The Somnambulist v-1 Read online

  Deliciously exhausted, he lay stretched out on a couch in the reception room, his modesty covered only by a woman’s filmy dressing gown. Mina, the girl with the beard and the vestigial limb, placed a lit cigarillo between his lips and shimmied demurely from the room. The procuress beamed and rubbed her hands together in delight. “I trust Mina proved satisfactory?”

  “Admirable. She’s quite become my favorite.”

  Sitting around the room were three other girls, former favorites all, and at Moon’s remark they affected distress, pulling mock-disgusted faces. One of them, a pinhead named Clara, crawled across to him and began to softly stroke his neck. Moon tossed her a few farthings and she gamboled happily away.

  “Must be a slow night for so few of your girls to be working.”

  “Oh it is, sir. It is. You’ve been our first john all evening. Point of fact, it’s been a rather slow week.”

  “Really?” Moon made an unsuccessful attempt to blow smoke rings, much to the amusement of the women, a gray-faced creature with a painful-looking skin condition and flippers for hands. Mrs. Puggsley chided her softly. “Mr. Gray” was a regular customer and was not to be openly mocked.

  “No doubt business will pick up soon.”

  Puggsley shook her massive frame in what was probably intended as a shrug. “Not till the travelers leave,” she muttered, and the others murmured in assent.

  Moon sat up, pulled the negligee tight about him and stubbed out his cigarette. “Travelers?” he said.

  I once put it to Moon that his patronage of Mrs. Puggsley’s bawdy house was a reprehensible lapse in an otherwise approximately moral character, that his perverse attraction to these poor discarded accidents of nature was a predilection utterly unworthy of him. In reply, he maintained that these liaisons were the mark of an inquisitive mind and an experimental spirit and (somewhat more persuasively) that Puggsley’s was not in itself evil but merely a symptom of an unjust society. Mrs. Puggsley, he argued, provided a sanctuary for these girls from a world which would otherwise hate and fear them.

  As it turned out, he was right about society. It was our society, of course, and not Mrs. Puggsley that was responsible for forcing these vulnerable women into their unfortunate positions. I believe I may have remarked something to the effect that I would give my life to change that society, to improve and re-engineer it for the better. But whatever philanthropic qualities Puggsley may have possessed, one thing is certain — that night she provided the key to the Honeyman-Dunbar killings.

  “Tell me about the travelers.”

  One of the girls tittered.

  “They’re show people,” Puggsley explained. “A carnival. Novelties and funfair rides mostly. But some of their freaks turn tricks on the side. I don’t mind telling you, they’re hurting my business.”

  “What are they like?”

  Mrs. Puggsley groaned. “They’ve got all sorts down there — mermaid and midgets and a girl who can blow balloons up with her eyes. How can we possibly compete with that?”

  Mina came back into the room. “We shouldn’t have to,” she said, absently running a comb through her beard. “It’s a proper disgrace, the way they’ve muscled in on our business.” She sat down beside Moon, gave him a perfunctory, passionless kiss on the cheek and returned to the disentanglement of her facial hair.

  Moon barely noticed. “How long have they been here?”

  “Rolled in about a month ago.”

  “Are there acrobats? Gymnasts? Tumblers? Anyone who’d be able to scale buildings?”

  “I shouldn’t care to say,” Mrs. Puggsley said haughtily. “I’ve no wish to visit such a place.”

  Clara, the pinhead, spoke up. “I’ve been,” she said. “I saw this man there do this act where he climbs a church steeple and dances on top. He can crawl up anything, they say. They call him ‘the Human Fly’ because of it — and on account of the fact he doesn’t quite look right.”

  “Describe him.”

  “It’s horrible to see, sir. He got these scales all over his face-”

  “Scales? Are you sure?”

  Clara nodded vigorously.

  Moon got to his feet. Showing no obvious signs of shame, he flung the negligee aside and hurriedly dressed himself before the assembly of women. “Where is this fair?”

  “Is it important?” Clara asked.

