I nodded and shrugged as though cursing my own stupidity. «The signal! Of course!»
I rubbed my hands together and laughed lightly. What signal?
The impressive shape shifted on its feet. I patted my pockets as though the solution might be found in there. Why hadn’t I observed more closely when Charlie had stood in this position? Had he given a password of some kind? No, the doorman would have said so. It was a
The shape began to move towards me with some menace. I knew I would be put out on the wrong side of the door within seconds. A signal? Something to do with the Vesuvius Club. Something simple and recognizable.
Then a notion popped into my head. I took a chance and thrust my fingers up before his nose in a «V» shape.
He stopped his inexorable progress. I curved my hand and formed a «C» that I slapped against my palm as I had seen Charlie do. The creature stepped aside. «Have a very good evening, sir,» he growled.
«Thank you. I intend to.» I breathed with relief, moving swiftly past him and into the heaving chamber beyond.
The room was still what you might call a
My ragged appearance excited no comment and I proceeded to a couch, occupied solely by a mournful- looking youth with terrible acne. I sat down as far from him as possible and stuck out my long legs before me. He began at once to cast shy glances at my loveliness but I studiously ignored the hideous bugger, content instead to watch the activities of two splendidly naked ladies who were cavorting on the floor with their bums in the air.
A rough-looking waiter sauntered past with a tray of drinks and I grabbed him by his skinny wrist. He thrust a shot glass into my hand and moved off into the crowd. I turned back and discovered I was still under the scrutiny of the grisly youth perched at the other end of the sofa. I raised my glass and toasted him. His cheeks, angry with blemishes, burned redder still.
«I am Ricardo,» he mumbled.
«And I’m…» I threw him a pitying look. «I’m afraid you’re terribly ugly.»
His whole frame sank with shame.
«
I turned at the cry. It had come from a thickset fellow far to my left who was wiping beer from the wet stalactites of his moustache.
Venus! She had fetched up more respectably this time in a dress of dazzling crimson, one hand on her shapely hip, in the approved style, the other clutching a long amber cigarette-holder. She was exchanging gossip and laughter with her clientele, her kohl-rimmed eyes shining with mirth. Charlie had said she was the paramour of the villain who owned this place. Had she been complicit in lighting the lamp with its strange mauve poison or was she merely an unwilling pawn?
Either way, I had to hide. Without a second thought, I reached across the sofa, grabbed the spotted Dick by his tweedy lapels and pulled him to me.
«On the other hand,» I said, moving him round to screen me, «I’ve always had a penchant for ugly boys.»
Master Ricardo set to with a vengeance, his pinkish lips slapping against my mouth in a squid-like action that was most disagreeable. To my astonishment, an albino in a beret then toddled towards us as though the kiss had been some general call to arms. He began fiddling with my fly-button as my eyes goggled above the pitted curve of acne-boy’s cheek. As soon as Venus had moved away, I repelled all boarders with a disgusted cry, pushing young Ricardo to the filthy floor and kicking the albino in the solar plexus.
He flopped like a bag of wet washing and I stooped at once as though to help him, all the time keeping an eye on Venus as she made her halting progress through the chamber, wreathed in the bluish smoke of her cheroot.
At the end of the long, mirrored bar was a door inset with a frosted pane. Venus glided towards the door and then, glancing swiftly around, passed through into the darkness beyond.
I rolled the albino into a corner and then swiftly followed Venus, threading through knotted limbs conjoined in shameless excess. Turning the handle, I opened the door and slipped silently through.
The sudden quiet startled me. Torches sputtered in gold stanchions, revealing the curve of a broad corridor disappearing into gloom. I smiled to myself. Now this really was a secret tunnel!
I could hear the tat-tat of Venus’s elegant heels on the stone floor ahead. Pulling off my boots as quietly as I could and, clutching them to my chest, I followed her.
Padding along, I kept myself snug to the wall until I came to a branch in the tunnel. It continued to my left. To my right I could make out the top of a spiral stairwell. Only the first three of the worn stone steps were visible as they descended into darkness.
Unsure as to which route Venus had taken, my attention was momentarily caught by a heavy tapestry that was fixed to the brickwork. In the flickering torchlight, its threads leapt out in golds, reds and purples. It was clearly very old and seemed to show the broad sweep of a harbour, dominated by the great hulk of a black mountain. I moved closer. The weave was disintegrating but I could just make out that a pillar of smoke was escaping from the embroidered summit. Vesuvius!
15. Into the Crimson Chamber
THERE were footsteps in the tunnel. Caught in the open corridor, I rapidly rifled through my options. Only one. Lifting the edge of the tapestry, I tucked myself in behind it, and pressed myself flat against the wall which had a distinct curve I had not previously noted. I listened attentively as several pairs of feet passed by and began to descend the spiral stair, accompanied by a rustling sound.
As I stood with my back to the wall, I noticed a point of bright yellow light emerging just above my left shoulder. As soon as I was sure the passers-by had gone I turned around and put my eye to the hole in the crumbling mortar.
What I saw was a strange, circular room that, like everywhere else in that place, was the colour of flame. This time, however, the decoration actually imitated the pit of Hell or, more probably, the crater of a boiling volcano. Painted fire licked the round room, twisting into orange shapes like barley-sugar canes and merging into patterns of deep crimson lava.
The room was dominated by a massive round table with four ornately carved chairs set about it. In them had been placed straw figures, exactly like the one I had found in Professor Verdigris’s coffin.
The air seemed heavy with oily incense. Its foggy weight hung under the ceiling, swirling like a nest of serpents as it was disturbed by draughts from the crumbling walls.
As I watched, a yellow door opened and an extraordinary procession came in: three figures, resplendent in red velvet robes, decorated all over in blazes of gold and silver sunbursts. All three wore what looked like masks from the Venice Carnival, exquisitely rendered in similar hues, the cruel, snarling features picked out in white. Not for the first time in that bizarre place, I wished I’d had my sketchbook. Though this was, perhaps, a rare occasion where the Duce Tiepolo’s photographic apparatus might have been handier! Without it, who would believe such a sight? My thoughts dwelled on the Duce for a moment. Could he be the paramour of Venus? The organizing brain behind this whole enterprise?
One of the robed figures, slight in build, took up a gavel that lay at his right hand and rapped it on the table.
«I, Vesuvius, summon thee,» he said.
The next figure, altogether more imposing, bowed his head saying, «I, Stromboli, answer.» This could be Tiepolo. His build was similar.
The third, tall and thin, bowed too. «Etna answers thee,» he squeaked.
My eye widened as I pressed closer to the spy-hole.
Now I’ve been around a bit, as you can imagine, and I knew at once that this was more than a knocking shop’s AGM. Few go about their business in motley and even fewer adopt names stranger than «Mister Chairman» as their monikers.
