Benson

An occult investigator in an alternative Edwardian England discovers a vast conspiracy against the Catholic church.

Sebastian gloom

 Chapter One

 Benson

Thomas Benson stepped off the train and onto the platform with a sigh of satisfaction. It was good to be home.

     It was funny, he thought. When your life contains ghosts, vampires, poltergeists and cases of demonic possession, it seems so good to get away from it all for a while. It only takes a couple of weeks, though, for the ordinary life to seem boring and empty. He found that he couldn't wait to get back to work and get stuck into something occult and interesting. A good case of lycanthropy, perhaps, or a witch or two. They hadn't had one of those for a few years.

He hefted his kit bag over one shoulder and shifted his small leather suitcase to his other hand before stepping forward a few paces to get clear of the disembarking passengers, not wanting to impede their progress. Then he paused, steam billowing around him, to take in the familiar atmosphere. Crowds bustled around him. Some of the businessmen in expensive suits and top hats, moving to enter the carriage from which he had just disembarked, scowled at him, as if his recent presence in the first class carriage had contaminated it in some way, but most of them simply ignored him as they boarded the massive steel behemoth, as if the commonly dressed man was beneath their notice.

 Further down the train, passengers from the second and third class carriages stared curiously at him, intrigued by the one person in all that crowded multitude who didn't seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere. A loud voice, distorted almost beyond intelligibility, issued from the trumpet loudspeakers mounted near the ceiling of the cavernous steel and glass building, informing him that something somewhere was being delayed, but Benson wasn't paying attention. Instead, he made his way to a clear section of the marble paved floor where he could stand for a few moments and simply drink in the experience of being there.

 Everything was as he remembered it, causing him to take a great sigh of satisfaction. People wandered this way and that past pigeons that crowded perilously close to their feet, their bobbing heads searching for any crumb of pastry that might fall near them. More pigeons cooed amongst the ornate but guano stained steel rafters holding up the arching glass ceiling through which rays of the morning sun, stained by soot from the gas lamps, were slanting. A man in the uniform of the West Imperial Railway Service was winding a brass handle to change the name of the destination in the sign above the train while another, two platforms over, was waving a red flag to signal to another train that it was safe for it to depart. More steam billowed from the engine's boiler as the soot stained engineer shovelled in more charcoal. Even the protester wearing the “Electricity is the work of the Devil” sandwich board was satisfyingly normal.

 Enough timewasting, he thought, however. I have duties and responsibilities. He headed towards the exit, but then diverted towards one of the kiosks lining the platform to buy a newspaper and, holding it in one hand, quickly scanned the columns of small text on the front page to see if anything had happened in the world since beginning his journey. He was pleased to see that most of it was boringly normal. Trouble in Africa, as usual, and a small battle in the American colonies in which Brigadier Burton was putting down a minor uprising. Cavendish, the great engineer and explorer, had reached the southern tip of Borneo in his airship “The Empress of India” and the wife of a whig politician, described as a woman of unimpeachable character and reputation, had been assaulted by burglars ransacking the servants quarters of her London house.

 Benson didn't bother opening the paper but just tucked it under his arm to read at leisure later in the day. He hummed a tune to himself as he made his way to the wall of doors leading out into the sunlit beauty of New Kensington street. He hadn't been sleeping well during his two week vacation in Cumbria. He never did well in large, soft beds since the days of his army service, and he was looking forward to the small, hard cot his friend and employer Sebastian Gloom gave him to sleep in. The thought cheered him as he made his way through the glass windowed door, flourishing his ticket at the massively moustached guard standing there, and emerged into the fragrant Manchester sunshine. 

 It was early april and the huge cherry trees that lined the street were in full bloom, their petals falling to cover the wide pavement like newly fallen pink snow. The streets were full of hansom cabs and one of them, a splendidly maintained vehicle whose varnished wood shone like gold, passed close enough that he could have opened its door and stepped in without its even having to stop. The driver looked at him hopefully, thinking that the man burdened with luggage might want a lift, but Benson waved him on, deciding to enjoy the sunshine and the clear, fresh air while walking. His employer's domicile was only two miles away, and he enjoyed the close proximity of other pedestrians of all classes and walks of life, although he was careful to keep one hand on his wallet, as aware as all the people of this great city of the danger of pickpockets.

