Fiendish Schemes (4 page)

Having decided my course, I was determined to see it through. I had never conceived of myself as a figure of heroic resolve, but then, better late than never.

I swung my legs over the sagging bed’s edge, the better to bring the clockwork pistol close to the lantern’s illumination. My experience in the past had always been, as others wiser than myself have remarked upon, that a problem’s solution might elude the enquirer upon first and most forceful application, as a drop of mercury darts away from a fingertip brought square upon it. Whereas inattention—a skill I had seemingly developed to a high degree—often brings the answer unbidden. Such proved to be the case in this event, or so I assumed. It had been some time since last I occupied myself with my father’s eccentric clockwork pistol. The same small levers and catchpoints that I had manipulated before to vain effect, I now pushed and prodded in differing order. This produced some edifying results: one such lever, the largest and most prominently situated behind the pistol’s rotating cylinder, swung through its arc to a position unobtained on previous occasions. Other novelties seemed to ensue thereby: the pistol’s ticking and whirring grew louder, as might a small captured animal’s heart beat faster and breath pant with more avidity, perhaps upon spying some route of escape. I instinctively tightened my grip upon the device, some fanciful part of me apprehending that it would indeed bolt from my hand.

“Yes!” These developments gratified me enormously. I continued my addled soliloquy. “You haven’t taken the better of me this time.” Though my words might better be considered as a dialogue, in that I seemed to be addressing my dead father. “Now I’ve got you!”

I have no surety that all suicides experience the same emotions I did, those having succeeded in their attempts being no longer available for interview, and the failures hardly reliable in this regard. But excitement surged in my breast as I sensed the opening of that escape I had imagined for some trembling hypothetical creature. I raised the pistol, now the most gratefully received portion of my father’s estate, and brought its cold circular snout to my temple—

Just then, someone knocked at the room’s door.

An expletive escaped from my lips, which I immediately regretted. Not that I feared any lapse in polite vocabulary might offend the overhearing party, but that the mere act of speaking would confirm my presence to this unfortunate visitor. At times such as these, one values one’s privacy—understandably, given the delicacy of the procedure at hand. There’s precious little opportunity to acquire practice at killing oneself, at least if one is serious about it.

If the person on the other side of the door’s thin panels were the inn’s landlord, arisen from his own bed and re-trousered for the mere purpose of demanding his payment, I could hardly put him off—if for no other reason than that he could unlock the door and enter at his pleasure. In such a situation, waving about a pistol— however remarkable its design—would scarcely improve my prospects. If he snatched it from my hand—and he was thug enough to do so—I would have little recourse for carrying out my self-destructive intent, other than rushing from the inn and casting myself from the nearest cliff. The prospect of drowning in Cornwall’s cold and mucky waters filled me with justifiable distaste.

With my mind racing from corner to corner of my hemmed-in thoughts, I found it difficult to conjecture who else might be at the door of the shabby, slant-floored room. Whatever business I might have had with Lord Fusible and his Phototrope Limited associates, which had brought me to this terminal extension of the British Isles, had come to a conclusion once their lighthouse’s launch party had ended. Fusible was hardly more likely to have considered offering me a position with his firm when he was sober than when drunk— and in either state, the chances of his sending for me in the middle of the night were virtually nil.

As I pondered, the knock sounded again. “Mr. Dower? Are you there?”

So not the landlord, as the person enquiring had sufficient teeth to enunciate consonants and diphthongs, a dental condition not often encountered outside London, and rarely enough there. I decided to accept a temporary hiatus in the course of the project upon which I had embarked and slid the clockwork pistol beneath the bedpillow.

“A moment, please.” The room was so cramped that I had but to stand in order to reach the door. I shifted the latch and pulled it toward me—

At that moment, the past surged over me. As though I had indeed wandered down to the moonlit shore, and one of those tidal monsters that the Japanese term
tsunami
had towered above me like a shimmering wall, then struck me full force.

So many trials I had endured! Abyss of violence and deceit, so narrowly escaped!—as might one crawl over the lip of that fiery Pit into which one had been cast, blameless before, castigated and reviled afterward. I gaped at the swarthy visage of the apparition in front of me and heard again the long-forgotten voice of my manservant, Creff, speaking those words which had initiated my fall from Grace, headlong into Chaos and Despair:

Mr. Dower, sir, there is a crazed Ethiope at the door, presumably to buy a watch.

