‘I never knew you had a twin brother.’
‘Nor did I. But then I might be one of triplets. There’s just no telling, is there?’
‘Or quads,’ I said.
‘Or quintets.’
‘Or sextiquidalians.’
‘Or Seventh-Day Adventists.’
‘Or octoroons.’
‘Or nonets.’
‘Or decathlons.’
‘Or … what’s elevens?’ Fange asked.
‘Elevenses?’ I suggested.
‘Or twelve green bottles hanging on the wall.’
‘I would love to go on talking toot with you,’ I said, ‘but there is this really cracking young woman over there who I have recently fallen in love with and whom I am hoping like hell to pull.’
‘That would be Kelly Anna Sirjan, would it?’
‘Yes, it would.’
‘One of the famous Sirjan twenty-seventuplet sisters.’
‘You are kidding me, right?’
‘They do a human pyramid act with Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique.’
‘You are kidding me, right?’
‘In tiny little bikinis.’
‘You are kidding me, right?’
‘Of course I’m kidding you,’ said Fangio.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘Because in case you hadn’t noticed, if I’m not talking to you, I’m not talking to anyone. And it’s really lonely when you’re all on your own with no one to talk to.’
‘I will be back,’ I said. ‘I will need another drink soon.’
‘Couldn’t you include me in the conversation with Kelly?’
‘I want to chat her up,’ I said.
‘I’d only put in the occasional word or two, nothing flashy. Wouldn’t try to hog the conversation or anything.’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Bl**dy ingratitude,’ said Fangio.
‘Nice try,’ I said, ‘but I do not think we are doing the swearword/ asterisk running gag at the moment.’
‘Over there!’ cried Fangio, pointing. ‘Zulus – thousands of them.’
‘See you later,’ I said and returned to Kelly Anna Sirjan.
‘You spent a long time talking to that Sikh barman,’ she said.
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I forgot to ask him about that. But I am not going back. So, let us talk about you.’ And I handed Kelly her drink. ‘What do you do with yourself?’
‘I’m in the circus,’ said Kelly. ‘My identical sisters and I do a pyramid act.’
‘You are kidding me, right?’
‘I’ve got two free tickets for the Captain Beefheart gig at the Hove Town Hall*,’ called Fangio. ‘They’re yours if you want them; you don’t have to beat them out of me or anything. Speak to me, please.’
‘Let us go outside and chat,’ I said to Kelly.
*
Outside, the September sun was putting a brave face on it, and in its light Kelly looked achingly beautiful.
‘Pardon me for asking this,’ I said, ‘but do you have a boyfriend?’
Kelly laughed, most prettily. ‘Are you chatting me up?’ she said.
‘No, I was just asking. Information, you see – the vetting process for Sir Hugo, just standard questions.’
‘Oh, I see. Then ask away. Anything you want.’
‘Do you like it doggie-style?’ I asked.
And Kelly hit me right in the mouth.
‘Rizla,’ called the voice of Mr Rune. ‘I demand drinkies.’
I returned to the drinkies tent.
‘Thank God you’re back,’ said Fangio. ‘This chap here has been looking for you.’
‘New approach,’ I said. ‘And who is “this chap here”?’
‘Lord Jeffrey Primark,’ said Lord Jeffrey. ‘You are Sir Hugo’s associate?’
‘His confidant and spiritual advisor, as it happens.’
Fangio sniggered.
‘I can take this conversation outside,’ I warned him. ‘A pint of Pimm’s for Sir Hugo, my good man.’
‘Coming right up,’ said Fangio. ‘Stay where you are.’
‘I need your help,’ said Lord Jeffrey to me. And I looked this fellow up and down. He was of the gilded-youth persuasion, wearing tweeds and beret and also a dashing moustache.
I touched lightly upon my upper-lip area. My attempts at growing a fashionable goatee were still not coming to much.
‘The Man,’ said Lord Jeffrey in an urgent tone. ‘He is amongst us. He means to harm us. These reports in the gutter press of petty thievery – the excuse with which the Earl has drawn Sir Hugo here – they are nothing to what is really going on. It is unspeakable. Evil. Beyond all reason.’
‘Sounds most intriguing,’ I said. ‘Have you been drinking, by the way?’
