Note: This crime novel is a cross between a post-Great War Lovecraftian horror and near-future SF noir. It’s definitely one for grown-ups.

The wind under the door

The fog of late luncheon was creeping through the rich rooms of the Old Alexandrianists Club. It crept through the legs of sleeping colonels. Its tendrils slipped into the noses of retired judges. Its soft caresses tickled the fancies of bored baronets. It sinuously seeped out into Pall Mall to bask in the late summer of 1920.

The fog consisted largely of cigar smoke and brandy, though trace elements of soporific grandeur were also present.

It crept through the billiard room and the piano room and the cloakrooms and into the dining room (the ladies having been banished at 2.37pm sharp). As it crept into these territories it drove out thoughts of responsibilities and duties and appointments. Among those acquainted with the OA, its power was legendary. Countless young men had popped in there for a spot of lunch before urgent business and emerged hours – sometimes days – later, dazed but somehow happy. Young Buffy Smythe-Dramforth, the oldest member, frequently claimed that the fog had kept him inside the Club since the death of the last Empress.

Its lair was, naturally, the smoking room. This was the very centre of one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs in London, which is to say the world. One did not join the Old Alexandrianists, one did not apply. There was nothing so vulgar as a membership committee. One simply became a member when it was decided one was of the right sort. That meant the right family, the right school, the right views and the right clubbiness.

Among such as these the fog found its form and built its strength. This fine afternoon – and all other afternoons, mornings and nights – its beating heart was the conversation carried on by an indeterminate number of tweed-clad figures in the middle of the wood-panelled room. From blood-red leather armchairs, wreaths of smoke mingled with belched port and discussion of the uppitiness of sundry “darkies” in far-flung parts of the Empire. This led to a discourse from one of the younger members – a lawyer of some sort – about the threat Bolshevism posed to Great Britain and her territories, specifically its appeal to “feckless wogs”.

There was a snort from one armchair. The ruddy, jowelled face of a brigadier, Haye-D’Uise by name, lurched out over his brandy: “It’s not the grass-skirt wearing colonials we need to worry about, boy, it’s the rebels.”

“The rebels, sir?”

“Yes, the bloody rebels. Got a taste for killing Brits in the 1770s and haven’t bloody stopped since.”

It was at this point that the lawyer of some sort wished that he had paid a bit more attention to 18th century history at school. Damn! It had taken 14 years of hard crawling to get into this club and now he was to be undone by a bit of scholarly trivia. After trawling through what little he could recall, he decided to play for time.

“1770?, sir?” he ventured.

“Yes, 1770, man. Throwing tea in harbours and all that nonsense.”

“Are you perhaps referring to the United States of America?”

The brigadier viewed the young pup with barely contained fury, his white lush moustache twitching aggressively. “Of course, sir. Of course, I mean the Americans. Who else would I mean?”

The young lawyer started to tentatively suggest that the Americans had been our allies in the Great War but wiser heads intervened. One did not disagree with the Brigadier. When angry, which was constantly, he was apt to behave like he was still in Mafeking and start ordering that dissenters be shot. No-one was quite sure whether the Brigadier had actually been in Mafeking and certainly no-one was about to ask him.

Meanwhile, the Brigadier was warming to his theme, describing how the “arriviste colony” had lowered the tone of the whole war and changed it into a grubby commercial enterprise. “War, gentlemen,” he intoned, “is a noble endeavour and should not be polluted with trade. And those uppity deserters from the Empire should be watched carefully in case they start getting ideas above their station.”

He then sank back into the smoke, grunting indignantly. The hum of reactionary discourse slowly filled the room once more, seeping from the brandy glasses to the hiss of smouldering tobacco.

It was then interrupted by a further eruption from the Brigadier’s chair, its polished red leather – as smooth as a baby’s skin – shuddering as the old man’s chin thundered.