For indeed it was that author of my misfortunes who stood there in the glow cast by the room’s lantern, the figure I had once known only as the Brown Leather Man.

O
R
perhaps not.

As I regained consciousness—for I had swooned in a dead faint and fallen backward—I discerned a fairer face hovering above me, possessing thin, blondish whiskers and skin no darker than my own or any other Englishman’s. He seemed at least a few years younger than me.

I took the gentleman’s hand and allowed him to assist me into a sitting position at the edge of the bed. The back of my skull felt a little tender as I rubbed it, though a glance downward indicated that the rotting floorboards had suffered more damage from the impact than had I myself.

“I appear to have taken you by surprise,” spoke my visitor. “You have my apologies.”

“Quite all right.” With an upraised hand, I waved off further attention. “Accept my apology, instead. I have been lately . . . stressed.”

He smiled. “That comes as no surprise to me. I am rather more familiar with your affairs than you might imagine possible of a stranger.”

I let that remark pass. At one time, the whole world had seemed concerned about my comings and goings; if only one person was so caught up in them now, that was an improvement.

As my vision cleared, I examined more closely my unexpected visitor. My senses were still confused by the persis tence of the briny odour in the room, but that mystery was partly dispelled by the sight of the pool of sea-water spreading out from where he stood, its diameter increased by the rivulets still trickling from the dark, rubbery garment in which he was clad from neck to toe. Such had been the cause of my mistaking the gentleman for that rather less human creature, in origin if not form, who had come wetly traipsing to my Clerkenwell watch shop years ago. Of course, for he whom I had named in my mind as the Brown Leather Man, the function of the similarly encasing attire had been to keep the sea-water inside, as one of his aquatic origin could not survive without. (Though if any of his breed were still alive now, in their submerged habitat off the remote Orkney Islands, that would have come as equal surprise; a degree of this latest shock came from the apprehension that one dead had turned up on the room’s door sill, enquiring after its tenant, as though the Angel of Death had decided to meet me halfway.) Whereas for this gentleman, more recognizably of English stock, the garment’s purpose was to fend off the ocean. I had read of such enthusiasts, and even seen representations of the distinctive gear they had crafted for themselves, which made possible deep immersion in our nation’s chilly coastal waters. The diving garment’s hood, which I had taken for that which had hidden the Brown Leather Man’s true and unimaginable face from me, was now pulled loose from the matching seam at his throat, so that it might dangle flaccid at his back. A narrow tube of black India rubber hung coiled at his belt. This was undoubtedly a necessary part of the apparatus which allowed him to breathe while submerged, a perforated float carrying the open end to the water’s surface.

While relieved that I had been accosted by neither the dead or one other than human, I remained of a perplexity as to why someone garbed for marine exploration would want to talk to me. Conversations with strangers were always initiated by some interest in my father’s creations; I knew of none that could be successfully operated in sea-water.

“I’m afraid,” I said, “that if we’ve met before, the occasion has slipped from my memory.”

“We haven’t, in fact.” My visitor reached into a pouch next to the coiled tube and extracted a calling card, which he then proffered from his extended hand. “I could scarcely expect you to know anyone as obscure as myself.”

Whether that was a sly dig at my past notoriety, I could not tell. Examining the card, I saw that it was coated in some translucent wax, presumably to keep it safe of the salt-water from which the gentleman had so obviously arisen. The card read:

Hamuel Stonebrake
Senior Vicar
The Mission to the Cetaceans

Is there anyone whose heart does not sink upon meeting an evangelist? And of course, the obscurer the sect, the more persistent and troublesome such a person was likely to be. What wise street poet was he, whose doggerel stated that nothing frightened him more than religion at his door? Whoever it had been, he had had the right of it. Annoying enough when some traveling proselytizer, demented with godly revelations, turned up at one’s home, where peace and comfort could be restored simply by turning him away; I thought it rude of him to accost me here, where I was so obviously adrift amongst strangers. And if this Stonebrake fellow knew so much about me, as he claimed, couldn’t he have reasonably inferred that before his interruption I had been busily attempting to kill myself?

