by David Ashton
‘So when you thought to follow Gladstone in the fog. You weren’t far wrong. It was me. Being him. Doppelgänger. The Germans have a word for it. They always do.’
‘But Gladstone went out that night. What if he came before you?’
‘I knew his routine old boy, a spy in the house and all that. I could beat him to it. The fog was a great help. I sneaked up the side, and made myself visible.’
‘How did you know I’d be there?’
‘You are predictable. Not unlike death.’
He reached out and took McLevy by the throat just under the jaw-line.
The inspector swallowed hard.
‘What about the carbolic?’ he suddenly demanded.
The Serpent giggled.
‘Part of the character. I’m very thorough, old chap. I became the man.’
‘And in his name, you killed that wee girl?’
Somehow it seemed as if the positions had changed. As if the Serpent was being interrogated. He didn’t appreciate it, and his fingers tightened.
McLevy’s mouth was dry but he persevered. All his thinking had led but to the one conclusion. His only hope was fear. The pretence of fear.
‘In the fog. The dollymop, was she by chance?’
‘Not at all. I had paid her earlier to be on hand at her appointed place, she was pathetically grateful.’
‘And poor auld Sadie, you broke her plume.’
‘I did indeed. An unfortunate adjunct to a necessary act. Came in useful on this very day. Improvisation. A card to play. To hook you in.’
‘Why did you choose Sadie?’
‘I admired her style. She reminded me of someone I once knew long ago.’
But a shadow of sorts crossed his face. The memory of long ago had its own sharp hooks.
‘And to gratify those high above, ye killed those who had done you no harm?’
‘Exitus acta probat,’ murmured the Serpent. ‘The outcome justifies the deeds.’
His fingers had now found perfect purchase and he began to squeeze.
‘Say your prayers, inspector. If you know them.’
McLevy let out a sudden roar of terror and hurled himself to the floor where he writhed helplessly like an insect on its back.
The Serpent shook his head in sorrow.
‘I had thought better of you, sir. Are not the Scots famed for enduring all things? A hardy breed? Think on the concept of predestination; you were born to die here.’
Another roar came in reply as McLevy wriggled, his legs sticking straight out from the reluctant trunk.
‘There is no point in making all this commotion, dear sir, we are underground, the living dead. No one at the house will hear. Now, take your medicine like a man.’
One more bellow like an animal protesting its slaughter brought a wince of distaste in response.
‘I had hoped for a little more dignity. Now, come along, old chap, act the brave soldier. I grant you a favour. I could chop you up with your eyes open. Think of the pain.’
Saying so, he straddled McLevy’s bound legs and leant down, fingers splayed, to administer the coup de grâce.
There is a violent movement from the hanged man as his legs thrash in the air just before death. The fraternity have named it Kicking the Clouds.
It had been adapted and utilised by many a street keelie. One of them, a wee lover of Sadie Gorman, had bruised McLevy sore by the knack of it.
Now, it was his turn. He kicked the clouds.
The bound feet, propelled by two powerful legs that had seen more than thirty years on the saunter even if they didn’t like to run, cracked up into the Serpent’s groin with the most terrible force.
The crunching impact produced a high-pitched squeal as the man reeled away and hunched over, paralysed by a most profound agony.
McLevy rolled over to one of the tombs and inched himself up until he regained his feet. It seemed to take for ever. He began to scrape the rope that tied his hands behind him against the edge of the stone, but then observed the Serpent beginning slowly to unfold upright.
There was only a matter of yards between them and, as the fellow said, needs must when the devil drives.
The inspector hopped forward and butted the man full in the chin as his head came up. The Serpent fell like a sack of potatoes and McLevy lurched back to get on with his sawing.
He felt some of the strands beginning to fray, and thanked God the Gladstone family had used granite and not some ignoble alternative, because the edge was still sharp.
McLevy had already noted the names on the tombstone, Jessy and Helen Gladstone, R.I.P.
Come on, girls, don’t just lie there … more strands parted but bugger me it was a thick rope … release me from my bondage and I will bless your name evermore.
They answered with a vengeance and he let out an exultant howl as the last twist parted and his hands were free.
As McLevy bent down to untie his feet, there was a scuffling noise. He glanced up to see the killer limping towards him, hand bringing the axe out of his pocket.
His revolver was on the other side, behind the Serpent. No time for niceties. The inspector jumped forward on his tethered feet and threw himself round the man to pinion his arms by his sides.
They were face to face like lovers. Save for the murderous glint in the Serpent’s eyes and his mouth parted in a snarl.
He spat full into McLevy’s countenance but the inspector did not flinch, jerked his head to the side and butted the man again, just to keep him honest.
The Serpent wriggled and kicked but McLevy hugged him all the tighter and wedged his forehead into the side of the man’s face.
They spun around in a grotesque dance, the only music their gasps for air.
‘I didnae realise,’ grunted McLevy, ‘ye had grown so fond. I would have washed my oxters.’