“It’s the dreadnoughts, I tell you. The damn Bolshies will collapse within a year. The Empire will last for ever. After the last bally mess, the next damn war will be fought at sea. And it will be fought against the Americans. They will come for us soon, mark my words. We are vulnerable after leaving the flower of English manhood strewn across the Low Countries.”

He paused to gulp his brandy. “Yes, across the Low Countries. And across France – the lowest country.”

Brigadier Haye-D’Uise then thrust his face into the middle of the room and roared with laughter. “The lowest country, what? France. The lowest country, ha!”

The howls of laughter and slaps of thighs that greeted this bon mot owed much to the audience’s relief that an hour and a half of enraged shouting seemed to have been averted.

One of the sharper members – an earl – sought to steer the conversation to the less choppy waters of cricket by asking if Plum Warner would make an impact with Middlesex that season. This led to a long lecture from Haye-D’Uise about how there was no point in having a Country Championship any more, Kent had the whole thing sewn up and, in any case, cricket was not the game it had been when he was young. Had he ever mentioned that he had witnessed WG Grace’s first “great” match against an All England Eleven? He and Fizzer Digby had bunked off from The School to spend a week carousing in the provinces. On their return, they were, of course, thrashed to within an inch of their lives – and rightly so – but it had been worth it. The meticulously planned adventure had begun with an escape to Waterloo Station. The intention had been to visit a gleeful krypteia upon the yokels…

As the brigadier’s oft-repeated narrative unwound in familiar fashion it gave the assembled listeners a chance to stretch, inhale deeply, order more brandy – and possibly sleep. They could all relax for the next hour or so as the old soldier held forth on various scrapes with farmers, station porters, provincial police constables and the irate fathers of milkmaids.

Littered throughout the story were references to The School. Like nearly all the members of the Old Alexandrianists Club who mattered, the Brigadier was an Old Alexandrianist. The Alexandrian College was one of the Empire’s finest institutions, the building being mentioned in the Domesday Book and its pupils coming from only the very finest stock. From the age of three up, The School subjected its charges to manly rigours, austere discpline and reverential study of the classics in extensive grounds dominated by the white, crumbling grandeur of the main school building, jovially known as The Tomb by the boys.

The old warhorse was just launching into an account of a jape involving breaking into The Tomb at night when disaster struck. Most of the members were still enjoying the soporific peace of Haye-D’Uise’s monologue – if he was droning on at least he wasn’t shouting at anybody – but a tremendous clang and crash and ting and splintering noise shattered the reverie.

The explosion of noise tore through the comforting fog, tearing away the postprandial comfort blanket that had enveloped them all.

“Damn it all, McKay, what are you playing at?” The voice belonged to one of the Outer Members (not an alumnus of The Tomb but still “of the right sort”), a pushy lawyer called Cawker or some such thing. He was flapping at his leg while one of the staff fussed round him in a most awkward way.

“I do apologise, sir.”

“You’ve covered my leg in port, McKay.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I will clean up the mess right away.”

“How, pray tell, do you propose to clean my blasted trousers? No, don’t even try. Having seen the mess you’ve made of serving a drink I wouldn’t dare let you near my lower body.”

“I really do apologise, sir,” stammered the hapless waiter.

“I mean, can’t you control your arms, man?”

Something crept into the waiter’s demeanour, something inappropriate. In an extraordinary show of cheek, he snapped to attention and saluted in a very clumsy manner with his right hand. “McKay, Gordon. Corporal, 17th Batallion, Highland Light Infantry. 240416. Lost my hand at Passchendaele, sir. Still not got the hang of the wooden one, sir. I will clean this up, find you some more trousers and get you another drink immediately, sir. Was it Warre’s 87, sir?”

The lawyer was unsurprisingly put on the back foot by this backchat, but seemed too embarrassed to challenge the man’s outburst: “Yes, yes. And be quick about it.”

Still apologising, the waiter hurried off.

