Twelve Minutes to Midnight

by Christopher Edge

  “What is it?” he slurred as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “This young gentleman said that he needed to see you urgently,” the steward replied, studiously ignoring the thin line of drool hanging from Monty’s chin. “I told him that the club could not admit visitors at so late an hour, but he was most insistent.”

  Glancing up, Monty’s gaze focused for the first time on Alfie, who was hovering anxiously behind the steward’s shoulder.

  “You’ve got to come with me, Monty!” Alfie cried out, forgetting the sober decorum of his surroundings as his impatience overtook him. “There’s no way I can get into Bedlam without you.”

  Monty recoiled in horror, the thoughts of his nightmare still fresh in his mind.

  “What on earth do you mean?” he stuttered. “Why would we want to go there?”

  “To find Penny,” Alfie replied, his eyes shining with fear, “before it’s too late.”

  * * *

  Lying on the cold, stone floor of the cell, Penelope gagged as the vile liquid swilled around her mouth. The taste of the venom burned her tongue, a tiny trickle of it slipping down her throat. Inside her mind, she felt the black silken threads of the web tighten their grip. She was clinging to the precipice above a pit of madness – if she swallowed just one more drop, she knew she would slip over the edge; her mind finally unhinged.

  As the burning venom filled her mouth, Penny felt as though she was drowning in fire. She tried to move, but her numbed limbs still hung heavy by her sides. If she could just twist her head to one side…

  Penelope strained to move her neck, willing the frozen muscles into life. As they spasmed in reply, she twisted herself sideways, retching as the acrid liquid spilled from her lips. The taste of it sent a fresh wave of nausea shuddering through her body, the venom-soaked bile pooling on the stone floor beside her until there was nothing left to bring up.

  Gasping for air, Penny lay there in the darkness for what felt like an age. A skull-splitting headache thumped in her brain, but the scurrying spiders that had filled her mind were gone, the shadows of their webs slowly fading. Wincing, she slowly raised herself up on her elbows, her eyes straining against the gloom.

  The cell door was locked, the shutters drawn across its small, barred window. There was no sign of Bradburn anywhere. With a sudden shiver of realisation, Penny knew where he would be. She remembered Lady Cambridge’s command, the glass vials of spider venom clinking in her palm. Administer a double dose to every patient. She had to stop Bradburn before it was too late.

  As Penelope scrabbled to her feet, she felt something metallic clatter against her hand in the half-light. Reaching down, her fingers closed around the copper handle of a bedpan. She could feel the rough edges of words carved into its surface; the madness that had possessed Fitzgerald had forced him to write even on this. Penny tightened her grip, feeling the weight of it in her hand. Maybe she could use it to get her own message out.

  Hurrying to the door, Penelope pulled her arm back and, with all the strength she could muster, hammered the bedpan against the bars of the cell. A metallic clang rang out – a deafening noise to wake the sane and the mad alike. Penny pulled her arm back again, striking the copper pan against the bars until every muscle in her body ached.

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  In reply, Penelope heard a thudding sound echo down the corridor; cell doors shaking as patients thumped their fists against the wood.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The hammering sound resounding through the walls of the asylum matched the thumping inside her skull. Message received.

  Penny stepped back exhausted, the bedpan falling from her fingers with a clatter as her strength gave way. Then the door to the cell slammed open with a crash and Bradburn’s hulking figure stood framed in the doorway.

  He leapt towards her, his brutish face red with rage.

  “You meddling little twixter!” Bradburn roared, grabbing Penny by her neck and pulling her face close to his. “What have you done?”

  Penny tried to pull herself free from his clutches, but she was too weak to fight back. She could feel his grimy fingers tightening around her neck.

  “You’ve woken them all,” he snarled, his sour breath scouring her skin. “The whole blasted lot of them. They’re hammering fit to wake Morris himself. Make them stop.”

  Penny could feel the blood pounding in her brain. As Bradburn squeezed the air from her lungs, she had just enough breath to croak a single word in reply.

  “No.”

