Extraordinaires 1 (11 page)

T
he next day, Kingsley was grateful, and amazed, when Evadne presented him with a new suit before they left her refuge. His stage outfit had become a sad ruin but he wondered where she had obtained his measurements. He gave up wondering when his conclusions made him blush, and instead he admired the deep charcoal wool of the suit and how it went with the lighter grey of the waistcoat and the straw boater.

‘You're presentable,' she announced after standing back and subjecting him to the sort of scrutiny he imagined stock agents gave to potential steeplechasers.

‘I'm glad.'

‘And you remember your instructions?'

‘I go to the Imperial Sports Club, ask to be seated at Mr Kipling's table, and wait for you to bring him along.'

‘Excellent.'

‘And remind me again why going out in public is a sensible idea for someone who is no doubt being pursued by the police for the murder of his housekeeper and the disappearance of his foster father?'

‘Ah. That person, if you remember, was only glimpsed by a somewhat terrified young constable, and looked rather more fiendish than your current debonair self.'

‘What about the desk sergeant at the Hyde Park police station?'

‘You were only there as a young man accompanying Rudyard Kipling, the famous writer.' She brushed his shoulder with the tips of her fingers. ‘Regardless, you can't stay in the Demimonde forever, not if you want to resume your stage career.'

‘Finding my foster father comes first.'

‘Of course, and limiting yourself to a Demimonde existence would make that more difficult.'

‘True.'

‘And Mr Kipling has asked to meet there.'

‘Why didn't you mention that first? And how do you know?'

‘I was working up to it. Myrmidon.'

‘You've lost me.'

‘Two answers to two questions. Mr Kipling asked to meet us at the Imperial Sports Club, and I received this message via myrmidon, which confirms that Mr Kipling knows his way around the Demimonde. He found someone who – for a goodly price, no doubt – passed his message on to Lady Aglaia, an old and very strange friend of mine, who found one of my messengers.'

‘But Kipling? The Demimonde? He's so . . .'

‘Respectable?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Many respectable people move in and out of the Demimonde. It's important to them.'

‘I imagine a writer might be interested in what he could find there.'

‘Many a tale has begun in the Demimonde.'

‘I hope he has news about my foster father.'

‘I'll fetch him and we shall find out.'

‘You'll fetch him?
He
requested the meeting; can't he find his own way to the club?'

‘Almost certainly, but I want to observe him a little before we meet, just in case.'

‘Oh. Can we trust him, you mean?'

‘Precisely.'

Kingsley decided that the Olympic Committee knew what it was doing when it built the Imperial Sports Club. The club was near the elaborate confection that was the Palace of Fine Arts, an elegant domed edifice with a covered loggia on the western side of the Great White City – home to the vast Franco-British Exhibition. More importantly, the Imperial Sports Club was close to the stadium for the Olympic Games and provided a venue for the upper crust of society unused to the environs of Shepherd's Bush, so far from what they no doubt thought of as the comforts of the city.

It was a measure of the writer's influence that the porter's disdain for Kingsley's youth didn't prevent him from showing Kingsley to a seat in a drawing room. Kingsley sat and waited while the crowd in the stadium nearby cheered lustily at whatever running, jumping or throwing was happening at the moment, while those in the club continued their business in blithe unconcern.

Kingsley envied all of them for living simple lives, untroubled by bloody murder and missing foster fathers.

He put such thoughts to one side and gazed about with what he hoped was the requisite degree of surreptitiousness.

The Olympic Committee had spared nothing in order to make comfortable those whom they deemed necessary for the success of the sporting competition. The upshot was a building jammed full of drawing rooms, smoking rooms and dining rooms, all stuffed with furniture so heavy it had probably needed a team of elephants to drag it into place. The overwhelming decor was dark wood, and it had been applied with lavishness on panels, doors, fireplaces and trout stretchers. This was only leavened by a splash of marble and silver here and there, to remind one that there were things in life other than cutting down forests.

The club was designed to be a place where a chap could read a newspaper and tuck into a lamb chop or two before ambling over to watch our boys give the foreigners a thrashing.

Kingsley had come to this conclusion because he was surrounded by those doing exactly that. Men – or some strange hybrid of man and walrus – stalked about in tweeds and expensive sporting suits, muttering knowledgeably about the deficiencies of the cinder track, or the practicalities of having the racing pool in the middle of the arena. All of them, in the time he'd been sitting in a corner, had glanced at him and wondered from what far-off country he'd come, to be so unwhiskered.

This is civilisation
, Kingsley thought as he tried to be inconspicuous in his corner.
A great and shining expression of it.
The suspicion between nations, the jealousies and rivalries, had been mostly put aside for this manifestation of civilisation. Kingsley decided that if this was what civilisation could do, he was in favour of it.

He also wondered if Kipling were making a point by choosing this place to meet.

A huge clock in the corner opposite, near a piano that looked as if had never been played, told him that just over an hour had passed, which meant that Evadne was half an hour late. Which obviously indicated that Evadne had abandoned him, or forgotten him, or denounced him to the police, who were no doubt surrounding the club at this very moment.

Or had she observed something dangerous about Kipling?

