E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
Major Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80336-644-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-80336-644-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Tim Major is a writer and freelance editor from York, UK. His love of speculative fiction is the product of a childhood diet of classic Doctor Who episodes and an early encounter with Triffids. Tim's most recent books include Hope Island and Snakeskins, short story collection And the House Lights Dim and a monograph about the 1915 silent crime film, Les Vampires, which was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. Tim's short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Not One of Us, Shoreline of Infinity and numerous anthologies, including Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and The Best Horror of the Year. He tweets @onasteamer.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
CHAPTER 2
It couldn’t be him, and yet there he stood. When he saw Muriel striding towards him, his hand went to his mouth and his eyes glistened. His face appeared thinner, the skin taut around an unsmiling mouth, and his hair was thinning and streaked with grey.
“Henry!” Muriel said, her right hand outstretched in greeting. This was a technique she used often in awkward situations: she playacted at confidence, which gave her confidence.
He glanced at the doorway to the nearby morning room, then bowed his head and led Muriel to stand beneath the boughs of a tall birch tree.
“You’re… old,” he said in amazement.
Muriel snorted. “And you’re rude.”
“No, I… Apologies. I only meant that you’re very much an adult now. A woman. And, well, a rather fine-looking one.”
“Wasn’t I when you knew me?”
Henry’s stammering didn’t produce any comprehensible words.
It was only now that she noticed that he was clutching the top of a narrow cane, upon which he leant heavily. “Are you unwell, Henry? You’re pale.”
He touched his face lightly in several places, as though it was unfamiliar to him.
In the years since she had last seen him, Muriel had rehearsed what she might say if she encountered him again. Now, none of those preparations seemed of any use, and her calmness surprised her in a not unpleasant way.
“I’m very well, thank you,” he replied stiffly.
“I heard you make an odd sound when the photograph was taken.”
He waved a hand. “My eyes are rather sensitive. The flash disturbed my vision temporarily.” His eyes flicked to the doorway of the morning room.
“You seem distracted, Henry. Am I keeping you from speaking to somebody more interesting?”
A dozen or more people were crammed in the morning room, all orbiting Simeon Courtenay. His greying temples made him appear authoritative, yet his youthful, ruddy features suggested jolliness.
She sighed. “I suppose you’re hoping to conduct a conversation with our host. I take it that you’re a subscriber to his project?”
“Ah – no. I’m a friend of a friend.”
Muriel resisted the temptation to scoff. She had never known Henry to have friends.
“Then it’s a business matter?” she asked lightly.
“Yes.”
“Are you somehow involved in construction?”
“No.” Henry was still looking past her. When Simeon Courtenay moved from one cluster of guests to another, Henry’s body jerked involuntarily.
“Simeon Courtenay is a difficult man to pin down,” Muriel said.
Henry frowned and nodded.
She had once respected Henry, having assumed that men in the higher ranks of society made good decisions almost by default. She knew better now. Almost all of her informal investigations had concluded in revelations of an abuse of power by a man deemed respectable. For example, the textile factory owner who had mistreated one of his house staff, a young woman whose boat fare Muriel had paid in order for her to return home and avoid further beatings. Knowing that the factory owner’s violence would turn towards his remaining staff, she had been compelled to stage the young woman’s disappearance as a suicide, with the intimation that he would be held responsible. Or the lady friend whose father had proved an inveterate gambler. Her son had been forced to take out loans, the value of which had ballooned unreasonably with successive failures to repay, followed by threats of violence. Muriel had discovered that the moneylender had extorted many others in the same way. After months of failing to determine what leverage she might use against the lender, she mounted a letter-writing campaign among her network of influential friends. Each had intimated that they knew the moneylender’s darkest secret – then mentioned the matter of unacceptable extortion almost in passing – and the moneylender soon offered to rein in his greed. Muriel had never discovered what secret he was determined to hide, but was grimly satisfied that her assumption had been sound. All powerful men had secrets. Despite this triumph, the resolution was not a total success: her friend’s father soon returned to his gambling.
“Henry,” she said softly, “I hope that you won’t trust Simeon with your money or your reputation.”
Finally, Henry looked at her directly. “Why do you say that?”