“Damned cheek,” the lawyer spat. “I didn’t ask the damn fool for his service history. If the man was idiot enough to get in the way of a bullet then I’m surprised the club employs him.”

A languid voice wafted across the room from the window. “Did you not have the opportunity to serve then, Mr Cannkerr?”

The voice came from a young man, perhaps 20. He was draped behind a lowered copy of The Times. He was sitting where he always sat, in a green chair by the open window looking out to Horse Guards Parade. Cannkerr had never really paid him attention. The other members rarely spoke to him but nor were they beastly about him behind his back. He was an unknown quantity to a peripheral member and therefore best not trifled with. But rain or shine he always sat with the window open, doing what he always did, not reading The Times and sinking large whiskies.

Cannkerr’s afternoon was becoming somewhat nightmarish. First, his drink’s demise interrupted the major, then a servant’s insubordination had wrong-footed him and now he was to suffer further humiliation. This young man had found his weak spot and had exposed it. “No, I am afraid I did not serve, when I tried to sign up I was told I had an irregular heart beat and …”

As he reeled off his usual form of words on this topic Cannkerr realised how weak they sounded. He tried valiantly to change the subject. “I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr …?”

The young man stood up and walked over to shake his hand. Mercifully he appeared to have the full complement of limbs. “Paulet-Efford. Charles Paulet-Efford.”

Some further pleasantries were thus teed up. Cannkerr could see light at the end of the tunnel of endless faux pas. Light that was snuffed out when – horror of horrors – the Brigadier intervened. “He is not Mr Paulet-Efford. He is not Mr anything. He is Captain Paulet-Efford. Captain Paulet-Efford MC, to be exact.”

Cannkerr had not thought that his heart could sink any lower but it did. The Brigadier continued: “There is nothing conveniently wrong with Captain Paulet-Efford’s heart. He would have one of the finest military records this club has ever seen if he had joined a proper regiment instead of the Hampshires.”

As the Brigadier spoke, Paulet-Efford’s expression had not changed but his eyes seemed to Cannkerr to have softened. Their harsh mocking look had become something more thoughtful as the Brigadier heaped praise on him.

Cannkerr started to explain how hard he had tried to join up and how much he wished he had gone.

Paulet-Efford stopped him and said kindly: “I am glad you did not get your wish, Mr Cannkerr. It was a bloody stupid mess. You were better off out of it. We all were.”

After he spoke, he turned to go back to The Times. As he went, he looked round and said: “Try to forgive McKay. He’s a good sort even if he’ll never keep wicket for England.”

There were polite chuckles all round and private prayers of thanks as Paulet-Efford’s bonhomie eased the conversation back on a track that would temper the Brigadier’s explosive tendencies. As more theories about the Empire’s enemies emerged from the smoke, Charles returned to his seat. He raised the newspaper and gazed out of the window while he tried to put off taking another gulp of Scotch for as long as possible.

He lasted 11 seconds and sighed deeply. What could have been a tear dampened his right eye and he muttered quietly: “It’s about time, isn’t it?”

The men behind him exploded. A fiery blast of flesh, bone and upholstery splattered the back of his chair. Other men would have been surprised by this turn of events but the Captain had known it was coming. Hot gusts of choking smoke followed and Charles was thrown forward onto the blood-soaked ground. He sank face down into foul mire, with bitter black fluid forcing itself into his mouth and nose and ears. His eyes were blind. He could not see. “I have not got my specs with me,” some part of his mind gibbered. He could not breathe. He tried to lift his head but a dreadful weight was pressing him down into the muck. He tried to wriggle free but his legs wouldn’t work. He tried to scream but merely sucked filth into his lungs. He managed to turn his head slightly. There was a brightness somewhere. Then with horror he realised that something was entwining itself round his legs.

As his eyes slipped into the gloop, he started to cry, his tears pressed back by the filth. He was there again. It was so hot. It was so loud. It was so cold and quiet.

Read Chapter 3 of The Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory.