Mark Gatiss - The Vesuvius Club

Of course, we were not yet safe. The livid sky told us what we already knew. Vesuvius was erupting and, whilst it was not the cataclysm Venus had hoped for, it was still not wise to hang about.

I chanced a look back as Charlie lugged me out through the Pompeiian ruins the way we had come. Above us, the great black hump of the mountain was belching smoke and a thin river of livid red was dribbling from the cone like Gorgon’s blood.

And then the five of us were part of a great fleeing mob. I received a confused impression of voices and smells and it was suddenly as though I were back there in ancient Pompeii. The dawn sky overheard was blackening with ash and the world was disappearing in a vortex of reds, ochres and yellows. My eyes fluttered and the canopy of my lids was a cool green. The blood flowing from my shoulder looked almost black, flowing in a stream over the snowy whiteness of my exposed arm. How strange, I thought, to die in such a terribly beautiful palette.

AND yet, gentle reader, (as I’m sure you’ve gathered) I did not die! A long week later and the great shuddering roar of that eruption was like a strange dream to me. After the removal of Unmann’s bullet from my shoulder and much rest I had been re-established in my room at the Santa Lucia where I was at least able to sketch a little. An easel was optimistically set up but I found myself quickly exhausted and it was far easier to drift off into sleep after some of Charlie’s nourishing soup than to work. It was fully a fortnight before I was able to receive visitors.

First came Joshua Reynolds, on a rare foreign trip, bearing the profound thanks of HMG and whispers of medals, which I nobly refused for fully two minutes until he started taking me seriously and I had to beg for them.

The next day brought the newly liberated Christopher Miracle. He looked a little drawn (but not badly drawn, ho-ho), as well he might and he beamed at me with what looked suspiciously like renewed respect.

«I owe it all to you, old man,» he said with a catch in his voice. «Flush would have strung me up if you hadn’t intervened. I’m most awfully grateful.»

I gave a heroic but modest smile. «We still don’t know quite what happened that day, do we?»

«Ah, yes,» said Miracle. «We do. If you’re not too tired, dear Lucifer, there’s another guest who is most anxious to speak to you.»

Charlie showed in the extraordinary apparition that was Mrs Midsomer Knight, once more swathed in veils and sporting a rather splendid new gown of deepest emerald. She took a seat by my blanketed form and inclined her head in greeting.

«Mr Box, how do I begin to thank you?»

«Please don’t even try,» I said manfully. In truth I didn’t have the strength to be gushed over. «It’s reward enough to know that my friend here is exonerated and that you and the professors — well, a quorum of them at least — are out of danger. That and the fact that a dangerous lunatic’s plans have come to nought.»

«Ah yes,» mused Mrs Knight. «My unfortunate son.»

I sat up on one elbow, wincing slightly. «It would please me greatly, however, if you could clear up one or two points in connection with this matter.»

«Anything.»

«Perhaps I can help you there,» came a booming voice from the doorway. The massive frame of the Duce Tiepolo emerged from the shadows.

«Your Grace,» I said quietly. «I fear I have done you a grave disservice. For I thought you behind this whole mad scheme.»

«I am guilty,» said the great man. «Guilty of a mad love. For this wonderful woman.»

He took Mrs Knight’s hand in his. «It was so long ago,» he croaked. «It is not an easy thing, Signor Box, to know that you have been born into wealth and privilege then see all that swept away. I was a hunted man. One day I arrived in Naples and I met a girl. She was only sixteen or so, and a little frightened of me. But I knew at once that I loved her… Loved her!»

«But she was married.»

The Duce nodded bitterly. «With a child. The husband, Morraine, was a good man, an honest man, but we could not help ourselves, could we, my dear? It was like a fire, the passion that burned within us!»

Mrs Knight sighed. «At first it was easy to see each other in secret. My husband, Maxwell, thought only of his work. He and his colleagues laboured from dawn to dusk. But finally our secret was betrayed! Maxwell was mad with jealousy. I went to see him. To tell him I must leave him… I found him in his laboratory. Told him that the Duce and I were in love. At first he seemed not to hear me. He was burning his papers after some scientific disappointment. He threw more and more paper on to the fire until suddenly it was out of control and…»

Mrs Knight pressed her hand to her mouth and sobbed. «It took away my youth, my beauty…»

The Duce clamped his huge arm around the delicate woman’s shoulders. «And I knew nothing of this for years. The authorities caught me and I was deported. I found out about the fire and believed Kate to be dead. How was I to know that she had been spirited away from Naples and was back in England? Years passed. I never expected to see my lover again.»

«But you did.» I drawled, taking a slow drag on my cigarette.

«I did! Can you imagine it, Signor Box? After all that time? I have roamed Europe like a vagrant. I was passing through London and, one day, as I was walking through the park, you saw me, didn’t you, my pet?»

He turned to his lost love, his weathered face wreathed in smiles.

Mrs Knight continued. «Even after all these years I knew him at once.»

«And you felt the same?» I asked the Duce.

«Once I knew it was her, of course! What did I care for her scars? Her „ugliness“? She was my darling girl. Restored to me when I thought her long dead.»

The Duce’s noble head bobbed low on his breast, then he raised it again, tears welling in his rheumy eyes. «I bought the silence of my companion and we spent the whole afternoon together. There were secret letters, stolen moments. And then I hit upon the drawing-class scheme. We planned to elope. Elope! Like star-crossed lovers!»

«That night, the night of Miracle’s ball, she was meant to steal away and meet me in the gardens. But she did not come! And then I heard about the body — oh! A second time she was taken from me!»

He groaned like a wounded beast. «And so I came here. Home. To Naples. In secret, of course, and seeking — who knows what? Peace?»

I pulled myself up on the pillows. «And what of that day in the Mechanical Institute, Mrs Knight? I gather you had already suspected you were under observation?»

The veiled woman placed her hands in her lap and sighed. «That I had. But I thought they were sent by my husband, and that our scheme was impenetrable. I little thought what they might have in mind until that day.» Miss Frenzy and I had just switched places when two men burst into the lavatory. At once they grabbed poor Miss Frenzy but she fought valiantly, biting one of them upon the hand.

«Of course I could not simply hide in the cubicle and leave Abigail to her fate but their faces were a pretty sight when they were suddenly confronted by two identically dressed women! As time was obviously of the essence, they bundled us both from the place and took us to some low lodging house where the truth was forced from us. One of them, a man called Bowler, decided that fate had put in his way a serendipitous event. They had come to abduct me, how much better if I were thought to be dead!»

She tailed off and gave a little sob. «From that moment poor Abigail’s fate was sealed. I was quite unable to protest as they gave me the first of those hideous injections and I was scarcely sensible from that day on.»