When Ellis Lister’s turn came, however, he asked to speak not — as had all the others before him — to a dead relative, an old lover or a former pet, but to Corcoran himself.
“Mr. Lister?” Innocenti spoke in the Spaniard’s dusty voice. “We have met before, I think.”
“We have indeed, senor. I’m flattered you remember me.”
“From the Service, yes?”
Lister smiled tightly. “Not something I like to advertise.”
“Of course not. I myself dabbled in the intrigues of the secret world. I remember its etiquette too well.”
Moon realized that he had started to forget Madame Innocenti’s skill as a mimic and was beginning to accept her Corcoran voice as a separate and autonomous persona. He told himself in the sternest terms not to be so ridiculous.
“How may I be of assistance?”
“I need a name. We suspect a young man in our employ has been turned by foreign powers.”
Madame Innocenti nodded sagely. “Okhrana?”
Lister was swift to shush her. “We are not alone.”
“Indeed not.”
“Can you tell me who it is?”
“Give me their names.”
Obviously embarrassed, Lister gave the medium the Christian names of his five chief suspects.
Innocenti listened and fell silent. “Your man,” she said at last, “is…” And with the slightly disdainful air of a local dignitary pulling the winning ticket from a tombola at the church fete, she repeated the third of the names. “He’s been compromised for months.”
“I’m in your debt, Senor Corcoran.”
“Treat him mercifully. He is young and callow and not entirely to blame.” She sighed. “I’m tired. But there is one here who has yet to speak. Mr. Moon? Is there somebody with whom you wish yet to converse? A loved one, perhaps? A parent or a sweetheart passed beyond the veil?”
The Somnambulist was visibly shocked when Moon answered: “Yes.”
“The name?” Madame Innocenti asked.
“His real name is not known to me, but when he was alive he called himself the Human Fly.”
A sharp pause, then: “There is one here who identifies himself as such. I must warn you, sir, that the Fly is not at peace. He is angry, an unquiet spirit.”
“Nonetheless, I wish to speak with him.”
A shadow passed across Madame Innocenti’s face. “As you wish.” She squealed, her head jerked upwards and she squirmed in her chair as if in the grip of some invisible force. All at once her face crumpled and contorted itself as she transformed before their eyes into a slavering monster, the beast of Tooting Bec. To the shock of the assembled faithful, all traces of her former eloquence vanished and Madame Innocenti actually growled.
“Hello,” said Moon with a nonchalance he did not entirely feel. “Remember me?”
“Moon,” the medium muttered, her voice rattling and guttural. “Moon.”
“How did you know my name?”
“Part of the pattern.”
“Pattern? What pattern?”
“Did it easy. Enjoyed it. Like squashing a pea. A shove and a push and they tumbled into air. Easy. Easy.”
Very little was capable of surprising Edward Moon, but Innocenti’s performance seemed to stop him short. Slack-jawed and ashen-faced, he asked: “Who are you?”
“Prophet,” Madame Innocenti gurgled. “Baptist. Lay straight the ways.”
Moon recovered his composure. “Tell me more.”
Innocenti grinned. In the semi-darkness it seemed as though her mouth was filled with far too many teeth. “Got a warning.”
“A warning? For me?”
“Ten days till the trap is sprung. Till London burns and city falls.”
Moon leant forward. “Explain.”
A long pause. Then: “Fuck.” Madame Innocenti seemed to relish the word, swilling it around her mouth as though she were savoring the first sip of an unfeasibly expensive wine.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Fuck.” Innocenti was being quite deliberate. “Fuck. Piss. Cunt.” She spat out that last word with particular delight.
The Salisburys were appalled. Dolly Creed merely bemused, while Mr. Lister tried his best to suppress a nervous laugh.
“Mr. Moon!” It was Innocenti’s husband. “This has gone too far.”
‘Shit,” his wife said conversationally. “Cunty cunt cunt.”
“Break the circle. Let go.”
The party quickly disentangled hands and Madame Innocenti sat bolt upright, a fat gob of saliva dripping from her mouth unchecked. The Salisburys stumbled to their feet and Mrs. Erskine jabbed her forefinger angrily at Moon. “You’re a liability,” she said. “Someone ought to lock you up.”
Innocenti opened her eyes and beamed. “I’m back,” she said in her normal voice, wiping away the spittle which still hung in thick, ropy tendrils from her lips.
Everyone stared at her, astonished.
“I hope I didn’t do anything to embarrass myself,” she said mildly.
They had barely risen the following morning when the albino came to call.
“Anything?”
Moon glared. “I’m not your lackey.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
Slightly chastened, Moon gave his report as Skimpole drummed his slender fingers impatiently on the tabletop, evidently troubled by the news.
“Ten days,” he said thoughtfully, once Moon had finished. “You think she’s genuine?”
The conjuror spoke carefully. “If you’d asked me that yesterday afternoon, I would have said absolutely not. My instinct was that she was a charlatan like the rest of them.”
“But now?”
The Somnambulist scribbled something down.
FLY
Skimpole was irritated by the interruption. “What does he mean?”
Moon confessed. “I asked to speak to the spirit of the Human Fly.”
“And did you?”
Moon blanched. “Yes,” he admitted. “I think perhaps I did.”
Skimpole instructed them to return to Tooting Bec at their earliest opportunity, muttered a muted kind of thanks for their services to the Crown and shuffled to the door. Just as he was about to leave, he turned back. “By the way — there’s a surprise for you in reception.”
Moon and the Somnambulist walked to the ground floor where they found an old friend waiting. She squealed delightedly on their approach. “Mr. Moon!”
Even the conjuror allowed himself a small smile at seeing her again. “Hello, Mrs. Grossmith.”
The Somnambulist, however, showed no restraint at all and he and the housekeeper fell immediately into a tight embrace.
“Skimpole found me,” Grossmith explained, once they had disentangled themselves. “I’m to work for you here now.”
“I see.”
“Aren’t you pleased?”
“I have much to concern me at present.”
Someone coughed. A stranger stood half a dozen paces behind her, an untidy, gangling man some years her senior. Bulbous-nosed and endowed with disproportionately large ears, he had the appearance of an oversized toby jug. He shambled forward, tripped over one of his shoelaces and sprawled onto the floor. Picking himself up, he dusted himself down and asked, in a soft, nervous voice: “Well, Mrs. G. When are you going to introduce us?”
Mrs. Grossmith blushed. “Sorry,” she said, uncharacteristically girlish. “This is Arthur Barge. My landlord. And now… A giggle escaped her and she spoke more shrilly than she had intended — “my special friend.”
A long, awkward silence. Moon eyed the man with disdain and shook his hand half-heartedly.
Arthur Barge shuffled his feet, embarrassed. Mercifully, they were disturbed by the arrival of the hotel’s concierge.
“Mr. Moon?” the man asked, discreet and subservient as ever. “You’ve another visitor. He’s most insistent, I’m afraid.”
“Who?”
Before he could reply, a curious figure strutted into the room. He began to speak almost at once, his words tripping over one another in their haste to be heard. “I hope I haven’t called at a bad time. I’d hate to think I was interrupting a reunion. Still, considering what’s happened, you’re all looking very well.” He stuck out his hand. “Edward. Good to see you again. Care for a stroll?”