The Somnambulist

Chapter 14

Professional pavement artists are a modern phenomenon. In London, they sprang into being only as the guardians of the city’s streets and thoroughfares began to favor the economy of tarmacadam over the quaint impracticality of cobblestones. By the time of Moon’s last case, the pitted, pot-holed character of the old city had given way to the flawless asphalt of the new century. Accordingly, the city had seen an unwelcome increase in vagrants and down-at- heel needies plying their trade as roadside artists. One especially pernicious breed had acquired the name screever, a title given to those alms-seekers little better than beggars, the type that had they not possessed the barest modicum of artistic ability would doubtless have been selling matches or accosting passers-by with an outstretched cap and a forlorn look.

The day after Barabbas died, Mr. Dedlock was thrusting his way through the crowds which, quite without reason, had chosen this morning in particular to pack the streets of Limestone and block his path, all of them pushing and shoving and struggling like a Far Eastern football team jostling for drinks at the after-match bar. This must be a religious festival, he thought, some heathen public holiday or other which has resulted in this thoughtless and distracting inconvenience. By the time he reached the familiar shop front, he had to pause, sweaty and wheezing, to catch his breath. His triumphs on the rugby pitch were years behind him; that world belonged now to fitter, leaner, younger men.

A screever sat a few paces from the butcher’s door. Unkempt to as almost grotesque degree, his artwork was chalked half-heartedly on the pavement before him. Dedlock strode past, determined not to give the man the merest flicker of acknowledgment, but as he glanced down at the screever’s handiwork, something stared back — a word which made him stop short in shock.

Dedlock

Wrinkling his nose at the smell, the gentleman in question stared down at the screever. “Do I know you?”

“Danger,” the beggar hissed. “Danger.”

“Danger? What danger?”

“Danger.”

“Dedlock gave him a haughty stare. “You’re drunk.”

“Don’t you know me, sir?”

Dedlock snorted dismissively and was about to walk away when something about the creature drew his eye, something uncomfortably familiar. He peered closer. “Grischenko? Is that you?”

The screever nodded, a little sheepishly.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

“Danger,” he repeated solemnly. “Danger.”

“So you said.”

“Danger.”

Deadlock rolled his eyes. “Wipe that muck off your face and come with me. Whatever it is, you might as well tell me inside.”

The tramp stumbled to his feet and followed Dedlock as he swaggered into the building. Inside, Mr. Skimpole was already seated and waiting at the round table, fretful and restive. Given the albino’s permanently pasty complexion it was difficult to tell, but Dedlock thought he looked especially sickly today.

At the entrance of his colleague, Skimpole waved away a group of Civil Servants dressed as Chinamen who had been clustering around him, anxiously proffering reports to be read, letters to be signed, schemes and plots to be initialed. “Who’s this?” he asked, looking suspiciously toward the screever, his voice filled with the vexed tenor of a man whose pet dog has just dragged a small woodland creature into the drawing room, dead but still bleeding.

“This is Mr. Grishchenko,” Dedlock said, and the man nodded distractedly in greeting. He seemed jittery and furtive and kept looking about him as though terrified of some unseen menace lurking just beyond the borders of his vision.

“One of yours?” Skimpole asked witheringly.

The scarred man was unapologetic. “One of mine.”

“Who?”

Dedlock lowered his voice to an absurd stage whisper: “He’s our ‘in’ with the Russians. A double.”

“What in God’s name is he doing here? After the Slattery fiasco I’d have hoped you might be more wary about this kind of thing.”

“I think he has information for us.” Dedlock pointed to a chair and barked: “Sit down.” Grischenko, still whimpering, his vagabond disguise only partially removed, did as he was told.

“Why are you here?” Dedlock snapped. “Why that ludicrous disguise?”

Grischenko spoke carefully. His English was slow and thickly accented, his vocabulary antiquated and fussy. “I have to warn you,” he began. “I come here in this most brilliant disguise because the men who track me, they are dangerous. Most probably they watch us even now. I could not allow myself to be seen as Grischenko. You understand?”

Dedlock crossed his arms. “You’re quite safe here, I assure you. And I suspect Mr. Skimpole and myself are more than a match for anything your people might care to throw at us.”

