Pax Britannia: Human Nature

by Jonathan Green

Ulysses realised he had been given an unprecedented opportunity to find out more, to have his theories about this puzzling case confirmed or denied, one way or the other.

  "Very well, then," he began. "Word is that you were involved in the theft of the Whitby Mermaid."

  "Well now, you heard right." He wasn't even going to make a show of denying it. The flagrant arrogance of the man! It also only went to show how supremely confident he felt within his own petty kingdom.

  "So, how did you do it?" Ulysses went on, remaining outwardly cool, calm and collected, despite feeling riled by the man's arrogance on the inside, his words slow with cold anger.

  "He can't even see it," Magpie said, as if he was speaking to someone else. "It's right before his eyes, and he can't even see it."

  As if in response to his comment the apes started hooting and chattering again, only this time Ulysses could have sworn they were laughing.

  It was just as Ulysses had suspected. The Magpie's mastery of his pets must have been unrivalled in all the empire, outside of the Congo.

  Loosely holding the pistol in his hand by only a couple of fingers, Ulysses raised both hands and began a slow clap, each slap of palm on palm reverberating loudly, amplified by the acoustics of the strange monkey house.

  "I applaud you, Magpie. An incredible example of man's mastery of the lower forms of life on this planet. The window, the picked lock, it all makes sense to me now."

  The silhouette shifted as the villain bowed, luxuriating in the chance to boast of his daring exploits before someone who could appreciate his work, even if he could not condone it.

  "But why?"

  "Ah," the Magpie mused, obviously delighted to have someone with whom he could share the truth of his cunning, "there it is, the unanswerable question. The one for which any answer, no matter what, can still be interpreted with the same question again; why? Why, why, why?"

  Trained monkeys, Ulysses thought. Imagine all the places they could go without ever even arousing any suspicions. He wondered how many other unsolved crimes - or even as yet unnoticed thefts - were the work of Magpie and his monkeys.

  "So, why?" Ulysses repeated. "What is a fake, such as the Whitby Mermaid, worth to you?"

  "Oh, not to me, Mr Quicksilver, not to me," the Magpie chuckled.

  "Then who?"

  "Ah, Mr Quicksilver. Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" Magpie teased.

  "But what have you got to lose?" Ulysses pressed. "Who's going to know? Who am I going to tell? Something tells me you're not going to let me walk out of here Scot free."

  The Magpie chuckled again. "I do have a reputation to uphold."

  "And I have a desperate desire to know. To have got so close to the answer. What can it hurt? What about granting a condemned man's final wish?"

  "But what would life be without a little mystery? Where would be the excitement in that?"

  That was what all this was about, Ulysses realised, having a little fun. It was all for the thrill; the chase was everything.

  "Indeed."

  Ulysses aimed his gun, and fired.

  The bulb that had been doing such a good job of silhouetting his target exploded and, as the light died, Ulysses caught a glimpse of the Magpie throwing his arms up to protect his head. And then, he was moving.

  "Nimrod, duck and cover!"

  At his command, his manservant went for the shelter of the doorway by which they had entered the place.

  As Ulysses raced for the shadows the only sound he could hear was the mass intake of breath as the House of Monkeys recoiled at his audacity. He raised his gun and fired a second shot towards the network of aerial walkways.

  There was a second explosive crack as his shot exploded a lamp, and an angry, animalistic roar as the resulting shower of oil ignited, even as it rained down on the flammable boards and bindings.

  "I would appear that you missed, Mr Quicksilver," the voice came from elsewhere now.

  "Did I?"

  "You are a fool, Mr Quicksilver. A fool. You won't get a second chance."

  The Magpie gave a shrill whistle and, with a cacophony of simian shrieks and near-human cries, it started raining monkeys.

  The primates dropped from their perches or swung down from the burning boards and bridges above, all gunning for the gunman... even as, after the initial shower of monkeys, fire began to rain down within the House of Monkeys.

  The screams of the apes increased ten-fold as burning oil splashed their hairy hides, setting them alight.

