The Man from the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 01]

by By Kim Newman

  Arnold was less interested in the woman’s card than her ticket, which turned out to be Third Class. Not a sleeping compartment, but a seat in the carriage next to the baggage car. A trained contortionist with no feeling at all in her back or lower limbs might stretch out and snooze.

  The conductor told her this waiting room was First Class only. She wasn’t offended.

  “I don’t want to go in, ducks. Just wants a butchers. The vibrations are strong in the room. No wonder your train’s got so many presences.”

  The “Psychic Medium” craned over Arnold’s head and scanned the room, more obviously than Richard had done. She frankly stared at everyone in turn.

  “Evenin’, vicar,” she said to the saturnine clergyman, who smiled, showing rotten teeth. “Should have those fixed,” she advised. “Pull ‘em all on the National Health and get porcelain choppers, like me.”

  She grinned widely, showing a black hollow rim around her plates.

  The vicar wasn’t offended, though he looked even more terrifying when assembling a smile.

  Mrs. Nickles didn’t give Harry, Richard or the US Navy a second glance, but fluttered around Annette—’cor, wish I had the figure for that frock, girl”—and was taken with Magic Fingers.

  “You’ve got the Gift, laddie. I can always tell. You see beyond the Visible Sphere.”

  Myles didn’t contradict her.

  “I sense a troubled soul ‘ere, or soon to be ‘ere,” she announced. “Never mind, I can make it well. It’s all we can do, ducks: make things well.”

  Mrs. Sweet hid behind herTimes and rigidly ignored everything.

  Harry muttered, unnoticed by Mrs. Nickles.

  The woman was a complication, not accounted for in Harry’s “boring procedures.” Richard sensed the Most Valued Member wonder idly if Mrs. Nickles might step under rather than onto the train.

  The first time he’d “eavesdropped” on a musing like that, he’d picked up a clear vision from the Latin master; the Third Form mowed down by a machine gun barrage. He’d been horrified and torn: keep quiet and share in the guilt, speak out and be reckoned a maniac. Even if he prevented slaughter, no one would ever know. For two days, he’d wrestled the problem, close to losing bowel control whenever he saw the master round the quad with an apparently distracted smile and mass murder in mind. Then, Richard picked up a similar stray thought, as the Captain of the Second Eleven contemplated the violent bludgeoning of a persistent catch-dropper. With nervy relief, he realised everyone plotted atrocities on a daily basis. So far, he hadn’t come across anyone who really meant it. Indeed, imagined violence seemed to take an edge off the homicidal urge—folks who didn’t think about murder were more likely to commit one.

  “Ahh, bless,” said Mrs. Nickles, standing aside so someone with a proper ticket could be let into the room.

  A solemn child, very sleepy, had been entrusted by a guardian into the care of the Scotch Streak. She wore a blue, hooded coat and must be eight or nine. Richard, who had little experience with infants, hoped the girl wouldn’t be too near on the long trip. Children were like time bombs, set to go off.

  “What’s your name?” asked Annette, bending over.

  The girl said something inaudible and hid deeper in her hood.

  “Don’t know? That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Mrs. Nickles and Annette were both smitten. Richard intuited neither woman had living children. If Mrs. Nickles really was a medium, that was no surprise. Kids were attention sponges and sucked it all up—a lot of Talents faded when there was a pram in the house.

  Annette found a large label, stiff brown paper, fastened around the girl’s neck.

  ‘“Property of Lieut-Cdr. Alexander Coates, RN,’“ she read. “Is this your Daddy?”

  The little girl shook her head. Only her freckled nose could be seen. In the hooded coat, she looked more like a dwarf than a child.

  “Are you a parcel, then?”

  The hooded head nodded. Annette smiled.

  “But you aren’t for the baggage car?”

  Another shake.

  Arnold announced that the train was ready for boarding.

  The Americans jammed around the door as the British passengers formed an orderly queue. Annette took the little girl’s hand.

  The Coates Parcel looked up, and Richard saw the child’s face. She had striking eyes—huge, emerald-green, ageless. The rest of her face hadn’t fully grown around her eyes yet. A bar of freckles crossed her nose like Apache war paint. Two red braids snaked out of her hood and hung on her chest like bell-pulls.

  “My name is Vanessa,” she said, directly to him. “What’s yours?”

  The child was strange. He couldn’t read her at all.

  “This is Richard,” said Annette. “Don’t mind the way he looks. I’m sure you’ll be chums.”

  Vanessa stuck out her little paw, which Richard found himself shaking.

  “Good evening, Richard,” she said. “I can say that in French. Bon soir, Rishar. “And German. Guten Aben, Richard.”

  “Good evening to you, Vanessa.”

  She curtseyed, then hugged his waist, pressing her head against his middle. It was disconcerting—he was hugged like a pony, a pillow or a tree rather than a person.

  “You’ve got a fan, man,” said Magic Fingers. “Congrats.”

  Vanessa held onto him, for comfort. He still didn’t know what to make of her.

  Annette rescued him, detaching the girl.

