The Collected Connoisseur

by Valentine, Mark

  ‘But I am sure that Carneiro’s legacy has more to it than just enabling someone like me to watch intriguing and definitely uncommercial films! I can not help but think that there is more… .

  ‘Of course, after all this I had to attend the first showing of Things to Come that I could find, to refresh my memory.

  ‘I can tell you that I watched an important and well-made film. I would also recommend that you see it. And I thought: is there something in the experience of watching such a film, with its unprecedented special effects, its music, and its message, that could all come together to produce such a range of experiences as my young lady film-fan had? In certain settings, can the cumulative effects somehow radiate out and up into the future, or break into and through multiple time-strands of the universes? I think that Carneiro thought so with Aeonic Magic ritual, and it therefore follows that other comparable factors can come together, with a catalyst, and may do the same. Our Carneiro was a maverick mage, and a serious one. And his total disappearance… . Throwing a stone into a river seems an insignificant gesture, and one which is obliterated by the flowing water. But those seemingly insignificant actions… . I cannot help but think—if Carneiro was right, which world are we in? Which Aeon? Which future? In the end, are we on the way to utopia—or where?’

  The Descent of the Fire

  Dr Edith Mallet glanced admiringly at the ornate antimacassars on my friend’s armchairs, settled herself comfortably, and then craned forward her head, with its unruly aureole of icicle-white hair.

  ‘I hardly know,’ she began, ‘whether this is an enigma quite in your line, you know. But I could not think of anyone else. It has been rankling in my mind for a little while.’

  My friend The Connoisseur, an assiduous quester after the curious and uncanny, nodded encouragingly.

  She pursed her lips and frowned before continuing.

  ‘I have made it my life’s work to study the iron finials which grace so many of our older buildings. Many people do not look up as they walk, but if they did so they would see a fine display of wrought iron, in the form of arrows, obelisks, spirals, snowflake patterns and much else besides, all pointing to the sky from the top of quite a few roofs. This is an unregarded art form, and I decided, very early on in my architectural career, to make a special study of them. I have assembled a considerable portfolio of drawings and notes, and I may say that I have also published several monographs. Now, of course, a great deal of the finials one sees, especially in the industrial cities that grew up in the Victorian period, are from jobbing foundries and other manufactories; but elsewhere the finial might often have been made especially for a building by a local blacksmith, or other craftsman. I have tried wherever possible, from builders’ accounts, trade directories and so forth, to attribute the known, probable or merely surmised maker of each finial that I have catalogued. Occasionally, of course, inscriptions on the finial will guide me. Ah, I see you look surprised. Yes, I can indeed sometimes secure a closer look at the work, wherever there is access onto the roof: I have found many owners and householders most obliging when once I have explained my interest. Most obliging, yes.’

  Her sharp blue eyes dimmed a little as she seemed to withdraw her attention inward. Then she nodded, and gazed at us both in turn, before resuming her narrative.

  ‘In my retirement, I have been making my way slowly around some of the smaller towns of Britain, and a month or so ago I found myself in High Mortain, in Shropshire, do you know it? It is mostly a single broad street rising from an old stone river bridge up and up to a tump or earthwork, now a public park, supposed to have been an ancient camp, I should say myself, very likely an Iron Age hillfort. There are a few by-lanes off the High Street and some straggling houses beyond, but though it is an ancient borough, it has never really grown beyond this hillside settlement. The people there are, I think, proud of their past and in some ways the place is like an island, for it is miles from any busier place.

  ‘Well, now, here is the odd thing. Or, rather, the first odd thing. I should suppose there were about a hundred or so houses there. As is usual, many of these are too small or modest or recent to possess a finial, but about twenty do. Indeed, I can be precise; twenty-two do. Most of them I can quickly categorise and even make a good guess, from street level, as to their provenance. But there was one, on a turret above a café, which was the most peculiar design I have ever seen in a finial. Here, I have sketched it … ’

  She reached into a capacious haversack of faded green, and brought out a drawing pad. Flicking the pages quickly, she found what she wanted and proffered it to us. In firm dark strokes there was delineated the head of the finial, showing an abstract form comprising an elegant circle speared by a jagged prong, like a lightning stroke. The circle bore embellishments to either side, like stylised wings or tongues of flame. The top of the delicately twisted rod that held this motif was also shown.