“No, no,” Grischenko suddenly seemed animated. “Of course, I understand that my fellow countrymen would not alarm men so courageous as yourselves. But I am not followed by my own people. Not Russian. No, sir, these men you do not know, though I think you are aware of their activities. They are powerful, sirs. Very powerful. They have long been plotting against the city. You know to whom I refer now, I fancy?”

“Perhaps,” Skimpole said evenly.

“We’ve heard rumors,” Dedlock admitted, blunter than his partner. “We’d be grateful for any information you might be able to offer. The Directorate is a powerful ally. We can guarantee your safety. Who are these people? What do they call themselves?”

“They have no name, sir, but I believe that they are quite without scruple. They hired the Irish Slattery to stop you. He failed, I know, but they will not hesitate to try again. They will not stop until the Directorate is defeated and dead.”

“How do you know this?”

“Mr. Dedlock,” the Russian hissed. “I know because they have tried to turn me.”

“You?”

“Me,” Grischenko repeated, a hint of pride in his voice. “I resisted, of course. I threw their filthy offer back in their faces. I am a man of principle.”

“But of course.”

“There is more.”

Dedlock gestured for him to continue.

“They failed with me, but they have succeeded with another. An old associate of mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have a sleeper.”

“A sleeper?”

“Our deadliest. And now this man, this killer, a man we ourselves planted in this country many years ago, now he is recruited to their cause.”

“Who?” Dedlock snapped. “Give me a name.”

“He has many aliases,” the Russian said doubtfully. “His real name has disappeared.”

Dedlock frowned.

Grischenko brightened. “But he has a code name.”

“Tell us.”

Grischenko muttered something which sounded like “The Mongoose.”

“The Mongoose?” Skimpole repeated incredulously.

Dedlock swallowed a laugh. “The Mongoose?”

The Russian shrugged. “We were running out of names.”

“Means nothing to me.” Dedlock sniffed.

“He has killed many dozens and he has yet to fail. He is the worst of men, Mr. Dedlock. Please, gentlemen, on this matter you must be absolutely certain: he is coming for you.”

“Coming for us?” Skimpole echoed.

Grischenko nodded vigorously. “Like a pale rider,” he murmured. “Upon a pale horse.”

Skimpole shivered. Grischenko scrambled to his feet. “I must go,” he said and scuttled to the door, readjusting his disguise as he went.

“Wait,” the albino protested, but Grischenko ignored him.

He paused. “Be watchful. Promise me, sirs. Be watchful.” With this final, gnomic advice, he disappeared through the door and into the street.

“We should have him stopped,” Skimpole said. “Bring him in. Interrogate him properly.”

“Let him go. He’s told us everything he knows.”

“You believe him?”

“It would seem he risked his life to warn us. To be frank, I think we should expect the worst.”

“Who are these people?” Skimpole asked angrily. “What do they want? Good God, if only we hadn’t lost Bagshaw.”

“You don’t look well. Go home. I’ll keep you fully informed of developments.”

“I’d rather stay.”

“Go,” Dedlock insisted, not unkindly. “But be careful. We should both be on our guard. From now on, it seems, the Directorate is under siege.”

The Strangled Boy opened early for business. Even arriving shortly after ten, Edward and Charlotte Moon were far from being the first customers of the day — that dubious honor had already been claimed by those patrons who were even now on their second or third glass of the morning. Charlotte was discomfited by the beery, masculine smell of the place but Moon appeared not to notice. Waving his sister toward a rickety barstool, he ordered drinks.

“You see they’re rebuilding the old place?” he asked as he sat down beside her.

Charlotte peered from the window across the square to the burned-out hulk of the theatre where squads of workmen swarmed about its scaffolding like carrion flies on a corpse.

“This isn’t especially convenient, Edward. I thought we’d agreed not to see one another for a while.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“I’m busy.”

“With what? More ‘debunking’?”

“There’s a psychic in Bermondsey who reckons she can move household objects by the power of thought and bring back the dead in her front room.”

“You think she’s a fake?”

