by Hall, Ian
* * *
Day dawned shortly after seven; and at that time might be seen Richard Markham, accompanied by an officer in plain clothes, and followed by others at a distance, threading the streets and alleys in the neighbourhood of the Bird-cage Walk.
The sun rose upon that labyrinth of close, narrow, and wretched thoroughfares, and irradiated those sinks of misery and crime as well as the regal palace and the lordly mansion at the opposite end of London.
But the search after the house in which Markham had witnessed such horrors and endured such intense mental agony on the preceding night, was as vain and fruitless as if its existence were but a dream.
There was not a street which Markham could remember having passed through; there was not a house to which even his suspicions attached.
And yet, may be, he and his official companions proceeded up the very street, and went by the door of the very house, which they sought.
After a useless search throughout that neighbourhood for nearly four hours, Markham declared that he was completely at fault.
The police accordingly abandoned any further proceedings on that occasion. It was however agreed between them and Markham that the strictest secresy should be preserved relative to the entire business, in order that the measures to be subsequently adopted with a view to discover the den of the murderers, might not be defeated by the tattle of busy tongues.
* * *
I finished my copy and stared at the writing anew; George Reynolds had almost provided my means of solving the case, almost… so Markham went to the police… I had not even considered such an option. But alas, he met with much suspicion by the Superintendent, and I could foresee myself having exactly the same fate; I had far less proof than Markham, and less offence to challenge with. In fact what actual crimes had been committed? None.
I gave myself a wry grin. Without a crime, there is no case.
On Friday morning, I answered a knock at the door to a messenger from the publishers. “Message for you, sir.” The lad stood on the step, obviously awaiting my answer.
“Are you Mister Lloyd’s personal messenger?”
“I’m one of the runners, sir.”
“Runners?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“Aye, sir. Whenever there’s papers to be taken to the corners, messages, I’m quick, see, and I’m not stupid. I get sixpence a day.” He said proudly.
“What’s your name, laddie?” I asked as I opened the envelope.
“Reggie, sir.”
It took little time to proof read the chapter, nothing out of place, no mistakes. It seemed the printer was beginning to get the idea.
Reggie took off like a rocket. Off down the street faster than anything I’d ever seen.
Lady Clara Introduces Herself
Easterbys Auctioneers proved to be far busier than I expected. Men in suits milled around the furniture, pulling at drawers, ladies fingered lamps and ornaments, porcelains and china. Each object held a ticket with a number, and every number was listed on a double paged sheet in my hands. I considered it quite an undertaking for such a simple thing as an auction. Little did I know what lay in store.
With a hush from the crowd, a man climbed the steps to a pulpit. To my surprise, he whacked it three times with a hefty wooden gavel. “Order! Order!” he roared, completely oblivious to caste or status of the crowd in the warehouse. This was a man confidently in charge, and it seemed he brooked no nonsense.
In my pocket I had every piece of money I owned, six guineas and change. I was confident I would find my desk, and sit in future comfort, making yet more money.
“Item number one!” The auctioneer’s voice had a booming quality, reaching every corner of the room. My first desk, indeed my third choice of four options, was at 36 on the first page, so I settled to find my bearings in this new world. I observed, I learned, and when my time came, I had a far better realization of the mechanisms of the game, for that is exactly what it was; a game of cloak and dagger, a dance of bluff and counter bluff. As the items were sold, I came to appreciate the quiet mouse versus the loud braggart; a fencing match of the most delicate foil.
I could see some of the faces as they fought for their most-sought items, and in some cases I could just see the extended hand with their numbered card. My card was 102, so I surmised as many or more people present.
“Item number 36!”
I was shocked back to reality, and a game started that involved me.
“Teak writing desk,” The auctioneer read from his script. “Leather cover, six drawers, three either side,”
To my surprise I found it exciting, my pulse racing, my eyes scanning the room, searching out my foe. But first we had to do the dance of the ‘I’m not interested’.
“Who’ll give me two guineas for this lovely example?” I waited the pause, doing the same dance as everyone else. “One guinea?” he looked around. “No one? Ten bob?”
Three hands shot into the air simultaneously, and I sighed.
“Okay, ten bob to number 16!” he nodded, knowing there was more to come. “Who’ll give me a guinea?”
“You sir, new bidder, guinea it is!” and he looked directly at me. And of course, so he should have, as I had my hand in the air, pointing my number directly at him.
“Two!” he flashed his hand to the side, but I could not see my adversary.
The auctioneer looked back to me. “Anyone going two pounds ten?” Before I could get my hand in the air, a man directly to my front waved his card. “Two, ten,”
“Three!” a woman’s voice, the first bidder.
The boor in front of me waved again, and I fumed.
“Four!”
Wave.
“Five.”
Wave.
“Six!”
I could not sanction bidding away my whole existence on my third choice, but prospects loomed dark for the one I really wanted; the desk and chair combination. Despite my despondency at being outbid, I felt buoyed by one fact, I had raised my hand. I had joined the game.
I let my fourth choice fly by without bidding; it was the worst condition of the four, and I knew that the hall held auctions every single week, so if I did not prove successful on my first attempt, the room would soon fill up with more choices.
