Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

‘My knight!’ says Lizzie, kissing him on the cheek.

Lancaster looks a little jealous. ‘We won’t be long,’ he says.

‘Oh, take all the time you need!’ says Lizzie airily. She is dreadfully disappointed to leave, and trying her hardest not to show it. ‘This looks like a thrilling adventure, and I expect a full report! I’ll wait up.’

‘Thank you, Simmons,’ I say.

‘Certainly, sir,’ he replies. With a venomous look at the butler (Simmons is acutely pained by lesser practitioners of his profession), he puts a protective hand on the small of Lizzie’s back and the two of them start off down the cobblestones.

‘Well,’ says Lancaster, returning his attention to the ciconian butler, ‘are you happy now?’

‘I am neither happy nor unhappy, sir,’ replies the gatekeeper. ‘But the impasse resolved, we may now proceed.’

‘Excellent,’ says Lancaster, and attempts to cross the threshold. But the butler does not surrender the portal.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he says, ‘but you cannot yet enter.’

‘Why in God’s name not?’ demands Lancaster. ‘We’ve sent away the lady, what else do you want from us?’

‘You may not enter the club until you have answered three riddles.’

‘Riddles?’ he thunders. ‘You want me to answer riddles ?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but unless you are a member of the club you are subject to the entry rules.’

‘I’m not answering riddles, by Christ!’*

‘Then you are not entering the club,’ replies the butler.

We all look at one another for a moment. Then Lancaster says, ‘I have a riddle for you: which would you prefer — to step aside, or for me to throw you aside?’

‘That isn’t a riddle,’ says the butler.

“Course it is,’ says Lancaster. ‘And I’m waiting for your answer.’

The butler does a strange shuffling sort of dance with his feet and shifts a few inches to his left. I wonder why. Lancaster tries to grab him, but the butler kicks with his left toe at a spot on the flagstones and the ground opens beneath our feet. Lancaster and I plunge into darkness.

We fall perhaps fifteen feet. Straw cushions our landing, but I nevertheless feel rather battered. I take in our surroundings — we seem to be in a sort of dungeon. The walls are lit by blue lights in sconces which do not flicker but certainly are not gas. Lancaster is on his feet in the blink of an eye, itching for a fight; but there seems to be no one to fight. Our cell is small and square, three walls of stone and an iron gate for the fourth. We are quite trapped.

Above our heads, the trapdoor through which we fell snaps shut.

‘Damn,’ says Lancaster in fury. Then, looking around for a moment, he says it again in admiration. ‘This is a pretty pickle, eh?’ he chuckles. He is in an abruptly excellent mood that I cannot fathom.

‘It does seem rather dire,’ say I, getting shakily to my feet.

‘It’s superb!’ he cries. ‘Look at us, old boy! Trapped beneath Pall Mall by a bunch of inventors and their half-cocked butler!’

I know what is coming next.

‘It’s an adventure, by Christ!’

I expect to be exasperated by him, or frightened by our predicament, or concerned about such-and-such. But to my surprise I discover that my heart is beating quicker than usual and my senses seem preternaturally acute and I am on the edge of entirely unhysterical laughter.

‘So it is!’ I say. ‘So it is.’

Lancaster looks shocked, and exclaims, ‘That’s the spirit, Savage! I believe we’re going to be friends after all!’

I cannot I think convey to you the warmth I feel upon hearing this silly statement. Something must be dreadfully wrong with me. I am not by nature a man who has friends, but then I am not a man who believed I needed friends. Perhaps I am ill. I have made three friends in two days, though it feels much longer. Granted, one of them belongs to an organisation which has imprisoned me in a most cowardly manner, the other is my brother-in-law who tried not long ago to kill me, and the third is the Devil; but, then, I have never been conventional.

Lancaster is pacing the room like a lion — have I mentioned before how like a lion he is? He is at times wolfish, but I believe him to be much more like a lion. There is a pride about him which is very leonine. In any event, he is pacing. He goes first to one wall, then another, looking for chinks. There are none. He examines the iron gate minutely. He tests his strength against it. It does not bend. From this, I surmise it must not in fact be iron, for I have no doubt that the man before me could bend an iron bar.* As he struggles with the gate, I begin to seriously fear for the well-being of his clothes. The muscles bulging beneath his eveningwear are waging a war with his seams which cannot end well.

‘Lancaster,’ say I at length, ‘I do not think you are going to break the gate.’

‘No,’ he says in disgust. ‘It seems not. Damned strange sort of metal.’ He is embarrassed by his failure. ‘Reminds me of a time I was in Afghanistan. Got locked up in the Shah’s dungeon — you read about it?’

I don’t reply.

‘No, ’course you didn’t. Sometimes I wonder about you, Savage. For all the books you purport to read, you can be awfully ignorant sometimes.’

‘Now see here, Lancaster!’

‘No, no, I’m sorry, old boy. Don’t let’s quarrel. It’s my fault, and I retract the comment. One of the dangers of imprisonment, turning on your comrades.’

‘No doubt,’ I say. I am inclined to be magnanimous. ‘You were speaking of the Shah?’

‘Quite so. Locked up most dreadfully.’

‘How did you escape?’

‘Escape? I didn’t. Spent eighteen months there until Mummy convinced Whitehall that I was a national treasure and they intervened and secured my release.’

That sobers me. ‘But we don’t have eighteen months! Vivien could be dead by then!’

‘Vivien could be dead now, old boy. Don’t suppose she is, but all the same let’s not lose sight of the reality of things.’

I know that he says it meaning well, but it throws me horribly. It isn’t a possibility that had occurred to me. That Viv could be dead even now is not something I can think about at the moment. With an effort, I thrust it from my mind.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘this is turning out to be a different evening than I had expected.’

‘I should have answered the riddles,’ he says, settling himself upon the floor. ‘But no use crying over the milk, by Christ! Breathe it all in, that’s what I learned in Tibet, breathe in disaster and breathe out goodwill toward mankind and your utter confidence that things will turn out alright. That’s how it’s done, you know. Sit down, Savage, and I’ll teach you to meditate. It’ll do you good.’

I am saved this fate by the sound of approaching footsteps and of voices which I cannot quite make out.

‘Tally-ho,’ says Lancaster, springing up. ‘Here come our captors.’

The voices become more distinct.

‘You’ve done well, Benton,’ says one. ‘Very well indeed. These are not times to take unnecessary risks.’

‘My thoughts exactly, sir,’ says the other, grating and unpleasant. ‘Additionally, there was a woman with them.’

‘Oh dear,’ says the first. ‘Yes, yes, you have certainly done the right thing.’

The speakers come into view. The leader is a short man in middle age, paunchy, bandy-legged, and possessed of the largest cranium I have ever seen. He has very tiny eyes which are shadowed beneath bushy brows from which rises a forehead of Jovian breadth.* He is trailed by the butler whose acquaintance we made previously and whose name is apparently Benton. He looks somehow at home under the earth.