The gloved hand yanks a lever and the iron door bangs shut, cutting loose a surge of cold air that swirls about the cellar, setting the gas jets ajitter. The demons step from behind the cover of the glass screen.
“It is done.”
“But how can the creature find its way? How can it know where Tarquin Hogg is?”
“It is a thing neither dead nor alive, trapped between this world and the next. It senses the living, wherever they are, and tracks them unerringly. It is untiring. Indefatigable. Once set upon a target it cannot be recalled until its task is finished. It does not know hunger. It does not sense the rain. The cold. It feels no pain. No pity. No remorse. It is unkillable. Tarquin Hogg’s death is irrevocable.”
CHAPTER 12
A WONDERFUL EVENING ENDS HORRIBLY
Conan Doyle and Jean Leckie emerged from the Haymarket Theatre to discover that the fog had grown ponderously dense, so much so that the usher’s torches stained the fog with a seething crimson glare that made the theatergoers waiting for carriages and cabs appear like well-dressed citizens queuing to enter Hell. Conan Doyle had thought ahead to retain the four-wheeler for the entire evening, and now it drew up at the curb and he escorted Miss Leckie toward it, already practicing what he should say as he bid her good night. The coachman dismounted and held the carriage door.
“I am so sorry the evening proved a disappointment—”
“Heavens, no!” she interrupted. “I have had the most wonderful day of my life! Feeding the swans in Hyde Park. Shopping for toys at the Emporium. Attending the theater and then meeting the Prince of Wales and your friend Oscar Wilde — all on the same day! I am certain I shall not sleep at all tonight.”
“I find that a glass of warm milk often helps to—”
She interrupted him with a laugh and took both his large hands in hers.
“But I don’t want to sleep. I want to remember every last detail.” Her smile took on a special quality. “But mostly, I want to think of a dashing and handsome man I have become good friends with.” She suddenly bounced up on the balls of her feet and bussed him on the cheek. It was a quick peck. Quite chaste. The kiss of familiar friends.
But it was a kiss that knocked him dizzy.
Conan Doyle watched, rapt, as the young woman climbed into the carriage. She wrung his heart with a final smile and then pulled her skirts clear as the driver closed the carriage door. He suddenly realized he still did not know her address and frantically rapped on the glass. She lowered the window and looked at him inquisitively.
“Have you a calling card?”
She searched in her purse and handed him a card. Even the calligraphied script was elegantly feminine. He smiled and doffed his hat to her.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked.
“Blackheath,” Conan Doyle said, and read aloud from the card: “Number 34 Loxley Avenue.”
“Be sure not to lose it,” she chided playfully.
“I shall guard it with my life.”
The cabbie shook the reins and the carriage lumbered away. She called out “au revoir” and left him with a wave before drawing up the window glass.
Conan Doyle slipped the precious calling card into his breast pocket and patted it reassuringly. The day that had begun so badly was ending on a note of triumph. He noticed Wilde’s waiting carriage and strode toward it. Vaguely he registered two large men in bowler hats sauntering toward him, but his mind was bounding in the fields of happiness and the cold hard pavement felt as if he were walking on cushions.
The men parted to pass around him, when OOOF! One of them stumbled into him; at the same moment he felt a blow in the kidneys that drove the wind from his lungs. Stunned, he staggered to keep his footing and threw a shocked look behind at their retreating backs. At that moment, one turned and flashed him a cheeky grin. As they marched shoulder-to-shoulder into the wall of scarlet-tinged fog, he recognized the vaudevillian bowler hats and the long black raincoats.
Cypher’s men.
Was this a less-than-subtle warning that he was being watched? It was an unwelcome end to what had been a wonderful evening, but Conan Doyle shook it off and readjusted his dress as he walked to the waiting carriage.
“I saw that,” Wilde said, as Conan Doyle climbed into the carriage and slumped into the seat opposite.
“Saw what?”
“Those two clumsy oafs who collided with you. At first I thought they merely wished to dance, but then I realized my mistake: Arthur Conan Doyle does not dance. You should have informed them your ticket was full.”
“Just a couple of drunken swells.” He did not want to get involved in a discussion that could lead to revealing his adventure with Cypher.
“I also watched you bid good night to the ravishing Miss Leckie. And I saw the kiss.”
“What? Oh, that? Just a friendly peck.”
“Very friendly. My wife, Constance, no longer kisses me with such ardor.” Wilde tapped on the ceiling and called out, “Home to the Albemarle, Gibson.”
As the carriage jolted away, Conan Doyle said, “What do you mean about Constance? And why are you always at your club? Why are you not living at Tite Street? Are you two having… difficulties?”
“No difficulty at all. The simple truth is that I am no longer in love with my wife…” Wilde interrupted himself to spark a lucifer and ignite a Turkish cigarette. “… and the indifference is reciprocated.”
Conan Doyle’s scalp prickled with disbelief. “But you cannot be serious, Oscar. What about your marriage?”
Wilde chuckled ironically.
“What about your sacred vows?”
Wilde chuckled louder. “When it comes to matrimony, there are two types of people: those it is suited to and those it is not; unfortunately, it is the latter who insist on getting married.”
“But Constance is a great beauty. An adoring wife. A wonderful mother to your two strapping boys.”
“All true. Nonetheless, I feel nothing for her anymore. When Constance and I married we agreed to try matrimony for seven years. We have been ball and chain these thirteen years now. Six more than our original bargain. We remain very fond of one another, but our marriage has run its course. To continue the pretense would be dishonest. And Oscar Wilde abhors dishonesty.”
His friend’s offhand confession stunned the Scotsman into momentary silence. Finally he spoke up and asked, “But what about your children? What of Vyvyan and Cyril?”
Wilde released a tortured sigh. “Ah yes, children, the barbed wire that binds a man and woman together at the heart.”
“No, you cannot divorce Constance. It would be the ruin of you.”
But the fact that Wilde could voice such outrageous things out loud set Conan Doyle’s mind reeling with giddy possibilities.
Wilde gestured with his lit cigarette as he spoke. “Of course, Constance will keep Tite Street as her domicile and the children will remain with her. I shall visit as regularly as I am able. In truth, I suspect they will notice little difference.”
“But what about appearances? What will people think?”
“I have no doubt people will be scandalized. The Great British Public is never truly happy unless it has a scandal to gossip about. But society and appearances can go hang. Society does not care a jot for my happiness.”