Mark Gatiss - The Vesuvius Club

«Mr Box? Mr Box?» The lovely Miss Pok placed a hand on my arm.

«I’m very sorry, my dear,» I said quietly. «The lesson is over for today.»

«NO clue?»

Joshua Reynolds, sitting in his accustomed place on the pan, raised his little hands, palm upwards. «The Italian police have it down as a robbery gone awry. We shall have to wait and see. The body has been packed in ice and arrives tomorrow.»

«Poor devil,» I said, leaning back against the pleasantly chill wall of the lavatory. «Saw Naples and died, you might say.»

«So much for Poop,» said Reynolds glumly. «Have you made any progress with the dead professors?»

I thrust my hands into my trouser pockets and kicked idly at the cubicle wall. «Some, I think. They were both concerned with the same branch of Geological Physics and had known each other of old. In addition, there was something odd about Sash’s funeral.»

Reynolds frowned. «Not much, all told.»

«I had precious little chance to investigate Professor Sash’s effects,» I continued. «So I plan to return for a… root about.»

The little man gave a sigh. «How I envy you your adventures, Lucifer. What is left for me but a dull retirement spent in the cultivation of ornamental carp?»

«One man’s fish is another man’s poisson .»

«Ye… es. Now then, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.»

So saying, he pulled at the toilet chain and, with a screeching, grinding sound, the wall behind me rose up and another lavatory bowl glided into the room.

Sitting on it was a gangling young man in quite the most horrible piece of tailoring I’d ever seen. The sleeves of his suit crept over the knuckles of slim, feminine hands with which he was kneading his hat like a widow with her rosary.

«Mr Box,» said Reynolds, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it to his reddened nose. «This is Mr Unmann.»

The blond man shot a hand to his crown in order to doff his hat and then remembered it was doffed already. A stupid smile made his nose crinkle in the middle.

«Sorry,» he began.

«Whatever for?» I asked.

«Oh, sorry. Don’t really know why I said that. It’s a great honour to meet you at last, Mr Box. Cretaceous Unmann.»

«Cretaceous?»

«Yes,» he muttered, looking down at his hands. «Fact is, Papa was an amateur dinosaur-hunter. Never got much further than the Isle of Wight but, hey-ho. Took it upon himself to name me in honour of his favourite epoch. Sorry.»

I smiled pityingly. «I suppose it could have been worse,» I said. «He could have named you after his favourite dinosaur.»

«Ha, ha! Yes!» Unmann exploded in a shrill laugh. « Iguanodon Unmann, eh?»

Thankfully, Reynolds cut in at this juncture. «Mr Unmann has been lined up to succeed Poop in the Naples office.»

«I see. Remarkably expeditious of you.»

«Yes. Shocking business,» bleated Unmann. «I knew old Jocelyn. Sometimes acted as his deputy. Dreadful, dreadful.»

He looked down at his squashed hat and then put it to one side of the lavatory bowl.

The dwarf handed a buff folder to me.

«Someone fired his rooms,» said Unmann, miserably. «But those few fragments escaped.»

«Our people in Naples sent them straight over with Mr Unmann,» said Reynolds.

I opened the file. A smell of charred paper hit me at once. A couple of documents were enclosed within, tied up neatly with waxed string. I released them and swiftly read them over.

The first was a scrap of good-quality notepaper. On it was written the legend:

K TO V.C.?

«Looks like hotel stationery,» I said. «Shouldn’t be too difficult to trace.»

The next was a long white envelope containing a sheet of slightly singed foolscap.

To Joshua Reynolds

Sir. It is important that you know all that is afoot. I am certain I may rely on you above all persons, even poor Unmann, bless his heart, who has been such a brick and who means so well.

I glanced across at the young man. His face twisted into a shy smile.

If all goes well, I shall return to London as planned and there relate to you the story of my adventures. It is a tale so fantastic that you will scarcely credit it. I do not lie when I say it could shake the pillars of the Empire! If I can but thwart these men’s schemes, then I will be Poop the Civil Service mouse no more but Poop the Lion of the Foreign Office! If I am unlucky then it will fall to others to pick up the threads. All that I know of this affair is contained in the trunk marked with my name. I pray you will never have to read this. JP

I folded the letter on my lap and replaced it in its envelope.

«The trunk of course, did not escape the flames,» muttered Joshua Reynolds miserably. «Foolish youth! Such wilful egotism has more than once cost us dear. If a conspiracy is discovered then simple can-dour is absolutely essential!»

I could only agree. I recalled the Shanghai Balloon Incident — which so nearly did for one of our lesser PMs — and the fatal damage caused by one fellow’s refusal to share what he knew with his colleagues. I should know. That fellow was me.

I tapped the envelope. «Any suspects in the Poop murder?»

«They’ve rounded up the traditional pretty lot. Smashers, thugs, vitriol throwers, extortionists…»

«A veritable catalogue of vice!» I cried cheerily. «Now isn’t that a good idea? The kind of catalogue I’d instantly subscribe to.»

«Lucifer,» said Joshua Reynolds, warningly.

I tapped my fingers against my chin. «„Shake the pillars of the Empire“, eh? What the deuce could he have meant?»

The next morning found me on a train rattling through a muggy north London. Dreary villas streamed past in a blur of hideous brightness. As soon as I reached the nearest post office, I thought, I would send a wire to Miss Bella Pok apologizing again for the hasty termination of our lesson and looking forward to another meeting soon. What would it be like to flee this baking wen of a city and run barefoot through a field of ripening green corn with that lovely girl? I pictured us laughing gaily, tumbling into the undergrowth, the cyan sky blazing above us…

I ran a finger under my collar and sighed, horribly stifled by my summer rig. Surely the cause of Men’s Dress Reform must do most of its recruiting during the interminable London Augusts? I longed to throw my straw hat from the carriage and toss my cream waistcoat into the Thames as the Reformers are wont to do. Leafy Belsize Park was not, I reasoned, quite ready for the sight of yours truly in the buff, so I hopped from the train still fully clothed and, after contracting my business at the post office, found myself outside the offices of Mr Tom Bowler Esq. — the undertaker who had so disquieted Mrs Sash.

I began by taking a quick look around the yard at the rear of the premises. A dog-cart with a sad-looking horse in its shafts stood squarely in the centre but it was otherwise empty, save for a heap of dead flowers and wreaths that might have been the beginnings of a bonfire. I crouched down and picked through the wilted debris. Here was a wreath for the late Professor Sash. Here was a bouquet of flattened lilies, reeking dreadfully. And here — aha! A wreath for Professor Eli Verdigris! Both funerals had been taken care of by the same firm! And with a similar want of respect for the trappings of grief. I made my way around to the front.

The door was ajar and the rooms within lit. I adopted my most doleful expression and made my way inside.

It was a bare-looking suite of rooms with frosted windows and a long, dark counter that occupied half its width. Framed mezzotints of cherubs and angels crowded the green walls. There were pots of lilies everywhere and motes of orange pollen drifting from them through the dim gas-light. I wrinkled my nose at the faint smell of brackish water.