Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“You won’t understand, either. Not unless you’re nimble. Not unless you’re quick.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the porter interrupted. “This lady has to get to X-ray.”

Josh slowly stood up. Maybe the old woman hadn’t really whispered his name at all. Maybe she was senile, and had simply been babbling a nursery rhyme from the days that she could still remember clearly.

“Take care,” he told her, and turned to go. But suddenly she reached out and snatched at his sleeve.

“Come on, Polly, leave the gentleman alone,” the porter smiled. “Our Polly, she’s one for the men, aren’t you, Polly?”

But the old woman continued to clutch at Josh’s sleeve and she wouldn’t let go. She fixed him with her boiled-cod eyes and hissed at him as loudly as she could manage. “Six doors they stand in London Town. Six doors they stand in London, too. Yet who’s to know which way they face? And who’s to know which face is true?”

“That’s enough, Polly,” said the porter, and before Josh had a chance to ask her what she was talking about, she was pushed into the X-ray department and out of sight.

“What the hell was all that about?” asked Nancy.

Josh shook his head. “I don’t have any idea. It sounded like a Mother Goose rhyme.”

The Sikh porter came out again, pushing an empty wheelchair. “I’m sorry if Polly was any trouble to you. She is a very determined lady, even for one hundred and one.”

“One hundred and one? That’s how old she is?”

“She celebrated her birthday last week. She is very wonderful for her age, you know. But she does like to be grabbing people.”

“Do you have any idea what she was talking about? The six doors standing in London Town?”

The porter gave Josh a dazzling smile, full of gold teeth. “I’m sorry. I never listen to anything they say. I nod my head and I say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘really’ and ‘how terrible’. But you can’t listen to them all day. You would be going doolally in your head, too.”

“It could be a Mother Goose rhyme, couldn’t it … Six doors they stand in London Town?”

The porter didn’t stop smiling. “I was brought up in Punjab. I didn’t speak English until I was seventeen.”

“OK, thanks,” said Josh, and together he and Nancy walked back to the front of the hospital, where PC Smart was waiting for them.

“All right, then?” he asked. “Back to Earl’s Court, is it?”

“Yes, please.” It was nearly eleven o’clock already and Josh wanted to collect the photographs of Julia from the Kall-Kwik print shop.

They struggled their way through the mid-morning traffic. “Is it always as busy as this?” asked Nancy.

“It’s not too bad today. At least they’re not having a demonstration or a state opening of Parliament. Then it’s murder.” He sat for a while, drumming his fingers on his steering wheel. Then he said, “It’s not getting any worse, though. They just brought out a report that London’s traffic moves at exactly the same average speed today that it did in 1899.”

“You know a whole lot about London.”

“I know a lot about a lot of things. It’s my hobby, general knowledge. Here’s one for you – do more people die every year from air crashes, or accidents with donkeys?”

“I really couldn’t guess.”

“Accidents with donkeys. Amazing, isn’t it? So when you’re going to fly back to the States, make sure you pick an airplane and not a donkey. You’ll thank me for it, I promise you.”

Josh stared at Nancy in disbelief. He was beginning to feel that he was in the middle of a very long Monty Python sketch. Nancy must have felt the same way, too, because she reached over and squeezed his hand.

“Did you ever hear of a Mother Goose rhyme about six doors standing in London?” Josh asked PC Smart.

“Yes, sir. My nan used to sing it to me. Six doors they stand in London Town. Six doors they stand in London, too.”

“Any idea what it means?”

“Haven’t the foggiest. Sorry.”

“It doesn’t seem to make any sense, does it? Six doors standing in London, but six doors standing in London, too?”

“No, sir. Not unless there are twelve doors altogether.”

Nancy said, “You don’t honestly think it’s relevant to Julia, do you? That poor old woman was demented.”

“She knew my name was Jack, and who knows that except for you and my mother? And she knew that I was looking for something. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything at all. But then maybe it does. Maybe she was trying to give me some kind of a clue.”

“Come on, Josh. You don’t believe in all that psychic stuff.”

“No, I don’t. But I do believe that some people have heightened perception, the same as dogs.”

“But knowing what somebody’s thinking … that’s a whole different ball game than being able to hear them or smell them.”

“Why should it be? Everybody’s brain gives off electric pulses, right? I mean, that’s how we think. The pulses are pretty weak, not like radio waves. But if somebody happened to be sensitive enough to pick them up, they could hear what you were thinking, as clearly as smelling you from five miles away.”

“That’s a monster if.”

“I know it is. But old Polly knew what my name was and she knew that I was looking for something. So what explanation do you have for that?”

“Josh,” said Nancy, “what happened to Julia was terrible. But you mustn’t let it push you off the edge.”

“No, well, no, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I’d still like to know what that rhyme means. And Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. What was that all about? Why do I have to be nimble? Why do I have to be quick?”

“Because we’ve arrived, sir,” put in PC Smart, pulling up in front of their hotel. It was beginning to rain, and a few large spots were measling the sidewalks.

“Have a good evening, sir. Detective Sergeant Paul will be in touch with you tomorrow. Oh, and just a word of advice. I know you’ve probably seen all these TV programs where an American comes over to London and sorts out a crime that the poor old British woodentops can’t make head nor tail of. But the team we’ve got on your sister’s case, they’re absolutely shit-hot. So there’s no need to try any amateur detective-work of your own. Just relax while you’re here, and enjoy the sights, if you get my drift.”

“Were you specially instructed to tell me that?

PC Smart nodded. His cheeks were bright pink and he only shaved in two small patches on either side of his chin.

“No amateur detective-work?” Josh retorted. “This is the city of Sherlock Holmes!”

“Sherlock Holmes was a story, sir. This is real. And the point is, if you did find something, you might compromise valuable evidence without even realizing what you were doing.”

“All right,” said Josh, as he climbed awkwardly out of the car. “Drift got.”

All the same, he and Nancy went to collect 200 posters of Julia from the Kall-Kwik copy shop, as well as two boxes of thumbtacks, and they spent over two hours fastening them to fence posts and gates and the scabby gray-green trunks of plane trees. They stopped for half an hour at Pizza Express, and for once the coffee was tolerable and the pizza was marginally tastier than they would have been served in the States.

Nancy said, “I want to make sure that you stay balanced, Josh. I know you have to grieve, but don’t let your grieving drive you crazy.”

Josh was coping with a mouthful of hot pepperoni. “I wohmp.”

“Like, if we find out anything, we tell the police, OK? We don’t try to follow it up on our own?”

Josh swallowed, and wiped his mouth. “We haven’t found out anything yet, and I don’t think we’re likely to.”