Gibbous House Read online

  All save the professor fell on the recharged vessels with alacrity, that man being hindered by his lack of stature and his unwillingness to beg assistance. Finally, Miss Pardoner took pity on him and handed the tankard down from the counter.

  At last the dwarf felt able to make conversation and addressed Mr Cohen.

  ‘Ahm... Cohen you say? Visiting the King of the Gypsies? How interesting!’

  The Middle European ‘r’ was quite something to hear; it rendered the word itself so interesting as to be ludicrous.

  ‘Visited, sir, the Faas are visited and I return thence, I came here to fritter a few—’

  He broke off, most assuredly because my hands had neared his throat once more.

  The professor was not finished himself. ‘A Gypsy Jew? Or a Jewish Gypsy? How exotic!’

  Both Maccabi and Miss Pardoner looked at the professor sharply, the former with the eye roll of a maddened mare and the latter in dumb incomprehension. I didn’t know what to make of it, until Miss Pardoner said, ‘Gypsy, Jew? Out-siders both; neither beyond assuming a lacquer of belief or custom to avoid persecution, Professor, is that not true?’

  The stranger straightened – as much as his hump would allow – and pronounced, ‘Solomon Cohen, Gypsy Jew, bids you all a fond a-dieu!’

  I would have had the truth of it from him as to his revivification or imposture, whichever it might have been. However, he was out of the door before I could lay a hand on him, and I reflected that an afternoon of normality had proved beyond my reach after all.

  The warped door had scarcely closed behind Cohen when all left present began to talk at once; save, of course, our host. It would have been all too easy to assert myself and insist on being heard first, but I decided against it, in the interest of seeing who would prevail on the others to defer to themselves. It was Maccabi: ‘I saw him. I saw him, I tell you. Chest still and the reek of death upon him!’

  I winced at the shrill pitch of his voice. Miss Pardoner’s riposte lacked this same womanish timbre. ‘Yet we all saw him just now, did we not? The unfortunate teeth were no disguise at all, surely?’

  ‘It was not he,’ said the professor.

  I took this to be truth, or at least a confident lie, since he had not mangled the grammar of it.

  ‘How not?’ protested Miss Pardoner.

  ‘I will show the impossibility of it,’ the professor hissed.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Maccabi, although from his demeanour it was unclear what was, in fact, impossible – a living Septimus or the professor’s disproving of such.

  ‘Drink up, then, and show us, Jedermann, I am weary of the beer and this hovel,’ I said.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Having sorted a few coins, I slapped them on the bar. The removal of my hand was hindered by the great weight of John Bill’s huge paw lying atop it. He leaned forward and forced something into the fob-pocket of my waistcoat. It bulged significantly since it shared the space with a timepiece, but I did not see what it was. The hand was removed from mine and placed firmly on my chest. It was all I could do to remain standing after stumbling backward several paces.

  We departed the Coble Inn, for my own part without great regret.

  It was no surprise that our carriage had not been made away with; no self-respecting thief would have stolen such a thing. We assumed our seats and I tapped Maccabi’s shoulder, saying, ‘Gibbous House, man! Quickly!’

  The dwarf interposed immediately. ‘North Sunderland, Jedediah, the cemetery.’

  The carriage limped the few necessary miles inland. In the village, which seemed to have relinquished once-dear pretensions to the status of town, the sandstone was blackened and miserable looking. The streets themselves were deserted and we made rapid progress to the aforementioned cemetery. It was well kept; the grass between the headstones was short – and if the headstones themselves listed like so many drunks, not a one was obscured by moss or lichen. The carved names were therefore easy to read: Wilsons, Butterfields and many a Darling reposed beneath the green turf. In the furthermost corner, next to the only ill-cared-for section of the perimeter wall, stood a plain, square-edged stone. Decorated with the Star of David, it bore the simple inscription:

  Septimus Coble 1760–1852 Gone to a Better Place

  The professor bellowed, ‘See!’, as though by volume alone he could make the charade any more believable. For whoever the mysterious Mr Cohen had been, were he not Septimus Coble, it was no more likely that the founder of the Collection lay beneath that headstone. Furthermore, if Coble were indeed dead, it was inconceivable to me that he would have escaped being a subject for the professor’s hobby and that he did not, even yet, stand stiff and glassy-eyed somewhere within Gibbous House. I chose not to dwell on the other, more phantastical alternative.

