Part 46 (1/2)

The next day I received four separate packages of five thousand pounds each. Twenty thousand pounds. I was rich. I had enough to live in luxury the rest of my life.

My troubles were just beginning.

I wasted no time, delivering for safekeeping the bulk of my money with a reputable goldsmith. I then proceeded to pay off all my debts; take a new house on Upper Brook Street, close enough to Grosvenor Square to be fas.h.i.+onable and close enough to Tyburn Lane to be a good value. I ordered several suits of new clothes, a few new wigs, and various items of personal and domestic furnis.h.i.+ng, and began my life as a man of leisure.

In a matter of days, I had gone from being worth less than nothing to being rich. I was hardly the wealthiest man in the city, but a man of my sudden fortune would never need to work again. I would never want, never suffer, never lie and swindle and thieve for my next meal. I had achieved success beyond anything my father would have thought possible.

This success was, admittedly, soured by the fact that it had come of a gift from my father and that I had consigned the woman I loved to misery, but I tried not to let those two things bother me. For the first, my father had possessed the book, but not the skills or wit to use it. I had therefore bested him quite fairly. As for Lady Caroline, I told myself that she had made her choice, she had rejected me, indeed had instructed me to do precisely what I had done. Perhaps that would have sustained me had she not seen me hiding in her house, had she not, in her moment of terror and sorrow, worried about me.

A noted baronet with political ties and influence had returned from the dead. How could I have believed such a thing would not cause a stir? I suppose I hadn't thought that part through, but soon Sir Albert's revival was the talk of London. I was no better than one of the curious, for having returned him to life gave me no particular intimacy with the man. Indeed, it was my hope that he would never find out who it was who revived him or that I had enjoyed a particular connection with his wife.

So it happened that I had no choice but to learn what I could the same way every outsider did, from newspapers and chatter in coffeehouses. Sir Albert, it seems, was unable to tell the curious anything about what lay beyond this world. If he had gone to heaven or h.e.l.l, he could not say, for none of his experiences had left an impression upon him.That he had been somewhere and doing something, he was certain, for he had hazy memories of other people and movement and places, dynamic shadows and strong feelings, but beyond that he could say little. As for the means of his return, he was similarly vague. He knew that he had been brought back by a person who had discovered a method of returning the dead, but he did not know who this person was. If he had learned of my scheme to extract money from his wife's friends, he said nothing of that. I suspected he had not been told, and I was quite content that he should never learn.

So while Sir Albert's return was all Londoners wished to speak of, they knew nothing of my involvement. Indeed, the world had conspired to hide my presence well, for on every street corner there were now peddlers selling pamphlets that claimed to contain the secret method of restoring life. I purchased one of these and found it contained utter nonsense, just as I had supposed. I felt a moment of anger that dullards were profiting from my work, but I let it pa.s.s. I had profited enough.

Some readers may suspect that a man such as I might grow greedy, demand more money from the widows or seek out new victims to threaten. Anyone with whom I chose to share the secret that I was the city's only true necromancer-and a quick demonstration with a dead creature would prove I was-and who did not want a husband or father returned would pay me what I wished. However, I was not greedy. I was not my father. I was not a man whose appet.i.tes could never be satisfied or a man incapable of keeping hold of his money. I now had all I could desire in the way of physical and material comforts, and I did not wish to tempt fate by seeking more. I was determined never to touch the book again unless some disaster should strike and I found myself in need.

I joined a new club and made new friends, and though I was not out and about quite as much as I had been before, I was nevertheless seen in public. Once or twice, after some dramatic coughing, a gentleman might bring up the unfortunate subject of rumors that circulated about me. He might say that he heard I had been exposed as charlatan and an imposter, a man with no wealth and ample pretension. To such questions, I would blush and hang my head. I would say that it was true that I had misled the world about my family, because my father was a lout and a drunkard. Not only had I been ashamed of him, but I had been in fear of him, for I knew once he had discovered that I had made my fortune in trade, he would seek me out and demand that I make my wealth his own. I had hidden my origins not only from the world, but from my parent, and he had discovered me all the same.

”As for the other matter,” I would say, ”I can promise you I am upon a very sure footing. I invite you to speak to any merchant with whom I do business.You will only hear that I pay my bills promptly and with good cheer. I haven't a debt in the world, and I know of many a gentleman, some with far more wealth than I, of whom the same cannot be said.”

The facts, therefore, bore out my claims, and while having had a drunken oaf for my sire might have tarnished my reputation in some circles, my evident fortune, which I displayed with tasteful reluctance, sufficed to compensate. At the theater, at the opera, and through the rambles, I rarely saw any of my old acquaintances, and when I did, nothing more than an uncomfortable bow pa.s.sed between us. Good manners and embarra.s.sment, not to mention fear of my wrath, prevented any of that set from disclosing my necromantic secret.

I had taken on my father, and I had won. I had taken on death, the king of terrors itself, and made it my servant. In doing all this, I had betrayed Lady Caroline, and that mistake still haunted me. Do not think otherwise. Not a day went by, not an hour in each day, nor even a minute in each hour, that I did not think of what I had done with regret. If only I had chosen one of the other widows to torment, how much better, how much easier, would have been my life. Perhaps Lady Caroline would not have forgiven me, but at least she would have been safe and well and happy.

I set about in an effort to erase the mistakes of my past and enjoy my new life. I took pleasure in my new friends, in being a man about town. I flirted with some women, and more, you may be certain, flirted with me. If I was not serious in any of these encounters, I managed to take some small pleasure in them. In sum, I could not change the past, and so I made it my business to enjoy the present that I had labored so hard to achieve. In this pursuit, I was successful.

But that was before the queen began to search for me.

I was dining at my club when I overheard the conversation between two older gentlemen I found intolerably fatuous. ”It is most unusual,” said Mr. Fallows, a man of about fifty with a long face and an enormous nose, the tip of which pointed down, almost touching his upper lip. Indeed, it wiggled when he spoke. He also had enormously wide eyes, and his wigs were inclined toward the frizzy. Taken as a whole, he gave every impression of being a man who had just been startled unto his death.

”I agree with you there, sir,” said Mr. Christopher, some five years his friend's senior. He was less grotesque in his face, but far more so in his person. Rarely did one see a man of Mr. Christopher's rotundity. He required a cane to walk, and often the a.s.sistance of two or three servants to rise from his chair. No one liked these two save each other, but despite their disagreeable personalities and appearances, they were always remarkably well informed. It was something of a mystery how men no one was inclined to speak to somehow knew everything.

”A unique series of events,” said Mr. Fallows, continuing. ”No precedent, sir. None at all,” agreed Mr. Christopher. They had become something of a fixture in the club. They were apt to speak thus loudly until someone inquired of their subject, for they loved nothing more than to demonstrate their knowledge. I was walking past, quite prepared to continue on, when I heard something I could not ignore.

”It's a deuced bad time for some jackanapes to start pulling people from their graves,” Mr. Fallows said. ”And Sir Albert, of all people. That pot has been stirred, sir. Stirred very much indeed.”

”To overflowing,” agreed Mr. Christopher, nodding so that the flesh about his chin and neck jiggled like aspic. ”The Germans have certainly noticed.”

I paused and turned to them, raising my gla.s.s of wine in salute. ”I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but I could not help but overhear.”

At this, they both smiled. ”All of London speaks of the necromancer, but what concern is this of the Germans?” I asked.

”Have a seat, Mr. January,” Fallows said, pointing toward an empty chair. ”And we shall tell you.”