This meeting of the Society of Good Works will come to order!’ shrieked Dr Saint. The room – which had been a ferment of panic, anger and mutual recrimination – suddenly fell silent. Nine figures were gathered at the long table in the Empire Hall Assembly Room. Dr Saint sat at the head of the table, with Mr Nicely standing at the wall behind him, still with a bandaged head.
‘To put an end to all unseemly rumour,’ Dr Saint continued, resuming his usual outward calm, ‘last night, Theo Saint, my ward, was kidnapped.’
There were gasps of horror around the table and murmurs of I told you so.
‘Details!’ bellowed Baron Patience. ‘For pity’s sake, we must move quickly or our entire project is undone!’ He mopped his bloodhound-like face with an immense hanky.
‘Between the hours of ten o’clock last night and six this morning, the Vessel was abducted,’ Dr Saint said solemnly. The Vessel – Mr Nicely pulled a face. It was a long time since Theo had been called that.
‘It was clearly part of a long-laid plan …’
‘If you know it was long laid, then why on earth didn’t you act to stop it?’ Baron Patience asked.
‘It only emerged that it had been long laid, when my trusted housemaid, recruited from one of our own orphanages by Lady Blessing herself –’
‘Don’t drag me into it!’ protested Lady Blessing, half hidden under an immense dark hood.
Dr Saint ignored her. ‘It only emerged, as I say, when my house servant, Clarice Cripps, did not appear for work this morning at five-thirty, as she is ordered to do. Mr Nicely was then required to attend to my ward’s medication and found him gone.’
‘Do we know who the perpetrators are?’ asked a nervous, immaculately dressed gentleman in a white suit and lavender gloves. He was known in the Society as Lord Dove.
‘Not with absolute certainty,’ Dr Saint replied. ‘Clarice Cripps must have been part of a larger conspiracy.’
‘It is our darkest hour!’ boomed Baron Patience, his enormous figure sprawled in a leather chair in the far corner. ‘If the Vessel should remain at large for too long, become independent –’
‘Please!’ cried Dr Saint indignantly. ‘Credit us with some intelligence! The Vessel cannot thrive outside of our protection. He has been brought up to be ignorant and weak.’
A murmur of approval ran round the table.
‘Theo was raised in splendid isolation,’ Dr Saint explained proudly, ‘sheltered from all knowledge of the world, encouraged to mistrust the illusions of happiness and achievement. Even his diet was designed to … save him from the dangers of excess health and the follies of vigour. He will be unable to cope with freedom –’
‘You assume he is still alive,’ growled the Baron. ‘If the Dodo has got hold of him –’
‘The Dodo has been dead for over a hundred years,’ groaned Dr Saint.
‘Or the Taxidermist!’ winced Lord Dove.
‘One of our Mollycoddlers said she saw a garghoul on the wing last night!’ said Lady Blessing. ‘And to think I punished her for falling asleep and dreaming on duty.’
Murmurs of dismay ran around the table. Dr Saint waved his long fingers airily as if these speculations could be wafted away like unwanted smoke. The meeting was getting out of hand.
‘We face no obstacle,’ he said, his face a mask of cold determination, ‘that cannot be overcome by our usual sworn methods of compassion and kindness!’ There was a murmur of approval from the shadowy assembly.
‘There is no alternative,’ said Dr Saint. ‘We need eyes and ears everywhere – and hands to snatch our property back!’ He paused for a moment, then spoke in a grave hush, pointing a pale finger towards the ground. ‘We must release our ancient allies!’
The company took a collective deep breath. There was a gasp from Lord Dove. ‘Not that awful tribe?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that perfectly awful tribe,’ said Dr Saint, smiling.
‘By Jove,’ rumbled Baron Patience, sitting back as if needing physical room to take on board this dramatic idea, ‘I like it!’
‘We won’t have to see them, will we?’ groaned Lady Blessing, her gaunt but beautiful profile glimpsed palely within her hood.
‘Leave them to me,’ Dr Saint said. ‘I feel such remorse for allowing Theo to fall into enemy hands that I must atone in some way. Leave all the tricky details to Dr Saint.’
‘A great, great man,’ mumbled Mr Nicely in the background.