  ‘And is this so very different from other designs you have seen?’ asked The Connoisseur.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she averred, firmly. ‘Quite unique. But the odd thing was that I was not permitted to see it.’

  She sank back in her chair as if to punctuate this remark. Divining, however, that we had not quite appreciated its significance, she continued:

  ‘The townspeople were all very pleasant. The shopkeepers, the gentleman who kept their rather odd, sloping-floored museum, the people at a fine Georgian house, could not have been more cheery and obliging. Yet when I asked at this café, in a converted warehouse, if I might have a closer look at their curious finial, I met with silence, resistance or evasion. Now, you see, that is far from my usual experience. Even in the grimmest, most suspicious of areas, I generally find admittance. But here, in the café, a young woman left in charge said such things as, oh, it was very dangerous up there, never used; they didn’t have access, but only leased the lower floor; and she was just looking after the place and didn’t feel she could give permission; and so on. Of course, I have met such responses before, and quite naturally too. But there was something rather determined about this reaction that made me feel odd about it… .

  ‘I was quite eager to find out more about this unusual design, and there were of course some perfectly reasonable explanations. The most obvious was that there might be some local fire insurance company who had made this their emblem of protection, though it would be a very elaborate one. I pursued some research into this and could find nothing to support the idea: in fact, I did find elsewhere a plaque from the old Phoenix Company. Nor could I find anything in the heraldry of the town to suggest some affinity with this curious finial. I can only think it must be the work of a local craftsman, and as it is so boldly and finely made, I should like to find out more.

  ‘That, then, is the start of the little mystery that I have brought for you to consider. My friend Felicity Dowerley was good enough to suggest that you might assist me, as you once assisted her. However, I should probably not have trespassed upon you solely on a matter which is quite firmly within my own field of study, were it not that my stay in High Mortain also included another incident that struck me at the time as distinctly odd.’

  She leant forward in her seat, her white hair glinting.

  ‘On my second night in the town—I had decided to stay to investigate this finial further, and I can be quite determined when my specialism is at stake—it was wet and windswept. The rain burst like—I remember thinking this very vividly, though I cannot imagine what put the idea in my head—a cascade of fallen stars upon the pavement, lots of little silvery explosions. Seeking shelter, I was drawn again to the dim light of the narrow-fronted café, with its unreachable finial: it is let into the corner of a tall, turreted, empty warehouse, which glistened in its old bricks of burnt-orange and roof-slates of umber. I tumbled in and blinked into the little square room, which held a dozen or so tables, mostly empty. I ordered tea from an agate-eyed waiter at the counter, who reminded me oddly of a lamp-post, he had that angularity yet al
so stolidity: and I took it to a table by the window, though there was nothing to see but the streaming rain and stray gleams of light out on the street. So I looked instead at my fellow refugees.

  ‘There were three, all, like me, I thought, trying to dwell over some unwanted refreshment until the downpour should dwindle a little. There was a small man with a bristly red beard and upturned hair, whose eyes glinted through spectacles so flimsy as to almost seem pince-nez: he was making the most of a mug of hot-milk-and-nutmeg. There was a very old woman with a face like some withered, undistinguishable fruit, from which the bloom and the shine has long, long gone, its rind now seeming barely held together by a coarse headscarf: she sucked at a stubby cheroot and occasionally bit meagrely at a thin pale sandwich. And there was a young woman, who interspersed glances at a book that she could scarcely be reading properly, with sips of black coffee, and with striding to the door to glare out to see if it were possible to leave.

