I tugged at the ropes around my wrists. The knots chafed me. To my right, I could sense Kipps doing the same. ‘I thought those notes were in medieval Italian,’ I said.
Joplin gave a complacent smile. ‘Indeed. And I’m fluent in it. It was quite amusing watching George here puzzle over it while I quietly copied the whole thing.’
George kicked out at Joplin and missed. ‘You betrayed me! I trusted you!’
Joplin chuckled; he gave George an indulgent pat on the shoulder. ‘Take a tip: it’s always wise to keep your cards close to your chest. Secrecy is crucial! No, Miss Carlyle, I’m well aware of the risks of looking in the mirror, which is why my good friend George is going to do it for me – now.’
So saying, Joplin turned to the iron circle in the centre of the room. Reaching in with the pole – and oblivious to the seven faint figures that hovered there – he flipped the cloth away from the top of the stand.
‘George!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t look!’
From where I stood I couldn’t see the surface of the mirror. I only saw the roughened back of the glass, and the tightly woven rim of bone. But the buzzing noise was louder, and even the seven spirits in the circle shrank away, as if afraid. Behind its chains, the Bickerstaff ghost rose still taller. I sensed its eagerness; I heard its cold hypnotic voice in my mind. ‘Look . . .’ it said. ‘Look . . .’ This is what it had desired in life; in death, through Joplin, it desired the same.
George had screwed his eyes tight closed.
Joplin had been careful to stand with his back to the tripod. His hunched shoulders were rigid with fear, his pale face tight with tension. ‘Open your eyes, Mr Cubbins,’ he said. ‘You know you want to.’
And George did. Part of him – the part that had been snared by the mirror days before – desperately wanted to look. I could see him shaking, struggling with himself to resist. He had his head turned away; he was biting on his lip.
I wrenched at my bonds. ‘Ignore him, George!’
‘Look . . . Look . . .’
‘Mr Cubbins . . .’ Joplin had taken out his pen and pad in readiness to record what happened. He tapped the biro irritably against his teeth. He looked peeved; under the cloak of madness, he was still a fussy little academic, anxious to carry out an experiment that interested him. He might have been observing the behaviour of fruit flies or the mating rituals of worms. ‘Mr Cubbins, you will do as I ask! Otherwise . . .’ I felt a wave of malice radiate from the cowled figure in the circle. Joplin flinched again, and nodded. ‘Otherwise,’ he said harshly, ‘I will take this knife and cut the throats of your friends.’
Silence in the catacombs.
‘Ooh.’ That was the skull’s voice, faint from down the passage. ‘Good options! This is a win-win situation for me.’
George sat bolt upright in the chair. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK, I’ll do it.’
‘No, George,’ I said. ‘You’re absolutely not to.’
‘Well, he could take a little peek,’ Kipps said.
‘Don’t give in to it!’ I cried. ‘He’s bluffing!’
‘Bluffing?’ Joplin inspected the point of his knife. ‘You know, I believe poor Jack Carver thought the exact same thing . . .’
‘It’s no good, Luce,’ George said dully. It was as if the malaise was back – there was profound weariness in his voice. ‘I’m going to have to do it. I can’t help myself anyhow. I’ve got to look. The mirror’s tugging at me – I can’t resist.’
He’d opened his eyes. His head was lowered; he stared down at his chest.
‘No!’ I tugged at my wrists, so that Kipps’s chair rattled on the dirt-brick floor. Tears filled my eyes. ‘If you do this, George Cubbins, I’m going to be so mad.’
‘It’s all right, Luce,’ he said. He smiled sadly. ‘All this mess is my own fault. And after all, it’s what I’ve always wanted, isn’t it? To uncover mysteries – to do something no one else has ever done.’
‘Well spoken!’ Joplin said. ‘I’m proud of you, young man. Now, I stand ready to record your words. Don’t stop to think – speak fast and clear! Tell me what you see.’
Another echo from the past. Bickerstaff’s words to Wilberforce, 130 years before. It might almost have been the same person talking. Perhaps it was – how much was Bickerstaff, how much was Joplin?
‘Please, George . . .’
Kipps groaned. ‘She’s right, Cubbins! Don’t give the madman the satisfaction.’
Joplin stamped his foot. ‘Will everyone please be silent!’
‘Lucy . . .’ George said suddenly. ‘About all this . . . I know I was weak, and what I did was wrong. I’m sorry for it. Tell Lockwood for me, OK?’
With that, he lifted his head and looked into the mirror.
‘George . . .!’
‘Look . . .’ the hooded shape above me murmured. ‘I give you your heart’s desire.’
George looked. He stared straight through his little round spectacles into the glass. There was nothing I could do to stop him.
Joplin swallowed eagerly. His biro hung quivering above the page. ‘So, tell me, Cubbins. What is it that you see?’
‘George?’
‘Speak, boy!’
‘Your heart’s desire . . .’
George’s face had tightened, the eyes grown wide. A terrible happiness shone from him. ‘I see things . . . beautiful things . . .’
‘Yes? Yes? Go on—’
But George’s muscles had suddenly grown slack. The skin slumped, his mouth slowly opened like a drawbridge lowered on a chain. The fierce joy that had spread across his face remained, but all the intelligence in it, all the sparky life and stubbornness, began to slip away.
I jerked forward, wrenching at my bonds. ‘George!’ I shrieked. ‘Look at me now!’
‘Talk!’ Joplin shouted. ‘Quick!’
It was no good. As I watched in horror, George’s jaw sagged wide. He let out a long, harsh, rattling sigh. His eyelids drooped; his body shuddered once, twice, and fell still. His head twitched, then slid slowly sideways. It came to rest. His mouth hung open; his eyes stared out at nothing. A few threads of pale hair drooped loose across his waxy brow.
‘Well,’ Albert Joplin said, with feeling. ‘What an infernal nuisance. He might have told me something useful before he died.’
28
I stared at George’s body. I too seemed to have stopped breathing.
‘I mean, what use is “beautiful things”?’ Joplin complained. ‘That’s not scientific, is it? And now that dawn’s here, I’m not sure it’s even worth trying another test!’ He stamped a foot in irritation. ‘Honestly – what a nuisance.’
He continued muttering to himself, but I scarcely heard him. His voice was far away. All sounds were hushed to me. I was alone in the numbness of my mind.
‘George!’ I said softly. ‘Wake up!’
‘It’s no good, Carlyle . . .’ This was Kipps. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Oh no, he always looks like that . . .’ I said. ‘You should see him in the mornings. He’s just a bit sleepy, aren’t you, George? George, come on . . .’
George didn’t answer. He was slumped like an old coat tossed across the chair. His mouth was open. His hands hung limp. I thought of Jack Carver lying on our rug, of the stupid emptiness of death. I gave a little moan.
Joplin’s gaze flicked up at me. He had been studying his watch; now he looked across at me with narrowed eyes. Where had the amiability gone, the foolish fluttering of the timorous archivist? The appraisal he gave me was hard and cold.