by Mark Gatiss
The unearthly glow from the brass helmets functioned like the Israelites’ pillar of fire and so Charlie and I were able to shadow the funereal procession with some deftness. Appropriately enough we were making our way through the city’s ancient cemetery, the rather charmingly named Via delle Tombe. Passing through the old town gateway, we soon reached what seemed to be a massive earthworks. The zombified men put down the coffins and stood stock still, as immobile as the tombstones that surrounded them.
Crouching low, I peered across the earthworks. A thin strip of yellowy light was just visible.
‘Where’s that coming from?’ gasped Charlie.
‘I do believe,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘from under the ground.’
Charlie began to rise also but stopped, half-crouched. ‘Sir?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You hear that?’
I listened. Very, very faintly, I could hear a curious susurration.
‘What is it?’ said Charlie.
It was indeed a strange sound, somewhere between the wheeze of a bellows and the whir of a motorcar engine. Suddenly one of the helmeted men jerked into life like a wound-up automaton and bent down towards the ground. The strip of light widened as, with a rending squeal, he opened some kind of hatch set into the rubble. With surprising dexterity, the others then began to lower the coffins through the hatch, clambering down after them. We gave it a minute or so after the metal door had finally swung to before we advanced across the excavation.
With the quiet concentration of a professional, I got to work on the hatch and within a few minutes I had levered the thing open. Despite my best efforts, it creaked loudly as I pulled it back on its hinges.
I peered down into the hole beyond. A shaft led steeply downwards, its sides studded with small electric lights. I could just make out the top of a metal ladder.
‘Down?’ queried Charlie.
‘Down.’
Leading the way, I swung myself over the lip of the shaft and began to clamber down the ladder, the rungs sharp with the blood-like smell of warm iron. We seemed to have been descending for a full five minutes when I paused for breath and reached out a hand for Charlie’s ankle on the rung above me in order to stop him clambering on to my head.
He crouched down and tried to peer past me into the gloom. ‘Seems to me someone’s been doing quite a bit of digging.’
The helmeted automata could have only manhandled the coffins down here with inhuman strength. We recommenced our descent, and after a further minute or so we reached a layer of soft volcanic rock where the shaft abruptly flattened out, stretching ahead in a kind of dreary, dusty grey corridor. Again, electric lights had been strung from the walls, coiled wire looped between them like strange umbilical appendages.
‘That sound’s much louder now,’ commented Charlie as we advanced.
I nodded. ‘Perhaps some kind of air-pump.’
After a time, the loose, shale-like rock began to give way to the familiar sight of a Roman pavement. Seemingly we were now in the unexcavated bowels of Pompeii, amongst structures no man had seen for almost two thousand years. No man save those we now sought. The road branched off to the right almost immediately, giving on to a wonderfully preserved archway. The light was brighter here and clearly getting brighter still as the whole structure was suffused in a great ball of luminescence.
Charlie stumbled slightly on the pavement and I looked down to see that the stone floor was concave, a great grooved channel having been excavated in its centre. I glanced around swiftly then noticed the distinctive decoration that covered the walls in a series of serried niches, each containing a yellowy electric bulb.
‘That appears to be Neptune,’ I cried, pointing at the carving’s twisting tail and powerful muscled torso. ‘This must have been a bath house.’
Charlie nodded indifferently. ‘What is it now, though? That’s what we have to worry about.’
There seemed to be no one about, so we pressed on. The first chamber we entered, again decorated with the motif of the seagod, had been only partially excavated from the rock. A series of chair-like niches, not unlike church vestibules, occupied each wall. Here the Pompeiians had evidently changed out of their togas and gone skinny-dipping in the plunge pools. One such pool, now half full of the rain water which streamed in from above, still stood close by.
Charlie gave a sharp gasp and I turned on my heel.
‘It’s all right,’ he breathed, steadying himself. ‘Just didn’t expect that.’
He brought the torch-beam to bear on one of the vestibules where lay sprawled a complete skeleton, its arms flung wide, its jaw grotesquely open. The soft grey rock still swathed half of its carcass like a volcanic robe.
