The Somnambulist v-1 Page 3

  Both men bowed, to genuine applause. The most celebrated part of their act, it had not disappointed.

  No doubt the audience assumed that what they had seen was an optical illusion. Some may have speculated idly about trick swords, elaborate sleight of hand, gimmicked shirts, smoke and mirrors, but whatever their theories they never doubted that what they had seen had been anything other than an unusually impressive piece of prestidigitation. It was a parlor game, surely. A conjuring trick.

  The truth, as you shall see, was infinitely stranger.

  The remainder of the performance took place without incident and the audience seemed to go home satisfied.

  But still Edward Moon was unhappy. He had tired years ago of giving the same routine every night and went on with it now only in an attempt to stave off ennui. He was chronically, terminally, dangerously bored.

  After the show, it had long been his habit to leave by the stage door and stand in the street, to smoke and watch his audience disperse. Well-wishers sometimes lingered on and he was happy enough to spend a moment or two with each of them, making small talk and acknowledging their compliments. A small knot of admirers waited that night and he dealt with them all with his customary courtesy. One woman stayed longer than the rest. Moon stretched and yawned. He wasn’t tired, but in those days and months when boredom took him in its grip he would often sleep his days away, slumbering twelve or thirteen hours at a time. “Yes?” he asked.

  The woman seemed incongruous in Albion Square. Patrician, elegantly middle-aged, she had an aloofness about her, a haughty froideur. In her salad days, he thought, she must have been a considerable beauty.

  “I am Lady Glendinning,” she began. “But you may call me Elizabeth.”

  Moon, doing his best not to look impressed, affected a nonchalant expression. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “I enjoyed the performance.”

  He shrugged. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Mr. Moon?” She paused. “I’ve heard rumors about you.”

  The conjurer raised an eyebrow. “What have you heard?”

  “That you’re more than a magician. That you investigate.”

  “Investigate?”

  “I have a problem. I need your help.”

  “Go on.”

  Lady Glendinning made a strange snuffling sound. “My husband is dead.”

  Moon managed a reasonable simulacrum of sympathy. “My condolences.”

  “He was murdered.”

  That last, heady word had a tremendous effect on the conjuror. Moon felt giddy at the sound of it and it was only with an enormous effort of will that he was able to stifle a grin.

  “I’m determined to see justice done,” she continued, “but the police are quite hopeless. I’m sure they’ll bungle the whole business. So I thought of you. I confess that, as a girl, I was quite an admirer of your adventures.”

  Moon’s vanity got the better of him. “As a girl? ” he asked incredulously. “How long ago was that?”

  “Some few years. But one finds one rather grows out of detective stories, doesn’t one?”

  “One does?” said Moon, who had never felt any such thing.

  Lady Glendinning gave him a chilly smile. “Will you help me?”

  Moon took the woman’s hand and kissed it. “Madam,” he said, “it would be an honor.”

  Edward Moon and the Somnambulist lived, rather improbably, in a cellar beneath the theatre. They had converted the basement into a comfortable living space with the result that two bedrooms, a well-equipped kitchen, a drawing room, a considerable if hopelessly cluttered library and all conceivable conveniences lay below the Theatre of Marvels. Needless to say, their audience remained entirely ignorant of this subterranean domesticity, this sunken home-from-home.

  Moon said goodbye to Lady Glendinning with a promise to visit her the following day. The prospect of relief from boredom cheered him no end and as he strode toward the strategically placed rhododendrons which masked the wooden steps leading down to his lodgings, something like a smile hovered discreetly about his lips.

  As usual, Mr. Speight sat, or rather slouched, upon the steps.

