The Doorkeepers

Seventeen

With their drums beating a fierce tattoo, the Hooded Men marched Josh to the end of Chancery Lane. There, a black van was parked, of the kind they used to call a Black Maria. They opened the back doors and heaved him inside, forcing him to sit on a varnished wooden bench, handcuffed to a rail that ran the length of the interior.

“You can’t do this.”

“I don’t think you understand, sir. We can choose to do whatever we wish.”

“Why don’t you just let me leave? I didn’t come here to cause trouble.”

“Believe me, you’ve caused a bushel of trouble already.”

With that, the Hooded Man stepped down from the van, slammed the doors, and locked them. After a few moments, the van’s engine started up, and Josh was driven off at high speed. Every time the van swung around a corner, he was pitched against the side of it, bruising his shoulder.

He felt the van drive down a steep cobbled hill and then turn to the right. It swayed from side to side as if they were weaving through traffic, and every now and then it shrilled its bell. After less than five minutes it slowed down, turned again, and stopped. The doors opened and the Hooded Man reappeared, with a dog-handler and two police constables, both of them wearing high-collared tunics with silver buttons.

“Welcome to Great Scotland Yard,” said the Hooded Man, as one of the constables unlocked Josh’s handcuffs. He was led across a wide courtyard surrounded by towering red-brick offices. It was raining even harder, and the day was so dark that green-shaded desk lamps were dimly shining in almost every window.

Josh was escorted through black-painted double doors marked MORO ONLY, then marched along a narrow corridor with an echoing parquet floor. He was pushed into an elevator with clattering steel gates and he had to stand with the dog panting and slavering only inches away from him while it clanked its way up to the fifth floor. He tried to give the dog his famous “chill-out” look, which would have had any Marin County pooch rolling over on to its back and whining in pleasure; but the dog-handler was pulling the animal’s choke-chain so hard that it was practically asphyxiated. The gates clashed open.

At the end of another narrow corridor, he was steered into a large room with a bare table and two upright wooden chairs. Outside the window there was a dreary view of the Thames, with the rain dredging down, and Waterloo Bridge. The tide was flooding in, so that lighters and pleasure boats rode high at their moorings, and an archipelago of driftwood and oil and nameless flotsam was being carried slowly upstream, in the same way that Julia’s body had been.

They kept Josh waiting for over an hour, with the dog wheezing against its chain, as if it was waiting to take a bite out of his face. He developed an agonizing cramp in his left ankle, and began to feel sick with hunger and delayed shock.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked the Hooded Man; but the Hooded Man said nothing.

At last the door opened and a small, bald-headed man entered, dressed in a black Puritan tunic and breeches. He had the features of an ill-tempered doll. He had a tiny braided pigtail at the back of his head, tied with a thin black ribbon.

He sat down on the opposite side of the table, spread out a sheaf of papers, and unscrewed a fountain pen. Then he stared at Josh for a long time without saying anything, his pen poised as if he were deciding what he ought to write down.

“I insist that you call the US consul,” said Josh. “You can’t hold me here without making any charges.”

The bald-headed man spoke very softly, punctuating each phrase with a little suck of his lips. “My name is Master Thomas Edridge. You … I gather … are Joshua B. Winward … from Mill Valley, California.”

“Are you the big cheese here?”

“I’m here to ask you some questions. That’s all.”

“Well, you’re out of luck, Master Thomas Edridge, because I’m not about to answer. I’m very upset about what’s happened today. Your people terrorized us and cut off that young man’s hand.”

“Cutter? He’s a thrice-convicted thief.”

“Maybe he is. But you’re supposed to be Christians, not mullahs.”

Edridge shrugged. “He knew what the risks were. I wonder… if you do.”

“Listen, we didn’t come here to stir up any trouble. My girlfriend’s gone back. All I want to do is join her. I can guarantee that you won’t hear from either of us, ever again.”

“I’m afraid that it’s not as easy as that. You’ve been causing ructions. To say the least. And I need to know what you’re doing here. What mischief you had in mind.”

“We didn’t have any mischief in mind. We came here completely by accident.”

“Come, sir. Nobody comes through any of the six doors by accident. You know very well that there are rituals involved. Synchronicity.”

“My girlfriend and I were experimenting, that’s all. We were doing a research project on Old Mother Goose rhymes for University of California at Berkeley. We thought we’d try the old ‘Jack-be-nimble’ trick. We jumped over the candlesticks but we never believed that it would actually work.”

“How did you discover … where the door was?”

“What?”

“The door in Star Yard. How did you discover where it was?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters because the precise location of the six doors is known to only a few in this world – and to even fewer in yours.”

“I told you. We came here by chance.”

“Nonetheless, you immediately associated yourselves … with thieves and other malcontents.”

“They were the first people we met. We didn’t know who they were.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I really don’t care what you believe. I want to talk to the US consul.”

Edridge licked his lips and carefully adjusted the papers in front of him. “I regret that you have found your way … into a world … where America is a very different place. Oh, you’d have no trouble in recognizing it. It’s a very prosperous country. Wealthy, well fed. Except that you’d find it rather less advanced scientifically. No atom bomb, for example. And socially more … stratified. There was no Civil War, for instance, and in many southern states slavery is still acceptable.”

“Slavery?”

“A very benign form of slavery, Mr Winward. But it is far too profitable a trade for Britain to abandon altogether. And of what other use are the Africans, except to supply the civilized world with labor?”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“What I’m trying to explain to you … is that history took a different course in this existence. Slavery persists because there was no War of Independence. What you call the United States of America is a British possession. And hence, there is no US consul.”

