Paul

Sebastian Gloom
Part Two
Paul

It took Benson a moment or two to understand. “He had a Solomon bottle, and this was what was stolen,” he said.

“Yes,” confirmed Edward Pick. “I am relieved that you know of such things, it saves a great deal of time consuming explanation.”

“We encountered such an object a few years back,” explained Gloom. “It comes as a considerable surprise to learn that Philip Cranston had one, though. I cannot imagine why he would have feared the judgement of God. The man was the closest thing to a saint now living in the world. He used almost all the profits from his business enterprises for charitable purposes and he was a champion of the fight against injustice. No tyrant or warlord was safe from him, not even those supported by our own government. I had the great honour and privilege to be with him when he overthrew the Opium Lords of Afghanistan, an act that earned him the eternal enmity of Lord Grenfell himself.” He turned to Edward Pick. “Have you received a ransom demand?”

“Not yet. A kidnapping for money was our first thought. Pay us or we break the bottle and send Philip Cranston’s soul to judgement. So far, though, we have heard nothing from the culprits.”

“When did the kidnapping take place?” asked Benson.

“Around midnight, last night. Long enough for a ransom demand to come, if one were coming.”

“Not necessarily,” said Gloom, though. “We have dealt with two kidnappings in the past, and in both cases the culprits waited for over a day before making their demands. They wanted the parents to reach a state of high distress, so that they would give in to their demands immediately. I admit that that is less likely to be the case here, where the victim died nearly ten years ago, but we should not discount the possibility. The ransom demand may still come.”

“Have you involved the police?” asked Benson.

“Only to investigate the break in and the murder of the manservant. We made no mention of the bottle. We told the police that the culprits had fled without taking anything. The church has a heavy influence over the police, and they consider the use of Solomon Bottles to be sin of the highest order, as I expect you know. The police would very likely break the bottle themselves if they came into possession of it, or hand it over to the church authorities.”

“Was anything else taken?” asked Benson. “Perhaps it was a simple burglary and the theft of the bottle was purely incidental.”

Edward Pick shook his head. “No. They ignored several items of considerable worth and went straight for the bottle. There is no doubt that that was the sole purpose of their visit.”

“There are other possible motives we should consider,” murmured Sebastian Gloom, steepling his long, spindly fingers and tapping his lips. “How much do you know of his business dealings?” He asked at last.

“Quite a lot, but not as much as the auditors who went through his affairs with a fine tooth comb upon his death, as part of the execution of his will. They reportedly found nothing to contradict his reputation for honesty and integrity.”

“I am wondering whether someone wishes to extract information from him. He may be dead, but during the course of my career I have encountered a couple of genuine clairvoyants who could talk to the dead. I have no idea whether even they could communicate with a soul held within a Solomon bottle, though.”

“There are tales of voices coming from Solomon bottles,” said Benson hesitantly.

“Demons, yes. Remember that King Solomon created the first bottles to hold demons that he extracted from victims of possession. This is how the stories first came about of genies granting wishes to those who released them. Whether mere human souls can be communicated with, however...” His voice trailed off and a thoughtful expression came across his face.

He leaned forward and fixed his guest with his piercing grey eyes. “Why did you come to me with this? I am an investigator, it is true, but I tend to specialise in a certain kind of case.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Edward Pick. “I was sent by a man who is well aware of your reputation, although he regrets he has to keep his identity secret from you. He is currently going by the name of Paul.”

“Is it the desire of this Paul that I investigate this case?”

“Yes, it is. He wishes to meet with you so that he can discuss the matter with you in greater detail.”

“Why did he not come himself?” asked Gloom. “Why involve you?”

“He does not wish to be seen coming here. He wants the meeting to take place in a more discrete location.”

“He wishes me to go to him? You can see for yourself that I am not in the best of health. I am able to go about town when necessary, but whenever possible I prefer most of my business contacts to come to me.”

“All I can say is that he was very anxious that nobody find out that he is connected with this affair. Will you go to him, sir?”

“Where does he wish the meeting to take place?”

“Not in any public place. You will forgive me for saying that you are of a quite distinctive appearance, and your being seen meeting with him would be just as undesirable as his coming here. He requests that you meet him in the basement of the Museum of Science and Industry. It is a place you are known to visit, and so no-one will think it strange to see you going there. He would be grateful if you could make your way there at the very earliest opportunity. I believe that he is there even now, awaiting your arrival, and that he is willing to pay whatever price you think fair for the inconvenience.”

