5. A Professor Calls

Next morning found me risen bright and early, frying a hearty breakfast to speed my lordship's recovery. Black pudding, tripe and fried eggs featured heavily, all washed down by a flagon of my special Bloody Mary — not so much hair of the dog as the sweepings from the whole kennel. When I'd got that into the master he soon looked more his old self. As was our custom we started the day with the morning papers. The Times had plenty to say on the guvnor's recent adventures.

'Read it to me again, Bill,' he said, wiping scarlet foam from his whiskers with a napkin, all proper like.

I cleared my throat and attempted to do the piece justice.

'Headline: Alexander The Great. Captain Alexander Faversham DSO, late of the Peshawar Light Infantry, hero of Kandahar and third son of Lord and Lady Bracknell, has once again conspired to see his name writ large in our nation's annals of derring-do. Not content foiling the audacious robbery of a priceless antique book on Tuesday evening, the heroic young gentleman took time to defend his good name on the field of honour the following morning, against scurrilous slander of a most uncouth nature.'

I glanced over at my lordship, who seemed overcome yet again; a serene dreamy expression settled over his face. I continued.

'After besting the notorious Comte d'Artois in a duel of pistols, Captain Faversham was fêted by senior members of the Casus Club, including famed Egyptologist Sir Percy Tiverton — another gent for whom excitement is currently no stranger. Asked for comment Captain Faversham replied, 'Of course, I had to do it. If a cloud falls upon one's reputation it matters little what other small braveries one's displayed, from time to time. Drinks all round!'

'The Frenchman, who sustained minor injuries in the encounter, was unavailable for comment.'

There was much more of this, in a similar vein, but on repeated reading, the words washed over me like sea across shingle. The Times had even run an editorial, lauding the welcome return of what it called traditional values and chivalrous modes of conduct. Perhaps, it trusted, the restless working man would take this example from his betters as a means to learn his place in society. The piece mentioned no names, but the inspiration was clear. As you can imagine the guvnor lapped it up. When I was finished he surprised me with the pertinence of his next request.

 'Any word on that scoundrel from the other night — the one who made away with Sir Percy's book? Before I . . . before we, intervened.'

 For the umpteenth time I scanned the pages, front to back. 'No word, sir. Perhaps Scotland Yard's finest have discovered nothing of consequence. After all, the ruffian was knocked seven ways side-wards.'

'Hmmm, he was indeed, Bill. Never the less, ain't it peculiar. What else does The Thunderer have to say?'

I scanned the adjoining pages; it didn't amount to much. 'A regrettable outbreak of cannibalism in Devonshire.' 'Another survey party lost up the Seine.' 'Attempts to reform The Commons blocked again by The House of Lords'. Just the usual, sir.'

'What about further afield?'

I turned to the inner pages. 'Not much of note. Sir Clive Haverlock still missing. A Czarist army massacred by Tartars on the Amur.'

My lordship snorted. 'That's what comes of promoting officers on family ties rather than merit — bloody Ruskie amateurs.'

To this I thought it best to add no comment.

'Was it Mohammedans what did it, Bill?'

I skimmed the report. 'Nothing so prosaic, I'm sorry to say. It seems that, as elsewhere, in the east all sorts of strange beliefs are resurfacing. These gents are followers of local pagan cult. Most uncivil towards the bodies of their victims, they were.'

The guvnor shrugged and went back to attending to his whiskers. 'World's going to hell in a perambulator, if you ask me.' It was hard to disagree.

There came a loud knock at the front door. When I opened it I was greeted by a distinguished looking tweed-suited gentleman of advanced middle age. I recognised him at once as the academic who had stormed from Sir Percy's soiree at the museum — the huffing sceptic. He seemed in a state of considerable agitation. I ushered him inside, lest he spontaneously combust upon our doorstep.

The fellow looked me up and down appraisingly, over wire-rimmed spectacles. 'I'm here to see the Honourable Alexander Faversham. I trust he's in?'

