The Dark Palace

‘One moment. I will help you.’ Qui

They walked her slowly towards the cab. Qui

The rest of the party was made up of the other film people and their entourage. Waechter appeared to be in jubilant mood; he had his arms around his two principal actors and was singing in German at the top of his lungs. All seemed to be affected by nervous stimulation of some kind. They might not have been blotto – yet – but they had the air of those who were determined to become so, and as quickly as possible.

They appeared intent on revelry. Qui

He had less than a second to take all this in. For in less than a second Porrick had collided with him, pushing him into the woman he was guiding. She let out a sharp scream, more of surprise than pain. He felt her grip relax. Something passed from her hand to his.

In the commotion, the dog jumped out of its master’s arms and ran off, with a blast of high-pitched yelps that sounded like the canine equivalent of bad language. ‘Scudder! Scudder!’ cried Porrick. ‘Heel! Heel now! Come on, boy.’

Qui

Some instinct made Qui

Just then the lights in the shop came back on. The dog’s pace quickened, he gave one happy yelp and then pounced on something. He turned proudly, his head high to show what he had caught.

Held between his jaws, pointed out at them, was a single human eye.

There were screams. A woman fainted. Someone else was sick.

Qui

But the dog just curdled a snarl in the back of his throat.

Qui

‘Yes?’

‘Can you get him to surrender it?’

‘I don’t know … I … He is a very wilful creature.’

‘You must have some control over him!’

‘He likes his treats.’ Porrick held out a dog biscuit. ‘Come on, Scud. Drop it now. There’s a good Scudder boy.’

The dog cocked his head from one side to the other as he made his calculations. He evidently realized that the man very much wanted the interesting object he had in his mouth. More than he himself wanted a dog treat. And for that reason, he decided to hold on to the object. This was power beyond his size. He was not going to give it up easily.

Qui

Porrick pleaded with his dog. ‘Come on, old chap. Give it up, give it up now.’

Qui

‘You can’t! You can’t do that!’ cried Porrick. He desperately scattered a handful of dog treats on the ground in front of Scudder. ‘Look boy! Delicious treats!’

It took the intervention of a third party to induce the dog to comply. Eloise startled them all by bending down and inserting a finger behind the eye, which was held at the front of the animal’s jaws. The finger induced the gag reflex, releasing the eye. She deftly seized the dog and handed it back to Porrick, leaving Qui

When he turned back to face the Charing Cross Road end of the alley, he noticed that the waiting hansom was no longer there. The woman whose eye he was holding had gone, together with the mysterious Dr Casaubon and the man who had first raised the alarm.

PART TWO

Money

NINETEEN

‘Must you insist on carryin’ that blarsted thing around with you?’ The question was asked by the lady with the spreading bosom. Porrick’s wife, Edna, it turned out. Her ma

They were in the offices of Visionary Pictures, the premises next to the kinematographic equipment shop. They had been admitted by a bald man with a drooping handlebar moustache, who had turned up shortly after the main group of film people. Soon after his arrival on the scene, Qui

So, as he suspected, this was Hartma

Hartma

Qui

As soon as he got in, Hartma

Some of the lights were contained behind frosted-glass panels which lined the stairs down to the basement. An ethereal milky-white glow enticed the eye downward, as if inviting subterranean thoughts. It was of a piece with the office’s self-consciously modern style. Qui

The walls were decorated with framed posters of the company’s various productions, including one for the film they had just seen. Beneath the title, a pair of isolated eyes looked out from a black background. The eyes were wide open, as if in terror, the enlarged whites gleaming starkly.

Qui

He looked around at the crowd crammed into the office. The mood struck him as sullen, as if they resented the attack on the girl, not because of the injury perpetrated on the victim, but because it had curtailed their festivities. Glasses of champagne had already been poured and laid out on tables in readiness for their arrival. But there was a reluctance to be the first to take a drink. Qui