“Then we shall make our way there immediately. Benson, please prepare my outdoor wheelchair for a little excursion.” Benson nodded and left the room.

Edward Pick nodded his head gratefully and rose to his feet. “Thank you, Mister Gloom. You have my gratitude, as well as that of Paul.”

☆☆☆

“Well, Benson,” said Gloom a few minutes later as his manservant helped him into his steam driven wheelchair. Edward Pick had seen himself out, passing Benson as he was lighting a fire in the chair’s boiler. “What do you make of It?”

“I think it could be a trap,” replied his manservant. “You have many enemies, but the late Daniel Crowe discovered that you are well able to defend yourself here, in your own territory. It could be an attempt to lure you to a place where you are vulnerable.”

“I very much doubt it,” said Gloom, however. “And even if it is, I shall have you to protect me. Besides, it's not as though I have an immensely long life ahead of me. The doctors give me five years at most.”

“You know my opinion of doctors. They would have written you off twenty years ago. Think of all the lives you have changed in that time.” He filled the chair’s water tank from a rubber rube running from a tap on the wall and put a couple of shovels of charcoal into the scuttle. He opened a valve above the boiler and a jet of white steam whistled out. He closed the valve again and glanced at one of the dials attached to the chair’s neck rest. The needle was rising nicely but he tapped it a couple of times with his finger anyway and nodded with satisfaction.

“Just having you to cheer me up adds years to my life,” said Gloom. He settled himself into the chairs velvet padded seat and Benson opened the front door.

☆☆☆

Sebastian Gloom, chuffing his way along the wide pavement in his steam driven wheelchair, accompanied by his manservant, was a common sight on the streets of Manchester. People made way for him without comment, some of them tipping their hats respectfully, but he still attracted many a curious stare, especially from children and visitors to the city. Gloom ignored them stoically, simply moving the tiller to steer his way past those people who failed to get out of his way fast enough.

It was getting dark as evening approached, and he flipped the switch on his armrest that turned on the electric candles attached to the front of the chair. The light wavered as the dynamo, turned by the same steam that turned the large back wheels, fed current to the tungsten filaments.

The streetlights were beginning to come on as the gaslighters climbed ladders to open the valves and ignite the gas with electric spark lighters. Gloom frowned unhappily as the yellow light formed circles of illumination in the rapidly darkening streets. “Strange to think that all that gas comes from far off corners of the Empire, carried across continents and under oceans by great ceramic pipes. We have long since exhausted the natural gas reserves of our own little island and now plunder the world for what the natives of those far off countries would no doubt think should be lighting their own cities.”

“We had an industrial revolution while they were still busy throwing spears at each other,” replied Benson. “We earned the right to that gas with our organised military and our scientific ingenuity.”

“The Romans would no doubt have said the same thing as they stole our gas to light the cities of Italy, if the wonders of gas had been known then. In actual fact, there are records to suggest that the people of Babylon lit their city with gas, although there is no evidence that they stole it from their neighbours.”

“That would have been just a few centuries after the Great Flood,” replied Benson.

“Indeed. All the natural gas in the world comes from the decomposition of plants buried by mud and silt during the Great Flood. That is why there is no record of gas being used to light cities before the flood, even though there were mighty civilisations thriving back then.”

“All the sins of mankind that prompted God to flood the world are therefore proving useful now,” said Benson. “Without all that sin and punishment, our cities would be in darkness at night.”

“Just so. Even so, though, I cannot help but think about all the children who died during the Flood. What was their sin, I wonder? What had they done that they deserved to be drowned like unwanted kittens tied up in a sack and thrown into a river?”

“If they were innocent then they reside in heaven now.”

“So you are saying that it is acceptable to murder innocent children because their souls go straight to heaven?”

“Of course not! If any man harmed a child I would tear him apart!”

“And yet when God kills children we worship and praise him. And it's not just the victims of the Great Flood is It? Now many children lived in Sodom and Gomorrah? What was their crime? And many of the firstborn of Egypt must have been children. The hands of God are dripping with the blood of children, and yet if you enter any church you will see dozens of people praising him, praising his justice and mercy. Why do people not apply the same standards to God as they do to other humans?”

“I'm thinking you might want to secure a Solomon Bottle for your own use,” said Benson and then, in a softer voice that Gloom was only just able to overhear he added “And one for me, as well.”