  With a howl of frustration, Bradburn tightened his fingers around her throat, squeezing with every ounce of his strength.

  “Well, you’ll sleep for good then,” he snarled.

  As his throttling grip narrowed, Penny saw a darkness crowding in on all sides again. She felt herself begin to fall backwards into an immense black web, but she knew that this time there would be no return. From what seemed like a great distance, she heard the sound of Monty’s voice – Stop him! – and then Bradburn’s hands were torn from her throat.

  Gasping for breath, Penny swooned, falling towards the hard stone floor, but before she could hit, firm hands reached out to cushion her fall. She felt herself lowered gently down until she was sat slumped against the wall of the cell. Through blinking eyes, she saw Alfie crouching by her side, his face pale with worry. On the other side of the cell, Monty and Dr Morris were struggling to hold back Bradburn’s brawny arms as a stream of orderlies piled into the cell to subdue him.

  “Penny, are you all right?” Alfie asked her, his eyes shining with concern.

  As her breath came in sharp juddering gasps, Penny slowly nodded her head.

  “I’m fine,” she replied in a shredded whisper. She rubbed her neck, feeling the bruise of Bradburn’s fingers against the skin there. “It’s over now.”

  XVIII

  “Mystery writer solves Bedlam Mystery.” Holding that week’s edition of the Illustrated London News in front of him, Alfie cleared his throat as he prepared to read the rest of the newspaper story. At her desk in The Penny Dreadful’s office, Penelope rested her chin on her cupped hands, gazing up at Alfie with a look of weary indulgence as she prepared to hear the report yet again.

  “A sinister criminal plot has recently been uncovered at the Royal Bethlem Hospital,” Alfie continued, reading aloud from the paper. “In the weeks leading up to Christmas, patients at the hospital, one of London’s leading asylums for the treatment of the mentally deranged, found themselves in the grip of a baffling condition. Every night, the residents of the asylum awoke with the uncontrollable urge to write, filling countless pages of text with outlandish visions. After exhausting all fields of medical enquiry, doctors at the hospital called on the assistance of Mr Montgomery Flinch, the bestselling author and editor of the acclaimed literary magazine, The Penny Dreadful. Using his knowledge of the uncanny, Mr Flinch investigated the mysterious events and made a momentous discovery. A hospital orderly named Joseph Bradburn, aged thirty-four, had for some months been administering to the patients a poison that caused these delusions. Only through Mr Flinch’s swift actions was Bradburn caught in the act of poisoning and finally apprehended. Although the motives for this despicable crime as yet remain undiscovered, speaking to this newspaper, the author assured his legions of readers that the full story of this remarkable mystery would be told in his next tale of terror.”

  “And indeed it will!” The door to the office was flung open and Monty’s voice boomed across the room. Shaking wintry squalls of sleet from his shoulders, Monty stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a slam. The actor’s already flushed face was illuminated by a broad grin and, under his arm, he carried a stack of newspapers. Spilling them out on the desk in front of Penny, she saw Monty’s triumphant face peering out from their front pages beneath a welter of headlines.

  AUTHOR CAPTURES BEDLAM POISONER

  BESTSELLING WRITER BRINGS MYSTERY TO A CLOSE

  MONTGOMERY FLINCH DOESN’T
FLINCH IN THE FACE OF DANGER

  “I’m the talk of the town,” cried Monty. “I can barely leave the door of my club without being mobbed. On my way here, I was stopped countless times by readers eager to learn the truth behind this Bedlam mystery.”

  Draping his overcoat on the stand, he sank down on the chair in front of Penelope’s desk. Meeting her gaze, Monty greeted Penny with a charming smile.

  “And how is the story coming along, my dear?”

  Underneath her furrowing brow, Penny’s eyes flashed at Monty’s impudence. After all she had gone through to unravel the mystery, this was what she was left with: Monty’s puffed-up face staring out from the front page of every newspaper. Their headlines acclaimed him as a hero, whilst she was stuck in here trying to write the first instalment of Montgomery Flinch’s latest tale.

