The Lazarus Gate (7 page)

‘It all seems rather more decadent than I am used to,’ I said, ‘and, if I’m honest, I would feel that I was taking advantage were I to use these facilities too frequently.’

‘Well, it looks as if I’ve finally found a real gentleman in London,’ he laughed. ‘I can only assume that you retire of an evening to a palace fit for a Maharaja, surrounded by servants, silk cushions and gilded statues. No? Well, let me tell you this: a man can make his club his home if he is of a mind. I live and lounge luxuriously here as I please. I graze upon the masterworks of the best-equipped private library in the land; I enjoy conversation with some of the most dazzling wits of our time; I often sleep here in the rooms provided. In fact, the only thing I ever need to get through life is a toothbrush. And I’ve earned it.’ His jovial tone dropped to a more serious, conspiratorial whisper—the first sign that he had any sense of decorum whatsoever. ‘I have earned it, John, in the same way that you will earn it; because I am a member of Apollo Lycea, the inner sanctum of the club. When I use the order’s seal to endorse a report, it would not surprise me if the Queen herself took an interest in its contents. When I investigate a heinous crime, I put my life on the line for the good of the Empire. Do you see?’

I nodded. Ambrose was keen to jest, but he had come to the crux of the matter. There was a momentary pause in the conversation as the waiter came to clear away our plates.

‘You are not what I expected,’ I said, when the interruption was over. ‘Meaning no disrespect, Sir Toby described the order as “warriors”.’

‘Oh, we are!’ Ambrose exclaimed. ‘What you really mean is that I am no soldier, unlike you. So you are wondering what exactly it is that I do?’

‘I would not have put it so bluntly.’

‘Of course not, because of your breeding and military bearing and fine feeling.’ There was a twinkle in Ambrose’s eye—he was evidently intent on needling me. ‘I’ll tell you what I do for Queen and country, Captain Hardwick. I listen, I sneak, I skulk and even steal. I whore and I drink. The last two things I do more than I ought. Oh, and they aren’t actually part of the job, but you get the gist.’

Ambrose must have registered the look of disapproval on my face. He looked unabashed, and savoured the moment as the waiter placed the main course in front of us, and topped up our iced water and glasses of wine to the sound of distant violins.

‘Don’t worry, John,’ he went on, gulping his wine, ‘You won’t be expected to do any of the unsavoury stuff. We are all recruited for our own unique talents. I’m an adventurer of the worst kind—I was in all kinds of bother before Sir Toby ever found me, and I might add that he got me out of an awful pickle. You are… well, you’re an honest man, which makes you something of a rarity in this nest of vipers. Let me raise a toast. To the last Honest Man in London!’

He raised his voice along with his glass of claret, and I felt myself turning nearly as red as the wine as several sage old heads turned to look at us, frowning. Ambrose beamed. I leaned back in my chair, trying to cover my face with one hand whilst clinking Ambrose’s glass. He giggled to himself like a naughty schoolboy and resumed his meal.

I realised that Ambrose must have drunk most of the bottle of wine himself already, and started to understand why he seemed so free of inhibitions. I steered the conversation to more serious matters as best I could while Ambrose devoured his filet mignons, washing them down with more Château Brane-Mouton.

‘We should talk about this business with the Dynamiters,’ I said eventually. ‘I have no real idea of what’s been happening, and I suppose I must make a start on the investigation straight away.’

‘Indeed,’ replied Ambrose. ‘Won’t do to keep the old bird waiting—he’ll be after results. I’m sure he didn’t hire you for your wit, charm and God-given grace, abundant as those gifts are.’

‘I presume it’s not the done thing to admit the likes of me to the Apollonian?’ I asked.

‘The likes of
us
, you mean?’ Ambrose winked. ‘No, not done at all. The Apollonian has a reputation to uphold, one of intellectual pursuits, the nurturing of celebrated minds, respectability and episcopacy. There used to be a sixteen-year waiting list for membership. I hear Sir Toby has a daily struggle with the committee about the order; they never seem quite sure who he’s granting membership to. In fact, even I don’t know how many of us there are. So you’re right, old chap, best get results and soon. Tell you what, let’s eat pudding and I’ll take you to the library and show you the case files.’

