THE GAUDY SHADOWS Page 13

  Hmmm…!

  There was a knocker. He used it. Almost at once the door swung wide to reveal a sort of vestibule, wholly without windows, lit only by a swivelling spotlight which nearly dazzled him. It was Dagmar who had let them in, wearing a slim black frock which despite being cut well above the knee managed to look subtly out of style, like a waiter’s evening dress calculated to mark him out from the customers. She held a clipboard with a list on it, just as she had done yesterday at Dramagic’s yard.

  Her face became for an instant both disheartened and reproachful, but her voice was level when she spoke.

  “Good evening, Mrs Logan—Mr Walker. Dr Tileman has not quite finished making ready, but please come in.”

  She closed the outer door on the noise of another car crunching gravel; Laird caught a glimpse and identified it as a Daimler Sovereign. Then she slipped past him and leaned on the inner door, which gave with difficulty and made a hushing sound as she pushed it back. Light from beyond showed Laird the reason.

  This wasn’t simply a vestibule. This was an air-lock!

  What had scuffed the floor was a tight rubber seal, and the whole face of the door was covered with aluminised plastic sheeting. The welded seams showed across it like the veins of a leaf.

  From the sealed door they entered a grand hall the full height of the house, its ceiling formed by a skylight obscured by more of the metallised plastic sheeting. A staircase on the far side, curving through ninety degrees, led to a gallery encircling the hall and serving the upper rooms.

  Tables had been set out along one wall to act as a bar and buffet; on spotless white cloths there were glasses, plates, cutlery, hams, cold turkeys, bowls of salad, baskets of rolls, whole cheeses, tubs of pâté… So much seemed ordinary enough.

  But many of the things that met Laird’s astonished eyes were not in the least ordinary, even though he had seen some of them before—being unloaded from the moving-van outside Dramagic Ltd.

  There was the object like a monstrous plaster turtle; half-concealing the base of the stairs, there was a stand of hanging metal plates in grey and rusty brown; on the right, a blocky artefact with a cluster of feathery vanes on top, like a fern struck magically rigid. Around the base of each was spread a sort of crumpled mat, sandy in colour, spotted with brighter flecks.

  All the light came from overhead. Clipped to the balustrade of the gallery were spots with coloured filters—pale blue, yellow, pale green. Their light was diffused still more because, jutting out over the edge of the gallery on poles, there hung shimmering sheets of metal foil and long garlands of translucent muslin, fluttering just a little in the draught from electric fans set at intervals around the hall. The cloth was draped in irregular scalloped folds.

  Because of the arrangement of the lighting, the walls of the hall were in deep shadow. Laird glanced at Medea; ignoring him, she had approached one of the weird constructs and was examining it intently. He stepped under the gallery’s overhang and discovered that the windows were not curtained, as he had assumed.

  They were closed with heavy steel shutters, and around their edges bulged a thick layer of foam rubber.

  Airtight!

  A footfall sounded directly above him. He retreated to the centre of the hall, craning up to see whether he could spot a movement behind the concealing veils of muslin. There was a loud click, followed by a hissing noise, and music began to issue from hidden speakers. But it was ordinary enough, mere musical wallpaper.

  Irresolute, Laird scanned the strange objects surrounding him.

  You’d think: an exhibition of modern sculpture. But it’s more than that. It must be more than that!

  He was puzzling over the tall stand of metal plates, overlapped a little like scales, when a voice from the entrance spoke his name.

  “Ah—Walker, isn’t it? Didn’t expect to see you here!”

  He spun around. Approaching, hand outstretched, was Reggie Flanceau in evening dress with a carnation at his lapel. Just behind came his wife, in a gold lamé sheath which her figure was no longer quite up to displaying as the designer intended.

  “Good evening,” Laird said, cursing the interruption silently. “Ah—Medea! Do you know the Flanceaus? Sammy was at their party the night he died.”

  Reggie looked bewildered, but Miriam caught on instantly and began to gush. “Of course—Mrs Logan! I knew I recognised you, from all the pictures there were in the papers!”