 The apartments of Sebastian Gloom were on Cromwell Street, and fortunately it was not necessary to pass through any of the city's less savoury districts to get there, even though Benson's days in the service of the Empire had left him well able to take care of himself. He might actually have welcomed the attentions of a gang of thugs, in fact. It had been too long since he'd known the thrill and excitement of physical combat, and knocking a few heads together would have been the final cherry on the cake of his return.

 He soon approached the lodgings of his master with their leering gargoyles and heavy black curtains, and a smile came to his face at the sight of the unorthodox architecture. He'd long since grown accustomed to the gables and finials adorning the facade of the building, not to mention the large rose window above the door, and knew them to be remnants of the days before his master had moved in. Before that, it had been a small museum owned by a man with more property than money and willing to exchange the one for the other, and it still amused Benson that his employer chose a place like this, rather than a normal apartment, for his home.

 As he drew near, he pretended that he was seeing it for the first time, as if he was one of the clients that occasionally came to hire his master’s services. What kind of man would this Sebastian Gloom be? the client would wonder. What kind of strange eccentricities would he have, setting him apart from the rest of modern England? The client would wonder whether he was making a mistake in approaching this man, whether he might do well to seek out a more conventional investigator, but Sebastian Gloom specialised in a certain kind of case, and it might be that the client had no choice but to place his faith in this man. Even if that were the case, though, he would surely hesitate before the thick oaken door with its huge brass knocker in the shape of a grinning demon's face.

 Benson did not hesitate. This place was as familiar to him as his own face in the shaving mirror. He put the large brass key in the keyhole, turned it with a grunt of effort and pushed the door open, stepping confidently and gratefully over the threshold.

 The door opened into a short corridor, flanked by what had once been the museum's ticket office and that now served as the garage for Gloom's steam powered wheelchair. Benson noted that the pile of charcoal behind the small, compact vehicle that fuelled it on his master's excursions about town was low, and made a mental note to order a delivery from the forestry.

 Past the corridor was the museum's main hall, most of which was still occupied by the huge skeleton of a ponderous plant eating dinosaur with ferocious horns on its head. Being too large to move, and having no other space large enough to contain it, the museum's former owner, Charles William Trent, had decided to simply leave it there. Sebastian Gloom could have disposed of it, if he’d wanted, or charged Mr Trent for storage of the huge creature, but he couldn't be bothered to do either. He had many more urgent matters demanding his attention, and so there it remained and there it was likely to remain for ever after, unless Mr Trent should one day come back to collect it.

 Benson was glad the creature was still there. He'd fallen in love with it upon first sight and always greeted it upon arrival, as if it was one of Sebastian Gloom's staff. He paused a moment in front of it, wondering what it must have looked like in life and whether it had once been possible for men to ride upon it like a horse. He contemplated the fact that, if not for the great flood, and if it hadn't been loo large and powerful to be allowed upon the Ark, creatures like it might still roam the world today. He stroked the bones as he passed, dry and cracked after thousands of years buried in river mud and thirty years in the building’s dry air, then moved on deeper into the building.

 He found Sebastian Gloom in his study, sitting in his wheelchair in front of the huge oaken table upon which lay a collection of old books that he was studying by the light of an electric candle. He smiled as Benson scowled at the sight of three pages of hand written notes beside him. Clearly he'd been working for some time. “I thought we had an understanding,” said Benson. “The reason we both take our holidays at the same time is so that I can take care of you while you work. Prevent you from exhausting yourself.”

 “You worry too much, my friend,” chided Gloom with his whisperingly soft voice, but Benson could see the dark rings under his eyes and the slight tremble in his hands where he gripped his favourite ivory fountain pen, so wrong for someone still in their early thirties. He picked up the books and looked for the gaps in the bookshelves from which they had come. Sometimes the only way to prevent him from working himself to exhaustion was to physically prevent him from doing so. That was when he noticed the title of the book he’d been reading when he came in. Gloom must have seen the sudden tension in Benson's body because he gave a guilty start. “Dear God!” exclaimed Benson. “You told me you'd destroyed this!”

 “The gospel of Judas,” agreed Sebastian Gloom. “A controversial character, it is true, but think how different history would have been without him. I believe he was telling the truth, that he was indeed acting on the express instructions of Christ. The other apostles knew nothing of this, of course. Their reactions to the betrayal had to be genuine or the Romans would not have believed them.”