‘Of course I’ve been drinking. You’d be drinking too if you knew what was really going on.’
‘I drink whenever I can,’ I said. ‘No matter what.’
‘I’ll back him up on that, sahib,’ said Fange, presenting me with Mr Rune’s pint of Pimm’s.
‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘The Sikh business.’
‘It’s an interesting story,’ said Fange. ‘You see—’
‘I can’t speak to you here,’ said Lord Jeffrey to me. ‘Let us repair to the library.’
‘No, hold on,’ said Fange. ‘Don’t rush away. It’s nice here. You can lean on the bar and everything. And I can serve you with more drinks and slip in the occasional bon mot for good measure.’
‘Follow me,’ said Lord Jeffrey to me.
And I followed him from the drinkies tent.
‘Rotten swine,’ muttered Fangio as we were leaving, ‘ungrateful, rotten swine.’
I really liked the library. All those leather-bound tomes – they were real quality, real class. And very old, too. And there were big leather button-backed chairs, and Lord Jeffrey poured brandy, and so I had two drinks and was at peace with the world.
‘Go on with what you were saying,’ I said to him, ‘about The Man.’
‘He’ll kill us all.’ Lord Jeffrey had a shake on now. His brandy swirled about in its balloon.
‘Who is The Man?’ I asked.
‘The Foredown Man,’ said Lord Jeffrey.
‘Ah,’ said I. ‘Go on.’
‘They say that he is only a legend.’ Lord Jeffrey swigged at his brandy and spoke as best as he could as he swigged. ‘This house, you see, is built upon an ancient Celtic burial ground. There are Burrowers beneath, you see. The land that time forgot, the Worlds Between, the Great Old Ones, the Minds Outside Of Time, the Time Out Of Mind, the time-mind mind-time—’
‘Perhaps we should go back to the drinkies tent,’ I suggested. ‘Fangio is good at this kind of thing.’
‘The terrible horror.’ Lord Jeffrey’s face was that grey mask of fear that is rarely to be seen beyond the pages of the horror novel. He quivered and quaked and his eyes bulged out unappealingly. ‘He comes for us. He comes for me and my kind. The last of our kind. And soon he comes. And …’
He paused and seemed to freeze as a terrible coldness moved through the air. There came a crackling all around us and as I looked, I saw it, felt it, knew it to be …
Rippling fingers of frost spread like the leaves of ferns across the windows, over the carpet, up a vase of roses, turning the flowers to glass. My breath steamed from my mouth. Lord Jeffrey clutched at his throat. I raised my glasses and found that both of my drinks had turned to solid ice.
And I gawped at Lord Jeffrey. He sat there, opposite me, glass in hand. But still now, frozen. Lifeless.
And then it came. As from nowhere. But down from above, somehow. It arched through the arctic atmosphere, cleaved through the icy air.
And it struck Lord Jeffrey a murderous blow.
And he shattered.
Exploded.
Showered down in a multitude of subzero fragments that tinkled and tumbled all about me.
And then it came to rest at my feet.
The instru
ment of his destruction.
The length of lead pipe.
‘I knew it,’ I said. ‘Colonel Mustard.’
And then my hands began to do some flapping.
And then I fainted dead away.
PART II
And then there he was, a-looming: Mr Hugo Rune.
‘Oh!’ I went and ‘Wah!’ also.
Mr Rune was gazing down upon me. ‘I will not ask if you are all right,’ he said, ‘for clearly you are not. What has occurred here, Master Rizla?’
‘Lord Jeffrey,’ I went. ‘He froze, then he shattered. Did I get any of him on my suit?’ And I flapped and patted myself.
‘Lord Jeffrey?’ Mr Rune cocked his head to one side. ‘What precisely has occurred?’
I did blinkings of the eyes. I felt rather poorly and gaped up at Mr Rune. And also at those who stood with him, a-gazing down at me. The Fifth Earl was there, looking most suspicious. And the lovely Kelly. And Fangio, too, though he was not wearing his turban.
‘Is that a fez?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ said Mr Rune and he raised a fat finger. ‘Before you commence with the talking of toot, speak to me and tell me what transpired.’ And he placed a drink in my hand, for somehow I no longer had my own.
