At 2.45 in the morning, the little kitchen at 35 Portland Row really comes into its own. Tonight we had eggs boiling, bread toasting, the kettle gently steaming on the side. It was a brightly lit and cosy scene, marred only by the presence of the ghost-jar on the worktop. The skull was active, the horrid face grinning and winking at us from the centre of the plasm. In our mood, however, this was easy to ignore.
Lockwood and I were feeling like ourselves again. This was faintly miraculous, since scarcely two hours had passed since we’d hauled ourselves out of the water onto the dirty shingle south of Tower Bridge. Our soggy walk back to Charing Cross Station had seemed to take for ever, but once we’d changed back into dry clothes things started to look up. By great good luck, we’d managed to snag a passing night cab. Now – showered, clean and warm – we were agreed that we’d managed it very efficiently. We’d made it home quicker than George, anyway. He’d not yet returned.
‘It’s a success, however you look at it,’ I said, patting hot toast from hand to hand and spinning it onto the plate. ‘We’ve beaten Winkman! We’ve got the Bickerstaff mirror! We can give it in to Barnes in the morning, and close the case. And Kipps loses his bet, which is best of all.’
Lockwood was flicking through the pamphlet we’d stolen from the Fittes library just a few hours earlier – it seemed a lifetime ago. We’d left it in the Charing Cross lockers, so it had been spared a dunking in the Thames. ‘I notice Kipps and his team aren’t lurking outside any more,’ he said. ‘He must have given up when he realized we’d tricked him in the car. I only wish George would get back. He’s taking his time.’
‘Probably couldn’t find a taxi that would take him after being in that smelly old boat of Flo’s,’ I said. ‘He must be having to walk. His station locker was empty, so we know he got away safely.’
‘True.’ Lockwood put down the pamphlet and got up to deal with the eggs. ‘I was right about these “Confessions of Mary Dulac”, by the way. They’re mostly nonsense. Lots of babble about forbidden knowledge and seeking out the mysteries of creation. Anyway, they didn’t do poor old Mary much good, since she apparently spent ten years living in a hollow tree. Want your egg in a cup or on the plate?’
‘Cup, please. Lockwood, who do you think that man was – the one on the roof?’
‘I don’t know. But Winkman called him “my lord”, so we can probably find out.’ He handed me my boiled egg. ‘He’s some rich collector, or a modern version of Bickerstaff, prying into what doesn’t concern him. Bickerstaff himself sounds like a monster, judging by what Mary Dulac says. Check it out – it’s on the third or fourth page.’
He busied himself with his supper. I picked up ‘The Confessions’. Despite the Fittes library’s leather binding, it was very thin, scarcely more than a few pages long. It was more a collection of disjointed paragraphs than anything else. Someone had probably copied selections of the original, removing passages that were tedious or incoherent. As Lockwood had said, there was lots about the unhappy woman’s life in the wilderness, and many philosophical rantings about death and the afterlife that I didn’t understand. The bit on Bickerstaff was meatier, though. I read it between dabs at my egg.
Who was Bickerstaff, whose cursed shadow hangs over me these past ten years? Ah! He was a genius! And the wickedest man I ever knew! Yes, I killed him. Yes, we buried him deep and sealed him up with iron, yet still I see him in the darkness, whenever I close my eyes. Still I see him before me, swathed in his velvet cloak, performing his dark rituals. Still I see him, coming from his workroom, his butcher’s knives all bloody in his hand. Still I hear that terrible voice, that soothing, persuasive instrument that made us all puppets of his will. Ah! Fools that we were to follow him! He promised us the world, promised us enlightenment! Yet he led us to ruin and the brink of madness. Because of him I have lost everything!
There followed a short digression about the varieties of bark and fungi that Mary Dulac had been forced to eat during her years living wild in Chertsey Forest. Then she returned to the subject in hand.
His darkness was in him always – in those staring wolf-like eyes, in that savage rage he unleashed at the merest slight. I cannot forget it – how he broke Lucan’s arm when he dropped the candles, how he threw Mortimer down the stairs! I cannot forget. Yes, we hated and feared him. Yet his voice was honey. He mesmerized us all with talk of his great Project, of the wondrous Device that might be made if we had the stomach for the work. With the help of his servant, a most cunning and malignant Boy, whose eyes saw phantoms clearly, we went on expeditions to the churchyards, gathering materials for the Device. The Boy protected us from the vengeful Spirits until we had trapped them in the glass. It is the presence of these Spirits together, Bickerstaff says, that gives the Device its power. And what power! The mirror makes weak the fabric of the world, and offers the lucky few – Oh horror! Oh blasphemy! – a glimpse of Heaven.
I looked up at Lockwood. ‘Whatever it is you see through Bickerstaff’s mirror,’ I said quietly, ‘I don’t think it’s Heaven.’
He shook his head. ‘Nor do I. We were right, you know, Lucy. We were right about that bone glass. Bickerstaff’s group was trying to see something that’s forbidden to us all. They were trying to look beyond death, glimpse what happens next. Bickerstaff was crazy – they all were. Including our friend over there.’ He jerked his head towards the face in the jar. Pinpoints of light glittered in its sockets as it gazed at us. The smile was broad and knowing.
‘It seems in a very good mood tonight,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t stopped grinning since we came in. Hey, I just thought of something . . . this evil servant boy Dulac goes on about . . . You don’t suppose that . . .?’
‘Who can tell?’ Lockwood scowled over at the skull. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Well, thank goodness we’ve got the mirror, so no one else can take a chance with it. Bickerstaff didn’t try looking himself, I bet – he just used others. It’s no wonder his ghost was so horrid. I’m glad you tossed a sword through his head.’
‘When I heard his voice back in the cemetery,’ I said, ‘it was mesmeric, like Dulac says. It had a kind of hypnotic effect. It sort of made you want to do things, even though you knew you shouldn’t. I think George and Joplin were affected by it, though they may not have consciously heard the voice. Remember how they stood frozen by the coffin?’
‘Yes. Those idiots.’ Lockwood looked at his watch. ‘Luce, if George doesn’t turn up soon, I’m going to start worrying. We might have to go and find Flo and see where she left him.’
‘He’ll be here. You know how slowly he walks. Oh – look at this.’ I’d flipped to the end of the pamphlet. ‘It’s what we wanted. Dulac’s final confession.’
Yes [I read], I killed a man. But murder? No! Should I one day stand in Judgement I shall claim it an act of self-defence – yea, a desperate act to save my very soul. Edmund Bickerstaff was mad! He sought my life as openly as if he had put a knife to my throat. His blood is on my hands, but I have no guilt.
Wilberforce died. We all saw it; he looked in the Device and perished. Then came a great panicking. We fled in our carriages from that cursed place, vowing to reject Bickerstaff for ever. Yet this the doctor would not allow. Within the hour, he and that silent Boy were at my house and he carried the Device with him. I feared them, yet I let them in. The doctor was agitated. Would I be quiet on the subject of poor Wilberforce? Could he trust me to keep my own counsel? Despite my assurances, he grew enraged. At last he denounced me: to prove my faith, I must look into the glass! In a moment the Boy had sprung behind me; he pinioned my arms. Out came the Device from the doctor’s pocket. He held it before me. I had half a glimpse, half a glimpse only, and I felt my sanity shake loose, my limbs go cold.