The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (30 page)

‘Is that a fez?’ I asked him.

‘No,’ said Mr Rune and he raised a fat finger. ‘Before you commence with the talking of toot, speak to me and tell me what transpired.’ And he placed a drink in my hand, for somehow I no longer had my own.

‘I was here,’ I said, ‘in this library, with Lord Jeffrey Primark. And he was ranting on about him, The Man, the Foredown Man, he said, who was going to kill him and everyone else. And all manner of other stuff about Great Old Ones and Minds Outside Of Time and this house being built upon a Celtic burial ground.’ The Fifth Earl made groaning sounds when I mentioned this. ‘And then the room became impossibly cold and he froze and this lead pipe swung down and—’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Have to stop you there. You did say lead pipe, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘It swung down and—’

Mr Rune raised his stout stick to me. ‘Buffoon,’ he said. ‘Colonel Mustard, was it?’

‘That is what I think,’ I said.

‘And the corpse?’

‘Well, it is …’ And I beheld. And there was no corpse. Indeed, no trace whatsoever of a corpse, which there most surely would have been had one been there, because for one thing the room was now at room temperature
^*
again, and the frozen fragments would have thawed into gooey gobbets.

And the stains they make can be a right blighter to get out of a carpet, even if you use white wine (at room temperature, probably), salt, or even molasses, which in my opinion is a very poor choice, but you know what it is like when you are very drunk indeed.

‘Not funny,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Not funny at all.’

‘I am not trying to be funny,’ I complained and I dragged myself up from my chair. ‘He was here and then he was dead. I did not make any of this up. And there was a length of grey lead pipe involved. Really, truly there was.’

Mr Rune stared me squarely in the eyes. ‘I do believe you are telling me the truth,’ said he. ‘Lord Jeffrey Primark, did you say?’

‘I did,’ I said. ‘And Fange saw him. He introduced him to me.’

‘Did you?’ Mr Rune asked Fangio.

And Fangio shook his Stetson.

‘You did,’ I said. ‘You liar.’

‘I never did.’ Fangio took off his topper and fanned at himself with it.

‘In the drinkies tent,’ I said. ‘You were serving behind the bar.’

‘I never was.’ Fangio replaced his bowler hat upon his head. ‘I only just got here.’

‘You must have seen him,’ I said to Kelly.

But Kelly shook her head.

‘What is going on here?’ I said. ‘You are lying, Fange, I know that you are.’

‘I’m not,’ said Fange, and, pointing to his homburg, ‘as sure as I’m wearing this trilby, I’m not.’

‘Rizla,’ said Mr Rune, ‘will you please follow me? Excuse me, gentlemen, lady,’ and he raised his beret to Kelly.

And then he led me from the library and back to the entrance hall. And there he halted next to a big, grand family portrait. ‘Is
that
Lord Jeffrey?’ he asked.

And I looked up at the portrait. ‘That is him,’ I said. ‘He was wearing the same outfit and everything. He must just have had this portrait painted.’

‘Regrettably, no,’ said Mr Rune, ‘although I was present when he sat for Richard Dadd. This portrait was painted in eighteen fifty-one, shortly before the death of his lordship.’

‘A ghost?’ I said. ‘You are telling me that I saw a ghost?’

‘Something more than a mere ghost,’ said Mr Rune. ‘We are dealing with dark and sinister forces here. It is fortunate that my reputation for dealing with such matters is well known to members of the aristocracy.’

‘And there was me thinking that skinflints as they are, they were merely attracted by the “cheap rates” advertised on your flyers.’

‘Plah!’ went Hugo Rune.

And we returned to the library. It was a rather crowded library now, for it had started to rain and the gilded youth had come in from the garden. There were not as many as there had been; I assumed that the rest had gone home. Fangio was pulling bunnies from his hat to entertain those who remained. The hat was an old deerstalker; the bunnies wore no hats at all. There was a bit of a hubbub going on, which stilled at Mr Rune’s approach.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said he, ‘I must crave your indulgence. Something untoward has occurred. I am going to have to ask that nobody leave this room.’

