“This was the home of a physician well known in theatrical circles. I had heard it said of a number of actresses that they had gone to him for their ‘irregularities,’ always said in such a knowing way that I had been sure it was a code for something more, and eventually, without ever pressing for the knowledge, I came to understand what it was. Although a specialist in chest and voice complaints, this man had a sideline in dealing with the inconvenient unborn.
“Whitlock was compelling her to it, of that I’m sure. She could not have gone on to serve his purpose otherwise. I did not stay to watch them come out. I could not bear to.”
He looked at Sebastian then. The detective had not moved, nor made any sound that he was aware of.
Sayers said, “I know what you probably think of me. That I am one of those men who worships a certain kind of woman and thinks himself a knight of old, a hero in his own eyes and therefore, he imagines, in hers.
“There was a time when this might have been true. That time ended as I walked the streets in the hours following my discovery. I did not flee the abortionist’s doorstep through anger, nor through jealousy. I began to understand the true nature of my feelings when I realized that I wept for her distress, and not my own.
“I have learned that a man who offers his worship to women fails to realize how wearisome that gift soon becomes. Mere worship is a trinket to them—nice to receive, but one to pop in a drawer and forget.
“It would have been so easy for me to imagine her defiled, and to make her an object of my anger or even drive her from my thoughts. But in the course of those next few hours, I came to realize that there would never be anything I could not forgive her.”
Sayers paused for a while. He folded his scarred hands and rested his lips against them. He did not look up, and Sebastian began to wonder if his story had come to a premature end.
But then Sayers said, “I did not see her again for a while. My money was getting low and I had to take casual work in a fruit broker’s on the docks, or else be turned out of my lodgings to live as so many had to…moved on by the police all night, and sleeping in public parks by day. Once a week, I would meet with Bram Stoker, unless he was away from town on Irving’s business.
“It was Bram who showed me the lines in
“Although hardly of the top drawer of society, Whitlock had an ‘in’ to many a fashionable gathering. That is the peculiar thing about our profession: You can be born the son of a costermonger, but play a few kings and it sticks to you. I’ve even seen a clown talking to a duchess, where the duchess was the one making a fool of herself.
“Whitlock was escorted by Louise wherever he went, and the way he dressed her and presented her, you would have taken her for some foreign princess and the highest-born woman in the room. She was pale and beautiful, and she rarely spoke. Old rakes and young men would vie for her attention; Stoker said that there was always a group of them around her, and that she only ever half listened and seemed to be looking beyond them as if through cloudy glass. This made them see her as some kind of goddess of ice, and they competed for her attention all the more.
“Stoker said he saw it differently. He said that to him it was as if the very soul had died in her.”
Sayers hesitated. First he seemed about to say something more; but now he seemed to be done. Then he started to rise.
“The rest of it,” Sebastian said quickly.
“You know the rest of it. You were there.”
“Only for a part of what happened. Good God, Sayers, you can’t stop now. This is the very thing I came back here for.”
Someone outside was calling a name. The name was not Sayers’ own, but it caused him to look up sharply.
“I’m needed,” he said.
“I don’t care,” Sebastian said. “If I let you out of my sight now, then you’ll vanish with the circus and I’ll never know the truth.”
“You have most of it.”
“I want it all.”
Sayers gave a resigned sigh, then started gathering together his few possessions from the makeshift table.
“Then we must move to another place,” he said. “Or they’ll have the tent down around us.” He went over to his steamer trunk and raised the lid. A shabby but serviceable suit of clothes lay folded on top of the contents.
“You say that after persuading her to lose the child he became her guardian,” Sebastian said, rising from his chair, “and that she served some purpose for him. Is it your belief that she became his mistress in return?”
Sayers was stowing his few trinkets and taking out his street wear. He paused in what he was doing, as if the suggestion was an unexpected one that he had never considered before.
“No,” he said.
“Then…”
“There is much more to it than that,” Sayers said. “The sorcerer had lost his apprentice. He had been grooming Caspar to take over the Wanderer’s role, but now Caspar was gone. He needed new cover, and time was getting short. His deal with darkness was about to expire. From his increasing desperation, I would not have been surprised to learn that his doctors had put a number on his days.”
Sayers let the lid of the trunk fall with a bang.
“Louise was not his mistress,” he said. “She was bait.”
TWENTY-THREE
In sixteen acres of Southeast London’s Forest Hill stood Surrey House, the residence of Quaker tea trader Frederick Horniman. Originally the family home, it had come to hold so many objects, books, and pictures gathered in the course of Horniman’s travels that a few months ago he’d thrown a part of it open to the public, by appointment, so that anyone with sufficient interest could come in and view his collections.
Sayers and Stoker were met at the gate by a man with a strong-looking frame and a starved-looking face. He wore a brown velveteen coat, and Stoker introduced him by the name of Samuel Liddell Mathers.
“You’ve the hand of a boxer!” Mathers said as they shook, and Sayers gave Stoker an uneasy glance. “I box every evening myself,” Mathers added.
Stoker returned the look with a slight shrug and a raise of the eyebrows, as if to say, I told him no such thing.
They walked up the circular driveway to the square-set, ivy-covered house. It was shabby and rambling and comfortable. Mathers led them around to a side entrance, where he produced a key to let them in. The house was mostly dark, and the furniture sheeted—the Horniman family was not at home. The two men followed their guide through the kitchens to a door that opened onto a stairway, which in turn led down into the cellars. The house had electric lighting but the cellar did not, and he stopped to light a lantern before carrying it ahead of them to show the way.
As they descended, he said, “The place is full to bursting point. This is where they keep the pictures no one cares to see.”
Sayers said, “Do we have permission to be here?”
“I’m a friend of the daughter. We both belong to a little order of Christian kabbalists. Bram picks our brains every now and again, but he refuses to join us. Don’t you, Bram?”
Stoker, at the rear of the party, said, “You know my interests have been entirely academic.”
“Really,” Mathers said. “This might end your sense of detachment.” Whereupon, he winked at Sayers.
He had Stoker hold the lantern while he looked through a stack of unframed pictures that were being stored side-on. He knew what he was looking for, and it took him a while to find it. Finally, he drew one of them out. It was mounted in cards and protected by a large sheet of paper that he lifted and flipped back.