  “More than you could know,” he replied, struggling with his cuff links.

  “South of the river. A mile or so beyond Waterloo.”

  Moon gave her his thanks and ran for the exit. Mrs. Puggsley lumbered to her feet.

  “Always a pleasure, Mr. Gray. Can we expect you again soon?”

  “You may rely on it,” Moon called back. He left the house, ran back through Goodge Street, hailed the first hansom cab he saw and raced toward Albion Square.

  “Well,” Mrs. Puggsley said as she moved with fleshy inelegance back to her easy chair, “there goes one satisfied customer, at least.”

  Moon dashed up to the doors of the Theatre of Marvels to find a street arab loitering conveniently outside. “Boy!” he shouted.

  The child, a ragged, underfed scrap of a thing, looked up. “Sir?”

  “I’ve a sovereign for you if you can deliver a message to Scotland Yard.” He scrawled a note and handed it over. “Deliver it into the hands of a man named Merryweather. Have you got that?”

  “A sovereign?” the waif asked, wide-eyed.

  “Two if you hurry. Now go.”

  Needing no further encouragement, the child ran headlong into the darkness.

  Moon pelted down the steps to his flat, Speight grumbling sleepily as he passed.

  Mrs. Grossmith was making herself a nightcap when Moon burst into the kitchen.

  “Been for another walk?” she asked, her voice dripping with disapproval.

  Moon ignored her. “Where’s the Somnambulist?”

  “Asleep, sir, these past three hours.”

  “Then we must wake him,” Moon cried, running toward the bedroom.

  “Has something happened?” The housekeeper was unsurprised to receive no reply.

  Moon shook his friend awake. “We have him!” he shouted. “We have our man!”

  Half an hour later, in grim, persistent rain, Moon, Mrs. Grossmith and the Somnambulist stood assembled by the steps outside the theatre. Speight tottered across to see what all the excitement was about. “What’s going on?” he asked. Everyone ignored him.

  “This is no night to be out in,” Mrs. Grossmith complained.

  “We’ve no choice,” Moon retorted.

  “Where is it you’re going at this hour, anyway?”

  Before he could reply, a four-wheeler clattered into Albion Square, pulled up by the theatre and disgorged a beleaguered-looking Merryweather and two beefy plain-clothes policemen.

  “You’d better be right,” he said. “You’ve dragged me out of bed for this.”

  The Somnambulist nodded in weary sympathy.

  “We’d best be going before this weather gets any worse. If what you say is true this’ll be the arrest of my career.”

  “Have I ever failed you before, Inspector?”

  It may be for the best that Merryweather’s reply was lost to the wind and the rain.

  As the coach drove from the square, Grossmith and Speight walked back to the theatre ruefully shaking their heads in an unexpected moment of camaraderie. The vagrant settled stoically down upon the steps and Mrs. Grossmith felt a sudden pang of conscience.

  “Mr. Speight? It’s a cold night. Might I offer you some broth?”

  The tramp nodded gratefully, clambered back to his feet and the two of them retreated indoors to the warm and merciful pleasures of the housekeeper’s kitchen.

  By the time they reached the carnival the rain had become torrential, and worse yet a thick fog had begun to descend, lending even the most innocuous scenes an eerie, minatory air.

  The travelers had settled a mile or so west of Waterloo, colonizing a small he
ath beside a row of residential houses. A church sat some way off in the distance.

  The fair itself comprised nothing more than a dozen or so caravans grouped together in a rough circle at the center of the heath. A few of them carried signs and placards promising contests, games, spectacles and the like, but everything was long since boarded up and covered over for the night. Most of their owners had retired but for a couple of uncouth, unshaven men sitting listlessly about a guttering, sickly fire. The plaintive wail of what sounded like a penny flute drifted through the camp.

  As the investigators walked toward them, one of the men looked up, belligerence glinting openly in his eyes. “What do you want?” he asked. Attached to his left ear was the kind of large metal ring more usually to be found dangling from the noses of cattle.