  As Penny opened her mouth to remind Monty of his place, her thoughts flicked back to that terrible night at Bedlam: Bradburn’s hands tightening around her throat, his fingers squeezing the life from her veins. If Monty and Alfie hadn’t burst through the door of the cell when they had… Her irritation faded as quickly as it had come.

  “The story is coming along well,” she told Monty, quickly shuffling the papers on her desk to hide the blank sheet that lay in front of her. She glanced up at Alfie, as he began to read yet another story aloud.

  “And listen to this—”

  Penny cut him off with a brisk shake of her head.

  “Do we have to hear any more reports of Montgomery Flinch’s heroics?” she asked in a pleading tone. “I’m sure Monty is getting quite tired of hearing the same tale all the time.”

  “Nonsense,” Monty replied with relish. “Let the boy speak.”

  “It’s not about Monty this time.” Alfie thrust the newspaper towards Penny and then pointed to a brief report at the bottom of the page. “This is about Lady Cambridge.”

  “Let me see,” said Penny. Taking hold of the newspaper, she began to read, a frown returning to her face as she did so.

  FATAL FIRE IN LONDON

  A grand street in South Kensington was the scene late on Monday night of a disastrous fire, which resulted in the death of at least seven people. The scene of this calamity was Stanley House in South Kensington, the London residence of Lady Cambridge, the wife of the late Lord Cambridge. The fire broke out whilst a dense fog was prevailing, and originated in the basement of the property. The alarm was first raised in the early hours of Tuesday morning by a neighbour who saw flames and smoke pouring out of the windows. Firemen were called, but by the time of their arrival, the fire had so far advanced that the house was almost entirely burnt out. In the cold light of day, a total of seven bodies were recovered from the smoking ruins and Lady Cambridge is believed to be amongst the dead.

  Penny flung the newspaper across her desk in annoyance. That night in Bedlam when the police had finally arrived to cart Bradburn off in handcuffs, she’d told them all about Lady Cambridge and how her guiding hand was behind the sinister plot. The thin-faced inspector had listened impatiently as she poured out the whole story, but then shook his head in amused disbelief. Patting her on the head, he’d called for Dr Morris to prescribe her something for the hysteria which had obviously been brought on by the shock of her ordeal.

  It was only days later that Bradburn, with the threat of the gallows hanging over his head, had started squealing like a stuck pig. His confession confirmed the truth of Penelope’s claims, but by then it was too late. Stanley House lay in ruins, the filing cabinets in its hidden basement room burnt to cinders. Lady Cambridge’s scheme to harvest the spiders’ secrets before the new century dawned had perished with her, the Midnight Papers all turned to ash and scattered by the wind.

  Seeing the disappointed expression on Penny’s face, Alfie tried to comfort her.

  “Don’t brood about what happened,” he said. “At least Lady Cambridge can’t do any more harm now. And think about what a story it will make. Change a few names here and there and you’ve got yourself the next bestselling issue of The Penny Dreadful – a true-life tale of terror to keep the readers rushing to the bookstands.”

  “Speaking of the next issue of The Penny Dreadful.” From his desk at the back of the office, Wigram slowly rose to his feet, a thick wedge of envelopes held in his hand. “If we’ve all finished musing on past adventures, there is plenty of work to do in the here and now. The January edition of the magazine is due to go to press on New Year’s Eve – that’s three days’ time. If you want to have a magazine fit to publish when the new century dawns, I’d suggest you get to work on answering the letters to the editor.”

  The elderly lawyer placed the bundle of letters at the top of the in-tray at the corner of Penelope’s desk. Glancing across, her heart sank at the sight of the mountain of mail waiting there. Penny looked up into her guardian’s eyes, her fair-skinned face drawn in its most beguiling expression.

  “Would you not be able to edit the letters page for this issue?” she asked. “It’s just that with the lead story still to write…”

  Wigram’s stern countenance was unmoved by Penelope’s gentle persuasion. The craggy lines creasing his brow deepened as he shook his head firmly.

