Mark Gatiss - The Vesuvius Club

I nodded to an orderly who came forward with a brass bowl of cold water. I splashed my face and ran a hand through my hair.

«What a shining light you are, Miracle!» I ejaculated. «How come that booby Holman Hunt never did your portrait in that hideous style of his?»

Miracle chuckled.

«Speaking of pictures,» I said, «didn’t you once paint a scientist chap called Verdigris?»

Miracle thought for a moment. «Believe I did. Great fat fellow. Eyes spaced too wide like a flat-fish. Come to think of it, I heard he’s vanished. Along with some old pal of his called Sash.»

«I too had heard something of the kind.»

«Don’t know much about the other. Seems they both suffered a sort of seizure. Are you digging for something?»

I shrugged. Alone amongst my friends, Miracle had some idea of my «other life» but even then thought it no more than the hobby of an over-diligent gossip.

«Geologists, I gather,» I said at last.

Miracle nodded. «Old Cambridge chums. Verdigris died the day after Sash. Very rum.»

«Life is full of coincidences.»

«So they say,» laughed Miracle. «Do you think these events are connected? I’ll see what I can root out.»

For a while, we sat in silence, steeped in the lethargy induced by the chamber’s broiling heat. Occasionally, the mists cleared, revealing the green-and-red tiled arches of the roof. The baths hummed with human traffic; the hissing of the coals, the distant ploosh of patrons in the plunge pools, the heavy sighing of thickset, red-faced gents, towels wrapped like swaddling around their hard bellies.

After a time, Miracle smiled, thrust out his lower lip then patted my leg and rose. «Shan’t be a moment. Nature calls.»

I watched him stride away through the billowing steam-clouds and was so engrossed by the progress of a great heavy drop of sweat down my face that I almost failed to notice a veiny forearm suddenly clamp itself around my gullet.

With a gasp, I sank my fingers into the flesh of the arm. Struggling to stand, I found myself hauled backwards by a wild strength. My back struck the slippery marble steps and for a second or so my head swam.

«Blackguard!» hissed a voice in my ear. «Scoundrel!»

Well, I had been called worse. I twisted my head wildly to one side, attempting to catch sight of my attacker, but the clouds of steam showed only glimpses of glistening flesh and a pair of goggling, enraged eyes beneath thick black brows. His arm tightened around my throat.

I kicked out at the brass bowl in a desperate effort to attract the attention of the attendants but, with lightning speed, my assailant began to drag me towards a neglected niche. The towel slipped from my waist and I felt my buttocks sliding over the seat.

I croaked frantically. Would one of the elderly gentlemen in their steamy shrouds notice and raise the alarm? But a ruddy hand with hairy knuckles was quickly planted over my mouth. I was completely helpless. Salty sweat stung at my eyes.

«Now, you villain! Now I have you!» The fellow’s breath was stale with tobacco. I was on my haunches, my senses whirling. Yet, at the very moment of defeat, I snatched a chance of victory. Using the brute’s heaviness to my advantage, I shoved backwards against him and drove my elbow savagely into his midriff.

He gave a startled cry, fell lumpenly against the tiles and momentarily slackened his iron grip on my head and neck. It was all I needed.

Springing to my feet, I whirled around and kicked him in the throat, my leg extended with the grace of a dancer — even if I do say so myself.

His hands flew to his Adam’s apple but I gave him no quarter, pummelling his face with my fists and then, after taking a handful of his wet hair, cracking his face off the wall.

«What is this?» I gasped. «What do you want with me?»

The fellow was revealed now, a great hirsute middle-aged creature, with long, oily moustaches and a face as red as brick. Where had I seen the ugly bastard before? In the criminal archives of the Viennese police, perhaps? Or was he one of the brotherhood of blind assassins who had sworn revenge on me after the Affair of the Prussian Martyrs?

Those enraged eyes glared at me still. With a snarl he put his head down and charged at me. I stepped swiftly to one side but he caught me round the waist and together we stumbled back into the main chamber.

By now, of course, we had been noticed. As we whirled about, feet slithering on the wet floor, I had a confused impression of white towels and scarlet faces, mouths opened in wide «o's» of astonishment. The Turk who had brought Miracle’s tea hovered around us, arms flapping, like the referee in a wrestling bout.

«Can’t we… discuss this… like gentlemen?» I gasped.

He rose from my naked waist and jabbed a fist at my face. I sidestepped clumsily, feet skidding.

« Gentleman? You?» he spat.

The Turk was at his elbow, his face a mask of misery. «Please! Please, sirs! If you have business, let it be concluded in the»

He said no more, as my attacker laid him out with a swift right to the underside of his swarthy jaw and he fell to the tiles like a sack of coal.

I cracked a fist against my assailant’s cheek-bone. «Christ!» I yelled, sucking my knuckles.

He screwed up one eye in pain and jabbed at me again. «Lucifer Box! Ha! Was ever a rascal so well named? You are the devil, sir. The very devil!»

I ducked from his fist and managed to land a serious wallop on the side of his head. He staggered and almost fell on the treacherous floor.

«Bringer of light, I assure you!» I cried. My blood was up and so were my fists as I circled the monster. «Lucifer was the brightest and most beautiful of the angels. Till that old margery of a deity got so jealous that he cast him out!»

He snarled at this and succeeded in punching me, with sickening force, in the ribs.

Crying out in pain, I dropped, winded. My knees smacking on the floor with a snap like wish-bones.

The fellow stalked up to me and grasped a great hunk of my hair. «Bringer of light! What have you brought to my household but misery and scandal? My God, sir, I shall thrash the life out of you before I’m done!»

I shook my head miserably. «Who… who are you?»

He sneered at me, his moustaches hanging limply around his red mouth like those of a Chinaman. «I am Pugg, sir. Major Strangeways Pugg.»

«Oh,» I said, simply.

«And it is my daughter, my sweet little Avril who you have despoiled and ruined!»

I winced as he tightened his grip on my hair. Remembrance swept over me like cold water from the Turk’s brass bowl. A party, some months previously. Whey-faced poets, frayed-cuffed artists; all the splendid flotsam of bohemian London life. And a girl. A girl with a dog’s name and the body of a goddess. Avril Pugg. There’d been a balcony, starlight, whispered words then something very cheeky in the rhododendrons.

Now there was a father. He raised his great fist and drew it back. I watched it swing towards me through streaming eyes.

Then there came a strange, bright clang and Pugg crashed to the floor, his addled eyes rolling up in his head like those of a doll.

I looked up and saw my friend standing over the unconscious major, a filigreed Turkish tea-urn still swinging in his right hand.

«Miracle,» I groaned.

«Too bloody right!» he cried, grasping my hand and pulling me to my feet.

THAT night, still as humid as the steam-rooms, I swaddled my bruised carcass in a Japanese dressing gown patterned with embroidered sunflowers and purchased with money I should have spent on oil-paints. Or food. Or tickets to the Continent avoiding enraged fathers.