by Kim Newman
She dangled a hand in front of my face. My eyes and mouth were free of bandages.
That bloody jewel loomed like the sun and the moon and – most particularly – the stars. I saw the sparkling flaws, in the shape of the constellation of Ursa Major. I’ve never been able to see the Plough or Bear in it, just seven dots which look like a saucepan with a too-long handle. Now I had cause to wish myself upon some far star, rather than in a Kensington basement at the mercy of this monumental (if decorative) cuckoo.
Maniac Marge took the Queen of Ancient Egypt business seriously. To her, it wasn’t a racket, but a religion. Another lunatic, albeit more tempting... I’ve no idea why anyone would be willing to blow themselves up for Irish Home Rule or get their throat cut for the honour of a tatty Neapolitan statue, but a tumble with the fleshly incarnation of wicked Queen Tera might well be worth small discomfort. Though at this point, that was a distant prospect.
I tried to sit up, but had no joy. You think of mummy wrappings as rotten old things, but new linen bandages are stout stuff.
Then rough hands grabbed handfuls of bandage where my lapels would have been and hauled me half out of the coffin. The angry man beside Miss Trelawny had lost patience. He snarled in my face. He wore iron gauntlets and a tabard with a crusader cross.
‘Calm down, Marshall Alaric,’ said our hostess, both soothing and commanding.
‘He must be put to the Question! The Falcon must be recovered!’ the man demanded fiercely.
I thumped back into my coffin, bumping my head on a stone pillow.
Margaret patted me on the chest. If the ring had a smell, it would have been in my nostrils.
I realised I’d just met Marshall Alaric Molina de Marnac, Grand Master of the Knights of St John. It should have come as no surprise these people knew each other. There were occult, Masonic ties between the Templars and Queen Tera’s orgiastic cult. Rivalries, too, but a lot in common. They would have friendly competitions, like the Oxford–Cambridge boat race or the Army–Navy rugby match but with more sacrificed virgins and obscene oblations. Though – even after an evening in the basement of Trelawny House – it was hard to credit that Margaret could preside over anything more chaotically perverted than the piss-up which follows the Army-Navy brawl.
De Marnac, a foreigner, spat.
‘I won’t tell you where the Falcon is,’ I swore – knowing that, realistically, I’d tell him before he got to the fingers of my right hand. I can stick more pain than most but I’ve tortured enough to know everyone talks in the end.
‘It’s on your Professor’s sideboard, silly,’ Miss Trelawny said. ‘All London knows. Among other trinkets, you also have the Green Eye of the Yellow God and the Jewels of the Madonna of Naples. Once Moriarty took to collecting, word got round.’
Again, I should have known that would happen.
My hostess made a fist and pressed her ring to my forehead.
‘I can’t think what goes on in that head of yours, Colonel,’ she said. ‘Did you really believe you could just wander in here and take the Jewel of Seven Stars? It’s the focus of aetheric forces which have enabled me to endure centuries in darkness and enter this shell to live anew. I was hardly likely to give it up.’
‘You all say that...’
She slapped me, lightly.
‘You are asking yourself why we’re having this conversation. Why are you not screaming in a tomb, using up precious air?’
I did my best to shrug.
‘While we were going through your clothes, an odd item came to light...’
I had French postcards in my wallet, but nothing likely to shock Queen Tera Redivivus. The two-shot pistol holstered in my sock, perhaps?
‘Why was this in your waistcoat lining?’
She held up a shiny black oval. The Borgia Pearl. I remembered Moriarty patting me, and thinking it an odd gesture. Now, I realised he had slipped me one of his Crown jewels. However, I had no idea why...
‘Swapsies?’ I suggested.
Would she have the thing set in another ring? Wearing the Jewel of Seven Stars and the Black Pearl of the Borgias would be asking for double trouble... I’d been collecting cursed items for two days, and what had I got for it? Mummification and the prospect of burial alive.
The Marshall made an iron fist and aimed at my face.
‘Steady on, old man,’ I said, ‘try not to lose your rag.’
Of course, that was calculated to inflame him further. I’d the measure of the Grand Master. Wrath was his presiding sin. He launched a punch. I shifted my head to the side of the sarcophagus. Metalled knuckles rammed the stone pillow. He swore in French and Spanish and bit his bluish beard.