This got a bit of hubbub going once again.

‘Excuse me,’ said the Honourable Nigel Fairborough-Countless, ‘but I have an appointment with my accountant in half an hour.’

‘And I’ve a bun in the oven,’ said Lord Edward Marzipan-Fudge.

‘And I’ve a dog that won’t walk itself,’ said Lord Burberry Spaniel-Fondler.

‘And I didn’t get a mention earlier,’ said Lord—

‘These pressing appointments must be put aside,’ said Mr Rune. ‘There is Devilish work abroad in this house and I mean to get to its bottom.’

‘Perhaps
I
can help you there,’ said Lord Lucas Lapp-Dancer.

‘Saw that one coming,’ said I.

‘Well, I have to go to the little boys’ room,’ said Lord Michael Kiddee-Phidler.

‘I am sorry that I did not see
that
one coming,’ I said.

‘Hurry, then,’ said Mr Rune to Lord Michael.

And his lordship left the room.

‘Chap,’ said Lord Henry Myle-Hie to Mr Rune, ‘this Devilish work that you speak of – would you care to enlighten us regarding its nature?’

‘Presently,’ said Mr Rune.

And then there came a flash and a great almighty crash.

‘Weather’s taken a turn for the worse,’ said Lord Edward, closing the French windows. ‘Devilish storm, to be certain.’

‘It is only the beginning,’ said Hugo Rune.

And then we heard the scream. It was loud and it was shrill and it was scary. It made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck – the ones I had been thinking of shaving off, but could not really see the point as they could not actually be seen, what with my hair having grown pretty long at the back, in the fashionable mode of the times.

‘Rizla, come, the rest of you stay here.’ Mr Rune whispered words to Fangio and then marched out of the room. I followed him at the hurry on and down the hall and up the stairs we went. I followed Hugo Rune to the little boys’ room and we stood before the door.

‘You may not like what you see,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘Avocado suite, do you think?’ I said.

And Mr Rune pushed open the door.

I must confess that I did not at all like what I saw. There was no avocado suite involved in my disliking. The bathroom was in tasteful white, somewhat spoiled for me, however, by the large amount of tasteless red, all scattered and splattered and running.

‘Don’t look,’ said Mr Rune.

But I did.

And I saw him – well, the little of him that I
could
see. This ‘little’ being his ankles and feet protruding from the toilet.

‘This is bad,’ said Mr Rune and he shook his great baldy head.

‘Very bad,’ said I. ‘He had no time at all to build up his part before
this
happened.’

‘Hardly a suitable moment for such flippancy,’ said Mr Rune.

‘I do so agree,’ I said. ‘Aaaagh! Help! Police! Murder!’

Mr Rune clamped a large hand over my mouth. ‘Control yourself,’ he ordered. ‘You are no good to me otherwise.’

I detached his oversized mitt from my unlaughing gear. ‘I do not
want
to be any good,’ I said. ‘Let us get out of here, and quickly.’

‘Rizla, this is no time to panic.’

‘Trust me,’ I said, ‘there will be no better time than this.’

‘We must return to the library.’

‘We must return to Grand Parade. Call the police.’

Mr Rune shook his head. Firmly. ‘This is
not
a job for Inspector Hector,’ said he.
‘This
is a job for Hugo Rune.’

And so we returned to the library. And once inside, Mr Rune closed the door, turned the key in the lock and took himself over to the drinks cabinet, where he poured for himself something large.

The gilt was coming off the gilded youth. They sat about in attitudes of dejection, nervously toying with glasses and looking very edgy and uncertain.

‘Lord Michael Kiddee-Phidler is no more,’ said Mr Rune.

Which did not seem to ease the situation.

Although it certainly roused them from their seats. They rose as one and made as two to the main door and the French windows where they got all sort of scrunched up together, the room door and the French windows being locked.

‘Sit down!’ ordered Mr Rune. ‘Such unseemly behaviour is for the lower orders, not for such as you.’

