Jessop and Arthur rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They each carried a short plank, which they used to press down a wide circle in the corn. It was the last hot day of the summer, and before long they were both sweat-soaked and thirsty, red and itching.
The rite itself involved the slaughter of a dove. Atwood—who’d changed into a white surplice back at his tenant’s house—cut the bird’s throat and splashed blood at the circle’s edge. Then he placed its body into a small black cabinet. The cabinet also contained a crown, a Jew’s harp, a glass phial filled with spring water, a sheet of parchment six inches square, some matches, and a glass bowl containing a pinch of saffron. Atwood lit a match, burned the saffron, drank the water, wrote his own name upon the parchment forward and backwards, and then walked away without a glance back, out into the golden field and away over the horizon.
The rest of the Company waited. After a while they began to make small talk, mostly about the weather. Jupiter and Miss Didot had brought parasols.
The ritual didn’t require six—Atwood alone sufficed. But he was anxious about exposing himself to his enemies, and so the rest of the Company were there to protect him in the event of—well, Arthur wasn’t altogether sure what. He didn’t know what form the attack of the Company’s enemies might take, but he knew what they would say if he asked: Watch for everything. Overlook nothing. Nothing is without meaning. That was always their answer. He’d resented it at first, but had come to see it as good advice. While he talked to Jessop he listened for every shift of the wind, every insect that buzzed over the fields, every whisper of the corn; the footsteps of mice, the motions of birds overhead, the slowly inclining angle of the sun. His own increasing hunger. The itch on the back of his neck, and the tickle of sweat. The pretty ladybird that settled on Jessop’s sleeve like a bright garnet cufflink. A stray grey hair on Jupiter’s head. The constant shimmering glare of sunlight. In the middle distance there were haystacks. Everything was golden, fields and clouds both, the Earth indistinguishable at the horizon from the Sun, like one of those French paintings Josephine liked. Everything dissolved into points of light. There was a thousand times more in one single field than one could ever see and understand in a lifetime. Who needed other worlds?
Arthur laughed. Jupiter glared at him, and Miss Didot raised an eyebrow.
“Airy spirits,” Sun said, waving a hand as if swatting at a fly. “Mercury is close, and you may find your thoughts are not wholly your own.”
After a long while, a figure approached on the horizon. Arthur tensed, and started to get to his feet; but it was only Atwood. He’d been gone for perhaps two hours. When he came closer, Arthur saw that he was smiling, and he had a boyish spring in his step. He sat down cross-legged beside the cabinet.
Jupiter lowered her parasol, and said, “What is your name?”
Atwood grinned. Not his ordinary smile—it was wider and toothier. He didn’t look himself at all, and when he spoke, his voice was high and breathy.
~ I have no name.
“What manner of thing are you?”
~ Air and light.
“Will you serve us, and go when we command?”
~ I will. I will!
“Do you know who we seek?”
~ I know many things!
“We seek the man who heard Arnold Leggum’s last words. Will you find him for us?”
~ I will!
Atwood closed his eyes, and rocked back and forth. Everyone waited for perhaps forty minutes. When Atwood next opened his eyes, he was himself again, and he had learned the killer’s name—one Dr William Thorold—and his address, just off Harley Street.
III: The Rite of Mars
Midnight, and the hour of Mars. The Company met at Atwood’s house, in his library. In preparation for the ritual, none of them had eaten all day, or drunk anything but water, or committed any sin if they could avoid it.
They were joined by an aristocratic young fellow of Atwood’s acquaintance, whom Arthur had never met before, and who seemed to be under the impression that the whole thing was a lark. Atwood seemed to be scraping the barrel a bit. Miss Didot sealed the door and the four corners of the library with water and salt. Jessop and Arthur and Sun and Jupiter and Miss Didot and Atwood and the new fellow each cut their left palm and intoned Adonay, Elohim, Ariel. They cut their right, intoning Amon, Barbatos, Baal. With blood and sand they marked out a hexagram on the table. Miss Thérèse Didot slaughtered a black crow, then quartered it, placing its parts at the points of that ugly star. She looked quite devilish as she did this, streaked with blood. Sun chanted. Sergeant Jessop brought in a brass bowl of water and placed it on the table. Miss Didot placed the eyes of the crow into the water, and then six hot coals. Lastly she screamed the name of Dr William Thorold and struck the water’s surface with a knife.
