“Why, Edward.” I smiled. “I want you to join us.”
Mrs. Grossmith (soon to be Mrs. Barge) woke suddenly just before dawn with no immediate idea of why she had done so. The room was silent, though she could hear the birds in the garden trilling their perennial songs, their avian arias, their feathered canticles and hymns. For much of her life, Grossmith had wondered precisely what it was they had to be so cheerful about first thing in the morning. Since meeting Arthur she finally knew. A small sigh of pleasure escaped her at the thought of him, something between a conscious snore and a moan of satisfaction. She reached out her hand to touch him but found only empty bed-sheets, still warm but distressingly devoid of fiance. “Arthur?”
Now, if you’ve any Victorian qualms about a loving couple sharing a bed out of wedlock then I trust you’ll keep them to yourself. I’ve no truck with such antiquated prudery and I can assure you that in the new state of Pantisocracy there’ll be no place for your morality. The repressive codes of our parents and grandparents will be swept away to be replaced with something far more organic, more beautiful and true. Liberated from the cages society has constructed for itself with such self-defeating ingenuity, human nature will flourish and prosper. In the new age, we shall all be as Emmeline Grossmith and Arthur Barge.
The housekeeper felt uneasy at her lover’s absence. She sensed the first faint intimation that the day ahead was about to go horribly wrong, and all at once the merry chirping at the birdbath ceased to seem quite so inspirational. She sat up in bed, pushed the pillows behind her and brushed from her eyes that hard, flaky substance which accumulates during sleep. Unable to resist, she deposited a crumb of the stuff in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, although, unusually, this ritual failed to improve her mood. She called again. “Arthur?”
The door to the bedroom opened and her fiance appeared, scrubbed, clean-shaven and fully dressed. “Yes, my dove, my angel?”
“It’s early. What are you doing?”
“Did I wake you?”
“Arthur, I’m worried.”
“No need, my dear. I’m just going out for an hour or so. There’s a little matter requiring my attention. A chore I’ve been putting off. Nothing for you to concern yourself over.”
The cool, deliberate manner with which he said it, the studied nonchalance of his tone, immediately convinced her that the reverse was true — that whatever the love of her life was getting up so early for was something she should worry over and, more than that, that it was worth getting frightened about.
Barge wandered over to the bed, sat down beside her and stroked her cheek. “Go back to sleep. I shan’t be long. And I’ll have a surprise for you when I come back.”
“A surprise?”
He put a finger to his lips. “Wait and see.”
Mrs. Grossmith allowed herself to be soothed and reassured, and for a time she was even able to ignore that persistent sense of imminent catastrophe.. Arthur left to carry out his mysterious errand and she retreated back under the bedclothes to let sleep wash over her. As she dozed, she dreamt, and her dreams were restless and black.
Bad enough that dear lady should suffer nightmares at all — worse still that their vague, amorphous horror should be eclipsed upon her waking by terrors of the real world.
Arthur Barge hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take him to Piccadilly Circus. His errand had long been delayed — a reprehensible lapse in a man who had always prided himself on his professionalism and timekeeping.
Once in Piccadilly, Barge stopped the cab and stepped out onto the street. The object of his errand did not lie there, of course, but he had no wish to give the driver an exact address. He passed his fare up to the cabbie and, as he did so, turned his face away. It wouldn’t do for the man to be able to identify him later.
He stepped away from the cab, waited until it had driven out of sight, then set off toward St. James’s Park. It was early morning, just light, and the streets were largely empty, save for those unfortunates who spent their evenings crumpled in the doorways and gutters of our metropolis. Barge strode past them all without a second glance — understandable enough, given the ubiquity of such sights, but it’s worth noting, perhaps, that these things would never occur in a Pantisocratic state.
Barge reached the borders of St. James’s Park, headed down a narrow avenue just off Pall Mall and paused before a modest house situated halfway along the street. The plaque hanging by the doorbell read:
THE SURVIVORS’ CLUB
STRICTLY MEMBERS ONLY
Needless to say, Barge was not a member.
He pulled a spindly metal tool from his jacket pocket, a thin, delicate thing bristling with sharp, serrated edges. With the stealthy ease of a man who has performed the action many times before, he inserted the instrument into the keyhole, turning it first one way and then the other until the lock sprang open with a solid clunk. As quietly as he could, he pulled the door open and crept inside.
He edged his way down the corridor. Ahead of him lay the Smoking Room, out of which emanated a stream of ear-shattering snores and wheezes. Barge peered inside to see an old man asleep in one of the armchairs, yesterday’s
Barge turned away and moved toward the end of the corridor where he knew Mr. Dedlock’s quarters to be situated. He had been observing the club for weeks, eventually coming to the conclusion that membership must be restricted to the very oddest men in London. Everyone he had seen entering or leaving the premises looked like an escaped detail from a painting by Hogarth, barely three-dimensional, so grotesque they were scarcely believable. Once he had glimpsed Dedlock himself, strutting naked around the Smoking Room. That he appeared to be the most normal person present spoke volumes for his fellow members.
Barge tried the handle to Dedlock’s room — stupidly left unlocked, it opened easily. The joint chief of the Directorate lay prone on his bed, sweating, turning, mumbling in his sleep. The bed stood close to a large bay window, its curtains billowing suggestively in the early-morning breeze. Bed-sheets were strewn over his naked form and his thick white chest-scars were visible even in the gloom.
As Barge walked over to the bed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a surgeon’s knife. Nonchalant as a dentist about to commence his dozenth examination of the day, he leant over the victim.
In the course of his career, Arthur Barge had killed thirty-four men, thirteen women and two children (twins). During this time he had cultivated certain habits and superstitious rituals, chief amongst which was the fact that he always liked to look into the eyes of his victims before he slit their life away. It made it more real, somehow, gave it a certain tangy flavor.
With his free hand, he shook Dedlock awake. The man’s eyes flickered open. Bleary and befuddled, he started to struggle up only to be pushed easily back down again. Thrashing about frantically, he tried to call out, but the jug-eared man brought up his knife. Then, like a cow docile before its slaughterer, prescient of the inevitability of the blade, Dedlock fell still. Barge pushed the knife up against his target’s throat and was looking forward to increasing his tally — wondering how many more there would be before he finally retired — when, amid an apocalyptic smashing of glass, something burst through the window.
Or rather two things.
Once they had disentangled themselves from the curtain, idly brushing shards of glass from their clothes, two deeply improbable figures stepped into the room.
“Hullo, sir.”
“What ho, Arthur!”
Barge dropped his knife in shock. Dedlock struggled upright in bed, gasping for breath, suddenly hopeful that he might yet live.
Barge stared at the two intruders, too stupefied at first to speak. “Who are you?” he managed at last.
“I’m Hawker, sir. He’s Boon.”
The Prefects grinned as one.
“Evening, Mr. Dedlock. Beastly sorry to drop in on you like this.”
Dedlock hugged a stray pillow for comfort. “Did… did the albino send you?”
