The Lamplighter (33 page)

“A hunting lodge of Colonel Munnoch's. It had not been used for many a year. On the Old Dalkeith Road, next to Drumgate Cemetery…”

When it becomes clear that the deal will be settled and that he will be receiving a substantial fee, Ainslie produces a formidable cigar and strikes a match on the fireplace: an ostentatious gesture that sets Smeaton's teeth on edge.

“We'll need a house,” Ainslie says, issuing smoke. “A fair house, not bare of furnishings.”

“It can be arranged,” Munnoch assures him.

“I'll need to return to the Gold Coast to fetch the priest. The man trusts me, and he must never be allowed to suspect anything. I cannot make this warning more emphatically.”

“We appreciate the gravity of the situation.”

“I will escort him to the house, which I will introduce as my ancestral home, and allow him to memorize the rooms in necessary detail.”

“That can be arranged,” Munnoch says, but his stomach clenches at the prospect of such a man setting foot on his estate. “How long will all this take?”

“I believe it will take some days for the house to appear in his dreams, and even longer before his lodger walks in its halls. To facilitate this, the priest will need to be offered some safe and peaceful accommodation…some place conducive to rest and dreams.”

Munnoch's throat tightens. “That, too, can be arranged.”

“The lodger may appear at any time. In order to make the transition as smooth as possible, he will tailor a form specifically to appeal to his new host. I don't believe that we personally will be in any danger, but I think we should do our best to avoid laying eyes on him.”

The two men nod uneasily.

“When the…transaction is complete,” Ainslie says, smiling ambiguously, “I will require the second half of my payment promptly, in pounds sterling. I will never speak of this matter again, and I expect you never to tip your hat to me if you cross me in the street.”

“That can most assuredly be arranged,” Munnoch says.

Ainslie smirks. “And we'll need a host, of course. A young and healthy specimen is in order—a child, perhaps, who I can pass off as my own. It is expected to be an indefinite lodging.”

Munnoch now looks at Smeaton, who thinks at once of his friend Abraham Lindsay.

“That also can be arranged,” Smeaton adds quietly.

“She is in a carriage…she is traveling somewhere…and she is
exhilarated
.”

“Where is she going, Evelyn? Can you see?”

Evelyn shook her head.

“And there are no distinguishing signs at all? Buildings? Hills?”

“Her eyes are covered.”

“But where is she taken, Evelyn? Can you tell us that?”

“A large house. She has never seen such comfort.”

“And is she treated well there, this little girl? She has done nothing wrong, after all.”

Evelyn looked upset.
“No,”
she spat. “She is…
imprisoned
.”

McKnight nodded sympathetically. “As she was at the orphanage? A parcel, tightly bound?”

“No…”

“She is not, Evelyn?”

“The bed is most comfortable and she is fed well.”

“Aye? Then how is she imprisoned, Evelyn?”

“She is restricted.”

“Restricted, Evelyn? By whom?”

“The Great Deceiver.”

“Mr. Ainslie? But why does he restrict her, Evelyn? Is it punishment?”

“He does not want her to see things.”

“He does not want her imagination to take flight, is that it?”

“No,”
Evelyn answered firmly. “He does not want her to see beyond the limits of the house.”

“Why is this, Evelyn?”

She struggled but could not answer.

“Does he not want her to know where she is?”

“Not her…” she answered hoarsely.

“Excuse me, Evelyn?”

“Not her,” she repeated, slightly louder.

“Then from whom is he withholding the location of the house?”

“From Leerie,” she replied.

Fleming regarded Hettie Lessels with disbelief. “Let me see if I understand you,” he said. “You say that this African fellow, this witch doctor…he had the devil himself living in his mind.”

“Aye,” said the widow.

“Hibernating there, safe and sound.”

“Aye.”

“That this is the way the devil has always lived, hidden in the mind of some chosen host. Somebody with a brilliantly developed imagination. An artist, a writer…”

“Aye…it was what the others believed.”

“And he can walk the earth, the devil, but only while his host is asleep.”

“His greatest power, they said. To cast a shadow from the world of dreams.”

“So if this witch doctor dreamed of the jungle, then the devil walked through that jungle, in whatever shape he desired. And if the witch doctor dreamed of some far-distant city, then the devil walked in that city.”

“And if it was a real city, and pictured well enough from memory,” Lessels said, “then he could not only walk its streets but speak to its people, and do exactly as he liked.”

Fleming nodded in mock understanding. “Only he had become weary of this witch doctor's imagination.”

“Aye.”

“It wasn't spacious or fresh enough for him.”

“Aye.”

“He was hunting for fresh lodgings.”

“Aye.”

“And so a little girl was selected for him.”

“Aye,” Lessels said. “The wean.”

Fleming looked at her for a moment, as though waiting for her to admit it was all a jest. But she did no such thing, and so he threw up his hands in disdain. “Preposterous,” he said, turning away.

“Go on…” breathed Inspector Groves.

For Abraham Lindsay there is never any question as to the selection. The little one so fanciful and disobedient, so fetching in her way, and so much like his departed wife.

In the role of her lost father Ainslie removes her from the orphanage to Colonel Munnoch's hastily refitted hunting lodge, mindful that she record in her mind no room or landscape that might later form the geography of her dreams. He introduces her first to the actress playing his sickly wife and then to the African fetish priest. The regal black man, so long the devil's landlord—and as such the beneficiary of untold pleasures and gratuities—is nearing the end of a prolonged and gifted life, and quite happy to have his apartment vacated. He wanders around the hunting lodge, absorbing its every chamber into his memory. He is introduced to the young girl, whom he knows only as the daughter, the one whose mind has been offered in payment for the wife's cure.

He delights in contemplating the infinite pleasures that await her and the adventures that in turn will occupy her tenant.

He is presented with a sheaf of her drawings in which an avuncular lamplighter appears repeatedly. It is immediately apparent what shape his lodger will assume when he appears to the girl. And when he meets Ainslie's seriously ill wife, he strokes her hair warmly and assures her in his broken words that her complete recovery is imminent. His lodger, he says, has never been late with a payment.

After his departure it takes several days for the hunting lodge to appear in his dreams, but when it does his tenant is packed and ready to move.

“It's me, Eve,” he says affectionately. “It's Leerie…”

In the sepulchral bedroom he speaks to the girl for close to an hour, relishing her company, charming her with his wit, indulging her with sweet words, and by the time he departs he is deeply and irreversibly printed on her memory and imagination.

In the ensuing days Ainslie repeatedly asks Evelyn if she has dreamed of the lamplighter. When she admits, almost inadvertently, that she has, they know the transaction is complete, the bait taken, and Ainslie discreetly withdraws as the Mirror Society springs into righteous action.

Evelyn had been proceeding well to this point, but now she froze, staring fixedly at the candle flame, which in response seemed to flare and flutter under the intensity of her gaze.