The Darke Chronicles (5 page)

There, against the darkness of the windowpane was a flickering, bright light that gradually formed itself into an image. It was the image of an angel. Or a creature that he recognised as an angel from the illustrations of the scriptures he’d seen as a child. A tall figure with flowing blonde hair, dressed in a long white gown behind which two large dove-like wings were visible. They flapped slowly and noiselessly. The beautiful epicene face of the creature was topped with a shining halo. It was an angel, indeed. One of God’s holy messengers, who had come to him. The angel was smiling, its arms stretched out in a beckoning gesture, beckoning for Cornelius to join him.

The vision warmed the old man’s tired, grieving heart. Instinctively, he sat forward in the bed and reached out, his fingers stretching in the darkness towards the shimmering figure. And then as quickly and as suddenly as the apparition had appeared, it vanished. The blue of the night seeped back to replace it. The room regained its shadows.

Cornelius
sat for some time staring at that bleak space, barely moving a muscle. His tired brain tried to rationalise his experience. It couldn’t. He knew he hadn’t been asleep; he hadn’t been dreaming, and he hadn’t imagined it. There was only one lucid explanation left.

He had been visited by an angel.

But why?

‘Have you ever heard of the Church of the True Resurrection?’

‘I have not, but it sounds like so many of the crank religious organisations we encounter in London nowadays, run by the weak-minded for the weak-minded.’

Luther Darke stared at his friend Inspector Edward Thornton with some surprise. ‘How harshly cynical of you. Police work is brutalising your sensitivities.’

‘I am not a religious man, Luther, although I hope I am a moral one in keeping with the Christian tradition. But I have no time for the mumbo-jumbo that some of these so-called holy sects indulge in. They befuddle the minds of the gullible – invariably for profit.’

The two men were seated by the fireside in the sitting room of Darke’s town house in Manchester Square. A pale noonday sun sent frail yellow shafts of light into the otherwise gloomy chamber. Luther Darke liked the gloom.

He took another drink of whisky. ‘Do you know of a fellow by the name of Doctor Sebastien Le Page?’

Thornton screwed his face up in a pantomime of thought.

Darke grinned. ‘Oh, Edward, Edward, you are being singularly useless.’

‘Has Mr Le Page committed a crime?’

‘Doctor, please. Do give the scoundrel his proper title. Committed a crime? Ah, well there is the rub, my dear friend. One cannot be absolutely sure. However, I am fairly certain he is in the process of doing so.’

‘Riddles
again, Luther.’

‘Always riddles. Of course. Life would be meaningless without them.’

Thornton slipped his watch from his waistcoat. ‘I have to be at the Yard in an hour, so I would appreciate it if we could deal with practicalities.’

Darke gave a throaty laugh. ‘Ever the professional when the smell of crime is in the air. But I have to say, Edward, that I am disappointed. I’m not sure whether it is with you for never having heard a wrong word against Doctor Charlatan Le Page, or because the aforementioned knave has managed to keep his nefarious dealings out of the purview of Scotland Yard and its eagle-eyed officers.’

‘It is an unusual name. French, I assume. Perhaps we know him under an alias. However, you invited me here for a drink and an intriguing story. Well, I’ve been furnished with a drink.’ He held up a full tumbler of whisky. ‘So now let me have your story, and then maybe I can say more about Doctor Le Page.’

Darke did not reply instantly, but stared at the dancing flames in the grate for some moments before addressing his friend in a quiet and sober manner. ‘Tell me, Edward, do you believe in angels?’

Thornton failed to hide the surprise that this query brought. ‘Angels?’

‘Those celestial and divine messengers – possessors of halos and large white wings. You remember that one of their breed appeared before the shepherds tending their sheep outside Bethlehem the night Jesus Christ was born. Do you believe in them?’

Despite the irreverence of this utterance, Thornton knew that Darke was not jesting. The inspector shook his head. ‘I must admit I have never given it any thought. I think I would need to see one before I could pass judgement.’

With a sigh of satisfaction, Luther Darke leaned back in his chair, both hands cradling his whisky glass. ‘It is possible that could be arranged.’

The policeman looked shocked.

Darke smiled. ‘Let me tell you my story.’

The
day following the angel’s visitation, Cornelius Hordern was in a notably more cheerful mood than usual. And this was in spite of the fact that Sarah had pestered him to have stern words with Sadie, the youngest housemaid, whose courting habits were causing her to be out late in the evenings of her days off, with the result that she was sullen and lethargic in the mornings.

‘She is young, my dear. Do not deny the girl her youth,’ he said gently, pulling his chair closer to the fire.

‘We must not indulge these girls, Father. Give them an inch … you know as well as I that I am a supporter of women’s rights. But if women are to be taken seriously, they must respect their responsibilities and not shirk them in favour of a kiss and a cuddle with one of the village lads.’