Nothing appeared to happen. Afterwards the members of the Company stood around making small talk and congratulating one another on an impeccable performance of what was apparently a very difficult ritual. Atwood’s footman Lewis came in with a bucket to dispose of clumps of bloody sand and bits of crow.
* * *
Arthur cornered Atwood in the hall after the others had left.
“What is all this supposed to accomplish, Atwood?”
“The consternation of our enemies. The erosion of their strength. Did you think it would be quick?”
“This is no use to Josephine! Muttering curses and cutting up crows–damn it, Atwood, we know who our enemy is.”
“Only a madman or a fool would confront Podmore without proper preparation.”
“Preparation. You mean delay. By God, Atwood—if you spent every night by her side, listening to her every breath. If you…”
He fell silent. Atwood looked at Arthur for a long time, then steered him into one of the many empty rooms of his house.
“Sit.” Atwood gestured towards the chairs by the unlit fireplace. He fiddled with lamps. “There’s more at stake than Josephine, you know. But I agree.”
“What does that mean?”
“You mustn’t breathe a word of this to the others.”
“Of what? Why not?”
“The others are—traditionalists. They believe in rites and ceremonies. They’ll do this sort of thing for ever. But you’re quite right. We don’t have time to waste, do we? The ordinary rules no longer apply. We must take firmer action.”
Atwood leaned forward as he spoke, and watched Arthur intently. Lamplight made his shadow tremendous, uncanny. Arthur gave it a long look, half-expecting it to move, or speak, or do something dreadful as soon as he took his eyes off it.
“Can I trust you?”
“If it helps Josephine.”
“Are you willing to what must be done?”
“What are you planning, Atwood?”
“My man Lewis is preparing my coach.”
“At this hour?”
“I intend to visit our friend Thorold,” Atwood said, “And to put some questions to him, man to man. Will you join me?”
Arthur was silent for quite some time.
“Thorold murdered our colleague Leggum, don’t forget—and you may be quite, quite sure that he’s done worse than that.”
“Murder, Atwood?”
“Of course. Perhaps not by his hand. But you may be sure that it was no coincidence that Mr Leggum’s horse bolted. If your conscience is troubling you, Shaw—”
“My conscience held its tongue through that diabolical ritual. Who am I to balk at a little burglary?”
“Good. Then I can trust you?”
“What do you intend?”
“It won’t come to violence, if that’s what you mean. I know Thorold by reputation. A mediocre magician. A good doctor. A quiet man. There were rumours concerning the death by poisoning of a business-partner.… Well, men of that sort are not brave when confronted.”
“Men of that sort! I seem to remember a time that I hardly ever associated with murderers of any stripe.”
“
I beg your pardon, Shaw? You broke into my house boldly enough. Has your courage failed you now that it might be of some use?”
“Now, listen, Atwood—”
Lewis called out from the hall to let them know that the coach and the fourth of their party were both ready.
“Excellent,” Atwood said. “Thank you, Lewis.”
* * *
Lewis climbed up into the driver’s perch with his lantern. Atwood climbed into the coach, and Arthur followed. A moment later, the fourth of their party hopped up, forcing Arthur to shift. He was horrified to see that it was Mr Dimmick.
“Dimmick! By God—what—”
Dimmick’s grin was the same as it had been back when he’d worked in Gracewell’s Engine, but the rest of him was greatly changed. He wore shoes and a hat, which made him appear somewhat less simian. His shoulders were still broad and muscular, but his face looked thin, as if he’d spent the last few weeks starving in a gutter, or tossing and turning in a fever. His cheeks were blotched with awful burns—grey in the darkness of the cab—and his left hand was wrapped in a dirty-looking bandage. He rested his long black stick on his knees.
“Ah,” Atwood said, “of course, you’ve met; you were both Gracewell’s employees. I have retained Mr Dimmick’s services for tonight.”
