Merryweather looked nervously toward the Somnambulist. “Goodbye.”
The giant waved and the inspector strode back toward his men, palpably relieved.
“We should leave,” Moon said gloomily. “We’re redundant here.”
They started back toward the theatre, the detective silent and lost in contemplation.
“I think it’s gone,” he said at last. “I had a bit of talent once but I think it’s vanished.”
The giant did his best to cheer him up.
UNLUCKEE
“P’raps my time’s past. That’s all. I’ve gone to seed.”
The Somnambulist gave him a glum smile.
“I need something more. Something… gothic and bizarre. Like the old days.”
A sudden gust of wind sent a flurry of litter eddying around them, entangling a single sheet of yesterday’s Gazette around Moon’s shoes. Its headlines screamed:
HORRIBLE MURDER!
HAM ACTOR THROWN FROM TOWER!
POLICE BAFFLED!
But so caught up was he in his introspection that the detective didn’t even notice. He screwed the paper up into a ball, tossed it over his shoulder and trudged forlornly on.
Chapter 5
Edward Moon was bored.
He had been smoking for hours, lying stretched out on the couch in a corner of his study, enveloped by the tobacco fog which blanketed the room, thick and suffocating as a nicotine peasouper. He yawned and extended a languorous arm for another cigarette.
Mrs. Grossmith bustled in, a half-glimpsed figure amongst the fug. “Mr. Moon?” she asked in a querulous voice which suggested that she stood in her usual posture of disapproval, hands on hips. The atmosphere was too hazy to be certain, but from his long experience of the woman, Moon thought this entirely likely.
“Bored again?”
“I’m afraid so.” He lit the cigarette and settled back into the couch. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You get bored,” the housekeeper said sternly, “the way other men get the clap.”
Moon gave a thin-lipped smile. “Very good.”
“You’ll have to stop smoking in here. Given that we live in a house without windows, I absolutely refuse to tolerate it a moment longer. You’ll poison us all if you carry on like this. You’re a positive menace.”
The conjuror blew out a long gray stream of smoke. “You’re not the first to have said so. But I must confess that coming from you it stings a little more.”
“Be reasonable.”
Ruefully, he stubbed out the remainder of the cigarette and got to his feet. “No doubt you’re right. Besides, I think I’m starting to get bored with ennui.”
Mrs. Grossmith snorted disapprovingly. “You’re quite impossible when you’re like this.”
“And you’re a saint to put up with me.”
“Can’t you get out? Go for a walk. Take some air.”
Moon seemed unconvinced but Grossmith persisted. “It’d do you good. This atmosphere can’t be healthy.” She gave a phlegmy, melodramatic cough.
“Perhaps I shall go out for a while.”
Mrs. Grossmith sounded pleased. “You can’t expect a mystery every week.”
“Can’t I?” Moon looked disappointed, like a child on Christmas morning who wakes to find his stocking filled only with a farthing and a bruised orange. “You know, I long for a world where violent crime is so commonplace that I’m kept in constant employment.”
“A strange wish.”
He sighed. “Not that villainy is what it was. The age of the truly great criminal is past. Since Barabbas… Mediocrity, Mrs. Grossmith. Mediocrity as far as the eye can see. A case in point: You remember the robber the Somnambulist and I foiled a couple of years ago? The man who’d planned to burrow his way into the Bank of England but ended up digging into the sewers instead?”
“I remember, sir.”
“His name escapes me at present. Can you recall it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You see? Forgettable. All of them — to a man — forgettable.”
Mrs. Grossmith forced a smile. “This boredom will pass, sir. It usually does.”
“Yes,” Moon almost whispered to himself. “I know the remedy.”
“You’re going for a stroll, then?”
“That’s right. For a stroll.”
Moon walked away and Grossmith heard him move through the house, trotting spryly up the hidden steps, past the rhododendrons, out onto the street.
The Somnambulist ambled in from the kitchen, an enormous jug of milk in one hand. He gave Mrs. Grossmith a quizzical look and gesticulated a brief message.
“Where’s he gone?” she asked. “Is that what you mean?”
The giant nodded solemnly.
She sighed. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
The Somnambulist did not reply but, head sunk low onto chest, milk cradled to his bosom, made his way mournfully back toward the kitchen.
After exchanging a few slurred words with Mr. Speight (who had wedged himself into what looked like a surprisingly comfortable position on the steps), Moon left the Theatre of Marvels and headed toward a disreputable district of the city, well known to him and to those others who shared his regrettable predilections. It was a route he knew by heart and he covered the distance in less than an hour, having no desire to hail a cab. He needed this time alone to prepare himself. Indeed, so intent was he on his journey that he entirely failed to notice that for its final fifteen minutes he was most expertly followed.
His destination was a dilapidated flat at the end of an alley a few minutes’ walk from Goodge Street, in that unprepossessing area of the city still a decade or so away from being known as “Fitzrovia.” The shutters of the place were tightly drawn but an enticing glow escaped at their edges. Looking quickly about him to make certain he was alone, Moon knocked six times in a precisely ordered pattern. As he waited, he was certain that hidden eyes were watching him from the other side of the door, and felt a profoundly uncomfortable conviction that somewhere within the house he was the subject of scrutiny and debate.
The door opened at last. An enormously fat woman stood before him, bathed in greasy yellow light, reeking of cheap perfume. Titanically vast, she relied upon a walking stick to support her stupendous bulk. “Mr. Gray!” She beamed. “It’s been too long.”
Moon shuffled his feet uncomfortably on the doorstep.
“Bored again?”
He nodded sheepishly and the woman gave a low, blubbery laugh. Hobbling forward, she ushered Mon over the threshold and closed the door behind him.
Inside, the air was thick with incense and the smell of desire. Moon walked into a large reception room, opulently and lavishly furnished, dripping with the trappings of immoral wealth. He moved swiftly across it to sit in one of half a dozen luxuriously upholstered chairs. This was a place and procedure he knew horribly well.
The woman gave a coarse smile. “We’ve got a new one in tonight.”
Of all the brothels in London, Mrs. Puggsley’s was by far the most distinguished, catering as it did to a select and discerning clientele. The men who patronized her establishment came there for services which could not be provided by any other of the city’s houses. They had special, unique tastes — preferences which, to the innocent, unjaded eye of the reader, may seem distasteful and even repugnant. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Does she have a name?”
“Mina,” the woman purred. “You’ll like her.”
“And Lucy? Mary? Where are they tonight?”
“They’re with other clients at present. Why don’t you meet our Mina, Mr. Gray? I promise you shan’t be disappointed.”
Moon winced inwardly as Mrs. Puggsley used his pseudonym again. He was certain she had realized long ago that it was an assumed name, and in his darkest moments feared even that she had stumbled upon his true identity. He wondered occasionally if she used “Gray” to tease and taunt him, as a way of telling him she knew.
He nodded. “Show her in.”
Puggsley gave an oleaginous bow. “Settle back, Mr. Gray. Relax. See your darkest dreams come to life before your eyes.”