The room door was being kicked and several panes of glass went out of the French windows, but neither shifted.

‘Sit!’ ordered Mr Rune. ‘If you would live, then sit.’

It was a cowering, giltless bunch of youth that slunk back to their seats.

‘What is going on here?’ Lord Edward demanded to be told.

‘All right,’ said Mr Rune, ‘I will tell you. My companion here witnessed, in a vision, the destruction of Lord Jeffrey Primark earlier this afternoon. All of you here are descendants of Lord Jeffrey; and so all of you will probably know that he vanished in eighteen fifty-one, upon the second day of the Great Exhibition. It was believed that he was murdered. But he was not. Although he was interred – I know, because I was there at his interment.’ This remark caused a certain ripple among the giltless youth.

‘Trust to what he says,’ I said. ‘I have seen things that you people would not believe.’ Which rang a bell somewhere.

‘Thank you, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Lord Jeffrey dabbled in certain unspeakable arts.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Lord Lucas Lapp-Dancer. ‘We’ve all done that – it’s the duty of the aristocracy to behave as badly as we can get away with. It’s expected of us. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something.’

‘Time,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Always time. All of this is to do with time.’

‘We do have to take time to behave badly,’ agreed Lord Lapp-Dancer, ‘but we have plenty of time on our hands. That’s one of the benefits of being rich.’

‘And also your downfall,’ said Mr Rune. ‘It was Lord Jeffrey’s downfall. He sought to travel into the future. He discussed it with me many times and I advised strongly against it, but he was adamant and would not be shaken. As I wished for no harm to come to him, I offered my assistance in return for a small pecuniary sum. Together we built a cryogenic chamber and packed it with Arctic ice, shipped in by Fortnum and Mason. Lord Jeffrey was placed into a trance state by myself, as I am skilled in such matters, then placed in the chamber, which in turn was placed in a secret place, a safe place where it could lie undisturbed until more than a hundred years had passed. Certain details were lodged in a safety-deposit box, to be opened by his heirs upon a certain date, disclosing the whereabouts of the cryogenic chamber and the means by which Lord Jeffrey was to be defrosted.’

Lightning flashed and thunder roared and rain thrashed down outside.

‘He could not make up this stuff, could he?’ I whispered to Fangio.

‘I
could,’ said the barlord. ‘Do you think this bobble hat suits me?’

‘But,’ continued Mr Rune, ‘there is always the matter of the soul, of the existence of the soul. A man’s body might remain alive, in suspended animation, for more than one hundred years. But what of his soul? Might this perhaps detach itself from its host and go a-wandering?’

‘Is he speculating here?’ whispered Fangio, diddling with his hardhat.

‘I would not care to speculate,’ I whispered back. ‘The brim’s too big on your sombrero, by the way.’

‘And
if
the soul wandered,’ said Mr Rune, ‘while the sleeper slept,
and then returned at length to find the body destroyed – shattered, perhaps, by a length of lead pipe – what then of the wandering soul?’

‘Wouldn’t it go to Heaven?’ asked Kelly, which I thought a reasonable question to ask.

‘Would it?’ said Mr Rune. ‘In the matter of a normal death, I would assume that this would be the case. But the destruction of Lord Jeffrey’s body when his soul had already detached itself – surely these are somewhat unusual circumstances.’

‘This is all twaddle,’ cried Lord Henry Myle-Hie. ‘Perhaps Lord Jeffrey did have himself frozen up, and perhaps you
were
there at that freezing up, but all this soul stuff is simply speculation.’

Fange made a knowing face at me, but I could not see much of it under his snap-brimmed snood.

‘Speculation?’ said Mr Rune. ‘Then I would like to test a proposition. Would you kindly take yourself over to the fireplace?’

‘The fireplace?’ Lord Myle-Hie flustered and blustered. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Indulge me,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Let me test the substance of my supposed speculation. And you, too, young lady,’ he said to Kelly. ‘If you would be so kind as to stand beside him.’

Kelly shrugged and wandered over to the fireplace.