  ‘My meditations on these companions were interrupted by a meaningful cough from the rubicund crone, who had taken the mute black stump from her lips and was waving it vaguely. The waiter got up, crossed to her and, not without a certain distaste, offered her a light from her matchbox that had fallen on the floor. She coaxed a few sparks from the dark pellet and gave a nod more of dismissal than of thanks. Then the waiter did a rather odd thing: he placed the match-box very firmly in her coat pocket, glaring at her. Granted he may have been trying to help her not to lose it again, but it seemed somewhat over-officious. That, however, was not what struck me most about his action. I had only the briefest glimpse, but I could have sworn that the design on the matchbox label was the same as the finial.

  ‘Shortly after, seeing some slight diminution of the rain, we all began to get ready to go, and while the young woman was settling her bill, I helped the cheroot-smoker on with her coat as she tried to heave herself into it. I expect you can guess why?’

  She smiled. The Connoisseur affected to look startled.

  ‘Surely not to steal the matchbox?’

  ‘Precisely. I told myself it was of no material value and I should be doing the woman a favour by preventing her from having any more of those foul things for a while. So as I helped her to garb, I slid my hand inside the pocket and—I believe the expression is—palmed the article. Then I made off pretty quickly.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘I no longer have it. I shall explain why. Before I left, late on my last evening, I thought I should like to take another look at the finial which had so baffled me, so on an impulse I walked through the town towards the café. It was growing quite dark, with hardly anyone abroad, but as I approached I beheld an extraordinary golden glow emanating from the top of the building and playing around that so curious finial. It was as if some unburning flame had been lit upon it, or rather the ghost of a flame, for it was hazy and insubstantial. Now, as I say, it was dusk and of course one’s eyes can play tricks in the half-light, but I am perfectly sure of what I saw, a hovering illumination which flickered like a tongue of fire all around the finial. I watched it for some moments, unsure of whether I should summon assistance, and yet it seemed to be causing no damage. Nevertheless, I thought I had better try to alert the owners of the café and went to the door. To my surprise, although its blinds were down and all inside was only dimly lit, the door of the café was open.

  ‘An elderly gentleman was receiving newcomers at the door, and just inside was a fine candelabra of many stems, partly lit, which he indicated with a slight, courtly gesture to a number of people in front of me. They each lit one of the remaining tapers, and so as I entered and the doorman looked at me quite closely, almost enquiringly, I did the same, striking a match from the purloined box. He was evidently satisfied, and ushered me into the café, where all the tables had been placed together and a small group was standing in silence around these, heads bowed, all in a murky half-light. My thoughts of raising the alarm about the finial were quite subsumed by this strange gathering. I did as the others had, and stood by the table in apparent contemplation. Finally, I heard the sound of the door being bolted and the doorman joined the gathering; then there came into the room the tall, angular and agate-eyed waiter, who took his place at the head of the table.

  ‘There was a brittle silence, and then the waiter, who looked uneasy, said in a rather thick, garbled voice, what sounded like, “Greetings, people of the fire.” But before I had time to interject, each of the others in turn uttered a phrase, each as curious as the last: “the Luciferians hail thee’, “the Sons of Prometheus hail thee”, “Hail from the Sign of the Fire Bird”, “Hail from those of the salamander’s tongue”, “the Ancient Lights also”, “And from the Men of Lumine.” I hope I have got most of those names right, they were so bizarre that they stuck in my memory quite forcibly. And they also seemed to show each other glinting miniature pictures, cupped in the palm of their hand, which I could not quite make out.

  ‘Of course there was a terrible pause when it came to my turn, and I could not, try as I might, conjure up some such similar phrase. The waiter, as I still thought of him, looked at me very keenly indeed, though his long, lugubrious face was impassive. Finally, he sighed deeply and announced, as if nothing untoward had occurred, “Welcome to our visitor,” then nodded to the remaining two of the gathering to announce themselves. I was so taken aback I did not quite note what they said, though one sounded like “the Dancing Foxes” and another “the Double Lion”.