'And who shall I say is calling, sir?'

With much huffing and puffing he fumbled inside his coat, finally presenting his card. It read, Professor Ernest R. Burroughs, Fellow of the Royal Academy. I showed him the way through to our sitting room and made the announcements. The guvnor seemed pleased enough to meet the chap, though it wasn't his custom to entertain men of science. Thinking it best I hear what the Professor had to say, I hovered discreetly nearby.

The good Professor was still eyeing me warily. 'Your man-servant — are you sure he can be trusted?'

His lordship retained his state of benevolent good cheer. 'He can, sir. Been in my service for many a year, since before I was in India. I'd trust him with my life, if need be.'

The Professor didn't look convinced. 'Swarthy fellow. Has the look of a foreigner about him. Place is overrun with all sorts of undesirables these days, more's the pity.'

If the Professor intended this as an insult he was unsuccessful — I've been called worse in my time. His lordship waved this slight away. 'Bill's of no account — pay him no heed. Useful chap to have around, at times. Some claim his grandmother consorted with Hungarians. Romani blood in his veins, but he turned out all right regardless. Now tell me, Professor, to what do I owe this pleasure?'

The Professor's eyes darkened. 'I assure you, sir, I do not call upon you lightly. This is a matter of the gravest import.'

His lordship blinked. 'Well, we'd best have a drink then. Bill, is it too early for brandy?'

In this house there was only one answer to that. 'I'll fetch the good stuff, sir.'

Shortly the two gentlemen were seated around a small fire I'd set against the unseasonal chill. The brandy was poured, but as yet had gone untouched. After clearing his throat, the Professor began.

'As you may know, I hold the chair of natural philosophy at Imperial College here in London, with an interest in the history of scientific thought. My particular field of study has been the emergence of what's become known as the thaumatological arts. This has granted me a unique perspective on our current . . . situation.'

The guvnor, whose education had not progressed beyond his expulsion from Eton, and little before that, looked stumped, as well he might. For a gent more known for his martial prowess than his brainpower he was always mightily impressed by a man of letters.

'Remind me again, what is that exactly?'

The Professor took a sip of his brandy. 'Thaumatology is the scientific study of marvels — miracles, if you will. What the common man on the Clapham omnibus might call enchantments.'

His lordship nodded sagely. 'Yes, that's what I thought it was. Load of unfounded superstition, if you ask me. Hocus-pocus.'

Our guest shot him a glance. 'Many laymen make that mistake, but that doesn't change the facts — against all rhyme and reason these phenomena simply . . . work. By the day we make myriad fresh discoveries in fields that were, until recently the stuff of legend.'

'But it's all gossip and rumour surely — to entertain the masses — bread and circuses, and all that — peddled by the more lurid corners of the gutter press?'

The Professor sighed. 'If only it were so. Some of what leaks out is nonsense, but not all, I can assure you.'

The guvnor was not impressed. 'But we stand on the brink of a new technological age? Surely the principles of science hold true across every epoch? I'm no scholar but even I know that.'

The Professor slowly shook his head. 'Maybe that was once true, in our grandfathers' day. But a fundamental change has befallen our world. Old certainties no longer hold true. Compasses spin on their axes. Magick has returned to this and every land.'

Only the ticking of the antique clock on the mantle pierced the silence. 'Forgive me, Professor, but you don't sound best pleased by these developments?'

'A doctor studies diseases so he can better cure affliction.'

'And that's how you see it — a sickness to be cured?'

The Professor closed his eyes. 'The supernatural cannot be tamed. Those who try risk madness, or worse. Don't get me wrong, I welcome some recent changes; the return of traditional mores and values; the resurgence in the power of the Church; the crushing of dissent in the proletariat; but these are mere happy fripperies, like as not reactions to the underlying malaise. A body on the point of death may jerk and jolt at the end; these are but struggles against the hastening night.'

Mr Alex had the wit to look concerned. 'Is there nothing that can be done?'