I could eat no more, my body still not having adapted to large portions of rich food, so I sipped a cup of strong black coffee as Ambrose wolfed down his fine French dessert, before draining the last dregs of wine from his glass, stifling a hiccup at every pause. When we were finished, he stood abruptly.

‘Onwards and upwards, old chap!’ he announced. ‘No time for sitting around; we have work to do.’

As we wove our way through the elegant dining room, all marble and crystal, and ivory table-linen, I tried to blank out the sound of those sage old clubmen tutting and muttering censoriously. I feared I would have to get used to that.

* * *

The library of the Apollonian was every bit as grand as I had hoped, and as well stocked as its reputation suggested. Tens of thousands of volumes, on every subject one could imagine, were lined up on three levels of bookshelves to which wrought-iron spiral stairs granted access. Rare volumes were displayed in locked glass cabinets, and at a glance I spied some philosophical and theological texts that must have been hundreds of years old. A few men sat quietly in the leather armchairs near to the two fireplaces at either end of the room. In fact, the only sound came from the log fires, which crackled softly. The smell of old leather, stale tobacco and musty tomes was pleasant to me, bringing back many memories.

As a boy I had loved books. When my father was away—a frequent occurrence—I had lost myself in tales of adventure, travel and exploration. I had dreamed of owning a good library one day. I started when Ambrose thrust several weighty books and a large rolled map into my arms.

‘We might need these. Come along.’

I followed him to a door at the back of the venerable old library, noticing that Ambrose was not carrying any books whilst I struggled with an armful of leather-bound volumes. He fumbled in his jacket pocket, produced a small key and unlocked the door. The outside of the door was decorated with a discreet brass plaque, a cameo of Apollo, with bow in hand. Ambrose stepped into the room and held the door open for me with a foot whilst he lit a pair of paraffin lamps—there were no electric lights in this room. I squeezed between two armchairs and put the books on the desk in the centre of the room while Ambrose locked the door.

‘Now, I’m a teeny bit worse for wear, old chap,’ said Ambrose, stating the obvious. ‘But I have more than enough wherewithal to take you through the case.’

I listened as Ambrose brought me up to speed in his own inimitable style. He unrolled the map—a large-scale street map of London—and pointed out the sites of the most recent dynamite attacks. As he described the events leading up to the attacks, he referred me to the books I had brought in with me. There was a book on the history of Ireland, including the most recent Troubles, a gazetteer of London, and a military handbook of weapons and tactics from around the world. Ambrose remained startlingly lucid, only slurring the occasional word, and I was impressed at his constitution. Finally, he rifled through the files in the office and pulled out several dossiers pertaining to the case.

‘Thought as much,’ he said. ‘Old Toby’s had these sent down for you.’

I was surprised to discover that the perpetrators of the Bond Street attack had been pursued across London, and that a gunfight had ensued at Marble Arch. How details of the engagement had gone unreported was beyond me; the sheer number of people who must have borne witness, even in the early hours of the morning, would have made concealing the facts from the press a logistical nightmare. Ambrose assured me that such things were ‘par for the course’ in Apollo Lycea, and I began to wonder just how many strings Sir Toby was able to pull in the pursuit of the Queen’s justice. The other bombings had occurred during the night, only hours apart, first at Kensington and then at Lisson Grove, and these had led to the authorities picking up the trail of the suspects.

‘Sir Toby’s especially keen to get to the bottom of this case, because these bombings were far too close to the Palace,’ said Ambrose. ‘Queen Vic may well have heard the explosion from her bedchamber. Worse still, they were even closer to the club. Bloody anarchists are getting too big for their britches.’

‘According to this, one of them was a woman,’ I said, raising an eyebrow as I scanned the reports.

‘Apparently so. Even the bloody anarchists seem to have embraced suffrage these days,’ said Ambrose, disdainfully.

‘And what happened to these anarchists?’ I enquired. The dossier was not forthcoming on the matter, and read as though several pages were missing from the anonymous report.

‘They got away,’ said Ambrose. ‘Although one of them was wounded. We found a few things that he must have dropped during his flight.’

Ambrose handed me a small, battered pocketbook and a scrap of paper, which looked as if it had been torn from a brown envelope. The piece of paper contained a scrawled note—four rows of six barely legible symbols, which looked strangely familiar. The notebook contained some forty-odd pages, each with one or two neatly scribed paragraphs, all of which were rendered in similar symbols to those on the note. This time I did recognise what was written, and I stared at the book dumbfounded.