‘What are we going to do about the police?’ asked Lord Dove, fiddling with his perfect white cuffs. ‘You say they have actually been here – in Empire Hall? What do they know? What are they after?’
‘It was an unrelated burglary … a small matter,’ Dr Saint replied.
Mr Nicely caressed his bandaged head, which was not a small matter to him.
‘Scotland Yard could be a nuisance,’ persisted Lord Dove, anxiously drumming his gloved fingers on the tabletop. ‘If they find out about the abduction, they will certainly want to know why we didn’t report it to them!’
‘They can never know!’ snapped Dr Saint.
‘Inspector Finley is our main concern,’ Lady Blessing observed. ‘He has shown a little interest in the Society of Good Works before.’
Dr Saint folded his long white hands together in his habitual gesture of prayer. ‘A little interest is too much.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Inspector Finley has enough worries on his head. I think an act of kindness is in order.’
He pursed his lips in thought. ‘I have heard the inspector is so overweight, his colleagues fear he may suffer a heart attack one day. Perhaps if he were to win a contest – free cream cakes for a year?’
‘I shall see to it,’ said Lord Dove with relish. ‘I am a lethal master of confectionery!’
‘And he is partial to burgers and doughnuts. Perhaps if a cheap fast-food restaurant were to open right next to the police station?’
‘No problem,’ said the Baron. ‘Our department of works will be notified at once.’
‘That won’t be so easy,’ remarked Lady Blessing. ‘There’s a children’s hospital next to the police station currently.’
‘Get our friend the Prime Minister to close it down then,’ Dr Saint snapped. ‘Goodness me, we send him enough friendly donations.’
‘It is rather a large hospital,’ Lady Blessing added.
‘Excellent,’ said Dr Saint. ‘I’m picturing a burger bar and two cake shops. After all, an honest policeman like Inspector Finley deserves nothing less. Work-related stress is a terrible thing, and I think this act of compassion will shorten his, err … sufferings considerably.’ Dr Saint smiled as he received a ripple of applause.
‘And certainly his life!’ giggled Lord Dove.
‘That is what I meant,’ said Dr Saint testily. ‘Now we must all be prepared. Our master plan, the Great Liberation, will go ahead as scheduled. Soon we will control dark forces beyond the imagining of ordinary men.’
‘It is what we have always dreamed of,’ rumbled Baron Patience. ‘When the sleeping army awakes, none will be able to stand in the way of our Good Works!’
Dr Saint gazed kindly upon his fellow board members.
‘We will see a happier world then,’ he simpered, almost shedding a tear. ‘A world where only the chosen few will suffer the anxieties of power and the burden of riches. A world where the ordinary man will enjoy the virtues of poverty and the bliss of slavery. And, under our guidance, this nation will command a vast, docile Empire, as it once did!’
‘Glorious,’ rumbled Baron Patience, thumping on the table and rattling everyone’s china teacups. ‘Summon our disgusting allies then. Just give me time to get home and lock the door first.’
Dr Saint smiled, convinced he had carried the day. ‘With them on the case,’ he assured the gathering, ‘I am convinced that Theo will soon be back in our hands!’
Six enormous men flanked Dr Saint as he strode through the ‘No Entry’ signs at the gateway to the abandoned sewage pumping station. The men, powerful brutes swamped in dark blue overalls, were known within the Society simply as the Foundlings – men with no family to miss them or ask questions if anything should happen to them.
‘Who is that lump?’ asked Dr Saint, pointing at the dead body of a fat man in an orange Day-glo coat, sprawled out on the floor.
‘Maintenance man, sir,’ said one of the Foundlings. ‘Fence repair man or something. He spotted us breaking in. I had to, erm … relieve him of his earthly worries.’
Dr Saint frowned. ‘Well, make it look like he dropped his own mallet on his head,’ he said. ‘And get Lord Dove to find out tomorrow’s lottery numbers.’
‘Lottery numbers, sir?’ The Foundling looked baffled.
‘We can slip a winning ticket into the pocket of our dead friend here,’ Dr Saint said with relish. ‘Then when they discover his body, his family will be too busy spending the lottery money to care about what really happened to him.’ The Foundling nodded and hurried away.
