Johannes Cabal the Detective jc-2

by Jonathan L. Howard

  “They’re ours,” he said, waving his pipe stem at Protheroe, who seemed to be asleep. “How dare those Grecians start laying down the law to us. To us. If we hadn’t removed the blessed things, the Turks would probably have blown them up or something.” He glowered. “You know what the Turks are like.” Chiltern had read history and had yet to forgive the fall of Constantinople.

  “How much does a Greek earn?” asked Tompkinson abruptly of anybody. “I mean, what does a Greek earn?”

  “Drachmas, I should think,” said Munroe, sketching Chiltern in profile. None too flatteringly, at that. “That’s what they use instead of money over there.”

  “No, no, no,” said Tompkinson, shaking his head emphatically. “I mean, What’s a Greek earn?” He looked around until he caught somebody’s eye. On this occasion, the poor unfortunate was Kay, the professor of chemistry. “About five bob!” said Tompkinson. Kay looked at him blankly. “It’s a joke,” Tompkinson explained. “What’s a Greek earn?”

  “About five bob?” Kay ventured.

  “No! You’re supposed to say, ‘It’s a bit of pottery’ or similar. It’s a pun! A … a … thingy. Earn, E-A-R-N,” he spelled out, “and urn, U-R-N. Sounds the same, but it’s different.”

  “Homophone,” supplied Munroe.

  “Well, good Lord, if you can’t take a joke,” said Tompkinson, and subsided into an aggrieved silence, for which they were all very grateful.

  “One should be very careful with archaeology,” said Enright from where he stood by the fireplace. Everybody stopped and looked at him.

  Enright was something of a mystery. Blakes was, as has already been intimated, a club of slightly unusual attributes, this slightness being of such a degree that nobody was sure exactly which attributes were specifically the unusual ones. There had been the incident of the whiskers in the water closet, and some of the members became very tight-lipped should the words “clockwork” and “Lord Palmerston” ever accidentally find themselves in the same sentence, but these were no more than the common eccentricities of any establishment. Enright, by comparison, was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a very tasteful Holland & Sherry suit. No one knew very much about him. He came highly recommended from a former member, and sailed gracefully and somewhat laconically through the selection committee. It seemed that the club was perhaps his only social indulgence, as he was never seen at any of the many parties that one attends in and about town. Attempts at gentle investigation into his past by having a word with his primary sponsor came to naught when that gentleman took a nosedive off Beachy Head after some share options turned out to be less than on the square. Even the committee had been reticent in discussing Enright’s background. Everyone made noncommittal noises about “salt of the earth” and “confidentiality” but seemed discomforted and eager to change the subject. Thus, it may be understood that all were intrigued about anything to do with Enright, and all listened attentively as he spoke on this occasion.

  “Careful with archaeology?” echoed Chiltern. “What’s that supposed to mean? One might as well say, ‘One should be circumspect with ornithology,’ or perhaps ‘There are dangers incipient in accountancy.’”

  “Here, here,” said Wilson, whose wife had run off with a chartered accountant.

  “Sorry, Wilson. Still, what do you mean, Enright, ‘careful with archaeology’?”

  “Just what I say. No more, no less.”

  “Good heavens,” said Clifton, folding his newspaper and putting his reading glasses into his top pocket. “I do believe there’s a story here.”

  “A story?” Enright took a spill from the pot on the mantelpiece, lit it from the fire, and used it to rekindle his cigar. “Perhaps there is. There is certainly a salutary warning to the curious.”

  “Don’t be so dashed mysterious, Enright,” chimed in Kay. “Is there a tale to be told or isn’t there?” Perhaps it was the impatience in his tone, but Enright shot Kay a warning glance that the chemist didn’t like at all. It was too late for discretion, however; the others had the scent of a yarn and would worry Enright like terriers with a rat until they had it out of him. To his credit, he knew an impossible position when he saw one. He warmed the brandy in his glass and took a sip as he considered his words. Then he began.

