documents kept here are extremely sensitive to light,” she explained as they descended. “As a special-interest group we’re allowed access to them, although I’m not allowed to bring vegetable soup with me, after an unfortunate incident with a Necromicon. Nigel was checking some numerological data when he got to thinking about the sevens. Do you know anything about the power of numbers?” They reached the foot of the stairs and she looked across at him, her eyes lost in shadow, less comical now.
She paused to sign the visitor’s book which lay open on an unmanned reception desk, then walked between dimly illuminated cases, checking their contents. “Seven is a very special number. It traverses history like a latitude, always appearing at times of great upheaval. It’s a schizophrenic number, Janus-faced, often representing both good and evil, a grouping together and a tearing apart. There are many bloodstained sevens in history: Robert E. Lee’s Seven Days’ Battles in the American Civil War, for example; the destruction of the Red River settlement in the Seven Oaks Massacre; and the battle of Seven Pines. There’s the Seven Weeks War – that’s the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 – and of course the Seven Years War which involved just about the whole of Europe in 1756.
There are everyday sevens, like the seven-note scale, the Seven Hills of Rome, the days of the week, the seven-year itch. Then there are lots of legendary sevens: the seven Greek champions who were killed fighting against Thebes after the fall of Oedipus, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, the Seven Holy Founders, the Seven Gods of Luck, the Seven Wonders of the World, the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, the Seven Wise Masters of ancient Arab myth, and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, soldiers who were resurrected from the dead – ”
“I think I get the idea,” interrupted Bryant. “What have all these sevens to do with the Whitstable murders?”
“Well, they don’t directly – but this does.” Maggie stopped before the end case and wiped dust from the glass with her sleeve. Bryant peered down. Pinned open in the case were several pages from a Victorian guild booklet that had been damaged by fire. The sheets were edged with gold leaf, a tribute to the Goldsmiths to whom they owed their origin. The watercolour illustrations had faded badly. Still, the central photograph was clear enough.
It showed a sour-faced man with bright, menacing eyes, muttonchop whiskers, and bushy eyebrows, standing in the centre of an ornately carpeted room. On either side of this commanding presence sat three men. Each man had a handwritten phrase marked beneath his person.
A chill draught blew at Bryant’s ankles as he read, from left to right:
“The names pertain to the Seven Stewards of Heaven,” said Maggie, tapping the glass with a painted nail. “God governs the world through them. They’re also known as the Olympian Spirits, and can be invoked by black magicians. Each has a certain day associated with him, as well as a particular planet in our solar system. This central figure here, the tall man, is the Master of the Sun, Bringer of Light, and he governs Sundays. I wondered if you’d come across him yet in your investigation.”
“Oh, Maggie,” said Bryant, wiping his glasses. “I most certainly have. I saw his picture only yesterday. What is he doing here?”
“I’d say these finely dressed Victorians belonged to some kind of society, wouldn’t you?” The occultist smiled darkly. “Look at the arcane instruments on the table beside them. There’s no date to the picture but I’d say it was around 1870, perhaps a little later. There’s no way of identifying who six of the fine gentlemen are, but we know the identity of the seventh.” Her finger moved over the central figure of Och, then to the panel of text below. The name in the box was that of James Makepeace Whitstable.
“The Victorians were up to their ears in strange sects and movements,” she explained, “but the Stewards of Heaven had an ancient and extremely powerful belief system connected to the secret powers of darkness and light. Night and day, good and evil, held in perfect balance.”
“Presumably this particular sect is no longer in existence?”
“It hasn’t been for centuries, but it looks as if your victims’ ancestor was trying to revive it. As the Seven Stewards are hardly a familiar topic nowadays, I assume he failed to draw a large number of converts.”
“It may not have completely vanished,” murmured Bryant. “It could simply have remained dormant until now.”
“That’s what I wondered,” said Maggie, turning from the display case. “As alternative belief systems go, this one operates on a pretty grand scale. Such societies have a habit of reviving themselves when conditions are right. Their growth and decline occurs in a regular cycle.”
“How long would each cycle last?”
“It could be any timespan of up to one hundred years. In fact, century cycles are rather common.”
The image of the Waterhouse painting had sprung into Bryant’s mind.
He took another look inside the glass case, mentally superimposing the painting over the watercolour illustration. Seven acolytes in both. Cold draughts now filled the room, and he gave an involuntary shudder. “One hundred years,” he said. “That brings James Whitstable right back into the 1970s.”
“This is a very powerful occult force,” said Maggie. “It looks as if your troubles are only just beginning.”
¦
PC Burridge’s lanky body was numb with cold, and the freezing rain was starting to leak through his sou’wester. His late-night beat was dark, dismal, and depressing. It had never felt less like Christmas.
A thin, echoing wail forced him to break from his thoughts. The cry came from the tunnel at his back. Perhaps there was something trapped in one of the recesses of the dripping wall.
The constable stopped and listened. Suddenly the crying began anew, rising in pitch. He screwed up his eyes and stared into the gloom. He could just make out a bedraggled cat, sitting beside a bundle of coloured rags.
As he walked further into the tunnel the cat ran off, and he saw that the bundle was a small body.
PC Burridge placed his arms around the child to pick her up, wondering if his pleas for recognition had been perversely heard and from now on he would be known as the policeman who discovered Daisy Whitstable. He pressed his ear against the child’s thin chest and heard a faint heartbeat within. Wrapping her inside his jacket, he radioed for an ambulance, praying it would arrive in time.
? Seventy-Seven Clocks ?
26
Madwoman
All hell had broken loose at Mornington Crescent.
The press were doorstepping the building, and the phones were ringing off their hooks. All the papers wanted the Daisy Whitstable story. The child’s parents had been informed, and Isobel Whitstable was being treated for shock. It was eleven a.m., and Bryant had yet to make an appearance, leaving his partner to face the wrath of their acting superior.
“Where the hell was she all this time? Her clothes were bone-dry. Where had this nutcase kept her? She’s not been interfered with and seems to be in one piece, but she’s suffering from exposure. We won’t be allowed to talk to her for at least twenty-four hours.” Raymond Land flopped heavily on to the sofa and lit yet another Player’s Special. In the last few minutes the acting chief’s face had flowered with red blotches. “Why was she taken at all? Child kidnap motives are sexual, or for ransom. It makes no bloody sense. Do you realize how useless this makes us all look?”
“We can’t assume anything until forensic tests have been carried out on her clothes,” said May.
“Do we have any further information on the icecream van?”
“It seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. We’re searching all the contract garages and storage