‘Come on,’ I urged.
We passed through the ancient changing rooms into a much larger chamber, supported by more of the Neptune columns and boasting a grand, domed roof. Within was a frankly fantastic sight.
One might have been forgiven for thinking some nouveau riche tradesman had decided to desert his aspidistra-stuffed environs and move into the old Roman fort down the road. Every inch of that great chamber was crammed with a weird combination of domestic contemporary furniture and looted ancient treasures. A headless nymph stood next to a huge armchair. Magnificent glass-ware shared table space with fruit bowls and a Napoleon-hat clock. The whole place was steeped in a curiously pellucid green light, as though the baths were still active.
At the far end of the room stood a huge fountain shaped like a round table with a raised edge to contain the forgotten water-stream. One great crack marred its flawless surface yet it had been altered by newer and stranger additions. Papers and charts were strewn across it, together with a quantity of queer-looking machinery. At the centre of the fountain a three-dimensional cut-away model of the volcano was hooked up to some sort of Wimshurst-device. Wires spilled from the stonework, and huge pipes had been erected against the walls. From these emanated the strange, wheezing whirring we had encountered on the surface.
Charlie stepped gingerly into the room, his mouth agape. He held up a hand towards the great fat pipes, then looked back towards me, smiling delightedly.
‘Feel them, Mr Box!’ he cried. ‘They’re warm.’
It was true. Whatever strange machinery had been erected here, it brought light and heat to the dead ruins.
‘Quite something, ain’t it?’ said Charlie.
A footstep. Then the voice, familiar to me yet strangely elusive.
‘Isn’t it just?’ said the voice from the shadows.
Both Charlie and I turned towards the sound.
Framed in the doorway stood a beautiful figure, resplendent in a crimson velvet gown. Her auburn hair was piled up and her dark-eyes lined with kohl as I had first seen them that night in the Vesuvius Club.
‘Venus!’ cried Charlie.
‘Good evening, my dear,’ I said mildly.
The gorgeous creature inclined her head slightly. ‘Charlie. Signor Box. Such a pleasure to meet you again,’ she said gaily, clapping her hands together and advancing into the room. ‘Let us have wine! Despite the improvements, it is still chill down here and one feels the damp.’ The Italian accent seemed to have gone west.
Venus strode to a fat-legged mahogany table and poured three glasses of wine rather carelessly.
‘What’s going on, Venus?’ said Charlie plaintively. ‘That fella of yours has gone too far this time. You’ve got to throw your lot in with us.’
Venus smiled. ‘He’s gone too far, has he, Charlie?’
She offered me a glass but I shook my head.
‘We’ve supped, thanks,’ I said curtly. ‘Now, if you come quietly, I swear I will do what I can for you.’
Venus paused with a crystal goblet of dark wine halfway to her lips and began to chuckle, her laugh filling the ancient room. ‘You will do what you can for me?’ she roared. ‘Where? When?’
‘At your trial,’ I said evenly.
‘My trial?’
&nb
sp; ‘Yours and that of the villain you call your lover.’
‘My dear sir, you are quite comical. For what should…we…stand trial?’
‘For the attempted murders of Professors Sash, Verdigris and Quibble.’
‘Pooh! They are alive! What have I done but give them a little trip abroad, gratis.’
‘And for the abduction of Mrs Midsomer Knight.’
‘Safe and well and here also.’
‘Well then, for the murder of Jocelyn Poop of His Majesty’s Diplomatic.’
‘Ah well,’ said a new voice. ‘I’m afraid I must plead guilty to that one.’
A man walked into the room, also dressed in crimson robes, his face covered by one of the masks I had seen at the Vesuvius Club.
Venus took his hand and kissed it. He removed his mask with the other hand and smiled. ‘Good evening, Mr Box,’ said Cretaceous Unmann, raising a pistol.
‘I’ll take that drink now, if I may,’ I said quietly.
I sank a goblet of wine in one draft. ‘Won’t you join me?’ I asked Unmann, proffering a glass. ‘It’s really very fine.’