Burroughs pondered for a moment. 'Respectable universities didn't used to study thaumatology — it didn't exist, at least not since the Middle Ages. How we got to this point baffles many. Yes, we study the empirical effects, but as to theory — we have not a clue. Even within living memory many of these phenomena were mere superstition. We have to get to the bottom of what has changed.'

Professor Burroughs cast an appraising eye over my lordship. Some serious tectonic activity took place beneath his luxurious moustache. I got the impression it was not lightly he divulged this information.

'Faversham — even a man of action like yourself must be aware we live in peculiar times. As that fool Tiverton alluded to in his lecture, something essential has altered in the nature of reality itself. And it's not been a change for the better.'

The boss did quite a spot of blinking. He wasn't generally one to ponder the nature of reality much. This was several orders of magnitude outside his area of expertise. 'You mean that frightful business in Paris — the vortex and all that guff?'

The Professor nodded. 'That hellish thing, settled over Paris these past eighteen years, is but the most obvious manifestation.'

The guvnor's tone grew hushed. 'Some claim it spews forth monsters, and worse. Is it true?'

The Professor was silent for a goodly while, chewing on his whiskers. 'Let's just say, I've seen things lately that defy rational explanation, and when you're a man of science they can weigh heavy on your conscience.'

He wearily shook his head. 'What's happening in France is bad enough, but this goes back further even than that. For almost a century now we've been on a downward spiral. The light of reason flickers and threatens to go out.'

His lordship was having none of this defeatist talk. 'You can't be serious, man! The British Empire stands predominant among nations. We bestride the globe like a great blue-balled colossus — the light of our civilization illuminates every dark corner of this corrupt and barbarous world.'

The Professor composed himself. 'Maybe some dark corners are better left undisturbed. I won't argue with your assessment of our political position, though perhaps in no small part that benefits from the tribulations of our rivals — France lies in ruin, America is split in twain, the Russians are beset by revolution and rampaging Mongols — no, I speak of our own moral constitution. Our spiritual health.'

I could have told Professor Burroughs that my lordship had no more concept of moral constitution than a fish had of calculus, but the old duffer was just getting into his stride.

'Even here in England all sorts of weirdness stalks the land. The shires are beset with trade unionism and lycanthropy. From dark corners the old ways are returning. There's a whiff of revolution in the air. It's not always been thus. I fear where we are heading. Our French guests have brought with them more than garlic and liquefied cheese. They've transplanted the worst excesses of their demi monde to London — the decadence, the bohemianism, the socialism. You wouldn't believe the play these degenerates are opening in the West End.'

At this revelation I came over faintly nauseous, for no reason I could ascertain. His lordship jumped to his feet. 'And if the ungrateful mob rise-up we'll give em what for — just you see!'

Professor Burroughs huffed. 'Quite. I'm sure you will. But it's my belief we face a danger far more insidious than mere bolshevik revolution. This past century has birthed a new paradigm. And I think I know how it began.'

The guvnor sat back down. 'How so?'

I was just surprised Master Alex understood all these big words. Our guest waved a hand at the walls of leather-bound books which decorated the study. 'As a military man I'm sure you're aware of Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt. Almost a century past, but long a matter of record.'

His lordship had the sense to keep quiet. He was no more likely to read a book than to lay an egg. His library was entirely my domain.

The Proff continued. 'Well, Bonaparte did not come back from the orient empty handed. He found something in those dusty tombs, some . . . anomaly. Some engine of the creeping chaos which afflicts us. And in his arrogance he brought it back to Paris. My studies suggest that was the start of our woes — of which events above the French capital have only been the most dramatic example. That was when the wheels of reality began to depart the rails.'

'But Paris endured until laid low by war.'

The Professor nodded. 'Scholars blamed the Prussians, thinking they must have unleashed some new-fangled Wunderwaffen on the Frogs in the war of 1870, but I had my doubts, even at the time. The Bosch have many faults but, as a rule, they are straightforward in their depravity. As with most evils in this weary world, all evidence points to the other side being to blame.'

