The Vesuvius Club, Page 3

  Miracle chuckled.

  ‘Speaking of pictures,’ I said, ‘didn’t you once paint a scientist chap called Verdigris?’

  Miracle thought for a moment. ‘Believe I did. Great fat fellow. Eyes spaced too wide like a flat-fish. Come to think of it, I heard he’s vanished. Along with some old pal of his called Sash.’

  ‘I too had heard something of the kind.’

  ‘Don’t know much about the other. Seems they both suffered a sort of seizure. Are you digging for something?’

  I shrugged. Alone amongst my friends, Miracle had some idea of my ‘other life’ but even then thought it no more than the hobby of an over-diligent gossip.

  ‘Geologists, I gather,’ I said at last.

  Miracle nodded. ‘Old Cambridge chums. Verdigris died the day after Sash. Very rum.’

  ‘Life is full of coincidences.’

  ‘So they say,’ laughed Miracle. ‘Do you think these events are connected? I’ll see what I can root out.’

  For a while, we sat in silence, steeped in the lethargy induced by the chamber’s broiling heat. Occasionally, the mists cleared, revealing the green-and-red tiled arches of the roof. The baths hummed with human traffic; the hissing of the coals, the distant ploosh of patrons in the plunge pools, the heavy sighing of thickset, red-faced gents, towels wrapped like swaddling around their hard bellies.

  After a time, Miracle smiled, thrust out his lower lip then patted my leg and rose. ‘Shan’t be a moment. Nature calls.’

  I watched him stride away through the billowing steam-clouds and was so engrossed by the progress of a great heavy drop of sweat down my face that I almost failed to notice a veiny forearm suddenly clamp itself around my gullet.

  With a gasp, I sank my fingers into the flesh of the arm. Struggling to stand, I found myself hauled backwards by a wild strength. My back struck the slippery marble steps and for a second or so my head swam.

  ‘Blackguard!’ hissed a voice in my ear. ‘Scoundrel!’

  Well, I had been called worse. I twisted my head wildly to one side, attempting to catch sight of my attacker, but the clouds of steam showed only glimpses of glistening flesh and a pair of goggling, enraged eyes beneath thick black brows. His arm tightened around my throat.

  I kicked out at the brass bowl in a desperate effort to attract the attention of the attendants but, with lightning speed, my assailant began to drag me towards a neglected niche. The towel slipped from my waist and I felt my buttocks sliding over the seat.

  I croaked frantically. Would one of the elderly gentlemen in their steamy shrouds notice and raise the alarm? But a ruddy hand with hairy knuckles was quickly planted over my mouth. I was completely helpless. Salty sweat stung at my eyes.

  ‘Now, you villain! Now I have you!’ The fellow’s breath was stale with tobacco. I was on my haunches, my senses whirling. Yet, at the very moment of defeat, I snatched a chance of victory. Using the brute’s heaviness to my advantage, I shoved backwards against him and drove my elbow savagely into his midriff.

  He gave a startled cry, fell lumpenly against the tiles and momentarily slackened his iron grip on my head and neck. It was all I needed.

  Springing to my feet, I whirled around and kicked him in the throat, my leg extended with the grace of a dancer – even if I do say so myself.

  His hands flew to his Adam’s apple but I gave him no quarter, pummelling his face with my fists and then, after taking a handful of his wet hair, cracking his face off the wall.

  ‘What is this?’ I gasped. ‘What do you want with me?’

  The fellow was revealed now, a great hirsute middle-aged creature, with long, oily moustaches and a face as red as brick. Where had I seen the ugly bastard before? In the criminal archives of the Viennese police, perhaps? Or was he one of the brotherhood of blind assassins who had sworn revenge on me after the Affair of the Prussian Martyrs?

  Those enraged eyes glared at me still. With a snarl he put his head down and charged at me. I stepped swiftly to one side but he caught me round the waist and together we stumbled back into the main chamber.

  By now, of course, we had been noticed. As we whirled about, feet slithering on the wet floor, I had a confused impression of white towels and scarlet faces, mouths opened in wide ‘o’s of astonishment. The Turk who had brought Miracle’s tea hovered around us, arms flapping, like the referee in a wrestling bout.