  “Try not to pick up waifs and strays, lad,” said Harry.

  Richard watched Annette lead Vanessa out of the waiting room. As the little girl held up her ticket to be clipped by Arnold, she looked back.

  Those eyes!

  * * * *

  V

  Richard was last to get his ticket clipped. Everyone found their proper carriages. Mrs. Nickles strode down the platform to Third Class, trailed by sailors.

  He took in 3473-S. At a first impression, the engine was a powerful, massive presence. A huge contraption of working iron. Then, he saw it was weathered, once-proud purple marred and blotched, brass trim blackened and pitted. The great funnel belched mushroom clouds. He smelled coal, fire, grease, oil. Pressure built up in the boiler and heat radiated. A gush of steam was expelled, wet-blasting the platform.

  “Bad beast, man,” said Myles, fingertips to metal.

  As Annette said, his talent was to read inanimate, or supposedly inanimate, objects. He was qualified to evaluate the locomotive.

  “Got a jones in it, like a circus cat that’s tasted blood, digs it, wants more.”

  “That’s a comfort.”

  Myles clapped his shoulder, magic fingers lingering a moment. Briefly, Richard felt a chill. Myles took his hand away, carefully.

  “Don’t fret, man. I’ve known Number Seventy-three buses go kill-crazy. Most machines are just two steps from the jungle. No wonder witches don’t dig iron. Come on, Rich. ‘All aboard for the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe....’“

  Arnold blew his whistle, a shrill night-bird screech. It was answered by a dinosaurian bellow from the locomotive. The steam-whoop rattled teeth and scattered a flock of pigeons roosting in the Euston arches.

  “The train now standing at Platform Fourteen,” said an announcer over the tannoy, sounding like a BBC newsreader fresh from an elocution lesson, “is the Scotch Streak, for Edinburgh, and Portnacreirann. It is due to depart at seven o’clock precisely.”

  Richard and Myles stepped up, into their carriage. The wide, plush-carpeted corridor afforded access to a row of sleeping compartments.

  “You’re next to me, Richard,” said Annette, who had been installing Vanessa nearby. “How cosy.”

  He looked at Magic Fingers, who shrugged in sympathy—with a twinge of envy—and went to find his place.

  Richard checked out his compartment. It was like a constricted hotel room, with built-in single bed, fixed desk (with complimentary stationery and inkwell) and chair, a cocktail cabinet with
bottles cradled in metal clasps, wardrobe-sized en-suite “bathroom” with a sink (yes, marble) and toilet (no gold seat). A second bed could be pulled down from an upper shelf, but was presently stowed. From murder mysteries set on trains, he knew the upper berth was mostly used for hiding bodies. Richard’s gladstone bag rested at the foot of the bed like a faithful dog. His towel and toiletries were stowed in the bathroom.

  At first look, everything in First Class was first class; then the starched white sheets showed a little fray, and that grayish, too-often-washed tinge; the blue-veined sink had orange, rusty splotches in the basin and a broken plug-chain; cigarette burns pocked the cistern. “Kindly refrain from using the water closet while the train is standing in the station,” said a framed card positioned above the toilet. In an elegant hand, someone had added “Trespassers will be shot.”

  Richard thought he saw something in the mirror above the sink, and had to fight an instinct to turn. He knew there would be nothing there. He looked deeper into the mirror, peering past his pushed-out face, ignoring a fresh-ish blotch on his forehead, searching for patches where the silvering was thin. He exhaled, misting the mirror. Runelike letters, written in reverse, stood out briefly. He deciphered “danger,” “warning” and “fell spirit,” then a heart, several Xs and a sigil with two “A”s hooked together.

  “Made you look,” said Annette, from the corridor. She giggled.

  He couldn’t help grinning. She was hatless now, languidly arranged against the door frame, dress riding up a few inches to show a black stocking-top, shoulders back to display her fall of silky hair. She drew her “AA” in the air with her cigarette end, and puffed a perfect smoke ring.

  She drew him along the corridor. They joined Harry and Myles in the next carriage. The ballroom in Lord Kilpartinger’s day, it was now designated the First Class Lounge.

  Magic Fingers found a piano, and extemporised on “The Runaway Train,” which Annette found hilarious. She curled up in a scuttlelike leather seat.

  At the far end of the carriage sat the vicar—probably working on a sermon, though his expression suggested he was writing death threats to be posted through the letterboxes of nervous elderly ladies.

  Arnold passed through the carriage, and informed them the bar would be open as soon as they were under way.

  “Hooray,” said Annette. “Mine’s a gimlet.”

  She screwed a fresh cigarette into her holder.

  Arnold smiled indulgently and didn’t tell Myles not to tinkle the ivories. They were First Class and could swing from the chandeliers—which were missing a few bulbs, but still glinted glamorously—if they wanted.

  “Impressions?” asked Harry, who had a fresh folder open and a ballpoint pen in his hand.

  “All clear here,” said Annette. “We’ll live past Peterborough.”

