“No, I did not say that. I decided to call by, on the chance. But I take it he is not at home.”
He’s on the run, I thought. Packed up his remaining “wives” and headed for the Continent to hide out. Or maybe they were in Southampton, planning to sail to America, where he might hope to be met with open arms by the polygamous Mormons.
Eric Bailey shook his head unhappily. “The door is locked from the inside.”
“Perhaps his wife is not inclined to admit anyone before her husband returns.”
“Mrs. Smurl is an invalid. He has told me so often enough. She could not come downstairs to let him in—or to lock the door.”
“There must be another way out,” I said. “A back door, into the garden.”
There was a high wall and a locked gate barring access to the back garden, but this, of course, was small obstacle to a long-legged, strong, and agile young man. While we waited for Jesperson to come back and tell us, as I expected, that the house was empty, our quarry flown, Mr. Bailey and I looked at one another and then awkwardly away, finding nothing to say. A very long minute or so went by before we heard him coming back over the wall.
In the gloom, his face was ghostly.
“I think, Mr. Bailey, you had better go for the police,” he said.
On the side of the house, as he told us, there were French doors that served as the dining-room window. Looking in, he had glimpsed what he described as a tableaux of death. Although many details were obscured by darkness, the positions of the bodies—fallen across the table, collapsed in chairs, or in a contorted position on the floor—suggested they had all died quite suddenly and horribly.
“Bodies?” squeaked the guardian of the cemetery in horror. “But whose?”
“One man, five women,” he replied shortly. “Although I am certain they are all past saving, nevertheless—what is the quickest way to the local police station?”
We went with him but, as strangers to Mr. Smurl, were not detained. We learned the results of the police investigation only after they were made public and, although we did not agree with their conclusion, it seemed neither necessary nor wise to tell them so.
Albert Smurl was a respected local figure with many influential friends. The official verdict was “accidental death” caused by the ingestion of an arsenic-laced soup. There was never the slightest suggestion of murder—except amongst low-minded gossips. It could only be an accident. Mr. Smurl’s mother was known to be wandering in her wits. Perhaps, trying to be helpful, she had put what she thought was salt into the soup prepared by her daughter-in-law. “Who keeps arsenic in the kitchen?” was not a question anyone felt like asking.
The questions that were asked largely concerned the identities of the three unknown women who had been dining with the Smurls. From their closeness in age and genteel dress it was thought they were more likely friends of Mrs. Smurl than servants or impecunious relations. There was evidence within the house to show that they had probably been living there for some weeks or months, at least.
Newspapers cooperated with the police in requesting that anyone with missing female relatives of the right age should come forward. The postmortem photographs of the nameless victims were too unpleasant to be published but might be inspected at the local police station. I don’t know how many people came forward, but if anyone ever said, “Why, if I didn’t know she had died three years ago, I should say that was a picture of my neighbor’s daughter!” that news was not reported, and the identities of those three women remained a mystery to the police and public.
From the moment that Jesperson reported everyone in the house was dead, I felt relief that we had managed to rescue Alcinda, and sorrow for the other five women. I felt certain that Mr. Smurl was their murderer. It is, sadly, not unknown for men today to behave like savage kings of the past who insisted on taking their wives, concubines, and servants with them on departing this life. It struck me as just the sort of thing a horrible man like Smurl would do, to take his victims with him, when he killed himself to avoid having to face justice for his crimes.
I was forced to change my mind upon learning that the Christian name of Mrs. Albert Smurl was Violet.
Who was Martha?
After a search, I believe we found her false grave in Park Grove Cemetery. Her name, two years ago, at the time of her supposed death, was Martha Boyd Elliott, and she was married to Channing Elliott, a man who described her as his “dearly beloved wife, taken too soon” and had the words FOREVER IN MY HEART carved below her name and dates. This should not make any difference. The same horrible crimes were committed against the same people. Nothing has changed, but after this knowledge, I have to consider if someone can be a victim and a villain at the same time.
Although I am not certain if I ask myself that question in regard to Martha Boyd Elliott or Albert E. Smurl.
Certain phrases haunt me. I keep hearing Alcinda’s soft, sweet voice saying “I can’t blame him” and “He couldn’t help himself,” but also I remember a policeman who muttered, “Poison is a woman’s weapon.”
Neil Gaiman
One of the hottest stars in science fiction, fantasy, and horror today, Neil Gaiman has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, one World Fantasy Award, six Locus Awards, four Stoker Awards, three Geffens, two Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, and a Newberry medal. Gaiman first came to wide public attention as the creator of the graphic-novel series The Sandman, still one of the most acclaimed graphic-novel series of all time. Gaiman remains a superstar in the graphic-novel field; his graphic novels include Breakthrough, Death Talks About Life, Legend of the Green Flame, The Last Temptation, Only the End of the World Again, Mirrormask, and a slew of books in collaboration with Dave McKean, including Black Orchid, Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, The Wolves in the Walls, and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.
