Steerpike repeated his question, ‘Whose are they?’ he said.
‘Whose what?’ said Flay, stopping on the stairs and turning round. ‘Still here are you? Still following me?’
‘You suggested that I should,’ said Steerpike.
‘Ch! Ch!’ said Flay, ‘what d’you want, Swelter’s boy?’
‘Nauseating Swelter,’ said Steerpike between his teeth but with one eye on Mr Flay, ‘vile Swelter.’
There was a pause during which Steerpike tapped the iron banisters with his thumb-nail.
‘Name?’ said Mr Flay.
‘My name?’ asked Steerpike.
‘Your name, yes, your name, I know what my name is.’ Mr Flay put a knuckly hand on the banisters preparatory to mounting the stairs again, but waited, frowning over his shoulder, for the reply.
‘Steerpike sir,’ said the boy.
‘Queerpike, eh? eh?’ said Flay.
‘No, Steerpike.’
‘What?’
‘Steerpike. Steerpike.’
‘What for?’ said Flay.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘What for, eh? Two Squeertikes, two of you. Twice over. What for? One’s enough for a Swelter’s boy.’
The youth felt it would be useless to clear up the problem of his name. He concentrated his dark eyes on the gawky figure above him for a few moments and shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly. Then he spoke again, showing no sign of irritation.
‘Whose cats were those, sir? May I ask?’
‘Cats?’ said Flay, ‘who said cats?’
‘The white cats,’ said Steerpike. ‘All the white cats in the Cat room. Who do they belong to?’
Mr Flay held up a finger. ‘My Lady’s,’ he said. His hard voice seemed a part of this cold narrow stairway of stone and iron. ‘They belong to my Lady. Lady’s white cats they are. Swelter’s boy. All hers.’
Steerpike pricked his ears up, ‘Where does she live?’ he said. ‘Are we close to where she lives?’
For answer Mr Flay shot his head forward out of his collar and croaked, ‘Silence! you kitchen thing. Hold your tongue you greasy fork. Talk too much,’ and he straddled up the stairs, passing two landings in his ascent, and then at the third he turned sharply to his left and entered an octagonal apartment where full-length portraits in huge dusty gold frames stared from seven of the eight walls. Steerpike followed him in.
Mr Flay had been longer away from his lordship than he had intended or thought right and it was on his mind that the earl might be needing him. Directly he entered the octagonal room he approached one of the portraits at the far end and pushing the suspended frame a little to one side, revealed a small round hole in the panelling the size of a farthing. He placed his eye to this hole and Steerpike watched the wrinkles of his parchment-coloured skin gather below the protruding bone at the base of the skull, for Mr Flay both had to stoop and then to raise his head in order to apply his eye at the necessary angle. What Mr Flay saw was what he had expected to see.
From his vantage point he was able to get a clear view of three doors in a corridor, the central one belonging to the chamber of her ladyship, the seventy-sixth Countess of Groan. It was stained black and had painted upon it an enormous white cat. The wall of the landing was covered with pictures of birds and there were three engravings of cacti in bloom. This door was shut, but as Mr Flay watched the doors on either side were being constantly opened and closed and figures moved quickly in and out or up and down the landing, or conversed with many gesticulations or stood with their chins in the curled palms of their hands as though in profound meditation.
‘Here,’ said Flay without turning round.
Steerpike was immediately at Flay’s elbow. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Cat door’s hers,’ said Flay removing his eye, and then, stretching his arms out he spread his long fingers to their tips and yawned cavernously.
Young Steerpike glued his eye to the hole, keeping the heavy gold frame from swinging back with his shoulder. All at once he found himself contemplating a narrow-chested man with a shock of grey hair and glasses which magnified his eyes so that they filled the lenses up to their gold rims, when the central door opened, and a dark figure stole forth, closing the door behind him quietly, and with an air of the deepest dejection. Steerpike watched him turn his eyes to the shock-headed man, who inclined his body forward clasping his hands before him. No notice was taken of this by the other, who began to pace up and down the landing, his dark cloak clasped around him and trailing on the floor at his heels. Each time he passed the doctor, for such it was, that gentleman inclined his body, but as before there was no response, until suddenly, stopping immediately before the physician in attendance, he drew from his cape a slender rod of silver mounted at the end with a rough globe of black jade that burned around its edges with emerald fire. With this unusual weapon the mournful figure beat sadly at the doctor’s chest as though to inquire whether there was anyone at home. The doctor coughed. The silver and jade implement was pointed to the floor, and Steerpike was amazed to see the doctor, after hitching his exquisitely creased trousers to a few inches above his ankle, squat down. His great vague eyes swam about beneath the magnifying lenses like a pair of jellyfish seen through a fathom of water. His dark grey hair was brushed out over his eyes like thatch. For all the indignity of his position it was with a great sense of style that he became seated following with his eyes the gentleman who had begun to walk around him slowly. Eventually the figure with the silver rod came to a halt.
‘Prunesquallor,’ he said.
‘My Lord?’ said the doctor, inclining his grey hayrick to the left.
‘Satisfactory, Prunesquallor?’
The doctor placed the tips of his fingers together. ‘I am exceptionally gratified my lord, exceptionally. Indeed I am. Very, very much so; ha, ha, ha. Very, very much so.’
‘Professionally you mean, I imagine?’ said Lord Sepulchrave, for as Steerpike had begun to realize to his amazement, the tragic-looking man was none other than the seventy-sixth Earl of Groan and the owner of, as Steerpike put it to himself, the whole caboodle, bricks, guns and glory.
‘Professionally …’ queried the doctor to himself, ‘… what does he mean?’ Aloud he said, ‘professionally, my lord, I am unspeakably satisfied, ha, ha, ha, ha, and socially, that is to say, er, as a gesture, ha, ha, I am over-awed. I am a proud fellow, my lord, ha, ha, ha, ha, a very proud fellow.’
The laugh of Doctor Prunesquallor was part of his conversation and quite alarming when heard for the first time. It appeared to be out of control as though it were a part of his voice, a top-storey of his vocal range that only came into its own when the doctor laughed. There was something about it of wind whistling through high rafters and there was a good deal of the horse’s whinny, with a touch of the curlew. When giving vent to it, the doctor’s mouth would be practically immobile like the door of a cabinet left ajar. Between the laughs he would speak very rapidly, which made the sudden stillness of his beautifully shaven jaws at the time of laughter all the more extraordinary. The laugh was not necessarily connected with humour at all. It was simply a part of his conversation.
‘Technically, I am so satisfied as to be unbearable even to myself, ha, ha, ha, he, he, ha. Oh very, very satisfactory it all was. Very much so.’
‘I am glad,’ said his lordship, gazing down at him for a moment. ‘Did you notice anything?’ (Lord Sepulchrave glanced up and down the corridor.) ‘Strange? Anything unusual about him?’
‘Unusual?’ said Prunesquallor. ‘Did you say unusual, my lord?’
‘I did,’ said Lord Sepulchrave, biting his lower lip. ‘Anything wrong with him? You need not be afraid to speak out.’