Beneath London by James P. Blaylock Page B

tables. It at first appeared to be empty of people, but then Beaumont saw that a large man in shirtsleeves sat at a desk along the far wall, writing with a quill pen. The door closed silently behind him, red hat having gone out like a ghost. It seemed as if the man at the desk – Mr. Klingheimer himself, no doubt – was unaware of his presence, which was an awkward business. Best to wait him out.
    As ever, Beaumont glanced around quickly for something small that he might nick, the owners of the house being not likely to suffer if a loose item or two found its way into his pocket. A crystal paperweight with a garden of glass flowers inside caught his eye on a nearby console table, shining in the light of an Argand lamp. French crystal, no doubt. Heavy, but in that regard useful as a weapon or for beating out a window – or a man’s skull – if there were trouble. He picked the orb up, slipped it into his coat pocket and pinned it with his elbow, watching the back of Mr. Klingheimer’s head the entire time.
    “That’s a lovely bauble, isn’t it?” Mr. Klingheimer said in a cheerful voice, without looking up from his work. “It was given to me by a woman who I remember fondly, dead now, alas.”
    Beaumont bowed, removed the crystal ball from his pocket, polished it on his cuff, and set it down again on the console table. He glanced again at the closed door, wondering whether it, too, was bolted on the outside. He could play the flute caper again, as he had in the Goat and Cabbage, but it was one thing to strike a no-account piss-maker in a low pothouse, and another to strike a rich man in his mansion. And in any event, gaffing Mr. Klingheimer in the throat wouldn’t unlock doors. Beaumont would be brought to heel, and that would be the end of it.
    The man rose from the desk and walked toward him. He was a stout man, and tall, a second cousin to Father Christmas, with a clipped white beard and lengthy white hair with a curl to it, his tweed trousers held up with braces. His collar was loosened, and there was a spray of ink on his shirt. Beaumont wished that he hadn’t played the fool with the piece of crystal, for there was something about the man that belied the smile – something that made the hair on the back of Beaumont’s head creep, although there was nothing to account for it in the way he looked or spoke, which was pleasant enough.
    The man pointed toward a round, upholstered chair of the sort a woman might sit upon to make up her face. “Take a seat, Mr.…?”
    “Zounds, your honor, Filby Zounds of Dove Court in the Seven Dials.” He sat down, his feet not reaching the floor. The man before him remained standing, looming over him like a giant. “Do I have the honor of speaking to Mr. Klingheimer?” Beaumont asked.
    “Indeed you do, Mr. Zounds. Sit very still for a moment, if you would. I need to have a look at you.” With that the man drew a pair of goggles from his coat pocket – round glass lenses, heavily smoked, with sturdy black rims and a leather band stitched around the rims to keep out the light. He put the goggles on his face and stared fixedly at the lamp on the console table for a long minute, and then he peered at Beaumont, canting his head this way and that before removing the goggles.
    “There we have it,” he said. “Do you wonder at all what I saw through these very interesting lenses?”
    “Aye,” Beaumont told him. Beaumont wasn’t fond of games, and this was surely a game, although perhaps a deadly serious game.
    “I saw into your mind, sir, which occupies the space within your skull, but which is very much like a lamp. These ingenious goggles allow me to perceive the glow of that lamp. What I saw before me was a man who tells what he believes to be true – such as he understands it to be, I mean to say, which can be a dangerous business for the truth teller, to be sure. But turnabout is fair play, as they say. Take a squint through them, Mr. Zounds, and tell me what you