The Somnambulist

Chapter 9

Newgate squatted at the heart of the old city, Hell’s chief outpost on Earth.

At that time in its history, in its last few years of life before it was torn down and replaced with something less obviously Hadean, the gaol held only those criminals sentenced to death and awaiting execution — sinners for whom all appeals were past, all hope lost, whose only chance for reprieve lay with a higher court. It was a place without charity or love, an urban cancer whose every fiber and essence pulsated and trembled with death.

They arrived a little after midnight. The sky was black with storm clouds and it had begun to rain again, dolefully, a gray drizzle.

“Why is it always raining?” the inspector complained as they stepped from the coach.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Moon snapped. He strode toward the ebony gates of the penitentiary, Merryweather and the Somnambulist in two. The giant looked up at the immense, brooding structure and shuddered. Two guards eyed them truculently as they approached. Merryweather took the lead.

“I’m Detective Inspector Merryweather. This is Mr. Moon and the Somnambulist. We’re expected.”

One of the men nodded grimly, his face the same color as his grimy uniform. After much rattling of keys and pulling back of bolts and shutters, the trio were allowed to pass through a small inner door which nestled like a convict’s cat-flap at the bottom of the main gate. An empty courtyard lay inside, lit only the moon, shadows crouching in its every nook and corner. At its edge a man stood waiting. His appearance was incongruous. Dapper, well-dressed but severely balding, he wore what little hair he had left in a plait so long that it hung halfway down his back, greasy and unsightly like a moth-eaten pelt inexplicably stapled to his scalp. He waved in greeting.

“Mr. Moon.” He shook the conjuror’s hand with a warmth and clammy vigor that made the conjuror flinch. “Such a pleasure to see you again.” He turned to the others. “My name is Meyrick Owsley. Delighted to make your acquaintance. Barabbas is waiting for you.” He walked briskly away and the others followed — Moon by his side conversing in low, urgent tones, Merryweather and the Somnambulist lagging tactfully behind.

Owsley led them from the courtyard and down, down into the warren of Newgate. Every door and barrier they passed had to be unlocked, each of them guarded by a gaoler, heavily armed and with the flint-faced look of one who is every day confronted by the worst excesses of his fellow man. Owsley took them through corridors and passageways whose dingy walls dripped with fungus, damp and grime; past cell after cell peopled by the solitary condemned, their cries and lamentations filling the air, as choking and pephitic as smoke. Some peered out at the intruders between the bars of their cages, a few wailed or hissed obscenities, but most sat slouched in their own filth, too dissolute and jaded to care, resigned to their imminent appointment with the noose. The air was dank and close, and as the four men moved through the innards of the place, little things with fur and teeth skittered and scuttled past their feet.

No doubt you think I’m exaggerating, coloring the truth for dramatic effect, that even back then conditions in our prisons can’t have been quite that medieval. But it grieves me to admit that the above is an entirely honest and accurate account of the state of Newgate during the later years of its life. If anything, I have toned down my depiction in order to spare the delicate feelings of any ladies who may ill-advisedly be reading and for those of you who suffer from a nervous or hysterical disposition.

The Somnambulist gave Merryweather a meaningful poke in the ribs and nodded toward Owsley, still striding ahead of them, his long split of hair flopping comically up and down as he walked.

“Meyrick Owsley,” Merryweather said. “A former lawyer, and a good one. Chancery’s finest before he met Barabbas. Now, so far as anyone’s able to tell, he’s become his servant.”

Owsley must have overheard because he turned back and leered at the policeman. “More than that, Inspector,” he said, his eyes wide with fervor and belief. “I’m his disciple.”

Merryweather cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I stand corrected.”

At the very end of the passageway they stopped before the final cell, tiny, bare, dimly lit by a stub of candle. They could just make out a figure within; an amorphous black shape slumped at the corner of the cell. Then they heard his voice, half-croak, half-whisper: “Meyrick?”

