Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

“The phone,” said Mr Clubb. Dazedly I extended the receiver.

“Moncrieff, old man,” he said, “amazing good luck, running into you again. Do you remember that trouble the Duke had with Colonel Fletcher and the diary?. Yes, this is Mr Clubb, and it’s delightful to hear your voice again. He’s here, too, couldn’t do anything without him. I’ll tell him. Much the way things went with the Duke, yes, and we’ll need the usual supplies. Glad to hear it. The dining room in half an hour.” He handed the telephone back to me and said to Mr Cuff, “He’s looking forward to the pinochle, and there’s a first-rate Petrus in the cellar he knows you’re going to enjoy.”

I had purchased six cases of 1928 Chateau Petrus at an auction some years before and was holding it while its already immense value doubled, then tripled, until perhaps a decade hence, when I would sell it for ten times its original cost.

“A good drop of wine sets a man right up,” said Mr Cuff. “Stuff was meant to be drunk, wasn’t it?”

“You know Mr Moncrieff?” I asked. “You worked for the Duke?”

“We ply our humble trade irrespective of nationality and borders,” said Mr Clubb. “Go where we are needed, is our motto. We have fond memories of the good old Duke, who showed himself to be quite a fun-loving, spirited fellow, sir, once you got past the crust, as it were. Generous, too.”

“He gave until it hurt,” said Mr Cuff. “The old gentleman cried like a baby when we left.”

“Cried a good deal before that, too,” said Mr Clubb. “In our experience, high-spirited fellows spend a deal more tears than your gloomy customers.”

“I do not suppose you shall see any tears from me,” I said. The brief look which passed between them reminded me of the complicitous glance I had once seen fly like a live spark between two of their New Covenant forbears, one gripping the hind legs of a pig, the other its front legs and a knife, in the moment before the knife opened the pig’s throat and an arc of blood threw itself high into the air. “I shall heed your advice,” I said, “and locate my analgesics.” I got on my feet and moved slowly to the bathroom. “As a matter of curiosity,” I said, “might I ask if you have classified me into the high-spirited category, or into the other?”

“You are a man of middling spirit,” said Mr Clubb. I opened my mouth to protest, and he went on, “But something may be made of you yet.”

I disappeared into the bathroom. I have endured these moonfaced yokels long enough, I told myself, hear their story, feed the bastards, then kick them out.

In a condition more nearly approaching my usual self, I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face before returning to the bedroom. I placed myself with a reasonable degree of executive command in a wing chair, folded my pinstriped robe about me, inserted my feet into velvet slippers, and said, “Things got a bit out of hand, and I thank you for dealing with my young client, a person with whom in spite of appearances I have a professional relationship only. Now we may turn to our real business. I trust you found my wife and Leeson at Green Chimneys. Please give me an account of what followed. I await your report.”

“Things got a bit out of hand,” said Mr Clubb. “Which is a way of describing something that can happen to us all, and for which no one can be blamed. Especially Mr Cuff and myself, who are always careful to say right smack at the beginning, as we did with you, sir, what ought to be so obvious as not need saying at all, that our work brings about permanent changes which can never be undone. Especially in the cases when we specify a time to make our initial report and the client disappoints us at the said time. When we are let down by our client, we must go forward and complete the job to our highest standards with no rancor or ill-will, knowing that there are many reasonable explanations of a man’s inability to get to a telephone.”

“I don’t know what you mean by this self-serving doubletalk,” I said. “We had no arrangement of that sort, and your effrontery forces me to conclude that you failed in your task.”

Mr Clubb gave me the grimmest possible suggestion of a smile. “One of the reasons for a man’s failure to get to a telephone is a lapse of memory. You have forgotten my informing you that I would give you my initial report at eleven. At precisely eleven o’clock I called, to no avail. I waited through twenty rings, sir, before I abandoned the effort. If I had waited through a hundred, sir, the result would have been the same, on account of your decision to put yourself into a state where you would have had trouble remembering your own name.”

“That is a blatant lie,” I said, then remembered. The fellow had in fact mentioned in passing something about reporting to me at that hour, which must have been approximately the time when I was regaling the Turds or Valves with “The Old Rugged Cross.” My face grew pink. “Forgive me,” I said. “I am in error, it is just as you say.”

“A manly admission, sir, but as for forgiveness, we extended that quantity from the git-go,” said Mr Clubb. “We are your servants, and your wishes are our sacred charge.”

“That’s the whole ball of wax in a nutshell,” said Mr Cuff, giving a fond glance to the final inch of his cigar. He dropped the stub onto my carpet and ground it beneath his shoe. “Food and drink to the fibers, sir,” he said.

“Speaking of which,” said Mr Clubb. “We will continue our report in the dining room, so as to dig into the feast ordered up by that wondrous villain, Reggie Moncrieff.”

Until that moment I believe that it had never quite occurred to me that my butler possessed, like other men, a Christian name.

“A great design directs us,” said Mr Clubb, expelling morsels of his cud. “We poor wanderers, you and me and Mr Cuff and the milkman too, only see the little portion right in front of us. Half the time we don’t even see that in the right way. For sure we don’t have a Chinaman’s chance of understanding it. But the design is ever-present, sir, a truth I bring to your attention for the sake of the comfort in it. Toast, Mr Cuff.”

“Comfort is a matter cherished by all parts of a man,” said Mr Cuff, handing his partner the rack of toasted bread. “Most particularly that part known as his soul, which feeds upon the nutrient adversity.”

I was seated at the head of the table and flanked by Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff. The salvers and tureens before us overflowed, for Mr Moncrieff, who after embracing each barnie in turn and then entering into a kind of conference or huddle, had summoned from the kitchen a meal far surpassing their requests. Besides several dozen eggs and perhaps two packages of bacon, he had arranged a mixed grill of kidneys, lamb’s livers and lamb chops, and strip steaks, as well as vats of oatmeal and a pasty concoction he described as “kedgeree — as the old Duke fancied it.”

Sickened by the odors of the food, also by the mush visible in my companions’ mouths, I tried once more to extract their report. “I don’t believe in the grand design,” I said, “and I already face more adversity than my soul could find useful. Tell me what happened at the house.”

“No mere house, sir,” said Mr Clubb. “Even as we approached along — Lane, Mr Cuff and I could not fail to respond to its magnificence.”

“Were my drawings of use?” I asked.

“They were invaluable.” Mr Cuff speared a lamb chop and raised it to his mouth. “We proceeded through the rear door into your spacious kitchen or scullery. Wherein we observed evidence of two persons having enjoyed a dinner enhanced by a fine wine and finished with a noble champagne.”