It was settled. He was Ashbless.
And it wouldn’t be dull—for one thing, there were some pieces of the story he would be interested to watch unfold. Where, for example, is Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy, my wife to be? I’ll presently tell Bailey that I first met her way back in September of last year. I wonder why I’ll say that. And of course the final question is: who is it that will meet me in the Woolwich marshes on the twelfth of April in 1846, stab me through the stomach and leave my body to be found more than a month later? And how in hell will I make myself keep that appointment?
The cab had slanted to the right, past the Old Bailey onto Fleet Street, and now drew to a stop at number 32, a narrow, pleasant-looking building with lights glowing behind the curtains. Ashbless stepped down, paid the driver, and as the cab clopped and jingled away into the night he took a deep breath, glanced up and down the street—noticing a beggar boy slouching in his direction—and then knocked on the door.
After a few moments there was the snap of a bolt being drawn back and the door was opened by a sandy-haired man with a glass in his hand; and in spite of the haircut, beard-trim and respectable clothes that Ashbless had spent most of his three pounds on, the man stepped back uncertainly when he got a look at the huge bronzed visitor.
“Uh… yes?” he said.
“My name is Ashbless. Are you John Murray?”
“Oh? Yes, yes, do come in. Yes, I’m Murray. You gave me a start—if there is such a thing as a typical poet, sir, may I say you don’t look anything like him. Would you care for a glass of port?”
“I’d love it.” Ashbless stepped into the entry hall and waited white Murray re-bolted the door.
“There’s a beggar boy been hanging round out front,” Murray explained apologetically. “Tried to sneak in earlier.” He straightened, had a gulp of his port and then gingerly stepped past his guest. “Right this way. I’m glad you were able to come—we’re lucky enough to have Samuel Coleridge with us this evening.”
Ashbless grinned and followed. “I knew we would.”
* * *
Jacky had timidly started forward when she saw the stranger climb out of the cab, but before she could think of what to say, the man had knocked and been admitted into the house by that ill-tempered Murray. She walked back to the lightless recessed doorway she’d been crouching in during the past hour.
That’s certainly the man Brendan Doyle described, she thought. Murray wasn’t just talking through his hat to that Times columnist when he said he had reason to believe that the controversial new poet William Ashbless would be a guest at his Monday night gathering.
So how do I get to talk to the man? she wondered. I owe poor old Brendan Doyle that much—to convey the sad news of his death to this friend of his. I guess I’ll just have to wait here until he comes out, and then catch him before he can get into a cab.
Though Jacky hadn’t slept since killing Dundee—and, by extension, Dog-Face Joe—two nights ago, she’d begun having hallucinations, as if her dreams were impatient to get at her. Huge shadows seemed to rush toward her, but after she flinched away there’d be nothing there; and she kept hearing… not the sound, not even the echo, but a sort of after reverberation in the air of a vast iron door slamming down over the sky. It hadn’t begun yet, for it was still early in the evening, but she was wearily certain that in a few hours she’d begin to wonder why it wasn’t dawn yet… and long before five o’clock the uneasy wondering would deepen to a panicked conviction that something really had shut down over the sky, and she’d never again see the sun.
She’d once visited the Magdalen Hospital for insane women—”Maudlin,” as it was known in the streets—and she had vowed to kill herself rather than be committed there, if the options should ever become as narrow as that.
Tonight she was pretty sure they’d become that narrow.
Her only remaining intentions were to meet Ashbless, break to him the news about Doyle, and then do The Admirable’s Dive, swim out to the middle of the Thames and empty her lungs and sink to the bottom.
She shivered—for it had just occurred to her that subjectively her fears were justified: for her there wouldn’t be any dawn.
* * *
As far as the professional purposes of the gathering went, Coleridge and Ashbless were disappointments to Murray. When the publisher strolled over to the corner of the book-lined room where the two of them were talking, and managed first to enter the conversation and then to change the subject to a proposal of publication for each of them, neither one looked eager; which puzzled Murray, for Coleridge was in financial ruin, his family having to be supported on the charity of friends, and Ashbless was a raw novice who ought to have been delighted at the prospect of getting such a good publisher so quickly.