  Medea acknowledged her frostily. Sensing discord, Reggie suggested in hearty tones that they grab themselves drinks before the mob arrived, and proceeded to fill glasses for them and offer cigarettes.

  There was only wine available, no spirits. And apparently there weren’t going to be any bartenders. Laird added more to his rapidly-growing list of mysteries.

  “The mob” now began to pour in. The next time Dagmar opened the door she let through seven or eight people, and from then on it hardly had time to close before it opened again. Altogether, Laird estimated, there were between seventy and a hundred guests. Most were couples of young middle age, with a sprinkling of glossy younger men, and a fair number of girls no older than Courcy, in skimpy fashionable dresses, accompanying men who could have been but likely were not their fathers. Merely to look at them was not very informative.

  To listen to them, though…

  He found himself, with Medea and the Flanceaus, moving in a group away from the bar so that the new arrivals could help themselves. Watching, he noticed that although clearly the majority of them were acquainted their greetings were subdued; there was none of the bright shrill chatter he would have expected at a cocktail party. For the most part they stood silent, trying not to stare at one another, and smoking nervously.

  Silence was beyond Miriam’s capacity, however. She said eagerly, “It’s two years since you were last in London, isn’t it, Laird? So you can’t have been to one of these parties before.”

  “That’s right, I haven’t.”

  “Well, you’re tremendously lucky. I think it’s the first time that an overseas visitor has joined us, isn’t it, Reggie?”

  Her husband, who had been making sheep’s eyes at Medea, gave a start. “Ah—I believe it is, yes! You must be a friend of Dr Tileman’s, I suppose?” he added directly to Laird.

  “Not exactly.” Laird put on a smile. “I owe my luck to Medea. Though I’m not certain what persuaded her to go to so much trouble for me.”

  “You are tremendously lucky,” Miriam repeated. “Reggie never takes me seriously when I say this, but I really mean it. It’s like being at the first performance of a Beethoven symphony, or the first night of a Shakespeare play.”

  What?

  Laird tried not to stare at her too blankly.

  “Honestly, I’m not exaggerating! Reggie doesn’t agree with me because he’s the down-to-earth type, but I can see a whole new art-form coming to birth at these affairs, and one day it’ll be regarded as highly as music and the theatre.”

  Laird was on the verge of asking her outright what the hell she meant, when there was a tap on his arm. He turned. There, with his vast bulk darkly shrouded in evening dress, was Tileman himself.

  “Good evening, Mr Flanceau—Mrs Flanceau. Good evening, Mr Walker, and welcome to our explorers’ club.”

  “That’s good!” Reggie exclaimed. “Explorers’ club—oh yes, very good!”

  “I believe Mr Walker is well qualified to join such a group,” Tileman said, his half-buried eyes fixed on Laird. “He’s a much-travelled man, particularly in Central America.”

  “But you can expect the most fantastic voyage of all tonight!” Miriam put in, bright with anticipation.

  Tileman made a disclaiming gesture. “There is only one journey truly to be called fantastic: the one from which ‘no traveller returns’. Would you not agree, Mr Walker?”

  “It’s not a journey I’m planning to make in the near future,” Laird grunted.

  “One can never tell,” Tileman murmured.

 
I wonder if that was a threat!

  But before Laird could respond, Dagmar appeared through the close-pressed throng. She gave Laird a glance of reproach, so acute that he almost felt he had performed treachery, and addressed Tileman.

  “Everyone is here, doctor.”

  “Oh, marvellous!” Miriam exclaimed, and gave a little hop of excitement too childish for her by a quarter-century.

  “In that case, you will excuse me,” Tileman said, and moved away towards the stairs, while a mutter spread around the hall.

  Watching Dagmar follow her employer up to the gallery, Reggie said critically, “Pretty girl, that secretary of his. But she always looks so damn’ miserable, doesn’t she? You’d think she’d be pleased to be here instead of back in Leipzig or wherever!”

  No one answered. Silence had fallen all over the room now. The background music oozed into Laird’s ears with syrupy inanity until he felt he wanted to scream. It seemed almost as though nothing would ever happen again.

