Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  He needed to know far more. He needed to know, at the very least, what John Devil knew–and he was determined to find out, no matter how careful and discreet he had been commanded to be on the ferry that would take them both to Calais. Alas, John Devil was not waiting in Dover when the mail-coach arrived, nor had he put in an appearance by the time the packet-boat was due to set out. When the boat left the harbor–without a moment’s delay, for it was a brand-new steamboat, which had no need of any generosity from the wind or the tide–Temple had not caught a glimpse of his supposed ally.

  Two possibilities sprang to the detective’s mind: firstly, that the other man was on board but in hiding, having found a means to keep out of his way; secondly, that the other man had always intended to travel by a different route, at least to Calais, and perhaps all the way to Paris. The second alternative seemed more likely, if only because it fit in with the man’s essentially devious character. The combination of the Dover coach and the packet-boat was not necessarily the best or the fastest way to get to the French shore from London; John Devil might as easily have gone to London Bridge to pick up a ship that would sail–or, more likely, steam–all the way around Kent. If the other had taken that route, he might get to Calais first–or he might not go to Calais at all, preferring some other port of entry.

  Damn the man! Temple thought, as the ferry began to rock and lurch in the choppy autumnal sea. Even as an ally, he’s the most treacherous snake an honest man could ever dread to encounter.

  Chapter Two

  John Devil’s Lateness

  Temple cursed John Devil a hundred times more while the steamboat made its way across the Channel, across a relatively calm sea. Even as he cursed, though, he recognized the possible logic of the course of action. If there was more to the kidnap than simple banditry, the child-stealers would probably know that Suzanne had written to Ned Knob, and would therefore be expecting Temple’s arrival in Calais. If so, it might be unwise to let them know that Henri de Belcamp had also been alerted by the same missive, and had entered into an alliance with his old enemy. But why, if John Devil had never intended to travel with him even for part of the journey, had he implied that he would? Why had he not simply told the truth? Perhaps he was incapable of it, even in–or especially in–circumstances that compelled him to work in association with his old adversary.

  It occurred to Temple to wonder whether the letter might have been a carefully-fabricated contrivance to get him out of England–that there might not have been any kidnap at all–but he could not believe it. John Devil was more than capable of playing such a foul trick, but, had he wanted to get Temple out of the way for any considerable length of time, he would surely have chosen a deception that would not be so soon uncovered.

  Temple did not go up on deck during the crossing, but contented himself with searching the crowd of passengers below decks with his eyes. He was satisfied soon enough that John Devil was not among them–and was not disguised as a crewman either, unless he was the kind of crewman who spent his time at sea confined to the engine-room. He was also in search of any indication that he was being followed. Five of his fellow passengers from the mail-coach had taken the ferry–including the two literary men–but none of them had shown the least flicker of interest in him since they had got down from the coach. If anyone else on board had been looking out for him, they gave no sign of it.

  He was able to take a late breakfast on the packet-boat, and to drink a pot of coffee, but he arrived in Calais neither satiated nor fully alert. Once his papers had been inspected, and handed back to him without hesitation, he made his way to the booking office for the Paris coach and asked whether there was a ticket waiting for Gideon Markwick. There was, and he only had to show his documents again to claim it.

  “Has Monsieur Henri Moreau collected his ticket yet?” he asked, in French.

  “Non, Monsieur,” was the reply.

  “But you do have a ticket awaiting collection by the gentleman in question?”

  “Oui, Monsieur.”

  Temple checked his watch. If “Henri Moreau” was going to catch the Paris coach, he had only a quarter of a hour left to pick up his ticket. He stayed close to the booking office while he waited, but no one came. When the coach got under way, there was an empty seat inside.

  “This is a rare stroke of luck,” one of Temple’s fellow passengers said to him, in faintly-accented English, as they settled in to their places. “For once, we may be comfortable. They cannot take on an extra passenger before we reach Amiens, you see, in case the missing man is waiting at one of the stops where we change horses. My name is Giuseppe Balsamo, Monsieur–I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Temple suppressed a sigh; he was in France now and the etiquette of English travel no longer applied. He shook the hand that had been offered to him, and said; “Gideon Markwick. Your English is very good, sir–far better than my Italian, I fear.”

  “I have been away from my native land for a very long time,” Balsamo told him, with a slightly theatrical sigh. Temple was sure that the man had not been on the packet-boat, but that might only mean that he had arrived in Calais on another vessel, or that he had been there on business. Balsamo seemed to be some 20 years younger than Temple–certainly no more than 40 years old, and probably less–so his reference to “a very long” time seemed slightly odd.

  “We have been living in turbulent times,” Temple commented, in a neutral tone. “Many men have been displaced from their homelands, only to find them unrecognizable on their eventual return.”

  “That is always the fate of the wanderer,” the other man agreed–and then withdrew slightly, as if to end the conversation. Temple was not at all displeased by that–except that he suddenly realized, as the man took a French newspaper from his overcoat pocket and began to unfold it, that he had heard the name Balsamo before, coupled with the forename Joseph–which was, of course, the English form of Giuseppe. He had to rack his brains for several minutes before he dredged up the memory, but it came to him in due course.