  * * *

  I appreciate that I seem something of a dark horse amongst you,” said Enright. “Only the committee know anything of my background, and I swore them to silence upon their word. I fear I shall have to ask the same of you.”

  This demand raised no eyebrows; if a shilling had been entered into a fund every time a member of the club agreed to tell a story only under the most sober promise of secrecy, it would by now contain two pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence (to cover Battersby’s tale of his cuckolding; everybody knew all about that well before Battersby did, so it was only worth half a bob). The assembly made its usual collection of incoherent mumbles to signify agreement, and he continued.

  “I have seen a great deal of the world in my forty years, sometimes rather more than any Christian would want to see. I was at Panisha in the year ’85, I was in the Guasoir Valley shortly after the Desolée Suppression and, on the occasion I am thinking of, I was in Mirkarvia during the rioting after the assassination of Emperor Antrobus II. I should point out that, at all these times — and others too numerous to mention — I was acting as a private citizen. My loyalties, however, lie with the Crown in all affairs. I am, I like to think, a patriot and I believe it is my duty to see what is to be seen, and report it to the proper authorities.

  “Good Lord!” interjected Chilton at this point. “You’re an amateur spy!” He looked around, aghast. “Another one!” He was always put out to discover that yet another fellow member was a spy, as he was about the only member who had never been one. He did, however, maintain hopes that one day a coded letter might accidentally make its way into his hands, or that a desperate government agent might hoarsely whisper some vital secret into his ear before succumbing to a knife between the shoulder blades. Then, he was sure, he would show his mettle and save the day. Towards this happy adventure, he read a good many yellow books, and bought a bowler hat containing a concealed camera. The others shushed him, and Enright continued.

  “The rioting was very ugly and threatened to turn into civil war at any moment. I stayed as long as I could, but foreigners quickly came to be regarded as agents provocateurs by elements of both sides and I found it necessary to leave. My departure was neither as ordered nor as leisurely as I might have hoped, and I found myself on horseback with a few belongings heading for the neighbouring state of Senza in the wee hours of the morning.

  “There was a … misunderstanding at the frontier, the border guards made fractious and suspicious by the events of the moment, and I was forced to ride on with bullets threading the night air behind me. I made it through unscarred, but my horse was less lucky. She was a skittish mare, all I could lay hands on at short notice, and she was creased upon her left flank by one of the guards’ wild shots. The combination of her fragile nature and the mild but stinging wound conspired to drive her into a frenzy of fear, and she bore me deep into the dense forest that is common in that part of the world.

  “I’d venture to say that I am not a novice in the saddle, but that nightmare’s ride filled me with apprehension as she bore me through the closely packed trunks of ancient and twisting trees as if the Devil himself were at our heels. There was no hope of controlling her; her neck was iron and she cared little for the bit that I pulled fiercely back into her mouth. She was beyond fear of a mere man. I was no longer her rider but simply a passenger. I clung onto her as long as I could and, as she tore blindly through the forest, I could not help but think of the tales my old Scottish nanny used to tell me of the water horses of her country that tempted the unwary onto their backs and then ran insanely along the banks of the loch, terrifying their hapless victims before plunging into the waters and drowning them, the easier to feast upon their flesh. That sta
rted me worrying about the streams that crisscross the valleys there, running off the mountain ranges that delineate the many pocket states.

  “And then, suddenly, it was morning.

  “I have been knocked unconscious before and am familiar with the small loss of memory that comes with it, so I was not unduly concerned that I could not recall precisely how I had lost my horse. Indeed, a wound on my brow suggested that I had been swept off her back by a low bough. I was, however, very concerned to discover that my clothes were filthy, and I found that I had a beard of several days’ growth.