Unmann shook his head, a sly smile playing over his lips.
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what the blazes you’re doing burrowing beneath Pompeii and who it is that you’re both working for.’
Unmann smiled again and cocked an eyebrow at Venus. ‘Shall I explain?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Let us allow that honour to pass to the genius behind this whole scheme. A greater mind, even, than his sainted father who the world so cruelly wronged. Please say buonasera once more, Mr Box, to the man you know only as Signor Victor. Signor Victor Morraine!’
I turned instinctively, expecting to see the slim, striking young man from the funicular railway entering the cavern but there was no sign of anyone. I turned back when I heard a faint rustling sound.
Venus was untying her hair so that it fell in heavy, auburn loops about her neck. With a jerk of her hand, the hair flopped to the floor. A wig! She stared at me, grinning wildly, her dark, dark eyes ablaze with triumph, then hoisted up her crimson skirts, exposing bare, muscular legs and what we doctors call a cock and balls.
‘Christ Almighty!’ was all I had to say.
‘Venus!’ gasped Charlie. ‘You’re a boy!’
XIX
THE ENGINES OF VULCAN
AND so ‘she’ was. The beautiful Venus was the youth I had been introduced to as Victor. But Victor Morraine! This was almost more extraordinary. The dazzling creature inclined his head and moved towards my manservant, skirts swishing over the cold stone floor. ‘Oh, Charlie. If only you had been true to me!’
The boy was staring at him, open-mouthed. Venus flopped down in the armchair. Unmann continued to cover Charlie and me with the pistol.
‘I suppose it takes all sorts,’ I said philosophically. ‘Really, Unmann, I can’t see what you can gain by helping this…person with whatever pathetic revenge he’s planning.’
Unmann laughed, no longer the silly ass. His composure was quite chilling. ‘You can have no conception of the scale of Venus’s ambition. But you’re right in one respect, Mr Box. It is revenge that he seeks.’
I twiddled the stem of the goblet between my fingers. ‘Do tell.’ In my experience, that’s all it takes.
Venus’s eyes blazed. ‘Yes! I want revenge! Revenge on those treacherous men who earned their reputations from my father’s work yet had not the brains to complete it! Revenge against the woman who betrayed him and broke his fragile mind. They shall all suffer.’
I cocked my head to one side and waved a hand around me. ‘But this is all very elaborate, isn’t it? What exactly do you have in mind for this “suffering”?’
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Venus’s face set into a hard mask as though he were gazing back through the years. ‘My father was a great man – a visionary. He lacked only the discipline to see his work through to its logical conclusion. Fortunately his genius was passed on to me! And I have completed his work.’
I felt suddenly cold. ‘Completed? You mean that’s what all this is?’
‘It is. Heat and light from the immense power of the volcano.’
‘Very commendable,’ I said levelly. ‘I presume you intend to help the world?’
Unmann chuckled. ‘Yes – to understand its mistakes.’
I sighed. ‘I imagine you intend to hold civilization to ransom or something equally dreary.’
Venus rose and held out his arms wide, so that the velvet hung down from his marble-white flesh like the wings of a monstrous bird. ‘We stand in the ruins of a once-teeming city. A city destroyed by the might of the great volcano, by the wrath of the very earth herself! But consider for a moment, Signor Box, the geology of this great country. From north to south, she is encircled by a ring of fire, a network of volcanoes erupting like sores on her beautiful form. Etna, Stromboli, Ischia, Vulcano –’
‘Campi Flegri! Cimino! Vulsini!’ chimed in Unmann.
‘And greatest of all,’ cried Venus breathlessly. ‘Vesuvius!’
I blinked. Thought a little. Thought a little more. ‘What are you saying?’
‘An immense explosive device placed within her very bowels…’ whispered Venus. ‘A weapon of such incalculable power that the world will shudder at the very thought of it!’
‘And when the bomb goes off…’ I cried, appalled, ‘a chain reaction!’
‘A stupendous river of fire will erupt,’ crowed Venus. ‘Tearing apart the rock, consuming the seas, plunging this kingdom into oblivion for ever!’