“The objects are raised up on strings, the dead people are her accomplices in white sheets and cheesecloth.”

“Charlotte, if I’ve learnt anything from my recent experiences it’s that it is as dangerous to believe in nothing as it is to believe in everything.”

“Stop pontificating and tell me why I’m here.”

Moon reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder swollen fat with paper. He swallowed, ill at ease. “I have a favor to ask of you,” he said, extricating a sheaf of documents and placing them carefully on the table. “The Somnambulist and I have not been idle. Whilst you’ve been off running table-rappers to ground, we’ve been pursuing an old obsession of mine.”

“Honeyman?”

“You know about his mother? Also that of Philip Dunbar — the Fly’s other victim? Both of them gone. Vanished into the city without trace.”

“People go missing all the time.”

“I’ve since discovered that both women were prominent figures in a small but extremely affluent religious group called the Church of the Summer Kingdom.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

Moon seemed surprised. “You have?”

“Silly name, of course, but harmless from what I can gather.” She paused. “Presumably, you disagree.”

“I suspect they’re not as benevolent as they appear.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Too many coincidences. Too many connections. They’re linked to the Fly, I’m sure of it. Their sigil — a black, five-petaled flower — was daubed on his caravan. From what I can make out, it’s practically the symbol of the church. Coleridge, too.”

“Coleridge?”

“Barabbas gave me a copy of the Lyrical Ballads. The church — if that’s really what it is — seems centered on his ideology.”

Charlotte sighed. “Edward,” she began, speaking much as one might to a beloved elderly relative, formerly alert and intelligent, but now sunk into befuddled senility, “you can’t believe a word that man told you. Not for nothing did the popular press call him ‘the Fiend’.”

Moon, turned ashen, did not reply and Charlotte was glad of the distraction when a serving girl brought across their drinks, slammed down the glasses and shuffled truculently away.

“You mentioned needing a favor,” she said, once Moon had taken a fortifying sip.

“I spent the night in the Stacks.”

“You spend half your life there.”

“The Church of the Summer Kingdom is one of the richest organizations in London.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. “Are you sure?”

“No question. They’ve hidden it well. I had to wade through oceans of paperwork. But they’ve left a trail. It only needed someone with enough persistence to follow it to its source.”

“And what did you find?”

“That the church is funded almost entirely by a single body. A corporation which calls itself… ‘Love’.”

“Love?”

“Bankers and brokers. Moneymen of some kind. Massively wealthy and a major player in the city. Their full name — believe it or not — is Love, Love, Love and Love.”

“Sounds like a joke.”

Moon did not smile. “The Somnambulist and I went to their offices. He recognized the building. Said he’d seen Speight of all people walk inside, dressed in a suit and behaving as if he owned the place.”

Charlotte laughed. “He must have been confused. Or drunk. He strikes me as the kind of man who might be.”

“The Somnambulist is far and away the most sensible person I know. Besides, I’ve only ever seen him drink milk.”

“The mystery thickens. You must be delighted.”

“Don’t’ you see that something’s happening here?”

Charlotte drained her cup and spoke again, calm and in control. “I agree it’s suspicious. How can I help?”

“I’ve arranged a job for you at Love.”

“Presumptuous of you.”

“Forgive me. Time is short.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Skimpole. The Directorate has its uses.”

Charlotte sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Infiltrate Love. Discover their connection to the church. Find out what they’re planning.”

“Nothing too demanding.”

“Report everything back to me, no matter how extraneous or irrelevant it may seem. Please, be scrupulous. I’m relying on you.”

“And what will you be up to whilst I’m doing all this?”

“The Somnambulist and I have to pursue another lead but — rest assured — I will be watching.” Moon fished a business card from his pocket. “Here’s the address. Be careful. I hope to God I’m not putting you in danger.”

“Danger? What are you expecting?”

“If Madame Innocenti was right we only have three days left.”

“You believe her?”

“I hope I’m wrong. But I think the pattern is beginning to make itself clear.”

Irritation rose in Charlotte’s voice. “You’re being mysterious again.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I can’t help it.”

