Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  ‘Blood,’ he dribbled, ‘in blood lies the generation, and the life, in blood …’ His voice trailed away, and his face twitched horribly before lapsing into stillness. In one hand he clutched a dark bamboo pipe; he held it up to his lips, and I saw a red glow in the bowl as he pulled on the smoke. All across the room now I could make out similar spots of glowing and fading light as the victims of the poison fed on their drug, perfectly oblivious to us and to all the world. They lay twisted and numb in fantastic postures, and they seemed to me – staring at them through the smoke – like the victims of some explosion of volcanic ash, embalmed in their death throes for all posterity to witness and to shudder at Such then did it mean, I thought, to be a subject of the mighty monarch Opium!

  ‘I have had the very finest of our house prepared for you, sir.’

  I turned round. Polidori, with a malignant grin, was offering me a pipe. His teeth, I observed now that they were bared, seemed very sharp. When he curled his upper lip, he assumed the character of some cunning beast of prey.

  ‘No?’ he said at length mockingly. He turned to my companion. ‘How about you then, sir?’ Again he curled his lips. ‘Surely you will breathe in our smoke’ – he paused-’Dr Eliot?’

  Eliot, far from appearing startled at this mention of his name, remained perfectly composed. ‘I gather, then, Mr Polidori,’ he said, ‘that you have been alerted already to our interest in you?’

  Polidori’s face and body seemed to twist with the joke. ‘I saw Headley this afternoon,’ he nodded. ‘He mentioned your and Mr Stoker’s call.’

  ‘Good,’ replied Eliot coolly. ‘Then you will know the purpose of our visit here.’

  Polidori grinned. ‘You want Mowberley.’

  ‘I see we understand each other perfectly.’

  ‘Not so, I’m afraid, Dr Eliot.’

  My companion raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

  ‘He is not here.’

  ‘I know that he is.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  Eliot shook his head. ‘If you won’t lead me to him, I will find my own way.’ He walked forward, but as he did so Polidori grabbed at his wrists, pulling Eliot so that the two men’s faces were pressed close together, and I saw Eliot wince from the stench of Polidori’s breath.

  ‘Release him,’ I ordered. ‘Release him!’ Polidori glanced round at me, and after a long pause stepped back from Eliot. His smile, however, if anything grew only more broad.

  My companion, in turn, remained as cool as before. ‘You will see,’ he said courteously, ‘that we are quite determined.’

  ‘Oh, quite!’ grinned Polidori, baring his teeth.

  ‘Where is your mistress?’

  ‘My mistress?’ Polidori suddenly laughed. He stooped his shoulders, and began to twist his hands round and round as though in a lather of servility. ‘My mistress,’ he moaned, ‘oh, my beautiful mistress! Lusted after by all the world!’ He straightened suddenly. ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

  ‘Whoever she is, whatever she is’ – Eliot paused – ‘you do.’

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  ‘You have lured two of my friends – you know their names – to this den of vice. Your purpose has been to break them – to win the secrets of their diplomatic work. What interest could you have in such an end? Nothing. Therefore – by a process of perfectly logical deduction – you must be working for someone else, someone with an interest in the parliamentary bill.’

  ‘Oh, Dr Eliot, Dr Eliot,’ Polidori moaned, ‘you are so terribly… clever! He spat out the last word; as he did so he sprang forward again, but Eliot cried out to me in warning, and before Polidori could seize me I had caught him by the arms. Polidori froze, a mocking sneer of contempt on his lips.

  ‘Now,’ said Eliot patiently, ‘I have no wish to make this unpleasant. I am not interested in tracking your’ – he paused – ‘what word should I use, if not your mistress? – your accomplice down. Merely tell me where you have Mowberley; then we can all leave each other well alone.’

  ‘Oh, how exceedingly considerate of you.’

  ‘I warn you now, I shall call in Scotland Yard if there is no other way.’

  ‘What,’ sneered Polidori, ‘and destroy the reputation of the noble minister?’

  ‘I would prefer not to,’ replied Eliot, ‘but whatever else he loses, I must at least preserve his life.’