  Something man-like - and yet too strangely proportioned to be a man - launched itself at Ulysses out of the whirling rabble and landed heavily in the middle of his chest. He was thrown backwards by the baboon that now sat astride him as he landed on top of an apple crate, which turned to matchwood beneath them.

  The baboon raised its powerful fists above its head and, snarling, bared yellow predator's fangs. Ulysses bit his own lip as fresh pain shot through his shoulder; an old wound suddenly remembered.

  Ulysses heard a gun bark - he knew it wasn't his - and the ape was thrown from him as the bullet punched into it between the eyes.

  Ulysses scrambled to his feet, and dusted himself down, testing his flaring shoulder joint. The pain was passing. He assessed that it wasn't going to hamper him.

  A gun barked again and another shambling ape fell face down on the boards.

  "Nimrod, go!" Ulysses shouted over the shrieks of the terrified animals and hungry roar of the spreading fires. "Get back-up!"

  He didn't bother to try to see if his faithful manservant had followed his instructions. They had been in such circumstances too many times, and they both knew the drill. If he were able, Nimrod would be on his way now, re-negotiating the labyrinth of the rookeries to escape their bounds and get help. A cunning criminal mastermind was making his escape and Ulysses wanted him alive - he wasn't done with the Magpie yet!

  Moving out from the shelter of the first tier of balconies, Ulysses dared another glance upwards. Somewhere up there, the Magpie was getting away. And there were still questions to be answered, to begin with the one which had been bothering Ulysses ever since he had first read of the theft of the Whitby Mermaid; why anyone would go to so much trouble to steal what was so obviously a fake?

  Fire was eating away at the walkway nearest to the oil lamp that Ulysses had exploded with one shot from his pistol, the strands of the ropes holding it up burning through and snapping free under tension, one by one. It would be only a matter of seconds before the whole thing came crashing down, Ulysses guessed. He had to get out of there and fast.

  He looked from the burning rope-bridge to the ropes securing it in place, to an iron-cast eyelet punched into the wall high above him which one of the thicker, mooring ropes ran through before descending to a securing bolt in the floor only a few paces away.

  Kicking a gambolling monkey aside, Ulysses ran for the rope, holstering his gun as he did so, and grabbed hold with his left hand. With his right he drew his rapier from the sheath of its cane and slashed through the anchoring rope with one strong sweep of the razor-sharp blade.

  Its mooring support gone, the bridge went slack and unravelled as the fire did the rest. The walkway dropped, trailing flames, with an animal roar, as it plummeted towards the mass of milling bodies and Ulysses headed skyward.

  Ulysses hurtled upwards, pulled through the flames and falling bodies of burning monkeys as the rope ran out through the iron ring in the wall still two floors above him.

  Something that was all arms and legs leapt at him as he rocketed upwards, but a sharp thrust of his blade put pay to whatever intentions the ape might have had for him. The rope-bridge crashed to the ground, crushing apes beneath it and sending a rippling blast of air to fan the flames of the other fires that had already taken hold.

  And then his ascent came to a sudden stop. Dangling there, twenty feet above the inferno, Ulysses jerked and kicked, attempting to swing closer to the balustrades of a balcony which was tantalizingly out of reac
h. He had better be quick about it too or the rope would burn through at the bottom and drop him back into the blaze below.

  Ever so slowly, it seemed, the rope began to swing. The tips of his toes scraped against the edge of the balcony. Ulysses put both feet against the wall and pushed off again. Like the weight at the end of a pendulum he swung backwards.

  The gulf between him and the balcony cruelly widened. When he was at the apex of his swing, with the space between him and safety Ulysses felt the rope sag. It was burning through.

  And then he was swinging back again. The rope gave again and he felt himself drop several dangerous inches. Knees bent, feet out flat before him, he connected with the banisters of the balustrade as the rope gave way completely.

  Crashing through the timbers, the rope slack in his hands, he rolled across the creaking wooden floor, athletically coming out of the roll and into a fighting stance, rapier blade poised.