  Then, without warning, the lighting changed. The white cloths on the buffet table took on a greenish tinge. New spots began to play on the underside of the opaqued skylight, moiré filters lending a shimmer to the beams. The speed of the fans increased, making the sheets of foil tremble and toss the light about in fragments and drawing out the limp muslin into ragged flags.

  Watching attentively, Laird approved the play of colour: blue and silver and green. Abruptly, he realised that under his mask of self-control he had actually been scared of what might happen here tonight, as much as Medea had been. But not any longer. What was there to be afraid of? Here was a bunch of ordinary enough people, maybe a bit more prosperous than average, some of them—like the Flanceaus—not the sort he would choose for friends, but probably decent enough at heart. And some of the women were downright beautiful. Over there on the left of the bar, a girl with gorgeous long black hair and flashing Spanish eyes. And close by him Medea, looking marvellous in that dark red dress.

  He chuckled at the absurdity of his fears. As though in response to a signal, a man by the entrance gave a booming bass laugh. A number of other people joined in. One could feel anxiety blowing away on the draught from the fans.

  He turned slowly, intending to look along the gallery and try to spot Tileman at his controls, or whatever. But his eye was caught by the turtle-like construct, revealed to him by a chance shift of the people separating him from it.

  It really was remarkably like a turtle from this angle! The stumpy flipper, the blunt head with one beady eye visible—

  The head lifted. The eye fixed him. It was not merely like a turtle. It was one.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Incredulous, yet somehow incapable of being alarmed, Laird stared around the hall. There was no hall. Its walls had disappeared into a curtain of greenish, wavering light—underwater light, shed from the rippling surface above his head. He recognised the effect instantly, and thought of the long hours he had slaved under the Caribbean, scooping and poking at the bones of the treasure-ship.

  Here, now, though, he did not wear the irksome scuba kit, the clips tight on his nose and the hard tasteless nozzle in his teeth. Not merely his skin, but the inside of his throat and even his lungs felt cool, as though he were inhaling water instead of air, and a sense of extra effort accompanied every breath, answering to the denser medium. He grew aware of resistance to his movements. Convinced he could not truly be underwater, he yet felt the drag on his limbs, the dream-like lightness. Around him he saw the other guests converging on a rock crowned with tufts of weed, where formerly had stood a blocky thing topped by metal vanes. They moved their arms to help them walk, in the easy rhythm of a swimmer, and every movement seemed to start a string of bubbles, so that they trailed evanescent ropes of fragile jewellery.

  And beyond, in the dimness, there loomed the carcase of a ship—a wreck from which darted fish that glimmered and vanished.

  Christ, so this is what Tileman can do!

  But the thought, like the frightened fish, fled out of reach. Ahead he saw the turtle, and it bent its head so that a woman whose green gown clung to her body and floated behind her could stroke its snout. Laird made for the great creature also. Underfoot the going was smooth: clean sand, spotted with brilliant patches of colour, shells, anemones, bits of coral.

  He circled the turtle and swam on towards the wreck. The fish that played in and out of it became clearer now; he recognised them as species he had seen daily in the Caribbean. The sunken ship had attracted others beside himself—a dozen people had gathered there, their speech and laughter curiously muffled as they pointed at things that struck their fancy. Their limbs seemed to be shrouded in tangled, graceful seaweeds, rusty kelp and bladderwrack for men, multicoloured fronds he could not identify for women.

  One of the girls swam up to the deck of the ship, tilted at a crazy angle, and perched there. Laughing, she cried that she felt smothered, and began to strip off her clothes. They fell lazily to the ocean floor. Others copied her example, and raced and leapt in sudden rejoicing at their physical freedom. Laird plunged forward, intending to join them—and found his way barred. A black form loomed up before him.

  Shark!

  The fear skyrocketed out of his subconscious, and just as quickly died. Somehow he knew there were no sharks in these friendly waters. A hand linked with his and began to tug him along. He fought to focus his eyes exactly, and failed, but hardly cared because the sensation of being drawn along through the water was so pleasant.

