‘When my old ally Colonel Gaspard asked me to look after a long book-shaped box in pale wood, inlaid with strange radiant marquetry in quince-gold and rowanberry-red, I am not sure if even he knew that he was asking me to guard a sacred relic, a casket of ghosts; that here was the key to the freeing of flickering grey forms long since suppressed in the service of a desperate cause. He did, however, warn me that there were those who would stop at little to possess this white reliquary. Yet I thought that my out-of-the-way retreat here would be a secret sanctuary which they would not readily identify.
‘I was quite wrong. Even as he left me on that autumnal evening, with, I well recall, the sodden golden leaves clinging to the streets and a fine mist of delicate rain, I seemed to see a slim dark shape start after him from the gloom of the church porch a few hundred yards away, move quickly towards his retreating form, then as suddenly dissolve away.
‘Gaspard said he had to be away for a while and I assumed he had gone off on one of his missions to Southern Europe and Asia Minor in search of I was never entirely sure what. This curious box had been procured in one of his previous forays out there and he made few excuses for the fact that he had inveigled it from its Turkish custodian by a merciless admingling of bribes, threats and outright deceit. For that was how he came by many of the singular treasures that accompanied him when he returned from his long and solitary expeditions to the region of the Black Sea. Seldom did these seem to have any very evident material value, except perhaps to collectors of the extremely recherché, yet there was clearly some purpose behind each of these acquisitions which I did not then understand.
‘He told me that this box and its contents had once belonged to a Panoramica, which had been opened as a novel diversion for the jaded bourgeoisie of Bucharest in the 1930s, using magic lantern tricks, dioramas and multiple vistas to provide sweeping views of great cities, or historic scenes, or bright mandalas: but the arrival of the cinema soon saw it off. He was now trying to find the original projector used in the Panoramica: I thought it rather a forlorn hope and, at the time, also somewhat futile.
‘You will not find Gaspard’s rank and record vouchsafed by the Army List here: and yet he is no impostor. He has served in the forces of nations that are not yet free, and is known and respected for his leadership of irregulars in several purely theoretical principalities, republics and commonwealths. I have heard it said, too, that he manages to further the interests of his own country in certain clandestine ways, and this would not surprise me. But beyond all of these obscure struggles, I have always sensed that Gaspard had some greater mission in mind.
‘The box he had asked me to conceal appeared to contain, so far as I could see, nothing of any great import. Inside were thirty or so photographic glass plates, most of which depicted views of various cities—Rome and Vienna I recognised, but the others were of vistas less immediately identifiable. Buried beneath these were some frames portraying individuals, evidently all in similar studio poses: from what I could see of their features, rendered in a kind of crystalline stipple on the glass, with staring icy eyes, they were almost all young, and their fairly ragged clothes looked like those of some many years past. I suppose there were about twelve of these. I held one up to the dim light in the grey dusk of that evenfall and for a moment found myself caught by a pang of inexplicable melancholy. Sometimes the fates of strangers can seem as dear to us, and as real, as do the destinies of those we have really loved. That was how I felt as I gazed at each of these faded portraits in turn. I had a sudden longing to know who they were, these solemn figures from some past beyond my surmise.
‘I placed the pale box in the aumbry and locked it away. I found my thoughts straying towards its inexplicable contents on several occasions in the next few days, and the faded light of the season when I returned here each evening —I was engaged in that administrative work which I am obliged to undertake at intervals—the drawn, hesitant light, I say, seemed to linger even when the lamps were lit, and provided a fitting counterpoint to the silent and frozen, yet potent, sunlight and shadows captured in the photographs.
‘You know, do you not, the stealthy way that snow falls, all silently with a fine floating grace? I soon came to feel as if somehow—I don’t know if this will quite express what I mean—as if certain of the shadows drawn in by the dusk were falling into place in the same way.
