The Vesuvius Club

Charlie gave a sharp gasp and I turned on my heel.

«It’s all right,» he breathed, steadying himself. «Just didn’t expect that.»

He brought the torch-beam to bear on one of the vestibules where lay sprawled a complete skeleton, its arms flung wide, its jaw grotesquely open. The soft grey rock still swathed half of its carcass like a volcanic robe.

«Come on,» I urged.

We passed through the ancient changing rooms into a much larger chamber, supported by more of the Neptune columns and boasting a grand, domed roof. Within was a frankly fantastic sight.

One might have been forgiven for thinking some nouveau riche tradesman had decided to desert his aspidistra-stuffed environs and move into the old Roman fort down the road. Every inch of that great chamber was crammed with a weird combination of domestic contemporary furniture and looted ancient treasures. A headless nymph stood next to a huge armchair. Magnificent glassware shared table space with fruit bowls and a Napoleon-hat clock. The whole place was steeped in a curiously pellucid green light, as though the baths were still active.

At the far end of the room stood a huge fountain shaped like a round table with a raised edge to contain the forgotten water-stream. One great crack marred its flawless surface yet it had been altered by newer and stranger additions. Papers and charts were strewn across it, together with a quantity of queer-looking machinery. At the centre of the fountain a three-dimensional cut-away model of the volcano was hooked up to some sort of Wimshurst-device. Wires spilled from the stonework, and huge pipes had been erected against the walls. From these emanated the strange, wheezing whirring we had encountered on the surface.

Charlie stepped gingerly into the room, his mouth agape. He held up a hand towards the great fat pipes, then looked back towards me, smiling delightedly.

«Feel them, Mr Box!» he cried. «They’re warm.»

It was true. Whatever strange machinery had been erected here, it brought light and heat to the dead ruins.

«Quite something, ain’t it?» said Charlie.

A footstep. Then the voice, familiar to me yet strangely elusive.

«Isn’t it just?» said the voice from the shadows.

Both Charlie and I turned towards the sound.

Framed in the doorway stood a beautiful figure, resplendent in a crimson velvet gown. Her auburn hair was piled up and her dark-eyes lined with kohl as I had first seen them that night in the Vesuvius Club.

«Venus!» cried Charlie.

«Good evening, my dear,» I said mildly.

The gorgeous creature inclined her head slightly. «Charlie. Signor Box. Such a pleasure to meet you again,» she said gaily, clapping her hands together and advancing into the room. «Let us have wine! Despite the improvements, it is still chill down here and one feels the damp.» The Italian accent seemed to have gone west.

Venus strode to a fat-legged mahogany table and poured three glasses of wine rather carelessly.

«What’s going on, Venus?» said Charlie plaintively. «That fella of yours has gone too far this time. You’ve got to throw your lot in with us.»

Venus smiled. «He’s gone too far, has he, Charlie?»

She offered me a glass but I shook my head.

«We’ve supped, thanks,» I said curtly. «Now, if you come quietly, I swear I will do what I can for you.»

Venus paused with a crystal goblet of dark wine halfway to her lips and began to chuckle, her laugh filling the ancient room. «You will do what you can for me?» she roared. «Where? When?»

«At your trial,» I said evenly.

«My trial?»

«Yours and that of the villain you call your lover.»

«My dear sir, you are quite comical. For what should… we… stand trial?»

«For the attempted murders of Professors Sash, Verdigris and Quibble.»

«Pooh! They are alive! What have I done but give them a little trip abroad, gratis.»

«And for the abduction of Mrs Midsomer Knight.»

«Safe and well and here also.»

«Well then, for the murder of Jocelyn Poop of His Majesty’s Diplomatic.»

«Ah well,» said a new voice. «I’m afraid I must plead guilty to that one.»

A man walked into the room, also dressed in crimson robes, his face covered by one of the masks I had seen at the Vesuvius Club.

Venus took his hand and kissed it. He removed his mask with the other hand and smiled. «Good evening, Mr Box,» said Cretaceous Unmann, raising a pistol.

«I’ll take that drink now, if I may,» I said quietly.

I sank a goblet of wine in one draft. «Won’t you join me?» I asked Unmann, proffering a glass. «It’s really very fine.»

Unmann shook his head, a sly smile playing over his lips.

«Well then,» I said, «Perhaps you’d like to tell me what the blazes you’re doing burrowing beneath Pompeii and who it is that you’re both working for.»

Unmann smiled again and cocked an eyebrow at Venus. «Shall I explain?»

«No,» she replied. «Let us allow that honour to pass to the genius behind this whole scheme. A greater mind, even, than his sainted father who the world so cruelly wronged. Please say buonasera once more, Mr Box, to the man you know only as Signor Victor. Signor Victor Morraine!»

I turned instinctively, expecting to see the slim, striking young man from the funicular railway entering the cavern but there was no sign of anyone. I turned back when I heard a faint rustling sound.

Venus was untying her hair so that it fell in heavy, auburn loops about her neck. With a jerk of her hand, the hair flopped to the floor. A wig! She stared at me, grinning wildly, her dark, dark eyes ablaze with triumph, then hoisted up her crimson skirts, exposing bare, muscular legs and what we doctors call a cock and balls.

«Christ Almighty!» was all I had to say.

«Venus!» gasped Charlie. «You’re a boy!»

19. The Engines of Vulcan

AND so «she» was. The beautiful Venus was the youth I had been introduced to as Victor. But Victor Morraine! This was almost more extraordinary. The dazzling creature inclined his head and moved towards my manservant, skirts swishing over the cold stone floor. «Oh, Charlie. If only you had been true to me!»

The boy was staring at him, open-mouthed. Venus flopped down in the armchair. Unmann continued to cover Charlie and me with the pistol.

«I suppose it takes all sorts,» I said philosophically. «Really, Unmann, I can’t see what you can gain by helping this… person with whatever pathetic revenge he’s planning.»

Unmann laughed, no longer the silly ass. His composure was quite chilling. «You can have no conception of the scale of Venus’s ambition. But you’re right in one respect, Mr Box. It is revenge that he seeks.»

I twiddled the stem of the goblet between my fingers. «Do tell.» In my experience, that’s all it takes.

Venus’s eyes blazed. «Yes! I want revenge! Revenge on those treacherous men who earned their reputations from my father’s work yet had not the brains to complete it! Revenge against the woman who betrayed him and broke his fragile mind. They shall all suffer.»

I cocked my head to one side and waved a hand around me. «But this is all very elaborate, isn’t it? What exactly do you have in mind for this „suffering“?»

Venus’s face set into a hard mask as though he were gazing back through the years. «My father was a great man — a visionary. He lacked only the discipline to see his work through to its logical conclusion. Fortunately his