Dedlock took a cab to the center of the city and alighted amidst the bustle of Piccadilly Circus, that Mecca for the sybarite, the pleasure-seeker, the good-time girl. He did not stop to sample the delights of the place but headed instead toward the genteel calm of St. James’s Park, at the borders of which was situated his club, a well-heeled oasis scant seconds from the populous commotion of the city.

There had been an atmosphere of disquiet in the Directorate for days, a tangible sense of menace in the air. The Slattery incident had unsettled them all, the business with Grischenko even more so. Dedlock had sent the “Chinamen” away (vetted more carefully since the Mackenzie-Cooper debacle) and Skimpole had slouched off home for the day, gloomier and more grisly-looking than ever. Clearly something was up with the man, but in all the years they had known one another Dedlock had always found it difficult to sympathize with him, had never had the stomach for the spindly palpitations of his permanently sickly colleague.

He walked down a narrow avenue just of Pall Mall, stopping outside a house halfway along the street. A bronze plaque had been placed by the doorbell and read, in neat, black, unassuming letters:

THE SURVIVORS’ CLUB

STRICTLY MEMBERS ONLY

Dedlock rang the bell and an elderly man hobbled to the door.

Shriveled, hunched and wizened, he had huge eyebrows — vast white things like spiky tadpoles mutated to a dozen times their normal size — which hung precariously beneath his brow and cast strange shadows across his face. He recognized Dedlock at once. “Pleasure to see you again, sir. Do come in.”

Inside, Dedlock was immediately assailed by the familiar scents of the place, its indefinably comforting cocktail of whisky, port, stale tobacco smoke, must carpets and the aroma of manly perspiration.

“It’s rather quiet today, sir,” the man with the eyebrows apologized as he took Dedlock’s coat. “You’re just a little early.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go straight through.”

“Very good, sir.”

Dedlock sauntered down a long corridor and into the last of four open rooms. “Afternoon,” he said, by way of a general greeting. A chorus of grunts and murmurs ensued, emanating from the half-dozen gentlemen sitting inside, all of whom clasped cigarettes, cigars or pipes.

Dedlock took his usual armchair by the door. Opposite him, engrossed in the Gazette, was a tall, rangy man, besuited and wholly unremarkable — but for the fact that most of both his legs were missing, the lower part of his body reduced to a flabby stump hanging impotently over the front of his chair.

To his right sat a man so grotesquely disfigured that most of us would probably have screamed or swooned at the sight of him. Dedlock, however, only nodded with the same nonchalant courtesy he might have afforded any other, more recognizably human acquaintance — a friend passed in the street, perhaps, or a workmate encountered at the bar. Evidently the victim of a terrible fire, half the man’s features had been ravaged and deformed, his hair entirely scorched away, his skin dyed a livid shade of purple. Doubtless, Dedlock thought, this fellow was an object of pity in the world at large, doubtless he was jeered at by children as he went about his daily business, pointed out and stared at and made an object of ridicule. Fishwives (it would not surprise him to learn) cast aspersions on his sexual capabilities whenever he so much as raised his hat in greeting. But here in this most exclusive of the city’s clubs, here the man could relax without shame and hold his head up high amongst his peers. Today, in fact, he seemed positively cheerful, puffing enthusiastically away on an ancient briarwood pipe. Dedlock waved and the man smiled lopsidedly back.

A few yards away sat a chap with an eyepatch and a ragged red hole where his nose ought to have been; his neighbor was a man with half an arm who seemed subject to repeated bouts of violent shakes and shudders. Close by sat a scrawny fellow whose face resembled that of a dog or badger in the aftermath of an especially bloody fight.

Dedlock wriggled in his chair, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and out of place. Giving in gratefully to temptation, he took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and stripped naked to the waist to reveal a body criss-crossed by a pair of gargantuan milk-white scars. He passed his fingers over their deep indentations, caressed their worn, familiar lines. The man with the pipe looked over and nodded approvingly. Dedlock reached for his cigarettes and settled back in his chair, a rare smile of contentment on his face, home at last.

