Gibbous House

by Ewan Lawrie

  He looked up briefly. ‘Go,’ he said.

  Flames were visible through the window from which I had dropped. The servants’ entrance was a matter of a few steps to my right. The handle on the door was hot to the touch.

  Skirting the building took no more than a minute or so, even though there was some stiffness of the joints after my fall. There were no flames apparent from the outside. Finding the main entrance locked from within, I used the lion’s head bell pull more in hope than expectation. The summons was answered as quickly as ever it had been during my stay at Gibbous House. The door was opened by Miss Pardoner, whose unfashionable coiffure was enlivened by the effect on it of the lady’s having recently enjoyed some energetic activity. Combined with the flush in her cheeks, it gave her an alluring look.

  ‘Quickly!’ she gasped. ‘The house is afire.’

  I refrained from comment, feeling that the singed aspect of some of my attire, not to mention my hair, was response enough.

  She grasped my arm and dragged me into the entrance-way.

  ‘Rudolf! He is with Enoch. Below. He must be saved.’ She looked me in the eye with such imprecation as led me to think she truly believed some altruistic spark glowed somewhere within me.

  ‘I’ll need money; you’ll make sure you have it when I return.’

  She gave a look as though she had just smelled Cullis’s breath.

  ‘You’ll get your reward,’ she said.

  On looking up at the gallery, it was obvious that the wallpaper hall of mirrors was curling with the heat. The hand-painted trompe l’oeil mirror concealing the access to the bedrooms had been the first to suffer the effects of the conflagration. It seemed the fire set outside my own bedroom door had thus far been confined to the apartments of the members of the household proper. As I passed through into the dining room, I could have sworn I heard the crack of heated glass.

  The refectory table resembled a culinary battlefield, in as much as wine spilled like blood and broken vittles covered the surface of the table like cavalrymen at Balaclava. I reflected that I had surely struck my head in my fall from the window, if such nonsense could enter it at so inappropriate a time. At the head of the table, apparently insensible from drink, was the giant, Bill. The noise emanating from his gaping mouth was sure indication that he lived yet.

  The entrance in the inglenook fireplace was open, though the underground passage looked as dark as ever. I passed between the Golem and the dybbuk and wished for a light. A familiar hellish glow infused the red sandstone of the passage walls, and passing Heathfield Cadwallader’s message I felt a brief queasiness in my stomach. The light from the chamber containing the infernal machine was not so bright as on my previous visit, and the Ethiops were conspicuously absent. The moving parts of the machine seemed sluggish, as though it were tired or drugged. As a consequence, the great chamber was a little quieter, with relative silence prevailing as the great wheels paused at the apex of each rotation. A faint screaming could be heard at these moments.

  I turned left, skirting the sandstone. It was still devilish hot, although clearly the machine was not producing so much calorific power as before. It seemed advisable to keep my distance from the mechanical Leviathan. The sandstone wall at first followed the contours of the machine, running parallel at a distance of some yards from it. After some twenty-five yards, the wall veered to the left, opening out into a vast and empty cavern. In the opposite wall there was an opening, and a faint light emanated from it. The screaming had become louder, but the words were indiscernible and the voice unrecognisable.

  To my initial relief, the further I put the machine behind me, the cooler it became. By the time I had reached the central point of the huge cavern, my breath was visible in the air. I shivered, and of course it was cold, but I could not account for the icy feeling in my spine. By the time I reached the opening, my teeth were clacking like a dowager’s needles. The screaming voice was Enoch’s, the language indecipherable. I crossed the portal and felt nauseous at once.

  In the centre of a small chamber was the kind of table atop which I had previously been strapped. Now Jedermann Major was tightly bound to it with familiar-looking leather strapping. He was not responsible for the screaming. His half-brother gibbered and capered, seemingly oblivious to my presence. The dwarf’s wing collar was in the process of taking flight from his person. His hair, such as remained, appeared to have been affected by some of his beloved experiments with electrical current. One shoe was missing and most remarkable of all was the evidence of his excitement protruding from the front of his trews. Perhaps the shortness of his legs contributed to its striking appearance. Evidently the constant movement of his head and darting of his eyes had effected the parlous state of his shirt collar. Then the twisting of his neck and head halted. His gaze fixed upon my person. ‘Moffat!’ was the only intelligible utterance among the stream of what I presumed to be invective.

  The dwarf leaped at me, fingers extended toward my eyes. His fingernails drew blood from my cheek as I stumbled backward against the examination table. The homunculus straddled my chest and, revolted by the proximity of his most private parts, I threw him off with a great heave. Such was his rage or madness that he was totally undeterred by the blow he received from the corner of the table upon his pate. From somewhere about his person, he produced a large knife. In his tiny hand it appeared like Domenico Angelo’s smallsword. Thankfully he had never studied in the Soho School of Arms. The razor I took from my pocket made short work of the tendons in his wrist and the knife fell to the sandstone floor.

  The pain had a calming effect on the midget, the frantic movement of his head subsided and a keening noise replaced the crazed ranting. A boot to the temple put a stop to this last, for a time.

  Releasing Jedermann from his bonds, I awaited the expected effusions of gratitude.

