by R. N. Morris
And what of the conversation he had overheard in the lodging house? He had checked the file relating to the first of the young men to kill himself and it was as he had thought. Professor Pandaemonium was listed on the Camden Empire playbill that had been found in the pockets of his suit.
There was another source of indecision plaguing him. A rather foolish, possibly insane notion had possessed him. It was the idea that he would ask Miss Latterly to attend the music hall with him. His mind justified it to him on the peculiarly illogical basis that it would kill two birds with one stone. As if this were a good thing. As if, were he to voice such a sentiment to Miss Latterly, she would approve of it.
Needless to say, he did not act on this preposterous inclination. He merely contented himself with indulging in a deeply consoling fantasy of the two of them taking their seats side by side in the theatre, and turning to each other from time to time to smile their appreciation of the show.
In the event, he went on his own. As he always knew that he would. Perhaps he might have asked Miss Dillard to accompany him, had she not been dead. But then he told himself that it was probably not her thing.
She would not have liked the leery crowd, the flashy young men and their raucous women, all of them intent only on their own pleasure. As if it were something urgent and sustaining, something they would kill for.
A woman like Miss Dillard would be trampled in the rush.
And yet, paradoxically, the smells of cheap perfume, sweat and alcohol reminded him of her.
He took his seat as the house lights went down. A band of dusty tail-coated musicians with glazed expressions scraped and thumped and blasted their way to the end of a ragged overture. This was much more, he thought, Mrs Hargreaves’ kind of thing. He should have asked her! Why had he only thought of it now, when it was too late? Of course, there was the problem of the husband, but he was in no doubt that she would have welcomed the opportunity to get away from his tedious company for an evening.
There was a prolonged disturbance in the curtain, at the culmination of which a fellow in a garish mustard-coloured checked suit stumbled out, teetering precariously at the very edge of the stage as if he would fall off. He flapped his arms desperately to regain his balance.
His face was made up to draw attention to his eyes, which were held wide open and spectacularly crossed. Quinn could only assume this was Cross-Eyed Al.
‘Ah, yes … now I see you!’ Al announced to great hilarity and some applause, which the witticism did not seem to merit. Quinn could only assume it was some kind of catchphrase. ‘I seem to have misplaced the key.’ Al mimed turning a key, keeping his face deadpan, and his gaze unfocused all the time. He then mimed parting the curtains – or rather trying to part them. In his mime he became entangled in the imaginary curtains, as entangled as he had evidently been a moment before in the real curtains. For reasons Quinn could not explain, this was surprisingly funny. The audience lapped it up. Especially when he repeated the business of nearly falling off the stage, this time seeming to come even closer to disaster.
‘Just had an argument with the wife. It happens a lot these days. We don’t see eye to eye over anything.’
Despite himself, Quinn found himself laughing along with everyone else.
‘“Al,” she said, “Al.”’ Al mimed looking in various different directions. ‘“I’m over here.”’
More laughter, as he mimed finally locating his wife. ‘Ah yes … now I see you!’
There were cheers at the recurrence of the catchphrase.
‘“Face the facts,” she said.’ His pitiful expression provoked pitiless laughter. ‘“That’s easy for you to say,” I said.’
And so it went on. Until he ended his act with a rendition of ‘Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye’.
The Legs Eleven Dancing Troupe turned out to be six dancers with eleven legs between them.
The costumes of the five female dancers left it in no doubt that they were in full possession of both their legs. And there was much whistling and cheering at the sight of these shapely limbs. The one final leg belonged to the only male member of the troupe. He was dressed in top hat and tails, with the trouser of his missing leg cut off and sewn up at the thigh.
He moved around the stage with surprising grace and agility. Admittedly, he carried a cane that he rather cleverly worked into his dance steps, without giving the impression that he relied on it. The elegance of his upper body movements and arm gestures made up for a lot. He knew how to extend a pose and hold it.
It was strangely impressive, but also unsettling. Quinn was glad when it was over.
The band struck up an arrangement of ‘That Mysterious Rag’. A flash pot went off, and a cloud of coloured smoke filled the stage. As it cleared, a spotlight picked out a solitary figure centre stage, a rather dapper man with a pointed beard and a completely bald head. He was looking down at an oversized pocket watch which he held in his hand. At a given moment, he closed the lid of the watch decisively, pocketed it and looked up to face the audience at last.
‘It is time,’ he intoned, solemnly. He nodded once and the house lights came up. The audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats. There was some nervous laughter.
The man on the stage held out one hand in front of him. ‘Some of you will feel, as I raise my hand, some of you will feel the urge, the desire, the need, the overwhelming imperative … to stand up. Could I ask you, if you do feel that, as I raise my hand, upon the count of three, could I ask that if you feel the need to stand up, that you do, please, indeed, rise to your feet. I will begin counting to three now, and at the end of counting to three I will raise my hand. One, two, three …’
The man slowly raised his hand, and at the same time approximately a quarter of the audience rose to its feet. Quinn was slightly disappointed to realize that he had no desire to join them. He briefly thought about faking it.
