The Mist in the Mirror (5 page)

I looked along the shelves at random, picking up a volume here and there, until I came upon a book about that part of China in which I had travelled only a few years previously, along the route set by Conrad Vane, and where I found most evidence of his presence. I opened it eagerly but as I began to turn the pages, I became aware of a strange, uncomfortable sensation. At first, it felt as if I were being watched and the impression was so strong that twice I looked sharply from the pages and over my shoulder
around the room, and finally towards the window. But there was no one, I was quite alone, and there was no sound save for the crisp turning of the pages under my hand. But the sensation did not leave me, and mingled with it was a prickle of unease, as though some sixth sense were warning me of danger. But what possible danger could there be? The sense of being observed became insistent, willing me to take notice of it, but again, on glancing round, even moving about the room and looking in every direction, I saw no one.

The shop was very cold, and the air musty with the smell of old books, but now I smelled something else, a very faint, distinctive and strangely sweet odour. It was pungent and yet the trace was so slight that, when I inhaled more deeply in an effort to identify it, it was lost. But I knew it, and it was linked to some place, some situation I had been in. For a few seconds there was a swirl in my brain as I struggled to place it, snatches of confused images, sounds, colours, together with an odd sensation of instability or faintness, yet it was all so fleeting I could scarcely grasp anything of it before it was gone, and the smell was gone too, as if it had never been. I concluded that, as I had turned a page or two of the book, some dust of an old fragrance, perhaps a perfume, a spice, a pressed flower petal, that had been lingering there had been released, and a last vestige of it had entered my nostrils, before it had disintegrated into the surrounding air.

I set the book carefully on the shelf, and as I did so, turned my head quickly. In the street outside stood the boy. He was dressed in the same, ragged, collarless shirt as before, but this time he looked even frailer, and distressed rather than merely preoccupied or distant, his mouth pinched, his eyes huge and hollow, and bright, as if he had a fever. But it was his expression which struck me with such force, and awoke an immediate response from deep within me, and chilled and frightened me too, it was one of such
fear and misery and desperation, a pleading, anguished look that he directed at me, so that I could do no other than plunge out of the shop to try and reach him, rescue him – I scarcely knew what. But, as I flung open the door and hurtled down the steps into the lane, I was almost put on my back by a huge, gangling youth coming up to the shop door, and colliding with me. In his arms was a broad shallow basket, covered in a cloth, from which a hot savoury smell arose, and as I reeled backwards and tried to recover myself, he said reproachfully, ‘Mr Monmouth I take it, sir, and this ’n’s your and Mr Beamish’s dinner you had nearly spread across the street.’

In dusting myself off and apologising and making way for him and his tray, in my embarrassment and confusion, I had barely a second in which to glance around Crab Passage. The boy was gone.

So the feeling that I was being watched had been real enough, and perhaps followed too, all over London, else how could he have possibly come across me in this obscure, unmarked alley?

Had the young man with his tray not been standing waiting for me at the top of the shop steps I would have made some attempt to track down the boy’s hiding place, for apart from being bewildered at his abrupt, silent appearances, I was now concerned about his welfare, so ill and ragged did he look.

But I could do no more now. I turned and went behind the youth into the shop and straight up the stairs, past the first floor office and then on up a further rickety flight, holding firmly to the banister, for it was pitch dark. At the top stood a closed door, which we went through into a small lobby, and up to a second door, against which the youth bumped his shoulder.

‘Come.’

I thought the voice was that of a woman, it was so high-pitched.

‘Shove,’ the boy said, and held the door open for me to follow. I realised that he was announcing his own name.

I stepped cautiously forward.

It was an extraordinary room, running, so far as I could make out, the full length of the top of the house, with windows overlooking the rooftops. It was gloomy, the walls were lined with leather-bound books, there were heavy curtains of dark green plush fabric with deep pelmets, and the table and armchairs were draped in it too. An ornate black marble fireplace filled the wall at the far end, over which hung a huge, carved, gilded mirror, and as I glanced into it, I caught the first glimpse of my host, reflected in it. I turned round.

He was seated in a low chair near to the window, his arms, with their podgy little hands, folded over an immense, rotund belly. He had small, piercing eyes, a bald, domed head, and he was very formally dressed, like a lawyer, in an old-fashioned suit with gold watch and chain across the waistcoat.

‘Mr Beamish?’

‘I am, sir.’

A man, yes, but with the high, squeaking voice I had mistaken for that of a woman or even a child.

He did not rise, but gestured to the seat opposite.

‘Shove will be gone presently,’ he said.

‘I had not realised that you were offering me dinner. I am most grateful.’

‘Snecker’s pies.’

‘Mutton,’ Shove said over his shoulder.

He had laid the table, and was now setting out tankards and a jug of ale.

‘I came into the shop some time ago – I even ventured upstairs, but no one was about and no one seemed to hear me.’

‘I heard you.’ His small eyes were upon me. They were
cold and his expression complacent, and I saw that he got pleasure from trying to discomfort me. I did not take to him.

‘People come and go. Shove’s about the place. They generally know what they want.’

‘You’ve a remarkable stock. I found much to interest me.’

‘I take it you’ve travelled, Mr Monmouth?’

‘Indeed.’

‘I have not. I let others travel for me.’ He gestured to the books.

‘Right,’ Shove said.