Mr Nicely appeared, carrying a pair of brand-new Wellington boots. He appeared gloomy and distracted.
‘Bearing up, Mr Nicely?’ asked Dr Saint suddenly.
Mr Nicely sighed. ‘I just had a funny feeling that I left something important behind,’ the butler said rather glumly. ‘Then I realised what it was – Master Theo.’
Dr Saint glared at him. ‘Pull yourself together,’ he snapped. ‘Because if things ever start getting too much for you, just let me know and I shall see to it you get a nice long rest!’
Mr Nicely made a note to himself not to sigh any more.
A huge iron door confronted them. It took two of the Foundlings, using all their might, to turn the wheel that opened it. Dr Saint wrinkled his nose as foul air poured out of the doorway. He sat on a control panel while the butler took off his employer’s shoes and replaced them with the shining new Wellingtons.
‘What on earth do you have in your nostrils, Mr Nicely?’ Dr Saint asked.
The butler smiled sheepishly. ‘Lord Dove said it would be pretty niffy at the sewage station, sir,’ Mr Nicely said. ‘The operations department issued me with these nose filters.’
His employer chuckled. ‘I hardly think an old soldier like you will need such a thing, Mr Nicely,’ Dr Saint said. ‘Pass them here.’ The butler handed them over in silence. Dr Saint smartly put the filters in his own nostrils.
‘I, however, am a more delicate flower.’ He smiled. ‘Now let us enter the network.’
The party trooped into the stinking tunnel.
‘Pardon my asking,’ whispered Mr Nicely. ‘But what are we doing here, sir?’
‘Setting up that meeting with the old acquaintances of the Society,’ Dr Saint said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. ‘Not the class of person I would like to see a nice chap like you mixing with, Mr Nicely.’ Mr Nicely glowed. The old friendship was back.
‘In that case, hardly a suitable company for a saintly gentleman like yourself, Dr Saint.’
‘Hardly,’ whispered Dr Saint. ‘But back in the Victorian age, when the Philanthropist set up the Society of Good Works, he realised that there are two Londons. The glorious city of human endeavour we all know, and a second city, its shadow, as it were, existing alongside – darker, more dangerous. In order to achieve anything in the bright lights, one must also have influence in the darkness.’
The soft wallowing of their wading echoed around them as they ventured deeper into the tunnel.
‘Do you know where we are now, Mr Nicely?’ asked Dr Saint.
‘In the Monarch Fields Sewage Pumping Station,’ said Mr Nicely confidently. ‘I may be slow on the uptake, but I did manage to read the old notice on the gate.’
‘That is the sign we want the world to read.’ Dr Saint smiled. They rounded a corner and were faced with a metal cage in a shaft, poised over a black pit.
Two of the Foundlings stayed in the access tunnel, while everyone else descended in the cage. It creaked and rocked as it plummeted downwards. Mr Nicely flinched as ice-cold drips ran down his neck.
‘Invigorating!’ he declared with false gusto.
‘Back in the early days of our Society,’ explained Dr Saint, ‘the Philanthropist persuaded the government to let him set up a waste-disposal system down here, as a charitable gesture towards improving living conditions for the city.’
‘How typical of our revered founder,’ said the butler.
‘It enabled the Society of Good Works to explore, develop and exploit opportunities down here, in what we call the network. It provided us with unique resources …’
The cage had reached its destination. They stepped out and softly glowing globes illuminated their way. Mr Nicely had never see these before, and peered inside to see luminous, living fungus inside the globes providing the light. Dr Saint led the party to a chamber, where banks of control panels rose up in the darkness.
‘Our founder understood the subtle things in life,’ said Dr Saint. ‘He knew that excess kindness can kill as surely as excess cruelty. He was also a master of alchemy. He knew that certain mixtures, when combined, could achieve quite magical effects.’
Mr Nicely smiled as all around, controls, lanterns and bulbs lit up in a ghoulish mixture of greens.
‘I am used to being in the company of genius,’ Mr Nicely said. ‘So I shall strive not to be overawed by these latest marvels, sir.’
‘We are going to perform a marvel, then depart at a swift pace,’ said Dr Saint. He signalled to two of the Foundlings to step forwards.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘It is time to release the vapours!’