The Somnambulist v-1

by Jonathan Barnes

  The Somnambulist drained his final glass of milk, gathered chalk and blackboard to him and, with ponderous dignity, pulled himself to his feet.

  “See you tomorrow?” Moon called out hopefully. “For the seance?”

  The Somnambulist loped grumpily away, heading for his suite. They had not shared a room since the theatre blaze — a hotel as exclusive as this seemed to draw the line at bunk beds.

  In the morning, a gruff kind of rapprochement took place. The Somnambulist scrawled what might generously be construed as an apology, Moon plied him with further assurances and it was in the spirit of uneasy truce that they set off after lunch for Tooting Bec.

  Madame Innocenti was waiting for them on the steps of her shabby house. “Gentlemen,” she said, all smiles. “So pleased you’ve come back to us.”

  Moon bowed his head and said politely: “Mrs. Bagshaw.”

  The woman froze and Moon saw a look of fear pass across her face, but she recovered her composure almost immediately and walked into the house as though nothing had happened. As they moved down the corridor and toward the seance room, Innocenti’s husband lurched from the shadows where he had obviously been eavesdropping, and shot them a look of pure animosity.

  The seance took place exactly as before and Moon even recognized some of the same faces — Ellis Lister and the widow Erskine. With them were an elderly couple and a grim-faced, lugubrious man in mourning for his wife. In other words, the usual parade of misfits and delusionals desperate for their pain to be soothed away by the coos and sweet nothings of their hostess.

  After half an hour or so of meaningless socializing, handshakes, introductions, tea and biscuits, the seance began in earnest, everything exactly the same as before — Madame Innocenti at the head of the table, the swift assumption of her Corcoran voice, those same nebulous, artfully worded missives from the spirit world. She turned first to Mrs. Erskine. “To whom do you wish to speak?” she asked, in the Spaniard’s familiarly punctilious tones.

  “My boy,” Mrs. Erskine said, her voice weary and thin. “My little ‘un. Billy. Sixteen when he died.”

  “Billy?” Corcoran whispered. “Billy? Is there a Billy Erskine amongst the spirits?”

  Pause. Then, predictably: “Mother? Innocenti managed a passable impression of a young man’s voice, cracked and unsure of its register.

  “Billy?” Mrs. Erskine asked, pain and hope intermingled in her voice. “Billy, is that you?”

  “Mother! Why have you come to me now? I’ve been here so long. I’ve been waiting.”

  Mrs. Erskine sobbed. “I’m sorry, Billy. Can you forgive me?”

  “Will you join me soon? It’s warm here and soft. You’ll like it, Mother, I know you will.” His voice had acquired a plaintive, wheedling tone. “But what’s happened to you, Mother? You seem, so old.”

  Erskine sobbed again and Madame Innocenti murmured: “Mother, I love you.”

  This exchange continued for what felt like hours and Moon felt himself on the verge of nodding off into a light doze when he heard the mention of his own name.

  “Mr. Moon?” It was Innocenti in her Corcoran persona.

  “Senor,” Moon replied. “Such a pleasure to meet you again.”

  “I wish I could say the same. Seven days to go and you haven’t done a damned thing.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “In little more than a week this city will be set ablaze and you’ve done nothing to stop it. The spirits are afraid, Mr. Moon. London is in great peril.”

  “So people keep telling me.”

  “Honeyman was a hook. You’ve taken the bait and you don’t even realize it. You’re being used.”

  “Go on.”

  “Underground.” Corcoran’s tone became more forceful. “Danger underground.”

  “Danger?”

  Madame Innocenti arched her back. Moon and the Somnambulist felt her hands begin to tremble violently, as though galvanized by some invisible force. “The death of the city approaches,” she chattered. “The poet dreams uneasy in his cot. The conspiracy moves against you. The sleeper wakes.”

  Despite his skepticism, Moon found himself enthralled. “What do you mean?”

  “Skimpole is a pawn. You are their target. And it is you who are to blame.”