A crackling of newspapers swept through the room as, one by one, the walrus gentlemen lowered their reading matter in profound astonishment. A female had entered their domain! And not just a female, but a young female with snowy white skin and pink eyes!

Relieved, Kingsley stood as Evadne and Kipling approached. ‘I hope they have good medical staff on the premises,' he said to Evadne, whose lips were twitching with amusement. She was wearing a pale yellow coat over a lavender dress, topped with a sharp vermilion hat that Kingsley imagined deserved the description ‘dashing'. She carried something larger than a parasol and smaller than an umbrella. A parabella? An umbersol? ‘You've probably inspired a few heart attacks already.'

‘That, Kingsley, was most gallant.'

‘I'm glad. I've always aspired to gallantry,' Kingsley said. ‘Hello, Mr Kipling.'

‘I'm glad you're safe.' The writer shook Kingsley's hand and studied his face intently before taking them to a trio of unoccupied chairs near a window that looked towards the stadium. ‘After that business at the police station I was distressed. If it weren't for Miss Stephens's advising that we should retreat, I fear what might have happened.'

‘Safe is a relative matter, sir,' Kingsley replied, ‘as I'm starting to understand.'

Kipling gestured with his head. ‘You should be well enough in this place. At least, for the time being.'

‘That, Mr Kipling,' Evadne said, ‘sounds ominous.'

‘I should hope so. We've landed ourselves in some deep stuff indeed.' He looked about, casually, but Kingsley could see the observer's eye in the way the writer took in the surroundings. ‘While I'm happy with ominous, I don't want to stray into the melodramatic, but I need to say that dark forces are afoot.'

‘We've already encountered some,' Kingsley muttered. He told Kipling about the attack of the Spawn on Evadne's refuge.

‘You have an underground retreat, my dear?' The writer reached inside his jacket pocket and began to pull out a notebook. With an effort, he pushed it back. He smiled ruefully. ‘I imagine you'd prefer such a thing remain private.'

‘And undiscovered by creatures belonging to the Immortals,' Evadne said. ‘Which is why they were dealt with.'

Somewhat of an understatement, Kingsley thought, but he didn't draw attention to the matter. ‘You have news, Mr Kipling?'

‘Ah, yes, and it's about these very same Immortals.'

Kingsley saw Evadne tense. It was infinitesimal – mostly in the way she held her shoulders – but it was there. ‘You wouldn't have found where they are hiding, would you?' she asked the writer.

‘No, nothing as concrete as that. All I have are rumours, some stories, some theories.'

‘And where do these come from?' Kingsley asked.

The writer smiled a little. ‘I have my sources.'

Evadne snagged a passing steward and ordered a lemon squash. Kipling asked for one as well, while Kingsley opted for water. While they waited, their conversation drifted to the Olympic Games and the spirited nature of the competition. Civilised though it may be, Kipling chuckled at some of the friction that was becoming apparent between British and American officials.

A waitress appeared and distributed the refreshments. Kingsley glanced outside. Rain had begun to fall again.

‘You understand that I met your father, years ago.'

Kingsley whipped his head around. He stared at the writer, then he hesitated. ‘Dr Ward?'

‘He was in India while I was there. An extraordinary man. He spent months at a time travelling about on his own, you know, not speaking to a European all that time.'

Kingsley sagged. For a moment, he'd thought Kipling was about to tell him of his real father, the man he'd never known. Dr Ward had been good to him, but Kingsley had always wondered about his real parents. Who were they? What had happened to them for him to end up nurtured by wolves?

‘Do you have any news of him?' Evadne said after glancing at Kingsley.

‘I'm afraid not, but the news I do have is more important.'

Kingsley straightened. ‘More important than finding my foster father?'

‘I understand your desire to find him,' Kipling said. ‘He's a good man and an outstanding thinker, but he is only one man.'

Evadne put a hand on Kingsley's forearm and interrupted the retort that was rising to his tongue. ‘Your meaning?' she asked the writer.

‘In coming back to London, the Immortals have taken the first step in their age-long plan to dominate all humanity.'

Kingsley started, then settled, aided by the firm pressure of Evadne's hand on his forearm. Juggler's muscles, he supposed.

Kipling explained. ‘I've been talking to some old friends who'd been in India while I was there. We combined notes and concluded that the Immortals' presence in India, appalling though their deeds were, was just a precursor, a step towards their real goal, the domination of humankind.' He smiled grimly. ‘When a two-hundred-year reign of terror and the assembling of vast riches is just a small step, then we are dealing with creatures who are evil beyond reckoning.'

‘Oh, yes,' Evadne breathed. ‘That we are.'

‘The best guess is that they have come back to England for two reasons. Firstly, they have become obsessed with the notion of mass animus.'

‘Animus?' Kingsley frowned. ‘Spirit?'

‘It's not the soul, or anything like that. It's more an insubstantial expression of the attitudes of a person, their morals and beliefs. Massed animus is the collective expression of a group of people gathered for a purpose, be it worship, play or something more sinister.'

Kingsley thought of the way applause seemed to float above an audience, a shared manifestation of goodwill and appreciation. Was this what Kipling was talking about?