‘I was here,’ I said, ‘in this library, with Lord Jeffrey Primark. And he was ranting on about him, The Man, the Foredown Man, he said, who was going to kill him and everyone else. And all manner of other stuff about Great Old Ones and Minds Outside Of Time and this house being built upon a Celtic burial ground.’ The Fifth Earl made groaning sounds when I mentioned this. ‘And then the room became impossibly cold and he froze and this lead pipe swung down and—’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Have to stop you there. You did say lead pipe, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘It swung down and—’
Mr Rune raised his stout stick to me. ‘Buffoon,’ he said. ‘Colonel Mustard, was it?’
‘That is what I think,’ I said.
‘And the corpse?’
‘Well, it is …’ And I beheld. And there was no corpse. Indeed, no trace whatsoever of a corpse, which there most surely would have been had one been there, because for one thing the room was now at room temperature* again, and the frozen fragments would have thawed into gooey gobbets.
And the stains they make can be a right blighter to get out of a carpet, even if you use white wine (at room temperature, probably), salt, or even molasses, which in my opinion is a very poor choice, but you know what it is like when you are very drunk indeed.
‘Not funny,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Not funny at all.’
‘I am not trying to be funny,’ I complained and I dragged myself up from my chair. ‘He was here and then he was dead. I did not make any of this up. And there was a length of grey lead pipe involved. Really, truly there was.’
Mr Rune stared me squarely in the eyes. ‘I do believe you are telling me the truth,’ said he. ‘Lord Jeffrey Primark, did you say?’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘And Fange saw him. He introduced him to me.’
‘Did you?’ Mr Rune asked Fangio.
And Fangio shook his Stetson.
‘You did,’ I said. ‘You liar.’
‘I never did.’ Fangio took off his topper and fanned at himself with it.
‘In the drinkies tent,’ I said. ‘You were serving behind the bar.’
‘I never was.’ Fangio replaced his bowler hat upon his head. ‘I only just got here.’
‘You must have seen him,’ I said to Kelly.
But Kelly shook her head.
‘What is going on here?’ I said. ‘You are lying, Fange, I know that you are.’
‘I’m not,’ said Fange, and, pointing to his homburg, ‘as sure as I’m wearing this trilby, I’m not.’
‘Rizla,’ said Mr Rune, ‘will you please follow me? Excuse me, gentlemen, lady,’ and he raised his beret to Kelly.
And then he led me from the library and back to the entrance hall. And there he halted next to a big, grand family portrait. ‘Is that Lord Jeffrey?’ he asked.
And I looked up at the portrait. ‘That is him,’ I said. ‘He was wearing the same outfit and everything. He must just have had this portrait painted.’
‘Regrettably, no,’ said Mr Rune, ‘although I was present when he sat for Richard Dadd. This portrait was painted in eighteen fifty-one, shortly before the death of his lordship.’
‘A ghost?’ I said. ‘You are telling me that I saw a ghost?’
‘Something more than a mere ghost,’ said Mr Rune. ‘We are dealing with dark and sinister forces here. It is fortunate that my reputation for dealing with such matters is well known to members of the aristocracy.’
‘And there was me thinking that skinflints as they are, they were merely attracted by the “cheap rates” advertised on your flyers.’
‘Plah!’ went Hugo Rune.
And we returned to the library. It was a rather crowded library now, for it had started to rain and the gilded youth had come in from the garden. There were not as many as there had been; I assumed that the rest had gone home. Fangio was pulling bunnies from his hat to entertain those who remained. The hat was an old deerstalker; the bunnies wore no hats at all. There was a bit of a hubbub going on, which stilled at Mr Rune’s approach.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said he, ‘I must crave your indulgence. Something untoward has occurred. I am going to have to ask that nobody leave this room.’
This got a bit of hubbub going once again.
‘Excuse me,’ said the Honourable Nigel Fairborough-Countless, ‘but I have an appointment with my accountant in half an hour.’
‘And I’ve a bun in the oven,’ said Lord Edward Marzipan-Fudge.
‘And I’ve a dog that won’t walk itself,’ said Lord Burberry Spaniel-Fondler.
‘And I didn’t get a mention earlier,’ said Lord—
‘These pressing appointments must be put aside,’ said Mr Rune. ‘There is Devilish work abroad in this house and I mean to get to its bottom.’
