Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows

The place was the usual crumbling pile familiar to us all from horror films and Masterpiece Theatre anglophiliac fantasias, although the hour and the weather gave it the look more of the former’s sort of prop. It had a Jacobean core, a couple of Georgian wings, and some Victorian gewgaws despoiling the facade. We chance to meet a workman on a tiny tractor in front of the house and he directed us around to what was once the servants’ entrance. Our knock was answered by a solid fortyish woman of the English Rose type who wore half glasses, a tweed skirt, and two cardigans, wisely in the case of these last, for the room she showed us into was almost cold enough to show breath. A tiny electric fire hummed valiantly, but clearly to little avail. It was the old steward’s office, she explained, the only habitable room in the house, and her headquarters.

She asked what she could do for us and I said, “We’re here to see Count Dracula.” She grinned and replied in an appropriately Masterpiece Theatre- ish accent, “Yes, everyone says that, or else something about the peasants coming for Frankenstein. Too many Gothic novels and films, but I think there’s something in all that nonsense, you know. I think that even then, in the nineteenth century, when it seemed as if the life that produced these houses would go on forever, writers knew there was something wrong with them, that they rested ultimately on the most dreadful suffering, and it bubbled up in the Gothic tale.”

“What sort of suffering is this one built on?”

“Oh, take your pick. The original Lord Dunbarton stole it courtesy of Henry VIII from some Benedictine nuns who ran a charity hospital here. None of that for the baron, of course, and afterward the Dunbartons made their pile in sugar and slaves. That funded the Georgian buildings and afterward they had coal and gas and urban property in Nottingham and Coventry. None of them ever did an honest day’s work in their lives and they lived like emperors. But…”

“What?” Paul asked.

“It’s difficult to explain. Come with me, I’ll show you something.”

We followed her out of the office and down a dim corridor lit by wall sconces holding fifteen-watt bulbs. The chill in that room was coziness itself compared with the damp cold of the corridors, cold as the grave I recall thinking, slipping easily into Gothic mode. We went through a door and she pressed a light switch. I gasped.

“This was the Jacobean dining hall and later the breakfast room. It’s considered the finest example of linenfold walnut paneling in the Midlands, not to mention the carving on the sideboards and the inlaid parquet flooring. Look at the detail! This was done by English craftsmen for thugs who couldn’t tell a dado from sheep dip, so why did they put their souls into this walnut? Love is why, and I honor them for it, which is why I’m in the business of preserving it. Come, there’s more.”

The next room was a ballroom. “Look at the ceiling. Giacomo Quarenghi, circa 1775, Britannia ruling the waves. There she is in her amphibious chariot drawn by dolphins and all the darkies paying homage around the border. The room itself is by Adam. Look at the proportions! The windows! The parquet! No one will ever build a house like this again, ever, even though we have people in this country who could buy any of the Lords Dunbarton with the change in their pockets, and that means that something wonderful has gone out of the world, and I’d love to know why.”

“So would I,” said Paul. “I know the feeling. It’s one I often have in Rome. Corruption and vice of every sort, the ruin of real religion, and yet…what gorgeous stuff they made!”

After that, they chatted animatedly about Rome and aesthetics while I stared up at Britannia and tried to ID the subject peoples. Then we went back to the half-warm office and the business of the day. Paul did the talking, he having already established a relationship, and besides he had the collar-who cannot trust a priest? After he’d finished she said, “So you’ve come all this way because of a miscarriage of justice? You’re following the track of this Bulstrode fellow in the hope of pulling a thread that will lead you to his real killer?”

“You have it,” said Paul. “Do you recall his visit at all?”

“Oh, yes, of course I do. I don’t get many vistors with whom I can discuss anything more than the football and the price of petrol, so I’m afraid I rather seized on them and simply chatted their heads off. As I did with you, shame upon me. Yes, Professor Bulstrode, ex Brasenose, seconded to some university in the States, and he had a young woman with him, Carol Raleigh? Is that right?”

“Close enough. Do you happen to recall what they were looking for?”

The woman considered the question for a moment, staring at the coils of the electric fire. “They said they were researching the family history of the Dunbartons, but there was something else going on, I think. They were exchanging looks, if you follow me, and they were rather short on details. Scholars, I’ve found, are typically expansive on their subjects, and Professor Bulstrode and his assistant were distinctly not. But it was none of my affair after all, he had the proper scholarly credentials, and so I gave them the key to the muniment room and went on with my own affairs. They were up there for the entire day, remarkable really, because the place is a mare’s nest, never really been properly cataloged, and they descended covered in the dust of ages. I asked them if they’d found what they’d been looking for and they said yes, and thanked me and the professor made a contribution to the trust to help with the restoration, a hundred pounds, actually, very generous, and they left.”

“Did they take anything?”

“You mean make off with a document? I shouldn’t think so, but they might have taken rafts of them. I wasn’t looking, and I certainly didn’t search them before they left.”

At that point the telephone rang, and Miss Randolph picked up the heavy antique instrument and listened, and said she had to take this call, it was the builder, and they thanked her and left.

Back in the warmth of the car I asked Paul what he thought.

“My guess,” he replied, “is that they did find something and Rolly ran off with it. She seems to be quite a piece of work.”

“I suppose. Well, brother, what now? We seem to have exhausted our possibilities.”

“Yes, on this line anyway.” He looked at his watch. “Today is shot, obviously. I suggest we return to Oxford, spend the night in a perfectly adequate hotel, pick up Crosetti in the morning, and go over to Aylesbury.”

“What for? What’s in Aylesbury?”

“Springhill House, one of Her Majesty’s prisons. I want to have a talk with Leonard Pascoe, the internationally famous forger of old documents. Mr. Brown, do you think we could arrange to be followed there?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure some wicked person might tip someone off about our destination.”

“Yes, there’s a great deal of wickedness in the world,” said Paul, with such a look of sly satisfaction on his face that I wanted to punch him.

“Oh, and Mr. Brown?” said Paul.

“Sir.”

“Would you try to locate a farm along the way? One that raises geese.”

“Geese,” said the driver. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s going on, Paul?” I asked him.

“Oh, we’re just going to meet Richard Bracegirdle,” he said, and would yield no more information, that smug bastard.

T HE S IXTH C IPHERED L ETTER (F RAGMENT 3)

we to the George & conversed late: Mr W.S. saies as to hym-selfe I have killed a man I must be shriven & where shal I fynde a priest in these tymes. Then saies hee, Dick, now have we sent your two rogues to Hell but Hell hath yet a greater store, the devil hath ’em in barrels lyke haringes, soe when yon Piggott shal heere of this afray he shal send more & yet more til we are o’er-come at last, nay we must strike at the roote & that is my lord Dunbarton. Now we must crye out to greater than wee, for great lords are ne’er toppled but by greater ones. Now I am well with the Montagues & the Montagues are well with the Howards, being both friends of the old religioun & Frances Howard hath the harte of my lord of Rochester, as all the court knoweth & she shal carrie the letter & sware it be true, for true it is & thus shall my lord Dunbarton be disconfited & you saved. What letter is that, sir, saies I. Nay, saies he, I ought to have sayde two letters, the first being the one gave thee by the false Verey, that pretended issue of my lord Rochester his hande & the other one that thou shalt write to-night, wherein thou shalt tell all youre tale. And soe I wrote My Lord what you read now & when done hee readeth it & makes markes where I shall change it mayhap but I say nay for tis my letter do not make me one of your creatoures because this be all earnest & no play. He laughs & cries mercie sayinge lad, thou hast the right of it for like some butcher I must poke anie calf I pass be it mine own or no.