Langdon St. Ives: Beneath London Part 15

St. Ives tasted his sherry. Clearly Klingheimer had manifold addictions, extreme self-opinion fueling them, and was dosing himself in order to pursue his supposed ascent to some sort of lunatic G.o.dhead. There was no means by which a mortal could reason with such a man.

"Is the wine satisfactory?" Klingheimer asked.

"The elixir of life," St. Ives said.

"Then pose me another question. I seldom get an opportunity to speak my mind."

"What do you mean to do with Narbondo now that he too has the fluids flowing in his veins? Now that he has become one of your 'a.s.sociates.'"

"We've already done it, sir. We have accessed his mental faculties. Dr. Peavy has trepanned the man, and his mind has been explored. He is a receptacle of vast knowledge, which news does not surprise you, and because of the mushrooms that knowledge remains intact. He is also mentally unstable, a man driven by hatred an emotion to be despised, as are most of what we refer to as emotions. Because of that he is destined to live out his life in his wood-and-gla.s.s prison. His life is mine to dispose of or to maintain. Would it astonish you to know that he is entirely conscious? You can speak to him, if it would amuse you."

"Nothing about the man amuses me. How does Dr. Peavy effect this 'exploration' of the mind?"

"His methods involve the electrical stimulation of the cortex and the linking of two brains, connecting them, literally, with thin silver wires across which knowledge pa.s.ses in an electrical current. Willis Pule has been the medium."

"That explains the wires intermingled with the hairs on Pule's head?"

"Just so. The wires are fixed in his brain. You can see for yourself that he bears no apparent ill effects. To the contrary, Mr. Pule has the honor of being the first explorer of the vast ocean that is the human mind. I myself am another."

"Literally, do you mean? You've put yourself willingly under Peavy's knife?"

"Literally, yes."

"Despite his being careless of the single life?"

"Even so. That unfortunate carelessness led in time to great successes. Willis Pule is an example. Narbondo another. Dr. Peavy has made other discoveries also. He has discovered the seat of paranormal powers as well as a means to enhancing them."

"You refer to this mumbo-jumbo about the pineal gland?"

"I can a.s.sure you, Professor, that 'mumbo jumbo' has nothing to do with it. It is a simple matter of effecting several small lesions with a very thin, charged wire a matter of... opening a window, if you will." Klingheimer bowed deeply and parted the hair on the top of his head, fingering a small circular scar. "Do you see it?" he asked.

"Yes," St. Ives said. "No trepanning, then?"

"Unnecessary. Peavy spent the better part of a year finding a route, shall we say, to the center of the brain, where the gland lies between the hemispheres. The streets of our city and the hallways of our asylums provided subjects who, if not entirely willing, were safely persuaded to take part in Peavy's experiments. Once Peavy was sure of himself, I myself went willingly 'under the knife,' as you put it. The result was extraordinary."

"I admit to being baffled by all of this," St. Ives said. "What is your motive if not material gain?"

"I have no motive but knowledge, sir. As I said but a moment ago, I am a mountaineer. My sights are on the summit, and I use whatever means are at hand to scale..."

The door opened Jimmy this time, who nodded and stood by the door. He held a pistol in his hand, and he regarded St. Ives with distaste.

"Ah," said Mr. Klingheimer, "it appears that Dr. Peavy is just now completing his work. Will you follow me into the theater, Professor? I believe you'll see some prodigious wonders."

Klingheimer stood up and set out. Jimmy falling in behind St. Ives, the three of them entered the operating theater, which was stiflingly warm. St Ives saw that a large iron furnace some three-feet wide by eight long was emitting a low roar, which accounted for the smoke rising from the chimney outside. A heavy stovepipe connected the furnace to the chimney.

St. Ives was distracted from the ominous furnace by the sight of Clara Wright bound into a chair. Her head hung downward as if she were etherized. A wheeled pole stood beside her. Hanging at the top of the pole was what appeared to be a pig's bladder connected by lubing to a syringe affixed to her arm. Dr. Peavy worked over her, manipulating a pump-like apparatus, drawing fluids from the bladder and forcing them onward with an injector.

"Clara and I are being wed as we speak, Professor," Klingheimer said in a low voice. "Wed in the highest sense of the word. She is appropriately clad in her matrimonial gown, as you can see, made from good, English, Macclesfield silk. You'll agree that the gown is artfully simple. There was no time to chase after superficial elegance, and of course there is nothing superficial in the girl at all."

St. Ives stared at him, looking for any facial indication of perverted humor, of irony, but he saw nothing beyond a mask of self-satisfaction.