The response was a slither to the side which enabled the man to bring up the axe so that it was caught between them. He turned the handle so that the sharp edge cut into the inspector’s belly and McLevy cursed the fact of his excess flesh; this was no way to lose his avoirdupois.
A savage grin spread across the Serpent’s face and he twisted the blade cruelly so that it cut in again.
‘I’m going to have such fun with you, old chap,’ he breathed. He twisted his head round to try to bite into McLevy’s ear but the inspector spun out of the way and, repeating the move he had made with Frank Brennan, whirled them both round in frenzied spinning circles.
The Serpent yelped as the agony in his groin was brought once more to his attention, and he jerked the axe up so that the edge dug firmly into McLevy’s guts.
An insane gleam in the light-blue eyes. Death was coming, death was coming. Spin the wheel.
McLevy gasped in anguish. He lost control of his footing and like two gargoyles falling from a cathedral roof, they toppled over and crashed to earth.
For a long moment they were still and then the Serpent rolled away. McLevy looked down at his tunic. A dark red stain and spreading. Good red blood. The pain would soon follow. It was a deid strake. Death wound.
The inspector crawled into a dark corner like a wounded animal, levered himself up against the wall and looked over to where the man was resting on all fours, in front of Jessy and Helen’s tomb.
The Serpent rose to his feet. He smiled down at the inspector where he lay in the darkness, and walked slowly out of the crypt.
McLevy leant back and waited for death.
39
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,
‘The Passing of Arthur’, Idylls of the King
Benjamin Disraeli sat in the darkened room and stared defeat in the face.
He had found himself, by some strange chance, ensconced in Lord Salisbury’s home at Hatfield, the master being conveniently abroad.
A few serva
nts, like sly spectres, drifted in and out, but mostly it was silent.
Like the grave.
He lit a cigar and blew the smoke over a tray of liver and bacon which added ignorance to insult. A last supper.
The inventory was bleak and inescapable. It was a bloodbath.
Only two years ago, all had been set fair. Disraeli had been chief minister of state and lord of all he surveyed.
The fleet set for Constantinople to put the Russians in their place and Gladstone’s windows broken by the outraged populace because of his opposition to that very action.
William had thundered against an unjust war, a fleet of ironclads that were a waste of public money, sending troops out to die without necessity in foreign climes and thereby upsetting the probity of the budget.
It was a deeply unpopular position and Disraeli had been delighted to see the Liberal party bear the brunt of the people’s anger.
The mob had chanted a trite, belligerent little music-hall ditty outside Gladstone’s London home, before they stoned his windows.
‘We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men,
we’ve got the money too.’
Jingoism. Ugly word. Heart in the right place though.
Disraeli blew a thoughtful smoke ring from lips that had tasted many strange fruits. A succession of intense relationships with young men, mostly his secretaries, had given rise to salacious innuendo but only Benjamin Disraeli knew the truth, and Benjamin was not telling.
Only two years ago. And look at him now.
In Scotland the Tories had fallen from nineteen to seven. Only two survived in Wales. Even England had a non-Conservative majority.
Only in Ireland was there a surplus of Conservatives but that was more than balanced by the number of Home Rulers most of them firmly affiliated to Charles Stewart Parnell. A man who, with a bit of luck, would be a gadfly to Gladstone for the rest of his life.
Already three confidential cipherograms of an increasingly hysterical nature had arrived from a stunned Victoria who, unlike himself, had not contemplated the electorate’s rejection.
Despite Gladstone’s avowed intention, when he had served her last as prime minister, to ‘tranquillise’ the Irish, Victoria could not rid herself of the illogical fear that somewhere Gladstone was a secret Fenian and would impose Home Rule and democracy willy-nilly.
As for the loss of Beaconsfield himself, it was like a death in the family. The only minister since Melbourne to become her friend had been snatched from her by … that half-mad firebrand who would soon ruin everything and be a dictator.
I would sooner abdicate than have any communication with this man!
Disraeli sighed. That was the ultimate threat and nothing might stand against it because the position of a minister who forced it on would be untenable. It would bring chaos to the state and the country would not stand for it. Whoever did so would be politically annihilated.
But in that terrible victory would also be the seeds of the Queen’s own destruction.
It would take time. But, inexorably, her ruin and that of the constitution would follow as the night follows day.
The monarch must accept the electoral will of the people. Break that compact, and she would fall like a stone.
That was unfortunately unthinkable and though Disraeli might gain a certain warped pleasure in delaying the inevitable … inevitable it most certainly was.
He might advise her to send for Hartington, the present leader of the Liberals who had been completely eclipsed by the Messianic return of Sweet William and bore a healthy grudge, perhaps even bring in Puss Granville at a pinch.
But … no. Harty Tarty and Puss. Compared to Gladstone, they were shadows on the wall.
Victoria would have to accept the proposal and there’s an end to it. Even the Queen must walk to the altar.
He would advise her so. She would survive. She was a tough old bird.
He smiled wryly at that thought and looked down at his green velvet trousers. Then another thought struck, not nearly so pleasant.