  “As I lay there, I heard voices and, looking to one side, realised that I had been laid out in a clearing in the woods. My horse, that wretched beast, was tied up by a tree with two others and, by a small fire, two men were going through my saddlebags. I have a small gift for languages, but their parochial dialect of Mirkarvian German was difficult to follow — salted as it was with Katamenian words — and only with difficulty could I make out what they were talking about. What I heard filled me with anger but made me apprehensive for my safety. They appeared to be bandits and had happened across me — they consistently referred to me as the baromarcu’ Ausländerfotz, a singularly insulting term for ‘foreigner’ — in a state of confusion. Seeing that pickings rarely got easier than an amnesiac upon an injured horse, they had ridden after me and knocked me from the saddle. They kept speaking of me in the past tense, and I realised that that they believed this second fall had killed me. In fact, it had restored me to my senses.

  “I remembered reading Mallory in my youth, and thought of the mad Lancelot lost in the forest. I couldn’t remember what happened to him, but I doubted he had recovered his wits to discover a pair of thieves bickering over his field glasses. I lay doggo and considered my next move. If they discovered me to be alive, I had little doubt they would cut my throat and consider it small inconvenience. I felt weak, and my wound — I had been fortunate that the bandits had not seen me stir and touch it — burned abominably, suggesting some infection. Fighting them was out of the question. Thus, I was left with little option but to continue to lie quite still and play dead.

  “After some further argument, the two villains finished splitting my belongings between them, took their horses — and mine — and made to leave. One briefly wondered whether they should bury me, but the other said to leave me for the wolves and bears. The first was unhappy about this, and I had the sense that he was superstitious about mistreatment of the dead, a courtesy he notably didn’t extend to the living. Thankfully, his companion was made of sterner stuff and belittled him for his fears until they both left, the former in a nervous dudgeon.

  “For safety’s sake, I lay still for several minutes after the sound of their movement had faded away. I was in a dilemma — injured, weakened, and lost without food or water. What was I to do? I’ve been in a good few scrapes in my time but, to be frank, none had seemed this hopeless, and it took a few moments to fight a sense of despair that arose in me as the gravity of my situation made itself perfectly apparent. Of course, I was able to rein such sensations back; despair is an enemy just as any other, but at least it can be fought with action. At which point I heard an animal moving close by.

  “I stayed perfectly still. Most bears, no matter what the bandits had said, are not especially interested in dead meat until it has become a little gamy. They are, however, easily antagonised and, judging by the sounds the animal was making, it was more likely to be a bear than a wolf. I lay absolutely still, eyes shut, and listened as the animal came closer and closer by degrees, obviously suspicious of the clearing. There would be silence for seconds, sometimes minutes on end, and I would think it had moved on. Then I would hear it again, still cautious, still closer. The blood was pounding in my head as my heart raced, goading me to leap to my feet and either fight or run. I knew that either course would almost certainly result in my death. There was nothing to do but wait.

  “Can you imagine what it felt like? Even now, I remember with perfect clarity what it was to lie there and hope against hope that whatever was interested in my prone form was not hungry at that moment. Then I felt its shadow fall across me, and I knew that everything would be settled one way or the other in a few moments.

  “‘You are quite the least convincing corpse I think I’ve ever clapped eyes upon,’ said the creature, causing my own eyes to snap open with surprise.

  “The ‘creature’ was a man, standing over me and giving me a look of such sour criticism that I felt faintly ashamed, as if caught in the commission of a puerile practical joke. I sat up and immediately regretted such rapid movement, as my head whirled and I felt dangerously nauseous. ‘Somebody’s been using your head as a punchbag,’ said the man, studying me coldly, as if I were but a microbe upon a microscope stage. He knelt by me, pulled back my eyelid, and studied the white. ‘Mild concussion,’ he said. ‘You’ll live.’

  “‘You’re a doctor?’

  “He smiled, and it was like a bloodless cut. ‘No,’ he replied, amused by something. ‘No, not a doctor. I haven’t the bedside manner for it.’

  “‘But you’ve had medical training?’

  “He seemed to find this line of questioning boring. ‘Self-taught, largely,’ he replied in a dismissive tone, before adding, ‘Look, we’re both a long way from civilisation and those brigands have horses. I suggest we appropriate them.’

