Mark Gatiss - The Vesuvius Club

As I turned, however, I noticed on the desk a portmanteau photograph in a tortoiseshell frame. Of the three panels, the facing portraits were of Sash and his wife. The middle picture, though, apparently taken some time in the sixties, showed four men standing in stiffly formal pose. I recognized two of the men at once as younger versions of Sash, whose study I was rifling, and his colleague Verdigris whose portrait I had studied earlier. The next man — willowy and ascetic-looking — I did not know but the fourth seemed very familiar. Swaddled in a blanket and looking prematurely ancient he sat in a wheeled chair and scowled down the decades at me.

«Aha!» I exclaimed. The man in the wheeled chair was a stranger no more. In a flash I recognized him as none other than Sir Emmanuel Quibble, chief fellow of the Royal Society and the foremost scientific mind of our age. It was well known that he had long ago retired. To, of all places, the Amalfi coast…

I was musing on this information when the distinctive odour of burnt paper caught my attention. I swung the dark-lantern around and brought its feeble light to bear on the fire-grate, which was revealed to contain a quantity of blackened paper. Had Professor Sash laid a fire in the middle of summer? Or had he — or one of his family — destroyed something of a compromising nature? In my experience nothing is ever incinerated in a grate unless it is of a deliciously compromising nature.

I almost jumped out of my skin as the door was thrown open and the room illuminated by the yellow glow of an oil-lamp.

«Hold hard!» yelled some burly chap, whose outline was just discernible in the gloom. At his side, Mrs Sash twittered and wailed in distress. Clearly I would have to retake Advanced Breaking and Entering. Without a second thought I thrust the portmanteau photograph into my jacket, leapt towards the bookcase and brought it crashing down between my discoverers and me. Then I hopped nimbly on to a leather chair, smashed the study window with my jemmy and jumped into the night, hitting the lawn in a neat ball and rolling to my feet. As I pelted away from the place hell for leather, I could hear the household rousing but they were too tardy to catch lucky old Lucifer.

That next morning, I ran myself a bath. Really, I had to do something about replacing Poplar. The service had dug out a chambermaid to do this sort of thing but although I am one of those johnnies who delight in lording it over their inferiors, I’ve always found that one, indispensable manservant is worth a whole retinue of girls in mob-caps whose presence can only lead, in any case, to babies being left on doorsteps and photogravures in the Police Gazette . I lay steaming for over an hour, my hair pooling above me like weed. How Millais would have loved me then!

Reluctantly, I dragged myself from the bath and crossed the bare boards to my dressing room. Here, among my treasured wardrobe of fabulous apparel, I would prepare for the work of the day. A note from Miracle had told me he had news on my late professors. I glanced at my watch on the dresser. My appointment was for eleven. I had only two hours to dress!

I reached Miracle’s studio only a few minutes late and was about to pull at the bell when I remembered that today was the day he took his drawing class. I had passed the Mechanical Institute on the way and returned to it now — a big, black ugly building, concealed behind scrubby bushes and gold-tipped railings — where stood an expensive-looking carriage with two glossy horses at its head. The creatures seemed restless, stamping at the cobbles, inching the carriage forward by degrees despite the best efforts of the groom clutching at their bridles. A sharp, ammoniac smell assailed me.

Sitting in splendid isolation against the upholstery of the carriage was a thin man, bald beneath his silk topper, his black-gloved hands bulging like burnt sausages as he gripped the head of his cane.

«Can’t you keep them still?» he snapped. «Can’t you?»

The groom was profuse in his apologies. The vehicle lurched forward again and the bald man scowled. Then he took out a turnip-sized watch from his waistcoat and, looking at it, scowled again.

Just as I reached the steps to the institute, the door opened, releasing a torrent of ladies on to the street, resembling, in their feathery, chattering finery, nothing so much as the Regent’s Park geese. I tipped my hat to them as they rolled by, averting their eyes and giggling. I had almost reached the door when a latecomer emerged and I had to step back to avoid careering into her.

Unlike her à la mode classmates, this lady wore a violet-coloured dress in the fashion of ten years back. A large black hat with a heavy veil, like that of a bee-keeper, completely obscured her face.

She was holding a tan-leather portfolio under her arm and her hands, in long, black evening gloves, fluttered around its handle as though she were in great distress.

«I do beg your pardon,» I murmured.

I stepped to one side to let the curious apparition pass and then turned to see that the bald man from the carriage was standing on the step beneath me, his sour face jutting towards me like that of an angry Mr Punch.

«Come,» he barked, thrusting his arm through the crook of the woman’s free elbow and pulling her past me towards the carriage, shooting back poisonous glances the whole way.

«Charmed!» I cried, doffing my boater.

The double doors swung open again, revealing Miracle.

«Hullo, Box,» he cried, rubbing together his big hands. «Come a-spying, eh?»

Without letting on how close to the mark Miracle was, I pointed my cane towards the carriage. The groom was lashing at the horses as the vehicle turned in the empty road. «Who the devil was that?»

«Ah,» grinned Miracle. «The veiled scribbler. She’s a curiosity that one. Name of Mrs Knight. Mrs Midsomer Knight.»

«A dream, is she?»

«According to one of the ladies who caught a glimpse of her in the conveniences, more of a nightmare! Poor devil. Husband might be described as something of a brute. Never lets her out in society. She hardly says a word.»

«Why the veils? Does he beat her?»

«Burnt in a fire years back, I gather.»

My friend plunged his hands into his pockets and jutted out his lip thoughtfully. «It’s a funny thing, Box, but my teaching seems to have had an adverse effect on her.»

«What do you mean?»

Miracle shrugged. «Only that she began well but of late her work has been shocking.»

«Hmm, perhaps school-mastering is not for you, after all. And, Miracle before you fill me in on the nefarious secrets of our missing professors, you should know that you cannot afford to be so ineffective. I took your advice. I now have a pupil of my own!»

We spent the rest of the morning ensconced in Miracle’s studio drinking far too much and smoking a brace of cigars. His place was quite lovely, possessing a domed glass roof that let summer sunshine flood the pale green walls. Shadier nooks housed Miracle’s superabundance of landscapes (I abhor landscapes) and still lifes (the Frenchies call them nature morte and I can’t think of a better description).

As the day wore on, and we began to radiate a mildly tipsy bonhomie, I allowed him to prise out of me the story of Miss Pok.

«You sly dog,» grinned Miracle. «What is she like?»

I waved a hand extravagantly. «A delight. Captivating. I was thinking of inviting her to your party. Hope you don’t mind.»

«Mind? I cannot wait to meet this paragon.»

«You must promise to behave now, Christopher.» I smoked my cigar contentedly. «You’ll think me foolish, I know, but there is something very particular about her. Uncommon.»

«Such as?»