The delightful girl batted her kohl-rimmed eyes and swept off into the crowd. Charlie drained the last of his pint and followed with me bringing up the rear. Wary of stepping into a bear-trap (as this much honey might turn out to be), I walked with hands clasped behind me to feel the reassuring presence of the pearl-handled revolver strapped to the small of my back.
Venus led us through the roaring mêlée and through a side door into a cooler, darkened room that smelled of rose-petals. She lit the lamps, revealing a scarlet boudoir of impressive proportions, divided by silk curtains and scattered about with fat oriental cushions. A dressing mirror dominated the far wall.
‘Please make-a yourselves at home,’ said Venus, sitting down on the dresser and crossing her legs. Her mustard stockings flashed in the half-light.
‘Most obliging of you, miss,’ I said.
Venus cocked her head again. ‘Charlie and I…we are old friends…yes? And any friend of his…’
Charlie grinned at her and, picking up a bottle of cham, wrenched out the cork. He poured three glasses. Venus drained hers in one go, span her champagne glass between her delicate fingers and fixed me with a slightly intimidating stare. What had those fiery eyes seen in their few years? She made me feel positively callow.
‘I hope-a to see much more of you,’ she said. With that, she swept past us both, paused to kiss Charlie briefly on the cheek and then was gone.
‘Christ, ain’t she something!’ cried Charlie. He lifted the champagne bottle to his lips and guzzled down more plonk.
‘That she is. Are you two –?’
‘Some chance!’ laughed Charlie. ‘Even if I were that way inclined. No. She’s got a fella, the real boss. She runs this place for him.’
Charlie threw himself down on to a cushion.
‘But you want to know about a man called Poop.’
I sat up. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he came in here a while ago, asking questions. Thought he was a punter. He stood me a drink but he weren’t interested in getting, you know, friendly. He just give me some moolah to keep me eyes open. Said he was on to some kind of racket.’
I frowned. ‘Racket?’
Charlie nodded. ‘Treasure. Seems that he’d had some kind of nark sniffing around but he’d gone missing. Wondered if I’d be interested in taking up where the nark left off –’
The boy stopped dead.
‘What is it?’ I cried.
‘Dunno. Can you smell something?’
Charlie coughed. His hand flew to his throat and he coughed again, more raggedly. Then it was my turn. The air had somehow turned too stifling to breathe, like being in an overheated steam bath.
I turned and saw the thread of some strange, purplish smoke drifting towards us. Feeling suddenly sick, tears sprang to my eyes and I too began to cough uncontrollably.
I tried to reach out to Charlie but suddenly found my limbs weighed down as though they were statuary. Scarcely able to move, I half-stumbled, half-fell to the floor. Through a mist of stinging tears, I could just make out Charlie’s broad back. He tumbled to the floor, scrabbling at the air as though it were attacking him. With a titanic effort I hauled myself on to one knee and peered blearily about the room. What devilry was this? A Venus fly trap – and us the flies! Clutching at the oriental cushions, I staggered to my feet and tried to head towards the door.
Every step seemed to take an eternity. It was as though I had a diver’s lead shoes upon my feet. Coughing constantly I put my hands to my face and slapped myself in an attempt to clear my befuddled brain. My mind seemed to be swirling and tumbling and swimming madly, as though I’d drunk a quart of absinthe.
Reeling around, I found I had lost the door. It was as though I’d been transported to some other room, so strange and alien did Venus’s boudoir appear. The dressing table stretched crazily before me on stilt-like legs. Great heaven! The furniture appeared to be moving! The drawers of the dresser gaped open like hungry maws, snapping at my legs as I lurched and stumbled across the floor.
The oil-lamp loomed largest of all. It was then, with my eyes almost popping from my bursting head that I saw that the lamp was the source of my terror. For, gushing from the shade like a spectre or genie was a billowing quantity of some noxious gas, mauve in colour, settling heavily on the floorboards and sending me into near-convulsions.