In recent years he’s enjoyed equal success in the science-fiction and fantasy fields as well, with his bestselling novel American Gods winning the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Awards, Coraline winning both Hugo and Nebula in 2003, and his story “A Study in Emerald” winning the Hugo in 2004. His novel The Graveyard Book won the Hugo, the Newberry medal and the Carnegie Medal in 2009. He also won the World Fantasy Award for his story with Charles Vess, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and won the International Horror Critics Guild Award for his collection Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany. Gaiman’s other novels include Good Omens (written with Terry Prachett), Neverwhere, Stardust, and Anansi Boys. In addition to Angels & Visitations, his short fiction has been collected in Smoke & Mirrors: Short Fictions & Illusions, Adventures in the Dream Trade, and Fragile Things. A movie based on his novel Stardust was in theaters worldwide in 2007, and an animated movie based on Coraline was in theaters in 2009. His most recent books include a picture book with Adam Rex, Chu’s Day, his first new novel for adults in many years, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, a time-traveling romp for all ages, Fortunately, the Milk, and, as editor, the anthology Unnatural Creatures.
Here he takes us deep into the surreal world of London Below, the setting for his famous novel Neverwhere, for an adventure that demonstrates that sometimes the clothes make the man—quite literally.
HOW THE MARQUIS GOT HIS COAT BACK
Neil Gaiman
It was beautiful. It was remarkable. It was unique. It was the reason that the Marquis de Carabas was chained to a pole in the middle of a circular room, far, far underground, while the water level rose slowly higher and higher. It had thirty pockets, seven of which were obvious, nineteen of which were hidden, and four of which were more or less impossible to find—even, on occasion, for the Marquis himself.
He had (we shall return to the pole, and the room, and the rising water, in due course) once been given—although “given” might be considered an unfortunate, if justified, exaggeration—a magnifying glass, by Victoria herself. It was a marvelous piece of work: ornate, gilt, with a chain and tiny cher
ubs and gargoyles, and the lens had the unusual property of rendering transparent anything you looked at through it. The Marquis did not know where Victoria had originally obtained the magnifying glass, before he pilfered it from her, to make up for a payment he felt was not entirely what had been agreed—after all, there was only one Elephant, and obtaining the Elephant’s diary had not been easy, nor had escaping the Elephant and Castle once it had been obtained. The Marquis had slipped Victoria’s magnifying glass into one of the four pockets that practically weren’t there at all and had never been able to find it again.
In addition to its unusual pockets, it had magnificent sleeves, an imposing collar, and a slit up the back. It was made of some kind of leather, it was the color of a wet street at midnight, and, more important than any of these things, it had style.
There are people who will tell you that clothes make the man, and mostly they are wrong. However, it would be true to say that when the boy who would become the Marquis put that coat on for the very first time, and stared at himself in the looking glass, he stood up straighter, and his posture changed, because he knew, seeing his reflection, that the sort of person who wore a coat like that was no mere youth, no simple sneak thief and favor-trader. The boy wearing the coat, which was, back then, too large for him, had smiled, looking at his reflection, and remembered an illustration from a book he had seen, of a miller’s cat standing on its two hind legs. A jaunty cat wearing a fine coat and big, proud boots. And he named himself.
A coat like that, he knew, was the kind of coat that could only be worn by the Marquis de Carabas. He was never sure, not then and not later, how you pronounced Marquis de Carabas. Some days he said it one way, some days the other.
The water level had reached his knees, and he thought, This would never have happened if I still had my coat.
It was the market day after the worst week of the Marquis de Carabas’s life and things did not seem to be getting any better. Still, he was no longer dead, and his cut throat was healing rapidly. There was even a rasp in his throat he found quite attractive. Those were definite upsides.
There were just as definite downsides to being dead, or at least, to having been recently dead, and missing his coat was the worst of them.
The sewer folk were not helpful.
“You sold my corpse,” said the Marquis. “These things happen. You also sold my possessions. I want them back. I’ll pay.”
Dunnikin of the Sewer Folk shrugged. “Sold them,” he said. “Just like we sold you. Can’t go getting things back that you sold. Not good business.”
“We are talking,” said the Marquis de Carabas, “about my coat. And I fully intend to have it back.”
Dunnikin shrugged.
“To whom did you sell it?” asked the Marquis.
The Sewer dweller said nothing at all. He acted as if he had not even heard the question.
“I can get you perfumes,” said the Marquis, masking his irritability with all the blandness he could muster. “Glorious, magnificent, odiferous perfumes. You know you want them.”
Dunnikin stared, stony-faced, at the Marquis. Then he drew his finger across his throat. As gestures went, the Marquis reflected, it was in appalling taste. Still, it had the desired effect. He stopped asking questions: there would be no answers from this direction.
The Marquis walked over to the food court. That night, the Floating Market was being held in the Tate Gallery. The food court was in the Pre-Raphaelite Room, and had already been mostly packed away. There were almost no stalls left: just a sad-looking little man selling some kind of sausage, and, in the corner, beneath a Burne-Jones painting of ladies in diaphanous robes walking downstairs, there were some Mushroom People, with some stools, tables, and a grill. The Marquis had once eaten one of the sad-looking man’s sausages, and he had a firm policy of never intentionally making the same mistake twice, so he walked to the Mushroom People’s stall.