  We boarded the carriage once more. The professor, Maccabi and Miss Pardoner began an interminable dispute about the mating habits of the Willow Warbler. Though it might have been some coded exchange designed to exclude me, I had no desire to expend the effort to listen, much less decipher it.

  After about an hour, Miss Pardoner indicated that she was feeling some discomfort and was in need of relief. Maccabi halted the calash, Miss Pardoner hopped nimbly down without assistance and I said that I would keep watch to ensure her privacy. This offer was made not from any sense of decorum, rather out of a desire to irritate Maccabi. The woman disappeared behind a large shrub. I kept a close and careful watch, drawing great pleasure from learning that certain parts of her person were not quite so swarthy as her face.

  Shortly after the wheels began turning once more, my enjoyment was despoiled by the professor’s whispering in my ear, ‘Did you see it? Did you see the Bonny Black Hare?’ He whistled a few bars of a song popular in rural taverns, until he caught my eye.

  It was late afternoon when we reached Gibbous House. Bidding the company farewell, for I was surely tired of it, I repaired to my own chamber. On removing my topcoat, I lay supine on the bed. My hand brushed across the bulge in my fob-pocket, and I withdrew something wrapped in quite grubby paper. The strange patterns left by inky fingers looked both beautiful and meaningless. Removing the paper, I saw that it was a crudely carved chess piece: a pawn. Surprisingly, perhaps, it was white. After a few moments pondering why a mute publican would give me such a thing, I caught sight of the paper beside me on the bed. Something had been written, in a daintily formed hand, on the inner side of the pawn’s erstwhile wrapping:

  Strings pulled by divinity?

  Or cousins’ consanguinity?

  What is inside the humble pawn

  could be consumed once withdrawn.

  The time to do so cometh soon,

  sup ye well, with a long spoon.

  Which poetastery, whilst being less than illuminatory about the purpose of this valuable gift, at least left no doubt as to the identity of the giver. Replacing the pawn next to my watch, I crumpled the paper and tossed it out of the window. Supine once more, I contented myself with imagining a successful hunt for the Bonny Black Hare.

  A knock at the door roused me some hours later. Miss Pardoner entered the room after an indecorously short interval. ‘Dinner will be served shortly, Mr Moffat.’ She sniffed the air. ‘A window is best left open, from time to time, in the chamber of a solitary gentleman, sir.’

  ‘My dear, you might have prevented my solitude – and if you had, I doubt that I should have behaved as a gentleman,’ I replied.

  The hoped for blush was not forthcoming, instead I received a clicking of the tongue worthy of a governess to a spoiled son. She turned on her heel without further communication and I attended to my toilette and my dress.

  *

  The three members of the household stood glass in hand by the fireplace in the dining room. There seemed no arrangement of their persons that would meet any criteria of compositional harmony, but the professor flanked by the robustly healthy figure of Maccabi and Miss Pardoner’s own unfeminine height looked particularly ill
posed. The dwarf greeted me as a molly-house owner might on opening the door to a drunken sailor. ‘Ah, Moffat! How wonderful! Stupendously so. Well met, fellow!’

  It seemed the glass in his hand had been recharged more than once.

  ‘Good evening, Jedermann. You seem uncommon well disposed.’

  ‘Indeed. Maccabi has informed me that our provender has been delivered at last. There is now bread, fresh baked by Mrs Gonderthwaite this day,’ he enthused.

  ‘A strange delight in the provision of so basic a foodstuff, Enoch?’ I remarked.

  ‘Bread is more necessary than other food, Flavel said,’ Miss Pardoner offered.

  ‘You should cite such Presbyterians more accurately, Ellen,’ I winked here, ‘as bread is more necessary than other food, so the meditation of death is more necessary than other meditations.’

  The professor was for a few moments quite helpless with laughter, and Maccabi handed me a glass of jerez. Miss Pardoner studied a crack in the wood panelling beside the fireplace.

  The repast was, in content, the equal of earlier efforts. The manner of its presentation was superior: neither simian servant appeared and we were served by the landlord of the Coble Inn’s brother and Job Catchpole, upright for the most part, under the supervision of Mrs Gonderthwaite.

