Part 30 (1/2)

The artist strained to get the words out. ”You're Jack Gordon.”

”It is Robert! I trained with him! He's part of my unit!”

”You're... attacked.”

”I can't understand what you're saying, Robert. Drink this water.”

”You're going to be attacked.”

Gulping from a canteen, the artist staggered along the caravan. He suddenly pointed at the same one-legged old man, wizened grandmother, and little girl who had joined his own caravan. After soldiers grabbed them, a search revealed that the man was neither old nor one-legged. Makeup made him look elderly. The seemingly absent leg was bent back and up from the knee, strapped in place beneath his robe.

The stooped, wizened grandmother turned out to be a middle-aged woman of excellent strength. As with the old man, makeup had aged her. The little girl was indeed a little girl, but she was so well trained that she might as well have been an adult. A bag of poison was under her robe.

The artist rested only briefly, then tortured the captives, wis.h.i.+ng that he didn't need to rely on a native translator. Again, he vowed to learn the area's languages. He confirmed the signal the Thugs used to tell the rest of the band that everyone in camp was dead from the poison: three clangs from an oxen bell.

Where would the next attack occur?

They resisted telling him.

He inflicted more pain. The little girl finally couldn't bear it any longer and revealed everything.

He shot them.

The caravan reached the area where the attack was supposed to occur. They formed the wagons in a circle for the night, took care of the animals, made an evening meal, and pretended to go to sleep, presumably to die from the poison. The artist rang the oxen bell.

When twenty Thugs snuck through the darkness, the artist killed five of them himself while the rest of the command took care of the others. He made sure that one Thug was kept alive, and promised to set him free if the Thug would teach him the cult's methods of disguise. The captive endured unimaginable pain before he finally revealed secret after secret: about makeup, about blackening teeth to make it seem that some were missing, about applying wigs and fake beards and thickening eyebrows, about putting a pebble in a shoe to create a convincing limp. The Thug also revealed various places where his band of marauders camped.

When the Thug no longer had things to teach, the artist shot him.

The artist led cavalry to the various Thug campgrounds, destroying everyone there: men, women, and children.

He was promoted to second lieutenant. Most officers were gentlemen of means who paid to be given authority in the military, sometimes with disastrous results. But the artist received his commission based on merit and reputation.

Soon he was a full lieutenant.

The Opium War with China provided even more reasons for him to be promoted. The English government was determined to earn millions of pounds by flooding China with opium. The Chinese emperor was determined to prevent his millions of subjects from becoming mindless. Thus, there needed to be a war that lasted four brutal years, from 1839 to 1842, and the artist needed to kill increasing numbers of people.

Opium. The lime odor of the countless bricks of it stacked in warehouses made him nauseous. Even the coffee-colored look of the drug affected his stomach. He could no longer drink coffee because of that color. Or tea-after all, tea was what the opium bricks were traded for. He drank increasing quant.i.ties of alcohol, however.

Nightmares woke him, images of bones and corpses swirling as if he were under opium's influence. The faces of his victims resembled poppy bulbs that exploded with white fluid gus.h.i.+ng from them instead of blood.

A loud noise shocked the artist out of his night terror. He pulled the knife from the scabbard on his wrist, tumbled from his cot, and braced himself for an attack.

The loud noise was repeated.

Someone was outside on the street, pounding on the door.

With visions of the h.e.l.l of India still turning in his mind, the artist crept around the cot, stepped over the crumpled newspapers, and approached the small window to his bedroom, so small that not even a child could squeeze through it. The window had bars as a further protection.

The artist pulled a drapery aside and saw darkness beyond the gla.s.s. As the pounding on the door continued, he unbolted the window, swung it out, and peered down toward a fog-shrouded man standing under a gas lamp.

”What do you want?” the artist shouted.

”You've been summoned!”

13.

The Inquisition.

FOG SWIRLED ON THE STREET known as Great Scotland Yard. Eager to escape the cold, a constable opened a door marked METROPOLITAN POLICE and entered a corridor lit by gas lamps mounted along the wall. He took off his gloves and rubbed his hands together.

On his left, an elderly woman slumped on a bench, with her head tilted back against the wall. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open. The constable peered close, thinking she might be dead. Then he noticed a slight movement of her chest.

She had a faded burn scar on her left cheek.

He turned to his right, addressing a constable behind a counter. ”Who's the old woman on the bench?”

”Came in four hours ago. Says she wants to talk to Inspector Ryan. Says she has information about the murders.”

”Which ones? Sat.u.r.day or tonight?”

”Neither. The killings forty-three years ago.”

”Forty-three years ago? Ha. A little late to offer information about them.”

”Claims she knows something about those that'll help us solve these.”

”Poor soul. Look at her. Too old to think clearly, confusing then with now.”

”I asked her what she wanted to tell us. The answer was always the same-she's so ashamed, she won't say it more than once, and even then she says she's not sure she can say it to a man instead of a woman.”

”Seeing as how we don't have a woman constable, she'll be waiting a long time. What do you suppose an old woman could be ashamed of?”

Continuing the Journal of Emily De Quincey With the mob outside the tavern and with no other place to spend the night, Inspector Ryan and Constable Becker sequestered Father and me in an upstairs room. The bed's rumpled blankets made it obvious that the room had a previous occupant, probably the tavernkeeper, but I remained groggy from having been drugged, and my exhaustion was greater than my revulsion at sleeping on a dead man's bed. Cus.h.i.+ons provided a place for Father on the floor. Ryan and Becker slept outside the room. Despite the corpses downstairs, I managed to sleep.

A loud noise jolted me awake.

The pounding of a fist.

Pounding on the tavern's door.

One of Father's essays is t.i.tled ”On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.” It describes the moment when Macbeth and his wife realize the enormity of the murder they conspired to commit. Lady Macbeth says she feels uns.e.xed while Macbeth claims not to be of woman born. Time seems to stop, along with the beating of their hearts. Abruptly a knocking at the gate startles them. The pulse of the universe begins again, rus.h.i.+ng them toward their destiny.

I felt that way as I wakened to the pounding on the tavern's door. Briefly, while I slept, I had managed to forget the horrors of the past three days, of the prison, of the dead in their slumber below me. But suddenly the pounding on the door caused the world to rush at me again, and I had the terrible premonition that the outcome of this wide-awake nightmare would overtake us horribly soon.

”Who is it?” I heard Inspector Ryan demand, hurrying down the stairs.