‘One evening, partly to shake myself from this rather uneasy reverie, I decided to take a constitutional. I carried the old leopard-head stick, more for the comfort of its solidity than from any sense of foreboding, and I tucked under my arm a tall volume of Balmont’s verse, bound in white kid with gilt embellishments and scarlet lettering for some vivant of years ago. This had been found for me in Paris quite recently, and I thought I might stop to savour it if some appropriately crepuscular nook should present itself.
‘After leaving the lights of the city, I strode out along the old Roman causeway, which now seems to go nowhere that anyone would particularly wish to visit: it becomes, in due course you know, a simple track into the hills. However, I had no intention of going so far, and I proposed, in a rather desultory way, to walk until an old gate pier that I know, with its great globe of stone atop, and then retrace my steps. Whatever drive it once commanded is now long overgrown, nor so far as I am aware is there any dwelling beyond: and so I was all the more startled when, as I approached, a straight dark figure emerged from the gloom.
‘The face was in the shadow of a midnight-blue peaked cap such as a merchant skipper might wear, tilted, as it seemed, so as to disguise the eyes. I could just make out a taut, pale cheekbone on the left hand side; and thin, colourless lips, and a brief glimpse of white neck, suppressed by the high dark collar of a capacious overcoat. My surprise at this sudden apparition quickened considerably when, in a very soft whisper, the ashen lips ordered: “Let me have that.” At the same time, the left arm rose suddenly from where it had been held, slightly behind the folds of the great cloak, and gestured with a rapid flourish of a slim walking-stick towards the book of Balmont’s verses.
‘The ways of the most ardent bibliophiles hardly ever surprise me, but this was somewhat beyond even my experience. I politely declined the brusque invitation to surrender so fine a volume. The figure tapped my right shoulder with the glinting ferrule of its cane. I leant rather more heavily and pointedly upon my own stick and moved the book so that I held it more firmly than before. I was bemused rather than annoyed by the intrusion, and hoped to find out more about my strange assailant.
‘The lips moved briefly: “Do as I say.” I shook my head and I suppose I probably smiled a little. Perhaps that was not very courteous, for in the next moment I heard a sudden crisp shiver of metal, caught a silvery glint in the fast-descending darkness and the rattle of the deceitful walking-stick scabbard as it was discarded upon the road. “I am serious,” the lips insisted, in a whisper that rose in urgency, and my blood surged too.’
The Connoisseur paused and ran his forefinger upon the brow of the old dark leopard on his Mauritanian swordstick. ‘It was too good to be true,’ he reflected, ‘two of us so romantically armed, ready to duel over a volume of symbolist verse. The extravagance of it struck me so forcibly that there and then, I am afraid, I laughed out loud. Then I bowed and handed the precious volume to the figure before me. It was snatched away in an instant and thrust into an inner pocket. Then, with a sudden whirl of sable, the threatening form retrieved its sword-casing with a very elegant sweep, retreated a few paces backward and ran off beyond the gate pillar.
‘I abandoned the prospect of pursuit and returned home with a distinct mingling of feelings. On the one hand, I was rueful at the loss of such an exquisite work, yet I was also highly entertained by the manner of its passing. I had half a mind to take my choice opuscule of Cantuczene out for a walk the next evening, to see if so assiduous and determined a collector would strike again.
‘I took no further action on the matter, for I suspected that perhaps
some elaborate performance of living drama might be in play by one of my more improvisatory friends: but in any event I was gratified, and bemused still further, when the Balmont turned up in a neat parcel a few days later. There was no enclosure, and the address was typewritten.
‘Some days passed without further incident, except that on several occasions when I retrieved the box from its cabinet and gazed again at the young grey forms preserved in those photographic frames of so long ago, I experienced that same strange surge of melancholy as before, and I had a sense that the autumn dusk was somehow vitalised, as if the dimness almost breathed into my room. The intangible lingering of the twilight seemed to be of the same essence as the suspended gradations of ash-grey in the prints that I sifted between my fingers. I wondered indeed what influence was at work, or whether I was simply cultivating the crepuscular mood myself, by meditating so intently on these lost forms in that wavering half-light and the lost Balkan city apparently so serene in its crystallised architecture and the frozen tumult of its streets.
