LITMIR.BIZ

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had once remarked when talking about Bloxham (he liked to report on the absurdities of the Society, particularly when he was in his cups) to look so dissipated and have nothing to regret for it.

      ‘We’re ready for you, now,’ Bloxham said, indicating that Dowd should join him in the lift. ‘You realize,’ he said as they ascended, ‘that if you’re ever tempted to breathe a word of what you see here the Society will eradicate you so quickly and so thoroughly your mother won’t even know you existed?’

      This over-heated threat sounded ludicrous delivered in Bloxham’s nasal whine, but Dowd played the chastened functionary.

      ‘I perfectly understand,’ he said.

      ‘It’s an extraordinary step,’ Bloxham continued, ‘calling anyone who isn’t a member to a meeting. But these are extraordinary times. Not that it’s any of your business.’

      ‘Quite so,’ Dowd said, all innocence.

      Tonight he’d take their condescension without argument, he thought, more confident by the day that something was coming that would rock this Tower to its foundations. When it did, he’d have his revenge.

      The lift door opened, and Bloxham ordered Dowd to follow him. The passages that led to the main suite were stark and uncarpeted, the room he was led into the same. The drapes were drawn over all the windows, the enormous marble-topped table that dominated the room lit by overhead lamps, the wash of their light thrown up on the six members, two of them women, sitting around it. To judge by the clutter of bottles, glasses, and over-filled ashtrays, and the brooding, weary faces, they had been debating for many hours. Bloxham poured himself a glass of water, and took his place. There was one empty seat: Godolphin’s. Dowd was not invited to occupy it, but stood at the end of the table, mildly discomfited by the stares of his interrogators. There was not one face amongst them that would have been known by the populace at large. Though all of them had descended from families of wealth and influence, these were not public powers. The Society forbade any member to hold office or take as a spouse an individual who might invite or arouse the curiosity of the press. It worked in mystery, for the demise of mystery. Perhaps it was that paradox - more than any other aspect of its nature - which would finally undo it.

      At the other end of the table from Dowd, sitting in front of a heap of newspapers doubtless carrying the Burke reports, sat a professorial man in his sixties, white hair oiled to his scalp. Dowd knew his name from Godolphin’s description: Hubert Shales; dubbed the Sloth by Oscar. He moved and spoke with the caution of a glass-boned theologian.

      ‘You know why you’re here?’ he said.

      ‘He knows,’ Bloxham put in.

      ‘Some problem with Mr Godolphin?’ Dowd ventured.

      ‘He’s not here,’ said one of the women to Dowd’s right, her face emaciated beneath a confection of dyed black hair. Alice Tyrwhitt, Dowd guessed. ‘That’s the problem.’

      ‘So I see,’ Dowd said.

      ‘Where the hell is he?’ Bloxham demanded.

      ‘He’s travelling,’ Dowd replied. ‘I don’t think he anticipated a meeting.’

      ‘Neither did we,’ said Lionel Wakeman, flushed with the Scotch he’d imbibed, the bottle lying in the crook of his arm.

      ‘Where’s he travelling?’ Tyrwhitt asked. ‘It’s imperative we find him.’

      ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Dowd said. ‘His business takes him all over the world.’

      ‘Anything respectable?’ Wakeman slurred.

      ‘He’s got a number of investments in Singapore,’ Dowd replied. ‘And in India. Would you like me to prepare a dossier? I’m sure he’d be -’

      ‘Bugger the dossier!’ Bloxham said. ‘We want him here! Now!’

      ‘I’m afraid I don’t know his precise whereabouts. Somewhere in the Far East.’

      The severe but not unalluring woman to Wakeman’s left now entered the exchange, stabbing her cigarette in the ashtray as she spoke. This could only be Charlotte Feaver; Charlotte the Scarlet, as Oscar called her. She was the last of the Roxborough line, he’d said, unless she found a way to fertilize one of her girlfriends.

      ‘This isn’t some damn club he can visit when it fucking well suits him,’ she said.

      ‘That’s right,’ Wakeman put in. ‘It’s a damn poor show.’

      Shales picked up one of the newspapers in front of him and pitched it down the table in Dowd’s direction.

      ‘I presume you’ve read about this body they found in Clerkenwell?’ he said.

      ‘Yes. I believe so.’

      Shales paused for several seconds, his sparrow eyes going from one member to another. Whatever he was about to say, its broaching had been debated before Dowd entered.

      ‘We have reason to believe that this man Chant did not originate in this Dominion.’

      ‘I’m sorry?’ Dowd said, feigning confusion. ‘I don’t follow. Dominion?’

      ‘Spare us your discretion,’ Charlotte Feaver said. ‘You know what we’re talking about. Oscar hasn’t employed you for twenty-five years and kept his counsel.’

      ‘I know very little,’ Dowd protested.

      ‘But enough to know there’s an anniversary imminent,’ Shales said.

      My, my, Dowd thought, they’re not as stupid as they look.

      ‘You mean the Reconciliation?’ he said.

      That’s exactly what I mean. This coming midsummer - ‘

      ‘Do we have to spell it out?’ Bloxham said. ‘He already knows more than he should.’

      Shales ignored the interruption, and was beginning again when a voice so far unheard, emanating from a bulky figure sitting beyond the reach of the light broke in. Dowd had been waiting for this man, Matthias McGann, to say his piece. If the Tabula Rasa had a leader, this was he.

      ‘Hubert?’ he said. ‘May I?’

      Shales murmured: ‘Of course.’

      ‘Mr Dowd,’ said McGann, ‘I don’t doubt that Oscar has been indiscreet. We all have our weaknesses. You must be his. Nobody here blames you for listening. But this Society was created for a very specific purpose, and on occasion has been obliged to act with extreme severity in the pursuit of that purpose. I won’t go into details. As Giles says, you’re already wiser than any of us would like. But believe me, we will silence any and all who put this Dominion at risk.’

      He leaned forward. His face announced a man of good humour, presently unhappy with his lot.

      ‘Hubert mentioned that an anniversary is imminent. So it is. And forces with an interest in subverting the sanity of this Dominion may be readying themselves to celebrate that anniversary. So far, this’ - he pointed to the newspaper - ‘is the only evidence we’d found of such preparations, but if there are others they will be swiftly terminated by this Society and its agents. Do you understand?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘This sort of thing is very dangerous,’ he went on. ‘People start to investigate. Academics. Esoterics. They start to question, and they start to dream.’

      ‘I could see how that would be dangerous,’ Dowd said.

      ‘Don’t smarm, you smug little bastard,’ Bloxham burst out. ‘We all know what you and Godolphin have been doing. Tell him, Hubert!’

      ‘I’ve traced some artifacts of … non-terrestrial origin … that came my way. The trail, as it were, leads back to Oscar Godolphin.’

      ‘We don’t know that,’ Lionel put in. These buggers

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