Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure (8 page)

The
wrestler turned his head this way and that, still smiling faintly. He was the
scarred man’s hired muscle as surely as I was Yang’s. We were put to fighting
each other to see who the better man was. And if he was blind, it didn’t seem
to affect his ability to come straight at me again like a charging bull.

There was
not enough space to dodge him properly or back off. In the ring, I would have
been able to keep him off and rain punches on him all the while. It was a
different story in a confined space.

I was
carried backwards two paces into the wall. The impact shook plaster dust loose.
His grip was lower this time, below my ribs. I got in two awkward blows,
hammering downwards on his head. Then the wrestler straightened up and did a
move that I had not experienced since I was ten years old: he threw me clean
over his shoulder. I would not have said it was possible… I dived headlong, my
feet struck a light fixture, and the room tumbled about me. My landing felt as
though it made the house shake.

They say
you could drop an ant from the top of St. Paul’s and it would walk away unhurt,
but an elephant would be injured by the slightest fall because of its great
bulk. In this respect, I am more elephant than ant. The force of the impact was
considerable. If I'd landed worse, I could have broken an arm or a wrist or my
neck. I was lucky not to crack my head on a stone mantel or fireplace.

Luck was
with me, though, and I landed flat. Acting on instinct, I rolled and pulled myself
to a crouch. A sighted opponent might have thrown himself down on top of me
before I could move, and that might have been the end of it. He would have been
on top of me, his hands round my head, and there would be no escape. But the
confusion of noises made it difficult for the blind wrestler to locate me
exactly, and he hung back.

We faced
each other again. I needed to end the fight quickly before the man I had thrown
down the stairs could make his way back in and before anybody else in the house
could join in—I could hear voices downstairs. The fat man’s smile was
fixed. He reminded me of someone I had seen once, a slaughterman my father had
pointed out to me once. He was an odd character, and Father said that the man
enjoyed killing a bit too much and I had best stay away from him. The wrestler
had that selfsame cold, complacent smile of pleasure at suffering.

I took a
half step forward to jab at his face, left and right. I would make him earn his
money, at least, and buy enough time to try something else. A clinch was the
only way he could keep from being beaten black and blue, and this time, I
planned to throw myself out of his path as soon as he came forward.

His hand
moved like a striking cobra and caught my left wrist. It was like being trapped
in a vice. I directed a straight right at his shoulder, and the grip lessened.
As well as an ungodly strength, he must have had iron self-control not to
flinch at the pain. His other arm moved over to foul my next punch.

I have
often wondered how the fight would have proceeded from that point on. When you
review a bout in your mind, you always think of the moves that you might have
done if you were given a second chance, if the fight had only run to another
round.

My
supporters might say that Harry Stubbs could beat any Chinese, but you have to
look at the facts behind the bravado. I had a few more tricks in my repertoire,
but I’m a boxer. All my routines were ingrained through long hours of training
that turned them into reflex actions. And they are all boxing moves. If a man
wants to stand toe-to-toe in any approximation of boxing, I know what to do.
But the arts of grappling, of holds and throws and breakfalls, of knowing where
to twist an arm or a wrist or a neck, are all comparative mysteries to me. I am
a boxer of more than average mettle, but I am not a fighter.

The
wrestler was a real fighter. He knew how to play the game in which the only
rule was to win. It was a game that I had little experience of, and this was no
way to learn.

The fight
was interrupted by the sharp crack of a pistol shot. Yang was still sitting,
but now he had his hands in front of him. He was aiming the automatic at the
fat man. At the time, it did not occur to me that what made the wrestler stop
was not the threat of the pistol but the sound of the report. For those who
rely on hearing, a loud noise in a small room is like a dazzling light in the
eyes of a sighted person.

“Mr Stubbs,
we must leave,” Yang said. I did not need to be told twice. He said something
sharp in Chinese at the fat man while I hurried back down the stairs. There
were two men at the bottom, but they scattered when Yang fired at their feet.

I unbolted
the front door. There was no sign of the rude individual whom I had manhandled
earlier, and we made it clear to the car. Nobody was pursuing us. This was a
London street in broad daylight after all.