  Moon and I discussed Madame Innocenti’s warnings at length. Of course, they sounded every bit as recondite and oracular as one might expect but they were also astonishingly accurate on a number of key points. Moon argued for a time — trying more to convince himself than me, I fancy — that she might have obtained the majority of the details from Skimpole, Lister or someone of that ilk, but in the end we were forced to accept that Madame Innocenti may well have been the real thing.

  Innocenti opened her eyes and what happened next took even Moon by surprise. Later, no one could be entirely certain what they had seen and witnesses disagreed on all but the most basic facts. Moon himself believed the Innocenti’s eyes suddenly turned a profound shade of scarlet, others that they had become green or an iridescent yellow, and Mrs. Erskine insisted (though her testimony, as you will shortly discover, is not entirely to be trusted) that they turned a ghastly black. The color itself, of course, is not important. What is significant is that something remarkable, something unquestionably preternatural, took place.

  The medium screamed and fell to the ground where she lay in deathly silence. Some present even claimed to have seen tendrils of smoke emerge from her mouth and nostrils, as though some terrible engine were exhausting itself within her.

  The spell was swiftly broken. Mrs. Erskine, a septuagenarian at the very least, leapt — genuinely leapt — to her feet and bounded around the table toward the psychic, whereupon she pulled the woman to her feet and slapped her hard in the face.

  “Ann Bagshaw?” Erskine said, declaiming her words like a policeman collaring a suspect.

  Madame Innocenti relaxed and her eyes returned to their everyday shade. “Not any more.”

  Mrs. Erskine turned to the other guests. “Ladies and gentlemen, forgive my intrusion. I represent the Vigilance Committee.”

  There were rumbles of disapproval from the faithful at this, but Mrs. Erskine went on, “This woman’s name is not and never has been Madame Innocenti. Her name is Ann Bagshaw.”

  The woman’s husband moved forward to protest but she waved him meekly away.

  “Today I apparently spoke to my late son,” Erskine said. “But I have no son, living or dead. If Mrs. Bagshaw is to be believed, I conversed this afternoon with a boy who never existed.”

  Innocenti recovered and seemed to direct herself not to her accuser but to Edward Moon. “What happened was real,” she insisted. “The warnings were real.”

  There was such consternation and general bedlam at this that Moon had to shout to make himself heard. “Please. You’ve not been told the whole truth.” A hush fell upon the room as everyone, psychic and punter alike, turned to listen. “Our hosts may not be exactly who they claim to be, but neither, I fancy, is Mrs. Erskine.”

  The old woman muttered something under her breath.

  “Look at her hands, ladies and gentlemen. Too supple, too smooth and unlined. Too youthful, I fancy, to be real.”

  Erskine glared, pushed past Ann Bagshaw and dashed from the room at a speed quite impossible for a woman of her advanced years. They heard her clatter through the house and escape out into the street, like a rat making its obligatory exit from some leaky and waterlogged old hulk.

  Moon turned to his friend. “Keep everyone here until I return. I’ve just realized who we’re dealing with.”

  Outside it had begun to rain heavily and before Moon had run for more than a few yards he was sodden and drenched. Ahead he could see Mrs. Erskine dashing desperately through the rain, seeking sanctuary in the murky streets and mews of Tooting Bec.

  The action of the chase took no more than five or six minutes but it seemed to both of them to last for hours. As the rain pelted down in unforgiving sheet
s, Moon could see no more than a few yards in front of him, but dashed on regardless, pushing past umbrellaed pedestrians, pursuing Erskine by sheer instinct, a tracker dog after a scent.

  He finally cornered her in an alley. Like weary boxers after the final bell, they stood panting and embarrassed at his anticlimactic finish to their flight. Mrs. Erskine’s make-up had been all but obliterated by the rain — dye, powder and greasepaint streaked down her face, its thick lines of color lending her the appearance of a clown caught in a thunderstorm. From behind the remnants of Mrs. Erskine a much younger woman peered out — in her early thirties, not quite pretty (she had too large a nose for that), but the hint of a pulchritudinous figure was apparent in the sopping, clinging silhouette of the old lady’s clothes.