Owsley essayed a little bow. “Sir. I brought you a cigarette.” He passed something through the bars. Filthy fingers groped for it in the gloom before the cell was illuminated first by the scratchy flash of a match, then by the dull glow of the cigarette.

Visiting time at the zoo, thought Merryweather — who only the previous week had stood with his wife and five children and watched the perambulations of a Bengal tiger as it stalked anxiously to and fro behind the bars of its cage.

The voice again, rasping and hoarse, but with the merest hint that it had once belonged to a sane and civilized man. “Is he with you?”

Meyrick Owsley whispered back, “Yes, sir.”

There was something almost tender, the inspector thought, in the way Owsley spoke to the inmate — like a mother to her child, or a woman to her lover.

The prisoner spoke again but too faintly for anyone to make out what was said. Owsley seemed to understand.

“Barabbas will see only you, Mr. Moon. The other gentlemen are to wait at the gates.”

Moon spoke briskly. “Very well.”

Merryweather thought he ought to put up a token protest. “As a police officer I should be present.”

“Please, Inspector. This is important,” Moon insisted.

“Damned unorthodox is what it is.”

“This is the only way he’ll speak to me.”

Merryweather was relieved to admit defeat. “I understand.”

The Somnambulist touched Moon’s arm, his face a picture of concern.

“I’ll be fine. Wait for me outside.”

Owsley took a bundle of keys from his pocket and unlocked the cell. “I can give you fifteen minutes. No more.”

Moon stepped smartly inside and the door slammed shut behind him.

Owsley turned back toward the others. “Gentlemen. With me.”

Merryweather was grateful to follow him back down the corridor and escape into the sanctuary of the courtyard. The Somnambulist trailed silently, unhappily behind.

Barabbas lay at the furthest corner of his cell; corpulent, naked to the waist, his fleshy face framed by rings of Neronian curls. His belly was covered by an elaborate tattoo, its intricate design distended and rendered unintelligible by enormous rolls of pale white fat. He had grown an unkempt beard since his incarceration and at the sight of it Moon was reminded, with an uncomfortable start, of Mina.

Barabbas sucked greedily on his cigarette. “Edward,” he rasped. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up. I would offer you a seat but as you can see…” He gestured lazily about him. “I’m a little embarrassed at present.” He pinched a meaty roll of belly fat between forefinger and thumb, then idly released it, watching with glassy fascination as it slopped back amongst the swathes of flesh swaddling his body.

“I see they let you keep your hair,” Moon said mildly.

“Owsley arranged it for me. A small indulgence. One of many. He brings me these little chinks of beauty, lays them before me as tributes. Like offerings to some savage god.”

“He seems to have the run of the place.”

“He’s a persuasive man. Also sickeningly wealthy. In a place like this, such things have influence.” Barabbas coughed painfully on the remnants of his cigarette. “Incidentally, I heard about Clapham.”

Moon flinched.

“Why are you here?” the fat man asked — pleased, it seemed, by Moon’s reaction.

“I need your advice.”

“A case?”

“Of course.”

“You’ve never visited me before.”

Moon looked away. “This… troubles me.”

Barabbas stubbed out the last of his cigarette and tossed the butt carelessly to the floor. “Give me another,” he said. “Then you may tell me everything.”

Moon reached into the inside pocket of his waistcoat, took out his cigarette case and passed it to the condemned man. “There,” he said. “Keep it.”

Barabbas seized it greedily. “Another piece of beauty,” he said. “A bauble for my collection.” He stared at it, then sighed. “You’ll take it back, of course, once I’m dead and gone?”

“Naturally.”

Fumbling, Barabbas prized a cigarette from the box. “Light,” he whispered. Moon struck a match and another flare briefly illuminated the cell, casting Barabbas’s monstrous form into stark relief. The prisoner cackled and sucked in a lungful of smoke. “Now go on,” he said, “my dear fellow.”