I reached for the lamp but the closer I got the more dreadful were its effects. My fingers seemed to bend and stretch like the talons of a terrible bird as I groped at empty air, the image of the lamp blurring and multiplying before my exhausted eyes. I looked wildly about for Charlie but could make out nothing in the greasy smoke.
With one last attempt at clear thought I grabbed hold of the lamp’s iron base and picked it up. Perhaps I intended to smother the damned thing or hurl it into a dark corner but, in truth, I do not know. My senses whirled, a great blanket of mauve darkness enveloped me and I was falling, falling, falling into an abyss…
XIV
THE PALE MAN
IN the distance, a clock struck four. I stirred and found myself lying prone on cold stone. Shifting a little, I cracked open stinging eyes, peered blearily about, coughed and opened my mothball-stale mouth. I tried to sit up but sank back at once on to the chilly floor, skull throbbing as though it were fixed about with a tight iron band.
Where the hell was I?
I raised my head again, widening my eyes in a last-ditch attempt at wakefulness. I was in some kind of cell, windowless and cramped. Slimy straw lay all about me and there was a pervasive odour of ammonia.
Head splitting, I somehow managed to stumble to my feet and then sank back against the wet bricks. Looking down at myself, I saw that I was in full evening dress, my shirt-front torn and the lapels of my coat plastered with mud.
I could recall nothing at all. Never mind where was I! Who was I?
I hammered my fist against my forehead and screwed up my eyes. Something about a box. A box with a centipede in it. No. That wasn’t right. Perhaps it was a book. A book in a box. Daniel Liquorice! Was that my name? No. A Jack in a box? Jack Box? Jackpot? That was someone else entirely, I felt sure. My name is Box. Ah! Lucifer Box. Yes. Yes. I placed the flat of my hands against the chilly wall and willed myself to remain calm. Lucifer Box. Of Downing Street, London. I shook my head over and over. I must concentrate. Where was I? Italy. Italy, of course. Naples! But why? Why? I snapped open my eyes and struggled to focus on the cell door. It looked depressingly solid.
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Bending down, I peered through the rusted keyhole. I could just make out a suggestion of a gloomy corridor beyond.
I sank down against the wall then leant forward as I became aware of something poking into my back. I had a dim remembrance of a similar feeling, connected to a yellow villa in Islington but this was not quite the same. Exploring under the tail of my ruined shirt my fingers closed upon the warm, reassuring presence of my revolver, still strapped in the hollow above my buttocks that nature almost seemed to have provided for the express purpose.
I took it out, opened the chamber and span it.
‘That won’t help you,’ came a whispered voice from the darkness.
I started and whirled round, brandishing the pistol.
Nothing.
‘Who’s there?’ I demanded.
A hissing chuckle sounded close by. I crept towards the far wall. Just about visible was a tiny, barred window, evidently connecting to the cell next door. I pressed my face to it, making out a crouched figure in the gloom beyond. He turned his face towards me but little detail was visible in the filthy mass of hair and beard.
‘Oh…’ I cried. ‘Hullo.’
‘Good evening. Or is it morning? I no longer know.’
‘My name is Box.’
‘And mine’s the Count of Monte Cristo! Hee-hee!’
I pulled back from the window slightly, alarmed at the fellow’s crazed laughter. He fixed me with a wild eye and shuffled across the floor of
his cell. ‘As I say, that weapon of yours won’t do you any good. They don’t feel pain. They don’t feel anything!’
‘Who don’t?’
‘They came for me, you see. I was getting too close. Too close to the truth. Mr Poop – he was on to them.’
My ears pricked up. ‘Poop! What do you know of Poop?’
The strange old man coughed noisily. ‘Looting they was! Stripping the excavations bare and flogging the stuff to keep this wretched place going!’
‘Excavations?’
‘They’ve forgotten me now. Hee-hee! Thrown away the key. Maybe you’ll rot here too!’
As if in response, a key rattled in the lock and my door was thrown open. A strange figure was framed there; very tall, clad in black and wearing what appeared to be some kind of brass helmet. I rubbed at my eyes. Was this still part of my strange purple dream? Had the notion of a lead-shoed diver sprung to life before me?