  “And I have got printer’s invoices to pay, advertisements to place and deliveries to arrange,” he replied. “I’ve spent quite enough time covering your duties whilst you have been off gallivanting around Bedlam.”

  His gaze swivelled towards Monty, who was sat staring admiringly at his own photograph on the front page of the Pall Mall Gazette. Inside, the paper’s interview with the author ran across three pages, although the nosy journalist Barrett’s byline was conspicuous by its absence. The Gazette’s editor had agreed to Penelope’s request that Mr Barrett should be taken off the Montgomery Flinch story for good in return for their exclusive interview.

  “Perhaps Mr Maples could help you to whittle down the letters we’ve received from Montgomery Flinch’s most ardent admirers,” Wigram suggested. “I imagine he wouldn’t find that too taxing a task.”

  At the mention of his name, Monty glanced up, the satisfied smile on his face quickly fading as he met the lawyer’s stern stare. Straightening in his chair, he promptly nodded his agreement.

  “I’d be delighted to help in any way that I can.”

  “Good,” Wigram replied curtly. “I’ll leave you both to get on with it.”

  With a sigh, Penelope pushed the papers on her desk to one side and reached for the topmost letter. Slicing open the envelope, she then handed the paper knife to Monty as he leaned over the in-tray to retrieve the next. Penny quickly glanced through the contents of the letter, an appeal from the manufacturer of a patented ballpoint pen for Montgomery Flinch to endorse their product. Crumpling the paper into a ball, Penny dropped the letter into the wastepaper basket beside her desk.

  Gradually, the pile of letters began to diminish, the two of them each taking it in turn to slice open an envelope and read the letter inside. Requests for signed photographs of Montgomery Flinch, missives scrawled in bright green ink criticising his plot twists, pleas for assistance from budding authors desperate for help with their own stories. Fretfully, Penny brushed her long hair back from her face. At this rate, she was never going to find any letters that were fit to print in the pages of The Penny Dreadful.

  Reaching for the next letter, she carefully slid the paper knife under the seal. Tipping the envelope, a stiff printed card dropped out on to the desk in front of her.

  The Society of Illustrated Periodicals and Literary Magazines

  Burlington House, Piccadilly, London

  To the proprietor and editor of The Penny Dreadful,

  You are cordially invited to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Society of Illustrated Periodicals and Literary Magazines. This event for the proprietors, editors and contributors to London’s finest journals is to announce a prestigious new literary competition which will be open to all attending. The winning entrant to the competition will rec
eive a prize of £20,000.

  Further details will be revealed at the meeting which will be held on the evening of Friday the 29th of December at seven o’clock sharp, Burlington House, Piccadilly. Drinks will be served at six thirty.

  Please R.S.V.P. by return telegram.

  Penelope’s eyes glittered at the thought of the prize. Twenty thousand pounds – an unimaginable sum. It must be a typographical error. Surely the prize could only be £200, maybe £2,000 at most. There was only one way to find out. Turning the invitation over in her hands, she glanced up at the calendar on the wall. Today was Thursday, the 28th of December.

  She called out across the office to Alfie who was standing at Wigram’s desk, the two of them inspecting a ledger of printers’ invoices.

  “Alfie – I want you to send a telegram for me.” As Alfie nodded in acknowledgement of her request, Penny turned back towards Monty. “And Monty, you’re going to need to get your dinner jacket cleaned.”

  Monty glanced up from his task, halfway through scrawling his signature across a picture of himself which he had clipped from one of the morning papers.

  “Why?” he asked. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Montgomery Flinch needs to make an appearance amongst the cream of literary society,” Penelope replied. “There’s a competition to be won.”

  XIX

  Long before six thirty there was a line of carriages stretching down Piccadilly, each awaiting its turn at the entrance in the shadow of the grand mansion house. Beneath its high arched windows, an array of footmen in black and gold livery ushered guests in evening dress from their vehicles and through the vaulted stone archway. As the late December mists swirled around their tailcoats, the guests hurried through an ornate set of double doors on the left and into the brightness of Burlington House.