  ‘It is not in danger.’

  ‘So you admit he is here?’

  ‘No.’ Polidori paused, and when he smiled he bared his teeth again. ‘But he has been, Dr Eliot’ He stepped back slowly, his eyes still on us and his hands upraised. Without looking round, he handed the pipe down to the old Malay crone; dully, she lit it for him and Polidori, placing the stem between his lips, drew on the smoke, three or four puffs. He closed his eyes. ‘It is very good,’ he murmured, ‘oh, so very good indeed. Men would come a long way for it.’ He opened his eyes again suddenly. ‘And they do, Dr Eliot. Believe me – they do.’ He smiled slowly and his lips, when they parted, were veiled by a yellow film of saliva. He licked it away and his eyes, which before had seemed clouded, were suddenly cold and piercing again. ‘You are too clever, Dr Eliot. There is no conspiracy. Men must have their opium-even ministers in the Government.’

  ‘No.’ Eliot shook his head. ‘You have lured him here.’

  ‘Lured him?’ Polidori sank back in a chair. The mist seemed to roll across his eyes again. ‘Lured him,’ he repeated, ‘lured him, lured him.’ He blinked up at us with an expression of sudden urgency. ‘I must have wealthy men,’ he laughed. ‘Men of means. West End gents.’ His laughter now was nothing but a stream of high-pitched giggles. ‘So yes – I lured them, Dr Eliot.’ He began to mumble again, repeating the phrase as he had done before. Slowly, he leaned forward and pointed an unsteady finger into my companion’s face. ‘But if they took the drug – if they took it – then that was their own responsibility.’

  His eyes, wide with a look of moral solemnity, suddenly creased and he subsided into spluttering giggles again. He lay in his chair and began to mumble at empty space. Eliot observed him with detached interest ‘See,’ he observed, ‘how numb the muscles in his cheeks are growing. The stupor he is sinking into is clearly profound.’ He glanced around the room. ‘This may prove easier than I had dared to hope.’

  He began to inspect each body where it lay, but at length I saw him stand and frown. He turned to me and shook his head.

  ‘Perhaps he is with the Rajah,’ I suggested.

  ‘Who?’

  I stared at him in surprise. ‘Why, Sir George, of course. Isn’t that who we are searching for?’

  Eliot laughed shortly at this – almost rudely, I felt. ‘Well, of course it is,’ he replied, and turned his back on me.

  I felt angry at this sudden brusqueness. ‘I am very stupid, I am sure,’ I told him, ‘but I fail to see why you must treat my suggestion with such utter scorn.’

  Eliot turned back to me at once. ‘I am sorry, Stoker, if I have caused you offence. Your contribution, however, was a laughable one, and we have no time to waste on debating it And yet…’ His eyes narrowed as his voice trailed away. ‘And yet,’ he repeated, ‘your line of reasoning was not, perhaps, as foolish as it at first appeared. No …’ With sudden energy, he crossed to the wall and began to move along it, pressing it with his hands.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  He glanced round at me. ‘With the Rajah, you said. Well, clearly, I laughed because there is no Rajah…’

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘No Rajah,’ he repeated, ‘but there is a Queen. Would she ever live in such squalor as this?’ He gestured with his arms and then, even as he did so, his gaze strayed to the brazier in one comer of the room. At once he crossed to it and pushed it aside, then struck at the wall which lay beyond. As he did so the old hag who had been staring into the coals looked up at him and began to shriek. Eliot ignored her as she clutched on to his coat, gibbering with fear;
I crossed and tried to calm her, but her fingers would not be prised free from the hem. She stared at the wall as though menaced by it; Eliot was stripping it of its dirty, smoke-stained hangings, and revealing behind them a rough wooden door.

  ‘She is coming,’ chattered the Malay, ‘coming for her blood! O Queen, Queen of pain and delight!’ She choked suddenly and her face was twisted by a rictus grin, hideous like a skull’s. ‘Oh, my goddess,’ she mumbled, letting slip Eliot’s coat as she raised her hands to her eyes. ‘My goddess of life – my goddess of death.’

