End of the Century (41 page)

“We'll see ourselves out,” Blank said, inclining his head to the Baron Carmody in his chair and then to the Lady Priscilla. Then, with a nod to Taylor, he and Miss Bonaventure left the room the way they came in, leaving the League of the Round Table to its own devices.

The next morning, when Miss Bonaventure arrived at his house in York Place, Blank was hustling out the door to meet her before she'd even climbed down from the cab.

“Baker Street Station,” Blank called out to the driver, climbing in beside her.

“Going on a journey, are we, Blank?” Miss Bonaventure asked.

“Just a brief excursion, my dear,” Blank said with a smile. “Do you fancy a trip south to Crystal Palace?”

“Lawks!” Miss Bonaventure mimed fanning herself with her hand. “In
this
heat?”

“Ah, you're a delicate flower, Miss Bonaventure. Console yourself,
though, my dear. Perhaps when our business is concluded you can cool yourself by the waters of the Boating and Fishing Lake.”

At Baker Street, they boarded an Underground train on the Inner Circle line, and as they rumbled through the stifling heat of the tunnels, Blank told Miss Bonaventure what he'd been about since last they'd parted.

“I was up half the night,” he explained, “digging up what information I could about the Mervyn Fawkes whom the members of the league remembered.”

“What did you find?” Miss Bonaventure asked, now fanning herself in earnest, raising her voice to be heard over the rattle of the train's wheels over the tracks.

Flashing her a smile, Blank pulled a notebook from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and in the dim light consulted his notes.

“Mervyn Fawkes. Born 1858, London, the son of a mathematician. Studied geography, cartography, and mathematics at Oxford, where he received an MA in geography and cartography. Later appointed as a lecturer at Cambridge. Fawkes was a junior representative to the Royal Geographical Society on Joseph Thompson's later expeditions through eastern Africa, and his contributions to the effort were later noted by the society's president.”

“Not quite the raving loon of the league's remembrances, I shouldn't think,” Miss Bonaventure observed.

“Give him time, my dear, give him time.” Blank returned his attentions to his notes. “Fawkes wrote a monograph entitled ‘On the problem of accurately sounding the depths of the continental shelf and the mid-Atlantic reaches,' which was published in the
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society
in 1883. It appears that there was some sort of incident on an expedition for the RGS in 1885, after which Fawkes was briefly a voluntary patient at the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. A short while later he left the institution against his doctor's wishes. He seemed then to develop an interest in philology, of all things. The May 1888 edition of the
Modern Language Notes
journal contained a letter from Fawkes in the Correspondence section, in response to an essay on the subject of ‘The Old French Merlin' which ran in the March edition of that year, while the December 1888 edition of
Modern Language Notes
carried a review by Fawkes on James M. Garnett's
Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Poem.
”

“Fascinating reading, I'm sure.”

Blank offered a sly grin. “Given my struggles to remain awake and cogent in the early morning hours as I reviewed the text, I might be forced to disagree. In any event, in the autumn of 1889 there is a record of Fawkes booking passage on a tramp steamer bound for Reykjavik but no indication that he returned. Not, that is, until he appeared on the employment rolls of the Crystal Palace in early May of this year, just some six weeks ago.”

Miss Bonaventure cocked an eyebrow. “Where, one assumes, he works still?”

Blank's grin broadened. “So it would appear.”

She nodded, appreciatively. “Fair enough. I think a brief foray is justified to see what our Mr. Fawkes has to tell us.”

“My thinking exactly, Miss Bonaventure.”

At Victoria Station, they transferred, purchasing tickets on the Crystal Palace Railway and boarding the next train heading south. From there, it was a brief journey of twenty minutes or so over the Thames and down towards Sydenham. Once they'd reached Sydenham Hill and the Lower Level of the Crystal Palace Railway Station, it was just a short walk to the Crystal Palace itself, relocated to south London from Hyde Park after the closing of the Great Exhibition of 1851. They passed the pools and fountains glittering in the midmorning sun and headed down the pathways lined with the imposing figures of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's life-sized dinosaur replicas.

The Crystal Palace rose before them like a castle made of glass, and Blank could not help recalling the recurrent imagery in Lady Priscilla's recitation. Had Joseph Paxton read those sorts of stories as a child, perhaps, or had he merely dreamed up the folly while plagued by an undigested bit of cheese?

Blank remembered seeing Blondin performing at the Crystal Palace, years before. It had been only a handful of months since he'd read about the acrobat's death in Ealing. Blondin had assisted him in an investigation shortly after Blank had taken up the role of the consulting detective, and he'd been indebted to Blondin ever since. They'd dined together, from time to time, when Blondin's travels brought him back to London. To see the once agile and virile tumbler wither with age, his vaunted strength gradually
failing him as health and vision faded, was an uncomfortable and unpleasant reminder of mortality. Other people's mortality, of course, not Blank's own. Still, he knew that there was an end to his own road, as well, a terminus towards which he traveled, however slowly; if it had not been for Omega and the lacuna Michel Void, though, he'd have reached the end of that journey long years before, at the many hands of Croatoan.