  Speight was a derelict, a pauper whose presence Moon had long tolerated, allowing him over time to become something of a fixture. Unkempt and raggedly bearded, the man was hunched inside a filthy suit, a stack of empty bottles nestling miserably by his feet. Propped up beside him was the wooden placard which he spent his days carrying through the streets of the city. Its message had begun to fade but it still read, in thick, gothic letters:

  SURELY I AM COMING SOON

  REVELATION 22:20

  Moon had never asked Speight why he found it necessary to carry this notice wherever he went nor why he had chosen that particular piece of scripture as his motto. Frankly, he rather doubted he would have understood the answer. Speight slurred a bleary “Good evening.” The conjuror responded as politely as he was able, stepped over the vagrant and let himself indoors.

  Inside, beside a pot of tea simmering automatically on the stove, Mrs. Grossmith was waiting for him. A diminutive, maternal woman, she took Moon’s coat and poured him a cup of Earl Grey.

  Moon sank gratefully into his chair. “Thank you.”

  She shuffled deferentially. “A successful performance?”

  He sipped his tea. “I think they liked it.”

  “I see our Mr. Speight’s outside again tonight.”

  “As he surely will be till the End. You don’t mind?”

  Mrs. Grossmith sniffed disparagingly. “I suppose he’s harmless enough.”

  “You’re not convinced.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Frankly, Mr. Moon… he smells.”

  “Should I invite him in? Offer him a bath? Is that what you’d like?”

  Grossmith rolled her eyes in exasperation.

  “Where’s the Somnambulist?”

  “I believe he’s already retired to bed.”

  Moon got to his feet and placed his tea, not half-finished, upon the table. “Then I think perhaps I should join him. Goodnight, Mrs. Grossmith.”

  “Your usual breakfast in the morning?”

  “Make it early. I’m going out.”

  “Something interesting?”

  “A case, Mrs. Grossmith. A case!”

  Moon walked through to the bedroom he shared with the Somnambulist. They slept in bunk beds, Moon on top, the giant below.

  The Somnambulist had changed into a set of striped pajamas (due to his excessive size, these had to be produced for him bespoke) and was sitting up in bed, chalk and blackboard by his side, engrossed in a slim volume of verse.

  He was also entirely bald.

  Every morning, using an especially tenacious brand of spirit gum, the Somnambulist applied a wig to his scalp and false whiskers to either side of his face. Each night before bed he removed them. On this point, I wish to make myself absolutely, unequivocally clear: the Somnambulist was more than simply bald — he was utterly hairless, unnaturally smooth, billiard ball-like in his depilation. It was a secret he and Moon had guarded fiercely for years. Even Mrs. Grossmith had only found out by accident. The giant was not without his own, unnatural vanity.

  As Moon entered the room, the Somnambulist put aside his book and looked up with drowsy eyes. His bald pate shone comfortingly in the gloom.

  The conjuror was barely able to contain his excitement. “We have a case!” he cried.

  The Somnambulist smiled lethargically, but before his friend could explain any further he rolled over, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

  His dreams, their precise contents and nature sadly beyond my jurisdiction.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, the body of Cyril Honeyman, almost unrecognizably contorted after its unwinnable struggle with the laws of gravity, was laid to rest at a small private service attended by close family and a smattering of theatrical acquaintances. Moon, meanwhile, was racing off on a wild-goose chase — an unfortunate
missed opportunity and a sad misjudgment which, as things turned out, were to cost more than one innocent life.

  It might be of some trivial interest to learn that chief amongst the Somnambulist’s many idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes was a passion for milk — not a fondness, you understand, or a liking for, nor even a mere partiality, but a passion. He guzzled whole pints of the stuff at a time, pouring it down his throat long after his thirst had been assuaged and, in all the years he had spent with Moon, had never once shown the slightest interest in any other beverage. He drank compulsively, it seemed, bibulously, as though he could not live without it.

  It was far from unusual, then, that when the detective got out of bed and slouched through to the kitchen he found the Somnambulist at the breakfast table with three large glasses of milk lined up before him. On his entrance, the giant took a big, slurpy sip from one of the glasses, splashing his drink in a broad white swathe across his upper lip. Moon motioned discreetly toward the spillage and watched, indulgent, as the Somnambulist wiped it away.

