Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [142]
The two constables dashed into Miller’s Court. After a moment, they rushed out again and began blowing their whistles. Soon the area would be thick with policemen, journalists, sensation-seekers. Beauregard and Geneviève would have to explain at length, more times than either could really bear.
In his mind, Beauregard saw Jack Seward on his knees in the ground-floor back room with the bloody thing that had been Mary Jane Kelly. Geneviève shuddered along with him. The memory was something they would share forever.
‘He was mad,’ she said ‘and not responsible.’
‘Then who,’ he asked, ‘was responsible?’
‘The thing who drove him mad.’
Beauregard looked up. The last moonlight shone down through thinning fog. He fancied he saw a bat, large and black, flit across the face of the moon.
57
THE HOME LIFE OF OUR OWN DEAR QUEEN
Netley applied the whip to the team. The imposing carriage had prowled through Whitechapel’s cramped streets as irritably as a panther in Hampton Court Maze, unable to move with its accustomed elegance and speed. In the wider thoroughfares of the city, it rolled at a rapid pace. The suspension was perfect, lulling her along without even the creak of wood and iron. Hostile eyes were drawn to the gilt coat of arms that stood out like a red-and-gold scar on the polished black door. Despite the luxurious interior, Geneviève found comfort impossible. With black leather upholstery and discreet brass lamps, the Royal Coach was too much like a hearse.
They proceeded down Fleet Street, past the boarded-up and burned-out offices of the nation’s great periodicals. There was no fog tonight, just a razored wind. There were still newspapers, but Ruthven had installed tame vampire editors. Even fervent loyalists were bored by bland endorsements of the latest laws or endless encomia to the Royal Family. Very rarely an item would be printed which, combined with certain private knowledge, might actually qualify as a piece of news, such as the recent note in The Times of the expulsion from the Bagatelle Club of Colonel Sebastian Moran, his hitherto uncanny abilities at the whist table, which extended to somewhat unorthodox manipulations of the cards, now being severely impaired by his unexplained loss of both little fingers.
As they passed the law courts, a scatter of broad-sheets blew across the dark pavements of the Strand. Passersby, even those marked by their dress as of the upper orders, hastily picked up these papers and stuffed them into their coats. A constable did his best to collect as many as possible, but they rained down from some garret heaven like autumn leaves. Hand-printed in basements, these were impossible to stamp out: no matter how many premises were raided, how many scribblers arrested, the hydra-headed spirit of dissent persisted. Kate Reed, Charles’s admirer, had become a leading luminary of the underground press. In hiding, she had won a reputation as an Angel of the Insurrection.
In Pall Mall, Netley, whom Geneviève judged a fidgety sort, stopped at the Diogenes Club. After a moment, the door was held open and Charles joined her in the coach. After kissing her, lips cold on her cheek, he sat opposite, discouraging further intimacy. He wore immaculate evening dress, the scarlet lining of his cloak like spilled blood on his seat, a perfect white rose in his lapel. She glanced at the door as it was shut and saw the closed face of the moustached vampire from Miller’s Court.
‘Good night, Dravot,’ Charles said to the servant of the Diogenes Club.
‘Good night, sir.’
Dravot stood at the kerb, at attention but suppressing a salute. The coach had to take a circuitous route to the Palace. The Mall had been blocked by Crusaders for most of last week; the remains of barricades still stood, and great stretches of St James Street had been torn up, cobbles converted to missiles.
Charles was subdued. She had seen him several times since the night of the 9th of November, and even been admitted into the hallowed Star Chamber of the Diogenes Club to give evidence at a private