Supping With Panthers (23 page)

‘Mr Polidori.’ Eliot spoke now with perfect politeness. ‘I was given your address by a friend. I gather we may share common’ – he paused – ‘interests.’

The door remained ajar. ‘Interests?’ a soft voice hissed at length.

Eliot glanced up at the window above the shop. ‘We have come a long way, my friend and myself.’

He had gestured at me while saying this. I tried not to look too baffled, but his approach I confess had caught me rather off guard, for I had not the faintest idea what ‘interests’ he had meant. Polidori, however, seemed to understand, for after a short pause he opened the door. ‘You had better come in, then,’ he muttered. He waved us through, and we stepped into the shop.

Polidori bolted the door, then turned round to face us. He was very pallid and his neck lolled strangely, but he was otherwise rather handsome – of an age, I would estimate, not over twenty-five. There was, however, something peculiarly unsettling about him which I cannot explain, unless it was the strange restlessness evident in his expression and stare. Locked in the small shop with him, I felt myself instinctively tense and prepare for the worst.

‘Upstairs?’ asked Eliot.

Polidori bowed his head. ‘After you,’ he said in a silky tone.

He gestured towards a rickety staircase and we began to ascend it. I had to bow my head, so small was the stairway, and as I climbed I felt a great sense of horror and revulsion rising up in me – quite disproportionate to my circumstances, for I am not an easily frightened man. The cause, however, may well have been more physiological than anything else, for mingled with the stench on the shopkeeper’s breath I began to smell a second odour, heavy and sweet, borne on brown smoke from the room above. As I ascended I became aware of strange imaginings, crawling like insects on the margins of my brain; I tried to brush them aside but felt, even as I did so, a terrible temptation to yield to them, for they seemed to promise strange delights and great wisdom, and a refuge from my fear. I remembered Eliot’s warning, however, and struggled to remain as alert as I could.

At the top of the stairs was a drape of purple silk. Eliot brushed it aside, and I followed him into the room beyond. It was filled with the brown smoke I had smelled on the stairs, and it took me some seconds to see beyond the haze. The walls, I could dimly make out, were covered with threadbare tapestries, and in the far comer of the room was a metal brazier; occasionally it would spark and wink, and I realised that it had been the glow of its charcoal we had seen from the street. A pot was simmering over the heat; an old Malay woman was tending it, and when she looked up I saw that she was hideously shrivelled and old, with eyes that seemed like lustreless glass. Suddenly, however, she began to rock on her seat, laughing loudly; a man who had been curled up on a sofa nearby to us looked up suddenly, and also began to laugh. He burst into conversation, very urgent and gushing but monotonous too, as though he had the secret of all existence to convey but without the words that would express it adequately.

‘Blood,’ he dribbled, ‘in blood lies the generation, and the life,
in blood
…’ His voice trailed away, and his face twitched horribly before lapsing into stillness. In one hand he clutched a dark bamboo pipe; he held it up to his lips, and I saw a red glow in the bowl as he pulled on the smoke. All across the room now I could make out similar spots of glowing and fading light as the victims of the poison fed on their drug, perfectly oblivious to us and to all the world. They lay twisted and numb in fantastic postures, and they seemed to me – staring at them through the smoke – like the victims of some explosion of volcanic ash, embalmed in their death throes for all posterity to witness and to shudder at Such then did it mean, I thought, to be a subject of the mighty monarch Opium!

‘I have had the very finest of our house prepared for you, sir.’

I turned round. Polidori, with a malignant grin, was offering me a pipe. His teeth, I observed now that they were bared, seemed very sharp. When he curled his upper lip, he assumed the character of some cunning beast of prey.

‘No?’ he said at length mockingly. He turned to my companion. ‘How about you then, sir?’ Again he curled his lips. ‘Surely you will breathe in our smoke’ – he paused-’Dr Eliot?’

Eliot, far from appearing startled at this mention of his name, remained perfectly composed. ‘I gather, then, Mr Polidori,’ he said, ‘that you have been alerted already to our interest in you?’

Polidori’s face and body seemed to twist with the joke. ‘I saw Headley this afternoon,’ he nodded. ‘He mentioned your and Mr Stoker’s call.’

‘Good,’ replied Eliot coolly. ‘Then you will know the purpose of our visit here.’

Polidori grinned. ‘You want Mowberley.’

‘I see we understand each other perfectly.’

‘Not so, I’m afraid, Dr Eliot.’

My companion raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

‘He is not here.’