‘You mustn’t let things get on top of you, chummy. Try whistling,’ I suggested.
This time, he put his hand flat on my chest and pressed down. That hurt. Quite a bit. I didn’t consider whistling.
‘You are a puzzle, Colonel,’ Margaret said. ‘I don’t suppose you would consider... an arrangement?’
She pouted, prettily. The snakes set off her face.
In disgust, de Marnac left me alone. He had disarranged my bandages and, as I’d hoped, torn through a few. If you loosen one, you loosen ’em all. My sister Augusta knitted me a cardigan for my twelfth birthday which suffered from the same flaw. A tiny dropped stitch and the whole thing unravelled. I made a play of breathing heavily, expanding and contracting my chest inside the bandages. I fancied I’d be able to get my arms loose.
’employment with me offers “benefits” I doubt you get from that dried-up maths tutor,’ Margaret said, trailing fingers over my face. ‘A desirable package is offered.’
Leaving Moriarty’s employ wasn’t as simple as she suggested. And, when working for him, I wasn’t likely to be transformed into an ass simply by a wink and a shimmy. I knew myself well enough to know this would not be the case if I became an attendant to Queen Tera. When there’s a woman in the crime, you always anticipate ‘benefits’ but get dirked in the arras. I speak from sorry experience, to whit: Irene ‘that bitch’ Adler, Mrs Sarah ‘the Black Widow of Lauder’ Stewart, Hagar ‘Thieving Pikey’ Stanley, et cetera, et cetera.
‘The Falcon, the Falcon,’ muttered the Marshall, obsessively. There was something about these objects. You set out to own them and they end up owning you. Tera Trelawny was a ring wearing a woman.
Above, outside, there was a crashing, and a drawn-out scream.
I hoped for Simon Carne leading an army of Moriarty’s hand-picked roughs in a well-armed, brilliantly conceived frontal assault, intent on my rescue. But the quality of the screams suggested otherwise. No matter what disguise Carne wore, he wasn’t that terrifying.
Margaret and de Marnac exchanged anxious looks. I managed to sit up, arms free under the bandages, and wasn’t instantly slapped down.
‘What is that?’ said the Grand Master.
A huge shape blocked the doorway. A huge shape topped with a porkpie hat. A knocked-over lamp underlit a jowly, pig-eyed face which seemed to have melted. Big fists opened and closed.
De Marnac drew a sword.
The Hoxton Creeper tottered into the cellar, eyes fixed on Margaret, but not for the reason most blokes stared at her. In her open palm glistened the Black Pearl.
‘Who are you?’ demanded de Marnac.
The Creeper whistled the ‘Barcarolle’ from Tales of Hoffman. He had a tune in his head, too. As he advanced, he loomed bigger. His shadow grew.
‘Here,’ said Miss Trelawny, ‘Grand Master, you’d better have this.’
She popped the pearl into the back of his tunic and it disappeared. He reached awkwardly for the back of his neck, but couldn’t trap it. He wriggled, as if a bug were burrowing under his armour.
The Creeper wheeled about and stared at the Knight of St John. He raised his arms.
Margaret’s black prizefighter, blood streaming from his broken face, came into the room and laid hold of the Creeper’s shoulder, only to be shrugged off and thrown against t
he wall.
All the while, I was unpicking my bandages. I rose from the coffin. Bereft of jewels, I was of no interest to anyone.
De Marnac slashed at the Creeper, who blocked with his arm. The blade bit into the giant’s knotted sinew like an axe in wood, then wouldn’t come free. The Creeper got a hold of the Grand Master and twisted him round. The crack of spine snapping was louder than the squeak of scream he managed before the angry lamps went out in his eyes.
Something small, like a marble, rolled from his armour onto the floor.
Miss Trelawny looked at the dropped pearl. It fascinated her as she fascinated me – a nigh-irresistible urge to seize. The Creeper, too, sighted the object of his fixation.
I saw where this was going. And rooted around for the scimitar, which was lying on the altar. I doubted it’d be any more use against the Creeper than the sword he prised out of his arm.