“He tried to kill me!”
Dimmick held up a hand. “No hard feelings, Mr Shaw! I got myself confused, that’s all. All our hard work going up in flames. You just asked too many questions. Just a nosy bugger. That’s all. Innocent man. See that now.”
“Right. Yes. That’s right, Mr Dimmick.”
The coach started moving, and Arthur realised that he was stuck in it with Dimmick whether he liked it or not.
Dimmick nodded. “Thought on it long and hard, bandaged up in that bed. Let ’im go. Let ’im be. That’s what I thought, in the end.”
Dimmick leaned forward, putting his grinning face unpleasantly close to Arthur’s. “Don’t worry, Mr Shaw. No man in London better than me to have on your side in a fight. Ask His Lordship.”
The streets were empty and they were quickly moving at such a gallop over the cobbles that it made Arthur queasy.
Atwood muttered over his hands, uttering the names of the stars and the angels and the Kabbalah.
“Atwood.”
“Hmm?”
“Atwood—why is Mr Dimmick here?”
“Dimmick is here to ensure that all goes well.”
“And how will he do that?”
“I would not say that Dimmick is a learned man. He has not developed his mind to any great extent—even Dimmick would admit that. But he is well-travelled, and he has developed his body. Boxing, and weightlifting, and the deeper arcana: savate, and jujutsu, and what-have-you.”
Dimmick sat back smugly. “You and me, Mr Shaw, working for His Lordship again.”
Arthur didn’t think of himself as Atwood’s employee, but he didn’t want to argue the point.
“Mr Dimmick—what happened to Vaz?”
“Who? Oh yeah, him. Could be he got out.” Dimmick shrugged, as if it was of no particular concern to him whether a man was alive or dead, whether he had or had not murdered him.
They rode for a while in silence and darkness, except for the hooves of the horses and the crack of Lewis’s whip, and Atwood’s mutterings, which Arthur took to be a form of ritual preparation. Dimmick absent-mindedly tapped his stick on his knee.
“This is awful, Atwood.”
“He must needs go that the devil drives, Shaw.”
“Devils. Quite right. Devils indeed. Now we’re consorting with—listen, Atwood, why can’t your Hidden bloody Masters help us?”
“Be quiet, Shaw. I have to prepare myself. You should be ready, too. No help will be coming from that quarter.”
“No—I dare say not. There’s no such bloody thing, is there? There’s just you and Jupiter and Mr Sun; madmen the lot of you, and I’m the maddest of all for listening to you. I should take Josephine to a doctor.”
“I’ll have Lewis stop for you if you want to walk home. Otherwise, be silent.”
Arthur stewed for a while in silence.
Lewis called muffled commands. The coach came to a stop.
* * *
Harley Street was silent. A weak moon, thick clouds. A light here and there in an upper window suggested doctors working late into the night over studies or experiments. The heat of the day was long gone. Something in the air threatened rain. Lewis stayed with the coach on the corner. He shuttered his lantern, rolled a cigarette, and hunched against the cold.
No lights in Thorold’s windows. It was a dark and nondescript edifice of brick, indistinguishable at night from any of its neighbours, except that a plaque by the door identified Thorold by name and as a consulting physician at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Atwood gestured at the door, and Dimmick stepped forward, hunching over the lock, seeming to use his stick as a sort of crowbar. The door opened with a sickening crunch and Dimmick led the way inside.
To their right was a waiting room. Shelves of heavy tomes, presumably medical, and paintings of the sea.
A sound of footsteps, then a cough, somewhere in the darkness ahead. The glow of a light coming from under a door. Arthur froze, turned to bolt back out into the street. Atwood put a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the waiting-room. Dimmick took off his hat.
Light filled the hall. Thorold emerged from his pantry, nudging the door closed with one slippered foot. He cut an unimpressive figure, and at first Arthur took him for a servant. He was barefoot, in a nightshirt and cap, with a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles. He carried a candle in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other. He turned, dropped the plate, and stared in wide-eyed shock at the invaders, lifting up the candle as if he thought they must surely be a trick of the light, and a better angle might dispel them.