  There was no sign of anyone who might pass for the villain through the smoke and heat haze. The Magpie had flown.

  Picking himself up, and taking a moment to dust himself down, sword-cane in hand, Ulysses set off in hot pursuit, into the dancing shadows.

  Chapter Seven

  Flight of the Magpie

  Ulysses found himself running through what appeared to be one large room, sub-divided into smaller areas by temporary partitions, stretches of canvas and old blankets nailed to the wooden pillars that supported the floor of the level above.

  Behind him he could hear the jabbering screams of the apes, trapped within the blazing conflagration as the fire took hold. Occasionally a smouldering blackened shape would go knuckling by on all fours, leaving behind a trail of smoke and the stink of singed fur.

  Ahead of him he could pick out running footsteps, beating a tattoo of panicked flight on the splintering floorboards. And all around him an anxious hubbub of bewilderment and panic swelled to fill the space between.

  As he raced on, through the makeshift partitions he saw them - Magpie's lovely boys, the urchin-thieves that made up the Whitechapel Irregulars. He saw grimy face after grimy faces, gap-toothed expressions of curiosity, wide bewildered eyes, the first suggestion of tears of fear in those of the younger members of the gang, children as young as four or five, to look at them, although his experiences with Sidney told him that that didn't mean as much here.

  Some had been sleeping, until the growing commotion roused them, bleary eyes blinking from faces half-buried under threadbare blankets and pilfered rag-rugs slung over their hammock-beds. Others appeared to be playing games of chance, some with clay pipes clamped between their teeth, betting for anything that might pass for possessions among the boys - teeth, coloured glass beads, scrag-ends of stale bread, waxy rinds of cheese, cigarette butts. Yet more appeared to have been playing a game that tested the boys' pick-pocketing skills, with a more experienced rogue cast in the role of gentleman-about-town, and acting as their teacher too, as the younger boys tried to relieve him of silk handkerchiefs and a bottle top on the end of a plug-chain, in place of a genuine pocket watch.

  Their attire could only be described as haphazard. The boys obviously wore any clothes they could get their hands on, whether they were hand-me-downs from older gang members or stolen from washing lines within the neighbouring streets. There were jackets, dated frock coats, waistcoats, breeches, trews, cloth caps, battered top hats, hobnail boots and wooden clogs. The fashions were worn and dated, patched so many times in some cases that there was practically nothing left of the original item of clothing, and little - if anything - fitted, many of the items being adult's clothing. Amongst the rags was the occasional, much richer item - silk scarves, cravats, gold waistcoat buttons - prizes the boys had won for themselves out on the streets as they ran errands for their master, or simply to pass the time between one meagre meal and the next.

  Some of the boys were eating, huddled round small cook-stoves, hunched over mess tins, mismatched pilfered plates and bowls, a thin, grey soup that was unmistakeably gruel, barely covering the bottom of each container.

  Most of the children looked startled to see him. One scrawny, whey-faced child stood before the cold iron pot, ladling out portions of the gruel into the wooden bowls and empty food tins that the boys held possessively between thin fingers.

  And was it his imagination, or did some of the monkeys look worryingly like boys, whilst some of the boys were beginning to look like apes to him now - all eating the same stuff. What was it doing to them? As he moved in and out of the shadows he tried to convince himself that it was only an optical illusion caused by the changing patterns of light and dark, but nonetheless, to his haggard mind some of the boys were starting to look like monkeys and vice versa.

  Ulysses ran on, trying not to look at any of boys' half-human faces - upper lips distended, noses flattened to simian snouts, arms held awkwardly as if they were longer than they should be, shoeless feet wiggling with toes that were too much like fingers for his liking. He had seen all manner of terrible things in his life, and he had been exposed to the dire predicaments of the destitute and the dispossessed before, but it was those hybrid child-ape faces that would haunt his dreams in the dark watches of the nights to come.

  Forcing the disturbing expressions from his mind, he focused again on his sole intent - to halt the Magpie's flight.