  Many years before, when he had been one of the earliest recruits to the Metropolitan Police’s detective division, the complex entanglement between politics and crime had had a very different complexion, more concerned with foreign espionage than domestic radicalism. The new division had inherited a stock of dossiers compiled on hundreds of foreign nationals reputed to operate as spies, including many of wide repute. One of those dossiers had concerned a poseur named Count Cagliostro–whose real name, the reports alleged, had been “Joseph” Balsamo.

  Temple had never had the slightest involvement with the man, but he had read the dossier because of its melodramatic quality, as a kind of modern legend. He recalled now that Cagliostro had cultivated a reputation as a magician, and had been exiled from France after his alleged involvement in the scandal of a necklace supposedly commissioned by Queen Marie-Antoinette, but actually obtained on false pretenses by a band of tricksters. Cagliostro had spent some time in England thereafter, and had been briefly imprisoned in the Fleet–but this could not possibly be the same person, who must have been 50 or thereabouts when he was in England then, and would therefore be 80 now. It might, perhaps, be the other Balsamo’s son... or the name might be a pure coincidence.

  On another occasion, Temple would have let the matter go–but he was, at present, very sensitive to the potential significance of coincidences. When the other man finally put his newspaper away, and Temple was able to meet his eye again, he took the opportunity to say: “I believe I knew a man named Balsamo once, in London–but he was quite old and I was very young. Perhaps he was your father?”

  “My father never left Italy,” the other said, mildly, “and Balsamo is not an uncommon name there. Your man might, I suppose, have been a distant relative. I have visited London myself on many an occasion. Things go well there, I hope?”

  “Tolerably well,” Temple replied. “The war was costly, of course, and we are still paying the price in social unrest
, but we are making progress.”

  “Progress?” Balsamo echoed. “A French idea, is it not? Did you not fight the war to prevent progress?”

  “In England,” Temple told him, only a trifle stiffly, “we did not consider the Revolution or the Napoleonic Empire to constitute political progress–but when I used the word, I was thinking of an altogether different sort of progress than the merely political.”

  “Perhaps I am mistaken,” Balsamo said, “but I was under the impression that the core of the philosophy was that there is only one sort of progress–that technical progress and social progress march hand-in-hand, each nourishing the other. Or were you thinking of the doughty puritan’s Pilgrim’s Progress?”

  “No,” said Temple, suppressing a surge of annoyance at what seemed to him a deliberate misunderstanding of his meaning. “I meant that the nation is making progress in returning to normal–to harmony and prosperity.”

  “Indeed?” Balsamo queried, cocking an eyebrow. “I never had the impression that harmony was normal in England–nor prosperity, for all but the favored few. On the other hand, I believe that your country is in the forefront of technical progress. You have nurtured several important pioneers of the new science of electricity, have you not? Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday are famous throughout Europe. My own compatriots, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, have made considerable contributions to the same great work, which I find very exciting. It will favor social progress too, I think–it has the potential to bring about a social revolution far more profound than the one wrought by France’s Jacobins. It was most unfortunate that they sent their own native genius, Monsieur Lavoisier, to the guillotine.”

  Temple was slightly surprised by the turn the conversation had taken, but not disturbed. Perhaps it was significant, and perhaps not–but it was, at any rate, not uninteresting. “What kind of social revolution do you mean, Signor Balsamo?” he asked, curiously.

  “The second wave of the industrial revolution, of course,” Balsamo told him. “Steam is supplying the power to a vast new generation of machines, including traveling engines of various kinds. It is already revolutionizing manufacturing processes, and will surely increase our mobility tremendously. Mechanics is only the beginning–when the capabilities of electricity are added to the skill of new machinery, there will be a further increase in its ingenuity. What a future we would have to look forward to, Mr. Markwick, if only we were not fated to pass on to another world at a mere threescore years and ten!”

  “It is certainly becoming easier to clothe ourselves,” Temple agreed, judiciously, “but there is only so much land, which can only yield so much wheat to make bread. There are limits to ambition, Signor Balsamo.”

  “Ah!” said Balsamo. “You are a Malthusian, of course, Mr. Markwick. You find it difficult to believe in my kind of progress because you find it easy to believe in the inevitability of the Malthusian checks: war, famine and disease. The horsemen of the apocalypse, who never rest–with Death himself as their constant companion. Are you so sure, then, that there is so little prospect of progress in diplomacy, agriculture and medicine... or even the fight against Death itself?”

  By now, Temple was perfectly certain that the conversation was significant, although none of their fellow passengers could have guessed it, no matter how carefully they were eavesdropping. “The Balsamo I knew in London,” he said, casually stretching the truth, “thought something similar. He was an alchemist of sorts, in quest of the philosopher’s stone.”