  ‘You fool, Moffat!’ he said. ‘I needed to know!’

  ‘He seemed more likely to be extracting information from you, when I arrived,’ I opined.

  He spat; most likely the gag had been uncomfortable.

  ‘Why knock him senseless, man? I need to know if they are close?’

  ‘Who?’ It seemed a reasonable question.

  ‘Those in the shadows, les eminences grises, those who look for such as we.’

  It made little sense to me. Perhaps the insanity was a family trait.

  ‘Close to what?’ I offered, out of courtesy only.

  ‘To me, to you, to our plans. Where there are those who are othered, there are those who would see them gone.’

  I reflected that his feelings of persecution might have some basis in fact, if any scintilla of truth existed in his strange tale. Nonetheless I wasted no time in assuring him that I would play no further part in his scheme, as I could sooner foresee my end in gaol than in any successful conclusion to his plan.

  ‘Whether you will or no, I cannot be caught here in Gibbous House. Not by them.’ For the first time he looked truly fearful.

  ‘Indeed, we should leave. The house above is afire.’

  He held me back as I turned to leave. Pointing to his unconscious sibling, he said, ‘Bring him. I need to know what he told them.’

  ‘He is your brother, sir, carry him yourself.’

  Chapter Fifty-four

  A wait of some minutes ensued in the dining room in front of the fireplace. Eventually Rudolf struggled into the room with his neck wreathed in the dwarf’s disproportionately long arms. Loosening this grip by means of the tips of fingers and thumbs, he relieved himself of his burden. Enoch must still have been insensible, for his fall to the floor provoked no reaction, not even a groan or exhalation of air. There was no sign of Bill: I suspected he might have been in the grip of the drunkard’s punishment – namely the nausea and headache that truly deserved a name of their own.

  A judiciously applied kick to the supine form of the professor roused him from his slumbers. He seemed more – or less – himself, in as much as he was not raving. Neit
her was he silent, however, being given over to a mumbling that might have been some arcane prayer, or simply cursing under his breath. His physical wellbeing was well attested to by the alacrity of his arrival at the doorway out of the dining room into the vestibule. That is to say, he left both his elder sibling and myself in his wake.

  Rudolf Jedermann bestowed a half-smile upon me as Enoch squealed in pain upon seizing the door knob. I would have hoped that an intelligent man would have taken this as warning not to open the door itself, however we all three were thrown backward by the blast of hot air that ensued once the foolish midget had done so. None of us was so dull as not to realise the futility of making our egress via that route, therefore we scampered pell-mell through the rooms leading to the library, the professor smashing a few of the vitrines in the vivarium as he passed, whether out of concern for the slithering creatures within or for some other less altruistic motive, I did not know.

  The French doors at the end of the library were already open. Framed within the opening were Maccabi, Mrs Gonderthwaite and Miss Pardoner. The latter had a stiff arm around the sharp shoulders of the wraith-like housekeeper, who seemed to be racked with pain or, indeed, grief. Miss Pardoner merely looked uncomfortable. Maccabi looked, as ever, like a blond – if handsome – dolt. That this company parted before us like mist was as well for them, since the three of us were travelling at quite a lick, for fear of encountering the lick of any pursuing flames.

  ‘Are they out?’ Mrs Gonderthwaite enquired in a voice like the bellow of a birthing cow.

  I was so put out by this most uncustomary outburst that I quite forgot to wonder what on earth she was talking about. Naturally, Miss Pardoner clarified matters. ‘The twins, her boys!’

  ‘I haven’t seen them,’ I said.

  The professor broke off from praying or swearing, whichever it had been.

  ‘I told those boys, I told them! Set the fire, do not stop to admire it!’

  This last word was somewhat strangled in his throat, as Miss Gonderthwaite’s hands were firmly clamped around it.

  It was Maccabi who released the housekeeper’s grip on the professor’s person, whereupon the woman seemed truly to become the ghostly figure she resembled, lapsing into a soft keening and trembling as if on the point of being blown away on the next gust of wind.

  We all stood on the flagged area outside the library, shivering. The weather was unseasonably cool. I could hear a clacking, like a chattering of arthritic crickets. If we found it cool, the Ethiops surrounding the terrace were feeling a mighty chill, their teeth being the source of the noise.

  Looking to the professor proved of little use, as he was intent on massaging the bruising to his neck. I spoke instead to Maccabi. ‘What do they want?’

  ‘How should I know, Moffat?’ came the less than help-ful reply.

  ‘Are they dangerous?’ The voice belied his status as Europe’s foremost mountebank, and I suppressed a snicker at Rudolf Jedermann’s discomfiture.

  Miss Pardoner gave a bellow and a series of grunts and clicks. The tallest of the men enunciated carefully: ‘We need quitclaim, an affidavit.´

  ‘Whatever for?’ I asked.

  For reply, he opened a leather pouch, about the size of a small bag of flour, and tipped its contents on the ground.

  The gold glinted in what meagre sun penetrated the cloud.

  ‘A quitclaim is for property,’ Maccabi said.

