Trollheart

Gentlemen's Club

It had been with exceeding difficulty that he had resisted looking at his pocketwatch, but Barrett knew this would have drawn unwelcome attention to him, and that was the last thing he wanted. There was Sir Nicholas, his tall shiny top hat nodding as he listened to that fool Johnson, talking about quarter returns and expected growth. Sir Nicholas never took off his hat. Nobody knew why. Even when the London summer baked the stones outside and made the windows like magnifying lenses and all of them insects, he sat there, unbothered, his tie unloosened (so nobody else would dare loosen theirs), his collar buttoned up to the neck, his hat always on his head, and never so much as a bead of sweat on his smooth, bland face.

How could he stick the heat? Even during last year's terrible drought, when the very flowers in the gardens had been dying, when even the churches allowed their doors to stand open during services that the congregation might not faint, not a window would he allow opened. Then, as now, no evidence showed of the awful, draining heat, the steam coming up in thick clouds from the dry cracked streets, and Sir Nicholas gave not the slightest indication he was bothered.

The meeting was at an end. Barrett moved with the others towards the door, all but bowing their way out of the boardroom, as if leaving the presence of a king. He was just beginning to dare to think that he had made it when he heard the dreaded words that turned his spine to ice and his legs to jelly.

“One moment, if you please, Barrett.”

Shoulders slumped, he turned to face the chairman. Sir Nicholas Faust was, to be blunt, a huge man. The suit he wore seemed to be straining at the seams, ready to burst, as if there was not a tailor in all of London who could make a suit capable of containing his immense bulk. A prizefighter would have seemed small and frail beside the giant chairman of First Mutual Bank, and Cuthbert Barrett, inventory officer, felt positively minute in his presence.
It wasn't just his size though, he realised. Sir Nicholas made everyone feel small; the way he spoke to them, the way he looked at them, the way he treated them. As if they were a lower form of life.

“Yes, Sir?”

The words had to fight their way out of his mouth, as if they would have much rather stayed where they were. Sir Nicholas tapped the table meaningfully.
“Take a seat, Barrett.” It was not an invitation. Somehow, Barrett's wobbly legs got him to the table where he more fell into than sat on a chair. He felt sure the chairman could hear the thumping of his heart, loud enough in his own ears to drown out the pealing of the bell from the church down the road as it sonorously declared the hour of four.

Sir Nicholas looked at him, with that flat, cold, alien gaze that could reduce the strongest of men to a shivering wreck. Barrett felt like a fish wriggling on a line. The face of Sir Nicholas Faust seemed to fill up all available space.
“It won't do, Barrett.”

Barrett shook his head in agreement. Sir Nicholas leaned back in his chair.
“How did you expect,” he asked, after what seemed hours, but was merely a moment, “to get away with it?”

Of course it all came flooding out then, in a babble of words – apologies, excuses, the bills, the loans, his newborn baby, the price of this, the price of that, working for such low wages. The dam had broken, after months of being held back, and now Cuthbert Barrett's entire, miserable, pitiable life washed over Sir Nicholas like a torrent of mediocrity, despair and pity. The chairman listened with a face of stone.

“These are mere excuses, Barrett.”

There was no arguing. None was expected. He nodded.
“Yes Sir.”

Sir Nicholas stood, his powerful figure looming over Barrett like Tower Bridge over a steam tug.

“Of course, you realise you have left me no recourse.”

Desperation clutched at Barrett, and though he knew it was of no use, he threw himself literally on the ground at the feet of his master. Surely His Majesty would show mercy?

Was he really that desperate, to entertain such thoughts?

“Please, Sir Nicholas! I cannot afford to lose my position!” There were tears – actual tears – standing in his eyes as he pleaded, like a man who stands on the gallows and looks for a miracle to save him. “Dismissed without a reference, I will never find work again. It will be,” he dropped his voice in terror, “the workhouse for my family and I.”

To his utter amazement, and then hot, burning terror, Sir Nicholas was removing his top hat.

Too late, the unfortunate clerk realised why Sir Nicholas never took it off.
And now it was no illusion. The chairman really did fill all space, blocking out the light as he leaned down.

“I do not believe,” he assured the clerk as an awful grin split his face, “that we will have any need to trouble the workhouse.”
****************
The brougham jolted along the dimly-lit streets, the cobbles shiny with rain. Sir Nicholas tapped at the roof with his cane, and the carriage came to a halt. A moment later a small, rat-faced man emerged out of the shadows of a nearby alley, looked right and left. A policeman on his beat was slowly strolling down the road, his cape slick with rain and a most unpleasant look on his face. The rat-faced man waited till the constable had passed, then darted quickly up to the brougham. The window wound down, Sir Nicholas glared out.

“The box on the back. Be quick about it, man.”

The rat-faced man nodded, a greedy look in his eyes. He slid to the back of the brougham, located the box, untied it and hefted it on his wiry back. Sir Nicholas watched him go, then tapped the roof again and the carriage moved off.

Having reached his hovel, the rat-faced man opened the box, peering inside, his eyes wide. What a haul, he told himself.