  We had scarcely finished a post-prandial port before Maccabi and the professor made their excuses. Doubtless they were bound for some experimentation that required stronger stomachs than mine. My hand was fumbling idly in an outer pocket. The packet of opium was still in it. I took it out, unwrapped the oilskin, showed the resinous block to my companion. I had used such things only rarely, but that night I felt the need of it as never before. Events seemed outwith my influence, yet I would not flee, only take the brief refuge that the fruit of the flower might offer.

  ‘Do we have the accoutrements to partake of the heavenly flower?’ I asked.

  Miss Pardoner’s eyes gleamed; she did not seem such a one as would partake of the poppy.

  ‘We surely do. What artefact is missing in this house? Such a thing has yet to be conceived of, or it would already be here, Mr Moffat. Shall I fetch what you need?’

  Her head tilted to one side in a manner that I had no doubt indicated she was overcome with desire, and I was not one to resist a repetition of the recent night’s pleasures.

  ‘Please do.’

  She was not long gone before returning with a pipe and tray that was more than the equal of John Brown’s of Seahouses. Ellen Pardoner knelt at my feet, and her unusual stature allowed her to continue to look me in the eye as she prepared the pipe. I took it from her and sucked the stem, the clouds and the moon filled my head. After drawing deeply and severally, I began to feel the languor prior to the dreams: it struck me suddenly that the gleam in her eye had had nothing to do with her own desire for opium.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  My feet seemed bound together. I stood on a white square, and a black square lay immediately in front of me. Beyond that another white square, then a black and so on. Birdsong filled the air, although I could not swear that I was outside. Opposite me, across four squares, Maccabi stood at stiff attention like a Prussian. He was dressed in black. I hobbled forward two squares. Maccabi remained still. The professor’s laugh echoed as though he stood in an empty theatre, although he was nowhere to be seen. In front and to my right, dressed in an unaccustomed black bombazine, stood Miss Pardoner, her eyes staring as though blind. The next moment she held a dagger high above her head and I was impelled to grab both her wrist and her throat – but I could not. Miss Pardoner’s hand descended and shook me awake.

  My arms were pinioned, as were my legs. I lay on a table similar to the one on which I had seen the gruesome remains of the policeman, though this table was not hidden behind a painting in the withdrawing room. It was possible to move my head slightly to the side; on doing so I was greeted by a view that – in other circumstances – might have been quite pleasant: namely, Ellen Pardoner’s lower abdomen. Behind her I could see red sandstone, and it was clear that we were somewhere under the house.

  The professor continued to laugh. From the corner of my eye I could see him dancing, hopping from foot to foot, like Rumpelstiltskin around his fire. His voice, quavering, instructed Maccabi, whom I could not see, ‘Jedediah, examine our subject. See that he is healthy.’

  I could not turn my head to the other side, only return it to a central position where I could see nothing but the dark of the rough-hewn rock. It was a matter of sensing the movements of Maccabi’s hands, rather than seeing them. He removed something from my fob-pocket and carefully slipped it into my right hand. It was not my watch. He leaned his ear to my chest, looking into my face as he did so. He gave a slow wink, put a finger to his lips and stood up. He removed the gag deftly: it was one of my own yellow ’kerchiefs. His meaty hand clamped over my mouth, he bent once again, this time to whisper in my ear, ‘When you can, remove the pawn’s head and drink the contents.’

  He flinched at the roar I let out once his hand had quit my mouth. I spent no more than seconds struggling against the bonds. The leather, although butter-soft, was as strong as any cord. The dwarf spoke directly to me for the first time. ‘Ah, Mr Moffat, you are returned from your travels in the perfumed land?’

  The oath I swore was as satisfying as it was futile. Miss Pardoner’s shape receded and I saw her pick up a metallic object. It had the look of a knight’s helm, although the lines were smoother and more rounded. After she fitted it to my head, it felt as though I had grown the clypeus of a housefly. The metal was hard against my nose and flared outward over my mouth, leaving my nostrils free to breathe. For how long remained to be seen.

