Mathieu Durand looked out through the tall window on the uppermost landing of Ruthven’s house. He stood far enough back from the glass that he was confident he could not be seen from the street. There was no light burning up here at the top of the house, and the night outside was dark enough to hide him from any curious eye.
But there were no answers out there to the doubts and fears that assailed him.
He withdrew, backing away from that wall of glass. He walked towards the top of the long, many-flighted stairs. His feet were loud on the bare boards. The upper floors of Ruthven’s house in Melville Street were, in the main, places of echoes, and of dusty voids. There were no rugs or coverings on the floors; the walls of even the grandest rooms were bare of paintings or hangings or any decoration. Uninhabited spaces, from which the household had withdrawn, one by one, closed the doors and shut the silence away.
Durand had his bedchamber up here, at the top of the house. There was nothing in it save a simple bed, a washstand with its bowl, a crude wardrobe for his clothes. Those things, and the boxes that held some of the objects by which he had been first entranced and now brought low: fragmentary relics of the Orient upon which he made some pretence of study, and sought, by that pretence, to preserve his life for a while longer.
He had told Ruthven that he had not yet found the key to unlocking all the secrets held by those dozens of inscribed clay tablets, but he lied. He had read them all, for he had mastered the secret languages of their authors. They were nothing; they added nothing to the catalogue of his previous discoveries. The few precious alchemical tracts had been amongst the first he decoded, and their wisdom he had already shared with Ruthven. Everything he had read since then was useless. Lists of produce harvested by the temple workers of Ur. Religious tracts extolling Anu, Enki, Enlil, the dead gods of a dead civilisation. There was nothing in them that could aid Ruthven or Blegg in their mad quest, but so long as they believed there might be, Durand could hope they would suffer him to live. So he clung to his pretence, and bore it like a shield.
The whole house was one grand pretence. A trompe l’oeil of consummate craftsmanship. Ruthven hosted dinners, attended his share of grand events and soirées, and generally portrayed himself as a man of means and standing, but he did it all by sleight of hand. The rooms any guest might see—and the guests were invariably the greatest worthies of the city, advocates and bailies, guild masters and councillors—those rooms were elaborate fictions, grandly furnished, immaculately maintained. But the rest of the house was stripped down to its rude fabric. Everything had been sold, piece by piece, save that which was indispensable, or worthless. All the servants had been dismissed long ago; when cooks or serving staff were needed, for the preservation of illusion, they were brought in for a few days only.
Ruthven was descending into penury, month by month, his fortune whittled away by his pursuit of secret knowledge, and by his purchase of influence, the better to conceal the ghoulish horrors into which that pursuit had descended. They all, every member of this blighted household, must know it could not last, yet they were trapped in the lunatic dance, unable to break away from the spiral of lies.
Now, standing at the head of the stairs, Durand could hear Isabel Ruthven playing the pianoforte, far below. Glittering arpeggios spilled out from the drawing room, fluttering their way through the house, up the great stairwell, coiling about the banisters. It was not a melody Durand knew, but it was pleasing to the ear. She played it well.
Durand descended, one hand resting lightly on the banister. He was hungry, and there was no one to bring him food, or prepare it for him. Nor could he any longer venture out at will to find sustenance. His movements were circumscribed now, and watched. Mistrust hung thick in the air of the house, along with all the lies. He was like a rat, living by scavenging and foraging in a half-empty palace, imprisoned by fear of the terrible retribution awaiting him should he stray.
In the gaps between the notes cascading from Isabel’s fingers, he could hear raindrops pattering on the great skylight far above his head. There was something of the waterfall in Isabel’s music, and the accompaniment of rain did not seem out of place.
He was glad to hear her playing, not for the quality of the music, but because it would likely mean that Blegg was in there with her. Durand devoted much effort to avoiding Blegg, and that was a great deal easier when he knew where he was.
The kitchens were at the back, on the ground floor of the house where a humble lane ran along the rear of the noble terrace, for the use of servants and delivery men so that they would not sully the smart frontage by their presence. Little use was made of it for its intended purpose in the case of Ruthven’s house, and Durand was thus startled, and dismayed, to find a transaction in progress.
Blegg stood with another, heavier man, a huge sack lying on the floor between them, tied shut with rope. Its contents were irregularly shaped, stretching it in one part, leaving it slack in another.
“Ah, Durand,” Blegg said. “You’ve not met William Hare, I don’t think?”
The other man grimaced and bared his teeth. There was an animalish ferocity to it.
“Don’t give him my name,” Hare growled.
He had an accent Durand could not quite place. Not Scottish, assuredly. There was nothing of the affected refinement of Edinburgh in his words.
Blegg dismissed Hare’s concerns with a flick of his gloved hand.
“You don’t need to worry,” he smirked. “Durand here’s no trouble to anyone, are you, Durand?”
“Just give me the money, and I’ll be gone,” said Hare.
Durand stared down at the great sack on the cold stone floor. He had no doubt of what it contained. The shape and bulk of it told an unmistakable tale. He shook his head, wondering at the brazen madness of it all. They took delivery of a corpse, here at Ruthven’s very house, as if it were no more than provisions for the parlour.
“So keen to be about your business,” Blegg said approvingly to Hare. “But no more for a time, if you can bear to wait. You’ve met my needs for now, and these are not the easiest goods to store.”
Hare scowled and held out a stiff, open hand. Blegg pressed folded banknotes into it. With a last, ferocious glare at Durand, laden with contempt and baseless loathing, Hare turned on his heel and went out, banging the back door on its hinges and slamming it closed behind him.
“A man who’s found his calling, that one,” Blegg said with harsh amusement. “Why don’t you carry this down to the cellar, now that you’re here, Durand?”
“No. I’ll not set foot there.”
“Oh? Finally decided you can’t bear any more dirt on your precious little hands, have you? Too late, old man. Much, much too late.”
With that, Durand could heartily agree. Far too late to save his hands, or his soul, from the stain of complicity. Far too late to save himself from the ruin that could not be long delayed now. There was a reckless, wanton air taking hold, as if all the sins of the past could only be concealed and justified by piling fresh sins atop them. The fragile edifice behind which all their exploits were concealed grew ever more impossible to sustain.
Enough, Durand thought dismally. Though it would mean his death, and his damnation, he could bear the waiting no longer. Better to bring those things down upon himself than endure this tortured, haunted existence any longer. He had no life worth the living now, so what purpose could there be in prolonging the fever dream in which he was ensnared? If the edifice was to fall in any case, he would tear out its foundations himself.