‘Good evening, I am Professor Pandaemonium. And you, those of you who have risen to your feet, will be my devils tonight.’
The man punctuated his speech with little confirmatory nods of the head. Quinn remembered that Blackley’s man Yeovil had shared a similar tic.
‘Now I know that some of you who stood up are only pretending to be under my influence, simply because you want to be part of the show. Perhaps you want to make a fool of me. But I warn you that you will end up making a bigger fool of yourselves. The truth is you only think you are pretending. You began by being resistant to the idea of another person taking over your will. But you are not able to resist the reality of it. That’s why you stood up. And why you made the excuse to yourself that you are only pretending. Very well. Tell yourselves that if you want. The truth is you will succumb more heavily than the others. In the light of that warning, if anyone wishes to sit down, now is your chance. No one will think any the worse of you.’
About half of those who had stood up took their seats again. One man seemed to waver between backing out and remaining standing. Professor Pandaemonium of course honed in on him. ‘You, sir, you can’t decide, it seems. Perhaps you would like some help.’
The professor pointed his extended arm at the man and lowered it. The man sat down. Then the professor raised his hand and the man stood up. He repeated the trick several times to the enjoyment of the rest of the audience. ‘Perhaps you would care to join me on the stage. I think you would make an excellent devil. Give him a round of applause, please.’
The professor used similar means to select around a dozen people from those who remained standing. ‘When I lower my hand, the rest of you who stood up can sit back down. On the lap of the person to your right. On the count of three. One, two, three.’ He lowered his hand and it was exactly as he had said it would be. The audience laughed. ‘Keep looking at my hand. On the next count of three, as I move my hand to the side, you will realize your mistake, and with some embarrassment resume your own seat. One, two, three …’
The act itself was as Appleby and Timberley h
ad described it. The ‘volunteers’ who went up on stage were induced to perform a variety of bizarre actions, in the belief that they were engaged in some ridiculous scenario or other. Quinn retained a grain of scepticism, which allowed him to believe that the whole thing was a set-up. He simply couldn’t see how Professor Pandaemonium’s meagre prompts and directions could be enough to persuade any halfway rational person to humiliate themselves in this way. Though, of course, if it was genuine, those participating would have had no sense of their own humiliation.
It was also true that some of what he said was inaudible to the wider audience. He would lean into them in an uncomfortably intimate way and whisper further commands into their ears. Quinn noticed that he had a habit of doing this with one ‘volunteer’ in particular, a young woman who just happened to be the most attractive of the females on the stage.
At any rate, the people around Quinn seemed to be in no doubt about the authenticity of the spectacle they were witnessing. He couldn’t help wondering if they were the ones who were being hypnotized.
Part of the pleasure, Quinn realized, was the way that Professor Pandaemonium made them dance along a line of transgression and taboo. He played with the idea of nakedness. Of amorous encounters between unlikely couples. Of prurience and lust. No one came out of it well. Not the victims, nor the ones who laughed at them.
It was as if he was forcing them all to face up to the worst aspects of their humanity.
Quinn flashed his warrant card at a harassed looking theatre employee and asked to be directed to Professor Pandaemonium’s dressing room.
‘Oh, God, what’s he done now?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
The man thought better of any further indiscretion. ‘Nothing. But you know, that power he has, it could get him into a lot of trouble, if he isn’t careful.’
‘I assumed they were stooges.’
‘Good heavens, no! You saw his act?’
‘Yes. I didn’t see how it was possible.’
‘Exactly.’
The man led him along a gloomy corridor and knocked at the last door on the right, which he opened without waiting for a response. ‘Are you decent, love? There’s someone to see you.’ He nodded to Quinn and went on his way.
The hypnotist was sitting in front of a mirror removing his make-up. As he caught Quinn’s reflection, his face seemed to register disappointment. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Inspector Quinn, of the Special Crimes Department.’
Professor Pandaemonium sat up in his seat to compose himself before rising to face Quinn. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Where did you learn to hypnotize people like that?’
‘It’s a gift.’
‘Can you hypnotize anyone?’
‘Some people are more suggestible than others.’
‘But if someone is highly suggestible, you can get them to do anything you want?’
‘I … what are you getting at, Inspector?’
‘You’re not in any trouble. I just need to understand … how it works.’
‘It’s not a question of getting them to do what I want. It’s a question of releasing them from the inhibitions that prevent them from doing what they truly want.’
‘You mean, barking like a dog?’
‘To some extent, yes. Even that. Civilized behaviour, the way we normally interact with one another, requires us to maintain a facade. A mask of humanity that deceives us into thinking that we are more than mere animals. But really that’s all we are. Clever, talking animals, who can move around on our hind legs. There’s a part of all of us that longs to return to a more primitive, a more honest state of being.’
‘Could you – or another hypnotist – persuade someone to kill themselves? Is it theoretically possible, that’s all I’m asking?’
