Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Detective

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” said a young woman’s voice. There was little intonation, and it took Cabal a moment to realise what she was talking about.

“The stars? Yes, I suppose they are. I’m not a poet or a painter, though, so that’s just hearsay.”

The woman made a small noise that was probably a laugh, as if he’d said something witty or profound. In a sense, he had. Then she said, “What do you think of when you look at the stars?”

He considered quickly. He’d heard about this sort of thing. If his understanding was correct, he could well be in the process of being “picked up,” currently at the “small talk” stage. This could be useful. Keeping one — ideally, fairly stupid — woman entertained for the duration of the voyage would go a long way towards avoiding the company of others. Nobody, as the saying goes, wants to be a gooseberry. It might be as well to cultivate her acquaintance.

Looking steadfastly up at the stars and assuming an expression that he had reason to believe was dreamy and romantic, he said, “Once upon a time, it was believed that our futures were, literally, written in the stars. It was called stelliscript. It was said that you should read them west to east if you wanted to know the good things in your future.”

“And north — south for the evil things?” asked his companion, ingenuously.

“Of course, it’s all nonsense; the stars are set in their paths,” said Cabal, wondering if that was a lucky shot on her part. “The future remains unknown to us, no matter how you might try to read it. There was another technique called gyromancy, for example. A practitioner of this piece of flummery would spin around on the spot until he got dizzy and fell over. The manner of the falling-over told the future of whoever had hired the gyromancer. I should think,” he added with an artful chuckle, “that the true reading would invariably be ‘You will soon be gulled by a confidence trickster.’”

There was silence for a few moments, and Cabal wondered if this would be a good time to turn and look as handsome as possible. Before he could commit himself, however, his companion spoke again.

“Gyromancy … I would have thought necromancy was more your style, Johannes Cabal.”

It went very quiet in the lounge.

Then somebody laughed, the chatter started up again, and Cabal realised that it had simply been a natural silence in a dozen conversations occurring simultaneously, the merest fluke. Or, at least, nobody had stuck a gun in his back yet, so that was probably the reason. He stopped looking at the stars — his throat tightening and his head feeling a little gyromantic in itself — refocussed on the reflections in the glass, and, just for a moment, saw a face he knew to be dead. His heart jolted. He took a sharp breath, looked again, and saw he was mistaken, but that the truth was just as shocking. Cabal was not a man given to gasping, usually, and he did not do so again. Standing at his right shoulder, her gaze balefully meeting his, was Leonie Barrow.

It can be said of a necromancer that, given his profession, there are few people he can ever truly be sure of never seeing again, even the ones he buries in shallow graves in the woods. Johannes Cabal, however, could have said in any second up to this that the last person he expected to see aboard the Princess Hortense was Leonie Barrow, a woman he’d last seen many months ago, and a considerable number of international borders away.

Cabal had on that occasion held stewardship of a diabolical carnival, committed to wandering the railway network for a year, scooping up the souls of the disaffected along the way. It was all done at the whim of a bored and capricious Satan, who had made a wager with Cabal: Cabal’s own soul would be returned to him on receipt of a hundred others, with one year in which to do so and the carnival to help him bring in the harvest.

He had loathed that year, even though he really had only himself to blame. It had been a ramshackle period of travel, perfunctory damnations, and tawdry knickknacks during which he had experienced much and enjoyed little. At the time, he thought the end had justified the means, but — a final, bitter irony on top of a year full of them — the end had made him question those means, making his small victory seem petty and ignoble.

He had met Miss Barrow and her father towards the end of the year, when things had become unexpectedly desperate. Mr. Frank Barrow, a retired policeman and redoubtable nuisance, had descended upon Cabal like Nemesis, but in the end it was Leonie Barrow who had proved the cleverer foe. Considered as a whole, it had not been a happy meeting, and they had not parted on the best of terms. In fact, if Miss Barrow had murdered him on that occasion, the prosecution would have had a hard time finding a jury to hang her.

Cabal turned to face her, needing the proof of direct sight. She was still tall, still crowned with the tawny blond hair that matched her name so well, still very striking in a pre-Raphaelite sort of way, and, judging by her expression, still deeply pissed off with him. He tried to speak, but his vocabulary had studied the situation and taken the evening off. “Accch,” he grated slowly, for once speechless. His thumb twitched involuntarily and the cup of his glass snapped off, dumping the remains of the champagne at their feet.

A steward was at his side in an instant, mopping up and apologising for the inferior quality of the glasses; the company would certainly complain to the manufacturers for their shoddiness. “Can I get you another drink, Herr Meissner?” he asked as he gathered up the remains of the glass.

Meissner? mouthed Miss Barrow at Cabal. He barely responded, his mind finally getting up to whirring pace as the frost of surprise thawed. If she denounced him, the ship would turn right around and take him back to the waiting arms of the Count Marechal. He couldn’t let that happen. But he couldn’t see a way around it, either. He calculated possible schemes. Plan A consisted of punching her in the stomach and heaving her through the window. It was direct and effective, but there were certain practical drawbacks that mitigated against its use. He didn’t have a Plan B.

“Fräulein Barrow, perhaps you would like a freshener?” said the steward, indicating her glass.

“No, thank you,” she replied, smiling for his benefit. “I’m replete for the moment. I’m sure if I need any more Herr Meissner will be kind enough …?” This last directed at Cabal, who almost missed it.

“Of course, Fräulein, it would be my privilege,” he replied, nodding and clicking his heels, as appeared to be de rigueur.

“A military man, sir?” said the steward, impressed.

Cabal blinked. He couldn’t wipe his nose around here without committing some sort of social gaff or telegraphing the wrong thing. “Not really,” he prevaricated. “I was at the academy in my youth, but my horse — ” What do horses do that is bad for their riders? he wondered. “Fell on me.” That sounded more than a good enough reason for a medical discharge. He touched the imaginary shoulder wound the horse had caused and accidentally prodded the sabre cut that Marechal had left in him. His unfeigned grimace of pain seemed to do the trick. The steward nodded sympathetically and moved on.

Leonie Barrow watched Cabal as he watched the steward go. He was leaning back with studied nonchalance as he let his gaze wander around the room, but she knew that he simply didn’t want anybody else walking up behind him unexpectedly, especially when they started talking about what she knew they had to talk about. She waited. Finally, Cabal found words.

“Why didn’t you denounce me?” he asked, not looking at her.