  Moon stared, his suspicions confirmed, and caught somewhere between shock and elation, he felt violently sick. “It is you!” he cried. “Oh my dear. You’ve come back to me.” He sank to his knees. “Oh my darling. Oh my angel.”

  She looked down, her eyes cold and devoid of pity. “You’re embarrassing yourself,” she said. “Get up, Edward.”

  Chapter 12

  Mr. Skimpole had spent much of his life trying to be good. Naturally he’d had his lapses and temptations, as a younger man in particular, but nowadays he strove for a pure and virtuous existence, a life of temperance, decency and moderation, free from sybaritism and excess. But he allowed himself a single luxury — once a day, every day, he smoked a cigar. Of course, there was nothing ordinary about his vice; these cigars belonged to an exclusive brand beloved of the connoisseur, imported at great expense from an obscure region of Turkey and sold only to a select few customers through a deliriously overpriced shop in the center of the city.

  Skimpole took out his cigar and rubbed it beneath his nose, making a great show of smelling it. He had never entirely understood the necessity of this olfactory ritual but he always did it anyway, going through the motions for the benefit of any cigar experts who might coincidentally be watching. He pushed the thick brown tube gently into his mouth, felt it slide smoothly between his teeth and let out a small sigh of pleasure.

  Moon and the Somnambulist sat opposite him at the edge of the bar observing his performance, their expressions pitched somewhere between amusement and distaste.

  “Forgive me,” the albino murmured. “A small failing.” He savored the sensation of the smoke as it coiled its way down his throat, the rich, dry scent of it sinking deeper into his body, and he shuddered a little with joy. “The Innocenti problem. My sources suggest that she and her husband left the country two days ago, just after you caused that fracas in her parlor. We think they were bound for New York but I’m rather afraid we’ve lost them.”

  “It was not my doing,” Moon said tightly. “She was exposed before I could act.”

  Skimpole dabbed self-consciously at the corners of his eyes. “I gather there was some involvement from the Vigilance Committee.”

  “Correct.”

  “What’s your opinion? Do you think her warnings were real?”

  “I ought not to. I should be able to dismiss her as a charlatan and a fraud. But there are questions. The things I saw… The Fly…”

  “I consider myself a man open to the improbable,” Skimpole went on. “I don’t see how Bagshaw could have obtained the information she did without some kind of — how shall we say? — some supernatural advantage. Some etheric help.”

  “I agree.”

  Skimpole snorted. “I should say that the Vigilance Committee have a reputation. I’ve heard it suggested that if they can’t uncover their evidence by conventional means, they’re more than happy to fabricate it. Just last year they planted sheets of muslin on a psychic we believe was capable of producing genuine ectoplasm.”

  “The veracity of the woman’s exposure is not in question,” said Moon. “But her warnings… bother me.”

  Skimpole shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sucked on what was left of his cigar, teasing out those final precious few drags.

  “She told me I was being used,” Moon continued. “Said something about a sleeper. Danger underground. In point of fact, Mr. Skimpole, she told me that you were just a pawn.”

  The albino finished the last of his cigar and left the butt to smolder in the ashtray before him. “I know my place.”

  “Something worries me.”

  “Madame Innocenti?”

  “There’s a connection we’re missing.”

  “What do you intend to do? You should know that whatever you decide, you have the Directorate’s full support.” He smirked. “We’re not an agency entirely devoid of influence.”

  “I need to see Barabbas again. He knows something, I’m sure of it.”

  “That can be arranged.” Skimpole rose. “But move fast. We’re running out of time. If Madame Innocenti was right, we’ve only four days before whatever it is happens. Incidentally, you may like to know I’ve authorized the first payment to your account.” At this, he mentioned a remarkably generous sum — even today, all but the most highly rewarded of public servants would not baulk at so substantial a fee. “Naturally, your stay here and all related expenses are being paid for by my department. You may divide the money with your associate as you see fit.”

  “Money?” Moon said contemptuously. “You think I’m doing this for money?”

  Skimpole stared blankly at him, faintly offended. “No need to be uncivilized about it. If you must, think of the money as a bonus. A gift from a grateful government.”

