay and darkness.

  He was still shivering after the events of the evening. The buildings blurred into one another, formless shadows, strangely unreal. Through the fog they looked as if they belonged to another plane of existence, and he was only getting an unfocused vision of them through distant ages and times. Dung and brick and mortar mixed with the sweat and blood of men and women to compose those thoroughfares, and Sam had the strange fancy that he had entered onto some kind of stage set, put together by the men from the dinner he had just abandoned. He was aware of the contradictory energies that floated around him: the siren chants of the nightclubs, the obscure little alleyways, the secret taverns; the city as an enormous living god-like animal deciding the fate of each one of its subjects.