“May I?” He gestured toward the room’s single chair. “By all means.” I pulled my jacket, still somewhat moist, from the back of the chair and draped it across the bed. If I had been more charitably disposed toward the man, I would have warned him of the chair’s fragility. He managed to lower himself upon it without incident, the diving garment squelching upon the wood.

“You are perhaps wondering as to the purpose of my calling upon you. At such a late hour, and in such, I admit—” He smiled and gestured with both hands toward himself. “Unusual circumstances.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “I imagine that the Lord’s work—which appears to be your business—requires any number of unusual exertions. In this case, however, your efforts are somewhat futile. If you’ve come to ask me for a donation to this—worthy, I’m sure— Mission of yours, I have to inform you that my funds are limited at the moment.”

“Then it’s well that I did not come to make any such request.” He leaned back in the creaking chair, evidently amused by the description of my finances. “Nor would I have needed to—the Mission is well funded by its benefactors. A certain gentleman named Macduff has been most generous in this regard.”

“I’m sure he will receive his appropriate reward in the next life. But as I indicated, at the moment I can make no similar investment.”

“Your inability to do so comes as no surprise, Mr. Dower. Believe me, I know close to the exact shilling the extent of your straitened condition.”

Perhaps the man did, perhaps he didn’t. I didn’t care to pursue the point. For a dreadful suspicion had seized me. If he had not come here to solicit money—

“Good Lord.” I stared at him in horror. “Please don’t tell me that you actually come here out of concern for my immortal soul. I hope that I’m not one of these—” I glanced again at the card he had handed me. “These ‘Cetaceans’ to which you minister.”

My words drew a quick laugh from him. Then he leaned toward me, his elbows on his knees. “Do you know what a Cetacean is?”

“No more than I care, sir.” I drew myself upright. “I was not churched as a child; I am not versed in Bibles and Testaments and Prophets. My father, who had the sole rearing of me, was of the iconoclastic persuasion. I am aware, through common schooling, that certain Christian notables spent a great deal of time in correspondence with others; how they found time to be martyred, I can scarce imagine. The result being stacks of letters to Ephesians, and Thessalonians, and every Hebrew wandering about the Dead Sea. I have not read such letters—inasmuch as none were addressed to me personally—but I am sure they are edifying, if not diverting. Doubtless these Cetaceans of which you speak are similar recipients of such missives, full of good advice and moral nagging. Perhaps the original Cetaceans were of some distinct national character, so that their collective name became a metaphor, a general spiritual descriptor, as did
Pharisee
and
Samaritan
.” The fellow’s cheerful impertinence had roused me to unusual eloquence. “If you can find Cetaceans in London, or Hull, or Birmingham, all in need of your Mission’s care, then please, do so. However, I am confident that I am not one of these Cetacean fellows, so I could be safely left alone by you and your brethren, without your feeling that you had failed somehow.”

“Spoken well, Mr. Dower.” A single clap came from Stonebrake’s dark-gloved hands. “You do your slender faith proud. If ever nonbelievers required a preacher, I would nominate you to ascend their pulpit. Your logic, however, exceeds your knowledge.”

“I have never been accused of possessing a surfeit of either.”

“As that might be,” said Stonebrake. “But let me assure you that Cetaceans are not to be found in London, or any other city—at least not in living form, though sometimes their bones are put on display.”

“How barbaric.” I had no idea what the man was going on about.

“It could hardly be otherwise. For Cetaceans are not found there, but here.” He pointed to the room’s one crooked window.

“I was not aware that Paul or the other Church fathers wrote to anyone in Cornwall. This puts a new light on early Christian history.”

“Droll, Mr. Dower. But I meant you to look farther.”

“Very well.” Perhaps if I indulged the fellow, he would go away and leave me to the final task to which I had appointed myself. I obediently glanced once more at the night-filled window, then back to him. “There is nothing farther, Mr. Stonebrake, but the sea.”