  Eliot glanced at me. As he did so, I saw his gaze stray from my face and a frown crease his brow. I glanced round and saw Polidori was watching us. He was still slumped in his chair, but his eyes were open again and perfectly unclouded. Eliot unbarred the door and pushed it open; at once I felt cool night air against my skin, a blessed relief from the fumes of the smoke and its poison in my lungs. Eliot took a step forward; then he glanced round at Polidori again. He was still watching us, his eyes as bright and unblinking as a cat’s. Eliot took my arm. ‘For God’s sake, come on,’ he whispered. He turned, and did not look round again. I followed him through the doorway to find we were on a bridge. Below us, I saw water; ahead, a wall of brown and dirty brick. I glanced round again; Polidori’s eyes were still watching me. Violently, I slammed shut the door.

  I could feel a soft, cold drizzle washing my brow. Already, away from the fumes of the opium, my energy and courage were returning to me. I looked around again. The bridge we were on was wooden and old; it spanned a narrow stretch of water which clearly had once been used by merchant vessels, for there was a warehouse built on the opposite side. But there was only one tiny boat moored there now, and when I looked at the entrance out to the Thames I saw a row of spikes embedded in the walls, so that access was barred to any larger craft. The warehouse too seemed utterly disused; its wall was streaked with black and its windows, like those of Coldlair Lane, had been boarded up. I stared at it, and felt despair; it was clearly uninhabitable – we would find no one inside.

  Eliot, however, had already crossed the bridge and was picking the lock of a heavy wooden door. At length he stood back, and the door creaked ajar. To my surprise, I saw a crack of red light. Eliot glanced at me; then he passed inside and I followed him.

  And at once we both stood still again. I had been through many strange things that night, but nothing that compared with the sight before me now – and indeed, I almost wondered if I were not still in the opium den, trapped in the coils of some smoke-borne dream. For what we saw appeared a vision – it was impossible to believe we were in a warehouse at all. Instead we seemed to be in the hallway of some fantastic palace, and yet, no … hallway is not the right word, for it was scarcely a hall but something far stranger and vaster than that – almost, I thought, like a floor suspended in space, for above me the ceiling was obscured by dark, and the only walls I could distinguish were behind us and ahead. There were ebony doors in the centre of both these walls, and alcoves stretching away on either side. In every one was a statue and these figures, I saw, had each been sculptured in a different fashion, suggestive of a wide range of cultures and historical times, so that here an Egyptian or there a Chinese might be seen. Yet there was something similar about the statues, indefinable at first, and unsettling; I scanned them and realised suddenly that no matter how varied the styles in which their faces had been portrayed, the same expression was on all of them – sensual, and beautiful, and very cold. It was almost as though the statues were of the same woman; that was clearly impossible, yet even so it was very strange.

  I stared at the line of faces, and then I shivered and looked away for, foolish though it will sound, I had felt almost as though their eyes were staring at me! I peered instead into the shadows on my left and right. These waited beyond the light of the gas flames which spurted above each alcove; I could not see what the darkness concealed. On its margins, however, the delicate lines of stairways stretched up and down in impossible sweeps; impossible, I say, for they appeared to be unsupported by any structures I could identify, but to have been spun instead from purest gossamer, and patterned in filaments through the naked air. I could see no limit to them, neither above nor below – an obvious illusion, for the warehouse had not been especially large – and yet the effect was really quite remarkable. I turned to Eliot ‘Just think,’ I said, ‘how much money has been spent on this place.’

  He did not reply at first. He was staring, I realised, at one of the statues. It had clearly been fashioned by an Oriental hand, for it had the form and the garb of those Hindoo works of art which I have often admired in London’s museums. Yet this goddess, in truth, was of a quite different order of craftsmanship from anything I had seen before. Its face wore that mocking voluptuousness which it shared with all the other statues’ faces, and the effect was both repulsive and thrilling; merely staring at it, I felt my flesh begin to tingle. With an effort of will, it seemed, Eliot broke away from the statue’s gaze. ‘We must hurry,’ he said, turning to me. ‘We shouldn’t linger here.’ He crossed to the door ahead of us.