 “The church will kill you if they find out you've got this, they have people who ‘take care' of those they don't like. The idea that God manipulated mankind, emotional blackmail. My son died for you, now you owe me. They would find the very suggestion hateful.”

 “Christ knew he would be resurrected in three days. He told Judas, that was the only reason he agreed to the plan. Christ didn't give his life, he gave his weekend, and all so that he could make people feel guilty enough to follow him.”

 “You still don't think he died to save us from our sins, then.” A grin forced its way onto his face despite his efforts to remain stern. They'd had similar conversations so many times before.

 “I still don't see the connection. How does his dying save us from sin? Where’s the cause and effect? If God wants to forgive us our sins, what's stopping him? Why does someone have to die? It just makes no sense to me. I thought for a while that his capture and execution was unexpected and unplanned, that the whole ‘he died for our sins’ thing was a face saving exercise on the part of his followers. This manuscript has forced me to amend my views, though. The worship of Jehovah was in decline, other religions were flourishing. God needed a major stunt to restore his pre-eminence.”

 “How sure are you that it’s genuine? Could it be some elaborate forgery?”

 “I don't believe so. I took some of the less controversial pages to an expert. He says it’s probably genuine, and I think he's right.”

 “It's just too dangerous. Let me destroy it.” Benson took it towards the fire burning in the grate behind him.

 “No!” cried Sebastian Gloom, and he was then doubled over by a fit of coughing. Benson hurried back to him but he was already recovering, although the handkerchief he was holding to his lips was stained with flecks of blood. “Let me decide what is too dangerous and what is not. Put it back in its folder, if you would be so kind.” Benson reluctantly did so. “You'll be wanting to settle yourself in,” Gloom then said. “I've had Alfred get your room ready, everything is as you left it. Take me through to the sitting room, please, then you can go off and sort yourself out.”

 Benson did so, pushing Gloom out of the room, along the corridor and into the luxuriously furnished sitting room where he lifted his frail employer into his favourite padded leather armchair. “When you're ready,” Gloom then said, “perhaps you could go make me a nice rejuvenating cup of herbal tea.” He reached for one of the newspapers that sat on the coffee table beside him.

 Benson nodded unhappily, then went back into the study for his suitcase and kit bag and headed towards the stairs, to the rooms that had once been offices for the museum's staff and that now served as bedrooms. Gloom had had a fireplace installed in every room, and a merry fire blazed behind the iron grate, bathing Benson with pleasing warmth as he tossed his kit bag onto his cot. He then set about removing his changes of clothing from the canvas bag and smoothing them out roughly on his bed before folding them up and placing them in the chest of drawers that stood under the small window.

 He paused before the window for a few moments, staring out over the rooftops of Manchester, soaking up the familiar sight. By pressing his nose to the glass and looking down, he could see the weed strewn alleyway that ran between the museum and the rear of the opera house that stood opposite. There were a pair of thuggish young men lurking down there, he saw, no doubt up to no good, and he made up his mind to chase them away as soon as he could spare a few moments.

 Looking to the left he could see the rooftops of the warehouses that lined the river, slate grey and dismal and blocking the view of the river itself, but to the right he could see Bridge Street, one of the city's most important thoroughfares and crowded with cabs and carriages. He watched the gaily glad pedestrians for a while, and amused himself by picking out one or another of them and imagining what lives they led and what reason they had for being on the street. Where they were going and what they would do when they got there? Imagining himself inside the head of a stranger was a game he frequently played. It never ceased to astonish him that every single one of the billion or so souls with which he shared the world was the centre of his own universe, the central character of his very own story, whether it was an aristocrat or the most wretched street urchin, and it had given birth to a strong streak of empathy and compassion that formed the very core of who he was.

 After a few minutes he decided that he'd indulged himself enough and changed into the manservant's uniform that Alfred had had cleaned and pressed and hung in his wardrobe along with his other working clothes. Then, after combing his hair and looking at himself in the full length mirror that hung on the inside of the wardrobe door and assuring himself that he was properly smart and professional looking, he left his room and headed for the small kitchen at the end of the corridor on the ground floor.

 Before he could reach it, though, there was a knock on the door and he went to answer it. Benson recognised the man standing on the threshold and his hand leapt instinctively for the small, single shot pistol he wore discretely in a belt holster, but their visitor already had his weapon in his hand. “Place it there,” he said, waving the barrel at the small entryway table. Benson did as he asked, then backed away from it.