  “This box has had its guts battered,” said Magic Fingers, stuttering through a phrase, forcing the notes out, “but we’re making friends, and I think he’ll tell me the stories. ‘The runaway train came over the hill, and sheble-e-ew ...”‘

  Harry looked at him and prompted, “Jeperson? Anything to add?”

  Richard thought about the little girl’s ageless eyes.

  “No, Harry. Nothing.”

  Harry bit the top of his pen. The plastic cap was already chewed.

  “I hope this isn’t a wasted journey,” said the Most Valued Member. “Just smoke-and-mirror stories.”

  “It won’t be that,” said Annette. “I can tell.”

  The whistle gave out another long shriek, a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan yell from the throat of a castrated giant.

  “... and she ble-ew-ew-ew-ew ...”

  Without even a lurch, as smooth as slipping into a stream, the Scotch Streak moved out of the station. The train rapidly picking up speed. Richard sensed pistons working, big wheels turning, couplings stretching, the irresistible pull...

  He had a thrill of anticipation. All boys loved trains. Every great mystery, romance or adventure must have a train in it.

  “... the engineer said the train must halt, he said it was all the fireman’s —!”

  Myles’ piano playing was shut off by a crash. The lid had snapped shut like a bear trap.

  The jazzman swore and pulled back his hands. His knuckles were scraped. He flapped them about.

  “Pain city, man,” he yelped.

  “First blood,” said Annette.

  “The beast’s impatient,” said Myles. “Antsy, itchy-pantsy. Out to get us, out to show who’s top hand. Means to kill.”

  Harry examined the piano, lifting and dropping the lid. A catch should have held it open.

  “Catch was caught, Haroldo,” said Magic Fingers, preempting the accusing question. “No doubt about it.”

  Harry said the lid could easily have been jarred loose by the train in motion. Which was true. He did not make an entry in his folder.

  Annette thought it was an attack.

  “It knows we’re here,” she said. “It knows who we are.”

  They were on their way. Outside the window, dark shapes rushed by, lights in the distance. The train flashed through a suburban station, affording a glimpse of envious, pale-faced crowds. They were only waiting for a diesel to haul them home to “villas” in Hitchin or Haslemere and an evening with the wireless, but all must wish they were aboard the brightly lit, fast-running, steam-puffing Streak. Bound for Scotland—mystery, romance and adventure!

  Richard found he was shaking.

  * * * *

  ACT TWO: ON THE SCOTCH STREAK

  I

  Over the train-rattle, Annette Amboise heard herself scream.

  She was in the corridor. The lights were out. One of her heels was broken, and her ankle turned.

  The train was being searched, papers demanded, faces slapped, children made to cry, bags opened, possessions strewn. She’d soon be caught and questioned. Then, hours of agony culminating in shameful release. She’d hold off as long as she could. But, in the end, she’d break.

  She knew she’d talk.

  Fingers slithered around her neck. A barbed thumb pressed into the soft flesh under her jaw.

  Her scream shut off. She couldn’t swallow her own spit. Air couldn’t reach her lungs.

  The grip lifted her off her feet. Her back pressed against a window that felt like an ice-sheet. She was wrung out, couldn’t even kick.

  She smelled foul breath, but saw only dark.

  The train passed a searchlight. Bleaching light filled the corridor. Uniform highlights flashed: twin lightning-strike insignia, broken cross armband, jewel-eyed skull-badge, polished cap-peak like the bill of a carrion bird. No face under the cap, not even eyes. A featureless bone-white curve.

  The boche had her!

  She tried to forget things carried in her head. Names, code phrases, responses, locations, times, number-strings. But everything she knew glowed red, ready for the plucking.

  Her captor held up his free hand, showing her a black, wet Luger. The barrel, cold as a scalpel, pressed to her cheek.

  The light passed.

  The pistol was pushed into her face. The gun sight tore her skin. Her cheek burst open like a peach. The barrel wormed between her teeth. Bitter metal filled her mouth.

  The grip around her throat relaxed, a contemptuous signal.

  She drew in breath and began totalk.

  * * * *

  “Annie,” said Harry Cutley, open hand cupped by her stinging cheek, “come back.”

  She had been slapped.

  She was talking, giving up old names, old codes. “Dr. Lachasse, Mady Holm, Moulin Vielle, La Vache, H-360 ...”

  She choked on her words.

  Harry was bent over her. She was on a divan in the lounge carriage. Myles and Richard crowded around. Arnold the conductor attended, white towel over his arm, bearing cocktails. Hers, she remembered, was a gimlet.

  “Where were you?” asked Harry. “The war?”

  She admitted it. Harry had been h
olding her down, as if she were throwing a fit. Suddenly self-conscious, he let her go and stood away. Annette sat up and tugged at her dress, fitting it properly. Nothing was torn, which was a mercy. She wondered about her face.

  Her heart thumped. She could still feel the icy hand, taste oily gunmetal. When she blinked, SS scratches danced in the dark.

  “Can we get you anything?” asked Harry. “Water? Tea?”