  “I’m going out presently,” he said, tussling with teapot and kettle. “Thought I might drop in at the Stacks. See what I can dig up on this Glendinning business.”

  The Somnambulist inclined his head in a manner which made his lack of interest abundantly clear.

  “Would you like to visit the scene of the crime?”

  A half-hearted nod.

  “We’ve an appointment with Lady Glendinning at noon. Meet me by the library gates at eleven.” Moon gave his friend a stern look. “And by that I mean eleven sharp. This is important. We can’t afford to be late.”

  The Somnambulist rolled his eyes. Moon poured himself some tea and disappeared back to their bedroom.

  As usual, Mrs. Grossmith had laid a freshly ironed copy of the Times upon the breakfast table that morning, its headline shrieking something about the savage execution of a fat actor in the seamiest district of the city. Unfortunately, those words were almost wholly obscured by a large bottle of the Somnambulist’s milk, with the result that Edward Moon, his mind hopelessly aflutter with the Glendinning business, had glanced at the paper once and then given it no further thought.

  Some time later, he left the house alone and hailed a cab to the West End where he made his way directly to the Reading Room of the British Museum. Despite the earliness of the hour the place was filled almost to capacity as people reserved their seats for the day, their crumbling volumes heaped before them, hoarded as fiercely as dragons would their gold. Moon recognized a few of his fellow regulars and they exchanged polite, noncommittal nods. For many of them the Reading Room was a second home, the eternal hush of the place, its tangible atmosphere of scholarship, a sanctuary from the relentless clamor of the city.

  He presented himself to one of the librarians, a sandy-haired, neatly scrubbed young man freshly down from one of the universities.

  “I’m here to see the Archivist.”

  The librarian looked at him uncertainly, then glanced warily about. “You have an appointment?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Quickly, then. Follow me.”

  He led Moon toward the rear of the room where a small black door was situated, cobwebbed, unprepossessing, paint peeling from neglect. Checking that no one was watching, the librarian fished an oddly shaped key from his jacket pocket. Moon noticed that his hand shook slightly with nerves and that he experienced a moment’s difficulty slipping the key into place.

  “Good luck.”

  Without reply, Moon stepped inside.

  Not bothering to hide his relief, the librarian shut the door smartly behind him and Moon heard the key creak and complain as it turned in the lock.

  The room beyond was so poorly lit that it was impossible at first to see how far the space extended. In the gloom it seemed cavernous, resembling less a man-made structure than something hewn out by the Earth itself, formed by the processes of time. The place was filled with paper — shelves of it, vast stacks and racks, acres of documentation, books, journals, manuscripts, pamphlets, periodicals and ledgers — stacks stretching almost to the ceiling and lending the room a dizzying, vertiginous air.

  “Mr. Moon. It’s been too long.” The voice came from behind a pile of leprous-looking newspapers, all of them faded, curling at the edges and stacked so high that they would dwarf even the Somnambulist. The speaker stepped into the light. She was a woman in the furthest reaches of old age, enfeebled, bent all but double with decrepitude. She looked up at Moon with a milk-white blankness where her eyes should have been.

  You’ve heard of the Archivist, I suppose? She knew every inch of that place. She was its guardian and tutelary spirit, and through her files and records, she felt, physician-like, the fevered heartbeat of criminal London.

  “You may turn up the light,” she said. “One of us, I know, has need of it.”

  Obediently, he adjusted the lamp and the room was illumined by a gentle glow.

  “I take it you’re working on a case?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The Glendinning business.”

  “Ah. All most unpleasant, from what one’s heard. I gather it was poison. Such a cruel method. But will we ever see an account of your investigation? I understand Mr. Stoddart has made you an offer.”

  Moon wondered how she had come by this information. “I doubt it, ma’am.”

  “Pity.” The Archivist tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose, noisily and at length. Moon could hear the mucus rattling through her system like an old boiler filled with air. “You’re bored,” she said.

