Run over two weeks back by a hansom cab. Stomped to bits by the horses, poor bastard. But dead is dead, I always say. We’ll enliven the slacker. He’ll be passing round tracts with the best of them by midday tomorrow, if you’ll kindly trot along and leave me alone.” Narbondo emptied the bag onto the table, then inspected one of the coins. “You’d make money by selling these to the utterer yourself instead of making me do it. You pay dearly for my time, you know.”
“I pay for the speedy recovery of God’s kingdom,” came the reply, “and as for selling the coin myself, I have neither the desire for risk nor the inclination to hobnob with criminals of that sort. I…”
But Narbondo cut him short with a hollow laugh. He shook his head. “Come round tomorrow noon,” he said, nodding toward the door. And just as he did so, it swung to and in walked Willis Pule with an armload of books, nodding ingratiatingly at Shiloh and holding out a moist hand that had, a moment earlier, been fingering a promising boil on Pule’s cheek. The evangelist strode through the open door, disregarding the proffered hand, a look of superiority and disgust on his face.
The window curtains in the second floor of the building across the courtyard slid shut, unseen by Pule and Narbondo, who bent over the still form on the table. A moment later the street door of that same building opened, and the man in the eyepatch tapped down the half-dozen stairs of the stoop and into the street, hurrying away in the wake of the receding evangelist, who pursued a course toward Wardour Street, bound for the West End.
L angdon St. Ives trudged along through the evening gloom. The enlivening effects of the oysters and champagne he’d foolishly consumed for lunch had diminished and been replaced by a general despair, magnified by his fruitless search for a brothel, of all things, that he wouldn’t be able to recognize if he stumbled upon it. And he had undertaken the embarrassing errand on the advice of a man addled by years of drink, who understood the earth to wear a belt for the purpose of supporting a pair of equatorial trousers.
It was the song and dance of getting round to the nub that was most bothersome - of making the proprietor understand that it wasn’t just casual satiation that he desired, that the act must somehow involve machinery - a particular machine, in fact. Lord knows what conclusions were drawn, what criminal excesses were even at that moment being heaped onto the doorstep of technology. More champagne would, perhaps, have been desirable. Halfway measures weren’t doing the trick. If he were drunk, staggering, then his ears wouldn’t burn quite so savagely at each theatrical and idiotic encounter. And if, in the future, he were to run across one of his would-be hosts in public, he could blame the entire sordid affair on drink. But here he was sober.
On the advice of a cabbie he approached a door with a little sliding window, knocking thrice and stepping back a foot or two so as not to seem unnaturally anxious. The door swung open ponderously and a jacketed butler peered out, slightly offended, apparently. The man looked overmuch like Hasbro, who St. Ives heartily wished were along on this adventure. The look on the man’s face seemed to suggest that St. Ives, with his pipe and tweed coat, should be knocking on the rear door off the alley. “Yes?” he said, drawing the word out into a sort of monologue.
St. Ives inadvertently pushed at the false beard glued to his chin, a beard which perpetually threatened to succumb to the pull of gravity and drop ignominiously to the ground. It seemed firm enough. He smashed his eye socket around his monocle, squinting up his free eye and staring through the clear lens of the glass. He affected a look of removed and distinguished condescension.
“The cab driver,” he said, “advised me that I might find some satisfaction here.” He harrumphed into his fist, regretting almost at
“I pay for the speedy recovery of God’s kingdom,” came the reply, “and as for selling the coin myself, I have neither the desire for risk nor the inclination to hobnob with criminals of that sort. I…”
But Narbondo cut him short with a hollow laugh. He shook his head. “Come round tomorrow noon,” he said, nodding toward the door. And just as he did so, it swung to and in walked Willis Pule with an armload of books, nodding ingratiatingly at Shiloh and holding out a moist hand that had, a moment earlier, been fingering a promising boil on Pule’s cheek. The evangelist strode through the open door, disregarding the proffered hand, a look of superiority and disgust on his face.
The window curtains in the second floor of the building across the courtyard slid shut, unseen by Pule and Narbondo, who bent over the still form on the table. A moment later the street door of that same building opened, and the man in the eyepatch tapped down the half-dozen stairs of the stoop and into the street, hurrying away in the wake of the receding evangelist, who pursued a course toward Wardour Street, bound for the West End.
L angdon St. Ives trudged along through the evening gloom. The enlivening effects of the oysters and champagne he’d foolishly consumed for lunch had diminished and been replaced by a general despair, magnified by his fruitless search for a brothel, of all things, that he wouldn’t be able to recognize if he stumbled upon it. And he had undertaken the embarrassing errand on the advice of a man addled by years of drink, who understood the earth to wear a belt for the purpose of supporting a pair of equatorial trousers.
It was the song and dance of getting round to the nub that was most bothersome - of making the proprietor understand that it wasn’t just casual satiation that he desired, that the act must somehow involve machinery - a particular machine, in fact. Lord knows what conclusions were drawn, what criminal excesses were even at that moment being heaped onto the doorstep of technology. More champagne would, perhaps, have been desirable. Halfway measures weren’t doing the trick. If he were drunk, staggering, then his ears wouldn’t burn quite so savagely at each theatrical and idiotic encounter. And if, in the future, he were to run across one of his would-be hosts in public, he could blame the entire sordid affair on drink. But here he was sober.
On the advice of a cabbie he approached a door with a little sliding window, knocking thrice and stepping back a foot or two so as not to seem unnaturally anxious. The door swung open ponderously and a jacketed butler peered out, slightly offended, apparently. The man looked overmuch like Hasbro, who St. Ives heartily wished were along on this adventure. The look on the man’s face seemed to suggest that St. Ives, with his pipe and tweed coat, should be knocking on the rear door off the alley. “Yes?” he said, drawing the word out into a sort of monologue.
St. Ives inadvertently pushed at the false beard glued to his chin, a beard which perpetually threatened to succumb to the pull of gravity and drop ignominiously to the ground. It seemed firm enough. He smashed his eye socket around his monocle, squinting up his free eye and staring through the clear lens of the glass. He affected a look of removed and distinguished condescension.
“The cab driver,” he said, “advised me that I might find some satisfaction here.” He harrumphed into his fist, regretting almost at
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