Part 9 (2/2)
”Guilty.”
”You're lucky you didn't die of a heart attack.”
”I'm lucky I didn't die of a lot of things. What does ten quid get me?”
”That salve and five shots.”
”That's not a bargain.”
”Find another physician, then.”
I paid the man. As I was leafing through my diminis.h.i.+ng bank roll, I noticed the cog etchings folded into the bills. I held one of the etchings up.
”This look like anything to you, Doc?”
”Looks like foreign script. What is it?”
”I don't know. You know anyone who can read it?”
”Nope, try Oxford, there's bound to be someone.”
”I might not be welcome at Oxford.”
”That's not surprising.”
Dr. Doyle pocketed my money and put my items in a paper bag.
”You take care to find Mary. She's... special to me.”
”I get that, Doc. Don't you worry.”
I left Doyle's office and went back into the quiet sunny Sunday. The question of what to do and where to go overwhelmed me. I reflected back on another of my father's sayings.
”When the big picture gets too big, boy, when you feel like you have too many tasks at hand, focus on the minutiae of the moment. The one little task that needs to get done right now. Finish, go to the next, then the next, then the next. The big picture is an illusion, like the ocean. You don't ever have to consider the ocean, just the s.h.i.+te you're swimming in right now.”
My whole ocean was Darwin and Barnes and their quest for Saxon's truth. Living in that ocean were the seas of Mary, Nouveau, the Swan Princess, Orel, Emily, Silver, Oxford, Bow Street, on and on. The minutiae was in my pocket. Etchings of cogs, an unknown factor, but one made by Saxon's own hand. The variable of the moment was the s.h.i.+te I was swimming in.
Oxford was out. If Darwin pulled the kind of influence to contend with Barnes, then he would have agents on the grounds, maybe even in Whitechapel. Without the aid of Oxford intellectuals, I would need to turn to local resources, specialists in the strange and macabre. The h.e.l.lfax Club came to mind.
The h.e.l.lfax was a secret organization that was really not a secret to anyone. They were self-proclaimed mystic researchers and pract.i.tioners financed by bored and naive society women. There is some unwritten code or law that all women of means must be into Hinduism or Mysticism or psychics by the time they reach fifty years of age. The male equivalent to this is ornate guns. All aging women find psychics, all aging men find gun cabinets and expensive brandy. There's your truth.
So back to the h.e.l.lfax, social club of the strange, safe haven of tea readers and phrenologists, and astrologers and all the pursuers of said arts who didn't care to subject themselves to the slick and nimble hands of gypsies. Respectable mumbo-jumbo. Also, the h.e.l.lfax was open on Sundays, of course.
I walked to the club. The London air was a little less p.i.s.sy, a little less sulphuric, on this fine Sunday. Yesterday's train ride to Oxford had stoked my whimsy for country strolls and fresh air. If I survived this, I promised myself, a holiday would definitely be in order.
The h.e.l.lfax Club occupied a two-story Tudor townhouse. The front double doors were affixed chaotically with stars, moons, and pyramids. The moons were crescent, the stars were five -pointed, and each pyramid was centered with a single eye. Very controversial.
The interior was purposefully gloomy. Velvet drapes hung in every archway, over every window, over every raw brick wall; the interior of the house was reminiscent of a soft furry cave. Two sorts of people wandered the h.e.l.lfax. Middle-aged women in bright coats and feathered hats, marred by the plumage of society, enjoyed tea and gossip and the prospect of communing with the dead. The other sort were actual members. In contrast to the guests, they wore black silk to match the walls and drapes. What jewelry they wore was predominately silver or ruby. A butler approached me.
”Can I be of service?” His words were drawn-in like all high society help. His tuxedo matched the decor.
”Got anyone versed in runes or script?”
”Why yes, sir. Please, come with me.”
I followed Jeeves down one of the halls, past the scornful look of society ladies and their ridiculous feathered hats. Past the curtains and veils and kilometers of velvet, Jeeves and I entered a stately room, something a bit more normal to social clubs. Men sat in circles around wood tables with cards laid out. Some drank brandy, some smoked cigars, some did both. Jeeves directed me to a ma.s.sive greasy foreigner. He was a younger man whose face was absolutely dominated by a black beard, the kind that could house birds, ferrets, maybe a revolver. The foreigner did not get up.
”Mr. Grigori Rasputin of the Russian Empire. Visiting scholar of Cyrillic mysticism,” Jeeves announced. I presented my hand; the Russian looked at it like spoiled pork. He said something to a nearby a.s.sociate in his b.a.s.t.a.r.d dog language.
”Mr. Rasputin would like to know what you want,” The man said in a thick Russian accent.
I unfurled the cog papers. ”I need to know what these mean. Can he translate?”
The man spoke to Rasputin in their mother tongue. Rasputin answered again through his translator.
”He says he can tell you the meaning of these symbols if you have enough money for a fresh bottle of Hine Cognac.”
The men at Rasputin's table all got a chuckle out of this. I slapped down five pounds of hard currency, the kind that shuts mouths and ends questions.
”Alright, Mr. British. Have a seat.” The translator said something and one of the seated men rose and left the circle. I took his place. Rasputin slurred something which got his compatriots laughing again.
”Before he begins he wants to know how it is you are so fat. He says men in his home country are not as fat as any of the English he's encountered. Why is that?”
”Regular meals. Also, we don't s.h.a.g our sisters, so our breeding stock is better.”
The translator put this in their language and the table roared with laughter, including his beards.h.i.+p. He barked more words.
”Well, you don't know what you're missing,” the translator said with tears running down his eyes. I smiled at the Russian; at least he was clever.
”Time is money, Ivan. What do I have?”
Rasputin took a hold of my etchings and gave them a good stare. He yipped an order and one of his contemporaries produced a monocle. Rasputin fixed the lens to his eye and gave the papers another look. He laid into a monologue that sounded like a bulldog's love song. I waited for the translation.
”He says that these symbols are Mongol. That they tell the story of a horseman who loved a girl. The girl was high born and the horseman was a bandit. He asked her father for her hand, but he, a wealthy merchant, refused unless the horseman could double the merchant's wealth.”
Rasputin went on. So did his translator.
”The merchant's offer stood as a challenge. The horseman accepted. He went into the desert and prayed to the G.o.ds for an answer. In response, the G.o.ds caused a ma.s.sive tree to sprout from the desert, a lone tree in a place of sand and snakes. The horseman dug the tree out of the sand with his hands and carved from its trunk a bow and a club. He used the blessed weapons to rob the first merchant caravan to cross his path.
The lead guard attacked the horseman, but was felled by his mighty club. The second guard approached. Then the third. All were defeated by the horseman's magic wood. Finally, the owner of the caravan exited his coach to beg the horseman for his life. By the G.o.ds, by the stars, by coincidence, the merchant of the caravan was the same man who had refused the horseman his daughter.
The merchant was amazed, relieved even. 'Take my daughter.' the merchant said. 'A man with your fighting prowess is welcome in my family.' The horseman laughed at this. 'I don't need your daughter, I have your money and your caravan and all your horses!'”
The Russians roared in laughter. I expected more to the story, but Rasputin kept laughing, his entourage kept laughing, everyone was laughing but me. I turned to the translator.
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