Choice two, at number 104, came up quickly.
I thrust my card in the air at a guinea, thinking perhaps all the desk-buyers had gone home.
“Two!”
Hand in the air.
“Three!”
“Four guineas!” the auctioneer cheered, “A new bidder!”
And damn and blast as they dogged their duel without me up to twelve guineas. I knew I fumed inside, yet could only think of my number one choice which would probably be way over my head.
I looked down at the paper, my number one choice lay nearer the end, item 167.
“Alexander,” a woman’s voice said beside me, and I gave a considerable start. She laid her hand on my forearm, and gripped it lightly. “This is a time for cool heads, not passion.”
I looked to my side to stare into the eyes of Lady Vixen herself. “Lady… Clara!”
She hushed my lips with her finger, so closely we stood in the throng. “Shh,” she admonished me with her captivating smile. “Listen to the room,” she whispered so close to my ear, I swear my hair caught her lips. “The room has grown cold again. The last desk belonged to Darwin, albeit for a fleeting moment, and both men knew it.”
“Charles Darwin?”
“The very same,” She still held my wrist, and I could feel the coolness of her touch.
“The next item!” the auctioneer broke both my reverie and her contact. “French mahogany wardrobe! 1760’s! Who’ll start the bidding at a guinea? Ten bob? A crown?”
“Listen to the deafening silence, Alexander.” She hissed as the auction started around me, and the auctioneer brought the bidding down to the proverbial starting point; ten bob. “They don’t want it,” Her other hand moved slowly into
the air. “But I do.”
Clara won it at just two guineas, and as she marked it on her programme, I noticed many other items, similarly penciled.
I stood in silence as she bid on more, winning some, yet never raising the price too high.
Then it came to my desk, my desk, and Clara must have felt me tense up. “Are you interested?”
I nodded, turning to face her. “It would be perfect,”
“Then you must have it,” she smiled, and the auctioneer said something, but I stood oblivious. “Five!” Her bark rang out like a whip, not allowing the auctioneer to do his usual dance.
The auctioneer swung his gavel at us. “Five guineas I am bid.”
I shocked back to reality. “No…”
“Shh…” she patted my arm again as the auctioneer asked for ten guineas. “Watch me.”
“Eight?” he looked around the room, “Six?” he looked at us disapprovingly, then turned to his audience. “last time on five guineas. Going once… going…”
“Six!” Damn it if the blowhard boor in front of us bid, and I sighed, looking at Clara, my emotions written all over my face.
To my surprise she poked him in the kidney with a walking stick she produced from her side. The man’s hat fell as he winced in pain, then cursed quietly, and crouched, nursing his side. “Seven!” Clara shouted again, raising her card. The man turned to see his assailant, and she shook her head at him. “Mine, Henry,”
He nodded, almost a series of bows. “Yes, Ma’am,”
And in the midst of the melee around me, the auctioneer hit the gavel hard against his lectern. “Sold to number 13.”
“It is a nice set,” Clara smiled as she marked her card, “Worth far more.”
“Come,” Lady Clara said as the auctioneer finished the last item of her interest. “We now have to pay for our fun.” With her hand round my arm, we approached a line of winning bidders, waiting at a small window. She swept past, entering the main office.
“Lady Clara,” A heavy set man welcomed us, and gave up his own seat to my beautiful companion. “How did you fare tonight?”
“I did quite well; you’ll be pleased enough.” She answered, handing over her programme. “Roger Naismith, I introduce a friend of mine; Alexander MacNeill, he’s in publishing.”
We shook hands as a handful of sheets were passed to him by an assistant. He tallied up her bill very quickly. “The total comes to eighty-two guineas, Lady Clara, including our commission, of course.” He grinned, passing the note to her. I could hardly believe it; she’d spent a fortune, yet handled it like pennies.
“Let’s just call it eighty for cash, shall we?” she fished into her bustle, and produced a roll of banknotes, which she counted into Naismith’s welcoming hand.
“Item 167 will be going to a different address,” she grinned at me, and gripped my hand affectionately. “42 Burton Street.” I almost shivered at her touch, her fingers cool against my own.
Naismith scribbled my address on the sheet. “It shall be delivered on Saturday, as normal.”
We made our goodbyes, walked past the long line of customers waiting to pay, and into the dark courtyard. “Can I offer you a ride home?” she asked.
“Please,” I answered far too quickly. If she had asked me to jump off a cliff, I probably would have done the same. She was a very fetching woman, perhaps the most beautiful I had ever seen.
“That’s my carriage over there.”
The courtyard was dimly lit, but enough to gauge our way to her coach. As her driver dismounted and flipped the step down, I took particular attention to the heraldic crest on the door; a red shield with white chevrons, flanked with two standing foxes. I bent low to read the motto.
Per Sanguinem Ingerens ad Aeternum
As the driver opened the door, I rushed through my university Latin; Through Blood and Guile to Eternity.
We set off, and as I marveled the night’s adventure, I recalled Clara’s long list of purchases. “Are you furnishing a new house?” I enquired, congratulating myself on my instigative, yet natural question.