As he and Miss Bonaventure mounted the steps to the Crystal Palace's main entrance, Blank shook his head, trying to knock loose the ancient memories which crowded his thoughts and focusing his mind on the task at hand. Their first-class tickets on the Crystal Palace Railway, at a cost of two shillings and six, included admission to the Crystal Palace itself, so they had only to wave their stubs at the porter to be admitted without need for persuasion.

The museum housed within the glass and steel walls of the Crystal Palace was surprisingly vacant for such a lovely June day, apparently as there were few new exhibits at the moment to attract fresh custom. The few museumgoers were ushered around by docents, who led them from one item of note to another, while maids dissolutely pushed broom and pan across the floors, mooning. A subcurator, when plied with a bit of suggestion and one of Blank's featureless white calling cards, was only too happy to direct them through the north transept and to the Alhambra Court, where Fawkes had been set the task of dismantling an exhibit of textiles from Moorish Spain. Unfortunately, on arriving in the indicated section of the museum, they found Fawkes not in evidence, and they had to prevail on another museum employ to escort them through the various courts, halls, and vestibules of the building until Fawkes could be spotted.

They passed collections of tropical plants and ferns; cages full of live tropical birds and reptiles; objects of curiosity from the Orient; the so-called Mammoth Tree of California, standing some four hundred feet and at an age of four thousand years old—having achieved such an age just before being cut down and shipped overseas, Blank imagined ruefully; examples of British manufacture, including ceramics and glass, basket-carriages and broughams, locomotives, pumps, and washing-machines; fountains; picture galleries; photographical collections; objects of art and
vertu
, the utilities and luxuries of modern social life.

At last, their guide finally pointed out the lank figure lurking in the
Medieval Court, intent on the close examination of a tapestry dating back to the twelfth century.

Blank thanked their escort and sent him scurrying back to his duties, more than a little confused why he had agreed to act as impromptu guide to complete strangers when he had important work to be about.

“Mr. Fawkes?” Blank said, carefully approaching the man, his hat in one hand, his cane in the other. “I was wondering if we might have a word with you.”

The man started and wheeled around to face them with a quick intake of breath.

“There's no cause for alarm,” Miss Bonaventure said soothingly. “We'd simply like to ask you a few questions.”

The man regained control of himself and regarded them with evident suspicion. He was short and thin, standing no taller than Blank's shoulder, with a mass of wiry hair and a stringy beard. The elbows of his coat were shiny with age, his cravat all askew, and periodically his left eye and the left corner of his mouth would twitch in concert, some sort of unconscious tic. “Who are you?” he asked, evenly.

“You'll have to forgive our rude manners,” Blank said, and presented one of his calling cards. “My name is Sandford Blank, and this is my companion Miss Bonaventure. We are consulting detectives, assisting the police on a matter most grave.” The barely audible thrum pulsed beneath his words, to no apparent effect.

The man squinted at the featureless calling card, and then raised a suspicious brow at Blank. “What's that to do with me?”

“
Are
you Mervyn Fawkes?” Miss Bonaventure asked as Blank tucked the card back into his pocket.

The man allowed that he was, albeit reluctantly.

“Now that we know each other,” Blank said, comradely, “perhaps we can adjourn somewhere a bit more comfortable and chat for a moment.” He looked from Fawkes to Miss Bonaventure and back. “I don't know about the two of you, but I'm absolutely
ravenous
.”

A short while later, the three of them were seated in a private dining room in the Refreshment Department of the Crystal Palace, a cold collation of meats, entremets, and pâtés spread before them. Blank sipped a glass of lemonade, while Miss Bonaventure sampled a bottle of ginger beer. Fawkes sat opposite them, his hands spread on the tabletop, regarding them coolly.

“I'm sorry,” Fawkes insisted, “but I just can't help you. Yes, I'll admit I went 'round to Baron Carmody's place the other week, to ask a few questions, but that was an end to it. I'd never seen any of those people before, and I've never seen any of them since.”

Blank fixed him with a dazzling smile and nodded. “Certainly, I understand. These questions are a mere formality, you understand.”

Fawkes glowered.

“Tell me, Mr. Fawkes,” Miss Bonaventure said, “where do you currently reside?”

Fawkes narrowed his eyes. “I keep rooms in a lodging house in Camberwell.”

“Ah.” Miss Bonaventure nodded. “And you've lived there since your return from Iceland.”

“Yes, I…” Fawkes began, and then broke off, realizing he'd said too much.

“So you
were
most recently in Iceland, then?” Miss Bonaventure asked, pressing the advantage.

“Perhaps,” Fawkes said warily. “What of it?”

“You left England on a steamer bound for Reykjavik in 1889,” Blank said, casually. “Just what have you been doing there in the cold, all these years?”