  ‘And what have we been, if not owned by him!’ He thrust a long finger toward the dwarf, who had recovered himself enough to flinch at this.

  ‘But you are not slaves, nonetheless,’ Maccabi said. ‘I will sign an affidavit stating your entitlement to the coin.’

  ‘Will you indeed, Jedediah?’ I asked, more for form’s sake, I confess. Any tussle with the Ethiops would most likely have ended badly for ourselves.

  ‘Best you fetch pen and paper then, Maccabi,’ I continued, and the lout set about procuring these requirements in the library behind us. He returned more rapidly than he left, with a few pages torn from some invaluable tome, a pen with a dripping nib and a singed air about him.

  The affidavit was drafted and signed and the twenty or so blackamoors left with rather more dignity than was left to us. Whither they went, I do not know, but sincerely I wished them luck of their gold and their affidavit, for I doubted either policeman or footpad would care a fig for the latter.

  A loud noise came from behind us. To me at least it was not entirely unexpected – I had seen enough of the effects of fire on buildings in London. We ran around the build-ing, all save the professor giving the perimeter the widest pos-sible berth. On reaching the drive before the entrance, Miss Pardoner and the professor gave a cry. The dome that gave the house its informal sobriquet of Gibbous House had fallen in. Every turret, spire and tower had suffered a similar fate. The professor screamed and ran into the burning ruin.

  I looked at Rudolf Jedermann. He replied succinctly to my unspoken question with one of his own: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

  Maccabi started after the foolhardy midget. Miss Pardoner held him back, saying, ‘Three deaths are enough for that place.’

  I forbore to point out that – by my own reckoning, at least – considerably more than three had met their ends, either directly or indirectly, due to the existence of Gibbous House. Besides, I cared not a whit for any of it, or any of them. Clearly Miss Pardoner held the blond Jew in some regard or affection, else she would have allowed him his grand gesture of saving the professor.

  ‘Are the horses safe?’ I asked of no one in particular.

  ‘Why?’ Rudolf Jedermann enquired.

  ‘I am taking my leave, sir.’

  ‘You do not have mine to take it, Moffat,’ he said, stepping in front of me.

  I gave him the bare-knuckler’s last punch, knocking him back with the full force of my forehead. The next words he spoke came from the mud: ‘We are not finished with you yet, Moffat!’

  I silenced him with a satisfying boot to his ribs.

  ‘You’ll leave us the carriage, Moffat?’ Miss Pardoner was as civil as she had ever been to me.

  ‘I’ll be taking a horse and a few things from the gatehouse. You may do as you please, Ellen.’

  A coughing fit seized me, but no hand reached out to soothe. Not even that of Ellen Pardoner. All eyes save mine had turned to the ruin of the cupola. The coughing ceased and I turned to look at it myself. It resembled nothing so much as a boiled egg after being thoroughly breakfasted on: jagged edges pointing upwards, their convergence providing the barest clue to the erstwhile perfection of design and purpose. For lunatic as the imbroglio of styles and design of the house’s entirety had been, the dome itself had been perfect, even beautiful. Now its relict was the backdrop for the last rantings of a madman, for leaping nimbly from joist to charred-and-burning joist was Professor Enoch Jedermann, once of Vienna, Leyden and Siena Universities, late of Berlin. His shouting was for once in English, which given his recent behaviours was surprising. More surprising still was the fact that he was naked.

  ‘There will be no peace for you, Rudolf. Not for you, nor your Jezebel.’

  Miss Pardoner coloured quite becomingly at this last, and I regretted the lack of further opportunities to be the cause of her blushes myself. However, it did reveal that only two of the three were aware of the true relationship between Ellen and Rudolf.

  ‘Maccabi! Viking Jew! You were mine and whose are you now? You have been the imposter’s catamite, I know it!’

  A laugh escaped me at this; Maccabi himself looked embarrassed, while Miss Pardoner looked at me with fascination. Jedermann senior was shaking his head.

  ‘Moffat!’ the mannikin screamed the name. Perhaps he had trod on a particularly warm timber. Then he gave a maniacal laugh as chilling as any heard in Bedlam.

  ‘Moffat!’ he went on. ‘You are no more Moffat than I! Murderer, pander, thief, fratricide! I shall shout your name so that your friends may know thee for the evil thou
art!’

  Whilst I was reflecting on his strange diction, and who, precisely, these friends might have been, the dwarf fell screaming into the burning interior.

  I left them all in front of the burning wreck, waving a cheery hand from astride the best of the remaining horses. Mrs Gonderthwaite lifted a listless hand by way of farewell. As for the others, save Ellen, they did not even glance in my direction. Miss Pardoner looked me in the eye and said, ‘The Americas! I’ll find you there.’ I nodded to her as I rode away.

  On removing the portables I had secreted earlier in the gatehouse, I set fire to it, which permitted Heathfield Cadwallader – at the last – a cremation of sorts, if not a Christian burial. A vast column of smoke was rising above the main house: as I turned my horse in the direction of Alnwick, I thought I might take Ellen at her word, board a ship at Newcastle and try my luck across the ocean. South or north, it was nothing to me; both sounded an ideal destination for a man of my singular talents.

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