Mr Beamish began to heave himself to his feet and totter over to the dining table – I thought that it might be as far as he ever went. As well as being fat he was short, no more than five feet or so, so that as he moved he seemed to rock backwards and forwards like a child’s toy. Everything about him should have made for cheeriness and jollity of personality but it did not. Sitting down with him at the table, I felt that I wanted to keep him at arm’s length and that there was no warmth or humour, other than of a sarcastic kind, in him. Nevertheless he was hospitable to a stranger, I was hungry, and curious about him and his business, and above all anxious that he should give me as much information as possible on the subject of Conrad Vane.

With the hot mutton pies there were peas, mashed potatoes and gravy and the ale to drink, and Mr Beamish did not speak at all while he ate, but tucked a white napkin under his chin and attacked his food with complete, and vigorous, concentration.

I took the opportunity during the pauses between mouthfuls to glance about me – indeed, I was able to peer, for Mr Beamish was busy concentrating on his food. As well as the books and the heavy furniture and curtains I noticed several peculiar objects, all of them singularly
unpleasant. On the sideboard stood a glass dome beneath which was not the usual arrangement of dried flowers or waxen fruit but a curious tree stump or piece of old driftwood of a most twisted and tortured shape, out of which at various points sprouted weird fungoid growths intertwined with one another, the colour of old bone or parchment. There was a shield made of stretched, stained skin, and a tiny shrunken head on a stand, clumps of spongy, lava-like rock and several objects I could not identify, floating in sealed jars of murky liquid.

At the far end of the room stood a handsome pair of globes and, beside them, a map display case.

Mr Beamish sucked down the dregs of his ale, and wiped his little pursed, pink mouth.

‘What set you onto Vane?’ He was looking at me closely.

I said, ‘Many years ago I came upon a book in my Guardian’s collection – we were living in Africa then. I began it for want of anything else to read at the time and could not leave off – it opened up the world to me, places, voyages, and it made mention of various travellers. One of them was Conrad Vane.’

‘What do you know of him?’

‘That he first journeyed across …’

‘No, no, not where,
him
.’

Beamish had arrived at once at the nub of my reason for being here.

‘Precious little,’ I said at last, ‘I am hoping that you, among others, can tell me much more.’

‘You will find little.’

‘Just the same …’

‘Why?’

I blustered. He was making me feel uncommonly nervous and unsure of myself.

‘I suppose – well, it is simply a task that I have set myself. It attracts me. And I have nothing else to do.’

‘Then you should make it your business to find something,’ he said softly. I stared.

‘Leave be, Mr James Monmouth. That is my advice to you. Leave be.’

‘Why on earth …’

‘Reasons.’

‘Good heavens, man, you are trying to make a dark mystery out of all this.’

‘Not I.’

‘I have already followed in Vane’s footsteps across half the world.’

‘And came alive out of it.’

‘Certainly. Oh, I have been in peril enough but that is the risk the adventurous traveller takes.’

‘Do you know of Catchment? Dawes? Luis van Ray?’

‘A little … not of the last. They were names I heard mentioned in the course of my travels, they had been ahead of me.’

‘And where are they now?’

‘I do not …’

‘Dead, Mr James Monmouth. Dead – or vanished.’

‘As I said, it is a perilous business.’

‘Not in the usual way. They did not die or disappear because they fell among thieves or down a ravine.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘Leave be.’

‘Mr Beamish …’

‘You’ve travelled. You are safely returned. Your luck held. Don’t tempt fate.’

‘Fate? How? Here in England, in the safety of this snug little island? Here, where I intend to settle, to find a place to live, here where I shall do no more than read and write and diligently pursue my own researches, and where my only adventures will be among gentle hills and downs, and over moorland to the sea? Where I shall travel by rail and on foot? Where I shall talk to those who can inform me and
otherwise think my own thoughts? Here where I shall be like an old horse put out to grass?’ I almost laughed in his face.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘here will be the most perilous of all.’

The man, I decided, was mad and the look on my face must have told him that I thought so.

‘No one,’ he said, ‘wants to revive the memory or disturb the shade of Conrad Vane. No one will speak to you of him – no one who could possibly be of any use to you. No one who knows.’

‘Knows what?’

‘What he knows.’

‘This is gibberish.’ I stood. I was angry now. But I thought that I had seen through him. Theodore Beamish wanted to put me off, to frighten me in some way so that I would leave the study of Conrad Vane, his life and work, to someone else – himself.

‘I do not know what nonsense you are trying to fill me with.’

‘Sit down, Mr Monmouth …’

I would not have done so but at that moment there was a peremptory knock on the door and the youth Shove entered, carrying two covered bowls on his tray.

‘Treacle,’ he said, set them down on the cloth and lifted the lids. Pudding and custard sat, steaming and fragrant.

For some moments again we ate in silence save for the scraping of spoons. But I was on edge and still annoyed, particularly at the man’s attempt to unnerve me. I was also puzzled and above all determined. My plan was to research into the life, especially the early years, of Conrad Vane, for I could not write of his explorations without doing so, and I saw no reason why I should be deterred from carrying it out. Besides, for some reason, the man drew me to him.

Eventually, Mr Beamish set down his spoon and leaned back in his chair.

‘Unpleasantness,’ he said, ‘is to put it mildly.
Unpleasantness. That is what dogs the memory. Did nothing ever strike you? Did no one talk?’

I began to think back to the places I had visited over the past years connected directly with Vane, villages, town-ships, ancient sites, to the mention I had very occasionally made of him. No, no unpleasantness, as Beamish had it. The most there had been was a kind of blankness, a vague impression gained that Conrad Vane had not been a man remembered, where he was remembered at all, with any particular affection, or whom it was thought right to honour.

‘No,’ I said at last. ‘Nothing.’

‘Yet the leopard does not change its spots.’

‘You hint at some dark deeds perhaps? Did Vane commit any crime?’