by A. E. Moorat
His body jerked and writhed. He made a quiet moaning sound. Quimby stepped forward and dealt him a second blow, at the same time shouting, 'Perkins!'
Immediately the study door opened and Perkins came hobbling in.
'Eat up, man,' urged Quimby, stepping to the side, his hand to his nose. The smell of brain was already heavy in the room, a disgustingly sour scent. 'The bugger's still flapping about here.'
'That's very kind of you, sir, thank you,' said Perkins, reaching to drag Craven from the desk and to the floor, then kneeling beside him. Quimby fancied that in his very last moments Craven was somehow aware of what was happening to him; that he felt Perkins pulling open his shirt with a popping of buttons then nuzzling deep into his stomach; that the sensation might for a moment have felt warm and with the promise of pleasure, until Perkins' teeth sank into the flesh, tearing at the soft, tender meat that was there. Quimby smiled indulgently. He'd known that was where Perkins would go, having learnt of his manservant's fondness for the chest meat over the past few days. How peculiar; he seemed to have grown so much closer to Perkins since he'd died.
'I'm going to leave you to it, Perkins, if you don't mind,' he said then, his hand still to his nose. 'It's the smell of the brains. I find it most off-putting. Perhaps you could join me in the library presently.'
Perkins sat back on his haunches, mouth slick with gore. Beneath him, Craven was open from neck to groin, his insides out, shimmering and pulsing.
'Certainly sir, thank you sir, I'll just finish up here and be with you, sir.'
Shortly afterwards, they had sat in near silence in the library. Perkins, sated, had taken off his shoe and sock to give his leg some air. After a long pause, during which Quimby affected a faraway look in his eyes, though was in fact gazing at Perkins' foot, Perkins cleared his throat.
'Sir, I do wonder if you should have let him finish his sentence before you killed him, sir.'
Quimby, dragged from his erotic reverie, harumphed. 'Really, Perkins. I struck when the time was right, when the blackguard was least expecting it. What on earth could he have been about to say that was of any import?'
The answer, of course, was soon to come to them. It came in the form of a letter from a gutter newspaper journalist named McKenzie to whom, it transpired, Craven had given a copy of the photogenic drawing for insurance purposes.
It was a most tiresome development, especially as McKenzie had proved more adept in the art of blackmail. For two years now he had extorted from Quimby a great sum of money, as well as utilising his Lordship's connections in society, such as they were.
Quimby had, however, decided to put McKenzie out of his misery. Downstairs, in the club's basement, Perkins was waiting. In all likelihood he would be sitting alone in the servants' quarters; when he arrived other staff were apt to leave. Perkins had that effect on people these days. They tended to give him a wide berth. He bore a most unusual scent and he brought with him singularly unappetising packed lunches. Quimby dearly hoped that Perkins would be ready.
'Your Lordship,' said McKenzie, 'if you don't mind.'
Quimby glanced about the otherwise empty library. McKenzie did the same before quickly frisking Quimby for weapons. Satisfied his Lordship was not armed he indicated the chair and Quimby sat, smiling, thinking of the Flaubert a short distance away, Perkins below stairs, the wheels of the plan in motion.
McKenzie had a slightly abrasive manner and had thick whiskers. Nevertheless, the two men seemed to intuit that in different circumstances they might well have liked one another.
'Are you getting me a port, your Lordship?' asked McKenzie. 'Just to help keep out the chill.'
'Of course,' smiled Quimby, picturing his knife wafting back and forth on McKenzie's face, carving chunks of flesh from his stupid, fat, gloating visage.
After the port had been served and the waiter had withdrawn, McKenzie settled back.
'Before we get down to business, my Lord, perhaps I could prevail upon you for a little help? Some information if I may?'
Quimby frowned. Was it not enough that he was being blackmailed by this vagabond? Not enough that he had secured the blackguard membership to the club in the first place? What now? Pumped for information like a common source.
He sighed long and hard, indicating his displeasure, at which McKenzie smiled, indicating in return that his Lordship's displeasure was a particularly impotent weapon in the circumstances, pressing on with, 'What do you know of Sir John Conroy, your Lordship?'
