Domini Mortum

by Paul Holbrook

  My frustration continued to grow to almost unbearable levels until one evening, when I finally took my wards to the Egyptian Hall. Upon leaving the show with Alice and Benjamin, I saw, across the atrium, the figure of a man dressed in hat and tails, identical in appearance to the description I had been given of Lord Falconer. He was tall, slim built, in his early thirties and carried himself with that natural haughtiness to which only the upper classes can lay claim. He had sharp, bright eyes which sat above an aquiline nose, under which he sported a thin yellow moustache which appeared to be groomed to the point of obsession. He was dressed smartly for the evening and most importantly carried a slim black cane, the top of which was ivory in the shape of an elephant. I had my man at last and, in a sudden and spontaneous move, I crossed the hall to confront him.

  As I approached, he looked up from his conversation and saw me. The slightest hint of a smile crossed his thin lips; was he expecting me? How did he know me? I was not to find out as I suddenly felt a hearty slap on the shoulder and was grabbed from behind.

  ‘Well, here is a surprise!’ came a booming voice. ‘What the devil are you doing here, man? Why did you not tell me that you came to shows at the Egyptian?’ Higgins gave me a wide smile and shook me by the hand. ‘Weaver, old boy! Fancy seeing you, I would have thought that you would deem a magic show to be all poppycock and claptrap.’

  ‘Well it is, it is!’ I replied, somewhat taken aback. Over his shoulder, I could see Falconer leaving through the main doors and glancing over his shoulder to wave at me. Good God, the man was taunting me!

  ‘Are you all right, Weaver, you look a little lost? You haven’t been spooked by the performance have you?’ The face of Higgins loomed before me again, blocking the view of my lost quarry. I shook myself back into the moment.

  ‘Of course, I am fine, Edward. It takes more than the sight of a disappearing woman and a lucky choice of card to make me believe in that tripe. However, my young friend here is entranced by it all, and so I put up with it.’ I gestured to Benjamin and Alice, who had come over to where we stood. ‘Edward, this is Benjamin Griffiths and his sister Alice; they are good friends of mine. This here is Mr Edward Higgins. I am sure that I have mentioned him to you – he shares your love for all things magical.’

  Higgins took Alice’s hand gently in greeting before clapping her young brother on the back.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you both, I am sure,’ he said. ‘Don’t let Samuel convince you of anything but that magic is real and the supernatural is there to be discovered. He is a dreadful bore and will try to tell you otherwise.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, Weaver, I should have told you that I was in town, but it is only a short visit. I return to Pluckley first thing in the morning. I promise you that we will meet up next time I am in London. Now if you will excuse me, my carriage is waiting outside, so I must dash.’ He fixed me with a steely smile and shook my hand again, with promises of future meetings and incomparable drinking sessions.

  I saw no more of Falconer in the days that followed the Egyptian Hall, not even at his house in Cavendish Square, and my annoyance at his lack of appearance began to gnaw at me once more.

  It was at the start of the third week of my watching the club that I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I had assembled a good collection of drawings of the club members to work on in the future, as well as sketches of a number of other visitors, workmen, servants and the like – enough for a comprehensive study of the club and its patrons. It was late in the day, and the square was beginning to quiet, as I strode across to the front door. There was no bell but a large knocker in the shape of a stag, a small detail which did not escape me. I knocked confidently on the door and stood back a little, brushing down my jacket in an attempt to appear more formal. It was opened quickly and I found myself face to face with a short man with unnaturally white hair and dark, forbidding eyes. I had observed him answering the door on countless occasions and had sketched him more than once, but those views from across the street did not prepare me for him. He was shorter than I but exuded an aura of power and threat like none I had met before. He wore simple black attire; however, his posture gave the unnerving feeling of one that would have been more at home in the garb of a soldier. His arms were taut at his sides and there was a tension in his upper body; here was a man who would snap my neck as soon as look at me.

  ‘I am here to see Lord Falconer,’ I said.