  “In that case, I do know the Balsamo to whom you refer,” the other man said, mildly, “perhaps rather better than you do. He is not a relative. If there were a philosopher’s stone, it would probably be electrical in its nature and effects, don’t you think? A distillate of the fire of Heaven, which Prometheus stole for the benefit of humankind. His work goes on, of course, despite its early interruption and his cruel punishment. By a curious coincidence, I believe I saw an English poet in Calais today who recently published a wonderful celebration of Prometheus Unbound. It came out just a few months ago–have you had a chance to read it?”

  “I have not read it,” Temple confessed. He only hesitated briefly before adding: “I did notice, though, that there was a ship named Prometheus that was burned in Purfleet Harbour only two days ago.”

  “Was there, indeed? The idea is in the air, you see. We live in a Promethean age. There was another literary work in English, I think, titled The Modern Prometheus–an account, disguised as fiction, of work done in Switzerland a few years ago. That was based on a different version of the myth, I think–or perhaps a gloss on Shakespeare. You remember Othello’s lament, no doubt, when he contemplates poor Desdemona’s corpse, and plaintively regrets the want of some Promethean heat to restore its warmth?”

  “I have never been much of a playgoer,” Temple said, with a slight hint of resentment at the manner in which the other man seemed to be teasing him for a lack of erudition. “I’m a practical man, alas, with little time for literary flights of fancy.”

  “Now, there you have the advantage of me,” Balsamo said. “I, alas, am a rather impractical man, with far too much time for flights of fancy. My father always told me that it was a curse, although I have always insisted, perversely, on reckoning it a gift. If you do not know Shakespeare and Shelley, you will certainly be unfamiliar with Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso, but I would like to think that theirs is the spirit that flows in my veins–epic, magical and boundless. That is why I am so glad to have some extra space on the journey, thanks to the man who reserved a seat but never arrived to take it. I do hope, though, that no misfortune has overtaken him. I would not like to think of a man suffering serious inconvenience merely to reward me with a little elbow-room.”

  “We have lived in turbulent times these last 30 years, as I said,” Temple observed, with a slight hint of acid in his voice. “Misfortune has been all too common. The blood in my veins is more prosaic in its inspiration. To me, Signor Balsamo, the establishment of peace and prosperity is progress–the only true progress that there is.”

  “That’s an old man’s opinion, Mr. Markwick, if you don’t mind me saying so–and I mean no insult by it, because you don’t appear to me to be a man who is ready to settle for retirement and a graceful fade into oblivion. If you had the chance of a second lease of life, I believe you’d take it, no matter how turbulent the times might be in which you’d have to make use of it.”

  “Would you take such a chance, Signor?” Temple asked, point blank. “If there were some risk about it, that is.”

  Balsamo laughed. “Oh yes,” he said. “Once, twice, and as many times as I might, regardless of risk. I have no fear of eternity in this life.” He left it unstated as to whether he had any cause for anxiety regarding eternity in the other, but Temple took the inference that he might.

  “Have you some message for me, Signor Balsamo?” Temple asked. “Or some demand to make, perhaps?”

  “Why, no,” Balsamo said. “I am merely making conversation, to while away the time. I am impatient for the advent of the steam-powered coach, which will hurtle along the road at 20 or 25 miles an hour–although the road might have to be remade to accommodate such reckless progress.”

  “Do you really believe that you or I might one day have the opportunity of a second lease of life?” Temple asked.

  The Italian shrugged. His round face was configured to accommodate an unusually capacious smile, and now he smiled as broadly as he could. “I don’t know, Mr. Markwick,” he said, “but I would certainly count it as progress–and I can understand the appetite of those men who are ardently desirous of finding the secret of vital force in the mysteries of electricity. Men who have lived through turbulent times, and have borne witness to so much death and destruction, cannot help but be hasty in trying to seize such opportunities. Peace and prosperity are shallow goals, if they can only be attained briefly, by men long past the vigor of youth.”

  “Haste is one thing,” Temple sai
d. “Crime is another.”

  “Not all men think so,” Balsamo said, his gaze suddenly fixing itself on the narrow empty space where Henri Moreau would have taken up far more room than the actual passengers had left.

  Temple did his level best to give nothing away, but his heart sank as he guessed that the cat must already be out of the bag. The mere fact that Ned Knob had reserved two seats had given the game away. He tried to take what comfort he could from the thought that Giuseppe Balsamo must be even more troubled than he was by the fact that Comte Henri de Belcamp, resurrector of the dead, had not arrived to claim his ticket.

  Because the journey from Calais to Paris was more than twice that between London and Dover, most passengers on the route made an overnight stop. The coach that Temple had boarded was scheduled to make that stop in Amiens–where it arrived shortly before midnight, according to local time. Those travelers with a greater sense of urgency had the option, however, of transferring to another vehicle in order to continue their journey with less delay that was routinely incurred in changing horses. By exercising that option, Temple knew, it ought to be possible to reach Paris not long after dawn, where he could either hire a carriage or take the local patache to Miremont. That was what he did–and honestly did not know whether to be glad or anxious when the mysterious Giuseppe Balsamo declined the opportunity.