The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 02]

by By Kim Newman

  A close-up showed a wound where she’d imagined the blow landing.

  ...and lifting him out of his chair, which caught in his legs and fell with him. She didn’t go as far as to tip the chair over, but she looked and judged where the assaulted man would have fallen. There was a stain on the wall and a star-crack in the plaster where his head must have struck. The bloody rug was beneath it, smooth now but wrinkled in the photographs.

  One blow had not been enough. The killer had applied the bludgeon many more times, concentrating on the side and top of the head. A panicky burglar, making sure not to leave a witness? A grudge-holding local, exterminating an enemy? That old fail-safe, the escaped homicidal lunatic? She could rule out the last—no reported escapees in the vicinity. Or did it come down to the Splendids? One of their many archenemies, frustrated at their untouchability, taking out his or her wrath on their nearest neighbour? Could Blame himself have been the minion of a master villain like Dien Ch’ing or the Clockwork Cagliostro, crushed out of hand for hesitating to follow an order or learning too much of some appalling terror plot? It was tempting to write Edwin’s “tiny little murder” into a more satisfying, momentous storyline, to unmask Blame and his attacker as secret players in the great game of clubland heroes and diabolical masterminds. Then, there might at least be the illusion of a point to it.

  There was a small fireplace, complete with poker and andirons, all present and correct. A cursory glance around showed other easily-accessible blunt instruments, in their place. The inference was that the murderer brought his own cricket bat or monkey wrench or whatever and had taken it away with him.

  She looked back at the photographs.

  Under the blood, Peeter Blame looked a sad old man, all dignity torn away. He wouldn’t be suing anyone any more. It was difficult to consider the victim as the mean-spirited curmudgeon all accounts made him out to be. The neatness of his garden and the trivial comforts of his cottage made him less a caricature, more pitiable than odious.

  She found a droplet of water in her eye and blotted it with her hankie.

  A siren sounded, loud enough to rattle teeth and shake every small object in the room. Then, from the Drome, she saw a cloud of white smoke as a large steel shutter opened, lifting a section of lawn to give egress from an underground hangar. A vehicle shot out of the dark, belching flame and crunching gravel. From a perch high above, the Aviatrix—fully winged— launched herself into the air and followed the flapping pennants of the Racing Swift, her scarf streaming behind her.

  The Splendid Six were off adventuring.

  Perhaps a personal call from the Prime Minister or an even more exalted personage, and a deadly threat to every man, woman, and child in Britain? A human fiend, almost certainly foreign, working some vast, subtle, nigh-unbelievable plot? Again.

  In any case, the Blue Streak’s latest wonder-wheels whooshed down the lane past the Hollyhocks—Catriona saw the All-Rounder clinging to the roof, huge teeth bared as the rushing wind slipped into his mouth and blew back his lips—and took a sharp turn, spattering pebbles against Mr. Blame’s collection of homemade signs (“It is Impermissible to Operate a Motorised Conveyance in This Thoroughfare”), and tearing for the London Road.

  It took long seconds for the noise to die down. Even then, Catriona could still feel it in her inner-ear.

  No better course of action occurred to her than to examine Blame’s remaining files. It would have to be done eventually, and she was in any case stuck.

  The first box-file covered the last three months of 1916. It was full to bulging, papers tied into packets and tamped down by a metal spring. A puff of dust suggested that the box hadn’t been disturbed in a while. She sampled some of the packets—several contained back-and-forth between Blame (Commander Blame, RN, he signed himself) and the Admiralty. She gathered that after having a ship sunk under him at Jutland, he had cooled his heels ashore while agitating for a new command only to be “retired” on the grounds of an unspecified, much-contested injury sustained in action. Blame’s letters, then hand-written (and hand-written twice if these were copies) foamed with indignation and barely veiled accusations of dereliction of duty on the part of those bodies who kept him from active service in the nation’s hour of direst need. He also had a bee in his bonnet about a particular type of propellor-screw in wide use which he alleged was susceptible to fail under certain conditions and should thus be withdrawn before further disastrous reversals affected the course of the war. There were many, many articles—laboriously transcribed by hand, rather than clipped—on this subject, and an exchange of heated debate in the public forum of the Times letters column. The minutiae of stress-points and knot-rates defeated her.

  Still, she could add Admiral Viscount Jellicoe and most of the Royal Navy, plus the letter column editor of the Times, to the list of suspects. Blame had begun his retirement hobby of bringing suit by naming them all in a massive, still-unresolved private prosecution on the grounds of “high treason.”

  The next two dozen boxes—four to a year—were more of the same, with a gradual shift as Blame turned his attentions from national to local issues. Mixed in with suits against bird-watchers, a gypsy tribe, the Kaiser (!), and the holder of the patent on a “faster” photographic plate which Blame claimed to have invented first were more innocuous items. Letters of welcome from societies concerned with local history, gardening, photography, and the welfare of naval veterans—which gave her the picture of an active, frustrated man casting around for a cause, for some form of companionship. With sadness, she found each of these involvements terminated in quarrel and, inevitably, a flurry of lawsuits. At first, he had acted through a London firm of solicitors, then local lawyers—of course, he had ended up suing them too. Finding few professionals willing to bring suit against colleagues, Blame had become an amateur enthusiast, representing himself on the rare occasions his complaints made it before the bench, whereupon they were almost invariably if reluctantly upheld.

