the hall. In less than two seconds I was alone. Calamity rushed back, grabbed my arm and dragged me to the cupboards where they stored the protective clothing and pulled me inside.
We stood in the dark cupboard and held our breath, listening intently to the sounds from outside. Footsteps approached. Stopped. The door was pushed slightly, teasingly. And then opened. It was Llunos. He made a soft gulping sound as he recognised us, his eyes jumping in their orbits. We smiled. He closed the door. Five minutes later, a piece of paper was slipped through. It said, 'Not you as well!'
Chapter 6
The death of one of the ventriloquists had shaken the others quite badly and some had agreed to talk. I was shown into a room upstairs at the Seaman's Mission in which sat two very old men, with fine wisps of white hair on their shiny pates, and old suits that had stayed the same size for years as they both gradually shrank. They were drinking tea and still chewing their breakfast with grizzled unshaven jowls and false teeth that suggested the necessary lip control to be a working vent was no more than a distant memory for them. They were twins, Bill and Ben.
'Few years ago he probably performed at their birthday parties,' said Ben. 'Their little faces glowing with excitement.'
'All pink and freshly scrubbed, their hair neatly combed and everyone smelling of vanilla,' said Bill. Then he turned to me again as if just remembering something.
'Are you sure the confrere spoke after Mr Marmalade was dead?'
'The what?'
'His confrere, Seсor Rodrigo.'
'You mean his dummy?'
'We never use that word, it's insulting. Are you sure he carried on speaking?'
'No, I'm not sure, I'm just saying that's how it seemed. It was probably the wind.'
'How could it be the wind, the wind doesn't speak Spanish!'
'No I know, but it's like -'
The old man stamped his foot in a strangely uncalled-for state of agitation. 'But that's a stupid thing to say, the wind goes: Woooooooaaahhh-ooooo ... !'
'Or: Phweeeeeeeeeee!' added Ben.
'Not like Spanish at all,' said Bill.
' OK, you win.' I raised my hands. 'It couldn't have been the wind.'
The two old-timers looked at each other with an air of intense earnest. Bill hissed the words, 'It's the Quietus! The Quietus!'
Ben punched his fist feebly into his palm. 'It's ... it's not possible, no it cannot be -'
'And yet it must ... this man has seen it ... with his own eyes!'
'Are we to believe a ... a ... an outsider ... one who has no love for the Art?'
'Must we reject him because of his obscurity?'
'But if... if... no it cannot be. Not to such a lowly one as ... as ... a private detective, who ever heard of such a thing?'
'And yet did not the Good Lord reveal himself to a mere shepherd?'
'If it is true we must put a call through to St Petersburg.'
'But we have to be sure, we have to be certain.'
They stopped their conference and turned to me. 'It is the Quietus.'
'I don't know what that is.'
'No, you wouldn't. If you did you wouldn't be here, you would be on the train to St Petersburg.'
'If I promise not to go to St Petersburg, will you tell me what it is?'
'The Dying Swan Quietus. It's a legend ... no! It's much more than that ... it's the elephants' graveyard of ventriloquism ... no! It's much more than that, more than that, it's ...'
His brother interjected. 'You know the trick they always do at kids' parties where the vent makes his confrere speak while he drinks a glass of milk?'
I nodded, 'I've seen it a couple of times.'
'It's like that, only you do it when you die. Like a dying swan. It's ... it's very sacred to us.'
'You get a prize if you report one.'
'But there's only ever been one. Enoch Ishmael in 1785. There was a plaque to him on the harbour wall for many years.'
'But the druids melted it down to spite us.'
'One day we are going to have a day-care centre and it will be called the Enoch Ishmael Day-Care Centre.'
The double-handed conversation had started to resemble a vaudeville act. I raised my hand. 'Whoa! Enough about the Quietus. I want to know about this man who shared the room with the monk, Dean Morgan.'
They stopped speaking and fidgeted. 'We ... we ... don't know about him.'
'Please, it's very important that I find him.'
'No, we don't know him. We've never heard of him.' Their faces became disfigured with disgust. 'He's not our friend, we hated him. Tell us about the Quietus ...'
I stood up, walked to the door and said, 'What Quietus? I didn't see any Quietus.'
Gretel turned up in the office later that afternoon, wearing a fawn Spanish inquisitor's cowl over her Mother Hubbard. Her face shone with the mild intoxication that comes from a day-trip to Gomorrah. She sat in the client's chair and spun round like a child before steadying herself by grabbing the edge of the desk. 'I can't stay long I've got a haunting tutorial at six.'
'Sure.'
'And I've got three pairs of pants on so don't even think of trying to take advantage of me.'
'And I bet they're really big pants, aren't they?'
She nodded. 'They were my gran's.'
'Ah well, just my luck. I'll have to ask you about Dean Morgan instead.'
'Have you found him yet?' she asked breezily, as if we were talking about a lost hamster.
'Funnily enough, no, I've been a bit slow this week. But I've found out a few things. It seems he only spent a couple of days at the Excelsior before checking out. According to the hotel detective he checked out in disguise.'
'What do you mean?'
'A new identity. He checked in as a professor and left as a ventriloquist.'
I said the word slowly and scrutinised Gretel's expression for any sort of reaction. Clients invariably know a lot more than they tell you.
'How strange. Are you sure it was him?'
I shook my head. 'No but I think the detective was telling the truth and he wouldn't have been mistaken, I doubt the Dean was very accomplished at the cloak-and-dagger stuff.'
'He must be in trouble, then.'
'It's a possibility. But not the only one. It's always possible he just wanted to let his hair down.'
'But he hasn't got any — well hardly any.'
'You know what I mean. Make whoopy.'
'Don't be daft!'
'People do it, you know, even in Lampeter. It's a quite popular pastime, drinking and carousing and ... and ... well, you know.'
She flushed, from anger or embarrassment. 'Yes I think I do. You're suggesting his disappearance might have something to do with a woman, aren't you!'
'It happens.'
'Not to Professor Morgan it doesn't! He's a respectable man.'
She was looking agitated. I made a submissive gesture with my hands. 'Try not to get upset and at least consider it. You get some starchy old fossil spending years in some creaky old college ...'
She shot up from her chair. 'That's it, I'm leaving!'
'What's wrong?'