  “‘Yes, you’re right, of course.’ After I’d floundered around on the ground for a moment, he deigned to help me up. ‘My name’s Enright,’ I said. He nodded and set off across the clearing in the direction the thieves had taken. He showed no indication of answering my implicit enquiry. ‘And your name is …?’ I called finally as I stumbled after him.

  “‘A closely guarded secret. Do keep up, Enright.’”

  Protheroe, apparently snoozing by the fire, muttered, “A curious cove,” before lapsing back into gentle snores.

  “As I walked with the stranger, I took the opportunity to study him. He stood around the six-foot mark, perhaps a little taller, perhaps a little shorter, but not by much in either direction. His hair was blond, a very Nordic blond that matched the faint German accent I’d detected in his speech. He seemed not to have shaved for a few days. His clothes were an odd choice for travelling through dense forest, too; he was wearing a city suit, and a conservatively cut one at that — it was as if a civil servant had been plucked from the streets of the government district and dropped in the wilds. I remember noting that he had a sorely battered and ageing red carnation in his buttonhole; when I pointed this out, he looked at it with surprise and said something about forgetting that it was there. He then plucked it from his lapel and tossed it away into the undergrowth with a sour remark about life having seemed to be a good deal more agreeable on the morning he bought it. All this said, I must have looked as ill-prepared for the rigours of the forest as he, and I made the natural assumption that he, as I, was a refugee from the troubles.

  “‘You don’t talk much,’ he said suddenly.

  “‘I thought we were trying to catch them unawares?’

  “‘Just so. Based on the evidence, however’ — he indicated a clear trail running through some bushes leading across a slope — ‘we’re not dealing with the world’s most cunning criminals. I’m hardly frontier material myself, but this … this really is pathetic.’

  “‘They probably think they’re safe this far from the beaten track.’

  “‘Well,’ said the stranger, ‘we shall simply have to disabuse them of that notion.’

  “We followed the trail until it met with a small stream running out of the hillside and turned up the slope. I was about to continue the hunt when I noticed that my mysterious companion had paused by the stream. I guessed that he wanted to get some water, which seemed to be an excellent idea. I crouched by the bank, scooped up a cupped handful of water, and supped.

  “The liquid was barely in my mouth before I spat it out again. I cannot communicate how foul that water
was.”

  “Well, at least have a go,” prompted Munroe. “Can’t be as bad as one of Kay’s gin slings.”

  “I say!” Kay said.

  Enright shook his head, and continued, “It didn’t simply taste bad; it was bad. As it touched my tongue, it was as if all the world’s corruption had gathered there — a horrible rancorous sensation that made my heart quail and touched my soul. I staggered back from the stream, retching violently.

  “‘As I was about to say,’ commented the stranger evenly, ‘I wouldn’t drink from this stream if I were you.’ He gestured to take in the banks, and I saw what he had already seen, what had attracted his attention. They were barren, completely devoid of plant life up to their upper edges, where a few stunted and somehow unwholesome specimens clung disconsolately. ‘There’s something very wrong with the water here.’

  “‘You might have said something earlier,’ I said, coughing.

  “‘I didn’t realise what you were doing until you’d done it,’ he said, and smiled that cold smile again. I was about to remonstrate that he’d had every opportunity to stop me when I abruptly realised something that left a taste in my mouth almost as filthy as that accursed water.

  “He hadn’t stopped me for a reason. He wanted to see what effect the water would have.”

  There was a pause while the usual mutters of “Cad!” and “Bounder!” were aired. “Then, to add insult to injury, he produced a notebook, presumably recorded the results of his little experiment, and said, ‘Let’s see where this comes from.’ We followed the stream up the hill in silence until it vanished into the earth in a hollow, overshadowed by an embankment. My companion knelt at the edge of the stream and tried to see exactly where the water bubbled out from, but there seemed to be a cave, for want of a better description, barely large enough to kennel a dog, overgrown with weeds that hung down from the slope above, safely away from the herbicidal qualities of the spring. Displeased with his vantage point, he lay flat out and peered into the gloom.