"Our ceremony involves no clergyman, and this theater is our humble church. My blood is even now flowing into her veins, mingling with her own, and her blood with mine, a portion of fungal elixir into the mix a literal marriage, do you see? Nothing symbolic. The girl has been sedated and fixed in the chair for her own good. She might do herself a mischief otherwise."

"You run the risk of murdering her," St. Ives said. "If the blood is incompatible..."

"And of murdering myself, sir. Clara and I have exchanged blood twice now, and will continue to exchange it until we are quite the same person, at least in essence. If our bloods, so to speak, were incompatible, we would be aware of it six times over by now. I depend on Dr. Peavy, you see, in these matters, just as Peavy depends upon Jules Klingheimer."

"What can you possibly hope to gain by this dangerous play, sir?"

"Clairvoyance, in a word. Second sight. It is one of my goals to expand my sensibilities, to see beyond that which ordinary mortals see. Clara, of course, is no ordinary mortal, and she will share her powers with me. I am in the act of becoming. You, sir, are in the act of unbecoming, which is the great human curse. Now, sir, I adjure you to silence for a brief time. I would like to commune with my bride. Please sit, Professor."

Mr. Klingheimer waited until St. Ives was seated, and then he himself found a seat where he had a clear view of Clara. He settled himself and ceased to move. St. Ives watched his now blank face, wondering what the man intended.

Clara felt the blood leaking slowly into her vein an amount exactly equal to what they had taken from her and put into Mr. Klingheimer, or so he had told her. It was painful where the needle went in, but no worse than other things she had known in her life, and she knew by now that the pain would recede when the needle was taken out. She forced her mind away from thoughts of the tainting of her blood...

She was aware of the Professor's arrival. Finn had told her that he was in London. Had he come here to Dr. Peavy's to take her away with him? He seemed to be at odds with Mr. Klingheimer, who was enamored with the sound of his own voice, his own gabble. You run the risk of murdering her, the Professor had said. And yet the sharing of the blood went on. The Professor had no power here. If he did, he would stop what they were doing.

It came to her now that someone was regarding her not from without, but from within, as if an intruder had found his way into a darkened house and was standing in silence watching the family sleep. Intruders never meant well. She began to recite "The Jumblies," which she had long used to drive interruptive thoughts from her mind when she wanted her mind ordered, or wanted it to s.h.i.+ne a light in the darkness a light that her mother might see: They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea!

Clara pictured the sieve, spinning on the surface of the sea, faster and faster, the Jumblies holding on tightly in the stormy weather.

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

In her mind's eye the sieve spun faster and faster until it was a spinning ball, like the round head of a man white like the moon, like the man in the moon. There was a green tinge over all, however, green like the Jumblies' heads.

And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!

The conversation in the room diminished to a mere droning noise like the speech of bees. She saw in her mind a bearded face, smiling an empty smile, the smile of a figure drawn in the dust with a stick. It was him Mr. Klingheimer, who was the intruder within her mind, and he looked about him, as if to make himself at home.

And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of Silvery Bees.

Mr. Klingheimer's smile did not disconcert her now. She blotted out his face with the spinning sieve, which spun itself faster and faster into a silvery hive, the silvery bees holding on tightly to the hive, just as the Jumblies, not caring a fig, held onto their sieve. And then the bees let go in a wild cloud and swarmed about Mr. Klingheimer's head. Clara was abruptly aware now that her mother's mind had joined her own, and that her single-minded anger had enraged the bees. Their wings whirred mechanically, their silver, needle-like stingers plunging into Mr. Klingheimer's flesh, secreting their poisons. In her mind she saw his mouth open in a silent scream, and his hands went to his head...

...and then she was aware that the needle in her arm had been removed, and she was back in Dr. Peavy's laboratory, her mind entirely her own once again, the Jumblies and their sieve sailing away in the far distance.

In the moments before Clara awakened, St. Ives had heard Klingheimer make a high, hollow sound in his throat, like a man in a nightmare attempting to scream. His eyes had rolled back and he had clutched his hair on the sides of his head as if in torment, quickly letting go to swat at the air roundabout him. Something had staggered him, and he was making an effort now to regain his composure.

Peavy wiped the small round wound on Clara's arm with a rag soaked in a yellow liquid, and then awakened her with a vial of smelling salts before turning to Klingheimer.

"Are you ill, sir?" Dr. Peavy asked him.