The Creeper bent down and tried to take the Borgia Pearl.
It had not occurred to me, but fingers thick as bananas were a handicap when it came to picking up something the size of a boiled sweet. The Creeper scrabbled, rolling the pearl this way and that, unable to get a grasp.
I had a good two-handed grip on the scimitar. I judged the distance to the door.
The hostess took pity on the monster. She plucked the pearl in her delicate fingers and dropped it into the Creeper’s cupped palm. He peered at it, content for the moment – but also perplexed. He didn’t know what to do now. Then he saw Queen Tera. She stood up, magnificent. Her fluence struck the brute man like a bucketful of ice water. The Creeper’s eyes glowed too, with fresh adoration. Could Margaret cancan? With her long legs and that costume, high kicks would be worth seeing.
Like a queen, Miss Trelawny extended her hand. She snapped her fingers.
Shyly, the Creeper gave away his precious and stood back in worship. Would the transference take? I’d not be surprised if from now on, the giant’s heart beat to follow Queen Tera. If so, I was about to land myself in his bad books.
Margaret Trelawny again made a fist around the Borgia Pearl.
I ran towards her and scythed my blade down on her wrist, neatly lopping off her hand. She shrieked and blood gouted into the Creeper’s face. I snatched up the hand – still shockingly warm – before its grip could relax, and bolted for the stairs.
The giant was temporarily blinded. Miss Trelawny was temporarily distracted. The Grand Master was permanently dead.
I ran through the hallway, naked but for a bandage loincloth, streaking past dazed houris – the gilt had mostly rubbed off – and a sticky law lord. I nearly tripped over a spine-snapped corpse.
Why didn’t people just get out of the Creeper’s way when they had the chance? Miss Trelawny’s cringing staff would have to clear up more mess than usual. Mr Pears’ soap is recommended for getting blood out of your Egyptian altar hangings, by the way.
Still clutching my gruesome prize, I bounded out of Trelawny House. My cab was still waiting. The Creeper hadn’t done away with Chop on his way in.
‘Conduit Street,’ I ordered. ‘Chop-chop, Chop!’
I laughed. Chop-chop, Chop! I’d only needed one chop. In my lap, Margaret Trelawny’s hand opened like a flower. I took the pearl and the ring, and tossed the thing into the gutter for the dogs to fight over. If Queen Tera had all the powers she claimed, her hand might take to crawling after me like a lopsided, strangling spider. I could do without that.
It had been an interesting, eventful day.
XIV
I had a teeth-gnasher of a rage on. Often in the course of our association, I felt an overwhelming urge to box Professor Moriarty’s ears. Or worse. He had taken me into the Firm because – not to put too fine a point on it – I had proven myself more than willing to gamble my skin on any number of occasions, just to feel the iron rise in my blood and cock a snook at death. So, by his lights, I had volunteered to be put repeatedly in harm’s way and shouldn’t complain about it.
However, that little trick with the Borgia Pearl – slipped into my supposedly undetectable secret pocket – was typical high-handedness. Admittedly, things had sorted themselves out in our favour. Equally admittedly, if the Prof had troubled to inform me of the stratagem, I’d have refused to go along with it. All for risk, disinclined to suicide: that’s me.
Deep down, despite his genius, I couldn’t help but think Moriarty threw the pieces up in the air and hoped for the best, then claimed it had come out exactly to plan. It’d have been the same to him if the Creeper had crushed my spine or Maniac Marge had mummified me or the Grand Master had done whatever it is Grand Masters do to those who annoy them. He wasn’t notably upset by the fate of Runty Reg, and the lookout had been with the Firm longer than I.
Still, with a balloon of brandy and a fresh set of clothes, I calmed down and could even feel a pride of achievement. Every item on the shopping list was scored through:
1. The Green Eye of the Yellow God
2. The Black Pearl of the Borgias
3. The Falcon of the Knights of St John
4. The Jewels of the Madonna of Naples
5. The Jewel of Seven Stars
6. The Eye of Balor
Any one of these keepsakes would have been a premier haul, but six within forty-eight hours was a miracle.