“A translation of Goethe’s Faust?” said Coleridge doubtfully. When his attention had been distracted from the subject he and Ashbless were discussing, the animation had left his face, and now he looked old and ill again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Though Goethe is a genius whose work—especially that work—it would be a privilege and a challenge to translate, I’m afraid that my own philosophy is so much… at odds with his that such an undertaking would… compromise us both. I do have many essays… “
“Yes,” said Murray, “we’ll certainly have to discuss publication of your essays sometime. But what do you think, Mr. Ashbless, of the idea of publishing a volume of your own verse?”
“Well,” Ashbless began. You can’t, Murray, he thought helplessly, for it happens that Ashbless’ first book will be published by Cawthorn this May. Sorry—but that’s history for you. “At the moment,” he said, “the ‘Twelve Hours’ is all I have. Let’s wait and see if I manage to write any others.”
Murray forced a smile. “Right. Though I may not have a space in my schedule when you’re ready. You gentlemen will excuse me?” He returned to the group by the table.
“I’m afraid I shall really have to be excused as well,” said Coleridge, putting down his scarcely tasted glass of port and massaging his gray forehead. “I feel one of my headaches coming on, and they make dull company of me. The walk home may even cure it.”
“Why not take a cab?” Ashbless asked, walking with him toward the door.
“Oh… I like to walk,” Coleridge answered, a little shamefacedly, and Ashbless realized that the man didn’t have cab fare.
“Tell you what,” Ashbless said casually. “I’ve about had my fill here, and I don’t particularly like walking. Perhaps I could give you a lift.”
Coleridge brightened, then asked cautiously, “But in which direction are you going?”
“Oh,” Ashbless said with a careless wave, “I’m heading in all directions. Where are you staying?”
“Hudson’s Hotel, in Covent Garden. If it isn’t an inconvenience … “
“Not at all. I’ll go make excuses to Mr. Murray, and fetch our hats and coats.”
A few minutes later they were being let out the front door, and Murray leaned out and scowled at the vagrant lad who was still loitering a few doors away.
“Thank you, Mr. Ashbless, for seeing our friend home.”
“It’s no trouble—and I believe I see a cab now. Hey! Taxi?”
The cab driver didn’t understand the call, but the waving arm was a clear enough summons. He slanted his vehicle in toward them and Murray bade them goodnight, closed the door and re-bolted it.
The cab had just rocked to a halt when there came a cry of, “Mr. Ashbless! Wait a moment!” and the ragged boy came dashing up.
My God, thought Ashbless as the boy’s face was lit for a moment by the street lamp, it’s Jacky. He’s shorter than he used to be; no, that’s right, I’m taller. “Yes?”
Jacky stopped in front of them. “Excuse me for interrupting,” she panted, “but I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about a friend we have in common.”
Ashbless stared at Jacky in the light from the curtained window at his back. The months have dealt harshl
y with him, Ashbless thought. The kid looks starved and exhausted and … somehow, in spite of those things, even a trifle more effeminate than he used to. Poor devil.
“I really think,” said Coleridge awkwardly, “that a walk would be restorative. I—”
“No,” protested Ashbless. “This damp fog would do you no good, and I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on the Logos. I’m sure this lad—”
“Does anybody want the bloody cab?” called the driver, twitching his whip impatiently.
“Yeah, let’s all three hop in,” said Ashbless, opening the door. “And maybe after we see Mr. Coleridge home, young man, you’ll let me buy you some dinner.”
“I’ll ride along,” said Jacky, scrambling in, “but I’ll have to … decline your kind offer of dinner. I’ve got… an appointment on the river to keep.”
“Don’t we all?” grinned Ashbless, helping Coleridge in and then climbing in himself. “Driver! Hudson’s Hotel, please, Covent Garden!” He slammed the door and the overloaded cab lurched back out into traffic.