‘My God!’
‘You’re out of your bloody mind!’ cried Charlie.
‘But what do you gain from such an act?’ I demanded. ‘The destruction of your entire country? Centuries of culture?’
Venus’s eyes grew brighter yet. ‘I owe this country nothing! It was the arena for my father’s dissolution and ruin. I only know that I must show those traitors that Maxwell Morraine was the greatest scientist the world has ever seen! They, and all this sordid land, shall perish in the flames of my vengeance.’
I shot a wild glance at Unmann. ‘And you want this too?’
‘I want what Venus wants,’ said the young man simply.
‘And you’d condone the destruction of all Italy, the deaths of millions, just to slake your thirst for retribution?’
‘Why not?’ He shrugged.
‘I must inform you that I cannot permit that.’
Unmann laughed. ‘It seems to me, Lucifer Box, that you have very little say in the matter.’
Venus crossed to the great round table and pressed an ivory button on the machinery that had been clamped on to it. There was a loud squawking sound and within seconds four huge, helmeted thugs had slipped silently into the room.
I was rapidly searched and my precious revolver confiscated. I found myself pinioned with my arms behind my back by Venus’s creatures, Charlie likewise and, together, we were ‘escorted’ from the bath house.
My question remained unanswered. I caught one more glimpse of Venus’s scowling face and then we were being pushed out into another of the grey corridors.
Charlie seemed to be in something of a state of shock. ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered. ‘If I’d only known her fella was her all the time!’
‘Well, you certainly missed out on a rare frolic, Charlie boy, but you mustn’t get sentimental. Remember it was he who tried to drown you in the sewer. And God alone knows what he means for us now.’
The helmeted thugs pushed us on until we came to a set of doors, incongruously shiny in the blank grey walls. One of them wrenched back the grille that covered them and I realized that some kind of elementary lift had been constructed. For a horrible moment, I thought they meant to do us in there and then by hurling us into the empty shaft but, no, there were brass doors behind the grille and, at the touch of a button they squealed open.
The tiny cabinet beyond could scarcely contain us, but all
four thugs duly squeezed inside, their meaty hands clasped tightly about our arms.
One of them rotated a handle and the lift began to judder downwards; the temperature constantly rising and the sound of clanking, grinding machinery beginning to throb from all around.
Finally, the lift shuddered to a halt. There was a pause and then the doors sprang open into a dismal tunnel. The very air seemed heavy with steam as though we had entered an atmosphere only fit for the Titans to breathe.
A jab in the back told me to get moving. As we walked I saw that one whole side of this tunnel had been panelled with crystal as though to provide a viewing platform and I strained to peer through it. Such was the quantity of steam that had built up, however, the crystal window was totally fogged. What devilry lay beyond?
‘Chin up, Charlie,’ I called.
‘Will do, sir,’ he responded with more cheeriness than I expect he was feeling. ‘You reckon these gorillas speak English?’
‘I’m rather relying on them not to,’ I said, casting a quick look and grin at my captors. Their only response was another shove in the small of the back.
‘Got any ideas?’
‘Well,’ I sighed. ‘It’s a very pretty mess. We are dealing with a lunatic. There’s no way to reason with him because he wants nothing but destruction.’ I pulled up suddenly. ‘Hello, what’s this?’
We had approached another lift inset in the blank wall. The doors were open and two more of the helmeted zombies were engaged in curious activity within. The lift cabinet itself appeared to have been halted one floor below so that the two men actually stood on its roof. One was holding the thick, oily chains from which it was suspended whilst his fellow busily sawed away at them.
‘What’re they up to?’ hissed Charlie.
‘I don’t understand it,’ I whispered. ‘They seem to be cutting off all escape routes. Including their own. If he keeps sawing like that…’
But perhaps these zombified husks had no concept of personal mortality any more. I tried to see more but was shoved onwards. I just glimpsed a series of metal rungs sunk into the lift-shaft, glinting in the sallow electric light and extending towards the surface.