  Still running, Ulysses tossed his sword-cane into his left hand and unholstered his gun again with his right. As he ran on he recounted how many shots he had already fired. The first shot had broken the light behind the Magpie, the second had shattered the oil lamp that started the fire. He had started the night with a full load which meant that he had four bullets left, before he would have to reload.

  And then he saw the villain, flying through another crooked doorway before he disappeared into the shadows of a landing. The Magpie was way ahead of him. If he didn't stop him soon, Ulysses would be lucky to even catch one last sight of him before he lost himself in the tangled rat-runs of the rookeries.

  He had one chance, and now was the time to act. As the Magpie disappeared into the darkness Ulysses fired.

  The crack of the pistol was loud in the compressed space between the gang's living quarters but, despite that, Ulysses was sure that there had been no cry following the shot before he heard, quite clearly, the dull thud, as of a body dropping onto bare boards. Could it be that he had accidentally killed his quarry?

  Ignoring the gaggle of children that seemed to be gravitating towards him, alerted by the flight of their master while others moved to escape from the fire behind them, roused by the smoke and heat approaching from the other end of the house, Ulysses vaulted a tumbled tea chest and made for the doorway and the landing beyond.

  But now the press of children was greater, fear of the fire spreading faster than the fire itself. Among them were more of the weird not-quite-human-yet-not-quite-simian creatures, but all of them, no matter what they were, were shouting, hooting and screaming in terror.

  He had to push them aside; he could not allow anything to hamper his progress now or he might lose this momentary advantage.

  His shoe connected with a child and he kicked the boy aside. The heel of his other shoe crunched down on the splayed fingers of a monkey, a shrill animal scream accompanying the soft crunch of breaking bones.

  And then he was through the panicking throng and into the shadows of the landing. Here the air was sharp and cold. Above him a rusting skylight swung in the breeze. Beyond lay access to the rooftops of the rookeries, still in shadow under the pall cast by the Smog and the towering edifices of the Upper City.

  Ulysses paused, scanning the darkness. Nimrod should be on his way back to civilisation by now, tracking down the authorities, getting help.

  Where could his quarry be, he thought. Concentrate! he willed himself.

  The skills he had learnt during his brief stay with the monks of Shangri-la, as he recovered at their pagoda-temple, within the jasmine-scented lost valley of the Himalayas,
still kept him in good stead. Although not a master like the monks with whom he had stayed as his body healed and his mind was tempered and strengthened, he still had a mastery of his senses that few others possessed.

  Shrinking the world around him, straining out the extraneous background noise and the other sensations emitted by the growing conflagration, he held his breath and concentrated on putting the thrumming of his own racing pulse from his mind. He listened instead for the panting breaths of another, the sound of footfalls on wood, or the clatter of feet on the tiles of the rooftops beyond.

  Awareness flared in Ulysses' mind. He turned as something at the periphery of his vision detached itself from the darkness, breaking his concentration. A scrawny, spindle-limbed shape launched itself at his face with a savage shrill scream. And then there was movement behind him too.

  Ulysses threw up his hands - there was no time to bring sword or gun to bear - grabbing hold of the monkey before it could claw his face. As he grabbed the monkey out of the air he spun on his heel and thrust it towards the man who had tried to come at him from behind, putting all his weight and the momentum of the monkey's leap behind the push.

  The monkey gave a strangled cry and tensed momentarily before going limp in Ulysses' hands, a point of metal glistening darkly with the creature's blood, protruding from the middle of its chest.

  Then the monkey was pulled savagely from Ulysses' hands as the Magpie shook the dead animal from his blade, and for the first time the dandy got a good look at the robber-king of the Whitechapel Irregulars, the master of the House of Monkeys.

  He was both shorter and slighter than Ulysses. A scruffy mess of black hair hid much of his face, but he caught a glimpse, nonetheless of a nose as sharp as a knife. The villain's clothes don't seem to fit him either - just like those of his urchin-sons - a rag-cloak of grey, white, black and blue, making him look like his eponymous magpie! He patently had a taste for the theatrical, as had been evidenced by everything Ulysses had seen of him since entering his lair.