“We begin with Cyril Honeyman,” Moon said. “He was a gross, compliant little man, permanently sweaty, whose jowls flapped and quivered as he walked…”

The conjuror told him everything about the murders and his investigation, beginning with Merryweather’s summons and ending with the broken body of the Human Fly. When he had finished, Barabbas sighed. A smile crept halfway along his mouth but was swiftly banished, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

“Well?”

“You say he knew you?”

“By name,” Moon said stiffly. “And he mentioned a poet.”

“A poet. Is that so?”

“Why are you smiling? Does that suggest something to you?”

Barabbas gurgled. “It’s really too perfect, Edward. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.”

“Damn it, man!”

Barabbas stifled a belch, only half-successfully. He leered at the conjuror through rows of yellow tombstone teeth, flanked by mustache and tangled beard. “You’re in danger of letting this become an obsession. I’ve never seen you so excited. You should calm down. Do something to relax.” A mucus cough. A grin. “How is Mrs. Puggsley, by the way?”

“You’re the last person to lecture me on morality.”

“Remember what I told you,” Barabbas confided, his voice dripping with honey, rising and falling with the silken cadences of the practiced liar. “I’m above morality now, beyond good and evil.”

“The case,” Moon insisted.

“You know, I don’t think these squalid homicides are the real mystery.”

“No?”

“I think they’re a symptom. There is a corrosive influence abroad, Edward. There is a plot against the city and these murders are only the tip of the iceberg.”

“What do you know?”

In response, Barabbas moved silently forward, his grotesque frame slithering across the floor like some Brobdingnagian slug. “Let me out, Edward. Help me escape and together we can discover the truth.”

Moon stepped hurriedly back, falling against the iron bars of the cage. Behind him, Owsley emerged from the shadows.

“Time’s up,” he said, producing a ring of keys from his pocket with an officious flourish.

Barabbas wailed and thrust out his hands in supplication. “Edward! Edward!”

The door was unlocked and Moon stepped sharply back out into the corridor.

Owsley said, “Your friends are waiting.”

Barabbas brought his face up to the bars and peered out into the darkness.

“Edward?”

Moon turned around.

“Will you come back?”

“Perhaps.”

“I hope I’ve been of some small assistance.”

Moon spoke carefully. “Maybe you have.”

“All the color has seeped from my life. Next time, bring me scarlet. Bring me violet and vermilion and gold.”

“I’ll come back,” Moon conceded.

Barabbas grinned in triumph. “Then you still need me,” he hissed. “Even now.” Overexcited, he suffered a violent fit of coughing. “Edward,” he said more gently, once the attack had passed. “Edward, if I were you I should go home.”

“Oh?”

“I should hurry, Edward.”

Something was needling at the back of his mind. “What do you mean?”

“Something terrible is happening,” Barabbas said simply. “Go now.” The prisoner’s face vanished from the bars of the cell and he disappeared back into the gloom.

Moon felt a sudden surge of panic. He turned to Owsley. “Let’s go,” he said, and they set off along the corridor almost at a run.

They were several streets away from Albion Square when they saw that Barabbas was right.

The sky was lit up by flashes of crimson. Thick black smoke poured past, as though a storm cloud had been dragged to earth. Seeing that some disaster lay ahead, the coachman refused to take them any further, so Moon leapt from the vehicle and ran on alone to the square. Despite the lateness of the hour, the whole of the East End seemed to be abroad and Moon had to battle through droves of idle onlookers to reach his destination. When he eventually emerged from the gawping masses he saw the truth of it. The Theatre of Marvels was aflame.

It was horribly clear that nothing could be saved. The blaze must have started shortly after they had left for the prison and now the building was burning down to its skeleton, its flesh and features long since scorched away. It’s windows were empty, blackened sockets, its door a melted heap of slag. Of the sign which had read:

THE THEATRE OF MARVELS

starring

MR EDWARD MOON

and

THE SOMNAMBULIST

BE ASTONISHED!

