“He’s alive?”
“Dreaming. Recovering his strength. Often I’ve asked myself what he sees in his dreams. What wonders he must witness in his sleep.” I pointed toward an ostentatiously large red lever at the side of the sphere. “I have the means to awaken him.”
The three of us looked through the glass at the face of that remarkable individual, that titan of poetry and philosophical thought — the last man, it was said, to have read everything. He floated serenely in the golden liquid, magisterial despite the imperfections wrought by his sojourn in the grave.
Moon gazed on, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “I understand,” he breathed. “Forgive me. You were right.”
You’ll think the less of me for this, I know, but I admit it without shame — when I heard him speak these words, I clapped and I jumped up and down, I cheered and squealed with childish joy.
Mrs. Grossmith woke again at breakfast time, some hours after her fiance had departed the house. Groggy, she rubbed her eyes, scratched herself vigorously all over and was about to clamber out of bed to make the first cup of tea of the day when she heard a curious sound emanating from the kitchen: children’s laughter and, mingled with it, male voices, gruff and unfamiliar. She armed herself with the nearest heavy implement (seeing no pokers or vases to hand she was forced to make do with her chamber pot) and tiptoed through into the next room.
Two extraordinary figures slouched before the stove — grown men dressed as schoolboys. They were playing with a soft, round object, kicking it between them as though it were a football. It made a squelching sound as they did so.
The burlier of the two men grinned when he saw her. “What ho, Mrs. G.”
“Hullo, miss,” said the other, rather more politely.
“Hope we didn’t wake you. We were just having a kick-around.”
“Playing keepy-uppy.”
It was then that Grossmith saw the true nature of the ‘football’. Strange, she thought distantly, as though she were somehow divorced from the horror of the thing, how a human head could look so much smaller when removed from its body than it did when securely in place on top of a good pair of shoulders. She tried to scream but no sound would come.
“Bad news, I’m afraid, miss,” Boon said courteously. “Your fiance was a professional assassin known to his masters as the Mongoose. ’Fraid Hawker and I had to give him a bit of a wigging.”
“Sawed his head for.” Hawker sniggered. “We fairly howled with laughter.”
“Still.” Boon brightened. “I wouldn’t worry. Sometimes life’s just like that.”
It was around this time that I made my first mistake.
A change had come over Moon. The cynic in him had vanished before my eyes; the logician, the proselytizer for ratiocination and reason, all that had made him what he was, evaporated as I looked on. In his place stood a convert to our cause, a new Saint Paul, with Cannon Street as his Damascus.
Such a reaction on encountering the Chairman was far from unique. Speight, Cribb and Moon’s own sister had all seen the light only when setting eyes upon the dreamer.
“I see it,” Moon said softly. “I see it.”
Feeling much as Jesus must have felt once Thomas had finished rummaging about in His ghostly wounds, I tried hard not to seem smug. “So you understand now?”
Moon seemed oddly deferential toward me, all trace of his earlier disrespect gone. Perhaps I should have realized then that all was not as it appeared to be, but at the time it just seemed so right.
Astonished at his friend’s volte-face, the Somnambulist seemed about to write something down, some objection, some weasel words of doubt, but, wisely, he stood back and kept his own counsel.
“I’m flattered,” said Moon, then more forcefully, as though I might doubt his sincerity, “Really. I’m flattered. Everything you’ve done for me… To bring me face-to-face with this. All this trouble just to show me the truth. I’m in your debt.”
I licked my lips. “I have a mission for you.”
He grinned. “I thought you might.”
Quivering with excitement, I explained what I wanted him to do. I intended the conjuror to be the voice of Pantisocracy in the outside world, chief propagandist for the new order, spokesman for the Summer Kingdom. Who would listen to me: failed thief, former gaolbird, serial incompetent? I know first-hand the cruelty of popular opinion, its perverse, bovine insistence not on listening to the message but on ridiculing the messenger.
Moon was different. They would listen to him, a celebrated detective, star of the Theatre of Marvels, once a fixture of society.
It’s that ‘once’ of course which was important. I hoped he retained enough influence to be heard, but it was the marginalization of the man which intrigued me. He was turning into an edge-person. Whether he knew it or not, Edward Moon was becoming one of us.
“Let me go,” he said. “Please. Let me spread the word. The people must be prepared. The city must be made ready for Pantisocracy.”
It was a convincing performance and I’ve no doubt it came easily to him. Probably you think I was a fool to be taken in at all, but since I was overwhelmed by righteousness at the time, you’ll have to forgive me.
So I let him go.
I gave him fourteen days to spread the word, a fortnight in which to prime the city. But even in my sublime state of belief I was not entirely without guile — doubts lingered at the corners of my mind. “You’ll go alone,” I said, and as Moon started to protest, I cut him off with a gesture. “The Somnambulist has yet to be converted. He’ll stay with us here until he sees the truth of things.”
Moon argued some more but eventually he gave in and agreed to abandon his friend below-ground. Perhaps the two of them exchanged a secret message, a code or gesture, something to allay the giant’s fears and assure him that Moon was faking. If there was such an incident, it was one I failed to detect.
I like to think that a small portion of him really did believe, that despite his cynical play-acting, some fragment of decency recognized the truth. Naive, I know. Naive and too trusting. But that’s the kind of chap I am. The cynical perfidy of a man like Moon could never come easily to me.
I left the Chairman still sleeping and ordered the detective to be escorted to the surface (Donald McDonald and Elsie Bayliss, a one-armed former charlady, did the honors). We shook hands warmly before we parted.
“Fourteen days?” he asked, apparently still effusive, supercharged with belief.
“Two weeks. You have my word.”
He thanked me and strode away. The Somnambulist watched him go, his silent eyes betraying the barest scintilla of fear. “Don’t worry,” I said, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “You’ll see the truth before long.”
We walked back to the Chairman of the Board. Despite his sleeping state I hoped that he was aware of my presence, that he understood who I was and thanked me for it. Sometimes I even dared to hope he loved me. I spoke softly into the glass. “Fourteen days. Then you shall walk through the Summer Kingdom.”
A brisk tap on the door. “Reverend Doctor.”
I turned to face a vision in chiffon and lace. “Charlotte.”
She managed a thin smile. “Call me Love.”
“Of course,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
“I’m concerned.” She spoke in that enchanting singsong voice of hers — the kind of voice, I mused, which might in earlier times have led mariners to their deaths, lured generations of sailors onto the rocks. “My brother. Have you let him go?”
“He’s one of us now. Love one thousand has returned to the surface to spread the good news.”
Charlotte seemed impatient. “He was feigning. He’s lied to you.”
“What?”
“I know my brother. He hasn’t gone back to spread the word. He’ll have the police down here, the army. They’ll wipe us out. You’ve humiliated him and he’ll want revenge.”