Master Alex grew hushed. 'The Other . . . you mean . . . Satan?'

Burroughs gazed at him as if surveying a half-wit. 'No man, a foe far worse — the bloody French! My guess is some jambon-fisted Frog thaumatologist attempted to use their artefact to cast an enchantment — an endeavour which went badly wrong — to put it mildly.'

'And that's what opened the demonic gyre?'

The Professor slumped, as if bowed beneath a weighty burden. 'There are some things in-which mankind is not meant to dabble, and it's up to us to stop fools with idle fingers, before they unleash abominations.'

The boss's eyes shone wide. Nonetheless he made, what was for him, a leap of prodigious mental gymnastics. 'And you think Sir Percy brought back something similar from the east? His Nameless Book?'

The Professor's brows bristled. 'He did indeed. In his vanity he thought his study of the thing could lead to some understanding, perhaps even to a taming of its power. Well, after hubris comes nemesis and Sir Percy's own is close at hand. And now some heinous power conspires to whisk away said artefact, for what perverse design I cannot guess. I fear this business will not end well.'

Now it was the guvnor's turn to fall silent. I could almost hear the cogs whirring. 'I can't lie to you sir, I find this most confusing. I've always held a healthy mistrust of intellectualism and speculation for its own sake, ever since the masters at Eton attempted to thrash Greek and algebra into me — unsuccessfully I might add.'

Our guest peered over his spectacles. 'Yes, I guessed as much. Nonetheless this evil imperils us all — learned man and idiot alike. Sir Percy dabbles with forces he does not understand. Rumour has it the fool plans a second public unveiling of his book. If you are so reckless as to attend, I'd beseech you — use your good offices with the man to rein-in his blasted neck. I've tried and failed enough times.'

Rising to his feet a faraway look came over my lordship's eyes. 'You're saying . . . England needs me? Perhaps a chance to swap my DSO for a VC?'

The Professor nodded. 'This is why I visited you today. It might already be too late, but you have to try to stop Sir Percy — the fate of nations is at stake. Mayhap not just the Empire — maybe, all mankind.'

With that, my lordship struck a pose, to gaze off at some glorious distant horizon the rest of us could only dream of. There'd be no getting any sense out of him for a while.

The Professor seemed to intuit as much, and turning to me says, 'Just one more thing. Some accounts mention the hooligan at the museum carried a sack, of which the police found no trace. I don't suppose it fell into your possession?'

Spotting my discomfiture the academic pressed further. 'Scotland Yard have made no progress in their questioning of the ruffian. I had hoped to forensically examine said item, in case it tenders any clue to the culprit's origin. Speak up, man.'

I weighed the alternatives. My own examination of the bag had proved futile — a hessian sack, double thickness, but otherwise of the common kind. What harm could it do to proffer the Professor a similar opportunity? I reached a decision.

'I'll fetch it for you now, sir.'

And thus encumbered, the Professor downed his brandy and bade his lordship good day. I showed him out and the man went on his way in earnest.

Later the guvnor emerged enough from his stupor to hold a passable conversation. He says to me, 'Start packing my things, Bill — ready my best coat and trews. I'm told Sir Percy has a damnably attractive daughter.'

I frowned, vexed to my core. 'Am I to take it we will not be heeding the good Professor's warning, and avoiding Sir Percy at all cost?'

Master Alex looked at me as if I were no better than a guttersnipe. 'Oh, I'll have a word with the old coot, have no fear. But no doubt he won't be diverted from his ways by the likes of me, or anyone else for that matter.'

'Are you sure this is a wise course of action, sir? The Professor seemed most convincing.' But what passed for my lordship's mind was already made up.

'Damn your insolence, Bill! Tomorrow we make haste to attend Sir Percy's gathering. I wouldn't miss it for this or any other world. Are we mice or are we men? Time we trod that glory road again.'

Bugger.