Johannes Cabal the Detective

surprise to them. When she told them of his death, it came as no great sorrow.

They had found Marechal’s remains — “body” was altogether too composed a description — and tentatively made an identification based on clothing and artefacts. It was good to have his unexpected presence and death confirmed. Now all they required was an explanation. Some useful data had come from the man Roborovski, but when it was realised how deeply he was involved in the Mirkarvian armament programme he was spirited away by Senzan Intelligence, and the crash investigation saw no more of him. The Ambersleigh woman had been even less helpful, saying that she wasn’t interested in local politics, crossing her arms, and demanding to be taken to the British Consulate in increasingly strident terms until the investigators acquiesced for no better reason than to be rid of her.

This left Miss Barrow, and even she was evasive, pleading that shock had affected her memory. She asked to see a list of casualties, which they were reluctant to give her at first, until she suggested that it might help her recall. It turned out to be a very short list; the Princess Hortense had burned fiercely and consumed flesh and bone. Marechal, whose body had fallen from the ruined salon windows before the conflagration and been left in the ship’s shattered wake, was one of the few that they had been more or less sure of.

Miss Barrow read the few names and the short physical descriptions and effects of those still unidentified, and she bit her lip. “He may still be alive,” she said quietly to herself.

Not quite quietly enough to escape the attention of the police officer assigned to her; a chit of a girl barely out of the academy, but who burned with an intelligence and perceptivity that would either see her to the top of the force, or resigned within a year. “Alive, signorina?” she prompted. “Who may be alive?”

Miss Barrow started, and then relaxed. It would be a relief to tell somebody, she realised. The only consideration was how much to tell. “It’s time,” she began slowly. “It’s time to tell you what happened. Time for you to know. I think I’ve put it all together properly in my mind now.” The officer had already produced her notebook and flipped it open. She sat, pencil hovering and eyes intent upon her charge. Miss Barrow hesitated a moment longer, unsure if she was being wise. Then, trusting to fate and judgement, she began.

“There’s a man central to all this. He may still be alive. You have to find him. Dead or alive, you have to find him.” And, with Officer Frasca’s shorthand flowing, Leonie Barrow told her story.

* * *

Through the forest, he walked alone. His jacket still stank of smoke, and it reminded him of another time, not so long ago, when he had been walking home smelling much the same, albeit with a more sulphurous note to it. He hoped this wasn’t going to become a recurring feature of his life.

His escape from the stricken Princess Hortense had been so pathetically simple that he felt faintly ashamed that he had placed Miss Barrow on the line guide. She was probably dead now, he thought, and that was his fault. His conscience prickled him and, for once, he did not chide it into silence. To be fair to himself, he had thought the aeroship would explode on impact, but instead it had burned and that had given him time. Time, as the ship ground along the hillside at little more than a fast walking pace, to take up station at the end of the pylon at the shattered tip where once Miss Barrow’s line guide had been, time to wait for a likely tree bough to approach, and time to grab it as it passed. That part of the operation had been no more difficult than boarding an escalator or a paternoster; descending the tree after all of its branches beneath him had been torn away by the passage of the aeroship proved more exercising. He had finally managed it by going back to the trunk and clambering gracelessly around to the undamaged side of the tree, before making an inelegant descent that left him sweaty, swearing, and bruised.

Once on the ground, he had contemplated going in search of the missing line guide to check whether Miss Barrow had survived, but the arrival of a flight of Senzan entomopters had dissuaded him. By the time he worked his way back up the hillside, he decided, rescuers would be arriving in force, and he had no desire to answer their questions. Besides, if she was dead, she was dead. That didn’t put her beyond his particular brand of help, but he doubted that she would appreciate anything he could do for her. Well, then. Her fate was her fate, and his was his.

His looked as if it would involve a lot of walking.

Through the towering trees, dismaying the wildlife by his very presence and never pausing to apologise, went a pale man. Johannes Cabal was walking home.

AN AFTERWORD OF SORTS

On the subject of Cabal’s journey home, some commentators have enquired whether anything noteworthy occurred en route, to which the author has replied that there was very little to concern oneself with on that subject. The journey was uneventful in all respects, unless one counts the business with the spy and the bandits and the Elemental Evil and the end of the world as we know it. So, no. Nothing one might call noteworthy.

Ah, said the commentators, who plainly don’t know when to leave well enough alone, some people might like to hear about spies and bandits and all that. This, the author grudgingly admits, is a fair point. If, therefore, you are a person of such low appetites, here follows an account of a further adventure of Johannes Cabal. Read it or ignore it as you are minded.

JLH

THE TOMB OF UMTAK KTHARL

Just around the corner from the Haymarket, the knowledgeable Londoner will note a discreet and understated portico, under which stands a discreet and understated doorman in a discreet and understated hat. By the door is a small brass plaque, which — for the sake of completeness — shall be described as discreet and understated. The plaque declares, quietly, that the establishment it marks is called Blakes. It says no more, because the knowledgeable Londoner needs no more.

Within its portals (which are not “hallowed,” because enhallowment suggests some fame, and this is anathema to the establishment) lie facilities of comfort and convenience for the rare variety of clubbable men who do not care for clubs. In all conceivable senses, it is a club for gentlemen, but in a single ineffable sense it is not, and this is what attracts a particular caste. Nor is it sheer coyness to say that this exotic factor is ineffable — it is a je ne sais quoi of which one literally does not know what. The nature of this curious factor is neither germane to the following narrative nor even to the jealousies of rival clubs, which are simply aware of the existence of “Blakes men” and are content to leave them in Blakes.

Certainly, there was little beyond its doors, hallowed or otherwise, to mark it out as anything but one of the smaller clubs of the great metropolis. There is a dining room, studies, some rooms for members to stay overnight should the need arise, and a library, which, despite its books going untouched from one year to the next, is the most popular room in the place. Here the members slouch in overstuffed chairs, hold desultory conversations, and read (newspapers, that is, although the otherwise unloved books get the occasional perusal provided they are either a volume of Wisden or, oddly enough, Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Verse).

On a wintery evening, the members had concluded a pleasant dinner — the majority enjoying an excellent beef Wellington followed by spotted dick and custard, finishing with a good port served with a varied cheeseboard — and had retired to the library to cap the evening with brandy and cigars. There, they occupied their habitual seats and settled into a warm and happy glow as they chatted about politics and sport. Chiltern, who seemed to spend every morning memorising the newspaper so that he should never be without a topic for conversation, was setting forth his views on the marbles that the Greeks seemed to regard as theirs. These views seemed uncannily similar to those of that morning’s editorial, but that was Chiltern; he regarded the newspaper as a useful alternative to having to evolve any opinions of his own.

“They’re ours,” he said, waving his pipe stem at Protheroe, who seemed to be asleep. “How dare those Grecians start laying down the law to us. To us. If we hadn’t removed the blessed things, the Turks would probably have blown them up or something.” He glowered. “You know what the Turks are like.” Chiltern had read history and had yet to forgive the fall of Constantinople.

“How much does a Greek earn?” asked Tompkinson abruptly of anybody. “I mean, what does a Greek