‘Perhaps I can help you there,’ said Lord Lucas Lapp-Dancer.
‘Saw that one coming,’ said I.
‘Well, I have to go to the little boys’ room,’ said Lord Michael Kiddee-Phidler.
‘I am sorry that I did not see that one coming,’ I said.
‘Hurry, then,’ said Mr Rune to Lord Michael.
And his lordship left the room.
‘Chap,’ said Lord Henry Myle-Hie to Mr Rune, ‘this Devilish work that you speak of – would you care to enlighten us regarding its nature?’
‘Presently,’ said Mr Rune.
And then there came a flash and a great almighty crash.
‘Weather’s taken a turn for the worse,’ said Lord Edward, closing the French windows. ‘Devilish storm, to be certain.’
‘It is only the beginning,’ said Hugo Rune.
And then we heard the scream. It was loud and it was shrill and it was scary. It made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck – the ones I had been thinking of shaving off, but could not really see the point as they could not actually be seen, what with my hair having grown pretty long at the back, in the fashionable mode of the times.
‘Rizla, come, the rest of you stay here.’ Mr Rune whispered words to Fangio and then marched out of the room. I followed him at the hurry on and down the hall and up the stairs we went. I followed Hugo Rune to the little boys’ room and we stood before the door.
‘You may not like what you see,’ said Hugo Rune.
‘Avocado suite, do you think?’ I said.
And Mr Rune pushed open the door.
I must confess that I did not at all like what I saw. There was no avocado suite involved in my disliking. The bathroom was in tasteful white, somewhat spoiled for me, however, by the large amount of tasteless red, all scattered and splattered and running.
‘Don’t look,’ said Mr Rune.
But I did.
And I saw him – well, the littl
e of him that I could see. This ‘little’ being his ankles and feet protruding from the toilet.
‘This is bad,’ said Mr Rune and he shook his great baldy head.
‘Very bad,’ said I. ‘He had no time at all to build up his part before this happened.’
‘Hardly a suitable moment for such flippancy,’ said Mr Rune.
‘I do so agree,’ I said. ‘Aaaagh! Help! Police! Murder!’
Mr Rune clamped a large hand over my mouth. ‘Control yourself,’ he ordered. ‘You are no good to me otherwise.’
I detached his oversized mitt from my unlaughing gear. ‘I do not want to be any good,’ I said. ‘Let us get out of here, and quickly.’
‘Rizla, this is no time to panic.’
‘Trust me,’ I said, ‘there will be no better time than this.’
‘We must return to the library.’
‘We must return to Grand Parade. Call the police.’
Mr Rune shook his head. Firmly. ‘This is not a job for Inspector Hector,’ said he. ‘This is a job for Hugo Rune.’
And so we returned to the library. And once inside, Mr Rune closed the door, turned the key in the lock and took himself over to the drinks cabinet, where he poured for himself something large.
The gilt was coming off the gilded youth. They sat about in attitudes of dejection, nervously toying with glasses and looking very edgy and uncertain.
‘Lord Michael Kiddee-Phidler is no more,’ said Mr Rune.
Which did not seem to ease the situation.
Although it certainly roused them from their seats. They rose as one and made as two to the main door and the French windows where they got all sort of scrunched up together, the room door and the French windows being locked.
‘Sit down!’ ordered Mr Rune. ‘Such unseemly behaviour is for the lower orders, not for such as you.’
The room door was being kicked and several panes of glass went out of the French windows, but neither shifted.
‘Sit!’ ordered Mr Rune. ‘If you would live, then sit.’
It was a cowering, giltless bunch of youth that slunk back to their seats.
‘What is going on here?’ Lord Edward demanded to be told.
‘All right,’ said Mr Rune, ‘I will tell you. My companion here witnessed, in a vision, the destruction of Lord Jeffrey Primark earlier this afternoon. All of you here are descendants of Lord Jeffrey; and so all of you will probably know that he vanished in eighteen fifty-one, upon the second day of the Great Exhibition. It was believed that he was murdered. But he was not. Although he was interred – I know, because I was there at his interment.’ This remark caused a certain ripple among the giltless youth.