BE THRILLED! BE ENLIGHTENED!

a mere fragment had survived and only the half-word “LIGHTE” was still visible.

A group of men had formed a line to pass buckets of water to and fro from the disaster site but their valiant efforts were in vain. The theatre was lost, and as the flames began to spread, licking greedily at the adjoining buildings, they were forced to transfer their attention elsewhere.

A man was standing beside Moon in the crowd. “Pity, isn’t it?” He grimaced, displaying more gaps in his mouth than teeth. “Saw the show there once. Bored to tears, I was.”

“How did this happen?”

“Why you asking? You local?”

Moon pushed him aside and ran toward the theatre. Hammered by waves of heat, stung by smoke, eyes streaming, he staggered helplessly back.

“Grossmith!” he shouted. “Speight!”

Even against the roar and crackle of the flames he recognized a horribly familiar sound, one so hateful to him that he would have given anything not to hear it at that moment — a discreet, dry, ticklish cough.

“Mr. Moon?”

He spun around.

“Good evening to you,” said Skimpole.

The conjuror snarled, “What have you done?”

“Drastic measures. I did warn you.” Flames reflected in the lenses of his pince-nez, lending his eyes an infernal aspect. Moon lunged forward but the albino stepped nimbly aside. “Your temper does you no credit,” he chided. “Your friends are quite safe. They were removed before the fire was set. The monkey, I’m afraid, refused to leave. No doubt he’s fricasseed quite nicely by now.”

“You admit to it?” Moon asked furiously. “This was your doing?”

“I told you we were desperate. By rights you should be flattered.”

Moon was speechless, choked by rage. “You’ve gone too far,” he managed at last.

Skimpole flashed a quick smile. “I did think that might be your reaction. So I brought this.” The albino produced a bulky manila file from his briefcase. “Take a look.”

Moon snatched the thing from Skimpole and riffled through it. As he realized its full significance, even he was momentarily at a loss for words. “How long have you had this?”

“We’ve kept a dossier on you for years,” Skimpole said coolly. “Of course, I’d hoped never to have to use it — but then you can’t say we didn’t ask nicely.”

“You wouldn’t use this, surely?”

“I might. The Puggsley material is here, of course. But some of the other items… Even the release of my records on our mutual friend in Newgate would mean your public ruin and disgrace.”

Moon cursed, loudly and at length. This is not the place to reproduce such colorful material verbatim.

“I’ll ask you a final time,” said Skimpole. “Will you help me?”

The fire was reaching its zenith, throwing out furnace waves in its final rush to consume the last flammable matter. Moon staggered under the blast, dizzy and faint, flailing about to regain his balance.

“Mr. Moon?” The albino was insistent. “Will you help us?”

Feebly, the conjuror nodded.

Skimpole smiled. “Very good,” he said briskly. “We’ll be in touch.” And he strutted away into the crowd. Left alone, gasping for breath as the Theatre of Marvels died before him, Moon tried to run in pursuit of his tormentor only to stumble and fall. Strong arms helped him up, and as Moon staggered to his feet, he looked into the eyes of the Somnambulist.

“We’ve lost,” he muttered.

The giant looked gravely back, surveying the ruins of his home. Remarkably, a few tears ran down his cheeks. Behind him, Merryweather emerged from the crowd with Mrs. Grossmith and Speight.

Moon gripped the Somnambulist’s arm. “Barabbas was right,” he gasped. “It’s over. We’ve lost. Checkmate.”

Then, for the first time in his life, Edward Moon fainted — swooning into the arms of the Somnambulist.

Grossmith, Speight and the inspector ran toward them. “Mr. Moon!”

Speight still had his perennial sandwich board with him, its cryptic message now the theatre’s sole survivor:

SURELY I AM COMING SOON

REVELATION 22:20

The events of the evening seemed to have roused him into a semblance of sobriety. “Christ,” he said, gazing at the devastation. “What will we do now?”