When he awoke, the room had grown silent, dark and empty. Dedlock’s first thought as he stretched himself into a vague approximation of consciousness was a question: why had the man with the eyebrows not woken him? He felt stiff and uncomfortable and his joints ached from sitting too long in the chair. He rubbed his eyes and was giving serious thought to clambering to his feet when he became uncomfortably aware that he was being watched.

“Who’s there?” he asked, his fingers fumbling for the revolver he kept concealed in his waistcoat, only to remember, too late, that he had stripped half-naked in a show of solidarity with his fellow Survivors.

“You’re awake,” said a voice.

“Who is it?” he asked again.

A figure moved toward him and Dedlock thought he could make out two others flanking the first.

“Do you know who we are?” said a second voice.

“Can you guess?” said a third. Each of the three men spoke with a different, distinctive accent. Together, they were instantly recognizable.

“I know who you are,” Dedlock said, pins and needles pirouetting up and down his spine.

“Bet you didn’t think we were real,” said the first man.

“I knew.”

One of them laughed and the others joined in.

“Mr. Dedlock?”

The scarred man swallowed hard, determined not to show his fear. “Yes?”

“We’ve been hearing stories. Something about a conspiracy, a plot against the city.”

Dedlock cleared his throat and tried to force himself to speak as levelly and calmly as if he were delivering a report to one of the innumerable boards and committees to which he was accountable. “The Directorate knows of a threat to London. We have our man investigating — Edward Moon. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

In the blackness, three men shook their heads as one.

“Dedlock?” We need you to be certain. Has this anything to do with the Secret? Is the Secret out?”

A cold trail of sweat snailed its way down his back. “The Secret is safe.”

“You realize what would happen if it were to get loose?”

Another voice. “This affair would seem a storm in a teacup in comparison.”

Dedlock could no longer tell which of the men was speaking. “I promise you, the Secret is safe. Even Mr. Skimpole doesn’t know.”

“It’s imperative it stays that way.”

“You have my word.”

Even though it was pitch black, Dedlock felt certain that all three of the men were smiling and that the smiles they wore were not benign ones. “Then we must place our faith in that.”

Then with a rustling, clicking sound, the three were gone. Curiously, Dedlock found that he no longer had any desire to lever himself out of his chair, but fell asleep again almost immediately, the encounter already fading into dream.

When he woke again, the birds were singing.

Pity Mr. Skimpole.

Ann odd request, I know, given his previous showing as a blackguard. But it would take a heart of stone not to feel sorry for him as he trudged forlornly home to Wimbledon, his breathing ragged and irregular, unsteady on his feet, weaving as he walked like a drunkard trying to persuade himself he’s sober. There was something terribly beleaguered about him, something Sisyphean and doomed.

He let himself into his little house and almost called out his son’s name, only stopping when he realized that today was a school day, that he was at his lessons and — if the tales the boy had told him were true — was even now the subject of whispered jibes and catcalls. The albino sympathized. His own school days were a blur of sneers and note-passing, name-calling and impromptu playground beatings, all the petty humiliations and habitual cruelty of childhood.

As if in reaction to this unsought nostalgia, Skimpole felt another rending deep in his stomach, another surge of agonizing pain. He staggered to a chair, sucking in wheezy lungfuls of air, struggling to stay calm and trying not to think about the implications of his distress. But he knew all too well the meaning of the slimy tugging in his guts, had realized its significance from the moment Slattery had expired on the floor of the Directorate. Time was getting away from him — a few days were all that were left to him now — and he was determined to make the best of that time, to leave a legacy of which he might be proud.

I will be remembered, he decided, as he sat, grim-faced, too weak to move, as the blood thundered through his head and the pain welled up again. I will be remembered.

These were his final thoughts before he drifted into an uncomfortable sleep, a merciful release from pain. He woke to find his son standing before him.

“Dada? What’s the matter?”

With an enormous effort of will, the albino pulled himself upright in his chair. “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Just napping, that’s all. How was school?”

The boy looked awkwardly away.

“Come here.” Skimpole patted his knee. His son limped across the room and clambered awkwardly onto his lap. The child had almost become too large for such treatment, but this was an old, much-loved ritual they were loath to surrender lightly. Skimpole pulled him closer and, trying not to betray the merest flicker of his own discomfort, began to sing — crooning a familiar lullaby, a favorite since infancy. The boy laughed and smiled. In the soft cadences of his father’s voice all the horrid travails of school were forgotten, and for a few sweet, fleeting moments, Mr. Skimpole smiled, too.