  She was amazed to find Blame even successfully brought an action for breach of promise against one Maggie McKay Brittles, a barmaid at the Coat and Dividers. An addendum listed every expense he had been put to in his pursuit of a lass thirty years his junior. Maggie’s arm, muscled from pulling pints and cuffing drunks, could certainly have wielded a mean blunt instrument.

  Peeter Blame’s chair was not comfortable. Catriona’s back ached and she had only progressed as far as 1922. It was evening outside. Midges buzzed in the pre-sunset summer haze.

  A noise alerted her to the return of the Splendid Six.

  The Racing Swift almost idled on its passage back to the Drome, probably at a mere 100 m.p.h. A foghorn that might be sounded in Dover and heard in Calais honked as the car passed the cottage.

  Everything rattled again. She choked on the dust her investigations had put into the air.

  With renewed determination, she opened the first of the 1923 files. Still more of the same. Blame succeeded in proving that the members of a ramblers’ association on a walking tour of the district were technically subject to the laws concerning tramps and beggars, and got them jailed until their holiday time was up and they had to go back to office jobs in Bradford. By now, much of her empathy was washed away. She reimagined the crime as if she were stalking into the study with a length of lead-pipe in her hand and venom in her heart.

  The first connection of metal and bone was so satisfying!

  The second 1923 file felt different.

  It was nothing obvious—though a rough comparison made by balancing each box on her palm as if she were a human set of scales showed that the second box was much lighter than the first. In mid-1922, Blame had purchased a type-writer—the receipt was in the box, along with a writ against the vendor for “price-gouging”—and had switched from making two copies of all documents by hand to using carbon-paper and a flimsy second sheet. She could even see him learning to type—at first, his more impassioned passages (Marked by Use of Capital Initials and Triple Exclamat
ion Points!!!) tended to rip through to the flimsy, which must render the top-copy a stencil. That partially explained the change in weight and bulk.

  She tapped her front teeth with a pencil and looked at the type-writer, its case off, on the desk. The letters were worn away from the E, S, and T keys.

  On the lawn of the Drome, the Splendids—in cricketing or croquet whites—were served supper by a deferential staff whose livery included Splendid Six armbands. Occasionally, a braying laugh—Trimingham’s— could be heard. Between courses, there was a great deal of champagne flute clinking.

  Catriona hadn’t eaten since an apple on the train. Harbottle had said he’d bring a sandwich back for her, but had never returned.

  She stood up and stuck her fingers into the small of her back.

  She thought about foraging in the dead man’s larder, but that didn’t seem right. After being exposed to his personality for hours, she assumed he’d reach out from beyond the grave and sue her for pilfering. He’d probably also sue her for not identifying his murderer in double-quick time, usurping the powers of the police without real legal standing, and sitting in his bloody chair.

  As a compromise, she decided to make herself tea.

  The cottage kitchen was a walk-in cupboard with a sink and a stove, and cupboards that locked. She suspected Blame had duplicated the cramped set-up of some ship on which he had served. A hairpin served to pick the locks, which revealed single items of crockery—one cup, one saucer, one plate, one bowl, etc.—and tins of tea, powdered milk, cocoa, sugar, and so on. No major clues, though there was something heartbreaking about a man who only had one teacup, and disturbing also since she was about to make use of it.

  She got a fire going in the stove and set a kettle on it.

  The cup was clean, but best to wash it anyway. That done, she decided to do the same for the teapot, which was a little dusty.

  Dust!

  The second 1923 file had produced no dust-puff when opened.

  She went back, but it was impossible to check. There was moderate dust in both opened 1923 boxes, disturbed by her thorough search. She lifted the lid of the third 1923 file carefully, as if a live grenade nestled below. No dust-puff. The fourth file, the same. The desk was crowded now with opened boxes. She took a random 1926 file, and didn’t get a puff.

  Of course, the recent files—in more common use—would have less dust than the older ones, whose business was settled. But that didn’t explain what she could swear was a sudden change. It’s not as if dust became extinct or radically changed quality at the beginning of April, 1923.

  Dust gone. And the boxes lighter. That 1926 file was practically empty when compared with the stuffed earlier boxes. Blame certainly hadn’t moderated his habits; if anything, he’d become a more enthusiastic litigant as the years wore on.

  She chewed her lip.

  A whistle shrilled in the kitchen. The kettle boiling.

  * * * *

  She had finished her tea and her search through the files, and was sunk in a deep dark thought pattern, when a rap came on the window.

  She jumped, startled.

  Black knuckles pressed against the pane. A white smile gleamed through the glass.

  “I say, uh, Miss Kaye, it’s Dennis... Captain Rattray, um, Blackfist, don’t ch’know... we were wonderin’ if you’d care to join us at the Drome for a bit of a feed. Strawberries and cream, what. Hungry work, this sleuthin’, I’ll be bound.”

