Stephen Gallagher - The Bedlam Detective

What I felt then was something close to pity, as teeth fastened on his body and one tentacle after another wrapped over the beast and finally drew him under, silencing his dying cries. He went down like a pig among crocodiles, the whole angry, battling mess being borne away around a bend in the river as I watched.

I took the precaution of reloading before I returned to the bank. There were more of the creatures about, after all, and one or more of them might return. However, all was silent as I crossed the site of the nest, and after listening for a while I was confident that all had flown. I called out to Pablo, and after a few moments was rewarded with the sight of his cautious face peeping out from the bushes.

I do not think that any man has ever expressed his gratitude to another more eloquently, or with greater enthusiasm, than that simple peon in his moment of deliverance. While he did not quite grovel at my feet nor place my foot upon his head, his actions left me in no doubt as to his feelings. I raised him, and by one means and another gave him to understand that while I appreciated his thanks, there were still dangers all around us. In this more somber mood, I supervised as he used the broken gourd to scrape out shallow graves for the remains of those fallen Englishmen. After a few simple prayers, to which a lack of comprehension didn’t prevent Pablo from adding a broken and charming Amen , I led our way back to the main camp.

There was a cheer when we were spotted emerging from the jungle and it was seen that I had not returned alone, but the general jubilation turned to sadness as my party learned the fate of their own people. That night, while Pablo celebrated with his fellow camaradas and no doubt embroidered the tale of his rescue until my actions gained some heroic stature, ours was a more subdued campfire gathering. During my absence, this new camp had been set up within a palisade of sharpened pickets with their points angled outward; though we heard many a worrying sound from the jungle that night, we suffered no further attack.

When all of our injured had either died or recovered sufficiently to travel, we broke camp and moved on. We followed the trampled “road” until we reached the clearing by the river. I was surprised to see how the broad avenue was already beginning to vanish, and how all signs of the creatures’ nesting were gone. Fresh bamboo was growing up through the broken vegetation, and I was unable even to locate the shallow graves of our lost companions in order to point out their final resting places. Everything in the jungle consumed something else, I concluded; and failing that, the jungle consumed itself.

My name among the camaradas was now Assassino da Alimarias , which I’m given to understand means “slayer of beasts.” I received the news with grim amusement.

We had far to go, and many more such perils to face. I decided then that where the slaughter of such monstrous game was required, I would forever stand ready.

Breakfast the next morning was taken in the bar, because the dining room was in use. The true prophets, those senior detective officers with the city’s glamour on them, had arrived to take over.

Sebastian sat behind his kippers at a corner table and watched all the comings and goings with mixed feelings. The tall, straight detectives in their immaculate overcoats and bowler hats were attended by a squad of clerks and sergeants that ran ahead of and around them. Messages were flying, and there were scenes to be visited. Despite the tragedy at the heart of it all, he felt a certain nostalgia. Such had been his life, once.

After that he went up to his room and prepared himself to go out. This time, he found his belongings undisturbed. There was little he could do to protect himself against further searches, whether by curious staff or by someone with a more sinister motive, other than to ensure that he kept his notebook and valuables about his person. An intruder would find nothing of advantage in his shaving kit or linen.

He’d cleaned up his own boots, knowing that he could expect little in the way of extra service under the circumstances. He stowed his letters of authority in one pocket, his copy of Sir Owain’s book in another.

An Amazonian expedition had taken place. That was beyond doubt. And that it had met with disaster could not be doubted either. But as he’d told Stephen Reed, no true or satisfactory account of that disaster had ever been given.

Lancaster had funded the trip himself, with the intended purpose of taking celestial measurements from one of several key points around the globe. The measurements were needed to support his patented system for aiming large guns by the stars. He had set off into the jungle with vehicles, mules, experts, porters, and an enormous caravan of instruments and supplies. He’d returned with none of them. Just himself, and one other survivor. The survivor had suffered injuries and a level of delirium that had left him permanently hospitalized.

As a consequence, Sir Owain’s Royal Society lecture, in which all was to be revealed in detail, had attracted wide attention. The promise of sensational revelations, with no hint as to what those revelations might be, had stoked the public’s interest. The original meeting-hall venue had been ditched in favor of the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, a concert theater of much greater capacity. Several newspapers requested advance interviews, but were turned down. Sir Owain’s book was scheduled for publication within a matter of weeks, but no page proofs or early copies could be located.

Even the society’s president had known nothing of what was to come. Following his introduction, Owain Lancaster had begun with a warning: that what followed might be hard to believe, but was true nonetheless. For much of it, he could offer no evidence beyond his own observations. His public testimony was underwritten by his private grief. He owed it to the dead to tell the whole truth.

The whole truth, as he told it, was that the expedition had been wrecked by an early accident on the river that was carrying them downstream, after which the party’s survivors had been stalked by monsters. The monsters rarely showed themselves and were mainly known from the evidence of their attacks. Of all the party, Sir Owain was the only one who saw them fully with his own eyes. They included a serpent that tried to wreck the rescue boat that was carrying him home.

The first ten minutes of Sir Owain’s talk were received in silence. The next five played to a growing rumble of conversation among the rows. His lantern slides were met with loud heckling and open derision, and the rest of his words went unheard; most of the audience was on its feet by then, and the ushers struggled to keep any kind of order. Some object was thrown, and something close to a riot followed. The speaker persisted and had to be stopped. Sir Owain was hurried from the building by a service door. His lantern slides, which featured some photographs but were mostly artists’ realizations of the monsters made under Sir Owain’s direction, were stolen during the upset.

But they were no loss. Those same images appeared as plates in the published account, which went on sale shortly after. Its publishers, who’d been hovering over a decision to withdraw the book, found themselves with a runaway success.

They were half embarrassed, half elated; they did their best to follow a line that allowed them to keep both their dignity and their profits. And so, as Sir Owain suffered public opprobrium and the censure of the society and withdrew to his West Country estate, they continued to sell copies of “this remarkable document, the subject of so much lively and continuing debate.”