Yang sat
heavily in the driver’s seat and put down the pistol. He held his hands out to
me. His thumbs were fastened together with wire; I untied it with some
difficulty. Then Yang felt cautiously around one of the bloodstains on his
shoulder, and I saw for the first time what looked like a pencil stub sticking
from low down on
 
neck. With a
grimace, he pulled out a bamboo skewer and tossed it into the footwell. A
moment later, he pulled out a second.

“My second
appointment was less successful than the first,” he said at last. “There has
been some… misunderstanding between the Si Fan and the Yellow Emperor’s Clan.”

They had
ambushed Yang on the steps before he could even knock on the door. The blind
man had come up from behind, seized Yang, and thrown him to the ground before
he knew what was happening. He never had a chance to draw his gun.

Yang raised
and lowered his injured arm experimentally, frowning at the result. “I will
require your assistance with the handbrake and the gears.”

Chapter Seven: A Warning

That evening, with Yang safely back in his hotel room and having
devoured a healthy portion of my landlady’s steak and kidney pudding, I raided
the cigar box under my mattress for money. Shillings jingling in my pocket, I
made my way to the Conquering Hero. I had earned a pint or two, or three or
four. The place was as warm and cheerful as you could wish, half-full with the
usual weekday crowd.

I nodded to
a few acquaintances while the barman drawing my pint said casually, “Feller
over by the corner is looking for you, Harry. Funny sort of bloke.”

As he
spoke, my eye fell on Howard, the scholarly young man of the Theosophy Circle.
He was sitting alone at a table with a shot glass and a decanter of water. He
had witnessed my entrance and looked up expectantly.

“I know
him,” I said.

“Don’t
think he comes in pubs much,” said the barman. “He wanted hot water with it. I
haven’t heard that since before the war.”

“I’m so
glad you came,” said Howard, pulling up a chair for me. He pushed back his
thinning hair with one hand. “The situation is grave, and you’re the only man
alive who can help.”

“I’m afraid
I don’t know what situation you’re referring to.”

“Don’t
worry, old man,” he said. “I’m not with the police or anything. But I don’t
think you came to the séance the other day out of idle curiosity, and I
happen to know a little about your connections.” He glanced about as though the
Hero was a notorious thieves’ den. “The thing is, I know what you’re on to, and
I can help.”

“Is this in
reference to Mr Roslyn D’Onston?” I ventured.

“Absolutely
right; you’ve got it in one,” he said with a fierce smile. “Roslyn D’Onston,
that notorious creature, unparalleled master of the dark arts. You know of his
infiltration of the Theosophy Circle?”

“I had
ascertained some connection.”

“Connection?
He’s in charge of it! You do realise of course that he isn’t dead?”

“Well, I
can’t say…”

“Let me lay
the whole thing out for you.” He leaned closer. “As you know, I’m just a poor
bookworm. I’ve dabbled in the arts for a few years, as an intellectual
exercise—in a field where there are so few true scholars, an amateur like
me can earn a little distinction. And then out of the blue, I have an approach
from this woman, the one who calls herself Lavinia.

“It seems
that she’s turned up out of nowhere and is occupying that house,
Maycot—Blavatsky’s place and D’Onston’s former base of operations. Well,
that ought to have made me suspicious. And with her is this Victor. His bona
fides are in India and not so easy to check.”

“It should
be possible to telegraph India—”

“Good Lord.
Don’t you realise how easy it is to pass for another man these days? I don’t
say Victor is a fiction, but I doubt very much whether our Victor is the
genuine article. Though he is damnably well-informed about Indian magic… but
I’m getting ahead of myself.”

He was
certainly getting ahead of me in his hurry to get the story out.

“You were
at the séance. You saw how dangerous that was, how the two of them play
with fire? That was a damn fool thing to do and all because they want power.”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Power is a dangerous thing—you can turn the tap
on, but if you can’t turn it off again, then woe betide you!” He banged his empty
glass down for emphasis.

“To start
at the beginning…” I said.

“Of
course,” he said, nodding down at my glass, which was still more than
half-full. “Have another?”

He brought
back a brandy with another pint for me and settled himself down. Howard spoke
with a sure authority about everything. He seemed very relaxed in a strange
place like this, and even when talking to a stranger like me with such
frankness. I expected a scholar to be a mousy, bookish sort of man, more
hesitant when outside his own academic sphere. But for all that he looked like
a librarian, Howard spoke like a brigadier.