“I buy all kinds of European furniture, quality items, nothing tacky.” she said, her smile beguiling me, her light tone so different from the stringent calls in the auctioneers. “I sell to America, Canada and Australia. It seems when British emigrate, we need to bring some of the old wood with us.” She stopped for a moment, looking at me in the darkness. “Tonight was your first auction.” Her words formed a statement, not a question.
“Yes, was I that obvious?”
“I read you as a lamb, a first-timer. Perhaps you had six guineas to spend, seven at the most. If a competitor knows your limit, they have you in the palm of their hand.”
“Like cards?”
“Exactly, you wouldn’t go into your Uncle’s club and gamble your fortune on your first time at the tables, would you?”
Of course she knew of Rymer’s club, it sat a hundred feet from her house. “Against the experts at the tables?” I had to admit I saw the wealth of experience in her words. “Certainly not.”
Our conversation flowed easily and the journey seemed to last just moments. Clara did not bite my neck, although she had the privacy and opportunity to do so. She ended the journey with a choice disclosure. “I also intended to bid on your desk…”
“I’m sorry…” Suddenly her soft fingers pressed on my lips stopping my outburst. To my surprise I had an unwelcome and disturbing urge to lick them, take them into my mouth.
“Oh, it will be used much more by you and your writing, I don’t regret it.” As the carriage came to a halt, the faint light from the street lamps I saw her smile. “It did sit in the house of Lord Byron himself at one time.”
I gasped in complete awe. “Byron? How do you know?”
She pushed me towards the open door. “Different times, dearest Alexander, different times.”
As my feet hit the pavement, I spun in sudden panic. “Kitty!”
For a second she gave me a look of such a gloom, I swore her heart broke. “Yes, my niece?”
This was no time for niceties. “Can you get a letter to her?”
“Why of course,”
I fished into my coat, got the crumpled note, and pressed it into her hand.
As the coach took off down the street, and I turned to the house, I suddenly realized I had not paid her for the desk.
~ ~ ~
If I could have patted my own back, I would have done so. Having no idea how to investigate Clara, she’d thrown herself in front of me, but of course, I still had no idea where she lived or any details of her relationship with my writing partners.
On Saturday morning just before eleven o’clock, four men arrived and installed Byron’s desk in the dining room, and for the first time in my life I actually owned a piece of furniture. I moved all my writing materials to the desk, while Thackeray found the correct shelves to site two matching oil lamps. Once she’d gone I ran my fingers over the green leather topper, and let my imagination run riot.
Byron’s hands had worked here.
I searched every drawer, inside and out for a signature, a mark, anything, but of course, found nothing.
The desk certainly was not new, but it stood in wonderful condition, both top drawers had locks and keys, and there were pigeon holes galore for my writing materials, pens, nibs, and my bottles of ink.
I felt on top of the world.
~ ~ ~
On Monday morning I saw Uncle James for the first time in many days. It occurred to me that he spent most of his time in a location unknown to me, and it was time to stop walking around with my eyes closed. “Here are the manuscripts,” he said, looking at my desk. “That’s a nice piece of wood, young man, where did you get that?”
“Easterbys,” I replied, wondering if Lady Clara had told him, and he was bluffing me, just for fun, but my question was under the proviso that he spent his time with her. When he left, I thought about following, then thought better of it. I stopped at th
e window and watched him walk north, away from Fleet Street.
Damn, there had to be a better way.
I settled down to the manuscript, and again found the two of differing lengths, one at 1600 words, the other 4800. But the second was a revelation. It contained a new direction of storyline, new characters, a new person investigating the vampire rumours. All in all, I felt it moved the story, and in general I thought the piece quite entertaining. I include them both here.
Chapter 14
HENRY'S AGREEMENT WITH SIR FRANCIS VARNEY
THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL AT THE HALL
FLORA'S ALARM
On the tray which the servant brought into the room, were refreshments of different kinds, including wine, and after waving his hand for the domestic to retire, Sir Francis Varney said, --
"You will be better, Mr. Bannerworth, for a glass of wind after your walk, and you too, sir. I am ashamed to say, I have quite forgotten your name."
"Marchdale."
"Mr. Marchdale. Ay, Marchdale. Pray, sir, help yourself."
"You take nothing yourself?" said Henry.
"I am under a strict regimen," replied Varney. "The simplest diet alone does for me, and I have accustomed myself to long abstinence."
"He will not eat or drink," muttered Henry, abstractedly.
"Will you sell me the Hall?" said Sir Francis Varney.
Henry looked in his face again, from which he had only momentarily withdrawn his eyes, and he was then more struck than ever with the resemblance between him and the portrait on the panel of what had been Flora's chamber. What made that resemblance, too, one about which there could scarcely be two opinions, was the mark or cicatrix of a wound in the forehead, which the painter had slightly indented in the portrait, but which was much more plainly visible on the forehead of Sir Francis Varney. Now that Henry observed the distinctive mark, which he had not done before, he could feel no doubt, and a sickening sensation came over him at the thought that he was actually now in the presence of one of those terrible creatures, vampyres.
"You do not drink," said Varney. "Most young men are not so modest with a decanter of unimpeachable wine before them. Pray help yourself."