'Very little. That he is the Queen mother's comptroller. That the Queen hates him.'
McKenzie leaned forward. 'Because...'
'Because he has made little secret of his desire to be the power behind the throne. It is said that when the young Princess was very ill he tried to force her to sign him up as her private secretary. Terribly underhand, don't you think?'
'How did Conroy come to be in their lives?' asked McKenzie.
'Ah, well he began by serving as equerry to the late Duke of Kent, some three years before the Duke died, and a couple of years before the future Queen was born.'
'And she has grown up despising him?'
'Oh, absolutely. She habitually refers to him as "the demon incarnate".'
'Why does she do that?'
'Perhaps she sees within him a darkness.'
'That's not the first time I've heard Conroy and demon in the same sentence, though I have a feeling that in the first instance it was meant rather more literally. It would seem, in fact, that of late there has been an unusually high instance of apocrypha involving supernatural events, would you say so, my Lord?'
Quimby squirmed in his seat.
McKenzie leaned forward. 'That night,' he said, 'it was no party that got out of hand was it, your Lordship?'
Quimby said nothing.
'It was the night of the accession, wasn't it?'
Quimby studied his fingernails. 'It might have been. I really don't remember the details...'
'Why?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Why should it be that evening? Why that night that your revenants attacked?'
'I really don't know what you're talking about.'
'That same night there were reports of similarly hellish scenes through the city, did you know?'
Quimby shook his head no. 'I read nothing about it in the papers. As far as I recall you were all doing special supplements on the King's death.'
'There was talk of a two-headed hound, perhaps you heard of it?'
'A two-headed hound? No, but...'
'Yes?'
'Well, I did see a two-headed rat.'
'A rat?'
'Absolutely. It ran right past my window.'
McKenzie leaned back in his chair, as did Quimby. Both were wondering if the other was joking.
'I think there was something abroad that night,' said McKenzie. 'I witnessed something the other night that makes me wonder if it is still abroad. And furthermore, your Lordship, I can't help but wonder if it involves Sir John Conroy and, perhaps, even you.'
'I see,' said Quimby. 'You think I'm in league with the forces of darkness.' He smirked. 'Hadn't you better re-think blackmail as a strategy, that being the case?'
McKenzie leaned back. 'If I were frightened, your Lordship, I would reserve my fear for the organ grinder, not his monkey. Now, I'll take my money, if I may,' said McKenzie.
Quimby, seething, palmed the purse then passed it across to McKenzie who placed it in his pocket.
'Actually,' said Quimby, 'I'd like the little leather purse back if I may. It's one thing giving you the money, I really don't see why I should have to keep you in little leather drawstring purses, too.'
McKenzie frowned, reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew the purse...
In the library was a dumb waiter, on which the staff received plates and drinks, and a hidden passageway, known only to a very select few. It was that secret passageway Quimby planned to use, using the knife hidden in the Flaubert to direct
McKenzie down the stairs and to the lower floor, where, joined by Perkins, they would march McKenzie to their carriage. They would then take him back to Quimby's home, there to install him in the cellar, which nowadays carried the reek of putrefaction thanks to the many corpses that had been deposited there by Messrs Burke and Hare junior, but was nevertheless an ideal venue for the manner of questioning Quimby had in mind. For there, McKenzie would be tortured. Quimby planned to brave the stench, perhaps with the aid of a face mask, purely so that he could watch and enjoy the sight of Perkins consuming parts of his nemesis until such time as the man, who would by then be experiencing almost unimaginable pain, would reveal the location of the photogenic drawing, after which Quimby would proceed to the location of the incriminating image and, having taken possession of it, return home and instruct Perkins to finish the job.
It was an almost perfect plan. It left virtually no margin for error.
