Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Detective

“And then, suddenly, it was morning.

“I have been knocked unconscious before and am familiar with the small loss of memory that comes with it, so I was not unduly concerned that I could not recall precisely how I had lost my horse. Indeed, a wound on my brow suggested that I had been swept off her back by a low bough. I was, however, very concerned to discover that my clothes were filthy, and I found that I had a beard of several days’ growth.

“As I lay there, I heard voices and, looking to one side, realised that I had been laid out in a clearing in the woods. My horse, that wretched beast, was tied up by a tree with two others and, by a small fire, two men were going through my saddlebags. I have a small gift for languages, but their parochial dialect of Mirkarvian German was difficult to follow — salted as it was with Katamenian words — and only with difficulty could I make out what they were talking about. What I heard filled me with anger but made me apprehensive for my safety. They appeared to be bandits and had happened across me — they consistently referred to me as the baromarcu’ Ausländerfotz , a singularly insulting term for ‘foreigner’ — in a state of confusion. Seeing that pickings rarely got easier than an amnesiac upon an injured horse, they had ridden after me and knocked me from the saddle. They kept speaking of me in the past tense, and I realised that that they believed this second fall had killed me. In fact, it had restored me to my senses.

“I remembered reading Mallory in my youth, and thought of the mad Lancelot lost in the forest. I couldn’t remember what happened to him, but I doubted he had recovered his wits to discover a pair of thieves bickering over his field glasses. I lay doggo and considered my next move. If they discovered me to be alive, I had little doubt they would cut my throat and consider it small inconvenience. I felt weak, and my wound — I had been fortunate that the bandits had not seen me stir and touch it — burned abominably, suggesting some infection. Fighting them was out of the question. Thus, I was left with little option but to continue to lie quite still and play dead.

“After some further argument, the two villains finished splitting my belongings between them, took their horses — and mine — and made to leave. One briefly wondered whether they should bury me, but the other said to leave me for the wolves and bears. The first was unhappy about this, and I had the sense that he was superstitious about mistreatment of the dead, a courtesy he notably didn’t extend to the living. Thankfully, his companion was made of sterner stuff and belittled him for his fears until they both left, the former in a nervous dudgeon.

“For safety’s sake, I lay still for several minutes after the sound of their movement had faded away. I was in a dilemma — injured, weakened, and lost without food or water. What was I to do? I’ve been in a good few scrapes in my time but, to be frank, none had seemed this hopeless, and it took a few moments to fight a sense of despair that arose in me as the gravity of my situation made itself perfectly apparent. Of course, I was able to rein such sensations back; despair is an enemy just as any other, but at least it can be fought with action. At which point I heard an animal moving close by.

“I stayed perfectly still. Most bears, no matter what the bandits had said, are not especially interested in dead meat until it has become a little gamy. They are, however, easily antagonised and, judging by the sounds the animal was making, it was more likely to be a bear than a wolf. I lay absolutely still, eyes shut, and listened as the animal came closer and closer by degrees, obviously suspicious of the clearing. There would be silence for seconds, sometimes minutes on end, and I would think it had moved on. Then I would hear it again, still cautious, still closer. The blood was pounding in my head as my heart raced, goading me to leap to my feet and either fight or run. I knew that either course would almost certainly result in my death. There was nothing to do but wait.

“Can you imagine what it felt like? Even now, I remember with perfect clarity what it was to lie there and hope against hope that whatever was interested in my prone form was not hungry at that moment. Then I felt its shadow fall across me, and I knew that everything would be settled one way or the other in a few moments.

“‘You are quite the least convincing corpse I think I’ve ever clapped eyes upon,’ said the creature, causing my own eyes to snap open with surprise.

“The ‘creature’ was a man, standing over me and giving me a look of such sour criticism that I felt faintly ashamed, as if caught in the commission of a puerile practical joke. I sat up and immediately regretted such rapid movement, as my head whirled and I felt dangerously nauseous. ‘Somebody’s been using your head as a punchbag,’ said the man, studying me coldly, as if I were but a microbe upon a microscope stage. He knelt by me, pulled back my eyelid, and studied the white. ‘Mild concussion,’ he said. ‘You’ll live.’

“‘You’re a doctor?’

“He smiled, and it was like a bloodless cut. ‘No,’ he replied, amused by something. ‘No, not a doctor. I haven’t the bedside manner for it.’

“‘But you’ve had medical training?’

“He seemed to find this line of questioning boring. ‘Self-taught, largely,’ he replied in a dismissive tone, before adding, ‘Look, we’re both a long way from civilisation and those brigands have horses. I suggest we appropriate them.’

“‘Yes, you’re right, of course.’ After I’d floundered around on the ground for a moment, he deigned to help me up. ‘My name’s Enright,’ I said. He nodded and set off across the clearing in the direction the thieves had taken. He showed no indication of answering my implicit enquiry. ‘And your name is …?’ I called finally as I stumbled after him.

“‘A closely guarded secret. Do keep up, Enright.’”

Protheroe, apparently snoozing by the fire, muttered, “A curious cove,” before lapsing back into gentle snores.

“As I walked with the stranger, I took the opportunity to study him. He stood around the six-foot mark, perhaps a little taller, perhaps a little shorter, but not by much in either direction. His hair was blond, a very Nordic blond that matched the faint German accent I’d detected in his speech. He seemed not to have shaved for a few days. His clothes were an odd choice for travelling through dense forest, too; he was wearing a city suit, and a conservatively cut one at that — it was as if a civil servant had been plucked from the streets of the government district and dropped in the wilds. I remember noting that he had a sorely battered and ageing red carnation in his buttonhole; when I pointed this out, he looked at it with surprise and said something about forgetting that it was there. He then plucked it from his lapel and tossed it away into the undergrowth with a sour remark about life having seemed to be a good deal more agreeable on the morning he bought it. All this said, I must have looked as ill-prepared for the rigours of the forest as he, and I made the natural assumption that he, as I, was a refugee from the troubles.

“‘You don’t talk much,’ he said suddenly.

“‘I thought we were trying to catch them unawares?’

“‘Just so. Based on the evidence, however’ — he indicated a clear trail running through some bushes leading across a slope — ‘we’re not dealing with the world’s most cunning criminals. I’m hardly frontier material myself, but this … this really is pathetic.’

“‘They probably think they’re safe this far from the beaten track.’

“‘Well,’ said the stranger, ‘we shall simply have to disabuse them of that notion.’