‘Theoretically. Though I can’t see why anyone would want to do that.’
‘What’s your real name?’
‘My real name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ralph Clarke.’
Quinn took out from his inside jacket pocket the photograph of Malcolm. ‘Have you ever met him? Could he have come to one of your shows and been hypnotized by you?’
‘No, I don’t recognize him. Who is he?’
‘He was my brother. He died.’
‘I’m sorry.’
There was little point showing Clarke a photograph of the first man to die, the one who had had the playbill in his possession. The face was lacerated beyond recognition. But he produced a photograph of the second man. ‘How about him?’
‘No.’ As far as Quinn could tell, he did not seem to be lying.
‘Have you ever been inside Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, either as a patient or a member of staff?’
Clarke’s face darkened. He took a moment to reply. ‘I used to work there.’
‘In what capacity?’
‘I used to be a doctor. A psychiatrist.’
‘What happened?’
‘It’s a matter of public record, so I suppose there is little point trying to conceal it. I was struck off. It was said I behaved inappropriately with one of the patients. It wasn’t true but … There were lies told about me. My account of what happened was not believed.’
‘Did you encounter a patient called Timon Medway when you worked there?’
‘Timon Medway! He was the one who spread the lies about me. And after all that I had done for him.’
‘What did you do for him, Mr Clarke?’
‘I trusted him. I believed him. I believed that he had changed. That he wanted to help people now.’
‘I see.’
‘He betrayed my trust.’
‘You knew what he had done? What he was capable of?’
‘You don’t understand. In that place, he stood out. He was not just an extraordinary patient. He was an extraordinary human being. And he had a gift.’
‘A gift?’
‘I encouraged him. I taught him what I knew.’
‘You taught him to hypnotize people?’
‘He was helping the doctors. He is an incredibly intelligent and intuitive human being.’
‘He is a murderer!’
‘Has he done something? Has he …?’
‘People have died because of what you taught Timon Medway.’
‘It’s not possible. It was a therapeutic tool. To help people.’
‘You don’t place something like that in the hands of a lunatic.’
‘You don’t understand. He could get you to do anything. He didn’t need me. He could already do it.’
There was a knock at the door. Ralph Clarke appeared to grow agitated. He shifted nervously and made no move to answer. In the end it was Quinn who opened the door. He recognized the attractive young woman who had been the recipient of Professor Pandaemonium’s most intimate commands on stage. Clarke blushed and averted his gaze.
‘Go away,’ said Quinn to the young woman. ‘Go away, now!’
He shut the door in her face and turned back to Clarke. He gripped his throat with one hand, knocking a chair over and pushing him back against the wall.
Quinn leant all his body weight into the squeeze. Clarke’s fingers came up to prise away his grip, but to no effect.
Clarke started to twitch, his arms and legs jerking uncontrollably. He reminded Quinn of an insect in an ether jar.
Quinn knew that if he carried on squeezing the man would soon be dead.
He also knew that he had never wanted to kill a man so much as he wanted to kill Ralph Clarke now.
For no reason that he could understand, Quinn became fascinated by his own hand, the hand that was strangling Clarke. His fascination turned to horror. He almost came to believe that the hand had a will of its own that he could not control. He released his grip and shook his fingers loose, as if he were a violinist preparing to play.
The hypnotist slumped to the floor, rubbing his neck and letting out short, laboured breaths.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The thing was to keep looking straight ahead. That was what Alf had taught himself over the years.
Don’t look down. He’d been taught that his first day working for Larkins.
But don’t look up either. He’d had to work that one out for himself.
Maybe it didn’t get everyone the same. Maybe there were some steeplejacks who were spurred on by the dizzying sight of the open sky above their heads, pierced by the perspective of the stack they were climbing.
But the way it worked for Alf was to keep his attention focused unrelentingly on the rung of the ladder in front of him. Or if he was in a cradle, to concentrate on the square foot of masonry in front of his face, scanning for cracks, fingers tenderly exploring the weathered surface like it was a lover’s face.
If you needed to know how close you were getting to the top, you could always count. Count off the rungs. Count the seconds spent swinging in the wind. Count your mates above you. It always paid to know where they were. And not to get directly underneath them. He’d known men drop hammers.
There were some jacks who never thought about accidents. Or so they said. He’d been like that once himself. When he was a younger man. And believed he would live forever.
Accidents were what happened to others.
You couldn’t feel so alive. The kind of alive you only feel at 180 feet. You couldn’t feel that alive and ever believe in the possibility of death.
As if just feeling alive was enough to keep you alive.
And then it came. The realization, one day, that he was the oldest man in the firm. He became something of a celebrity. Everyone had heard of Alf Roberts. They’d written newspaper pieces about him.
Fifty-four years of age and the oldest in his industry.
The men who had been there before him. The ones who had taught him the ropes.
They’d all gone to the floor.
He was the one who taught the others now.
He was still alive. He wanted to keep it that way. The older he got, the more he wanted it.