Except that Quimby, affecting nonchalance, reached and plucked the Flaubert from the shelf, only to discover too late, that it was not Memoirs of a Madman, the English translation of Flaubert's autobiographical work, but Memoires d'un fou in the original French. Panicking somewhat he then tried to return the original French Flaubert to the shelf, only to fumble and drop the book, by which time McKenzie was already standing, dropping the small leather sac, now empty, to the table between them, saying, 'Good evening to you, Lord Quimby, I shall be in touch regarding the date and time of next month's meeting,' and exiting the library. Damn the man!
With McKenzie now gone, Quimby rushed to the dumb waiter, thrust his head into it and bawled down the shaft, 'Look sharp, Perkins, he has outfoxed me. He's coming down the stairs. We'll get him in the street, by God!'
He retrieved the knife and snatched up his top hat, then was moving over to one of the bookcases, getting his shoulder to it and pushing it open to reveal a flight of winding stone steps down which he hurried, taking them two at a time, to find Perkins at the bottom. Good. By taking the shortcut he would have arrived at the bottom at the same time as McKenzie and he and Perkins peered from the barred window of a tradesman's entrance below street level just in time to see McKenzie pass by overhead, his cane disturbing the thick fog, which swirled resentfully about his knees.
Quimby and Perkins looked at one another. Quimby grinned. Perkins did the same. Quimby looked at Perkins and touched a hand to his top hat, a signal that Perkins responded to by touching a hand to his deerstalker. It was to be silence from thereon as they ascended the steps to street level and hurried along the cobbles, trying to locate McKenzie in the fog that billowed about them, so thick they could barely see in front of themselves. Very quickly Quimby began to see the flaws in his latest scheme, because McKenzie was already out of sight; the only sign of him was the sound of his footsteps and the tap-tap-tap of his cane as he made his way along Pall Mall.
Quimby touched a hand to his top hat and motioned to Perkins to spread out, which he did, limping out into the dirt and effluent of the highway. They each moved quickly, bent low and struggling to see through the fog, desperate not to allow their quarry to escape.
He had his knife at the ready. The curved blade seemed to glow, hungry.
The footsteps and the tap-tap-tap ceased. Quimby whirled a finger in the air to signal a halt and Perkins stopped, his bad leg-Sugar's leg-dragging behind him a little.
Quimby sensed, rather than saw, that they had passed the first entrance to St James's Square. Where did McKenzie live? He had no idea. It was, of course, wholly possible that he lived off the Square and had already turned off.
Then: 'Who's there?' came a voice from inside the fog.
Quimby and Perkins bent lower, each of them tensing.
Silence.
The footsteps resumed. The tap-tap-tap. Quimby looked across, touched a hand to his hat and pointed forward. In response Perkins gave a faithful, toothy grin, nodding, and together they inched forward.
The tapping stopped.
Quimby whirled a finger to signal a halt, glanced over to see that Perkins had stopped, only just able to make out the figure of his manservant, despite the fact that he was just a few feet away.
There was silence. Quimby and Perkins hardly dared to breathe. From somewhere behind them came a clop-clop of horse's hooves, moving away in the direction of Trafalgar Square.
Then the fog directly in front of McKenzie seemed to eddy and part, and before he had a chance to react, McKenzie was upon him. From the mist came the flash of something that he only later realised was McKenzie's cane and he was sent sprawling to the ground with a shout.
A foot stamped down on his knife hand and he screeched in pain. Then McKenzie was over him, reaching down, taking the knife from his hand. For a second or so Quimby's thoughts were of his own death; how there were so many things he had yet to achieve, such as watching three women pleasure one another. But of course, McKenzie had no desire to do him lasting harm. He had no doubt read the fairy tale of the simpleton who slew the golden goose and McKenzie was no simpleton. Instead he silently disarmed Quimby and tossed the knife away into the fog.
'Sir!' called Perkins. On the ground Quimby heard Perkins dragging his way over to them.
McKenzie glanced up and Quimby used the opportunity to roll over, too late realising he had rolled into horse dung. McKenzie, meanwhile, had raised his cane. 'Perkins,' warned Quimby, but again too late and McKenzie swung his cane. The man must have noted Perkins' gait for he swung low, the swine. The crack as he connected was not that of cane with bone, but rather something else, and twisting his head to see, Quimby witnessed Perkins' false leg simply swept from beneath him with a splintering sound that he knew to be the wooden staples broken, and Perkins crumpled to the ground.