‘You won’t get anywhere with that lot,’ I was faintly aware of Ambrose saying. ‘Some kind of Arabic, maybe, although some of our experts believe it’s ancient Chinese or Japanese. Lord knows why the bloody bog-trotters would use that kind of language. We’ve had our men look at it, but it’s all gibberish. We’re going through a selection process currently, to find some folk who we can trust to translate it.’

I had been quiet for too long, and Ambrose must have registered my look of bewilderment and, perhaps, horror.

‘Are you all right, old chap?’ he asked.

‘It’s not Chinese, Ambrose.’ I said, quietly. ‘It’s Myanmar.’

‘My what?’

‘Burmese. It’s written in Burmese.’

* * *

Ambrose had been understandably surprised at my sudden insight. I told him how I had come to serve in Burma, recounting much as was pertinent, but omitting the story of my capture during a routine patrol, and the beginning of my own personal hell. The night drew on as I sat in feverish study of the two artefacts. Ambrose tried to make himself useful, bringing coffee to sustain me whilst I pored over books of linguistics and applied my own knowledge of the language that brought back so many painful memories. In some strange way I hoped that perhaps ardent study of those fearful Burmese characters would go some way to banishing the ghosts of my past. The oil lamp flickered and I became lost to time. Ambrose grew bored, but duty kept him by my side for the most part. He went off to stretch his legs from time to time, but at least tried to look interested. After several hours I had my breakthrough, and my exclamation snapped Ambrose back into wakefulness.

‘What is it? Have you cracked it?’ he asked.

‘I believe I have,’ I said. ‘It’s not simply written in Burmese, which is why it took me so long to work out what I was looking at. Once you translate it into English, it still looks like gibberish—a jumble of words and phrases—that is, until you realise that it is a code.’

‘Code? And can you read it?’

‘Almost. I believe I can work out a cipher for it, and then we’ll crack it.’

I stood and stretched, before re-entering the main library in a search for any books on codes and secret writing. I was invigorated by the breakthrough, despite the lateness of the hour, and I climbed a narrow iron stair to the second tier of books with a spring in my step. Again, the library did not let me down, and I returned to the office clutching five volumes, ranging from the history of the Babington plot against Queen Elizabeth, to a more modern book on military codes. I split the volumes with Ambrose, giving him specific instructions on what to look out for, and within the hour we had the best part of our cipher.

‘It is the simplest type of substitution code,’ I explained. ‘I’ve encountered their like before. See here.’ I indicated the paper I was jotting on. ‘The notebook we found contains names and addresses, two per page. These may not be completely accurate, but a good study of this material and the completion of the cipher that we’ve begun will undoubtedly prove fruitful. The scrap of paper, however, is a little different.’

‘In what way?’ Ambrose’s curiosity was piqued.

‘They are not letters, nor even words, but a numerical sequence. In fact, they look to me like map references. Six-digit grid references to be precise.’

‘Of where?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I should start with Britain and go from there. Do we have any more maps?’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Ambrose with a smile, ‘did you really need to ask?’

* * *

We spent our last hour or so at the club ensconced in the map room. That the club had such a room at all was a surprise to me, and a delight. It was the hours spent poring over old maps of the world as a youngster that had led to pangs of wanderlust throughout my boyhood, and which had ultimately inspired me to follow in my father’s footsteps. This comfortable, square room was full of maps and atlases from every era and detailing every corner of the Earth. However, for our purposes we began with the Ordnance Survey’s map series, which we spread out over the large rectangular tables in the centre of the room.

The club was quiet; it was nearing midnight, and those clubmen who remained on the premises had either retired to their rooms or were enjoying a quiet drink downstairs in the dining room. As we had made to enter the map room, a servant had scurried in before us to turn on the lights and draw the heavy drapes across the tall windows. Only two men occupied the library when we had passed through it, sitting at opposite ends engaged in their own private studies. It filled me with a strange sense of pride that the literary tradition prevailed at the Apollonian even now, and I envisaged the likes of Tennyson and even Wilkie Collins spending many a late night in that very room as they wrought their masterworks.