“Exactly. That is where you would find a Cetacean, if you were seeking one. For a Cetacean is but a whale, sir. That aquatic wonderment, of immense size and appetite—that is, if you are speaking of the suborder
Odontoceti,
or the toothed whales. Their kin the
Mysticeti,
the baleen whales, are content to feed upon the tiny creatures that swill about in the ocean currents. Fascinating creatures, all of them, once you make their acquaintance.”

“Which I take it you have.”

“On many occasions, Mr. Dower.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And on these ‘occasions,’ sir, you somehow minister to these whales? Discharging your pastoral duties toward them, I mean. By, say, preaching sermons to them?”

“Not quite.” Stonebrake gave a shake of his head. “I am but a vicar in our organization. The head of our Mission is quite a fiery orator, though, and a godly man. He preaches to them.”

“Where?” A sudden, unbidden vision came to me, of some church vaster than York Minster, its magnified size necessary to accommodate the pews for such creatures, their fins awkwardly turning over the pages of the hymnals.

“As I told you.” My visitor was all patience as he pointed again to the window. “At sea. Our Mission is an ocean-going one, with a ship that serves as its headquarters and pulpit. I’m sure that you’d agree that a general rule of operation for all Christian missionary work, in Africa or the Atlantic, is to go where there are ears to listen to one’s teachings, rather than drag the heathens back to the home country for instruction.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course.” This was not the first time I had noted that when one conversed with the insane, their responses often seemed outwardly sensible and logical. “And are there other duties involved in this ministry that you and friends have undertaken? Does the head of the order, when not preaching to these whales, also hear their confessions and forgive them their sins?”

“That is a theological point that has not yet been established.” Stonebrake continued displaying his surface rationality. “We are a relatively new order, and as such, we do not have the lengthy history of disquisition that the ancient branches of the faith so obviously have. Thus, there are some matters on which we have disagreement with other Christians—”

“You could say that. I’m not aware of many Anglican priests, say, having lengthy discussions with fish.”

“Mammals, sir; whales are mammals. And that is where the ontological debate begins. Convinced of these creatures’ intelligence—and they are cunning beasts, I may assure you; very admirable in that respect—we are not yet sure if the species were participants in that antediluvian fall from grace that gave rise to Man’s condition of original sin.”

“Right.” I gave a nod. “I would expect that whales have a more favourable opinion of the great Flood mentioned in the Bible, than we do.”

“They might,” judged Stonebrake. “Be that as it may, the question remains: If whales are not of the same sinful nature as Man, does the sacrament of forgiveness of sins have any application to them? Myself, I could go either way. The Mission as a whole is still pondering the matter.”

“I’ve heard enough.” I dug under the pillow for my father’s clockwork pistol, having formed the intent to employ it immediately, rather than waiting for my guest’s departure. Whatever distress he might experience upon the sight of my blowing my brains out, such was of limited concern to me at this point. “I hope you’ll excuse me while I attend to some personal business, long delayed—”

The pistol’s whirring and ticking sounds had been muted by the pillow, but were now clearly audible as I raised it to my head, a finger crooked upon its trigger. A blow struck me, but to my chest, knocking the wind from my lungs. Dazed, I found myself sprawled upon the room’s floor, one of Stonebrake’s hands at my throat, the other prying the pistol device from my grip.

“You fool!” All affability had disappeared from the other man’s expression. Stonebrake’s face darkened with fury, eyes narrowed to slits as he glared into mine. “Do you believe I came all this way to discuss maritime theology with you?” He glanced for a split second at the pistol he had wrested from me, then tossed it aside. Rising to his feet, he hauled me upright with him. “Do you really think that whales are so important?”

“You were . . .” I gasped for breath, his fist hard at my throat. “The one who . . . brought them up—”

“Desist!” His other hand struck me across the face, hard enough to send me flying onto the bed, which collapsed beneath me. “You and I have other business to attend to—”

“Wuttin blazes garn thar?”

Both Stonebrake and I looked over at the door, which had flown open to reveal the innkeeper, clad in a flannel nightshirt. Our voices had no doubt roused him from his slumbers, his concern heightened by the audible eruption of violence.

I could see the room’s chaos reflected in the man’s eyes. The broken timbers of the bed frame were scattered about, with myself prostrate on the mattress, Stonebrake’s knee pressed against my chest, his fist raised above my bloodied head.