  ‘There is no one here of that name,’ he replied. His voice, heavy like oak, was a rumble which seemed to resonate in the air; he carried an accent but not one which I immediately recognised.

  ‘Is this not his house? I understand that Lord William Falconer is the owner of this property. If he is not here then when will he be?’

  He laughed a little then and appeared to relax somewhat. ‘The master of the house lives here no more, but then you already knew this, Mr Weaver. Tell me, did you expect us to open the doors to you and invite you in for a drink, or maybe some supper?’

  ‘Well I…’

  ‘Perhaps I could introduce you to the members of the club, help you to put some names to your sketches?’

  I turned to look across the street. Two men stood there, my bag and easel in hand; they smiled to me and tipped their hats before walking away with my belongings.

  ‘That is my property!’ I proclaimed. ‘Have them bring it back this instant!’

  ‘When you set yourself against my master’s friends, then everything of yours is ours to take at will. Everything and… anyone.’

  I was never a gambling man. I had tried it, of course; what young man hadn’t dreamt of outwitting their opponents in a game of chance or cards? I had had some small interest in games of chance, but not enough to forge any willing endeavour. When it came to cards, however, I’d thought I would be a natural, due to my facility to lie and read the behaviour of others, and I was – to a degree. For although I could easily read the minds of the other men around the table, I lacked the one vital asset of a good sharper: to be able to hide my own feelings with anything but ineptitude.

  Upon those last words spoken to me, my face must have dropped a full ten inches and the realisation of his threat struck me as hard as any closed fist. My stomach lurched in sickness.

  ‘My name is Mávnos,’ the man said, a broad smile stamped upon his face. ‘Go home now, Mr Samuel Weaver. It is there that you will find the man you seek, although he will be more than occupied with a special task saved just for your loved ones. Tell my Lord that you have seen me. He and my other friends should have finished their work by now and will not harm you. Hurry home now, you may just get there in time.’

  I did not give him the satisfaction of seeing the torment in my face and ran from the doorway, desperately searching the square for a cab to take me back to my rooms and whatever hell awaited me there.

  ***

  As I burst through the door a scene from a nightmare met me. The main entrance room, and I was quite sure the other rooms of the house, had been completely ransacked. Furniture was overturned, cupboards had been emptied out and my many drawings – and not just those relating to case work – lay ripped and torn upon the floor, much of them lost forever. I prayed that the hiding place of my most secret and treasured items remained untouched. This damage to property and place was, however, insubstantial when compared to the sight that met me on the far side of the room. There were two intruders of completely mismatched sizes.

  The larger of the two was a hulking brute nearly twice the size of any normal man. He wore a well-tailored but aged suit, and atop his head sat a tweed flat cap. His face was round and lumpy, bearing many scars, especially around his eyes, and I immediately identified him as being a boxer of some sort, although I doubted he would have been matched in size by any other. He had a scar upon the left side of his neck, large and star shaped, and so near the windpipe that it is a wonder the man had survived the wound.

  At his side stood the shorter of the two men, although he still
stood at least a head higher than myself, and would have looked down upon most men. He too wore a brown suit; however, his looked as if it had been better maintained and was cleaned regularly. He had a thin, mean face which drew to a point at the end of his nose and gave the impression that it had been twisted and pulled out of shape.

  They stood and grinned broadly at me as I entered; it seemed not to bother them a jot that they had been disturbed in their actions – in fact it was more likely that they had been awaiting my return.

  And then there were Alice and Benjamin. Both were roughly tied to chairs and both had suffered at the hands of the intruders.

  Alice’s cheeks were swollen and bruised, glowing red and sore; it was clear she had been struck repeatedly. Blood came slowly from the side of her mouth, staining the dress that she wore, a present from me not one week earlier. She was conscious but only just so, her head lolling from side to side. Upon seeing me she tried to speak but was silenced by the large brute, who held one large paw over her mouth whilst the other grabbed her hair.

  Benjamin had suffered a similar fate to his older sister, although he was gagged with a dirty cloth from the kitchen. He was frighteningly aware of his condition, his eyes wide and tense as if attempting to scream with his blocked mouth. The reason for his fear was clear: the smaller of the two men held a long, thin knife poised over one of the boy’s thighs, ready to cut him.