Cornelius Hordern gazed at his daughter. How unlike her mother she was. Despite a passing resemblance in looks, the brusqueness of her demeanour and the lack of generosity of spirit destroyed any true filial resemblance. ‘I will speak to her,’ said Hordern with resignation.

As it turned out, some hours later Sadie tapped on the old man’s study door and announced that he had a visitor. ‘Johnson has taken Miss Sarah into the village on a shopping expedition, sir, and it’s Clara’s day off. It was left up to me to answer the door, and there’s a gentlemen who says he is here on urgent business.’ The words tumbled out in an excited gasp, her animated face alive with emotion. Cornelius could not help but smile at this lively, natural creature. This was the girl with whom he was meant to remonstrate. Certainly here was no sulleness or lethargy.

He smiled at her. ‘What does this gentleman want, Sadie?’

‘He didn’t say, but said I was to give you his card.’ She thrust an ivory visiting card into her master’s hand.

Cornelius gazed at it. It bore the owner’s name and address in bold black print: ‘Doctor Sebastien Le Page, 13 Plover Mansions, Highgate, London’, and underneath, scrawled in pencil, the word ‘angel’. Cornelius Hordern felt his heart miss a beat.

‘You’d
better show the gentleman in,’ he said, at length.

Sebastien Le Page was a short, dapper man, with swarthy features, thinning black hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. Two large eyes peered out at the world through a carefully balanced pince-nez. He strode purposefully into the room and grasped Cornelius Hordern’s hand with a tight, icy grip.

‘I thank you most profusely for seeing me, sir,’ he said easily. The voice held a faint trace of a French accent.

Hordern waved his visitor to a chair but did not reply until Sadie had left the room. ‘I would appreciate it if you could come straight to the point and explain the purpose of your visit.’

Theatrically, Le Page attempted to hide a secret smile. ‘Cards on the table, eh? So sensible, I agree. Very well. I will not prevaricate. The matter is too important to be hindered by formal niceties. Last night you experienced a wondrous event. You were visited by a spiritual messenger.’

Hordern found his mouth going dry and he could hardly summon the words in response. ‘How on earth can you possibly know that?’

A self-satisfied smile lighted upon Le Page’s face. ‘Because it is my business … my calling to know such things. I am high priest of the Church of the True Resurrection.’

Hordern shook his head. ‘That means nothing to me.’

‘Our disciples believe in a life beyond this life: a life of peace and harmony. An existence that allows communication between the two worlds.’

Hordern curled his lip. ‘You mean Spiritualists?’

‘Our movement is a branch of Theosophy, yes, but our faith in the interaction of physical and ethereal agents is greater and more assured.’

‘I don’t wish to be rude, sir, but I have little time or belief…’

Le Page leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Your wife has been speaking to me.’

These words sent involuntary icy shudders through Hordern’s body. He shook his head in disbelief and yet he desired to hear more.

‘She is happy and wishes to communicate with you. That is why the angel came last night, as I knew it would, to bring you to her.’

‘This
is outrageous, Doctor Le Page, you are playing with my emotions. My beloved wife is dead and now beyond my reach.’

‘You deny the existence of your eyes?’

‘I saw nothing. I was dreaming.’ The old man shook his head in some distress and ran his bony fingers across his brow. ‘Please, I beg you to go and leave me now. Leave me this instant.’

Le Page did not seem at all perturbed by his curt dismissal. He rose calmly and walked to the door. ‘Should you change your mind, Mr Hordern, you have my card. Good day.’

That night Cornelius Hordern lay awake in his bed, propped up on pillows, staring at the window opposite. He fought against sleep overtaking him. He wished to watch all night to see if the angel came again.

However, as the church clock in the distance chimed two o’clock, he began to lose his battle against drowsiness. His eyelids drooped and he slipped down under the covers into the warmth of the bed. Gradually he grew aware of the irrationality of the situation. What on earth was he doing? This whole business was all nonsense. The explanation was simple: he had dreamed up the angel. His grief had somehow stimulated his imagination and…

Suddenly, he heard his name. A faint, thin voice calling softly on the air. It was repeated three times.

‘Yes,’ he found himself replying to the darkness.

Almost on the instant he spoke, a light filtered into the room. The angel had appeared once more, exactly as it had done the previous night. It was a shimmering image seen through the darkened pane of the window, its arms spread wide in an act of supplication.

‘Sarah!’ Cornelius Hordern yelled. ‘Sarah, for God’s sake, come here!’ He pulled back the covers, stumbled from the bed and called out his daughter’s name again, his eyes never leaving the flickering vision.

Within
seconds, Sarah burst into her father’s bedroom, a dressing gown hastily pulled around her thick calico nightgown.

‘What is it, Father?’ she cried. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Look,’ he said, pointing at the window.

Bewildered, the young woman did as her father instructed and then gave a gasp of terror, for she too saw the visiting angel.

And then in an instant the apparition disappeared, vanished into the blackness of the night.