“It was my
fate—I won’t say misfortune, or fortune—to come into my inheritance
early. My parents left enough money for a comfortable existence without the
need to earn bread with the sweat of my brow. And don’t think that I’m not
grateful for that every day of my life.” He seemed concerned that I might
resent his wealth. “That has given me the leisure and the resources to make a
study of certain arts. I’ve made little enough progress, I can tell you. I’ve
slaved over incomprehensible books, spent long nights at my workbench with
queer mixtures of chemicals… and, in the morning, found I had nothing. But I’ve
placed my poor offering on the great altar of Knowledge.”

“You’ve
written some important works, I gather.”

“Hardly. A
few monographs, published at my own expense. They brought me into contact with
other scholars, and we corresponded. I know it sounds like a rather arid
existence”—he seemed apologetic—”but it suited me well enough.
Until, out of the blue, Lavinia contacted me. She insisted that I visit her and
meet the Circle. Soon, I was caught up in a whole cycle of speaking
engagements, social affairs, and séances. For the first time in my life,
I was feted as a celebrity. It was heady stuff for a man who has lived his life
in quiet seclusion, and I told them everything I knew—far more than I
should have done. That was before I realised how dangerous Lavinia and Victor
really were—before I heard the name Roslyn D’Onston.”

He paused
to gulp brandy and confirm that I understood what he was saying.

“These
people,” he said, “these people are not the selfless seekers after knowledge
that they pretend to be. Roslyn D’Onston wants to harness the ultimate powers
of darkness… I expect you know all about him?”

Now it was
up to me to play my part, to make quick deductions and bluff my way through the
interview. “I know very little of him. But my major conclusions have been,
firstly, that he has been deceased for some years, and secondly, that he
experienced a Christian awakening and turned his back on black magic. So, while
the influence of his older self may live on, along with his assumed name, I
don’t see that we are dealing with the actual gentleman.”

Howard bit
his lip. “I assure you,” he said levelly, “that Roslyn D’Onston is far from
dead and far from reformed. And he is brewing up a foul scheme that will be,
dare I say it, injurious to your interests. I know these things from my own,
first-hand experience—and that is why I am now in fear for my life. You
see, I heard about what happened in the library with poor old Powell
yesterday.”

A vagrant
dying of natural causes in a public library was hardly the stuff of news
headlines, and the story had not been in the papers. Howard saw my questioning
look.

“One of the
members of our Circle was in the library this morning, and they’re talking of
nothing else. Naturally, I asked Victor and Lavinia, and they were so cryptic
about it that I came right out and asked if they thought there was skulduggery
involved. Victor hinted darkly and even mentioned that little trick with green
ointment—the death gaze that D’Onston described so vividly in his work on
the evil eye in Sicily.”

“And that
is why you are in fear for your own life,” I said.

He nodded
vigorously. “I know too much about their plans, their
modus operandi
.
And I even suspect… but tell me, before I go further… I shan't ask who you're
working with or who you report to, but can I know that you'll get word back to
headquarters and steps will be taken against that pair?”

He was
putting me in a false position entirely. Like Victor, Howard had read some
significance into my possessing the ring with the green star-stone, and that
had been further magnified. He must have known of my presence in the library
with Yang—we were such an unlikely pair that he would know us from the
sketchiest description—and had obviously linked us together as agents of
some occult grouping. Instead of being a debt collector and sometime clerk, I
was part of a conspiracy. Given that I was working with Yang, who was a bona
fide member of the Si Fan Society, he was not so far from the truth.

“I can’t
guarantee action,” I said. “That decision would be taken by the appropriate
persons.”

Howard
flashed an easy smile. “Of course, of course. Though I dare say you might have
a hand in action that does get taken, what?”

I gave a
modest half nod, and he launched into the next part of his address. “I did a
few calculations. I dare say you did the same—Roslyn D’Onston would be
eighty-three years old this year. Of course he didn’t die.” He waved the idea
away as though it was an irritating fly. “As a doctor, D’Onston had endless
access to medical forms, and there’s nothing easier than slipping a death
certificate into the records. He could have acquired a body easily enough if he
actually needed to fill a coffin.”