 “Benson, isn't It?” said the intruder. “I would like to thank you for having the consideration to walk from the station. It made it so much easier to follow you here.”

 “You're welcome,” replied the manservant dryly.

 “Who is it?” came Gloom's voice from his sitting room.

 “Master Daniel Crowe,” replied Benson as his guest followed him in. “He has a gun.”

 “Ah,” said Gloom, leaning forward in his armchair. “I wondered if we would have the pleasure of your company. Some people see revenge as pointless and ignoble, but I somehow knew that you were not one of them.”

 “You ruined me, Sebastian Gloom! All I wanted was to run a business, make an honest living... “

 “What you did was scarcely honest. Manufacturing fossils and passing them off to the gullible as genuine artefacts. Your victims were naive, foolish, unsophisticated but nonetheless innocent.”

 “There's no law against what I did! I never said they were older then creation.”

 “Yes, you were clever there. You let your victims deceive themselves. And I have to admit that your creations were of high quality. You put a lot of thought into them. I've seen lesser works that were little more than fresh bones pressed into concrete. Your artificial rock was good enough that it would have fooled anyone who wasn’t a professional geologist. You were also clever enough to create transitional forms. Half bird, half reptile. Creatures frozen in the act of evolution. I, however, am a man of science, and science has long since established that everything in the bible is true. I knew your creations had to be fake before I'd even looked at them.”

 “And you told everyone. You ruined my good name! Now nobody will do business with me!”

 “For which you intend to kill us?”

 “Oh no, cos then the rozzers'll be looking for the killer. No, I reckon mister Benson here killed you, intending to steal all your money, and you shot him in self defence. After all, who can tell which gun a bullet came from? Tragic, very tragic, but the police'll just call it case closed and move on.” He aimed the gun at Benson. “If you would be good enough to stand over there...”

 There was a small sound of escaping air, and Daniel Crowe looked down at himself in surprise. A small wooden dart was protruding from his trouser leg, just below the level of Gloom's coffee table. “Why you little...” He aimed the gun at him, but the poison had already left him too weak to pull the trigger and a moment later his corpse fell to the floor with a thud.

 “For all that the native tribes of Brazil are primitive and brutal, they nevertheless have one or two contributions to make to the home of a careful man,” said Sebastian Gloom thoughtfully. “Take care of that, will you, Benson? And then I think we could both do with a nice cup of tea.”

 ☆☆☆

 Daniel Crowe was not the first man to die upon the premises, and Sebastian Gloom had made arrangements for their discrete disposal. One of Manchester's main sewers passed directly beneath the building, and a couple of years before Gloom had asked Benson to dig a shaft from the basement down to it. A rubber seal around the trapdoor prevented the foul odours that rose from below from entering the building, and a set of rungs in the shaft led down to the wide tunnel. Fortunately there had been heavy rains the day before and the current was high and swift. Benson dropped the body into the waters, then watched for a few moments to ensure that it was washed out towards the river. Lastly, before ascending once more, Benson closed and locked the steel hatch in the tunnel’s ceiling. Sewer workers passed this way now and again, clearing blockages and making repairs. If they saw the hatch, they would simply think it had once led up to a manhole in Canal Street, one of the manholes that had been blocked by the building of the new market complex a few years ago.

 It was three hours later, after washing and changing his clothes and while ironing Sebastian Gloom's morning suit in preparation for his weekly appointment at the Paternoster Club, that Benson heard a second knock on the door. Fearing that it might be another of his Master's enemies, of which he had more than a few, it was with some trepidation that he went to answer it, and it was with considerable relief that he found a rather small, mousy looking man standing upon the threshold. He was wearing a rather tatty looking suit that had clearly seen better days and wore a trapper, a type of top hat with a drooping rim that, although once fashionable among the upper classes, was now worn only by those who had fallen rather out of touch with high society. His dress told Benson that, although he recognised the need to conform to the expectations of society, he currently lacked either the means or the fullest desire to do so.

 “Is this the abode of Sebastian Gloom?” He enquired, a little nervously. Benson confirmed that it was, while contemplating that if the small man had heard even a few of the stories that were told about the man after whom he was asking, he might well be nervous.

 “My name is Edward Pick, and it is vitally important that I speak with him.”