"No," Klingheimer said, affecting a smile. "A momentary discomfort, but it has quite pa.s.sed away." He was attempting to catch his breath, however, and his face was suffused with blood.

Apoplexy, St. Ives thought, unfortunately not fatal. But Klingheimer had been up against it; there could be no doubt about that.

"Flinders," Klingheimer said to a stilt-like man sitting on a high stool in the corner, "transport Clara Wright and Mr. Shadwell to Lazarus Walk in the brougham. Return in exactly two hours, if you please."

Flinders took a red bowler from a nearby hook, and St. Ives recognized him as the driver of the van outside. Another man who had been sitting in the third row of seats stood up and made his way down to the floor, tipping his hat to St. Ives and winking at him. It was without a doubt the man Shadwell, the taller of the false policemen at Hereafter Farm. He helped Clara to her feet and went out through a broad door held open by the man Flinders. Through it St. Ives saw the dusky night, the dark shrubbery along the alley, the coach and the van dimmed by cloud shadow. He also saw that Jimmy still held the pistol.

"Well, well," Klingheimer said when the door closed behind them. "You were relieved, I take it, to see that Clara's infusion of blood was apparently quite safe. You'll be happy to hear that tomorrow, in order to satisfy the girl's sense of duty, she and I will undergo a more traditional wedding ceremony, suitably dressed and replete with witnesses, a clergyman, and a Champagne toast. I am happy to say that you will attend, at least to witness the happy event. You'll have to forego the Champagne, unfortunately. Such a ceremony is a popular fantasia, of course, but I mean for Clara to be bound to me under the law."

"The law?" St. Ives asked in a steady voice. "Surely you jest. The laws of man and of common decency require that you release the girl. I'm perfectly willing to offer myself as a hostage as a replacement. I'll submit to whatever..."

Klingheimer waved him silent. "Very n.o.ble of you, Professor, but surely you misunderstand. You will indeed submit to whatever I ask of you, whether it is to your liking or is not, and in turn you'll become a peer of the realm, as I promised. A dukedom is granted by the King, after all. It cannot be refused."

TWENTY-SEVEN.

MR. n.o.bEL'S INGENIOUS DYNAMITE

"I can tell you, Hasbro, that I would be happy to see the end of Miss Cecilia Bracken, except that once my uncle surfaces again it won't be the end of her at all, but the beginning, if you see what I mean."

"To my mind it would be better that Mr. Frobisher is healthy and with Miss Bracken on his arm," Hasbro said, "than that there be no arm for her to hold."

They had crossed the South Meadow on foot and now labored up a hill through the woodland beyond, the branches of the trees overhead heaving in the wind, which blew without interference at this elevation.

"I take your point," Tubby said. "But it's a difficult bolus to swallow unless a man has a cask of whiskey to wash it down with."

"I'll admit that the woman is a cipher," Hasbro said, "but I wonder whether she mightn't be something of a cipher even to her own mind. 'Know thyself,' the Greeks admonish us, and yet often enough there's something in us that seems to be a stranger. It can take us unawares when we see ourselves in a mirror. Have you considered that Miss Bracken might be mortally confused, her motives mixed?"

"It seems to me that she has the motivation of a serpent," Tubby said, knocking a dead rodent aside with his walking stick, a short but heavy length of Brazilian ironwood with a knurled top.

"What if her desire for wealth is authentic," Hasbro asked, "and yet she also admires your uncle, also loves him, even? It's quite possible that she has never been esteemed by a good man, but has a.s.sociated only with bad men with base motives. To my mind it's a wonder that more women don't murder their husbands in their beds. Your uncle lacks any discernible deviousness, after all. I can think of no one with a more open and cheerful countenance, and no doubt Miss Bracken sees this same thing. On the one hand she might think of turning this to her advantage, as you fear, and yet at the same time she might also see him as her protector, who appeared out of the sea when she was very much in need. Many a rich man has made a good marriage, after all. Wealth isn't Mr. Frobisher's sole a.s.set."

"You always were able to take the long view, Hasbro. And you might be quite correct, of course. I made up my mind that Miss Bracken was no good before we ever left Jamaica, and I've colored her in that light since. If we find Uncle, I'll have to make things right with both of them."

"It would not be a bad thing to make things right in any event," Hasbro said as they crested the hill, clear of the trees now. "You'll sleep better for it."