A face came close to his. McKenzie.
From close by an animalistic growling, the sound of Perkins, hungry and thwarted, all of that strength and violence and instinct going to waste. Quimby writhed with the frustration of it all.
McKenzie's breath was warming his face, the aroma rank with tobacco and alcohol.
'The price has just gone up, Quimby,' he hissed, then was gone.
XVIII
Buckingham Palace
Lord Melbourne sat in the sumptuous Blue Drawing Room, awaiting his daily audience with Her Majesty. Alone, he allowed himself to slouch a little, stretching his legs beneath the table at which they were due to sit and discuss matters of state, his elbow on the arm of the chair, chin in hand, thinking, a study in reflection. He thought, as he always did in such moments, of Caroline.
From somewhere in the room came the sound of a throat being cleared.
Melbourne jumped a little, an almost imperceptible amount, but a jump nonetheless and he rolled his eyes heavenward, sighing a little.
'Maggie,' he said.
'Aye, sir,' came the disembodied voice. Not for the first time, he wondered where in the room was her secret hiding place. Not information he was ever privy to, of course, but wherever she hid was confoundedly clever. Or did the woman possess some secret powers he knew nothing of? Invisibility? He stifled a smile. He wouldn't put it past her. The redoubtable Maggie Brown.
'If you're here,' he said, 'pray tell who guards the Queen?'
'Hicks and Hudson, sir.'
'You know I prefer it for you to watch over her personally. These are...uncertain times.'
'You're telling me, Prime Minister.'
'Oh? You have news.'
'Indeed.'
'And what nature of news is it?'
'Good news...for those enthusiasts of bad news.'
Melbourne sighed. 'Go on.'
'We've made some further investigations into events at the Cockpit. It seems the rats were targeting the boy, Hastings' stable lad, Egg.'
'Rats,' Melbourne shuddered. He hated rats. Not that he had ever met anybody that claimed to like them, but he strongly suspected there were very few who disliked them quite as much as he. 'You feel that these rats were in his thrall, Maggie?' he asked.
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'It would seem to have been an attempt on the boy's life, aye. And who do we think might like to see the boy dead?'
Conroy, thought Melbourne, who walked the galleries and halls of the Palace a free man, the keeper of the Queen mother's confidence.
The Queen mother who was, of course, the aunt of Prince Albert, who had so thoroughly captured the Queen's heart.
Some days previously, Lord Melbourne and Sir John Conroy had passed one another in the courtyard and Conroy had smiled a greeting, his eyes alive. Perhaps he thought he had every reason to smile, mused Melbourne, because he felt fortune was once again in his favour.
Melbourne didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.
'Anything else?' he asked, glancing at the grandfather clock. The Queen was due to arrive at any moment. For a few seconds he looked hard at the grandfather clock, wondering whether it contained Maggie Brown and she was at this very moment regarding him through means of a peephole at two o'clock.
'Aye, the boy.'
'What about him?'
'He remains lost.'
There were occasions during these conversations when her invisibility allowed him to express his disappointment more profoundly than had she been sitting with him. This was one of them. 'Oh, Maggie.'
'We've been doing our best,' she said, defensively, 'this boy does not want to be found.'
'Is he with the journalist?'
'Not as far as we know.'
Melbourne sighed. Egg had been seen speaking to the journalist moments before he fled. Vasquez, the team's lip reader, had not been able to see much of the conversation, but had reported Egg using a certain word.
Demon.
After that, said Vasquez, Egg had told the journalist McKenzie more, but she had been unable to interpret it. Whatever it was, it had sent McKenzie rocking back on his heels and Egg had used the opportunity to escape.
Melbourne threw up his arms in frustration. 'Couldn't he have been stopped?' he said, for what must have been the hundredth time. To add to their displeasure they believed Conroy was also aware of Egg talking to the journalist. Vasquez had seen his carriage nearby.
'We need to find this Egg, Maggie, for his sake more than ours.'