“And you
think he’s now operating under the name of Victor? But D’Onston’s much too old
to be him.”

“Think on,”
he said, “and you’ll see another possibility. Wouldn’t you say that Lavinia is
rather mannish, rather tall and masculine looking? She’s the right age. To
D'Onston, flesh is simply clay that he can mould to his will. Male and female
are mutable to him, like Tiresias of old.”

He allowed
the words to sink in a minute. “Now you see the diabolical genius of it. Who
would ever suspect a harmless old lady who dabbles in spiritualism of being a
famous black magician?”

“It’s quite
a proposition,” I said. “And what is her, or should I say his, purpose?”

“You don’t
recall the days of Jack the Ripper, I suppose.” Howard, who looked no more than
thirty, had barely been born at the time, and surely his family did not discuss
grisly murders at the dinner table. “It was a reign of terror like no other.
Women were plucked from the streets in his grim harvest. All London was in an
uproar. The Ripper slipped through the fingers of the police time after time.
If he gained the power he sought”—his voice dropped to a breathless
whisper—”he’d be capable of anything.”

“You
believe D’Onston is the Ripper then?”

“The Ripper
showed what a man could do if he just had the will to see the thing through.”
Howard’s eyes were bright, and he breathed louder. “D’Onston’s power would
multiply with his harvest.
 
All
London would be grist to that mill, all flesh living and dead, what
transmutations might he not do…”
 
He
seemed excited and appalled at the same time.

“I see.”

Howard kept
looking at me expectantly, but after a minute, when I said nothing more, he
nodded, interpreting my silence as the stoicism of a military man faced with a
new mission.

“You know
what to do, don’t you?” He slid a small key across the table. “There, that’s
the back door key to Maycot. If you strike suddenly, you’re sure to
win—physically, she’s just a weak woman. But you mustn’t let her speak.
One word, one look could be fatal. Now, I’ve already stayed too long. I must
fly!”

With no
more ado, he drained his glass and marched off, plucking his coat from the rack
and flinging it around his shoulders as he passed—an exit worthy of the
West End. It left me quite overwhelmed. Howard was not at all the man I had
taken him to be.

“Evening,
Harry.” It was Reg, holding a glass and a bottle of Bass. The remnant of froth
on his moustache indicated this was not his first beer. He nodded at the empty
chair. “Mind if I…?”

I was
grateful to see him, as he was someone who I could discuss the matters of the
day with. I hoped he might help me get my muddled thoughts in order and make
some sense of it all.

“I hear
you’ve been chasing around the East End,” he said, pouring his ale carefully. I
have observed this eccentricity—of wanting to pour your own from the
bottle—among several who have served overseas for long periods. “And Yang
came to some harm in the process.”

Arthur’s
spies had been keeping tabs on us. I gave Reg a brief account of the day. He
nodded at parts of it, frowned at others.

“That
sounds like the Wu brothers,” he said, when I described the three members of my
inquisition. “They deal in tea and silks coming one way, cotton and gin the
other—a very prosperous business, by all accounts, and a noble family,
too. Their father was the Emperor’s cousin. That’s why he had to go into
exile.”

“Exile—why?”

“Hardly
germane to our present inquiry. What happened then?”

When I got
to the scarred man sticking skewers into Yang and the fight with the wrestler,
he let out a low whistle.

“That’s a
turn up for the books.” Reg slapped me on the shoulder. “And you beat him
man-to-man! Well, I never did… I’d heard stories, but never knew anyone who’d
actually seen them. Xiongshoo Mang, the blind assassins, the
death-dream-walkers! Good grief, Harry. “

He insisted
in buying me a drink and explained that the blind men were a sort of mythical
Thuggee sect that Chinese used for dirty work. These night stranglers were
consecrated to an idol from childhood. They built up the strength in their
wrists, and their tolerance for pain, by hanging from a bar for hours every
day. They always carried out their killings under cover of darkness. They moved
noiselessly, navigated by touch, finding their victims by the sound of their
heartbeat and the warmth radiating from them. They could strangle a man and
slip away without waking his sleeping wife next to him.