The clown actually stopped chewing for a moment.
“I think it’s the Droods,” Monkton Farley said abruptly. “They’re the ones behind all this.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because it always is the Droods!” Farley answered.
“Well, yes,” said Ellen. “Very nearly always. But I don’t think they’d go to all the trouble of listening in on our secrets just to give them away for free. The Droods use the secrets they acquire for leverage. Or blackmail. Or store them away for some future time, when they might come in handy.”
“Nothing sells for a better price than a secret,” said the Painted Ghoul.
“You should know,” said Farley.
“You wound me, sir!” said the clown, throwing what was left of the heart to the floor and wiping his bloody fingers on the front of his outfit. “I tell everyone everything, just to see the look on their faces.”
“Whoever it is that’s listening in,” said Ellen, “they’re becoming a real nuisance. I come here to relax, far away from a judgemental world. Can’t you figure out what’s going on here, Monkton? Please? Pretty please?”
She actually went so far as to flutter her eyelashes at him. Monkton Farley smiled, despite himself. He never could resist a pretty face.
“I am a detective, and the current situation does . . . intrigue me. I know for a fact that the Wulfshead Security people have turned the whole bar inside out, and failed to discover even a hint of a scientific or supernatural eavesdropping device. There’s nothing here that isn’t supposed to be here. Which suggests to me that this has to be some kind of inside job. And whoever is behind all this . . . would have to be pretty damned powerful in their own right, not to be scared of what the Wulfshead management might do, if they ever find out.”
We all looked at each other. We were all thinking of the Roaring Boys, but none of us wanted to say their name out loud, in case that was enough to make them appear. The last time the club management unleashed them, after that unfortunate business at last year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, the police were fishing bodies and bits of bodies out of the Thames for more than three weeks. And the media never said a word. Funny, that . . .
“Who do you think it is, Shaman?” said Ellen. “You’ve usually got your ear closer to the ground than anyone else.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I’ve been away. It does seem to me, though, that we’re all missing the obvious question. Who profits? Who stands to make the most, out of all our secrets being made public? Or . . . if they’re not doing it for the money, what are they getting out of it? I mean, just setting up an operation like this can’t have been cheap . . .”
“Good point, Shaman,” said Farley, frowning heavily. “If it’s not about the money, it must be about the secrets themselves. Who wants to know?”
Jumping Jack Flashman just happened to be passing by at that moment, heading to the bar for a refill. He smiled charmingly on us all.
“Don’t look at me; I only steal proper valuables. Secrets and information are just too hard to sell. You need brokers, and middlemen, and binding agreements . . . I prefer to keep things simple. Nobody really cares if you just steal their valuables. Everybody’s insured these days.”
I went with him to the bar and ordered myself another bottle of Beck’s. Talking is thirsty work. The barman who served me might have been the same one as before, or he might not. It didn’t matter; they all had the same colourless professional personality. Though this particular clone must not have known me as well as some of the others, because he tried to interest me in some of the evening’s special offers.
“Could I interest you in our special Dirty Pink Champagne, sir? Tinted, or perhaps more properly tainted, with a delicate diffusion of demon’s blood? Atlantean ale? Lemurian lager? Ponce de Leon Sparkling Water, takes years off you. Or there’s our new Cannibal Cognac-comes complete with a human finger at the bottom of every bottle. For when eating the worm just isn’t enough . . .”
I looked at the bartender, and he decided he was urgently needed somewhere else. I put my back to the bar again, and looked up and down the length of the club. The place was packed, everybody talking at the tops of their voices, and men and women and certain others were huddling together in corners, doing things that would have been illegal if only the Government had known about them. That said, everyone was playing nice, because the club had raised its security levels. There were golem bouncers at every exit, standing unnaturally still in their oversized formal tuxedos. Their eyes burned fiercely, the yellow flames jumping slightly with every movement in the air. The golems were on guard, and they missed nothing.
And then I heard Ellen de Gustibus say, “Hey! Where did the Painted Ghoul go? He was standing right beside me just a moment ago!”
We all looked around quickly, but there was no sign of the clown at midnight anywhere. Which was . . . more than odd. He wasn’t the sort to just leave without making a big production out of it and upsetting as many people as possible . . . And given the sheer press of the crowd, there was no way he could have gone far in just a few moments. Even as I looked around, there were more raised voices up and down the length of the club as people suddenly noticed that people they’d been talking to only a moment before just weren’t there any longer. More and more names were shouted of people who’d disappeared. The music shut down abruptly as someone behind the bar realised something was seriously wrong. Panicking voices rose up throughout the club, demanding to know what the hell was going on.
It was only then that I realised how much the crowd had thinned out in the last few moments. The club was nowhere near as packed as it had been. Other people had already realised that, and were making a mad dash for the exits. Only to find that the doors wouldn’t open. And I was pretty sure that wasn’t down to the club management. We were being held where we were, like rats in a trap. People surged desperately this way and that, looking around for an enemy-or just someone handy to strike out at.
People at the sealed doors were yelling at the golems, demanding that they do something, but the tall, hulking figures didn’t speak or move. Their grey stone faces remained utterly impassive, and the fire had gone out of their eyes, as though someone had turned them off. And the more I looked around, the more it seemed to me that there were even fewer people in the club than before. As though they were being taken when I wasn’t looking. Just snatched away.
Suddenly the Wulfshead looked barely half full.
Men and women, friends and enemies, moved quickly to stand back to back so they could watch every direction at once and defend themselves against whatever was coming. Some threw accusations at one another, but most had already realised this had to be a threat from Outside. The shouting and screaming died quickly away, as people prepared to fight their corner. Weapons were appearing in everyone’s hands. I turned and gestured urgently to the nearest barman.
“Why aren’t the security measures kicking in?” I said loudly. “I thought they were supposed to defend us automatically, if the club ever came under attack from Outside?”
The barman looked back at me, confused. “I don’t understand it! If there’s a problem, any problem, the club should protect itself! If Security can’t react, for fear of injuring the patrons, then all the doors should open automatically! And if that fails, then the Roaring Boys should appear, to sort things out. But nothing’s activating! The computers back here are telling me they haven’t been interfered with, or sabotaged, or even bypassed . . . They’re just not activating. As though as far as they’re concerned, nothing is wrong!”
I turned away from the barman as Monkton Farley grabbed me by the arm. His face was full of a sudden insight.
“Shaman! Have you noticed only people on the edges of the crowd have been disappearing! The people in the middle haven’t been touched!”