The Professor stood in front of the glittering sideboard, hands out as if feeling the warmth of a fire. His head oscillated. Then, he clapped his hands.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No detectable supernatural power. These objects effect no change in temperature or barometric pressure. Miracles or malign mischances do not occur in their vicinity. They are simply trouvées men have arbitrarily decided to value.’
‘I don’t know, Moriarty,’ I said. ‘I’ve been feeling rum all day. I don’t say it’s the curses, but your Crown jewels have something. If enough people pray to the things, maybe they pick up juju the way a blanket gets wet if you empty a bucket of water on it?’
The Professor’s lip curled.
‘Whatever you or I think, plenty have invested so much belief in these prizes they’d kill or die to get ’em back,’ I said. ‘If that’s not supernatural, I don’t know what is.’
‘Foolishness, and a distraction,’ he said.
I conceded, with a shrug, he might be right. The wallahs who were after these pretties grew stupider as they neared their objects of desire. Even the Creeper, who was already an imbecile. At a glimpse of the sparklers, they lost habits of self-preservation. A fanatic flame burned in the lot of ’em. You could see it in their eyes.
‘One thing puzzles me yet,’ I admitted.
Moriarty raised a hawkish eyebrow, inviting the question.
‘What has this collection got to do with saving Mad Carew’s worthless hide? The heathen priests are still after him. After us, too, since we’ve got their Green Eye. Now, we’ve also to worry about the Creeper, the Templars, the Fenians, the Camorra and the Ancient Egyptian mob. We’re more cursed now than when we started and Carew’s no better off.’
Using a secret spyglass – which meant not presenting a tempting silhouette in the front window – Moriarty had kept up with the comings and goings in Conduit Street. Mostly comings.
We were besieged.
The gelato stand was open, well after the usual hours and in contravention of street trading laws. Don Rafaele Corbucci was at his post, though he’d dropped the tutsi-frutsi call. A gang of scene-shifters gathered around, including dark-eyed Malilella of the stiletto. They all stared up at the building, licking non-poisonous ice cream cornets.
The Pillars of Hercules had fallen ominously silent, but stout Sons of Erin loitered outside, whittling on cudgels. Among them, I distinguished a tall, better-dressed goon with a bright-green bowler hat and a temperance ribbon. Tyrone Mountmain, with a pocketful of dynamite. Aunt Sophonisiba was there too. No one quaffed from the flask she offered round, disproving the old saw that an Irishman will drink anything if it’s free.
The armoure
d monks held their corner. Bereft of a Grand Master, they still had vows to uphold. Moriarty said a new Grand Master would be elected within hours. The Knights of St John openly held swords and crossbows. We’d already had a bolt through the window.
A dark carriage was parked across the street. In it, a veiled woman with an alabaster hand sat alongside a grim giant. Margaret Trelawny and the Creeper remained, at least for the moment, an unlikely item. How had she got the hand so quickly? A few of her cult-followers stood about, fancy dress under their coats. Slaves, I suppose.
As for our original persecutors, the priests of the little yellow god... some of the rubbish heaps stood up on brown legs. A troupe of Nepalese street jugglers put on a poor show. Did they feel crowded by the presence of so many other groups of our enemies?
A pair of constables, on their regular beat, took a look at the assembled factions, about-turned and strolled away rapidly.
‘I suppose we can only die once,’ I said. ‘I’ll fetch out the rifle with telescope sights. I can put half a dozen bastards down before they take cover. Starting with Temperance Ty, I think...’
‘You will do no such thing, Moran.’
The Professor had something up his sleeve.
The doorbell rang. I adjusted the spyglass to see which fanatic was calling. It was only Alf Bassick, with a large carpet bag, back from Rotherhithe.
I pulled a lever which – by a system of pulleys and electric currents – unlocked our front door. Moriarty had designed the system himself. Wood panelling over sheet steel, our entrance was more impregnable than the vaults of Box Brothers. Even the dynamite boyos would have trouble shifting it.
Bassick didn’t immediately come upstairs.
Moriarty told me to go down and determine the cause of the delay.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw Bassick was stretched out on our hall mat with a Nepalese dagger stuck between his shoulders. If we’d sent Carne on Bassick’s errand, he might have come through it – that fake hump at least protected his back. It was after midnight. The besieging forces were bolder.