‘But the return of the Balmont was not the only surprise that I received in the post, for only a week or so later there arrived a crumpled yellowing envelope, bearing an indecipherable, smudged postmark which itself partially obscured a large faded green stamp that depicted the head and shoulders of a young man of sensuous aspect wearing an exotic uniform. Inside, Gaspard’s spiky handwriting on soiled, creased and greasy paper, which I did not care to handle too closely, advised me in the briefest of terms that a Dr Branescu of the [word illegible] Institute was a collector of scarce books and would be interested in my editions of Stenbock, Corvo, Polidori, Upward, Le Fanu, Brockden, Whitehead and Sinclair.
‘This list at once struck me as odd. It is true that I have an interest in each of these authors, and it was conceivable that a savant of the fantastic might relish just such an assemblage. But why was Charles Brockden Brown given only by part of his surname?
‘I puzzled over the list for some time. I thought of what the writers might have in common, I called to mind the titles of their most notable works, I looked up their birth and death dates, but nothing would fall into place. It took me many hours and a deal of pacing up and down, and only then with an offguard lunge of my mind, to finally divine the simple but elliptical reference to the solander, the book-shaped box he had left me. As his note gave an address, directions and the precise hours at which the Doctor would be available, it became evident that I was meant to take the box there.
‘Yet when I had worked out this much, I still did not quite see my way forward. True, Gaspard had not specifically forbidden me to take the pale casket out of my rooms, but I had inferred from his zeal about the matter that I was to guard it carefully. On the other hand, the care he had taken to conceal his meaning, even to the extent of nearly obscuring it from me, suggested that the steps indicated were important. And the handwriting was certainly his. No-one could imitate so jagged a style. So at length I decided I must follow the clues given.
‘After a somewhat circuitous train journey, and a fair few miles’ walk from the station, I came to the place indicated: an outlying straggle of isolated Victorian villas, many of them with death-masks of stucco streaked with green spittle, with blank, sightless windows and dank gardens, crumbling pillars and rusting iron finials. In one of these, I found the Institute at last, set far back from the road, and marked only by a small framed card sign with black calligraphic lettering, fixed with bright screws to the door. I rang the brass bell and walked cautiously in, leaving my stick and overcoat on an unsteady lobby table, but keeping the valise which held the pale box by my side.
‘I had a few moments in which to inspect some of the pictures that adorned the walls of the entrance lobby. Again I experienced the same sense of melancholy and dim expectation as before, when I had contemplated the contents of the solander.
‘One of the dark-framed prints, prominently displayed, was of the Archangel Michael in stylised ikonic form, wielding a silver lance against a scarlet serpent. Another, of a man in simple military uniform, bore a label that read only “Conducator”. There was an unlit black candle in a tiny bracket on the wall beneath it. The labels of both photographs were spotted with dried red splotches.
‘I had just begun to examine another picture when the inner door opened. A rather lugubrious looking person entered and, noticing my interest in the picture, said “The Captain”, as if that would explain everything. I returned his gaze uncomprehendingly, and yet I was sure that in the shadowed hall things long at a sort of temporary rest were beginning to fall into place. The solemn-faced man ushered me forward into a room.
‘Doctor Branescu proved to be a short, stocky man with dark hair brushed fiercely back from a heavy brow, with a rippling of silver at the temples. Gleaming brown eyes, a hatchet jaw, and deep furrows in the flesh of his face gave evidence of resolution and concentration. Behind his desk tall black curtains obscured the window and the dim electric light did not banish a pall of gloom in the long, high room with its bare walls. “I am glad you came,” he greeted me, in a strong full voice. “I was not sure the message would have—got through.” He stared at me as if expecting a response. Then, after a pause: “You have the—object?”
