He replayed a scene in his mind from his visit to the establishment of the Countess and took great satisfaction.
The woman supplied had been too fleshy for his taste but she had white skin and marked up in rousing fashion.
The French girl had left the establishment and the little sensitive was beyond his grasp but he had kept her pale, veiled face in his memory while laying on the quirt.
A most fulfilling encounter.
The recollection would keep him warm in his cold bed and who knows what pleasant dreams might ensue?
Behind him, the door to his study opened and a massive figure slipped inside with astonishing speed and stealth.
The room was dark except for the glow of the fire and Gilbert was too absorbed in happy reminiscence to notice the addition to his company; also he suffered from wax in his hairy ears, thus tending to partial deafness.
So what followed came as a big surprise.
Two huge hands like bear’s paws circled his neck and wrenched him bodily from his armchair up into empty space.
As he wriggled in agonised shock, feet kicking, eyes wide with fear, Gilbert was lifted higher until he must have been at least eight feet from the ground.
He had lifted his own hands to claw unavailingly at the leather gauntlets, the nails scraping hard at the stiff material. They made little impression.
Gilbert’s ears popped and his hearing improved to the point where he was able to distinguish the following words, coming from somewhere just beneath.
It was in a guttural animal growl but just enough remained of speech that a dangling man might comprehend.
Having uttered these words to no response from the choking man, the creature then followed the three precepts embedded in its psyche.
This had been accomplished.
The hood of the cloak fell back and for a moment Gilbert twisted round to see his nemesis. Eyes blinked in recognition at the contorted face staring up into his, and then the beast’s hands jerked powerfully and the pinioned neck was snapped like a chicken.
Gilbert’s body was lowered carefully to the carpet, which was thick and received the corpus with a certain amount of give.
For a moment the beast caught sight of itself in a mirror above the mantle of the fire, snarled in fear at its image and tore at its own hair.
Then it looked. And saw the heavy poker lying in the hearth.
As if it were a sign.
17
He who plays at dice with death must expect the dog’s throw.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON,
The candle flickered in a weak draught from the window and a hand was cupped round to shelter the flame. The writer laid his pen aside and peered closely at the heading on the page:
That was the constant. What followed was variable and deserved all the secrecy granted.
Private thoughts. Keep them so. But read on anyway.
When I observe humanity I am aye struck by the fact that every bugger wants to have their own way.
And takes it badly amiss when some other bugger, or life itself, does not correspond to requirements.
Then violence of one kind or another ensues, the obvious being physical, the more deadly when the mind warps like an old piece of shipwrecked timber left out in the hot sun. Since I’m the one that writes this diary and the only one who ever gets to read it, I will allow myself the luxury of overblown simile.
But it’s true in any case.
A warped mind is the worst foe. It is not easy to see and as the Bard himself put it, ‘There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.’
Shakespeare would have made a great detective.
Or criminal.
When does an idea become so fixed that anything to oppose it is perceived as an attack? And furthermore, anything that does not lend its weight to the bone-crushing, grinding mill of this misplaced certainty is regarded as an enemy in waiting.
‘Wha’s no for me is against me.’
Not quite so poetic, but accurate enough.
I hold to justice. It is my rock. And the law is its chosen implement.
Yet the law itself can turn to persecution, thinking itself infallible, crushing all who dare question it.
As a politician will ignore the very folk who have elected him, thinking them beneath contempt. Or attention.
And here I am, stuck in the middle.
When I was younger I had no doubts but of late I am beset with nagging misgivings like a pack of dogs snapping at my heels.
I don’t even like dogs.
Perhaps I am being unfair, perhaps rather than some canine coven, my hesitations are subtle messages from an organism that has charged through youth and enjoyed the fruits of prime manhood but now finds the going a bit heavy, like a Clydesdale horse lugging a coal cart up a hill.
And my body feels in its bones, in its cells, in the network of nerves dancing within and without my skeleton that a reckoning is being prepared.
Somewhere along the line.
Death is enough to give any man doubts.
I have digressed. Let us return to the warped mind that is not my own.
What is it protecting?
What is the secret that must not be let into the light of day?
Perhaps that secret is not even known. Or buried so deep that it cannot even be sensed.
But it must be protected.
At all costs.