  ‘Can’t we…discuss this…like gentlemen?’ I gasped.

  He rose from my naked waist and jabbed a fist at my face. I side-stepped clumsily, feet skidding.

  ‘Gentleman? You?’ he spat.

  The Turk was at his elbow, his face a mask of misery. ‘Please! Please, sirs! If you have business, let it be concluded in the –’

  He said no more, as my attacker laid him out with a swift right to the underside of his swarthy jaw and he fell to the tiles like a sack of coal.

  I cracked a fist against my assailant’s cheek-bone. ‘Christ!’ I yelled, sucking my knuckles.

  He screwed up one eye in pain and jabbed at me again. ‘Lucifer Box! Ha! Was ever a rascal so well named? You are the devil, sir. The very devil!’

  I ducked from his fist and managed to land a serious wallop on the side of his head. He staggered and almost fell on the treacherous floor.

  ‘Bringer of light, I assure you!’ I cried. My blood was up and so were my fists as I circled the monster. ‘Lucifer was the brightest and most beautiful of the angels. Till that old margery of a deity got so jealous that he cast him out!’

  He snarled at this and succeeded in punching me, with sickening force, in the ribs.

  Crying out in pain, I dropped, winded. My knees smacking on the floor with a snap like wish-bones.

  The fellow stalked up to me and grasped a great hunk of my hair. ‘Bringer of light! What have you brought to my household but misery and scandal? My God, sir, I shall thrash the life out of you before I’m done!’

  I shook my head miserably. ‘Who…who are you?’

  He sneered at me, his moustaches hanging limply around his red mouth like those of a Chinaman. ‘I am Pugg, sir. Major Strangeways Pugg.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, simply.

  ‘And it is my daughter, my sweet little Avril who you have despoiled and ruined!’

  I winced as he tightened his grip on my hair. Remembrance swept over me like cold water from the Turk’s brass bowl. A party, some months previously. Whey-faced poets, frayed-cuffed artists; all the splendid flotsam of bohemian London life. And a girl. A girl with a dog’s name and the body of a goddess. Avril Pugg. There’d been a balcony, starlight, whispered words then something very cheeky in the rhododendrons.

  Now there was a father. He raised his great fist and drew it back. I watched it swing towards me through streaming eyes.

  Then there came a strange, bright clang and Pugg crashed to the floor, his addled eyes rolling up in his head like those of a doll.

  I looked up and saw my friend standing over the unconscious major, a filigreed Turkish tea-urn still swinging in his right hand.

  ‘Miracle,’ I groaned.

  ‘Too bloody right!’ he cried, grasping my hand and pulling me to my feet.

  IV

  THE VISITOR

  THAT night, still as humid as the steam-rooms, I swaddled my bruised carcass in a Japanese dressing gown patterned with embroidered sunflowers and purchased with money I should have spent on oil-paints. Or food. Or tickets to the Continent avoiding enraged fathers.

  After leaving the baths, Miracle had seen me right then I had swiftly made contact with the Domestics. Delilah, always the soul of discretion, assured me that, although it didn’t come quite within the purview of Joshua Reynolds’s department, she would ‘sort fings out’ and Major Strangeways Pugg would be ‘hencour-aged’ to drop the matter forthwith. Well, it’s pointless having power unless you can abuse it, don’t you think?

  I then wrapped up the portrait of the Hon. Everard Supple (a present for his grieving family) and began to ponder
Chris Miracle’s suggestion of giving art instruction. He was making a killing off all these lonely old horrors in need of a little thrill to while away their afternoons. Why shouldn’t I? In fact, why shouldn’t I more. The prestigious address! The handsome young artist! The showers of sovereigns I could squeeze out of the gullible nitwits! And then I could afford to replace Poplar without waiting for Reynolds’s patronage. Of course, I’d have to do a little clearing up, but think of it!

  The upshot was I placed a small advertisement in The Times, Pall Mall Gazette, Budget and a few other rags, making the arrangement sound thoroughly wholesome, with just the faintest whiff of la vie bohème to attract those craving excitement.