  Merryweather (well used to dealing with persons of this class) chose not to reveal his profession but instead that he wished to see the proprietor with a view to exchanging a sum of money for information. The man with the earring shot the inspector a suspicious look but got to his feet nonetheless and slouched away into the mist. The bolder of the two plain-clothes policemen (Moreland by name) unwisely attempted to make conversation with the remaining Romany, an offer ungraciously declined by means of a single, brusque hand gesture.

  At length the proprietor appeared, and the fog must have descended still more heavily than before, as there was little or no sign of his approach — he seemed to materialize fully formed mere inches from the Somnambulist’s right elbow. He looked the giant up and down like a farmer eyeing up livestock at the county fair. “Shouldn’t you be with us?” he asked.

  He was a slippery, weasel-faced squirt of a man who introduced himself as Mr. King. “What can I do for you, gents? Must be something devilish important to get you out here at this time of night and in such weather, too.”

  “We’re looking for a man,” Merryweather explained.

  “Lot of men here,” King replied unhelpfully, and sniggered.

  “He is known,” Moon interjected, “as the Human Fly.”

  A leer spread itself across the proprietor’s disagreeable face. “It’s the Fly you’re after, is it? What’s he done this time?”

  “What makes you think he’s done anything?” Moon said carefully.

  “Oh, he’s been in trouble before. He’s sprightly, that one.” King’s tongue darted out to dampen his lower lip. “Very sprightly.”

  “May we see him?”

  The proprietor shrugged. “I shouldn’t like to wake the boy. He’s got a big day ahead of him tomorrow. Being one of our star attractions, you understand.”

  Merryweather produced his wallet and pulled out a five-pound note. “I’ll double this when you take us to him.”

  King gave a greasy bow. “Follow me, gentlemen. Stay close. This fog can be treacherous.”

  They had good reason to take notice of this warning, as the fog had degenerated into a London particular, rendering vision more than a foot in front of them practically impossible. The fog clutched at their bodies, muzzled clammily up against them and permeated their clothes, dank and cold and seeping through to the skin. As the Somnambulist shivered, Moon touched his arm.

  “I know, old man,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  King led them toward a peeling, canary-colored caravan set apart from its fellows, the runt of the litter. As they drew closer, Moon saw that painted on either side was the legend THE HUMAN FLY and beside it a strange, daubed symbol: a black, five-petaled flower.

  King hammered on the door.

  “Visitors!” he shouted. “Visitors for you!”

  A muffled snarl issued from somewhere within.

  “They have money,” King wheedled.

  Another snarl, fierce and animal.

  “We only want to ask you some questions,” Moon said reasonably. “We’re prepared to offer a substantial reward.”

  The door swung reluctantly open and a bizarre figure thrust his head into the light. At first it was barely apparent that the thing was even human. He seemed a second Caliban — bestial, ferocious, his face covered with vomit-colored lumps and scales. He looked down at them and growled.

  Merryweather coughed nervously. “He always look like that?”

  King simpered. “Like I said. He’s sprightly.”

  Moon ignored them. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

  The Fly looked uncertainly back. He growled again and this time it sounded horribly like a word, each syllable crawling broken and mangled from his lips. “Poet…”

  “Poet?” said Moon who was trying his best to sound encouragingly cheerful. “I’m no poet. Who do you mean?”

  Another inchoate growl.

  “My name is Edward Moon and this is my associate, the Somnambulist. We’re investigating the deaths of Cyril Honeyman and-”

  Before he could go any further, the Fly yelped in shock. “Moon,” he pointed and screamed in a guttural, unearthly tone. “Moon!”

  Moon smiled. “Well done!”

  “Moon!”

  “That’s right. Have you heard my name before?”

  Ignoring his questions, the Human Fly thrust past them and vanished into the thick banks of fog. He moved so swiftly that they were all — even the Somnambulist — too shocked and to slow to stop him.

  “Looks like he didn’t take to you.” King smirked and put out his hand. “Now as to the matter of my fee-”

  Moon shouldered the man aside. “Devil take your fee,” he cried and ran into the fog, disappearing almost immediately.