My neighbour in the next cell jumped to his feet and pressed his grimy face to the bars.
‘Look out! They’ve come for you! Don’t resist! They don’t feel anything! Hee-hee!’
The extraordinary helmeted figure stumped across the cell towards me and opened his great arms as though offering an embrace.
I thrust the revolver into my pocket and backed away. Pale as death, the man’s jaw hung slackly open, a strand of drool dangling from his lips. His eyes, staring blankly ahead, were a horrible yellowy grey like the yolks of over-boiled eggs.
My gaze was drawn, however, to the strange brass thing that covered the top part of his face. On the closer inspection I was now afforded, I could see it was like a Norman helmet, though the upper part was made of glass and glowing a weird, sickly purple. Great brass screws were inset at the temples, effectively clamping the helmet to his head.
Stepping quickly to one side, I raced towards the door, bargaining that the brute’s sluggish gait would count against him.
‘No good!’ croaked my neighbour through the barred window. ‘He’ll get you!’
At once the creature changed direction and cut me off, his eyes rolling in his head, arms outstretched in deadly intent.
I resorted to my pistol but he swung at me, knocking the weapon flying. As I moved to retrieve it, his sweaty hands jerked forward and clamped about my throat.
I staggered backwards, gasping at the terrible pressure.
‘Hee-hee!’ cried my neighbour. ‘Now you’re done for!’
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The fiend’s bloated white face was right by mine and I could see directly into the glass section of his strange headgear. Inside seemed to float a purplish miasma.
I dug my nails into the flesh of his throttling hands but he did not even react, forcing me backwards as I beat and pounded at his face. My head felt as though it would explode at any second. Desperately, I thrust my thumbs into his eyes and pushed with all my strength. The soft flesh gave sickeningly but still I pressed on, digging into the very sockets and forcing my thumbs upwards.
No scream did he make, nor sign that he felt even a scintilla of pain.
‘Told you! Told you so! They feel nothing! The devils!’ cackled my fellow prisoner.
I hammered my fists against my attacker’s chest but his great weight forced me to my knees. I groped wildly about in the straw. The revolver!
Rolling us both over with a supreme effort, I grasped at the pearl handle of the gun, aimed desperately and loosed off a bullet into the brute’s chest.
He was knocked back as though plucked by a giant hand, staggered and slumped against the wall. I groped at my throat and rubbed my crushed wind-pipe, struggling to draw ragged, whooping breaths.
Suddenly the helmeted monster was on his feet again, seemingly oblivious to the wound in his chest. He surged forward, his great hands flexing, intent on rejoining battle at once. Though dazed and exhausted, I scrabbled to my feet and made a dash for the door. The fellow threw himself forward and grabbed at my ankles, succeeding in getting both hands around one of them and bringing me down on the floor. I swivelled on my rump and planted my boot in the middle of his face, kicking savagely until I felt his nose crack and bright blood fountain on to my trouser leg.
I tried to take aim again but the lumbering giant gripped my other ankle and shook me about like a rag-doll. The pistol went off but was sent clattering against the wall.
With a cry I shuffled forward and managed to get my fingers under the edge of the helmet. I tugged violently, desperately.
Swarming forward with one last effort and gripping the helmet for dear life, I kicked the fellow in the throat sending him vaulting backwards. I was left clutching the brass helmet in both hands.
And now he began to scream. A dreadful tortured gurgle it was as his suddenly bare head was exposed to the world. There were huge gory gouges in his temples where the attaching screws had been ripped out and he raised his hands to them, gasping in pain and shock.
‘Lor! You done for him! How did you manage that?’ hissed my hairy cellmate in amazement.
I glanced down at the helmet. The strange, gaseous substance still swirled within the glass enclosure but I could now see that thin, delicate pipes led from it into the screws that been affixed to my attacker’s temples. A tarry liquid began to leak from inside and its dark mauve colour was at once familiar. And then I remembered. I felt my overtaxed brain making connections like points changing on a railway. It was the same stuff that had nearly done for me and Charlie.
