innards, and there were Henry Brandling’s notebooks in their careful raffia string.
At my bench, I found the first book completely filled with handwriting, every page. All the books, every one. In all that sharp sea of waving lines there was not one blank. Although I wanted all of them at once, I slid only four of them inside four ziplock bags and these I hid inside my handbag. Then I shifted the remainder to the high shelf above the fume cupboard where no one would ever think to look. There were precisely nine more instalments for me to read.
Only as I hung my booty on the hook behind the door did I realize things were not at all as they had been on Friday night. In the left-hand corner of the room, nearest to the door and therefore behind my left shoulder when I first entered, was an iridescent grey tarpaulin thrown across some objects, the largest one of which stood about four foot high.
I thought of a beached sting ray, some undead thing washed ashore in
La Dolce Vita
. When the rational brain woke up, I understood what
must
lie beneath the tarp—an upper and a lower cylinder driven by a weight, thirty levers that could be connected with different parts of the duck’s skeletal system to make it drink, et cetera, à la Riskin. This was not going to be a smoking monkey, that was clear when I took away the shroud. If, a moment later, I was replacing it, it was not because of the ingenious mechanism, but because of a wooden object placed beside it. Even that was nothing, of course, nothing at all. It was just a sort of wooden hull that had probably once contained the mechanism, but I was in a waking nightmare and the brain reporteda failed cremation, a burned roast dinner, a black and formless fear. Professionally I understood the pitch-black underside, but what I saw was the shell of a huge bivalve, crusty, flaking, disinterred from tar. I smelled napalm, creosote, burned pig, death.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Bronchitis
Sorry. Diagnosis confirmed.
A very short time later I was signing out downstairs.
“You’re shivering,” Arthur said.
I hurried through the turnstile with my booty tight beneath my arm. I thought, Henry Brandling, what happened to you? How much money did they steal?
Henry
A LTHOUGH FIRMLY INTERROGATED , Frau Beck affected to have no memory of the man in the parlour.
“If Herr Brandling means the Englishman, that gentleman has settled his account. That is all I know.”
“I am the Englishman.”
“Yes Herr Brandling,” said Frau Beck (rhymes with peck, a pecking little person). “Mr. Brandling you are also an Englishman. But
that
Englishman.” She held apart her wiry little arms to indicate the scoundrel’s shoulders. “He paid.”
Clearly I had been duped by a confidence man of the type that preys on travellers. I slammed my hand down on the counter and this displeased Frau Beck.
“He was a German,” I said.
“No, an Englishman.”
I was eviscerated. I had abandoned my son for what? A playing card?
“What of the maid?” I asked.
The maid? What maid? Etc. Was Frau Beck a member of the gang?
“The maid of my room.”
“The maid of your room,” Frau Beck said, as if mocking my English grammar. “The maid of your room has departed.”
“Clearly,” I cried, seeking her behind her lenses. “Clearly, these criminals do not work alone.”
“Herr Brandling, it is the springtime. The maid goes to her family in the Schwarzwald. It is to be expected. Each year the same.”
“She has taken my plans to the Black Forest!”
“Herr Brandling, we know this is not possible.”
“It is so, Frau Beck, believe me.”
“And these plans, were they the same plans you showed Herr Hartmann?”
“They are my plans. I have no others.”
Dipping her pen in her ink well, Frau Beck dismissed me.
At home I would have sent a man to summon the police, and they would have frightened all the servants (as they did both times my wife lost
At my bench, I found the first book completely filled with handwriting, every page. All the books, every one. In all that sharp sea of waving lines there was not one blank. Although I wanted all of them at once, I slid only four of them inside four ziplock bags and these I hid inside my handbag. Then I shifted the remainder to the high shelf above the fume cupboard where no one would ever think to look. There were precisely nine more instalments for me to read.
Only as I hung my booty on the hook behind the door did I realize things were not at all as they had been on Friday night. In the left-hand corner of the room, nearest to the door and therefore behind my left shoulder when I first entered, was an iridescent grey tarpaulin thrown across some objects, the largest one of which stood about four foot high.
I thought of a beached sting ray, some undead thing washed ashore in
La Dolce Vita
. When the rational brain woke up, I understood what
must
lie beneath the tarp—an upper and a lower cylinder driven by a weight, thirty levers that could be connected with different parts of the duck’s skeletal system to make it drink, et cetera, à la Riskin. This was not going to be a smoking monkey, that was clear when I took away the shroud. If, a moment later, I was replacing it, it was not because of the ingenious mechanism, but because of a wooden object placed beside it. Even that was nothing, of course, nothing at all. It was just a sort of wooden hull that had probably once contained the mechanism, but I was in a waking nightmare and the brain reporteda failed cremation, a burned roast dinner, a black and formless fear. Professionally I understood the pitch-black underside, but what I saw was the shell of a huge bivalve, crusty, flaking, disinterred from tar. I smelled napalm, creosote, burned pig, death.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Bronchitis
Sorry. Diagnosis confirmed.
A very short time later I was signing out downstairs.
“You’re shivering,” Arthur said.
I hurried through the turnstile with my booty tight beneath my arm. I thought, Henry Brandling, what happened to you? How much money did they steal?
Henry
A LTHOUGH FIRMLY INTERROGATED , Frau Beck affected to have no memory of the man in the parlour.
“If Herr Brandling means the Englishman, that gentleman has settled his account. That is all I know.”
“I am the Englishman.”
“Yes Herr Brandling,” said Frau Beck (rhymes with peck, a pecking little person). “Mr. Brandling you are also an Englishman. But
that
Englishman.” She held apart her wiry little arms to indicate the scoundrel’s shoulders. “He paid.”
Clearly I had been duped by a confidence man of the type that preys on travellers. I slammed my hand down on the counter and this displeased Frau Beck.
“He was a German,” I said.
“No, an Englishman.”
I was eviscerated. I had abandoned my son for what? A playing card?
“What of the maid?” I asked.
The maid? What maid? Etc. Was Frau Beck a member of the gang?
“The maid of my room.”
“The maid of your room,” Frau Beck said, as if mocking my English grammar. “The maid of your room has departed.”
“Clearly,” I cried, seeking her behind her lenses. “Clearly, these criminals do not work alone.”
“Herr Brandling, it is the springtime. The maid goes to her family in the Schwarzwald. It is to be expected. Each year the same.”
“She has taken my plans to the Black Forest!”
“Herr Brandling, we know this is not possible.”
“It is so, Frau Beck, believe me.”
“And these plans, were they the same plans you showed Herr Hartmann?”
“They are my plans. I have no others.”
Dipping her pen in her ink well, Frau Beck dismissed me.
At home I would have sent a man to summon the police, and they would have frightened all the servants (as they did both times my wife lost
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