In the light of the candle Dr Thorold looked pale and clammy, as if he’d been awoken by a nightmare.
“You!” Thorold stared at Atwood. “You bloody lunatic, what are you doing here?”
“Thorold!” Atwood made a gesture with his left hand, holding up fingers like crooked horns. “Stop, Thorold. You’re—”
Thorold blew out his candle, dropped it, turned, and ran. Atwood ran after him, but in the dark he stepped on the candle as it rolled underfoot, and he fell. Arthur stooped to help him up.
“Stop him! Stop him—Dimmick, where’s Dimmick?”
Dimmick charged, jumping over Atwood, holding his hat to his head and brandishing his stick. Atwood and Arthur ran along behind him, through Thorold’s parlour, where Arthur banged into a looming black grand piano, and Atwood was startled by his own suddenly moonlit white-faced reflection in a mirror. When they entered Thorold’s study—a dusty, dark dead-end cluttered with books and papers, stuffed owls and weasels, jars and skulls and flasks of God-knows-what—Dimmick already had Thorold cornered, his stick under the old man’s jaw. Thorold’s spectacles had come loose from one ear and dangled precariously on the end of his nose.
“You will answer my questions,” Atwood said.
Thorold glared. “This is common burglary, Atwood.”
“Hah! Then you admit you know who I am.”
“Of course I know who you are, Your Lordship. And is this creature Dimmick? I know him by reputation—but Good Lord, look at him. What a specimen. Leave my house, Atwood.”
“You murdered a colleague of mine, and you’re in league with my—my enemies.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Lordship. Of course I follow your work—we share an interest in the new science, after all. Mine is an amateur interest, but of course medicine occupies so much of my time. I knew your father, once upon a time. A great man—”
“Enough!”
Dimmick jabbed Thorold’s chin and he fell silent.
“Now, answer my questions, doctor, and truthfully. By Mercury I command it, and Ishtar, and the Holy Ghost. Oriston, Soter, Eloy, Tetrag
rammaton…”
Dimmick relaxed his stick to permit Thorold to remove his dangling spectacles. Thorold ignored Atwood’s chant, glanced at Arthur, and asked who he was. Arthur said nothing.
Thorold polished his spectacles with his sleeve, muttering.
“I’ll ask again. Who are you, young man, and why are you in my house, and why are you in league with Martin Atwood? What has he promised you? You have made a very foolish choice, my friend—Atwood’s path will lead to your ruination as a magician and as a man.”
“… Zeboth, Adon, Elion, Tetragrammaton!” Atwood said. “Name your allies, Doctor Thorold.”
Thorold quite casually tossed his spectacles to Arthur, who blinked in surprise and couldn’t help but catch them. Instantly he found himself dizzy and stumbling—it seemed that the room had spun. He thought for a moment that he’d somehow tripped and fallen—where had that bookshelf come from, and where had the desk gone?
He realised with a sickening sensation that he was now standing where Thorold had been standing a moment before, and Thorold had taken his place on the other side of his study. It had only taken an instant, and now all four men in the room were moving again, but Thorold was too close to his desk to stop. He snatched up a small glass jar, and gulped most of its contents down before Dimmick’s stick knocked it from his hand. His face twisted in pain and he fell to the floor.
Atwood shouted “Name them!”
Thorold sprawled, thrashing his naked hairy legs. He coughed out names: Backhouse, Carroll, Sandys. Atwood repeated his command and Thorold coughed out Podmore, and then laughed, and then roared senselessly, jerking and twisting as if his neck and his spine were breaking—as if he were being broken in the jaws of a great invisible cat—and his eyes rolled up in agony. His limbs shook and his hair stood up, thick and bristly.
Thorold jumped to his feet. He seemed taller now: long-limbed, wild-eyed, long-toothed. Long hairy fingers grabbed Atwood’s shirt and lifted him, struggling and uttering futile words of power; then Thorold threw Atwood into the door-frame. Atwood cried out and slid onto the floor.
The Revolutions Page 20