  Images are removed here

  I then engaged a char to spruce up Downing Street. I had intended to supervise her work but couldn’t bear the looks of disapproval and endless ‘tsk-tsk’s as she peeled old collars and unwashed dishes from the debris of my studio, so off I went to invest money I didn’t have in new curtains. I collected some interesting bric-a-brac that my pupils might find amusing to draw and added Everard Supple’s glass eye to the pile as a little touch of the Gothic.

  After that, with rather impressive zeal, I assumed the disguise of a dour-faced newspaperman (all it takes is a dreadful suit, bowler and false moustache) and called at the home of the late Professor Eli Verdigris in Holland Park.

  It was a house plunged into mourning; black crêpe blossoming from every niche and banister, a wreath of some stinking violet flower encircling friend Miracle’s rather bad portrait of the great man. He had indeed been a corpulent fellow with curious wide-apart eyes and a dimpled chin of such prominence that he resembled a Hapsburg.

  Under the pretence of preparing a eulogy of the professor for the Pall Mall Gazette I was shown into a cluttered study for an audience.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me,’ said a tall young man, as fat as his father, ushering me into a chair. ‘My poor mama is quite beside herself.’

  ‘It was very unexpected, then?’ I whispered, laying on the sympathy as thick as impasto.

  ‘Entirely.’ He rubbed absently at the black arm-band around his sleeve. ‘My father has not had a day’s illness in his life.’

  I nodded and scribbled in a little note-book. ‘The doctors’ opinion?’

  Verdigris Junior shrugged. ‘They seem at something of a loss. A seizure of some kind followed by coma and…well…death.’

  ‘Dear me. The Gazette offers its sincerest condolences.’

  The young fellow sniffed and looked up at me. ‘Everyone has been quite marvellous, though. The family. His colleagues and friends.’

  ‘And the funeral…?’

  ‘The day before yesterday. It was…well…It is over now.’

  I gave him a sad smile. ‘Could you give me some idea of the nature of your father’s work?’

  Verdigris’s mouth tugged downwards. ‘Not really, I’m afraid. Frightful dunce where papa’s stuff is concerned. I can root out some literature for you, if you’d care to wait.’

  ‘That would be most helpful, sir.’

  Whilst he was out, I made a quick inspection of the fire-grate and the desk. There was no evidence of anything being burnt in the grate but on the desk I spotted a large appointments diary. I flicked hastily through the pages. What was I looking for? Well, anything out of the common, I suppose. But I found nothing save evidence of Verdigris’s dreary affairs and the rest of the study proved equally barren. The walls were lined with books and very indifferent landscapes in need of cleaning. I closed the diary carefully, brushed off a dusty purplish residue from the desk that had adhered to my sleeve and dashed back to my chair.

  Young Verdigris came back in and handed me a thick, dust-jacketed volume. ‘Here is it. Papa’s magnum opus. Tried my damnedest to get into it but…’

  I turned the book over and looked at the spine. The title was picked out in gold.

  Magnetic Viscosity, I read, with some notes on volcanic convection. More light reading seemed on the agenda.

  Sans moustache, I lunched in the domino room at the Café Royal, studying the coroner’s report on the deaths of both men. There were no traces of toxins. Nothing at all to indicate that death had not been due to some freak seizure. But what connection was Poop’s telegram driving at? And why had Poop himself disappeared?

  I resumed my disguise as Fleet Street’s finest and took an underground train to meet the wife of Professor Frederick Sash, the second of the late scientists. I had tried to make some sense of Verdigris’s book but could not get on with it. It seemed terrible nonsense, or terribly clever.

  Mrs Sash, a good-looking piece with a swan-like neck, received me graciously enough, although she had the infuriating habit of cutting one off in mid-sentence. As I sipped my tea, I glanced around the darkened drawing room. ‘I see you have a copy of Verdigris’s seminal Magnetic Viscosity,’ I said blithely. ‘Was your husband acquainted with –?’

  ‘Oh yes. From their Cambridge days. Eli seems to have passed away the day after Frederick. What in heaven’s name can it mean?’

  I nodded sympathetically and scratched at my false moustache. ‘Of course, there was no…ill feeling between –?’