The carriage that Jacky had seen waiting near Murray’s got under way too, following the cab at a distance of a dozen yards, though not even the cab driver noticed it.
“So what friend and what bad news?” asked Ashbless, who had wedged his tall frame into the corner by the port window.
“You… knew a man named Brendan Doyle, I think,” said Jacky.
Ashbless raised his eyebrows. “Knew him pretty damn well, yes. Why?”
“He’s dead. I’m sorry. I knew him myself, briefly, and I liked him. He was trying to find you before he died—he thought you’d help him, and you do seem to be as generous as he said. You just… arrived too late.” There was real grief in Jacky’s voice.
The cab halted at the Chancery Lane intersection, and Jacky reached for the door handle. “I’d better leave. This isn’t getting me any closer to the river. Good to have met you both.”
Alarmed by the flatness of Jacky’s voice, and suddenly guessing the nature of the river appointment, Ashbless closed his hand firmly over Jacky’s and held the door shut. “Wait.”
The driver seemed to be having some difficulty getting the cab going again—it sounded as if he jumped to the pavement and punched the horse—but eventually they got moving again, and Ashbless released Jacky’s hand.
“He’s not dead, Jacky,” he said quietly. “Later I’ll tell you how I know—right now just take my word for it. And I don’t care if you saw his corpse. As you know,” and Ashbless winked, “there are cases where that’s not conclusive evidence.” Jacky’s eyes widened with comprehension, and Ashbless smiled and sat back as much as he could. “In any case! Mr. Coleridge and I were discussing the concept of the Logos. What are your thoughts on the subject?”
It was Coleridge’s turn to raise his eyebrows in surprise at asking a grimy street urchin such a question; and his eyebrows climbed even higher when Jacky answered.
“Well,” said Jacky, not too disconcerted by the conversational change of gears, “it seems to me that there’s something about the Logos, as defined by St. John, that parallels Plato’s idea of absolutes: the eternal, constant forms that material things are sort of imperfect copies of. Some of the pre-Socratic philosophers, in fact—”
She was interrupted by a fist abruptly poking in through the open window and pressing the muzzle of a pistol against her upper lip. She could feel the coldness of the metal right through her false moustache. Another arm had snaked in through the other window at the same moment and was holding a pistol against Ashbless’ eye.
“No one moves,” said a harsh voice, and a lean, squinting face grinned in at them through Jacky’s window. “‘Ello, Squire,” he said to Ashbless, who was too jammed in to make a move even if he could think of one. “Not gonna be pitchin’ anybody through a winder this time, eh? ‘Pologize to break in on yer pretty talk, but we’re takin’ a detour—to Rat’s Castle.”
To his own surprise, Ashbless realized that his breathless feeling was as much elation as it was fear. By God, he thought, you never know when you’ll come across a chapter Bailey missed. “I’m pretty sure it’s me you want,” he said carefully, blinking against the muzzle. “Let these two go and I’ll promise to go quiet.”
“Yer fair makin’ me weep with yer heroicals, sport.” The man poked lightly with the gun, rocking Ashbless’ head back. “Now shut the hole, eh?”
The cab made a right turn onto Drury Lane, and though the new driver almost had the starboard wheel spinning in midair as he wrenched the vehicle around the corner, the two men crouching outside on the step bars never flinched or lowered their guns.
“I’m not sure I follow this,” said Coleridge, who had shut his eyes and was rubbing his temples. “Are we to be robbed, or killed? Or both?”
“Probably both,” said Jacky evenly, “though I think their boss would be more interested in stealing your soul than your purse.”
“They can’t steal that unless you’ve lost it already,” said Coleridge calmly. “Perhaps the time would be best spent if each of us… shored up his claim to possession of one.” He composed his pudgy features into a placid blankness and let his hands fall into his lap.
The cab paused at Broad Street, then moved rapidly across. The clatter and jingle of the cab sounded louder now, for the lane was much narrower north of Broad Street.
