“Do nothing further?” Wilde burst out. “Surely you are jesting. The creature that pursued us is a ruthless killing machine. We looked on, helpless, as it butchered two constables. The people behind this abomination must be—”
“Thank you, Mister Wilde,” Cypher interrupted. “But now is the time to remain silent. Our enemies lurk in our midst, from the lowest to the highest echelon of society. Even — it distresses me to confess — within the royal palace. But rest assured, I have an end game in place. For now we must remain silent, hidden, and allow the conspiracy to unfold. Once all the players have revealed themselves… then we shall strike.”
“So that’s it?” Conan Doyle said. “Oscar and I are simply to go home and do nothing?”
“Precisely that,” Cypher said with a taut smile. “Nothing.” And with that, he turned and walked away. But then, remembering something, he stopped and turned back.
“I have made a carriage available. It will take Doctor Doyle to the train station and then drop Mister Wilde at his house on Tite Street. You are both to remain at home, where it will be safest for you and your family. Her Majesty thanks you gentlemen for your efforts, but you are now released.” Cypher walked on until the shadows drowned him.
After their long ordeal, both men were bruised, battered, and totally exhausted. Wilde fell asleep immediately during the carriage ride. Although weary with fatigue, Conan Doyle could not close his eyes. Once again, he felt his soul torn by two concerns: his wife and family in Sussex, and the safety of Jean Leckie, here in London. When the carriage dropped him at Waterloo station, he did not bother to wake Wilde to say good-bye, but let him snore on, mouth wide open, head lolled back on the seat cushion.
When Conan Doyle reached the ticket counter he found the Surrey train hissing at its platform, delayed by fog. He purchased a ticket and then bought a second, to be held in the name of Miss Jean Leckie. He then arranged for a telegram to be sent to Jean urging her to join him at his Sussex home.
“Won’t be delivered until the morning, sir,” the ticket counterman said. “What with the fog.”
Conan Doyle nodded morosely and took his ticket. He could not imagine what he would say to Touie. How he would explain their need to play host to a beautiful young woman his wife already suspected him of having an illicit affair with. But he reasoned that the consequences could not possibly be as terrible as hearing of Jean Leckie’s murder.
CHAPTER 28
THE FOG DESCENDS
A great hall in a great house. A hammerbeam ceiling floated fifty feet above the stone flagged floor. Gargoyles crouching high among the shadowed rafters leered down with stony smiles. Family crests and ancient battle flags draped the walls. Suits of armor lurked in shadowy alcoves, gauntleted hands gripping the pommels of their swords, eye slits dark and menacing. All of it, however, was a sham, a fake; for despite the artful counterfeit of age, the artifacts were modern copies, as was the mansion that encompassed them.
A long feasting table commanded the center of the hall, around which assembled a group of gentlemen: distinguished ones judging by the fine tailored suits, gold stickpins, gleaming watch fobs, and polished shoes. Each of them smoked — fat cigars, deep-bowled pipes, cigarettes, so that their combined exhalations fugged the air about them and smoke rose in curlicues to the ceiling rafters. Although several chairs remained empty, the faces arranged around the table were instantly recognizable as the lofty echelon of politicians, bankers, industrialists, and business magnates collectively known as The Fog Committee. The men sat and smoked in dour silence. One fidgeted. Another sighed. All exhibited the exasperation of important men unused to being kept waiting.
The double doors at the side of the hall flung open and a tall, balding man entered, shoe leather squeaking as he strode across the flagstones — the Commissioner of Police, Edmund Burke. His adjutant, Dobbs, entered with him but remained standing by the door as his master folded his long body into the empty chair at the foot of the table. All eyes fixed upon him expectantly, but Burke took out a cigar and made the other members wait, watching in silence, as he snipped the end with a cigar cutter, struck a match, and puffed the cigar into life before turning his attention to them. “My apologies for being late, gentlemen,” he said in his booming voice. “But I was delayed by the fog.”
Several members snickered at the obvious irony.
“Where is our illustrious host?” George Hardcastle, the coal mine owner, bellyached. He was a short, broad man with the appropriately moleish physique of something evolved to live underground.
“No doubt sleeping off an opium stupor!”
The financier, Sir Lionel Ransome, fretted, “We are all fools to follow this man.”
“He serves our purpose…” muttered the judge, and then added darkly, “… for now.”
But the financier’s comment had broken the dam wall of silence and a flood of doubt poured from the committee members.
“He is deranged, clearly.”
“And one we do congress with at our peril.”
“After we seize power, DeVayne must be done away with — swiftly.”
“I agree.”
The police commissioner leaned forward on his elbows and growled, “When this is done, we must wipe the slate clean, so that none of this business can ever be tied back to us.”
The table buzzed with a collective murmur of hear-hears.
A scowl wrinkled the old admiral’s face as he hissed at his neighbors, “Ssshhh! Lest you be overheard.”
The police commissioner chuckled fatuously and countered, “Easy, old man, we are quite alone.” He slouched back in his chair, puffed his cigar and blew a dilating smoke ring up toward the shadowy ceiling. “Only the gargoyles can hear us.”
At that moment, the eyes of the gargoyle on the farthest wall went dark, as the face that had been pressed up behind it drew away, the listener having heard more than enough.
Moments later, a door at the end of the hall opened. Rufus DeVayne entered and walked toward his seat at the head of the table. “Good news, gentlemen,” he announced gaily. “Our rally at St. Winifred’s was a resounding success. I have inflamed the unwashed multitude.” He settled into his chair. “And now to the business of this committee meeting. I refer, of course, to the fog. It needs to get worse, gentlemen. Much worse.”
The industrialist came close to apoplexy. “But I am already burning twice the usual amount of coal in my factory furnaces. Are you trying to bankrupt me?”
“Forget the expense,” DeVayne snarled. “You should be burning three times the normal amount of coal — no, four times. Consider it an investment in your future. The fog is our greatest ally in this endeavor. We are fomenting unrest. Sowing the seeds of chaos. Because of the fog, trains cannot run. Omnibuses are canceled. Carriages abandoned in the streets. Shops must shut early. Commerce shudders to a halt. Most importantly, the fog hampers the police. Even the army cannot move freely. Tomorrow is 13/13. The capital must grind to a standstill beneath a pall of smoke and fog. Then a mob will assemble outside the railings of Buckingham Palace. We have a confederate in the clock tower. At one o’clock Big Ben will strike thirteen. That will be the signal to storm the palace.”
“How many and armed with what?” the old admiral asked.
“A mob of a few hundred,” DeVayne speculated, “armed with knives, clubs, stones, cobbles dug from the road.”
The coal mine owner grew agitated. “Against guardsmen armed with rifles and bayonets? They will be slaughtered in seconds!”
DeVayne laughed. “Oh, I have little doubt of it.”