'Which is?' asked Vince, watching him and waiting for a chance to snatch the gun away.
'That the good intentions die with you, and the evil ones live on.' His finger tightened on the trigger as he slowly tipped his chair back. 'You'd better get out of here before the sound of the shot brings the others running.'
'No way,' said Vince, shifting forward. 'I want to make sure you pull the fucking trigger.'
Sebastian was so surprised he nearly shot himself.
'Come on, then, do it. You don't get off the hook by chucking me a bit of paraphrased Shakespeare and hoping I'll buy it. Let's see you take the noble way out, do the decent thing. Open the tent flap, look over your shoulder and tell me you might be gone for some time.'
Sebastian held the pose, but his eyes flicked uncertainly back at Vince.
'Go on, join an illustrious gallery of honourable suicides. How old was Brutus when he killed himself?'
Sebastian remained motionless for a few seconds more, then started to waver. 'Jesus.' He lowered the revolver. 'I think it's quits, don't you? You're not about to join our ranks, and somehow I don't think we'll ever be able to join yours. The poor old Prometheans are like this city; we're carrying too much baggage to ever start entirely afresh. We'll still be here next month, next year; a little older and shabbier, but still here. And no doubt it will be the task of someone like you to cancel out each forward move we make.'
Vince gave a rueful smile. 'Then the game would continue for ever.'
'Of course.' Sebastian laughed. 'How could it ever end?'
'But it has ended,' said Vince, seating himself at the other end of the table. 'You see, there's one final paradox you haven't considered.'
Sebastian shifted nervously in his armchair. 'I don't understand.'
Vince's smile broadened. The loaded pistol sat between them.
'I accept the League's offer of membership,' he said, smiling wider as he picked up the gun and aimed it at Sebastian's forehead. 'Get on the floor.'
Sebastian was aghast. He struggled to understand the command. Vince came forward and kicked him from the chair. Drunker than he realised, Sebastian fell to his knees, then rolled over on his back.
'Open your mouth.'
Meekly, he did as he was told, unable to comprehend the turn in events. Vince dropped a mudstained boot to his throat, jammed the steel barrel between his parted teeth and fired once.
The bullet that passed through Sebastian's upper palate also tore through his brain before exiting his skull and embedding itself in the mahogany herring-bone floor tiles. Vince remained holding the gun as the others came running into the room.
'Come on in, boys,' he called, still eyeing the twisted body on the floor. 'The leadership contest is over. I think you can figure out who won. You may as well make yourselves comfortable. We've got a lot to talk about.'
Part Three
'The shouting of democracy, like the singing of the stars,
means Triumph.
But the silence of democracy means Tea.'
– E.V. Knox
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
'ALL RIGHT,' said Stanley Purbrick, 'it's my turn. Chameleon. Sculptor. Toucan. Dragon. Furnace. Chisel. Microscope.' He sat back smugly and drained his beer. 'Sort that one out.'
'Pathetic,' mocked Maggie Armitage. 'Hopelessly easy.' She shook the last crumbs of salt and vinegar crisp from he packet and munched them. 'They're all -'
'Don't be a spoilsport,' warned Stanley. 'You always know the answer. Let someone else have a chance at getting it. Jane? Harold? Any ideas?'
'They're all constellations, aren't they?' asked Masters, hardly bothering to look up from his newspaper.
'That does it.' Purbrick folded his arms across his cardigan. 'I'm not going to play this any more.'
'Oh, don't be such a bad loser, Stanley. You hate anyone knowing more than you, and lots of people do.' She examined the inside of her crisp bag and ran an exploratory digit around it. 'Almost everyone, in fact.'
'That absolutely does it. I'm going home.' He rose to leave but was waiting for someone to push him back in his seat.
'Do sit down, there's a chap, I've got you a top-up.' Arthur Bryant had arrived with a tin tray full of drinks. The Insomnia Squad were seated in what had once been the snug bar of the Nun and Broken Compass. Maggie had been due to conduct a meeting of the Camden Town coven in one of the upstairs rooms tonight, but her secretary had muddled the dates and they had found themselves double booked with the Norman Wisdom Fan Club, so Arthur Bryant offered to buy them all drinks. As no one could ever recall the elderly detective offering to buy anyone a drink before, they jumped at the chance.
'We should have invited Vincent tonight,' said Maggie. 'I'd like to meet him one day. It galls me a bit to think that we helped save lives and nobody knows about it. I suppose that now he's a celebrity he won't want to talk to the likes of us.'
'It's odd that he never even rang to say thank you for all the help we gave him,' complained Purbrick.
'Never mind,' said Dr Masters, 'you can read all about him instead.' He held up a section of the Independent for everyone to see.
'What is it?' asked Maggie.
'A review of his book. He already has the critics slavering. According to this he's been commissioned to write another volume.'
'That should please the League of Prometheus.'
'They've gone very quiet, haven't they?' Maggie stirred her tequila and blackcurrant with her little finger. 'Not much good without their leader. One never really knows what's going on. You don't suppose they're planning something new?'
'Someone's always planning something,' said Bryant vaguely. That's what cities are for. The countryside is where you can settle and be at peace with yourself. Cities are there to disturb your thoughts, your dreams, your complacency. I agree with Stanley, though; it's odd that the boy hasn't been in touch.'
'You don't think something's happened to him?'
'Not if the smiling photograph in the paper is to be believed.'
'Funny,' said Masters, examining the picture. 'He looks just like Sebastian Wells here. Must be the angle it was taken.'
'Be careful of my overcoat, would you Maggie?' pleaded Bryant. 'There's a cat in one of the pockets.'
'I wondered where my crisps had been going.' She eyed the garment warily. It was indeed moving. 'You get cats the way other people get colds.'
Jane Masters pulled aside the curtain and checked the wet inhospitable streets.
'Looks like it's in for the night,' she sighed. 'We'll just have to stay here. As a matter of interest, does anyone know why this place is called the Nun and Broken Compass?'
'Bryant can tell you,' said her husband. 'He heard the story from the landlord. It's really disgusting.'
Arthur Bryant leaned forward with a rare, disgraceful grin on his lips. 'Well,' he began, 'it seems that about a hundred and seventy years ago a beautiful young convent-raised woman worked behind the counter here, and customers used to come from miles around to be served by her. Back then, of course, the place was still called the Cromwell Arms, and one night the saloon door was opened by two monks who had lost their way in the foggy backstreets…'
CHAPTER FIFTY
HE STOOD beneath the melancholy greenery of the cemetery, looking at the white marble sarcophagus which bore so many Wells family names, and thought that even here Sebastian had not been able to escape his father. Sir Nicholas had arranged to have his son illegally interred in the family vault instead of being left beyond consecrated grounds, on the sterile little lawn where all the other suicides were buried. If he had known the truth, he would have been saved the trouble.