  Ahead, the canted deck of the sunken ship. He was led up it, finding purchase on deck-housings, winches, broken spars. His dark companion shimmered before him, guiding him ever higher. He moved into a castle-like world, reminding him of the little models placed in goldfish bowls, with galleries and towers and hidden recesses. Into one of these he was brought, and urged towards an opening into darkness. Through it, lights sparkled like a cave of diamonds. Like—

  He was leaning out of a window overlooking London, and the lights were streetlamps.

  Astonished, he whirled. He was in a bedroom which looked as though it had not been slept in for a long time. Dust lay everywhere, even on the striped mattress. There were two fine Queen Anne mirrors on the wall and one of them hung crooked.

  Closing the door, leaning back against it with infinite weariness, was Dagmar.

  Disbelieving, Laird raised one arm before his face. He was as he had been—dressed the same, dry as ever. Yet the memory of being underwater was so vivid, he could not understand why he was not soaking wet.

  Dagmar followed his gesture with her eyes, and seemed able to interpret it without explanation. She sighed heavily.

  “It seemed real to you,” she said.

  “Real! Christ, I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life!” Laird let his hand fall to his side. “What is it? What’s going on down there?”

  Behind the words, his mind piecing together lying sense-data into a rational whole: he had been led up the staircase, not across a sunken ship…

  “You will understand best if you see,” Dagmar said. She turned and opened the door a crack, peering out. After a moment she beckoned him.

  “Come! But hold your breath! And do not believe what you think you would like to see!”

  Obediently he pumped his lungs and followed her—out on the gallery, fringed with its foil and muslin, its floor a tangle of electric cables leading to fans and spotlights. She parted fronds of cloth and allowed him to stare between them.

  There was no water in the hall. Only coloured light chosen to suggest water. And the scattered objects on the floor were the quasi-abstract artefacts he had seen on his arrival. The turtle-thing was only a thing.

  Yet two men were sitting astride it, whooping and waving their arms. On the stairs people were dancing and leaping. Some of them had taken off their clothes; the woman who had started the trend had nothing on at all and several of the youngest girls had stripped to panties. The total effect was so ludicrous, so remini
scent of children’s make-believe, that Laird was startled into a smothered laugh.

  Dagmar seized his arm and thrust him back into the room behind, slamming its door. “Careful!” she warned. “If you breath it in it will take a hold on you again. I have no antidote—that’s why I had to bring you to the fresh air up here. You have only been affected for half an hour, but if you inhale a second dose you will certainly need the antidote to sober you.”

  Laird’s legs suddenly seemed incapable of supporting his weight. He sat down on the edge of the bed, mechanically drawing out his pack of cigarettes.

  “It’s in the air, is it?” he said. “Is that why you have to seal the entrance and the windows—to save it from being wasted?”

  Dagmar nodded vigorously.

  “It’s a drug. Something Tileman discovered?”

  Another nod.

  “Well, it’s fantastic! The illusion was so…!” Laird let the words trail away. Nothing he could say would express his feelings.

  “Why did you bring me out of it?” he demanded finally.

  She gave a frightened glance at the door. “Don’t talk so loudly! If Dr Tileman should hear—”

  “If Tileman hears he can come and argue,” Laird grunted. But he dropped his voice obediently. “Why did you fetch me up here?”

  “Because— Oh, I wish I spoke better the English!” She almost stamped her foot in frustration. “Listen, I told you I heard the doctor talking yesterday morning with Mrs Logan, yes?”

  “So you did. What did they say?”

  “Mrs Logan said she wanted to make you interested. She said you could help Dr Tileman make another thing like this tonight, only for old times in Mexico. Aztecs, is that how you say? And she wanted this very much.”

  “You mean this underwater effect isn’t the only thing Tileman can do?”

  “Oh no! Every month is different. Last time it has been out in space, to land on the moon. Other times often it is history, ice and snow, palaces, all sort of places. But it is difficult. Experimental. Sometimes it does not work right and people complain.”