  The man spoke in a reedy voice. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Weaver. We had been expecting you, of course, but not so soon. You seem to have caught us in the act a little, isn’t that right, Mr Soames?’ He turned briefly to the large man, who said nothing but nodded.

  ‘Leave them alone,’ I stammered. ‘This has nothing to do with them, they know nothing of my business. Where is Lord Falconer?’

  At that moment another figure appeared, stepping out of my kitchen with cup and saucer in hand; it was the tall, thin man from the Egyptian Hall.

  ‘We were just wondering how long it would take you to race here from the club,’ he said. His voice was rich and musical, but he was oddly accented, as if English were not his first tongue. This was not what I had expected of him at all.

  ‘Lord William Falconer?’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.

  He bowed slightly before taking a sip of his tea. ‘I am indeed he and I am afraid that this is not a social call, Mr Weaver. I am simply here to deliver a message to you. It is a message that I am sure you will fully understand.’ He motioned to the large man, who immediately took hold of Alice’s throat. She made a small whimpering sound; her eyes were wide in terror.

  ‘Please,’ I cried. ‘Please let them go. Do not involve them in this.’

  ‘Oh we intend to, Mr Weaver, just as soon as we have delivered this message to you. But, now that you are here, we can do our job and leave you alone. It seems you have a bit of tidying up to do.’ He waved a long arm around at the mess upon the floor. ‘I suppose this is what happens when you have little ones running around the house. They get everywhere, don’t they? Like rats.’

  ‘Tell me your message and go, please,’ I begged.

  ‘Well, it’s a funny thing that, isn’t it?’ He turned once again to the dumb brute holding Alice. ‘You see the message, although being very clear in its intentions, contains no words.’ He turned to the smaller of the two men. ‘Mr Dawes, I have not the stomach for any further violence today. I shall wait downstairs in the carriage. It was lovely to meet you at last, Mr Weaver, if only for the briefest of moments. We shall not meet again and, if we do, be in no doubt I will have you gutted like a pig.’ He dropped the full cup to the floor, where it smashed. Stepping over the broken pieces, he retrieved his elephant-topped cane which was leaning by the doorway. ‘Goodbye.’

  He did not shut the door behind him and my eyes immediately returned to the two men holding Alice and Benjamin.

  ‘Alone at last,’ said the smaller man, Dawes. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to upset my boss so much, but you’ve got him terribly angry. Maybe it was that you stole some money from him, is that it?’

  ‘No… it’s–’

  ‘Not money,’ interrupted Dawes. ‘Well then, maybe you took something of value. Did you steal from him, took something you shouldn’t? We’ve all done that sort of thing, haven’t we, but it’s another matter to get caught.’

  ‘You don’t understand… I haven’t…’

  ‘You can deny it all you like but we’ve got a message to deliver, which brings me back to this boy.’

  ‘Please don’t…’

  ‘You see, we came in here, my friend Soames and I, and we see what a terrible mess this place is in, terrible mess. And so I turn to Mr Soames and I say, “This is what you get when people don’t have consequences for their actions,” I say. It’s a terrible thing when people don’t think of their responsibilities. They need to be shown the way, and they need to know what is right and what is wrong. Now, I see this boy and I think that this boy needs a lesson, before he starts following your example and not showing respect to those that deserve it. So let’s give him that lesson, shall we!’

  He plunged the knife downwards into Benjamin’s thigh with great force.

  I went to jump forwards but saw that a man of Soames’s size could snap Alice’s neck in an instant.

  Through his gagged mouth Benjamin screamed, a dull howl of pain. Yet the man did not draw out the knife; he held it in place, gripping the handle firmly.

  ‘Now, you have to tell me, Mr Weaver. Does this seem like a message that you understand? Does it?’ At his last word he turned the handle of the knife, twisting the blade with unnatural relish and enjoyment.

