Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Detective

“Your Imperial Majesty is very quiet today,” said Prezof. “And a little pale, if I might make so bold. You are well?”

Antrobus looked down at Prezof and his eyes were black ports into an empty pit where a soul used to live. His lips slowly formed the words, “People of Mirkavia … Mirkarvia …” Prezof prided himself on being a sensitive person but, then again, he prided himself on being a great artist, and he was deluding himself there, too. He smiled at the dead man and told him there was a bit of mild flu going around and that was certainly the problem.

Cabal was getting bored waiting. He had one last syringe to inject just before they presented the imperial carcass to its public which would give the grey, marbled flesh the semblance of humanity. After that — well, he would have to see. The Count Marechal was clearly a career soldier, a political meddler, and an ambitious aristocrat, and any of these occupations in itself would have boded ill. How he managed to be all three simultaneously without tearing down the seams, and the mendacity and ruthlessness with which he was stuffed leaking out, was a small miracle. Cabal briefly wondered what mendacity and ruthlessness looked like as stuffing and imagined something like wet poppy seeds before his personality turned up and quashed such frivolous whimsy. He had to remain focussed if he were to stay alive.

Lieutenant Karstetz came in and stamped to attention because he liked it. “The Count Marechal requires your presence, Herr Cabal, at the imperial balcony. Oh, and take the corpse with you,” he added as an afterthought.

“Corpse?” said Prezof, appalled, stepping out from behind Antrobus’s bulk, where he had been brushing nap. Then he looked up at the pale emperor and a penny audibly dropped. He gasped and stepped back.

“Oh,” said Karstetz, miffed, “I say, the dressmaker. That’s a bind. This is all supposed to be terribly hush-hush. The count will have my guts for garters for letting the cat out of the bag.” He walked over to Cabal. “Be a brick and take his Imperial Deadness to the balcony, will you?” He looked at Prezof without rancour and drew his sabre. “’Fraid I’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do here, don’t y’know?”

Cabal took the emperor by the elbow and guided him to the door and out into the corridor. As he turned to close the door behind him, he saw Karstetz bearing down on the terrified Prezof. He loathed unnecessary killing but, then again, he loathed Prezof. Still, he felt it was necessary to at least register his disapproval. “You can’t go around killing people to cover up your mistakes,” he said. “You’ll kill off half the country at that rate.”

Karstetz paused. “You’re right, of course,” he admitted, apparently missing the implication. “I think that’s a very good point. I shall start being more careful — ” He turned back towards Prezof and raised his sabre. “Tomorrow.”

Cabal narrowed his lips and closed the door behind him. Halfway down the corridor, he heard a reedy scream from the room.

“This is a fine country you’ve got here,” he said to Antrobus II. “ Such a fine place. A nominal leader who should have been in a sepulchre a week ago and a military full of inbred psychopaths.” They walked a little further. “A little bit like Imperial Rome, really.”

Marechal was crushing a dead cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray when Cabal entered. “Where have you been?” he demanded, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder at an ormolu clock. “Have you seen the time? Is he ready? Gott! Look at the state of him.”

Cabal produced a syringe and jammed it in Antrobus’s neck. Antrobus seemed wholly unconcerned. Within a few seconds, a spreading perimeter of good skin colour was expanding out from the needle mark. Where it passed, the pallid corpse tones were replaced with a glow of rude health, the dead eyes twinkled, the hair bristled. Lieutenant Karstetz entered as the transformation was well under way. “I say, I could do with a jigger of that stuff after a heavy night.”

“I’ll give you the formula,” said Cabal in the full knowledge that the stuff was toxic to the living.

“Does he know the speech?” asked Marechal.

“He knows every word he’s been taught,” Cabal replied. “He can be relied upon to play his part.”

“Excellent.” The Count Marechal went to the curtain that divided the room from the balcony. It was a good day for a speech. The weather was clear and cool without being cold. A national holiday had been called and the people were feeling well disposed toward the ruling class. They showed this by milling around eating sausages, swilling beer, and slapping one another on the back while laughing too loudly. This, from Marechal’s perspective, was a vast improvement over them running around with flaming brands, torching government buildings, and stringing up tax collectors. He watched the crowd for a few moments, the faint sneer that lurked beneath his nose twisting his moustache.

Across the square, the basilica clock sounded the hour and the people grew quiet. Marechal stepped away from the window. “It is time,” he said, purely for effect. “This had better work, Cabal.”

“I’ve done my work properly,” said Cabal as he led the emperor forward. “You should be worrying about the standard of the speech.”

The curtains were drawn back, Cabal whispered a word of command into Antrobus’s ear, and the dead man stepped forward for his finest hour. Cabal stepped back into the shadows as Marechal and the other dignitaries formed in a line behind the emperor. Marechal curtly gestured to Karstetz. “Watch Cabal,” he whispered.

“Bit late in the day for him to try anything, isn’t it, old man?”

“A bit late?” He looked at Karstetz with mild disbelief, as if just realising that he was talking to a chimp in a cavalry officer’s uniform. “Just watch him, will you?” He joined the line.

Karstetz moved back into the room and perched on the corner of a table, an unconscious echo of how Cabal had first seen the Count Marechal. But where Marechal had watched him closely, Karstetz only grinned amiably, looked around the room with little interest, and started to hum an unlovely melody for the tuba. Cabal found an antique high-backed chair and made himself comfortable.

The crowd went deadly quiet as the emperor, Antrobus II of Mirkarvia, made his appearance. There had been plentiful rumours of his death floating about; despite Marechal’s threats and Karstetz’s enthusiasm, the imperial household leaked gossip like a buckshotted bucket. The people had been half looking forward to a nice revolution. And now up popped Antrobus, quite spoiling things. Still, they gave a cheer. The beer and sausages were free and they didn’t wish to appear churlish. They’d let him have his say and then have a revolution next week, after a decent interval. They were a downtrodden mass, but they had been brought up nicely.

Antrobus stepped up to the balcony rail and paused. And paused. The moment grew to impolite and impolitic length. The dignitaries in the line shot glances at one another. The crowd began to mutter, a distant susurration of uncertainty. Marechal’s expression never changed, but he made sure that the captain of the guards down in the square would be able to see his signal to shoot into the crowd if necessary. Then things would need to be done, and done quickly. Still, it would take only a moment to shoot Cabal through the middle of his supercilious face and blow recondite grey matter over the walls. He’d intended to do it anyway, but it would be so much more satisfying seasoned with revenge. Then he forgot about the pale pleasures of cheap brutality as the emperor raised his hands and the crowd fell silent once more.