You will recall that, at the beginning of this narrative, I promised there would be several points in the story at which I would tell you a direct lie. I’ll be honest and confess that this is one such juncture. Everything you have just read concerning Mr. Skimpole and his crooked child is a fiction.

Gruesome old sentimentalist, aren’t I?

Back to the truth. More often than not, the Somnambulist did not appear to require food at all; the pleasures of the dinner table were a foreign country to him and he would go for days or weeks without so much as a morsel passing his lips. But on those irregular occasions when he appeared to require sustenance, he invariably ate in style.

Late in the morning after Barabbas’s death he sat in the hotel dining room enjoying a leisurely breakfast, ladling pink strips of bacon into his mouth, shoveling in egg, tomato, bangers and fried bread and washing it all down with glass after glass of milk. Moon had yet to put in an appearance and the Somnambulist had been more than happy to scoff his meal for him in his absence. A number of other guests, put off by the giant’s noisy mastication, had given him their own plates, still brimming with the greasy bulk of a Full English, with the result that by the time he was finished the Somnambulist had polished off the best part of five or six separate courses. Wondering what was for lunch, he gestured to a nearby waiter. The man walked reluctantly across, disdain etched upon his face.

MORE MILK

With that combination of resentment and superciliousness unique to British serving staff, the man bowed his head and vanished, though he accomplished even that only grudgingly. The last of the other guests left soon after, dropping a final few rashers onto the Somnambulist’s plate as they went. Finally, Moon arrived, tiresomely excited — so much so that, to the giant’s relief, he seemed not to notice that all his breakfast had been eaten.

“Come along,” he said, not even bothering to sit down. “We have an appointment.”

The Somnambulist gazed regretfully at the food still lingering on his plate. He was able to summon up little excitement for this mysterious appointment and had, in fact, been toying with the idea of hibernating for a week or two.

Moon persisted. “We’re expected in Highgate.”

The Somnambulist shrugged.

“It’s important. I think we’re close.”

The giant pushed aside his plate and got to his feet.

“Good man.”

The waiter came back into the room bearing a large jug. “Your milk, sir.”

The Somnambulist looked longingly at it but Moon stood firm.

The giant pulled a face.

Moon relented. “Bring it with you,” he said. “You can drink it on the way.”

They arrived in Highgate just over an hour later. Their destination was a nondescript little cottage set back from the road, halfway up a hill so steep it was practically vertical and mere paces from the spot where Whittington was said to have turned back and returned to the city, powerless against the pull of its gravity.

WHY?

the Somnambulist asked, trying his best to wipe away the flaky dark milk stains which had accumulated on his shirt like the first spatters of rain on a dry pavement.

“Coleridge lived here.”

The Somnambulist’s expression made his feelings on the relevance of this remark quite clear. He gesticulated again at the chalkboard.

WHY?

“Remember the book Barabbas gave me? There was a name in the dedication. Someone called Gillman. I’ve done a little reading. I think he may have been trying to direct us here.”

The giant scrubbed out his message and hurriedly wrote:

MR. COLERIDGE — HE DEAD

“I shan’t take issue with your grammar,” Moon scolded.

The Somnambulist looked as if he were about to punch him.

Swiftly, Moon tried to explain. “I think that in some manner, Coleridge may be at the heart of this.” He was about to say more when the door swung open and a gray-haired woman peered out.

“Mr. Moon?”

“Miss Gillman? A pleasure. This is my associate, the Somnambulist.”

The giant proffered an awkward wave and the woman nodded back. “Come inside. I’ve tea and biscuits waiting.”

“Marvelous. The Somnambulist is absolutely famished.”

But the giant did not reply. Distracted for a brief moment from the prospect of food, he felt a strange, inexplicable certainty that it was here — in this unremarkable little cottage smelling faintly of lavender and soap — here that the end would finally begin.