“How come you know so much about my world?”

“Through interviewing people like yourself. Through books and films which have been brought through the doors. It is part of my duties to understand the history and the motivations of those who come through. Some of them, you see … represent a serious threat to the stability of our society.”

“That doesn’t alter the fact that you have no right to hold me here.”

“You don’t think so? You are a trespasser, sir, in a place where you have no business to be. You were seen to be associating with criminals and subversives. And what was the purpose of your visit to Lavender Hill?”

“Were your people responsible for that? For killing that woman?”

“We exact very severe punishments on those who attempt to undermine the social and religious structure of our society.”

“You’re nothing but a gang of butchers.”

“I would watch my tongue … if I were you. You still haven’t given me a satisfactory explanation of your presence here.”

“I didn’t come here to subvert anything. I don’t have any interest in your politics and I’m definitely not interested in your religion.”

“You should be. To publicly deny the Lord thy God is a very serious offense in itself.”

Josh said, “I’m not denying the Lord my God. I just think it’ll be simpler all around if you let me go back where I came from.”

“And what guarantee could you give me that you wouldn’t return?”

“Because, believe me, I wouldn’t come back here for a million dollars.”

“Easy to say. But perhaps you have some unfinished business here.”

Josh shook his head. “Forget it. I’m not going to play along with this. I’ve told you how we came here and if you don’t want to believe me I really don’t mind.”

Edridge pushed back his chair with a sharp bark of wood. He stood up and walked around the table until he was standing so close that Josh could smell the musty wool of his tunic.

“This is no joking matter, sir. I have the power to imprison suspected subversives without trial. In some extreme cases I may order them put to death.”

“For Christ’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you that we came here by accident?”

“Do you think I believe that? Do you think I believe that you accidentally jumped through the door, and accidentally met up with young Mr Cutter and his Burmese friend, and accidentally killed one of our dogs? My dear sir! What a terrible chapter of accidents!”

“Listen, kiss my ass.”

Edridge was silent for so long that Josh began to wonder if he was ever going to speak again. But then he sat down again with his hands steepled in front of his face and stared at Josh with eyes that were utterly pitiless. “Tell me why you came here. Tell me the truth.”

Josh said nothing at first. But it was becoming clear that Edridge would keep him here for ever, if necessary, until he came up with some kind of satisfactory explanation. “All right,” he said. “You want to know the truth. A few days ago my sister’s body was found in the Thames. Somebody had murdered her, cut all of her insides out. But nobody could discover where she’d been for the past ten months.”

Josh told Edridge all about the letter from Wheatstone Electrics, and how Frank Mordant had arranged to meet Julia at Star Yard. But he purposely omitted any mention of Ella Tibibnia or Mrs Marmion’s mother. He didn’t yet understand the connection between Mrs Marmion and her mother; and he wasn’t sure of the part that Ella was playing – was it really supernatural or was it some other trickery besides? For some reason he felt that he might be putting them in jeopardy if he told Edridge that they had helped him.

“I know Mr Mordant,” Edridge nodded. “As far as I’m aware he’s a very respectable businessman. Very God-fearing.”

“Listen – I’m not suggesting that he had anything to do with Julia’s murder. I just wanted to talk to him, to see if he could help me fill in some of the missing months.”

“The Masters of Religious Observance don’t look very kindly … on members of the public who try to investigate criminal matters on their own.”

“Well, neither do the Metropolitan Police, but I believe that Julia was here during those ten months and I couldn’t see any other way of proving it.”

Edridge jotted a few notes on the paper in front of him. “It’s not a bad story,” he said.

“What do you mean, story? It’s the truth.”

“You still haven’t told me … why you came to the conclusion that your sister might have gone through the door. What you say about Mr Mordant’s letter … is plausible. But what reasonable person would come to the conclusion that she had entered … a parallel existence?”

“I don’t know. I heard the rhyme and I guess it seemed like the only possibility. You know what Sherlock Holmes said.”

“No. And I don’t wish to know. The fact remains … that your story is fanciful and full of… unexplained discrepancies. I suspect that you are bent on crime or subversion or both and I intend to discover … exactly why you came here and what you intended to do.”

“Then I’m sorry. You’ll have a hell of a long wait.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Edridge beckoned the Hooded Man, who came over to the desk and inclined his head so that Edridge could whisper in his ear. He nodded once, and then again, and Josh could see his eyes shining inside the torn-open gaps of his hessian hood.

“You have a last opportunity … to explain why you came through the door.” Edridge slid a sheet of paper across the desk and offered Josh his fountain pen. “I want it all here. Names. Addresses. Meeting places. Dates.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Is that your last word?”

“First and last. I’ve told you why I’m here. I’m trying to find out what happened to my sister, that’s all.”

“Have you heard of the Holy Harp?” asked the Hooded Man, harshly.

“Somebody mentioned it, yes. I don’t know who.”

“The Holy Harp sings with the voice of pure truth. As you will shortly discover.”

Josh tried to stand up, but the dog leaped up at him so ferociously that he sat back down again. “Listen,” he insisted. “I’m not a Communist or an atheist or a terrorist. All I want to do is go back home and leave you people to run your society the way you see fit. You want to cut people’s hands off? Fine. You want to keep slaves? I’m not arguing. You want to deny everybody their basic religious rights? That’s up to you. Just let me go and you won’t see me again till Doomsday.”

“Doomsday!” said Edridge. “What an appropriate word to conjure up! The day when everybody has to give an honest account of themselves in the face of God. Well, today is your Doomsday, Mr Joshua B. Winward. And may the Lord have mercy on you.”