What of him? Would he survive? He was too old to come back and form another government unless by miracle.
He would become a desiccated creature of society, moving from one soirée to another like some sort of Egyptian mummy.
He had few real friends; what politician does? Even Salisbury within whose house he was now immured, wrote formerly of Dizzy in his letters as a ‘Hebrew varlet’, and a ‘mere political gangster’.
Hebrew varlet, eh? A little rich considering his ancestors had attained a high level of civilisation at a time when the inhabitants of England were going half-naked and eating acorns in the woods.
Disraeli walked over to the window, twitched back the curtain and looked out into a black night.
In the glass, his reflection stared at him like a ghost being slowly but surely drawn back into the darkness. He puffed on the cigar and though the ghost did the same, the other did not seem to enjoy it as much.
Dignified imperturbability. That was what he presented when they brought him the news.
But inside, his world had collapsed. He had lost everything, his Faerie Queen, his power, his very title, prime minister. He had lost it all to a humourless fiscal puritan. A roundhead to his cavalier.
Indeed his hatred of William Gladstone was the only thing to sustain him at this precise moment. Otherwise he was an empty shell. Thank God for malice.
Only a miracle could save him now. An act of God or someone who confused himself with the deity.
His mind returned to the conversation in the private room of the club. The fellow had offered him a very decent brand of cigar. That was surely a good sign.
Disraeli had not made his desires plain. That would never do. He left the interpretation to others.
Perhaps nothing would occur.
Still … hope springs eternal, does it not?
Who knows what was happening out there in the night?
He pulled shut the curtains and noticed, as he turned, a brandy decanter that stood on one of the small tables.
He would puff on his cigar and raise a glass to his beloved Queen.
Who knows?
There might be one last roll of the dice.
Hope springs eternal.
40
Nievie, nievie, nick-nack,
Which hand will ye tak?
The right or the wrang,
I’ll beguile ye if I can.
CHILD’S RHYME
She stood in the corner, fingers grasped awkwardly round a glass of champagne, watching the Great Man receive due tribute from admirers who would melt like snowflakes should the result ever emerge otherwise.
From the huge population of Midlothian, only 3,620 electors were franchised to vote, but a comfortable majority had voted for Sweet William.
Gladstone’s cheeks were unwontedly flushed: red wine and the press of bodies. He would have a headache in the morning, deranged liver and bowels, castor oil prescribed; oh yes, he would have a dreadful headache.
She hid her smile behind the fluted glass and watched as, around his ungainly figure, some quite beautiful women fluttered like butterflies, drawn to the fire, the source of power. Butterflies.
Or was it moths? They burnt in ecstasy at the flame. She had once viewed them die in a hotel room in Venice, the window open on a hot airless night, a single candle in the lamp to lure the prey to death.
They had wagered on the number. She had lost. The forfeit had been deliciously degrading.
Soon, she would be back in his arms. Safe and damned. But not yet, there was much yet to do.
She checked the french windows through which they had agreed he would enter, their being left a little open despite the chill of the evening to let the smoke of best-quality cigars escape into the night.
He had not yet appeared.
To still the tremor of anxiety she turned back and surveyed the magnificent drawing room and doub
le cantilevered staircase, thronged with elegant figures, gowned and suited, laughing and gay, mouths open, eyes sparkling. And yet, despite it all, there was an animalistic quality to the crowd she found … quite repugnant.
A realisation that she was looking at it through his eyes. So be it. Who better?
Fasque had been inherited by Tom Gladstone, the eldest brother, who had always lived in William’s shadow and was doing so once more, somewhere in the happy gathering. There was coolness between him and the Great Man; little wonder since Tom was a staunch Tory and she wondered if William had demanded the reception here, just to spite his brother.
Through the library doors she glimpsed the figure of Lord Rosebery, his doughy complexion and pale hazel eyes more pronounced than usual.
After victory was announced, a torchlight procession had arrived at the George Street house to be addressed by first Gladstone, and then Rosebery. But that was as near as his lordship would get for a while. He did not have the common touch, mostly because he detested the masses. He was a misanthrope. He detested everyone. Except himself.
Horace Prescott leaned forward to murmur something in his master’s ear and was rewarded with a pale smile. Both men stared at Gladstone and somewhere else, she was sure, no doubt guzzling champagne and stuffing his face from the trays of food proffered by an ill-qualified retinue of local girls and tradesmen masquerading as servants, was little George Ballard.
She liked George, he was a treacherous soul but he had some value. He spent much of his time trying to insult her in various ways or shock with lewd insinuations, but she had enjoyed the tale of him sneaking down the cellar steps of a rampant bawdy house to spy Horace being soundly flagellated.
He had slapped Prescott hard on the back, next day.
Dear George.
He, too, would have his eye on Gladstone and she was reminded of a painting she had once viewed. The leader of a pack of lions. Isolated in his own pride. Only surviving so long as he had the strength to keep the claws of others at bay.
For a moment she felt obscurely sorry for the old man and almost regretted the part she would play in his downfall but then Gladstone turned to smile at her.