Charlie! Of course! The boy had been on the point of telling me something of vital import. When…
I looked down at the strange helmet again. Piped directly into its poor owner’s blood-stream the mauve stuff had rendered him little more than a zombie!
Putting the helmet carefully aside, I scrabbled for my revolver and levelled it at the prone figure.
The man had begun to weep from his gory eyes, great heavy tears mixing with the drool and blood plastered over his dead-white face. He tried to raise himself up on one hand but sank back to the floor with a great cry. I suddenly realized there wasn’t much time.
Scuttling across to him on my knees, I managed to raise the fellow’s head up, cradling it in the crook of my arm. It was like the Death of bloody Nelson.
‘Tell me,’ I whispered. ‘Who did this to you?’
The mauve fluid was trickling out of the wounds in his temples. Great rasping gulps began to sound from the fellow’s blood-caked mouth and then, with a dreadful, rattling gurgle, he pitched back into my arms, quite dead.
I got to my feet. The fellow had been sent to collect me or to kill me. Either way, it was wise to get moving.
‘Wait! Wait!’ cried my neighbour. ‘What about me?’
I paused on the threshold. ‘You’re no use to me in this babbling state.’
I slipped through the open door and out in to the darkened corridor.
As I passed the adjacent cell, the old fellow thrust towards me desperately. ‘Please! I’ll tell you. Just let me out!’
I took a chance and shot the lock off. He raced out into the corridor but I covered him warily. He seemed just the type to leap for my throat.
‘All right,’ I muttered, backing away from the stink he gave off. ‘Where are we?’
He pushed his long grey hair from his eyes. ‘Why, the Vesuvius Club, of course!’
‘Still? Good. That’s good. Now tell me more about Poop and these looted treasures.’
I gestured with the pistol and we began to creep off up the corridor, keeping our voices low.
‘I knew Mr Poop. Did a lot of work for him. I know my way about this city, you see.’
‘You’re an informant?’
The old man cackled. ‘I keeps my ear to the ground.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Signor Poop was on to some sort of racket in stolen stuff. Old statues and that sort of thing, hocked off to the best Chelsea drawing rooms and nobs’ offices. He reckoned that’s how Venus’s fella got the V Club up an
d running. They was smuggling stuff out of Naples in coffins, pretending it was bodies, then smuggling the moolah back in. We was getting close to nabbing them when…well…’
I nodded slowly. ‘You got your ear a little too close to the ground, eh?’
This must be the fellow Charlie had mentioned. I scratched my chin. Where was Charlie now? It was vital that I find him and pump him (for information, you understand).
We emerged suddenly into a curtained area and there, sitting on a stool with his back towards us was the curious ape-like chap who had greeted me when I first arrived. I gestured to my bearded friend that he should make for the front door and scarper. He nodded and gave me a little bow then I cleared my throat noisily and the monkey-man turned on his stool.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Poop’s informant steal towards the exit and, silently, slip through it to freedom.
My head still ached appallingly from the mauve gas but I thrust my hands into my trouser pockets and looked about with a casual air. ‘Hello again! Got a little lost in all these damned corridors. Had a little adventure, but found my way back. Not to worry.’
With a merry wave, I strode off down the long corridor. When finally I stood once more before the great doors I paused to make myself presentable. Magnified by the gasping gas-jets, my shadow leapt hugely over the walls. Once again, the sweet sounds of debauchery bled from under them.
Raising my fist, I hammered twice on the black surface.
Almost immediately, the doors rasped open and a flickering red light washed over me. I stepped inside but felt my way barred at once by a great bear-like shape.
Membership was clearly an exclusive affair.
Charlie, of course, had previously gained us ingress and I suddenly realized that it might be a little more difficult alone.
‘Yes?’ came a thick voice from the dimness.
I was damned if I was going to say ‘May I come in, please?’ so instead I ordered ‘Stand aside’ with all the boldness I could muster.
There was movement in the darkness which I realized must be the fellow shaking his fat head. ‘Can’t do that, sir. You have to give the signal.’