There were three of the Mushroom People looking after the stall, two young men and a young woman. They smelled damp. They wore old duffel coats and army-surplus jackets, and they peered out from beneath their shaggy hair as if the light hurt their eyes.
“What are you selling?” he asked.
“The Mushroom. The Mushroom on toast. Raw the Mushroom.”
“I’ll have some of the Mushroom on toast,” he said, and one of the Mushroom People—a thin, pale young woman with the complexion of day-old porridge—cut a slice off a puffball fungus the size of a tree stump. “And I want it cooked properly all the way through,” he told her.
“Be brave. Eat it raw,” said the woman. “Join us.”
“I have already had dealings with the Mushroom,” said the Marquis. “We came to an understanding.”
The woman put the slice of white puffball under the portable grill.
One of the young man, tall, with hunched shoulders, in a duffel coat that smelled like old cellars, edged over to the Marquis and poured him a glass of mushroom tea. He leaned forward, and the Marquis could see the tiny crop of pale mushrooms splashed like pimples over his cheek.
The Mushroom person said, “You’re de Carabas? The fixer?”
The Marquis did not think of himself as a fixer. He said, “I am.”
“I hear you’re looking for your coat. I was there when the Sewer Folk sold it. Start of the last Market it was. On Belfast. I saw who bought it.”
The hair on the back of the Marquis’ neck pricked up. “And what would you want for the information?”
The Mushroom’s young man licked his lips with a lichenous tongue. “There’s a girl I like as won’t give me the time of day.”
“A Mushroom girl?”
“Would I were so lucky. If we were as one both in love and in the body of the Mushroom, I wouldn’t have nothing to worry about. No. She’s one of the Raven’s Court. But she eats here sometimes. And we talk. Just like you and I are talking now.”
The Marquis did not smile in pity and he did not wince. He barely raised an eyebrow. “And yet she does not return your ardor. How strange. What do you want me to do about it?”
The young man reached one grey hand into the pocket of his long duffel coat. He pulled out an envelope inside a clear plastic sandwich bag.
“I wrote her a letter. More of a poem, you might say although I’m not much of a poet. To tell her how I feels about her. But I don’t know that she’d read it if I gived it to her. Then I saw you, and I thought, if it was you as was to give it to her, with all your fine words and your fancy flourishes …” He trailed off.
“You thought she would read it and then be more inclined to listen to your suit.”
The young man looked down at his duffel coat with a puzzled expression. “I’ve not got a suit,” he said. “Only what I’ve got on.”
The Marquis tried not to sigh. The Mushroom woman put a cracked plastic plate down in front of him, with a steaming slice of grilled the Mushroom on it.
He poked at the Mushroom experimentally, making sure that it was cooked all the way through, and there were no active spores. You could never be too careful, and the Marquis considered himself much too selfish for symbiosis.
It was good. He chewed, and swallowed, though the food hurt his throat.
“So all you want is for me to make sure she reads your missive of yearning?”
“You mean my letter? My poem?”
“I do.”
“Well, yes. And I want you to be there with her, to make sure she doesn’t put it away unread, and I want you to bring her answer back to me.” The Marquis looked at the young man. It was true that he had tiny mushrooms sprouting from his neck and cheeks, and his hair was heavy and unwashed, and there was a general smell about him of abandoned places, but it was also true that through his thick fringe his eyes were pale blue and intense, and that he was tall, and not unattractive. The Marquis imagined him washed and cleaned up and somewhat less fungal, and approved. “I put the letter in the sandwich bag,” said the young man, “so it doesn’t get
wet on the way.”
“Very wise. Now, tell me: who bought my coat?”
“Not yet, Mister jumps-the-gun. You haven’t asked about my true love. Her name is Drusilla. You’ll know her because she is the most beautiful woman in all of the Raven’s Court.”
“Beauty is traditionally in the eye of the beholder. Give me more to go on.”
“I told you. Her name’s Drusilla. There’s only one. And she has a big red birthmark on the back of her hand that looks like a star.”
“It seems an unlikely love pairing. One of the Mushroom’s folk, in love with a lady of the Raven’s Court. What makes you think she’ll give up her life for your damp cellars and fungoid joys”?”
The Mushroom youth shrugged. “She’ll love me,” he said, “once she’s read my poem.” He twisted the stem of a tiny parasol mushroom growing on his right cheek and, when it fell to the table, he picked it up and continued to twist it between his fingers. “We’re on?”
“We’re on.”
“The cove as bought your coat,” said the Mushroom youth, “carried a stick.”
“Lots of people carry sticks,” said de Carabas.
“This one had a crook on the end,” said the Mushroom youth. “Looked a bit like a frog, he did. Short one. Bit fat. Hair the color of gravel. Needed a coat and took a shine to yours.” He popped the parasol mushroom into his mouth.
“Useful information. I shall certainly pass your ardor and felicitations on to the fair Drusilla,” said the Marquis de Carabas, with a cheer that he most definitely did not feel.
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