  ‘I understand!’ I shouted. ‘I understand the message!’ Tears ran down my face. What had I done?

  ‘That’s good, Mr Weaver. That’s good that you understand, because if we get sent another time to see you then who knows what might happen?’ Slowly, and with a final agonising twist which made Benjamin’s body shudder, he withdrew the knife. Blood began to pour from the wound, running like a tap onto the floor under the chair. Benjamin lost consciousness then, a small mercy perhaps. ‘You see, next time it might be the lady that we give our attentions to. There’s terrible things you can do to a young girl to send a message. Terrible, nasty things, eh Soames?’

  The grin on Soames’s face grew broader. He stroked Alice’s head softly for a moment, and I could see that he was thinking back upon an awful memory that was dear to him.

  Alice sobbed quietly, the sound muffled by the paw of Soames. She looked directly at me but I could see that there was no anger there, just grief and terror at our current situation. I mouthed the words, ‘I’m sorry.’ The torturer spotted this and howled with laughter.

  ‘Oh, Mr Weaver! It would seem that our time here is at an end. Our master awaits us downstairs, and you and your good lady obviously have a lot to talk about. Perhaps you can tell her how you have seen the error of your ways and how you will be a better man in the future. Let us hope so; for if Mr Soames and I have cause to return then I am afraid that I will have to steal her heart away from you. I will take it and even take her pretty lips as well, and that’s before my dear boss sticks you like swine. Come on, Soames, let’s leave these lovebirds and hope that Sam here gives us good reason to come back here. Goodbye, Mr Weaver. I hope to see you again very soon.’

  The men departed, and I, lost in tears and agony of my own, desperately tried to staunch the blood which pumped from the hole in Benjamin’s leg, before untying Alice.

  10

  Deep and Grievous Wounds

  The wound in Benjamin’s leg was deep and wide; it would not stop bleeding no matter how much we bound it with torn sheets. He was pale, dangerously so, and slipped in and out of consciousness, seemingly unaware of his wound and complaining of how terribly cold he was.

  ‘We need to get him to a doctor quickly!’ I said to Alice, as she held him tightly to her. ‘We should take him to Lock Hospital at the end of the road – there will be a
doctor there who will know better than me how to stop this bleeding.’

  I looked at her briefly; her eyes were locked on me. She had not spoken a word since our unwelcome visitors had left. She had not asked who the men were, or what my connection to them was.

  ‘Let us help Benjamin, get him to a doctor and out of danger. Then I will explain everything to you, I promise,’ I said. She began to cry small sobs of worry. I leaned over to kiss her on her forehead. ‘They will not hurt you again, Alice. They will not hurt any of us again, I will not let them.’ I took Benjamin from her. ‘Come, before he loses any more blood.’ I helped her to stand and we left my ruined rooms, all broken furniture, torn paper and bloody chaos.

  Within minutes we burst through the doors at The Female Hospital, screaming for help. A trail of red had been left in our wake along the pavement of Amberley Road amid a sea of concerned faces, as people appeared at their doorways, watching Alice and I run sobbing towards the hospital, carrying Benjamin between us.

  A small, bespectacled man stepped from behind his desk as we entered. ‘This is a women’s hospital,’ he said. ‘You will have to take him to St Mary’s; they will help him.’

  ‘He is dying!’ I shouted. ‘He will not make it to St Mary’s; surely there is a doctor in the building who can help?’

  At that moment a lean, sharply dressed man walked out from behind a set of doors to the side of the desk.

  ‘What is the meaning of this commotion?’ he asked.

  ‘Please!’ I cried. ‘The boy needs immediate attention – he has a leg wound and is losing blood. There must be somebody here who can help us, or he will die.’

  The gentleman looked me up and down before glancing at Alice, who was herself the worse for wear as a result of the treatment meted out to her.

  ‘Bring him this way,’ he said, opening the doors behind him. He turned to the old man at the desk as I carried Benjamin past. ‘Mr Umbridge, please send to St Mary’s, inform them of our situation and ask for the assistance of Herbert Holmes; he owes me a favour.’