  Mrs Sash shook her handsome head. ‘There was some rivalry, naturally, both being in the same field but no more than that. They were always on very good terms, though they had seen little of one another since their Continental adventure came to an end.’

  ‘Continental –?’

  ‘They once worked together in Europe for some little time.’

  I scribbled in my note-book. ‘No previous illness –?’

  ‘There had been nothing out of the ordinary.’

  I was hoping to persuade the lady to absent herself briefly as I had with Professor Verdigris’s son, to facilitate a quick nose around the room, but my request for refreshment was answered by a delicate pull on the bell rope and the appearance of a dour-faced flunky.

  I paused with my pencil hovering over the paper. ‘This was your husband’s –?’

  ‘Study? No, no. He has a room on the first floor. Claimed it was too noisy down here.’ She passed a hand over her face. ‘He was at home all day, working up a theorem. The late post had just come when –’

  She sniffed back a tear. ‘You must excuse me for now, sir. We are somewhat upside-down at the moment. There is so much to do.’

  ‘One final thing, Mrs Sash. Have I missed the funeral?’

  I had. It had taken place only the previous day in Southwark.

  Mrs Sash glanced down at her neat little hands. ‘There again I was vexed. We were unable to use the firm my husband’s family had always relied upon.’

  ‘Firm?’

  ‘The undertaking firm, sir. Tulip Brothers. Retired, it seems, without so much as a note! The business has been taken over. I suppose it all passed off well enough…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But there was something a little…queer about them.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  She sighed. ‘Well, whatever good-will they inherited has been squandered, I can tell you. It was a rather amateurish display.’

  ‘And what is the name of this curious firm?’

  Mrs Sash crossed to a small bureau and produced a black-edged card. ‘I’m not saying it’s necessarily worthy of a newspaper investigation,’ she said, handing it over. ‘But I found their attitude most peculiar. I’d be easier in my mind if someone were to do a little…um…digging.’ For the first time, she smiled.

  I held up the card.

  TOM BOWLER. SUPERIOR FUNERALS. 188 ENGLAND’S LANE. LONDON N.W.

  I had changed and was stretching a canvas in my studio that afternoon, wondering how to infiltrate an undertakers without a cadaver to present, when I heard a knock at the door.

  Still expecting old Poplar to answer it, I ignored the summons for a full minute before heading through into the hallway with a muttered curse.

  A singularly lovely person
age stood on my doorstep, clutching a folded newspaper in her lace-gloved hand.

  ‘Mr Box?’

  ‘I am he.’

  She stepped forward and the sunlight cast a glow over the russet-coloured dress that clung so charmingly to her figure. Tall and elfin-featured, with a tumbling fall of Mucha-like curls, she held up the newspaper and flashed me a lovely smile. ‘I came in response to your advertisement.’ The voice was lightly accented – Dutch? – and tinkled like a music-box.

  ‘Advertisement? Oh! Oh, yes of course! Come in, please, Miss…?’

  ‘Pok.’

  ‘Pok?’

  ‘Bella Pok.’ The delectable creature crossed the threshold and looked inquisitively about the hallway.

  ‘Would you care for some tea?’ I asked.

  She looked me straight in the eye. ‘Do you have anything stronger?’

  ‘My dear, I daresay. Please, come through.’

  ‘Number Nine, Downing Street,’ she said, entering the drawing room. ‘You have trouble with your neighbours?’

  ‘Only once every four years.’

  She smiled and took a seat by the window whilst I hurriedly looked about for refreshment. ‘Such a curious place for an artist to live…’

  ‘Sherry?’ I offered.

  ‘I like a little vermouth at this hour.’

  I nodded, rather pleasantly shocked. ‘Geographically, I am at the very beating heart of the Empire, Miss Pok. In other respects, I am as much an outcast as the greatest of my calling have been…’ I gestured around the room. ‘You must forgive my current situation but my servant is…servants are away.’

  ‘I have learned never to judge a gentleman by the cleanliness of his doilies.’

  ‘Then I feel we shall get on splendidly.’

  I slipped through to the kitchen and began to hunt around for where the char had put clean glasses. ‘Now tell me,’ I said, calling through. ‘What drew you to my advertisement? You have had some training in draughtsmanship?’