“You don’t need to worry,” he smirked. “Durand here’s no trouble to anyone, are you, Durand?”
“Just give me the money, and I’ll be gone,” said Hare.
Durand stared down at the great sack on the cold stone floor. He had no doubt of what it contained. The shape and bulk of it told an unmistakable tale. He shook his head, wondering at the brazen madness of it all. They took delivery of a corpse, here at Ruthven’s very house, as if it were no more than provisions for the parlour.
“So keen to be about your business,” Blegg said approvingly to Hare. “But no more for a time, if you can bear to wait. You’ve met my needs for now, and these are not the easiest goods to store.”
Hare scowled and held out a stiff, open hand. Blegg pressed folded banknotes into it. With a last, ferocious glare at Durand, laden with contempt and baseless loathing, Hare turned on his heel and went out, banging the back door on its hinges and slamming it closed behind him.
“A man who’s found his calling, that one,” Blegg said with harsh amusement. “Why don’t you carry this down to the cellar, now that you’re here, Durand?”
“No. I’ll not set foot there.”
“Oh? Finally decided you can’t bear any more dirt on your precious little hands, have you? Too late, old man. Much, much too late.”
With that, Durand could heartily agree. Far too late to save his hands, or his soul, from the stain of complicity. Far too late to save himself from the ruin that could not be long delayed now. There was a reckless, wanton air taking hold, as if all the sins of the past could only be concealed and justified by piling fresh sins atop them. The fragile edifice behind which all their exploits were concealed grew ever more impossible to sustain.
Enough, Durand thought dismally. Though it would mean his death, and his damnation, he could bear the waiting no longer. Better to bring those things down upon himself than endure this tortured, haunted existence any longer. He had no life worth the living now, so what purpose could there be in prolonging the fever dream in which he was ensnared? If the edifice was to fall in any case, he would tear out its foundations himself.
XXIV
Masquerade
The harlequin stared back at Quire. It was a full-face mask of lacquered papier mache, its lower half pale, almost like ivory, the upper gleaming with black and red diamonds laid out over the brow and cheeks. Two eyes stared out through neatly cut holes. There was a slit for a mouth, too, but the harlequin was not saying anything. He wore the traditional suit: luridly matching jacket and pantaloons, both a patchwork of coloured diamonds, all seamed and trimmed with gold thread; a three-horned hat of black felt, with a tiny bell jiggling at the tip of each horn.
“Well, what do you say, man?” Quire demanded, raising his voice above the music spilling through the open doors of the ballroom. “It’ll not be for long. Easiest shilling you’ll ever earn.”
“If anyone found out…” the harlequin whimpered.
He was a big man, beneath that garish costume—that was why Quire had chosen him—but not beyond intimidation once a bit of bluster and bluff was applied.
“Nobody’ll know,” Quire insisted. “It’s just for a prank on a friend of mine. No harm can come of it. Damn it, make it two shillings, then. How much are you getting paid for your night’s work? I must be doubling or trebling it at least.”
“And using my money to do it,” Wilson Dunbar observed.
Quire shot him a sharp sideways glance to discourage further interruptions, but Dunbar had always been resistant to discouragement.
“What? It’s true enough, isn’t it?” he said with an innocent shrug.
He leaned closer to the harlequin and spoke loudly into his ear.
“I’d take the money, if I was you. This one’s stubborn as all hell when he gets an idea in his head.”
The harlequin nodded. He did it hesitantly, so that the bells on his hat barely tinkled, but he did it. And that was enough for Quire to take hold of his arm and guide him firmly towards the cloakroom.
The attendant watched in faintly perturbed confusion as Quire, Dunbar and the harlequin pushed in amongst the racks of coats and cloaks, hats and canes. They got themselves to the cloakroom’s furthest corner, out of sight of the trickle of guests still flowing through the wide lobby of the Assembly Rooms. Hidden away there, amidst the garb and accessories of wealth, Quire began to strip off his jacket and trousers.
“Come along,” Dunbar said jovially to the harlequin, prodding the man in the arm. “Sooner it’s done, sooner it’s done with.”
Stiffly, no doubt burdened by second thoughts, the harlequin reached up to take the mask from his face.
Cath had come to find Quire with the message. He was lingering—had been lingering for a long time—around the stalls on the High Street.
For all his gratitude at Cath’s willingness—eagerness, in fact—to take him in, and put a roof over his head, he found the Holy Land a hard place to be. She was wont to lie late in her bed, and though he could share in that ease for a little while, he tired of it sooner than she, and would take himself off on whatever errand he could think of.
He had told her almost nothing of the reasons for his abandonment of his own lodgings, and she asked few questions. That was the training of her trade, and her life, he supposed; but also, perhaps, that she was simply glad of his arrival, and cared not what had brought it about.
“How long does it take to buy a bit of bread, then?” she asked him now.
Her hair was tousled, still disordered by sleep, and she clasped her arms about herself as if not yet ready to embrace the day. It made Quire want to hold her to him, but he merely smiled.
“A while, it seems.”
“There was a boy come looking for you at the Land. Had a message for you, and I thought you might be wanting to hear it sooner than later.”
It was telling of the narrow, insecure path Quire walked that his first thought was not of the content of the message, but of its mere arrival.
“How did he know where to look for me?” he asked, frowning.
Cath shrugged.
“Said he went to the police house first. Must not have known you’re not much seen round those parts any more. Someone there told him where to find you.”
“I’d not really wanted them to know where I was, either.”
“The Holy Land leaks secrets like a sieve, Adam. You’d maybe have better thought on that before. Anyway, are you wanting this message or not? It’s not warm enough for me to be up and out this early.”
She gave a little demonstrative shudder of her shoulders. That made Quire smile.
“Aye, all right.”
“Durand says he’ll be at the ball, and if you can get him safely out from there, he’ll come away with you. Whatever that means. The wee lad thought it was all a grand adventure; said this funny-talking man whispered it in his ear, and put a coin in his hand, all in a moment or two, outside some New Town shop. Then walked off with a couple who came out, acting like nothing had happened.”
“He’d not want to be seen sending messages off, right enough,” Quire murmured, distracted. “What ball’s he talking about, though?”
“Oh, do you not know anything, Adam?” Cath scoffed. “The Fancy Ball, at the Assembly Rooms. Best of the season, they say. They’ll all be there, with their noses in the air and their snouts in the trough.”
So Quire found himself pulling on the camouflage of a harlequin’s clothes in a cloakroom, while the sounds of exuberant merriment roared out from the ballroom.