His urgency suggested two possibilities: he was considering a donation, or his scepticism about Simeon Courtenay matched her own. Either way, Muriel decided that it was in her interests to speak candidly. “His project is a sham. Its value is far less than the sum of the donations to date. I doubt the school will ever be completed, and if it is, it will be far smaller than we have been told, aiding far fewer children.”
“Oh.” Henry’s eyes had glazed over again.
“The idea seems no surprise to you. What is your interest in him?”
In the morning room, Simeon Courtenay joined a group at a table. He gave a deep guffaw at some remark, gripping the shoulders of the two men nearest to him as if his mirth had incapacitated him temporarily. Both of them responded with wide-eyed expressions of gratitude. Muriel noted that Henry’s posture had slackened now that their host was no longer on the move.
“I’m sorry, Muriel,” he said. “My mind is elsewhere.”
“Wasn’t that always the case?” With a wan smile she added, “Of course, back then the distraction was your medical work.”
Henry snapped to alertness. “How long has it been since—”
“It’s been ten years.”
She looked at him in silence, daring him to be the one to refer to the fact that they had been engaged to be married. He didn’t speak.
Lightly, she said, “Where did you go, Henry, all those years ago?” She rarely allowed herself to think of the night she had last seen him: a grinning face, an empty house, a confusion of bodies. Stifling these images was another of her techniques of self-protection.
Henry hesitated, as if weighing up how much the truth might cost him. “I left the country.”
“I thought as much. But my question was about where you went, not what you left behind.” Then she laughed to take the sting from her remark.
Henry only gripped the handle of his cane tight in both hands.
“Then tell me this,” she said. “How long have you been back in London?”
“A little under two years. I presumed that you would not want to be informed of my return. That it might be painful.”
“Emotions tend to diminish over time,” she lied, “and it has been a long time. I find that instead I’m left with questions.”
Henry was staring up at the balconies and trellised windows of the Courtenay house. Then his gaze lowered, and he reached out to take Muriel’s left hand.
“You have no wedding band,” he said. There was pity in his tone.
“That’s because I’m not married.”
“Yes. Muriel, I’m very sorry to hear that.”
She laughed. “It’s not something I’m at all sorry about, myself.”
“But I ruined your fortunes. Or rather, I dashed your hopes. I—”
She squeezed his hand hard enough to make the thumb click. “Stop right there, Henry. You did nothing of the sort. I have chosen not to marry. And don’t forget the capacity in which I am a guest here. My father’s fortune alone would have been enough for me, but over the years I’ve made a series of investments that have proved most sensible, and I have only added to that starting amount. Among other things, that allows me to indulge in charitable donations – though on the whole I prefer those that are legitimate. This evening I’m indulging a hobby which has become rather an occupation: I am exposing hypocrisy. If that amounts to being ruined then I’d be interested to know what success looks like.”
Henry stared at her. Then, like a spreading fault in a rock struck with a pickaxe, a smile grew upon his face.
“I should have known that you would become such a woman,” he said.
“Because it validates your choosing of me?”
He shook his head vigorously. “You’re the same as you always were. Headstrong, and proud, and…” He trailed off, then thrust a hand into his waistcoat pocket, retrieving a handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes.
“Oh, Henry. I do wish I could say the same about you. What have you been doing since your return? Have you resumed your medical practice?”
“No. That profession was something else I left behind.”
“Then what are you now?”
He only gave a pained smile, as if her question was profound.
In some of her imagined encounters with Henry, Muriel had seen herself beating him with her fists, raging at him for abandoning her so abruptly, and on the very same evening that her father had succumbed to a heart attack. But now her chest only felt tight, and her stomach abruptly empty, and Henry’s doleful expression neutered all of her anger.
His eyes were darting again.
“Muriel… I’m sorry—”
“Well, of course you are—”
“I mean I’m sorry that I must take my leave. It has been a pleasure to see you again.”
Abruptly, he clapped his hands upon both of her shoulders as if she were a man, and then he pushed her rather roughly to one side and hurried – limping slightly and favouring his right leg – towards the door of the morning room, leaving Muriel open-mouthed with her hands...