 Benson showed him to the library, therefore, the room that had once housed the museum's collection of Egyptian artefacts. A few objects of historical interest still remained between the bookshelves, but everything of real value had been removed long ago. Benson left the man admiring a stone sarcophagus that had once been occupied by the Pharaoh Ammun-Toh, then went to inform his Master that he had another guest.

 It took Sebastian Gloom a couple of minutes to compose himself for the meeting, and then Benson wheeled him through to where his guest was waiting. They were both a little surprised to find that he was still wearing his hat, despite all the customs of polite society, but he immediately apologised. “I wear this hat at all times for a reason,” he said. “I suffered an injury a few years ago that left the top of my head rather disfigured, the sight of which causes some people of a rather nervous disposition to feel unwell.”

 “We have both seen things that would shock and terrify most people,” said Gloom. “It is civilised behaviour that makes us British, however, and common courtesy would forbid us to comment upon another’s disfigurement.”

 “Very well,” replied Edward Pick with a sigh as of a man who had heard such words many times before, and he removed his hat, although he continued to hold it very close to his head, where he could replace it in just a moment if his hosts reacted as he expected. His fears proved to be justified for, despite themselves, they both gave exclamations of shock. Where the dome of his cranium should have been, his head was sunken in a deep depression, the lowest part of which was beneath the level of his eyes. Edward Pick replaced his hat immediately, but Sebastian Gloom gestured for him to remove it again. “Please forgive our reaction,” he said earnestly. “Any shame in this room should be felt by us, not you. May I ask how you came by that injury?”

 “I was a member of the Walpole expedition to the edge of the world,” replied his guest. “Henry Walpole wanted to see whether the sky really was a solid dome that touched the ground at the furthest extremity of the earth, as described in the bible, and whether there was a gap between the earth and the dome of the sky by which one might gain access to the underside of the world.”

 “Yes, I remember,” replied Sebastian Gloom. “I followed the expedition with great interest in the daily papers. You succeeded in reaching the sky, I remember.”

 “Indeed we did. I was one of those fortunate enough to actually lay hands upon it. To actually lay hands on the barrier that separates the mundane world of mortal affairs from the divine realm. The moon, affixed as it is to the innermost of the crystal spheres that surround the world, was tremendous in size, being fully a dozen times larger than it normally appears in the sky. The other heavenly bodies were on the other side of the sky and so looked smaller than they normally do, but the stars on that side of the sky were unbelievably bright. Even though they are affixed to the outermost of the crystal spheres, so that even the closest was still several thousand miles away, they still blazed with a brilliance and a clarity that defies description, Great Rigel was there, glaring down at us like the baleful eye of God Himself, and not far away was the ruddy red disc of Betelgeuse, the fiery glow of Bellatrix. We could actually see them moving as the crystal spheres turned about the disc of the Earth, and we could only hold our breath in awe at the vast mechanism that is the Universe, the handiwork of God.”

 “You were going to tell us how you received your injury,” said Sebastian Gloom.

 “Yes. It happened upon our return journey. We were forced to make landfall by a leakage from one of the hydrogen cells, and while making repairs we were attacked by Zulus. One of them struck me upon the head with a great wooden club that shattered my skull and destroyed most of my brain.”

 “It is fortunate that our thoughts and consciousness derive from the soul and not the brain, as some foolish anatomists believe,” said Gloom. “Nevertheless, the brain does perform an important function, it cools the blood. May I enquire how you avoid overheating in hot weather?”

 “I avoid hot weather, as well as strenuous exercise. And now, sir, I must tell you the reason for my visit. I come on behalf of an acquaintance of yours, one Philip Cranston. I regret that I have to tell you that he has been kidnapped, by persons unknown.”

 Sebastian Gloom sat forward in his wheelchair. “Kidnapped!” he exclaimed.

 “He was found to be missing after his mansion was invaded by a number of violent intruders. They killed his manservant and left two other members of his household unconscious with grievous injuries...” Sebastian Gloom was no longer listening, though, and fretted in his wheelchair with great agitation. “He was a good friend of yours?” asked Benson.

 “He was, of a time” replied Gloom. “We had many great adventures together. That was before you entered my service, my friend. I last saw him about ten years ago.”

 “On what occasion?” asked Benson.

 “On the occasion of his funeral,” he replied.

 

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