They travelled in silence after that, Benson beside and half a pace beside the steam wheelchair, until they reached the Museum of Science and Technology. It was just getting ready to close for the day, but Gloom was well known to the curator, the two having spent many long evenings discussing recent advances in technology, and when Gloom enquired whether they could examine one of the museum's recent acquisitions, a German steam engine copied from a British design, the man was glad to agree. “You're the second man tonight to show an interest in that piece,” he said. “I showed another gentleman down there earlier this afternoon. He must be greatly interested in it because he hadn’t come up yet.”

“The enigmatic Paul, I presume,” said Gloom as he parked his steam wheelchair in an alcove and Benson helped him into a more traditional model. “He must be close to giving up on us.”

“Then let's go put him out of his misery,” said Benson as he wheeled his master along the corridor.

They passed long galleries filled with examples of machinery from around the world, each with its little plaque telling how it was inferior to British machinery or with a photograph of the British machine from which it had been copied. Most of the foreign machines were German, that country being Britain's only serious industrial rival, and several of the exhibits had been chosen for display because they had failed in some spectacular or comical fashion. The successful foreign machines were down in the underlevels, safely out of sight.

They turned a corner, past a section containing agricultural equipment, then down a level to a gallery containing automatic textile machinery, all looking rather spooky in the dim light and accompanied by mannequins in period dress and standing in action poses, all of which seemed to stare at them as they passed. Benson kept a careful watch on them as they passed, in case one of them was an assassin waiting to ambush them, but they reached the lift without incident.

The floor of the lift was an inch higher than the corridor, and Benson had to tilt the wheelchair back to get the front wheels on, then push the rear wheels in by sheer brute strength. He then turned the chair to face the entrance and closed the railing. Finally he pulled the lever, opening a valve in the pipe running from the great boiler in the basement, allowing steam to turn the great pulley that allowed the car to descend.

They watched the floor rising past them and then the upper basement containing the workshops in which the exhibits were repaired and maintained. Gloom saw a Chinese waterwheel attached to a great system of gears and pulleys, but they were past before he could see what function it had once served. Then they entered the sub basement and the car came to a shuddering stop, bouncing a little on the sturdy springs that would have attempted to break their fall if the cable had snapped.

Benson opened the railing and pushed Gloom's wheelchair out into the basement, all of which seemed to be one large room fifty yards across. Most of it was filled with machinery in various states of repair and completeness, and there was a much larger lift against the opposite wall capable of raising and lowering objects weighing several tons. They gave them only a cursory glance, though, because there was a man waiting for them, a relieved and hopeful expression on his face.

“Mister Gloom!” he said, holding out a large, strong hand. “Thank you for coming. Thank you ever so much! I desperately need help, and if you cannot give it, I don't know who can.”

Sebastian Gloom examined the man carefully. He appeared to be in his mid fifties with greying hair and was dressed in the clothes of the upper middle class. The kind of man who might be the foreman in charge of hundreds of factory workers but who was still regarded as merely one of the workforce by the gentlemen who owned the business. His jacket was tweed with leather patches on shoulders and elbows and he wore a bowler hat on his head. His cheeks were covered by a patchwork of broken blood vessels where they weren’t hidden by the splendidly maintained mutton chops moustache.

“This is my manservant, Benson,” said Gloom, indicating the man still holding the handles of his wheelchair.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the man, extending a hand to Benson as well. “Thank you as well. I am Paul. Please forgive me for the secrecy and the somewhat furtive manner in which I arranged to meet you. I am in great danger and I have to warn you that if you agree to help me, you will be placing yourselves in danger as well. My enemy will become your enemy, and it is the most dreadful enemy imaginable. I would not blame you If you decided to turn away, deeming the risk too great.”

“I think that you have researched me, and that you know exactly the right thing to say to pique my interest,” said Gloom. “Please tell me who this great enemy is.”

“Please forgive me if I do not. You would surely think me mad! I will only say that it is the greatest tyrant ever, one who rules with an iron fist and punishes those who oppose him utterly without mercy and compassion. And yet I and a few others like myself have dedicated ourselves to his overthrow. Not with any great hope of success, but because we consider his crimes and injustices to be so great that no man of conscience can turn a blind eye to them.”