‘I nodded. He exhaled heavily and a flicker of satisfaction seemed to pass over his features. His fingers, held lightly together on the desk, twitched. “I gather, that is, I suppose—that you are to inspect the piece,” I said, breaking a brittle silence. “Quite so,” he returned, then with a visible lunge of effort he broke into a longer address. “It is important, very important that I carry out a minute examination of the contents, and record the details carefully. It will take me no little time. I should not like to omit anything. Yet I do not want to detain you. May I suggest you return in, let us say, five hours or so? I am sorry it will not take less time than that.”
‘I stirred uneasily. I had not yet worked out in my own mind whether I should let Gaspard’s charge out of my sight, despite the instructions I had received. My reservation must has been evident on my face, because Branescu tilted his massive visage and studied me gravely. “I understand. You are concerned for its safety. Do not worry. We are better protected here than appearances might suggest. But if it will assist you, why then of course you may wait here in the Institute while I complete my inspection.” With that he ushered me into a small, rather dusty library a few doors down the corridor which led from his chamber, and waited expectantly for me to hand over the solander. He smiled encouragingly as I did so, and took it with delicate care.
‘Left to myself, I naturally glanced over the few narrow bookcases, but most of the titles were in foreign languages—Russian and German I recognised, but the great majority were in what I rather suspected might be Romanian, and these contained more pictures of uniformed officers, curious insignia and, often, the emblems and semblances of the Archangel. Many I surmised to be political texts or volumes of speeches and collected writings. One ragged pamphlet contained a small version of the picture of the “Captain” and someone had scrawled the name Mihal —— across it. But after a while I could puzzle out nothing more and, prevented from diverting myself with anything readable, I soon became restless, and thought I would go out for a stroll.’
My friend paused and smiled rather wanly.
‘The library was locked. Of course, at first I clung to the hope that this was some foolish mistake. I rattled the door vigorously, called out and pushed against it. But it was of sound thick oak and did not yield. After fifteen minutes or so of fruitless effort, I kicked it viciously and slumped to the floor in a foul mood. This was, however, a mere flicker of annoyance compared to the anger which had gnarled itself onto Branescu’s face when he flung open the door after what seemed several hours. I rushed at him remonstrating, but he pushed me back and I saw looming behind him several other rather thick-set men in plain black tunics, staring meaningfully at me. The deep lines of the Doctor’s face loomed closely towards me.
‘
“Where is it?” he demanded. I shook my head sullenly. I had no idea what he wanted, but in my present mood I was not inclined to be co-operative. I was briskly and efficiently searched, brusquely questioned and threatened, although this rough treatment stopped just short of actual violence. Then, “Well, well,” said the Doctor, examining his watch a little furtively and becoming suddenly mockingly suave, “I suppose you will just have to be the thirteenth yourself. Who knows, perhaps a living captive might add to the efficacy, eh?” There was humourless laughter from his companions.
‘Struggling, I was dragged into the high chamber where I had first met Branescu. It was now somewhat changed. On a dais in the centre of the room was a light-emitting instrument with numerous spokes or tubes emanating from a central crux. It cast great flickering rectangles of faded yellow light onto the white walls, but this wan illumination was blinded at a gesture from my captor, and we were cast into a darkness relieved only by a few tapers and a little glinting censer emitting umber fumes.
‘I had just time to notice there were four or five other men in the room, all sombrely dressed and rigidly solemn, before the doors were slammed shut, the darkness thickened, and I was thrust down onto a nearby chair, and held fast.
‘A black, angular lantern was lit, and Branescu began what felt like an invocation: reciting names, solemnly and with deep emotion, as if from some great roll. As each was enunciated, one of the others in the room uttered a short syllable in response. Between each name I heard what sounded like the words “Commandant! Mihal!” intoned as a short litany or responsorial. Branescu’s voice at length ceased and the gathering shouted and flung their arms out in salute with one accord. A black kerchief was tied across my eyes.
The Collected Connoisseur Page 21