  Moon did not reply.

  “Work fast. And keep me informed. I’m watching.” Skimpole gave a formal bow and left the room. The Somnambulist pulled a childish face behind his back.

  Moon walked across the room to where a young woman sat alone, a glass of red wine half-drunk before her. The Somnambulist watched, unable to hide his surprise as his friend paused before the lady in question, exchanged some polite words with her, smiled, motioned her to her feet and brought her back across the room. When the stranger drew closer, he realized that he recognized her as Mrs. Erskine, agent of the Vigilance Committee — but made young, stripped of her disguise and dressed in clothes suited to a lady of elegance and youth.

  “This is my friend, the Somnambulist,” Moon said, and his pretty companion curtseyed in greeting. Moon grinned. “I don’t believe,” he said, his hand reaching for the lady’s, “that you’ve met my sister.”

  Skimpole left the hotel at a brisk, pedantic trot. Already late for an important meeting, he chose not to hail a cab but hurried through the city’s streets, half running along her crowded walkways and thoroughfares, darting in and out of shoals of pedestrians, pushing his way amongst swarms of indigenous urbanites. One might most naturally expect a government employee to head toward Whitehall or Westminster, but Skimpole turned toward the East End, careful at all times to ensure he was not followed, and headed instead for Limehouse and the Directorate.

  SISTER

  The Somnambulist scrawled hastily on the blackboard, then rubbed out the word and wrote again, even larger, bolder letters:

  SISTER

  Moon explained. “This is Charlotte.”

  Miss Moon smiled as winningly as she was able. “I’m delighted to meet you.”

  The Somnambulist frowned. He felt strangely as though he were in the midst of some elaborate practical joke and began to hope that his friend and the stranger would burst out laughing, slap him on the back and thank him for playing along. He sat patiently and waited for the punch line.

  “Is he really a mute?” Charlotte asked, rather rudely.

  “He’s never spoken to me. Nonetheless, it’s one of my fondest hopes that one day he shall. And I’ve little doubt that when he does he will astonish us all.”

  She gave the Somnambulist a cursory glance and seemed unimpressed. “Not as handsome as his predecessor.”

  “Believe me,” said Moon, sounding pained, “if you saw him now you would no longer call him that.”

 
; “I suppose not.”

  “The Somnambulist is a brilliant illusionist,” said Moon, doing his best not to sound patronizing. “Did you ever see the show?”

  “Three times,” Charlotte said lightly. “Once as an old woman, once as a drunken Pole and once as a dwarf. That last was rather a challenge, I admit. It’s not joke taking three feet off your height for hours at a time.” She paused and chewed her lower lip awkwardly. “I’m sorry about what happened to the theatre.”

  “Skimpole,” Moon said, as if that explained it all.

  “He really doesn’t like you, does he?”

  Moon looked away. “You never told me you were affiliated with the Committee.”

  “You never told me what happened in Clapham. I had to read about it in the papers.”

  “Must have slipped my mind.”

  The silence was broken by the familiar tap of chalk on board. The Somnambulist had begun to feel left out.

  DRINK

  “Capital suggestion,” Moon exclaimed, in an abrupt and unexpected burst of jollity. “Charlotte?”

  “Just a small one,” she said doubtfully. “Nothing too strong.”

  But Moon was already out of earshot and racing hungrily over to the bar. As he gave his extensive, expensive order, he offered the bartender his sharkiest smile. “Make sure,” he grinned, “that you bill all this to Mr. Skimpole.”

  Limehouse, unique amongst the districts of the city, does not belong to England. The curious smells which fill its streets are resolutely foreign in nature, its placards, signs and boardings are thick with hieroglyphics baffling to the uninitiated, and its people, whilst welcoming and well-mannered enough, are nonetheless alien and sallow-skinned to a man. If you’ve ever walked along its frantic, lurid streets, you will doubtless think of the place much as I do — as a piece of some exotic metropolis sliced from the Far East and set down wholesale amongst the boroughs of London, a vision of an impossible England where the Empire has fallen and the Orient is king.