Dr. Twist didn’t reply straight away. He puffed inscrutably on his pipe.
‘Apart from that,’ he said suddenly, ‘didn’t anything else strike you as strange?’
Hurst squinted at him.
‘It seems to me there are already enough strange things.’
‘Of course, but I was talking about the actions and movements of all the parties that night. And I can assure you, something’s not right!’
Second Part
10
A year passed without much of note happening. Harris Thorne lay in peace next to his ancestors beneath the chapel. Mr. and Mrs. Hilton led a peaceful existence in Hatton Manor and Brian had not changed his habits one iota. Sarah had replaced her late husband as head of the enterprise, even though her role was more to supervise the new director she’d chosen, Curtin, the previous right hand man. She’d also arranged for more favourable working hours for her brother, with the result that he only went two or three days a week to Coventry. During that time, however, the flame which had animated the romantic sentiments of Bessie Blount and Mike Meadows appeared to have died out, although nobody seemed to know why.
Nonetheless, they were both present at Hatton Manor that Saturday evening in June when the discussion turned to great-uncle Harvey and the mysterious glass forever standing on the table.
Paula — who, after many circumlocutions, had steered the conversation round to the subject — observed Brian out of the corner of her eye. The glimmer of a smile appeared on his face and he turned towards her.
‘My dear Paula, I notice you’re very interested in the subject….’
Paula, who still vividly recalled that famous night when, peering through the keyhole, she had observed Brian contemplating that same object, feigned an indifference denied by eyes burning with curiosity.
‘Yes, because I can’t really see an explanation… supposing there is one.’
‘And nobody has explained to you what it’s about?’ asked Brian in astonishment.
The question was met with astonished silence.
‘And are you in a position to tell us, Brian?’
Still smiling, Brian said only one word, but one which had an instant effect.
‘Yes.’
Dr. Meadows lit a cigarette, followed by Francis. Howard Hilton served himself another port, under his wife’s disapproving eye.
‘You see,’ continued Brian, ‘wherever you go in space or time, people are always the same. When they hear talk of prophecy they adopt a superior air and shrug their shoulders, but… Let’s take an example, the very first, which goes back to Genesis. Adam and Eve, though warned, took no notice of the terrible menace, tasted the forbidden fruit, and were chased from the earthly paradise… and we’re the ones who suffer the consequences. Harris didn’t listen either. Nobody can say I didn’t warn him. Yet he still opened up that room….
‘Before getting back to great-uncle Harvey, I’d like to tell you about certain events which have punctuated history, and whose authenticity is not in doubt. In fact, there have been quite a number of prophecies which have turned out to be accurate. The most well-known, needless to say, are those about illustrious individuals who must have kicked themselves later for turning a deaf ear. Remember Cassandra, whom the Trojans mocked. Does the term “Trojan Horse” ring a bell? Remember Julius Caesar also, and the celebrated “beware of the Ides of March.” He heard his wife having a nightmare in which she was holding his corpse in her arms, and the next day she begged him to postpone the senate meeting. He ignored her and was stabbed to death beneath the statue of Pompey, his enemy.’
He stopped and looked into the distance. His audience, shaken, could see the atrocious scene in his clear blue eyes.
‘I’ll skip over the prophecies of Nostradamus and other well-known figures, and take the case of Marie-Madeleine de Pazzi, one of the most significant and troubling. An astonishing young woman who, at the age of fifteen, declared that she belonged to no one other than Jesus Christ, and would die rather than marry. She flagellated herself regularly to defend her chastity from diabolical temptation, and was occasionally seen writhing on the ground, fighting off an invisible enemy and in the grip of atrocious convulsions.
‘One of her most remarkable predictions occurred during a ceremony to elect a new prior, which the cardinal was supposed to attend. Marie-Madeleine, then aged twenty, was overcome by lethargy during communion. An attempt was made to lift her from the pew and carry her to her cell, but she was lifeless and as stiff as a board; even though she only weighed just over a hundred pounds, she couldn’t be lifted from the bench. When the cardinal entered the chapel he sat down next to her. Petrified no longer, she rose up and said to his face: “You will be Pope. Yes, you will be Pope, but not for long, because you will die less than a month after your election!”’
Brian lowered his voice:
‘Nineteen years later, Alessandro Ottoviano de Medicis took the name of Leo XI.’
‘And did he die a month later?’ asked Paula.
‘Twenty-six days, to be precise,’ replied Brian. ‘I could cite you plenty of other examples, in particular the remarkable vision of Swedenborg, who not only announced there would be a fire in Stockholm, more than two hundred miles from where he lived, but predicted the progress of the fire and where it would end. But let’s get to the death of Louis XIV, or more precisely to the testimony of the Duc de Saint-Simon about that death… which, incidentally, explains the presence of that mysterious glass of water in my great-uncle’s room.
‘On the eve of his departure to take command of the Italian army, Philippe d’Orleans, nephew and son-in-law of Louis XIV, met Saint-Simon in Marly. The latter, as was his custom, took notes about the former’s strange adventure of the night before.
‘Philippe had invited his friends to supper. At the end of the evening, when only his mistress and a few close friends were still present, Philippe was introduced to a curious individual, supposedly a magician who claimed to be able to tell him any detail whatsoever about his past, present and future. To do so, he would need “someone young and innocent” and something else… which I’ll keep silent about for the moment. Mlle de Sery, Philippe’s mistress, had an eight-year old girl staying with her, innocent and rather backward, who had never left her domicile.
‘To begin, they asked the child to describe a scene occurring somewhere else at that very moment, which she did. The Duc d’Orleans sent one of his valets out in secret to the place described by the girl, which was quite nearby. He returned shortly thereafter and told his master what he’d seen chez Mme de Nancre, where the event had taken place. Armed with the information, Philippe asked the child for more information. Her response stupefied him: she described everyone present, their faces and what they were wearing, what they were doing, the position of the furniture… in short, she told him everything the valet had reported.
‘Whereupon, the child was asked if she could describe what would happen upon the death of the king. Remember, having never left the domicile, she knew nothing about Versailles nor, obviously, anyone at court. The king’s bedroom was described in the minutest detail, as was the furniture, the bed Louis XIV was lying on and the people gathered around him. Without going into detail, let’s just say they were individuals whom Philippe d’Orleans could identify easily, but he was amazed that the little girl could not see Monseigneur the Dauphin, nor his son the Duc de Bourgogne and his young duchess, nor the Duc de Berry, the Dauphin’s brother. The response was always the same: she couldn’t see any of them.