  The deprivation of my visual sense did nothing to improve the others: the lack of ocular stimulus merely prevented the filtering of unwanted noise. The dwarf’s voice was often audible, issuing instructions that I did not understand. Footfalls echoed on the sandstone floor of the underground chamber. Occasional affirmations and single word questions were spoken by Maccabi or Miss Pardoner. A minute might have passed, or a day, and there was no way to discover which. Eventually, there were no more footsteps and something resembling conversation began.

  ‘I have it in mind to wait for the storm,’ said Jedermann.

  ‘Why wait?’ Miss Pardoner enquired.

  ‘Two reasons: perhaps it will require more power than the voltaic pile can generate.’ He stopped.

  ‘Go on,’ the woman urged.

  ‘He means that the corpse should not be inanimate too long.’ Maccabi said.

  ‘Quite so.’ The professor was in agreement. ‘Maccabi, check the rod.’

  ‘Let Miss Pardoner go; I’ll stay in case of,’ he hesitated, ‘complications.’

  ‘I am more than a match for a tethered man.’ Miss Pardoner sounded quite peevish.

  ‘Besides,’ the dwarf added, ‘Ellen will prepare the subject. I trust her hand with the dosage.’

  Footsteps, quick and hard-stamped into the sandstone, receded, signalling Maccabi’s departure for the rooftops.

  ‘Now?’ Miss Pardoner asked.

  ‘Not yet. Check the bonds. I will wait for the storm, young woman.’

  Hands grasped the leather cuffs binding hands and feet. Two large leather straps were already cinched tight across my thighs and chest. Miss Pardoner’s hand checked these thoroughly; she was unable to force a finger between strap and flesh. A stiff collar prevented any movement of my head save to turn it slightly to the left; the large buckle at the right of my neck accounted for the impossibility of doing so to that side. She slipped a finger under the metal face-piece toward my mouth. I bit it savagely, only letting it free after she had twisted my private parts with her free hand. The pain was indescribable, and lasted the longer for my inability to double over and alleviate it. Most notable of all was the complete failure of any scream of pain to emerge from Miss Pardoner’s lips. Her footsteps evoked her mannish stride as she went toward the professor.
r />   ‘He may need a strong dose,’ she said.

  Maccabi’s return was heralded by the rapid beat of a running man’s footsteps.

  He panted a little as he declared, ‘No more than an hour. Perhaps as little as half that time.’

  ‘Excellent.’ The professor’s voice held a lascivious tone. I heard a drawer being opened, the clink of glassware and the burbling of a liquid poured.

  ‘Did you check?’ Maccabi whispered.

  I felt his hands at my right wrist and a sharp pain as the blade sliced through to my skin. He came to the other side of the table and began fiddling with the other wrist strap. In the hope that my actions were obscured, I pushed the pawn up under the face-piece, bit off the wooden head and allowed God alone knew what substance to pass into my throat.

  The taste was quite bizarre; it brought memories of nettle soups from childhood days in Largs, which in itself was no pleasant matter. There was also an astringent hint of the new world fungi Psilocybe, whose tartness almost brought me to vomiting. Since any emetic reaction might well have killed me under such restraints as I then was, I swallowed like a Limehouse molly. The lower portion of the chess piece was concealed in my right hand; the head of the pawn had fallen I knew not where.

  Suddenly, the beating of my heart was loud in my ears, and then I felt as though it had supplanted my brain in the cranium. Patients in the Model Asylum had been subjected to dosages of these mushrooms periodically. In my early days there, before my association with the learned lunatic who had died in my clothes, the Keeper had been wont to despatch me to Leith, where tattooed sailors late off ships from the Americas would hand me packages of dried fungi. I had purloined some of the contents only the once: the fearsome visions had quite terrified a thirteen-year-old boy.

  My temporal disorientation was worsened by the potion. Whether it was a distillate of extracts or an infusion of the basic ingredients, it appeared to be strong. At least that was what I told myself as I looked down at my own supine form on the table. I could see, or believed I could see, the underground chamber I was being held in. The dwarf wore some kind of linen smock over his usual attire, as did the others. Maccabi’s and Miss Pardoner’s, however, reached only to the knee. The professor’s trailed along the sandstone floor. He wanted only some kind of white hood to complete a child’s picture of a diminutive phantom.