  It took some work to calm down. She smoothed her hair and her skirt, and constructed a smile.

  “That would be most pleasant, Captain,” she responded, her voice brittle and fakey inside her head. “I’ll just have to wash my hands.”

  “We’re terribly informal, I don’t mind saying. No need to stand on the old ceremonials.”

  “Dusty,” she said, showing her hands.

  Why ever had she done that! The answer was in the dust!

  Blackfist smiled and nodded. He was clutching his gem. His whole hand glistened like a bitumen cactus studded with flint-chips.

  She passed through into the kitchen, ran the tap over her fingers, dried herself off, and stepped out into the garden.

  “Lovely evenin’, isn’t it? So bally peaceful.”

  The Captain smelled the breeze and looked at his ease.

  “I say, bit of a scrape this afternoon, don’t ch’know. Frightful business in the fens. Viking skeleton fellers with axes like, well, like big axes. Some sort of a geas, according to Mystic Mary. Know what a geas is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cor,” he breathed admiration. “I didn’t.”

  It was a warm evening, but she felt a touch of chill in the air. Autumn coming. She feared for the petunias and roses of the Hollyhocks when the frosts came. There was no gardener to see them through the next cold snap.

  Blackfist offered her his arm and led her down the garden path, towards a small gate—once wired shut but recently opened by a few judicious snips, she noticed—that led onto the Drome.

  * * * *

  At the white filigree table (oblong, not Arthurian) on the lawn, Catriona found herself seated between Chandra N. Seth, the Mystic Maharajah, and Teddy Trimingham, the Blue Streak.

  Seth had piercing blue eyes in a carved teak, fearsomely bearded face, and his large, bulbous turban bore a sapphire to match. He reputedly possessed amazing mesmeric and mentalist abilities and had taught Houdini some of the most dangerous fakir tricks, but he also had a high-pitched voice and a strange way of adding “hmmm” to every sentence that would disqualify him from the talkies. Trimingham was squiffy on champagne and kept “accidentally” brushing her thigh as he described the various crashes he had survived. A matinee idol in photographs, his face close-up was shiny and oddly textured, except for goggle-shapes around his eyes. He was proud of the number of times he had caught fire and put out the flames by going faster.

  Though Blackfist still blathered about being terribly informal, Lord Piltdown had dressed for dinner in a tropical white tuxedo with a sunflower in the lapel and a white silk hat that perched steadily on his heavy brow-ridge, and Lady Lucinda had exchanged her flying gear for a backless silver cocktail number that cost more than a house in Chelsea. When the Aviatrix turned, Catriona saw the double-row of spiracles outlining her spine, dribbling liquescing traces of wing-matter. The goo was discreetly dabbed away by one of the maids with a towel.

  Clever Dick had chocolate all over his face and was explaining how he had known at once the afternoon’s phantom horde weren’t proper Vikings because they had horns on their helmets.

  “Any fool knows it’s a fallacy that Viking helms were horned.”

  “New one on me,” said Captain Rattray. “Bless.”

  Catriona drank good champagne in moderation and scoffed strawberries like someone who had missed dinner. An afternoon in the small and dusty study, not to mention the small and dusty mind, of Mr. Peeter Blame made for a shocking contrast with an evening among the Splendids. She imagined the camps eyeing at each other across the forsythia; rather, she imagined Mr. Blame glaring fury at the Drome and these fantastical creatures barely noticing him. At first. Their world took little account of Peeter Blames, and barely acknowledged Catriona Kayes. She was their guest now because she was seen as the creature—a step above a servant— of Charles Beauregard, who carried some weight in heroic circles even if he stayed out of the public eye.

  “I’m surpwised the Diogenes Club has girls!”

  She thought Clever Dick might have snuck some champers. Or maybe his brain boiled over on chocolate alone.

  “I think they would be too,” she said.

  “Girls,” repeated Clever Dick, eyes wide, sneer eager.

  Catriona noticed the Aviatrix’s mouth pinching tight as if she were restraining herself from slicing a silver salver across Britain’s boy brainbox as if topping a breakfast egg. For the first time, she felt a disturbing kinship with the flying woman. Then she remembered the Crocodile’s blood raining down o
n children’s faces and the taloned gloves; this rose had thorns.

  “How... hmmm... is your most excellent investigation... hmmm... coming?”

  She spread her empty hands.

  “As I thought... hmmmm... I shall concentrate my third eye... hmmm... and seek answer on the psychic plane.”

  “She’s orff again,” belched Trimingham. “Bloody Mystic Mary.”

  Seth pressed fingertips to his forehead, shut his conventional eyes, and hummed to himself. His gem glowed eerily.

  “It’s a twick,” said Clever Dick, smugly. “A little ‘lectric bulb. It’s not weal magic. Not like Wattway’s Fang of Night. That’s pwoper magic. The darkie does it all with twicks!”

  It occurred to Catriona that she had come across Chandra N. Seth before, under another name, when she was chasing fraudulent mediums.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s a trick,” said Lalla. “What matters is if it works.”