the man again, just to keep him honest.
The Serpent wriggled and kicked but McLevy hugged him all the tighter and wedged his forehead into the side of the man’s face.
They spun around in a grotesque dance, the only music their gasps for air.
‘I didnae realise,’ grunted McLevy, ‘ye had grown so fond. I would have washed my oxters.’
The response was a slither to the side which enabled the man to bring up the axe so that it was caught between them. He turned the handle so that the sharp edge cut into the inspector’s belly and McLevy cursed the fact of his excess flesh; this was no way to lose his avoirdupois.
A savage grin spread across the Serpent’s face and he twisted the blade cruelly so that it cut in again.
‘I’m going to have such fun with you, old chap,’ he breathed. He twisted his head round to try to bite into McLevy’s ear but the inspector spun out of the way and, repeating the move he had made with Frank Brennan, whirled them both round in frenzied spinning circles.
The Serpent yelped as the agony in his groin was brought once more to his attention, and he jerked the axe up so that the edge dug firmly into McLevy’s guts.
An insane gleam in the light-blue eyes. Death was coming, death was coming. Spin the wheel.
McLevy gasped in anguish. He lost control of his footing and like two gargoyles falling from a cathedral roof, they toppled over and crashed to earth.
For a long moment they were still and then the Serpent rolled away. McLevy looked down at his tunic. A dark red stain and spreading. Good red blood. The pain would soon follow. It was a deid strake. Death wound.
The inspector crawled into a dark corner like a wounded animal, levered himself up against the wall and looked over to where the man was resting on all fours, in front of Jessy and Helen’s tomb.
The Serpent rose to his feet. He smiled down at the inspector where he lay in the darkness, and walked slowly out of the crypt.
McLevy leant back and waited for death.
39
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,
‘The Passing of Arthur’,
Benjamin Disraeli sat in the darkened room and stared defeat in the face.
He had found himself, by some strange chance, ensconced in Lord Salisbury’s home at Hatfield, the master being conveniently abroad.
A few servants, like sly spectres, drifted in and out, but mostly it was silent.
Like the grave.
He lit a cigar and blew the smoke over a tray of liver and bacon which added ignorance to insult. A last supper.
The inventory was bleak and inescapable. It was a bloodbath.
The fleet set for Constantinople to put the Russians in their place and Gladstone’s windows broken by the outraged populace because of his opposition to that very action.
William had thundered against an unjust war, a fleet of ironclads that were a waste of public money, sending troops out to die without necessity in foreign climes and thereby upsetting the probity of the budget.
It was a deeply unpopular position and Disraeli had been delighted to see the Liberal party bear the brunt of the people’s anger.
The mob had chanted a trite, belligerent little music-hall ditty outside Gladstone’s London home, before they stoned his windows.
Jingoism. Ugly word. Heart in the right place though.
Disraeli blew a thoughtful smoke ring from lips that had tasted many strange fruits. A succession of intense relationships with young men, mostly his secretaries, had given rise to salacious innuendo but only Benjamin Disraeli knew the truth, and Benjamin was not telling.
In Scotland the Tories had fallen from nineteen to seven. Only two survived in Wales. Even England had a non-Conservative majority.
Only in Ireland was there a surplus of Conservatives but that was more than balanced by the number of Home Rulers most of them firmly affiliated to Charles Stewart Parnell. A man who, with a bit of luck, would be a gadfly to Gladstone for the rest of his life.
Already three confidential cipherograms of an increasingly hysterical nature had arrived from a stunned Victoria who, unlike himself, had not contemplated the electorate’s rejection.
Despite Gladstone’s avowed intention, when he had served her last as prime minister, to ‘tranquillise’ the Irish, Victoria could not rid herself of the illogical fear that somewhere Gladstone was a secret Fenian and would impose Home Rule and democracy willy-nilly.
As for the loss of Beaconsfield himself, it was like a death in the family. The only minister since Melbourne to become her friend had been snatched from her by …
I would sooner
Disraeli sighed. That was the ultimate threat and nothing might stand against it because the position of a minister who forced it on would be untenable. It would bring chaos to the state and the country would not stand for it. Whoever did so would be politically annihilated.
But in that terrible victory would also be the seeds of the Queen’s own destruction.
It would take time. But, inexorably, her ruin and that of the constitution would follow as the night follows day.
The monarch must accept the electoral will of the people. Break that compact, and she would fall like a stone.
That was unfortunately unthinkable and though Disraeli might gain a certain warped pleasure in delaying the inevitable …
He might advise her to send for Hartington, the present leader of the Liberals who had been completely eclipsed by the Messianic return of Sweet William and bore a healthy grudge, perhaps even bring in Puss Granville at a pinch.
But … no. Harty Tarty and Puss. Compared to Gladstone, they were shadows on the wall.
Victoria would have to accept the proposal and there’s an end to it. Even the Queen must walk to the altar.
He would advise her so. She would survive. She was a tough old bird.
He smiled wryly at that thought and looked down at his green velvet trousers. Then another thought struck, not nearly so pleasant.
What of him? Would he survive? He was too old to come back and form another government unless by miracle.
