But then I expected Moon to recognize me at once, for the Somnambulist to shrink back in horror, for both of them to treat me with just a little bit of respect, as a formidable rival, an adversary to be feared. Instead they just gazed blankly at me as they might at some rank stranger accosting them for money on the street.
So I told them my real name.
I shan’t repeat it here. It’s a prosaic, everyday thing which does no justice to a man of my talent and ambition. You may continue to think of me (if you care to think of me at all) as the Reverend Doctor Tan.
The Somnambulist grinned in recognition, but still Moon looked none the wiser. The giant scribbled something down, and at long last the light of understanding flickered into Edward’s eyes.
SEWERS
Moon laughed — the despicable little man actually
“I’ve been trying to remember your name for months.” He chortled. “Even Mrs. Grossmith wasn’t able to recall it and she’s always had an excellent memory for nonentities.”
I think I said something then about the wisdom of Moon taking quite so antagonistic a tone with me when he was trapped in my underground lair, unarmed and entirely at my mercy.
He demanded an explanation, and as soon as I had recovered my composure, I did my best to answer. I told him that there is a hierarchy even amongst criminals, and that following the regrettable incident outlined above, I had become something of a standing joke amongst my peers. Artfully avoiding self-pity, pitching my tone perfectly between pathos and determination, I told them this: “I wearied of being the pettiest of petty crooks. I saw I had to improve myself. You might say I found religion.” I chuckled at this, thinking it an amusingly ironical quip. Charlotte smiled (dear girl) but the other two stood resolutely stony-faced.
“We’ve put our society out of joint, Mr. Moon. Here at Love we have a solution.”
“Tell us, then.” He yawned. “But don’t let’s take too long about it, there’s a good chap.” He spoke to me as one might to a child, and though I bristled at his manner I chose for the time being to let his impertinence slide.
“You’re a part of it,” I said carefully. “I summoned you here for a reason.”
“I came here of my own volition. You had nothing to do with it.”
I confess I was unable to restrain a squeal of delight at his ignorance (though I think I was able to disguise the sound as a light cough). “No, no,” I corrected him softly. “
Three people were waiting by the balcony door for their cue. I beckoned them in.
Mr. Clemence. Mrs. Honeyman. Thomas Cribb.
“I laid down the clues, Edward, and you followed them just as I knew you would.”
Something like fear flickered across his face as the final pieces of the puzzle were pressed into place. I cannot be certain whether it was at this moment that Moon realized the sheer scale of the trap into which he had been expertly led. Certainly he seemed deliciously broken, and as I watched him come to grips with the parameters of his failure I found it almost impossible not to laugh.
Despite what you might think, I am not entirely devoid of compassion. Moon had experienced a considerable shock, and even the Somnambulist — he of the granite face, the Easter Island visage — now wore a look of stunned surprise at my casual revelations.
Dismissing Cribb, Charlotte and the rest, I led my guests to my modest private rooms where I offered them food and drink and promised that when they were ready I would explain it all. The Somnambulist was manifestly grateful for the food, but Moon, rather churlishly, declined. He pushed aside his plate and announced, rather petulantly: “I have questions.”
“What we’re building here,” I said, “is the future. A new community inspired by the dream of Pantisocracy.”
“Why does this dream necessitate murder?”
“My conscience is quite clear. What I do, I do for the poor and the abandoned in this great city of ours, for the indigent who exist at the very precipice of society, forced there by circumstances not of their own making. “The ‘edge-people’, if you like, life’s marginalia, footnotes in flesh and blood. The meek, Mr. Moon — the meek who will inherit the earth.”
“Men like Speight.”
“Precisely so.”
He sounded angry. “The Speight I saw last week was not the man I knew.”
I tried to make him understand. “He’s changed. He’s found a better way to live.”
“Whatever you did to him, you’ve done to my sister.”
“She came to us willingly. When she realized that she had spent her life in darkness, Love led her into the light. All we desire is to live our lives according to Pantisocratic principles. And we’re very close to achieving our dream. How many men in history have been able to say as much? We’re going to build Paradise on Earth, Mr. Moon. Why do you persist in opposing us?”
“Because you have murdered and cheated and corrupted. Because you are a twisted failure deluded into thinking you can recreate the world in your image.”
I smarted a little at these harsh words and Moon pressed home his momentary advantage. “You had Barabbas killed.”
“We asked him to join us.”
“Join you? What place does a killer have in Paradise?”
“You never believed him to be irredeemable. Neither did we.”
“But he refused?”
“It seems he was happy to die in the dark.”
“And Meyrick Owsley?”
“Meyrick was placed there to watch over him. Barabbas knew a great deal about our operation.”
“Is that why you had him killed?”
“It wasn’t that he was telling you the truth. It was the speed at which he was doing it. I must admit to being surprised,” I said, “that you haven’t asked me about Cyril Honeyman. It was his death, after all, which first set you on this path.”
Moon glared resentfully at me.
“No theories?” I asked lightly. “No elegant suppositions? No brilliant deductions pulled out of the hat at the last moment?”
He all but shouted, “Tell me!”
“It was a hook, Edward. A wicked, grotesque crime which was bound to attract your attention. A piece of theatre we knew you couldn’t resist. As a means of drawing you to us it could scarcely fail.”
“Are you saying all this was for me? A set-up?”
“Essentially, yes, that’s true.”
“Men have died,” Moon spat, “so that we can have this idle conversation?”
“There’s no need to be quite so self-centered. Mrs. Honeyman and Mrs. Dunbar had little love for their feckless sons. They wanted those blights on their lives removed, lopped off as harmlessly as one might an unsightly mole. I think they rather enjoyed the experience.”
“Mrs. Honeyman. Mrs. Dunbar. Hardly edge-people, are they?”
“I confess, there have been times when Love has not been entirely solvent. We needed money. They were useful assets.”
“Were?”
“They’re not fit to enter Paradise,” I admitted quietly.
“And the Fly? Why him?”
“The kind of deliriously improbable touch I thought might appeal to you. How were we to know you’d kill him?”
“So you have me here at last. What do you want? Has this just been about my humiliation?”
“Oh, I shan’t say I haven’t enjoyed it. But this is about more than revenge.”
“What do you want?”