  “I’ve not had a case to test my abilities for a year or more.”

  “Since Clapham,” the old woman commented quietly.

  Moon ignored the aside. “Pulling rabbits from hats is no way for a man of my talent to make a living.”

  “I’ve visited your theatre, Mr. Moon. I saw neither rabbits nor hats. But I mustn’t keep you. You’ve a killer to catch. Let me see what I can dig up.” She tottered precariously away amongst the stacks.

  Moon took a seat by the door, but no sooner had he done so than the Archivist returned, half a dozen musty ledgers in her hands, as though she had known all along what he had come for and had set aside the relevant volumes accordingly.

  She put a wrinkled hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got two hours. I’ve a visitor at eleven.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s worth my asking for a name?”

  “You ought to know the rules by now,” she answered, unsmiling.

  Chastened, Moon flipped open the first of the books.

  “Tell me if you require anything further.”

  “Of course,” he murmured, already engrossed. The Archivist patted him gently, maternally, on the shoulder and vanished into the depths of the room.

  The stacks were a secret known to fewer than a hundred men in England. Edward Moon was proud to be one of them.

  When he emerged by the iron gates of the museum at eleven o’clock sharp, he was gratified to see that the Somnambulist was already waiting, hirsute again.

  Were YOU SUCSESFUL

  “Very,” said Moon, trying not to grimace at the spelling.

  Shouldering aside a newsboy who was busy straining his larynx by hollering about the death of an actor in bizarre and scandalous circumstances, Moon hailed another cab, gave the driver Lady Glendinning’s address and, clearing his mind of all external distraction (especially, unfortunately, the child still bellowing outside), began to prepare himself for the main event.

  Lady Glendinning lived in Hampstead, in a grand town house, grossly outnumbered by servants, butlers cooks, drivers, gardeners, scullery maids — all the human paraphernalia, in fact, of the seriously rich. When they arrived, the conjuror leapt excitedly from the cab, leaving the Somnambulist to pay the driver.

  Moon had hoped for an opportunity to employ his usual modus operandi: to examine the murder room, interview the suspects one by one, size up the likeliest culprit and summon them all into the drawing roo
m to unveil the killer. But as soon as they arrived he saw that the house was alive with activity — bustling blue-coated policemen, swarms of scribbling reporters, the idle public gawping at the sport of it all.

  Lady Glendinning must have observed Moon’s arrival. She walked up the drive toward him — press, police and hoi polloi parting before her as though she were some terrible queen whose slightest glance might mean death. She stopped mere inches before him.

  “You’re too late.”

  “If you’ll permit me to say so, ma’am, I think we’re absolutely punctual. Though I’m surprised at all this activity. I hope to goodness the police haven’t trampled over too much of the scene.”

  “No, I mean you’re too late. Hard cheese, Mr. Moon. It’s over.”

  “Over?” Moon asked, but the woman had already turned away and was returning to the house.

  The Somnambulist frowned.

  In the distance, they heard probably the most inappropriate noise possible at a murder scene: a raucous, slightly dirty laugh. At a nudge from the giant, Moon looked up to see a familiar figure strolling toward them, waving delightedly. “Mr. Moon!” The man drew closer, beamed and stuck out his right hand in greeting. “Edward.”

  The conjuror could muster little enthusiasm. “Good morning, Inspector.”

  Bulky, ruddy-cheeked, fanatically jovial and sporting an extravagant pair of muttonchop whiskers, Detective Inspector Merryweather was in look and manner powerfully reminiscent of Mr. Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past. He chuckled. “Seems you’ve missed the boat, old man. Early bird and all that-”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Case closed, I’m afraid. Murder’s been solved. We’ve got the killer in custody.”

  Moon gave him a skeptical look. “Are you sure? This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve arrested the wrong man.”

  “True enough, and don’t say I haven’t admitted it. But not here. It’s a simple business. Open and shut. We’ve got a confession.”