“Philip Cranston was also a member of your conspiracy,” said Gloom. “He knew the identities of some of the other members. That is why his Solomon Bottle was stolen. They wish to extract those names from him.” Benson nodded. He'd also reached the same conclusion.

“If that happens, our conspiracy will be dealt a crushing blow. The tyrant’s day of judgement will be delayed, perhaps indefinitely, and many of our organisation will be hunted down and killed. My own name is one of those they will obtain! A dozen others! We are pursuing other lines of enquiry, but you are our greatest hope. If you cannot recover it, I fear that no-one else will.”

“What can you tell us of these people?” asked Gloom. “Who is this great tyrant?”

Paul glanced around the huge, dark room as if his enemies might be closing in even now. “He is the greatest of all, the most powerful in all creation!” He drew a handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his brow. “He rules in total surety for there is no-one who can possibly challenge him! But we must challenge him if we are to call ourselves men of decency and honour!”

Benson was frowning now, though, and Gloom saw the signs of a rising anger in him. “You cannot be referring to the King himself! I will not be party to any treasonous act! I swore an oath...”

“Relax, my good friend,” said Gloom, turning in his wheelchair to look back at him. “I think I know to whom our friend refers, and it is not the King. Am I right in thinking that it was agents of the Vatican who stole the bottle?”

“It must have been! It can be no-one else! No-one else has the motive! I know that you have contacts in the church, especially in the Exercitus Dei. I beseech you to use them to find the bottle! I can think of no other hope!”

“It is true that I have contacts in the Vatican's Army of God,” replied Gloom. ”They have helped me in the past because they trust me. And yet there may be one who shares your, shall we say, concerns regarding the head of his organisation. I can sound him out discretely, perhaps get a feeling for how far he would be willing to go.”

“Mister Gloom, if you did that, you would have the gratitude not only of myself but also of a dozen of my countrymen. Who knows, it is even possible that you might one day have the gratitude of the entire human race.”

“Let us not be premature in our self congratulation,” said Gloom however. “If my suspicious regarding your enemy are correct, you have set yourself the most difficult and dangerous task in the history of creation. You are almost certainly doomed to failure and damnation.”

“Yes,” agreed Paul, “but we will at least have tried.”

“That we will,” agreed Gloom. “Since time is of the essence, therefore, we will begin immediately. How can we contact you?”

“Edward Pick will act as an intermediary. I shall have him return to your home and leave his contact details. This must be the last time that we meet in person. It is just too dangerous.”

“I agree. Farewell then.” He raised a hand to Benson, who turned the wheelchair and pushed it back towards the lift.

☆☆☆

“I know that it is dangerous to form an opinion of a man based only on what you read in the newspapers,” said Benson as he pushed Gloom's wheelchair back towards the entrance of the museum. “However, I've read nothing to suggest that Pope Julian is any more or less dishonest and reprehensible than any other man of the church. Are you aware of something about him that is not know to the general public?”

Gloom hesitated before answering. “Benson, I must ask you to trust me. There is something about Paul's enemy that he was very careful not to say explicitly, because it is dangerous to know. He was trying to protect us. I believe I have guessed the truth, and I think it very likely that you will as well. You are no mean investigator and detective in your own right. If you do guess the truth, you will have to make a decision, the most important decision of your life. Either to join with Paul and help him fight his enemy, or oppose him. At the moment, if Paul's enemy learns of your involvement, you can still plead ignorance and that may be enough to save you. That is why I will not answer your question.”

“You have chosen to join with Paul, haven't you?”

“Yes. I have.”

“Then I choose the same thing. You asked me to trust you. Now I ask you to trust me. I am with you, no matter what the odds, no matter what the consequences of failure. In the time we’ve known each other, I have learned that anyone you name as your enemy is the enemy of all mankind and that is enough for me.”

“My friend, your words just make me even more determined to protect you. Please do not ask me again. Our job is to find and recover Cranston’s Solomon Bottle. Please do not look beyond that task.”

Benson frowned unhappily but nodded. “So. Father Anthony then.”

“I will be visiting Father Anthony. I have another task for you, another lead to follow. I want to know how the Church found out that Cranston was a member of Paul's cadre of conspirators. I think it likely that a member of his household betrayed him, but that will be for you to determine.”

“You will go to Father Anthony alone?”

“I'll take young Jake with me. He's more than capable, and I doubt I'll be needing your kind of protection while visiting a church.”

Benson nodded, and they said nothing more for the rest of the journey home.



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