‘I know that he is.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

Eliot shook his head. ‘If you won’t lead me to him, I will find my own way.’ He walked forward, but as he did so Polidori grabbed at his wrists, pulling Eliot so that the two men’s faces were pressed close together, and I saw Eliot wince from the stench of Polidori’s breath.

‘Release him,’ I ordered. ‘Release him!’ Polidori glanced round at me, and after a long pause stepped back from Eliot. His smile, however, if anything grew only more broad.

My companion, in turn, remained as cool as before. ‘You will see,’ he said courteously, ‘that we are quite determined.’

‘Oh, quite!’ grinned Polidori, baring his teeth.

‘Where is your mistress?’

‘My mistress?’ Polidori suddenly laughed. He stooped his shoulders, and began to twist his hands round and round as though in a lather of servility. ‘My mistress,’ he moaned, ‘oh, my beautiful mistress! Lusted after by all the world!’ He straightened suddenly. ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

‘Whoever she is, whatever she is’ – Eliot paused – ‘you do.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘You have lured two of my friends – you know their names – to this den of vice. Your purpose has been to break them – to win the secrets of their diplomatic work. What interest could you have in such an end? Nothing. Therefore – by a process of perfectly logical deduction – you must be working for someone else, someone with an interest in the parliamentary bill.’

‘Oh, Dr Eliot, Dr Eliot,’ Polidori moaned, ‘you are so terribly…
clever!
He spat out the last word; as he did so he sprang forward again, but Eliot cried out to me in warning, and before Polidori could seize me I had caught him by the arms. Polidori froze, a mocking sneer of contempt on his lips.

‘Now,’ said Eliot patiently, ‘I have no wish to make this unpleasant. I am not interested in tracking your’ – he paused – ‘what word should I use, if not your mistress? – your
accomplice
down. Merely tell me where you have Mowberley; then we can all leave each other well alone.’

‘Oh, how exceedingly considerate of you.’

‘I warn you now, I shall call in Scotland Yard if there is no other way.’

‘What,’ sneered Polidori, ‘and destroy the reputation of the noble minister?’

‘I would prefer not to,’ replied Eliot, ‘but whatever else he loses, I must at least preserve his life.’

‘It is not in danger.’

‘So you admit he is here?’

‘No.’ Polidori paused, and when he smiled he bared his teeth again. ‘But he has been, Dr Eliot’ He stepped back slowly, his eyes still on us and his hands upraised. Without looking round, he handed the pipe down to the old Malay crone; dully, she lit it for him and Polidori, placing the stem between his lips, drew on the smoke, three or four puffs. He closed his eyes. ‘It is very good,’ he murmured, ‘oh, so very good indeed. Men would come a long way for it.’ He opened his eyes again suddenly. ‘And they do, Dr Eliot. Believe me – they do.’ He smiled slowly and his lips, when they parted, were veiled by a yellow film of saliva. He licked it away and his eyes, which before had seemed clouded, were suddenly cold and piercing again. ‘You are too clever, Dr Eliot. There is no conspiracy. Men must have their opium-even ministers in the Government.’

‘No.’ Eliot shook his head. ‘You have lured him here.’

‘Lured him?’ Polidori sank back in a chair. The mist seemed to roll across his eyes again. ‘Lured him,’ he repeated, ‘lured him, lured him.’ He blinked up at us with an expression of sudden urgency. ‘I must have wealthy men,’ he laughed. ‘Men of means. West End gents.’ His laughter now was nothing but a stream of high-pitched giggles. ‘So yes – I lured them, Dr Eliot.’ He began to mumble again, repeating the phrase as he had done before. Slowly, he leaned forward and pointed an unsteady finger into my companion’s face. ‘But if they took the drug – if they took it – then that was their own responsibility.’

His eyes, wide with a look of moral solemnity, suddenly creased and he subsided into spluttering giggles again. He lay in his chair and began to mumble at empty space. Eliot observed him with detached interest ‘See,’ he observed, ‘how numb the muscles in his cheeks are growing. The stupor he is sinking into is clearly profound.’ He glanced around the room. ‘This may prove easier than I had dared to hope.’

He began to inspect each body where it lay, but at length I saw him stand and frown. He turned to me and shook his head.

‘Perhaps he is with the Rajah,’ I suggested.

‘Who?’

I stared at him in surprise. ‘Why, Sir George, of course. Isn’t that who we are searching for?’

Eliot laughed shortly at this – almost rudely, I felt. ‘Well, of course it is,’ he replied, and turned his back on me.