In the distance lay the ponds and the meadow roundabout them, although the gipsy caravan was nowhere to be seen, which was unfortunate. Speaking with them might have saved time in the search for the opening to the tunnel. There was the telltale copse, however, that Alice had referred to the only shrubbery near the ruin that might house a secret well. The old manse itself, as Hasbro had referred to it, lay away to the right, the ruins scenic in the windy suns.h.i.+ne. It was an active ruin, however. A number of uniformed men were busy about the place, several on horseback. Several others were exiting the structure and moving away from it in an organized manner.

"What's this now?" Tubby asked.

"They appear to be Royal Engineers," Hasbro said. "They've set up a perimeter."

"They'd best not hinder us, by G.o.d," Tubby said, picking up the pace as they moved downhill. The perimeter was a good fifty yards from the ruin, and beyond it, in the direction of Wood Pond, stood two lorries piled high with lumber. A number of idle men stood watching, evidently waiting for something to transpire. One of the men on horseback galloped uphill toward Tubby and Hasbro now, waving his arm as if to warn them off. They continued their downward trek, however, until the horse reined up before them, physically impeding their progress.

"Good day, sir," Tubby said to the man, but before the last word was out of his mouth, a thunderous explosion rocked the green below, and the roof of the building rose piecemeal into the sky in a great billow of smoke. Splinters of wood, roof slates, shrubbery, and other heavy litter rained down upon the earth, smoke and dust whirling in the air. The stone walls of the building seemed simply to settle, as if they'd grown tired of standing. The structure had been obliterated on the instant, nothing left of it now but several low lengths of ruined wall and a heap of debris. A cheer arose from the workmen and soldiers both.

"Now that was very neatly done, gentlemen," the man on horseback said to them. "Note the small field of debris and the thoroughgoing destruction. No need for another charge here, I can tell you. Major Robert Cantwell, at your service."

Tubby stood gaping at the field of rubble and at the crew of workmen, who at once set about shuttling posts from the lorries and laying them out at measured intervals. Others began auguring holes into the soil in which to sink the posts. They worked with a will, as if to have a paling fence constructed by nightfall.

Ignoring Major Cantwell's introduction, Tubby asked, "What was very neatly done? Or rather why, for G.o.d's sake?"

"G.o.d had nothing to do with it, sir. All glory has to be given to Mr. n.o.bel's ingenious dynamite sticks and the new electronic blasting caps. And of course to the sappers who set the explosives. There's an art to that, I can tell you."

"On whose orders?" Tubby asked.

"Who are you to inquire about orders, sir?" the major asked, giving him a hard look now.

"I'm a.s.sistant director of the Bureau of Parks and Open s.p.a.ces," Tubby lied. "My name is James Hall, and this is my companion Mr. Higgins, retired. The Metropolitan Board of Works is shortly to become caretaker of the park, so this is very much my business. Why have I heard nothing of it?"

"Our orders came to us early this morning from the Board of Works itself. Two boys were discovered in the old well-shaft last night, their legs and necks broken. The ruin has housed criminal gangs and been the site of murders and outrages, and now these two innocent boys, who found their way in through an unlocked grate and fell to their deaths. We were ordered to act at once, and we did so, as you can see. As for the Bureau of Parks and Open s.p.a.ces, Mr. James Hall, you must be aware that there has long been talk of razing the old ruin and building a grand pavilion and tea gardens."

"Of course I'm aware of it," Tubby said. "How could I not be? But this is a shocking acceleration of the plans, which are in preliminary stages, after all."

"Well, sir," Major Cantwell said with a laugh, "there's nothing preliminary about this piece of work, I can tell you that. The job needed to be done, and it's done."

"Might we be given leave to look at the result, major?" Hasbro asked. "I've an interest in demolition, and this was indeed capably carried out."

"No, sir, you may not. The Corps of Royal Engineers is taxed with hauling away the rubble and grading the site in preparation for the construction of the pavilion. Six months from now, barring inclement weather, you'll be free to stroll upon the memory of the place. Meanwhile, Mr. Hall," he said to Tubby, "as an employee of the Crown, you might consider visiting your place of employment on occasion in order to get some sense of what your work entails, rather than wandering abroad in order to put idle questions to men who very much know their business. Whose duty was it, I wonder, to ascertain that this apparently deadly grate was kept locked so that the void beneath it would not become a pit of dead children? Yours perhaps?" With that he spurred his horse around and set off down the hill again.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

MR. LEWIS AT WORK.

"Mr. Lewis, is it?" Alice asked him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, smiling obsequiously at her. "You inquired about a Mr. Harris, I believe?"

"Harrow, actually. James Harrow, of the British Museum. He died in an accident on the Embankment when his wagon overturned very near the Swan Pier."