  ‘Everyone then sat down, and the doorman brought to the table a single lamp which cast a wan glow on the alert faces all around me. There was a further silence, which was broken abruptly when there came an angry rattling at the door and the sound of spluttered curses. It was the crabbed old cheroot-smoker, and I knew that I should soon be exposed. The doorman went into the vestibule, unlatched the door, and there was the sound of a flustered altercation, before she was admitted, the doorman lingering lamely in her wake. This seemed to startle the waiter into action and he made a great show of placating that old smoking crone, whispering to her and listening to her expostulations, and looking up to smile indulgently at the rest of us. I expected I should soon be accused as an impostor in their midst, but in fact nothing of the kind transpired. All was settled again, the chairman-waiter cleared his throat, and announced: “Welcome all, to our philuminists’ circle,” and launched into a vivid description of an exhibition of matchbox-labels that had taken place. Several of the others present joined in with reports of new items added to their collection, including such—if I may so express it—“striking” names as the “Red Crab”, “the Three Escutcheons”, “Pandora”, “Paladin”, “Glosq”, “Green & Dyson” and “the Templevane”, which caused particular knowing interest. Examples of some labels were exhibited. The doorkeeper gave a short and indignant disquisition on foreign fakes, labels which I gathered were purely printed for collectors and had never been used on matchboxes. This, apparently, was not quite the thing. There was discussion of an elusive series of Latvian matchbox labels.

  ‘As the proceedings drew on, I soon came to understand that each of those present was a member of a group of philuminists, who had given themselves picturesque titles drawing on themes from their hobby. I was considerably mollified by this and actually began to enjoy the discussion, but at a convenient break for refreshments, I made murmured excuses. As I made to go, the looming waiter shook my hand and leered at me in what I think he hoped was a cordial grin. Then he unobtrusively opened his palm and I divined that he was asking me to return the matchbox, so of course I did, with as much aplomb as I could muster.

  ‘As I left, I glanced up again. There was no sign of the glow I had seen on the iron finial. I made my way back to my lodgings and left the following morning.’

  Our visitor paused and seemed to reflect with a renewed wonder on what she had witnessed.

  ‘So you see, I am really not sure whether there is anything here in your line at all. There is an unusual example of the fi
nial-maker’s art, which I am not allowed to see; there is a glimpse of a sort of light around it; and there is a band of matchbox collectors with their own quaint customs, which are really none of my business. Well, what think you?’

  The Connoisseur rose and stared into the bright flames writhing in the grate.

  ‘Have you thought of any obvious explanation for the illumination of the finial?’ my friend enquired.

  ‘None, not there and then. But on my return I consulted a colleague in our Natural Sciences department. Here is her reply… .’ She uncrumpled a letter written on a page torn from an exercise book. ‘ “Really Edith you ought to take more water with it!” … Ahem! We shall skip the pleasantries… . Ah! Here we are. “What you describe is not unlike St Elmo’s Fire, I grant you, but the conditions do not seem right. The phenomenon is scientifically known as a corona or point discharge. It occurs on objects, especially pointed ones, when the electrical field reaches about one thousand volts per centimetre. When it is great enough to overcome the resistance of the medium it encounters, a current of electrons will result (even you, Edith, will remember Ohm’s Law)”—I don’t actually, I never had any interest in stinks or in physics—physiques, possibly, ha ha. I digress. Let me see. “Normally,” she goes on, “the electrical field strength of the atmosphere is about one volt per centimetre. In the extremes of a thunder-storm, however, and just before a lightning flash, this reaches ten thousand volts per centimetre. Thus, the atmospheric electrical field is only strong enough, under normal circumstances, to produce St Elmo’s Fire during thundery weather. As you say the day was still, it would be most unlikely to produce the effect you describe. Perhaps there was a reflection from some neon light?” There was not, in fact, any artificial light except the streetlights anywhere about, and they were surely too low to have caused such an effect, and a brash yellow rather than the sombre amber I saw.’