I felt angry at this sudden brusqueness. ‘I am very stupid, I am sure,’ I told him, ‘but I fail to see why you must treat my suggestion with such utter scorn.’

Eliot turned back to me at once. ‘I am sorry, Stoker, if I have caused you offence. Your contribution, however, was a laughable one, and we have no time to waste on debating it And yet…’ His eyes narrowed as his voice trailed away. ‘And yet,’ he repeated, ‘your line of reasoning was not, perhaps, as foolish as it at first appeared. No …’ With sudden energy, he crossed to the wall and began to move along it, pressing it with his hands.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

He glanced round at me. ‘With the Rajah, you said. Well, clearly, I laughed because there
is
no Rajah…’

‘What?’ I exclaimed.

‘No Rajah,’ he repeated, ‘but there is a Queen. Would she ever live in such squalor as this?’ He gestured with his arms and then, even as he did so, his gaze strayed to the brazier in one comer of the room. At once he crossed to it and pushed it aside, then struck at the wall which lay beyond. As he did so the old hag who had been staring into the coals looked up at him and began to shriek. Eliot ignored her as she clutched on to his coat, gibbering with fear; I crossed and tried to calm her, but her fingers would not be prised free from the hem. She stared at the wall as though menaced by it; Eliot was stripping it of its dirty, smoke-stained hangings, and revealing behind them a rough wooden door.

‘She is coming,’ chattered the Malay, ‘coming for her blood! O Queen, Queen of pain and delight!’ She choked suddenly and her face was twisted by a rictus grin, hideous like a skull’s. ‘Oh, my goddess,’ she mumbled, letting slip Eliot’s coat as she raised her hands to her eyes. ‘My goddess of life – my goddess of death.’

Eliot glanced at me. As he did so, I saw his gaze stray from my face and a frown crease his brow. I glanced round and saw Polidori was watching us. He was still slumped in his chair, but his eyes were open again and perfectly unclouded. Eliot unbarred the door and pushed it open; at once I felt cool night air against my skin, a blessed relief from the fumes of the smoke and its poison in my lungs. Eliot took a step forward; then he glanced round at Polidori again. He was still watching us, his eyes as bright and unblinking as a cat’s. Eliot took my arm. ‘For God’s sake, come on,’ he whispered. He turned, and did not look round again. I followed him through the doorway to find we were on a bridge. Below us, I saw water; ahead, a wall of brown and dirty brick. I glanced round again; Polidori’s eyes were still watching me. Violently, I slammed shut the door.

I could feel a soft, cold drizzle washing my brow. Already, away from the fumes of the opium, my energy and courage were returning to me. I looked around again. The bridge we were on was wooden and old; it spanned a narrow stretch of water which clearly had once been used by merchant vessels, for there was a warehouse built on the opposite side. But there was only one tiny boat moored there now, and when I looked at the entrance out to the Thames I saw a row of spikes embedded in the walls, so that access was barred to any larger craft. The warehouse too seemed utterly disused; its wall was streaked with black and its windows, like those of Coldlair Lane, had been boarded up. I stared at it, and felt despair; it was clearly uninhabitable – we would find no one inside.

Eliot, however, had already crossed the bridge and was picking the lock of a heavy wooden door. At length he stood back, and the door creaked ajar. To my surprise, I saw a crack of red light. Eliot glanced at me; then he passed inside and I followed him.

And at once we both stood still again. I had been through many strange things that night, but nothing that compared with the sight before me now – and indeed, I almost wondered if I were not still in the opium den, trapped in the coils of some smoke-borne dream. For what we saw appeared a vision – it was impossible to believe we were in a warehouse at all. Instead we seemed to be in the hallway of some fantastic palace, and yet, no … hallway is not the right word, for it was scarcely a hall but something far stranger and vaster than that – almost, I thought, like a floor suspended in space, for above me the ceiling was obscured by dark, and the only walls I could distinguish were behind us and ahead. There were ebony doors in the centre of both these walls, and alcoves stretching away on either side. In every one was a statue and these figures, I saw, had each been sculptured in a different fashion, suggestive of a wide range of cultures and historical times, so that here an Egyptian or there a Chinese might be seen. Yet there was something similar about the statues, indefinable at first, and unsettling; I scanned them and realised suddenly that no matter how varied the styles in which their faces had been portrayed, the same expression was on all of them – sensual, and beautiful, and very cold. It was almost as though the statues were of the same woman; that was clearly impossible, yet even so it was very strange.