K Jeter: Infernal Devices

Such happy ignorance is possible. Only the sketchiest outline has been made public of Lord Bendray's investigations into the so-called Cataclysm Harmonics by which he meant to split the earth to its core. Even now, the riveted iron sphere of his Hermetic Carriage lies in the ruins of Bendray Hall, its signal flags and lights tattered and broken, a mere object of speculation to the attendants who listen patiently to the tottering grey-haired figure's inquiries about his new life on another planet.

The discretion that sterling can purchase has saved the heirs of the Bendray estate further embarrassment. Not for the purposes of spite, but to remedy the damage done to my own and my father's name, will I render a complete account of Lord Bendray's fateful musical soiree in these pages.

The rain begins, spattering on the panes of my study window. Before the heaped coal-grate, the dog sleeping on the rug whines and scratches the floor. An apprehensive tremor blots the ink from the pen in my hand, and in my waistcoat pocket a coin of no value, save as a dread keepsake, grows cold through layers of cloth against my flesh. No matter; I press onward.

Many who read this, I know, will be in search of further salacious details concerning the more disgusting accusations brought against me. I have been painted as a demon of lust. Reports of my careering through ill-lit dockside alleys in a coach-and-four, hot in pursuit of unnatural pleasures such as the "green girls" whose connection to instances of madness and physical decay among the younger peerage is so often whispered of, have been given credence far beyond that which is called for by the small bit of truth in those stories. It was through no fault of my own that the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice staged a torchlight march on my former shop and residence. Indeed, if the public were aware of the hidden nature of Mrs Trabble, the captain of that well-thought-of regiment, much excited talk would shift away from me.

As to the greater scandal surrounding the dual career attributed to me, that is, as a violin virtuoso equal to the great Paganini and a debaucher of women exceeding the lecherous Casanova, I maintain that neither of these accomplishments was mine. No Stradivarius or well-born lady ever responded to my bow in such a way. Though my brain was used in the production of those melodies, so enticing on the concert stage and even more so behind it, my hands are spotless. I can scarcely hope that my revelations will be credited. For my own comfort I place them here.

On other matters official judgment was rendered in the courts. My conviction on the charge of desecrating a place of worship, specifically by substituting copies of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler for the hymnals of Saint Mary Alderhythe, Bankside, and decorating the church altar with fishing tackle – that too can be explained. Folly I may be guilty of, but not sacrilege.

Even though my name has been connected – with some cause, I admit – to reports from the Scottish Highlands of the Book of Revelation's Seven-Headed Beast flapping about and dropping flaming sheep carcasses upon the heads of Sir Charles Wroth's grouse-beaters while the Whore of Babylon laughed and shouted disrespectful comments from her perch aboard the creature, yet I still believe that an open mind will absolve me of blame. Indeed, the fact that the guns of Sir Charles' grouse-hunt were trained upon me should cause a charitable nature to hear my grievance with some sympathy.

But as I pause for a moment, lifting my pen, and gaze through the rain-wavering glass at the thin trails of smoke rising from the crowded rooftops' chimneys and fading towards the river's mist – a view I cannot describe in greater detail for fear of leading the gawking crowd to this, my retreat – a shiver not prompted by ague or cold reaches down my arms. The dog raises his head, ears pricking at the sound of the distant church bells that neither I nor any other Christian gentleman has heard, or should ever hope to hear. Somewhere in that city borough, the name of which is spoken only in the most muted whisper, and whose location is everywhere and nowhere in London at once, the congregation summoned by those bells – to us, mercifully silent – is sidling through narrow alleys towards a damp worship.

Restoring my name, my father's name, seems a shallow vanity now. What matter glory or ignominy, when such visions have altered the world itself in my sight? Riven in twain, as in Lord Bendray's intent towards the earth, yet still whole. For me, London's grey veil, smoke and fog, has been brushed aside. Happy are those who mistake the painted curtain for the reality behind.

The dog drops his head to his paws and resumes his slumber. Thus chastened, mindful of my own futility, I persist, scratching ink on to paper. Let the reader, thus warned, mindful of the perhaps ignoble interest he shows in these matters, do as he wishes.

Creff was visibly agitated by the stranger's appearance at our door. Memory calls to mind the anxious wringing of his hands, resembling two furless pink badgers wrestling for each other's throats, and the perfect circularity of his widened eyes.

"Lord, Mr Dower, it's an Ethiope!" whispered Creff. "And crazed – a murderous savage!" The badgers throttled themselves bloodless.

I kept my own voice level, as, the shop being downstairs from the room where I took my breakfast, the visitor was in no danger of hearing the calumnies he had occasioned. "'Ethiope' may be apparent on the surface," I said. "But by what means did you discern the state of his mind?" The grey-filled window at my back necessitated the gas bracket's flame, despite the advancing hour of the morning; by its yellow light I turned over a wedge of toast, in the vain hope that the one frugal rasher of bacon had a twin hidden there.

"Mr Dower – his eyes." Creff's own grew even wider. "Nothing but little slits, they were. Like he was maddened with some heathen liquor, and prepared for murder!"

Intoxication was, in fact, a possibility. With discretion sufficient to avoid offending Creff, I inhaled deeply, endeavouring to detect the fumes signalling a lapse in his conduct. Episodes of indulgence produced unfortunate fancies in him; only a few months before I had been compelled to exert a good deal of diplomacy on the wife of the shopkeeper several doors over. Creff had been discovered in the alleyway, on his knees before a bemused shop-cat. Stale beer had convinced him the cat was the Recording Angel, and he had been attempting to bribe it with small confectionery lozenges, the erasure of certain regretted sins being the object of his negotiations. Mrs Draywaite had been mollified only by my hastily concocted explanation that a congenital weakness in Creff's knees produced genuflections without warning.

In similar fashion, although there was no tell-tale odour of strong drink on the air, the Ethiopian reported downstairs might be nothing more than an Italian of unusual swarthiness. Africans had been much on Creff's mind of late, due to the then widely celebrated performances of Prince Ko-Mo-Lo, the Abyssinian Tenor, upon a Mayfair music-hall stage, as well as the appearance of several common street-singers of similar hue. The latter, upon investigation by the constabulary, turned out to be ordinary Irish buskers underneath the lampblack they had employed to transform themselves into Africans. They had hoped that the public, now dark-minded, would reward chanted gibberish with more coins than their previous incarnations' repertoire of sentimental ballads had earned. Even after these frauds had been exposed, Creff seemed fixed on the subject, as though the anthropophagi of his childhood stories had set up kettle and knackers in every alley.

Mistaking my wary attitude, Creff leaned close over the breakfast table. "Here's what we can do, Mr Dower. You sneak down the back steps and call out the peelers, and I'll hold 'im at bay until they arrive." From under his scullery apron he displayed a carving knife, the blade barely sharp enough to threaten a cheese.