After a few moments Jacky sniffed. “We’re in the St. Giles rookery, sure enough,” she muttered jerkily, as though she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. “I can smell the trash fires.”
“The man said shut up,” her guard reminded her, giving her a poke in the moustache. She obediently remained silent, afraid that another such would knock the thing off.
At last the cab halted and the two armed hijackers hopped down and opened the doors. “Out,” said one of them.
The three passengers unbent themselves from the cramped interior and climbed out. Coleridge promptly sat down on the step bar, held his head and moaned; evidently the headache was getting worse. Ashbless glanced bleakly up at the huge, ragged building they’d arrived at.
Partially brick—brick in every degree of size, shade and age—and half-timbered, the structure was linked to the dark bulks of other buildings at every level by flimsy bridges and ratlines, and was pierced by windows in such an uneven pattern that they couldn’t, it seemed to him, reflect the arrangement of floors inside. Jacky just stared down at the wet mud between her boots, and breathed deeply.
Len Carrington hurried out of the well-lighted open doorway and surveyed the scene. “All go smoothly?” he asked the driver, who was still perched up on the bench.
“Aye. By yer leave I’ll take this back to Fleet Street before the real cabbie can report it missing.” “Right. Go.”
The whip snapped and the cab rolled forward, for there was no room to turn it around. Carrington stared at the captives. “That’s our man,” he said, pointing at Ashbless, “and that’s… what was the name, haven’t seen him in a while… Jacky Snapp!—whose involvement in this I’ll want explained… but who’s the sick old bastard?”
The hijackers shrugged, so Ashbless said quietly, “He’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a very famous writer, and you’ll be buying more trouble than you can afford if you kill him.”
“Don’t tell us what we—” began one of the hijackers, but Carrington shut him up with a wave.
“Get ‘em all inside,” he said. “And quickly—the police have been known to come this deep into the rookery.”
The captives were marched at gunpoint into the large front room, and for the first time that night Ashbless felt the icy emptiness and despairing inner wail of real fear, for Doctor Romanelli was there, reclining in some sort of wheeled crib and staring at him with wrathful recognition.
“Bind him,” the sorcerer croaked, “and take him downstairs to the hospital. Hurry.” The St. Elmo’s fire was flickering wildly now, and popped every time he pronounced a hard consonant.
Ashbles
s leaped at the man to his right and with the whole weight and strength of his body punched him in the throat; the man went straight over backward and his reflexive shot exploded the face of the clock on the wall. Ashbless had just gotten his balance back and was about to whirl and grab Jacky and Coleridge when his left leg was abruptly slammed out from under him and he landed awkwardly on the floor.
The scene stopped being a moving mix of impressions for him, and he could only perceive things one at a time: his new trousers had a gaping, blood-wet hole blown out in the left knee; his ears were ringing from the bang of a second gunshot; blood, and bits of bloody cloth and bone, were spattered on the wall and floor in front of him; his left leg, which was extended straight out in front of him, was bent sideways at the knee.
“I still want you to bind him,” rasped Romanelli. “And put a tourniquet on his thigh—I want him to last a while.”
Ashbless lost consciousness when Carrington and the gunman grabbed him under the arms and yanked him upright.
* * *
Three minutes later the room was empty except for Coleridge, who was sitting pale-faced in Horrabin’s swing with his eyes closed, and one of Carrington’s men, a rat-faced young man named Jenkin who was embarrassed at having been posted as guard over such a harmless old fellow. Jenkin looked around the room curiously, noting the fresh blood puddle and the shattered clock, and wondered exactly what had happened here before Carrington had called him in. He’d seen three people being taken out of the room as he hurried in, and only one of them was walking, but everything had seemed to be under control; Jenkin had thought when he heard the two shots that it was the start of the mutiny, but evidently that would have to wait for a bit.
He started violently when he heard a step in the hall, and then sighed with relief to see Carrington enter the room.