  Merryweather turned to his men. “Follow me.”

  Accompanied by the Somnambulist, they dashed after the conjuror, leaving King to shrug and saunter back to camp.

  Moon could just make out the figure ahead of him, a horrible, indistinct shape loping in and out of view. He cursed the fog. Behind him, he could hear the shouts of his friends as they struggled to find their way.

  The Fly fled before them, across the common, into the streets beyond. Moon could hardly believe the evidence of his senses as he saw the man leap onto the side of the first house and scamper up to the roof with all the grace and agility of a jungle cat loose in suburbia.

  “Please!” Moon called out helplessly. “I only want to talk to you.”

  The Fly hissed something back. It may have been his imagination but Moon could have sworn the thing was still shouting his name.

  “Stop!” Moon screamed. “Come down!”

  The creature took no notice and began to race along the roof of the building. When it reached the end it jumped onto the adjoining house and moved relentlessly on, heading for the church in the road beyond, squirming, wriggling, leapfrogging its way down the street, a vile shadow scampering grotesquely across the skyline. Merryweather and the others appeared, panting and too late, by Moon’s side.

  “Where is he?”

  Silently, he pointed upward. The creature perched upon a rooftop several houses away. For a moment it tottered uncertainly, then righted itself and scurried on.

  “Good God.” Merryweather crossed himself. “Is it real?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Looks like we’ve got our man.”

  “He knew me, Inspector,” Moon shouted. “Someone had told him to expect us. This man did not act alone.”

  “When we have him in custody,” Merryweather said in his most pedantic voice, “remind me to ask him.”

  Above them, their quarry clattered across the rooftops. As they approached the church they lost him in the fog, but an instant later the mist cleared and there he was, atop the steeple, clinging to the weathercock and howling at the sky.

  “Come down!” Moon shouted. “Please!”

  The creature screeched obscenities into the night.

  Moon turned to the Somnambulist. “Could you-?” he began, but the Somnambulist interrupted him with a gesture. He scribbled something on his chalkboard.

  FRAID OF HITES

  “Marvelous,” Merryweather muttered, and t
he conjuror shot his friend a disappointed look. The inspector turned optimistically toward his men, but before he was able even to ask the question, they shook their heads as one.

  “How in God’s name are we going to get him down?” the inspector asked.

  Moon called up to the Human Fly. “Please!” he said. “We won’t harm you. You have my word.”

  The Fly screamed again.

  “What’s he saying?” Merryweather asked.

  “I think I can make it out,” said Moreland (famed in the force for his preternaturally acute hearing). “Sounds like… God be with you.”

  “What?” Moon said.

  The Fly wailed.

  Moon shouted up to the steeple: “Please, whatever you’re about to do — stop. We can help you.”

  But it was too late. The Fly shouted again and this time they all heard it quite distinctly, a prosaic and common enough phrase in everyday life, but here somehow unsettling, shocking in its incongruity.

  “God be with you.”

  With this final cry, the Fly threw himself from the steeple. Mercifully, the fog masked his fall, but they all heard with sickening clarity, the terrible bone-snapping crunch as his body hit the ground.

  Merryweather ran across to him and felt for a pulse. “Quite dead,” he confirmed.

  Moon stood over the unfortunate creature’s corpse. An oddly frail thing it seemed in death. One could believe it almost vulnerable. “The death of a human fly,” he murmured.

  “Quite right.” The inspector chuckled. “Looks like we swatted him.”

  Moon stared at the policeman, distaste etched upon his face. “This is not the end,” he said softly and disappeared into the fog.

  Chapter 8

  One week later, on London Bridge, the conjuror met the ugly man again.

  “Mr. Moon!”

  Hunched halfway along the bridge, a curious figure stood shouting Moon’s name and waving his hat in greeting. He resembled a gargoyle crawled down from the roofs of the city and left to roam its streets with impunity. “You’re a little later than I’d expected.”