  He opened it and passed through; I followed him. Ahead, stretched a long corridor carpeted with rugs of vivid patterns and colours; the walls were red, inlaid with gold, and the doors which led off the corridor at regular intervals were again made of ebony. At the end of it, far distant from us, there appeared to be a door; and then suddenly, seeming to reach into my blood, I heard the sound of strings. I had never heard music of such beauty before. It drew me … it was quite irresistible. There seemed something unearthly about it, almost frightening. I began to hurry down the corridor. Eliot sought to restrain me; he held me by the arm as he tried each ebony door, but they were all locked and I was quite content that they should remain so. There was only one door that I wanted to open, and that was the door which would take me to the music.

  Yet no matter how rapidly I progressed down the corridor, I seemed to come no nearer to it. This was an illusion, of course – it must have been: it was likely that the opium fumes were still in my head and playing tricks on me. I paused and shook my head, to try to clear them, but the ebony door remained tantalisingly distant, and when I glanced back over my shoulder I saw that the door I had come from now seemed just as far away. I glanced at Eliot. His face was very pale, and beads of sweat were glistening on his brow. He tried another side door; the handle would not turn. He tried again with the next door; the same result. He stopped hurrying and leaned against the wall, wiping his brow. He stared about him and I observed on his face, normally so composed and restrained, a frantic disbelief. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Mowberley!’ he cried out. ‘Mowberley!’

  At once the music stopped. I blinked. Clearly the sound of Eliot’s voice had banished my opium dream, for the ebony door seemed much nearer now. I walked towards it and opened it.

  The room beyond was snug and painted pink. It might almost have been a little girl’s nursery, for a fire was blazing merrily in the comer and I saw next to it what appeared to be a doll’s house, and a stack of children’s books. In the centre of the room, however, was a large desk piled with manuscripts, and on the wall were pinned various maps and charts, some very old and clearly objects of study. By the far wall four men were gathered with musical instruments, violas and violins. As we walked in, they started and twitched, but they did not look up at us; instead their heads lolled forward onto their chests and their eyes, although open, stared at nothing. Their expressions, it struck me suddenly, were very like that of die helmsman we had pursued across the Thames.

  ‘Who are you?’

  It was the clear, high voice of a very young girl which had come from behind the piles of manuscripts on the desk. I glanced at Eliot, who seemed as surprised as I.

  Together we walked to the side of the desk. I could see now that there was indeed a little girl sitting there. She was a most exquisitely beautiful child, with long blonde hair tied by a ribbon and delicate features like a china d
oll’s. She wore a charming pink frock with a pinafore, and her white-stockinged legs, as she sat at her chair, swung to and fro. She was holding a pen, which she raised to her lips, and as she stared at us her wide eyes were almost comically solemn. She could not have been more than eight years old.

  ‘You are not meant to be here, you know,’ she said, with that self-possession so typical of children her age.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ replied Eliot courteously. ‘We are looking for a friend.’

  She digested this information. ‘Not Lilah?’ she asked at length.

  ‘No,’ answered Eliot, shaking his head. ‘We want my friend. George Mowberley.’

  ‘Oh, him.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be downstairs,’ said the child, her nose wrinkled in faint disdain.

  ‘Could you perhaps take us to him?’ Eliot asked.

  The young girl shook her head primly. ‘Can’t you see, I have my work to do?’ She laid her pen down neatly on the desk, then swung herself down from her chair on to the floor. She looked up at us. ‘But I will call Stumps. He can show you.’

  She crossed to a bell-pull and, reaching up on tip-toes, gave it a tug. Then she pointed to a door behind her desk – not ebony like the one we had come through but painted pink and white like the rest of the room. ‘There now,’ she said, ‘he will be waiting outside.’ She swept back her hair almost coquettishly, then returned to her chair. Before she could pull herself up, Eliot had taken her in his arms and lifted her on to it.