Startled, Mackenzie-Cooper snatched the pot away, clumsily spilling a good deal of its contents in the process.
“Velly sorry, sah,” he muttered, frantically searching his pockets for something to mop up the mess. “Velly sorry.”
“No need to get yourself the up about it. It was an accident.”
At last Mackenzie-Cooper produced a dishcloth, but as he reached across to clean up the tea, he succeeded in toppling his superior’s wineglass. Dedlock cursed as rivulets of tea and wine ran across the table and Niagaraed onto the floor.
“Sorry, sah. Sorry, sah.” Beneath his greasepaint and disguise, Mackenzie-Cooper had begun to sweat.
Dedlock started to clear away the spillage, but barely had he begun before he observed a most curious effect. As the wine and tea combined and intermingled on the table before him, the liquids seemed first to bubble, then to steam and stew in some unnatural reaction.
Mackenzie-Cooper saw it, too. For an instant, they stared open-mouthed at each other, the one astonished that he had been found out by so petty an accident, the other trying desperately to understand the precise nature of what had occurred.
With a Greek-wedding clatter, Mackenzie-Cooper threw the teapot to the floor, its china splintering expensively, and ran at full pelt for the exit. Dedlock bounded to his feet (with surprising athleticism for a man of his age) and raced after him, an unexpected blur of motion. Mackenzie-Cooper yelped in fear. Just before he reached the door, the older man rugby-tackled him, hurling his quarry to the ground, pinning the interloper to the floor.
“Why?” he snarled. Mackenzie-Cooper said nothing, his eyes darting about him in fear. Dedlock slapped his face hard. “Why?” he asked again, and the man looked as though he might be about to cry. Another slap. “Why?”
At this, Mackenzie-Cooper began to contort his face, gurgling, dribbling like a teething infant. Dedlock looked on. “What now?”
By the time he realized what was happening it was too late. Mackenzie-Cooper screwed up his face again, swallowed something, then shuddered and convulsed, his face turning a mottled purple, white foam bubbling at his mouth. Seconds later, his body seemed to crumple in upon itself and he spasmed a few times before falling still. Dedlock screamed his frustration. Flinging the corpse aside, he staggered to his feet.
“Cyanide capsule,” he explained (superfluously, in Skimpole’s opinion). He reached across to the spilt tea, dabbed a finger in the pool and smelt it carefully. “There was enough poison in that pot to kill us both. How much did you drink?”
Skimpole lied. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” the albino said, too quickly. “I drank nothing.”
Dedlock nodded vaguely.
Skimpole gazed down at the twisted body on the floor. “Thought you told me he went to Oxford.”
Dedlock bent over the body and rugged away the man’s disguise to reveal not the callow Oriel alumnus they had expected, but a bald, middle-aged stranger, lugubrious-looking, ill and wasted. “Somehow I doubt he’s an Eton man,” he said.
You may be interested to learn that the real Mackenzie-Cooper — a genuine, amiable old Etonian with far too trusting a nature ever to have enjoyed much success as an agent of the Directorate — was found three days later locked in a bathroom in one of the most squalid of the city’s lodging houses, half his head caved in and a look of abject terror on his face. No happy ending, then, for him.
“Who is this?”
“You don’t recognize him?” Skimpole asked, surprised.
“Enlighten me.”
“Declan Slattery. Formerly a Fenian agent till he went independent a few years back. Bit of a legend in the field. Past his best now, of course. Gone to seed. This must be the first time anyone’s hired him in ages.”
“But who?” Dedlock asked. “Who would want us dead?”
Skimpole shrugged. “Could be a long list.”
The Church of the Summer Kingdom was run out of a small third-floor office in Covent Garden which smelt strongly of dust and halitosis. On their arrival, Merryweather, Moon and the Somnambulist were met by a man whose bluff, ruddy-faced looks seemed to owe more to the taproom than the pulpit.
“Donald McDonald,” he said, sticking out a meaty paw and adding with a twinkle: “Me mother had a sense of humor.”
Moon shot him a disdainful look and he withdrew his hand unshaken.
“What’s this about, gentlemen?”
“We’d like to talk to you about one of your flock,” Merryweather said. “A Mrs. Honeyman.”
“I’m so glad someone’s finally doing something. We’re awfully worried here. I’ve been absolutely frantic.”
The inspector took a notepad from his pocket. “How often did you see her?”
“She was one of our most devout members. One of the cornerstones, you might say, a bedrock of our little church.”
“Forgive me for asking” — Merryweather scribbled frantically — “but what is the exact nature of your association with the church?”
“Oh, I’m nothing special,” McDonald said, his modesty unconvincing. “I do a little lay preaching… help out where I can… assist our pastor in his good works.”
“And who is he?”
“It’s him you should be talking to by rights. Our leader, sir. Our shepherd. The Reverend Doctor Tan.”
Merryweather dutifully wrote down the name. “May we speak to this Tan?”
“He’s out of the city at present. I’m a poor substitute, I know, but you’ll have to make do. Normally we’re so much tidier than this.”
Merryweather saw the thick layer of dust blanketing the place and tactfully decided not to comment. “Where is your church, sir? Surely you can’t take services here.”
“Oh.” McDonald sounded vaguely irritated by the question. “We worship… nearby.”
Growing tired of the seesaw of their conversation, Moon had begun to examine the room for himself, nosing about the cupboards, shelves and bookcases, openly curious, brazen in his rummagings. A crucifix hung above the door; below it was a discreet plaque depicting a black, five-petaled flower. Printed beside it were the words “If a man could walk through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and found that flower in his hand when he awoke — what then?”
Donald McDonald wandered across. “I see you’ve found our motto.”
“Motto? I’m afraid I don’t see the relevance.”
“Paradise, Mr. Moon. Elysium. The condition to which we all aspire.”
“This isn’t scripture.”
“S. T. Coleridge. The Reverend Doctor’s a great admirer. Our church reveres him and his work.”
“Coleridge?” Moon was incredulous. “Might I ask what kind of church venerates a secular poet?”
McDonald simpered. “No doubt you find that strange. Many do. Though I can assure you that anyone who spends time amongst us soon comes to appreciate our point of view.”
“The flower beneath the crucifix,” Merryweather asked, trying to wriggle back into the conversation. “What does that represent?”
“A motif we’ve appropriated from Greek mythology.” Donald McDonald summoned up a faraway look. “The immortal flower which blooms in Paradise for poets —
“What’s the point of this?” Moon spat. “What is it you people do?”
“We’re missionaries.”
“Missionaries? In Covent Garden?”
“The Reverend Doctor sees no reason to travel out of England when there is so much spiritual poverty, so