For a moment, a small doubt pricked what was left of his gin-addled brain. Was it possible these were... human bones?

Then greed took over again, and the gin shop beckoned.

What did it matter if they were? Gentlemen have odd collecting habits, and if Mister 'igh-an'-Mighty didn't want them no more, Tommy down the rag and bone would. He'd pay a pretty penny for bones this good.
**********************
After a long day, it was good to relax at the Club. It was the only place he could drop the pretence, be himself. Sir Nicholas shook the rain from his coat, handed it to Jones, who took it away to hang it in the cloak room. Sir Nicholas's hat he carried in his other hand.

Sir Nicholas entered the clubroom, and immediately his horns became entangled in the low-hanging chandelier.

“Dash it all!” he snapped. “Have they not moved that blessed thing yet? This is the third time this month!”

Angrily, he shook his powerful head, bringing the chandelier crashing down to the ground where it exploded in a thousand shining fragments. A servant ran forward with brush and pan, and Remington watched him with an air of cold disdain such as only butlers can muster.

“I'm rather afraid, Sir Nicholas,” he said in that deferential tone their class have that can yet somehow be insulting, “that it is somewhat problematic getting tradesmen to come here. Word has got around,” he looked directly at the chairman, “that none who enter ever leave again.”

Sir Nicholas for once looked slightly abashed.

“It was only four,” he said, somewhat defensively. Remington gave a sniff, which could have been interpreted, were they of the same social class, as a snort of derision.

Knowing the butler, it probably was.

“Eight, at last count, Sir Nicholas,” he corrected the chairman. “Nine, if you include that apprentice.”

Sir Nicholas shrugged his massive shoulders. And found himself entangled in another chandelier.

“Oh now really!” he exploded, as, indeed, did the chandelier as he shook it free. “This is intolerable! One cannot even move in one's own club without being caught in – in – what is this thing, anyway?” He hunkered down to try to make sense of the fragments, but it was like looking at jigsaw pieces without benefit of a picture of the completed puzzle.

“It's called a chandelier, Sir.” Remington's voice betrayed a hint of sharpness, and Sir Nicholas caught it.

“I know what it's called, Remington,” he rumbled dangerously, in a voice that would have had his board members diving out the windows, notwithstanding that the board room was on the sixth floor. “I meant, what is the confounded thing for?”

Remington shrugged. “You would have to ask His Lordship.” He sniffed again. “I only work here.” And he walked off, somehow managing to radiate both impertinence and impeccable politeness.

Baron Gould looked up from the evening paper.

“I believe it is for what they call – oh, what is the word these humans use? Ambivalence? No that's not it.” His long, curved horns vibrated on his head as he frowned, and his tail could be just seen lashing behind the arm of the leather armchair he sat in. He snapped taloned fingers. “Ambience!” he declared. “Ambience. Yes, that's it. Gives the place a sense of ambience.”
Sir Nicholas, taking the chair opposite him and accepting the Financial Times from the servant, sat back and lit his pipe. As he puffed out a cloud of thick green smoke, he shook his head.

“And what, pray,” he asked, “is this ambience, of which you speak, Baron?”
Gould shrugged, his wings rustling on his back. He wriggled, like a man with an itch just out of reach.

“I'll be damned if I know, old boy!” He returned to his newspaper, and, not for the first time, Sir Nicholas cursed the trendy Lord Monroe. Why this obsession with humans, he wondered? This was the one place they could all be themselves, take off the mask, so to speak. The one place they did not have to pretend. Shielded from prying human eyes, nobody got in here who did not belong, because nobody who did not belong knew of the existence of the place.
Other than those tradesmen.

Which was why it had been necessary, he reminded himself, to dispose of them.

It had nothing to do, he had stressed to the other members, during the hearing, with how delicious they were.

But times were, he knew, changing. The world was on the cusp of a new century again, and that always meant trouble. every new era, his kind had more trouble fitting in, hiding away in society. People were getting suspicious. Which was why this new fellow he was meeting, for whom he had vouched, though he was not a member, might be the answer to his problems.

“Only the best organs, you are quite certain?”

His contact nodded. He had had to pull quite some strings to allow a human enter – or more to the point, to allow him leave again alive – but this chap intrigued him.

“Quality stuff, Your Worship,” the man assured him. “Soaked in gin, they is. You'll love the taste, I can promise yer.” Sir Nicholas studied him. He was tall, gaunt, grey in the face, yet there was something in the eyes that drew him to the man. His eyes. It was his eyes. They reminded him of his own.
The eyes of a demon.

“I cannot afford to be involved in a scandal, you do understand? Our association must remain entirely secret.”

“You're payin' me enough that I'd not squeal were I 'ung up by me goolies,” the other assured him. Sir Nicholas winced at the gutter slang, but needs must.

“Anyways,” went on the human, “They's all just whores, y'see? Ain't nobody cares for no whores. You just leave it to old Jack. I'll keep you supplied, I will.”

When the man had departed, Sir Nicholas Faust sat back and puffed on his pipe. A contented grin spread across his features. Something told him that human was going to be very useful to him.

Yes. Very useful indeed.

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