My Dear Edward,

I hope this letter finds its way safely into your hands. As a result of those circumstances I am shortly to relate, I have found myself unable to deliver it in person and have been forced to entrust these words to a “go-between,” a young woman whose acquaintance I have made here. A tentative friend, let us say, and perhaps an ally — though unfortunately I cannot tell you her name. That, too, I will explain in time.

These, then, are my first impressions of Love, Love, Love and Love (known henceforth, for brevity’s sake, simply as Love). The past few hours have convinced me that this is, by some considerable distance, quite the most eccentric organization in England. I am certain now that your instincts are correct — something seems very wrong here, but so far, whatever the truth of it, I have been shown only a tiny portion of a much greater picture.

I think you mentioned that you have seen the building yourself — a great black citadel just off Eastcheap, beneath the shadow of the monument. Close by is the church of Saint-Dunstan-in-the-East — a minor Wren but one which still has about it his characteristic beauty and brilliance. On the next occasion you and Mr. Cribb are enjoying yourselves on one of your historical walks, you really ought to stroll by and see it for yourself. Did the giant ever reveal the reason for his animosity toward the ugly man? In my opinion, all most suspicious.

I have joined the firm in the capacity of a clerk with a number of minor secretarial duties. I must say that this company is astonishingly egalitarian in its choice of employees — there are three other ladies on my floor alone. The work is tedious but easy, the nine-to-five routine a far cry from the derring-do of my assignments for the Vigilance Committee.

Edward, I think I could easily suffocate here, that it wouldn’t take long, weighed down by documentation and paperwork, correspondence, ink and dust.

Superficially Love operates much like any other large city firm — old-fashioned, moribund and staid. However, there are two remarkable facts which render the organization unique.

Firstly, accommodation is provided for its entire staff on site — by which I mean that we actually reside in the building itself, deep in the basement levels. This is not a generosity one may choose to decline: it is compulsory for all members of staff, and, more than that, even leaving the building at any time and for any reason is frowned upon. We are all of us expected to remain here and are fully provided for within these walls. I had no choice but to accept such terms and I write this in the tiny room I share with another girl. This is the first time I have ever spent the night in a bunk bed, though doubtless you would find it a home from home. I trust that whatever mysterious “lead” you and your giant friend are pursuing from the comfort of you singularly well-appointed hotel room is important enough to warrant forcing your only sister to endure these primitive conditions.

Strange though these arrangements may be, there is a sense of community here. That we all eat, sleep and work together seems to engender an atmosphere of fraternity not unlike being back at my old college, or how I imagine it must be for mariners at sea. More troubling is the mood of anticipation which hangs in the air. I am convinced that these people are waiting for something. They resemble a rugby team before the first match of the season or an army awaiting the order to advance.

Needless to say, it is not simply the idiosyncrasies of its domestic arrangements which mark this firm out as unique. Odder by far is the enforced practice of replacing one’s real name with a number. Lunatic though I know it must sound, every single person in this building shares the same name: Love.

To aid identification we are all assigned a number. Consequently, Charlotte Moon is no more and in her place sits Love 999. My tentative friend is Love 983. You see now why I was unable to give you her name.

All this strikes me as awfully strange and not a little sinister. It need hardly be remarked upon that I shall be greatly interested to hear your opinion of the matter.

Another puzzle: the Somnambulist was right.

I met Mr. Speight today, tidied up, clean-shaven and smartly dressed in an alarmingly expensive suit. “Love 903,” as he styles himself, failed to recognize me and gave me not a second glance when we passed in the corridor. He seems important, a bigwig, and works on one of the higher floors, his days of placard-carrying long behind him.

I am not sure why but we were asked today to burn a good deal of paperwork. I stole a look at it before it was consigned to the flames and the material was all very recent, relating, I think, to some kind of consolidation of the firm’s considerable assets. I have not the slightest idea why Love should be destroying documentation nor why it is marshaling its funds. Perhaps I will simply have to ask, although I have done my best, according to your instructions, to appear as inconspicuous as possible. I do not wish to seem curious and therefore provoke suspicion.

That is all I can tell you for the present. I shall write again as soon as I am able.

Your affectionate sister,

Charlotte