“So I suggest you get on the phone to your opposite number in Islington and find out how we can be of use,” Bryant was saying as he halfheartedly attempted to haul the case into the room.
“Here, Mr Bryant, let me give you a hand.” Colin Bimsley sprang up to help. Together they manoeuvred the dusty object into the centre of the floor. The box was on squealing casters, and the top half of one side was covered in filthy glass. Bryant pulled a large chequered handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it into Land’s tea mug and, before the Unit chief could protest, started to wipe the window clean.
John May appeared from behind the case, patting cobwebs from his suit. “I couldn’t stop him once he’d seen it, Raymond,” he said apologetically. “He had to bring it down here.”
“It’s Madame Blavatsky,” Bryant proclaimed. “Not a terribly good likeness I’ll admit, but it’s clearly meant to be her.”
Land sniffed at the box and recoiled. “Who the hell is Madame – Who is she, and what’s she doing in our attic?”
“Madame Blavatsky was a noble-born Russian spiritualist who founded the Theosophical Society. She was a Buddhist who believed in reincarnation and the spirit world. She died right here in London.”
“What the bloody hell’s she doing upstairs?”
Bryant ignored him. “Her followers thought she was steeped in the wisdom of the ancients, whereas I’m more of the opinion that she was a barking mad fascist, and a racist to boot. And she’s been living in our attic for donkey’s years. Remember I told you the history of this place? About Aleister Crowley’s Occult Revivalists’ Society of Great Britain using the building for their meetings until the 1930s? Well, I was up in the attic looking for my first edition of Nachtkultur & Isolationism, and found her under a blanket. There’s all sorts of weird stuff up there, including a spirit horn and an electromagnetic field detector, the kind geologists used to use. They were popular in spiritualists’ circles. I think there must have been many other occult societies here before Crowley’s, because most of the stuff hasn’t been touched for the best part of a century. We’re at the centre of several ley lines, you know. They cross underneath our basement floor.”
“Are you sure this is something to do with our previous tenants?” asked Land suspiciously.
“Indubitably, old trout.”
Land thought for a moment. “Is it worth anything?”
“Good Lord, it’s not about the monetary value.” Bryant had conducted some research about the PCU’s new home just after Raymond Land had discovered an alarming mural of a witchcraft ceremony hidden under the paintwork on his office wall. “The Occult Revivalists’ Society split from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and lived here with some ladies from the Lodge of the Isis-Urania Temple until they all fell out with each other. I think there was something saucy going on between them. The real Madame Blavatsky stayed here on her way to India, and the poet William Butler Yeats held his first seance in this building. It all turned nasty after Yeats materialized a terrifying spirit calling itself Leo Africanus in the room – right where you now have your desk, Raymond. Apparently the creature claimed to be Yeats’s Daemon or Anti-Self, and threatened to kill everyone and drink their blood.”
Land looked appalled. Bryant was enjoying himself.
“Because of his experience, Yeats adopted the motto Daemon est Deus inversus – commonly translated as The Devil is a God Reflected. The occult order became a Satanist society in the Second World War, and it all ended very badly in the mid-1950s. I’m writing a brief monograph on the history of the building at the moment. I’ll give you a copy when it’s finished.”
Arthur Bryant, as you may have gathered by now, was capable of holding forth on virtually any subject for any amount of time. This made him initially interesting, then exhausting, and finally annoying. He had an aloof and self-contained manner, as if he never quite heard what most people said to him (and often he didn’t, depending on whether his hearing aid was switched on).
His partner John May knew this, and was usually on hand to head him off from conversational culs-de-sac. But when the two of them were alone, Bryant could banter on about everything from geomancy to abrakophilia, and May would simply tune in and out of his friend’s lectures, remembering to interject the odd ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘really’, because that was what old friends did.
The rest of the PCU had grown accustomed to his ramblings, but Bryant’s erudition – albeit an erudition of the most abstruse kind – always made Raymond Land feel duped and dull-witted. He was convinced that Bryant deliberately tried to undermine his authority at every available opportunity. He was wrong about this; Bryant had no interest in power games. He simply soaked up knowledge and sprayed it back out, hoping to breed enthusiasm in others, like a gardener cultivating ideas instead of flowers.
May found some cleaning fluid and squirted it on a sponge, wiping away the grime on the glass. The round pug-nosed face of Madame Blavatsky slowly appeared. She was made of beige wax that had taken on the translucence of dead flesh. She had green eyes (one slightly sunken) and an ebony hair-clip, and was dressed in the grubby black crinolines of a dowager duchess. Her right fist was raised to her formidable bosom. She wore a cameo brooch and had golden earrings. Her hair looked suspiciously real.
Gladdened by the distraction, the staff moved in for a closer look.
“Have a shufti around the back, John,” Bryant instructed. “There should be a plug somewhere.”
“There’s just a lead with bare wires,” said May, crouching down.
“Well, stick them in the wall socket.”
“There are only two wires and there are three holes.”
“Jam a fork into the earth, that’s what I do at home.”
“Wait – you’re not going to plug that thing in here!” Land protested.
Too late. May flicked the switch and the case started buzzing. There was a smell of burning hair. Slowly the medium’s eyes glowed into life. The figure was life-sized, constructed with what appeared to be opticians’ glass eyes and cracked rubber lips.
“But what exactly is it?” asked Meera, who had been trying to look uninterested.
“I might be mistaken, but I believe she’s an automaton. She tells your fortune,” said Bryant.
“We’ll need an old penny,” said May. “Anybody got one?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Land snapped. “The government got rid of pounds, shillings and pence in 1971.”
“I’ve got one,” said Bryant, pulling a handful of illegal tender from his overcoat pocket. “Let’s see, a threepenny bit, a florin, a couple of conkers, half a crown – ah, here we are.”
May took the huge brown coin from him and inserted it in the slot at the front of the machine.
“You don’t honestly think that ridiculous contraption is still going to work after all these years, do you?” Land stood back and folded his arms, refusing to be drawn in.
“Now give me your hand,” said Bryant, grabbing Land’s wrist, “and place it palm down on the brass panel.” The automaton was humming with errant electricity.
The rectangular plate beneath the wax figure was dotted with a hundred tiny holes. Unwilling to appear a spoilsport, Land placed his hand over it. Pins shot out of the holes in a ripple, stinging his fingers. “Bloody hell!” Land shouted, trying to pull his hand free, but Bryant held it in place. He had a surprisingly strong grip.
The medium’s eyes flickered more brightly and she jerked forward, as if trying to examine Land’s palm. Inside the case, gears groaned and unoiled pistons squealed in discomfort. “I’ll get some WD-40 on that later,” said Bryant.