Diary of a Mountie - Section 2, Part One
Sep. 23rd, 2003 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynYeah, I promised you guys that I'd post this to here as well as the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sgt_preston lj, so those of you who don't feel like going to the other journal,
Thanks.
Day Eleven - Tuesday, August 18, 1936
London, England
League Headquarters
The rest of our trip back to London was as uneventful as they come. Aside from a little bit of midair rocking I don't think anything happened on the dirigible that couldn't just as easily have happened on a train, or the better classes of passenger ships. I still don't much like flying, of course, but the fact that we've so far crossed Canada, part of the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and a good stretch of the United Kingdom is reassuring. For me, anyway. Prince has decided that his den is under the couch in the sitting room. I've warned Danner not to sit there without looking - he's more compact than you'd think. I'd rather he not accidentally fire a couch spring into my dog, thanks.
Miss Poppins had most of her official report composed long before we came within sight of London; it seemed like a good idea to follow her example. That's the advantage of keeping a running log on a case like this- you don't have far to go when the time comes to report to other people. As we'd decided, I left out mention of the paperwork we found at the Prufrock offices. If it were a straight criminal case I'd have real trouble with that idea. Reporting the maps to fairy countries where no one ever dies or gets old to a Crown official - why, you might just as well mention in a saloon that you buried a man with a map showing the way to the biggest gold strike in the Yukon under his head and expect the grave not to be dug up. There was plenty to speak of in the report as it stands. If J. manages to prove that it's in the best interests of Oz to have real contact with the British Empire I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong, but for now the burden of proof is on him.
Before I forget, though - there was a funny thing about those papers. I was reading through them as we crossed into England, and ran across something that made no sense at all. Here were all these charts of sea routes, fairy lands, and London skies, just the kind of thing any invading general could ever want, and in among them was. . . a set of plans for a wardrobe. Yes, a wardrobe! There wasn't any other thing it could possibly be. The plans called for a looking-glass set in the door and two rods for hanging coats on; they were neat enough for any carpenter with a halfway decent eye to follow. I'd say they must've gotten there by mistake, but how do you make a mistake like that? It makes no sense at all.
At any rate, most of us composed official reports to J. and attached them to Miss Poppins' report. When we returned to the meeting-room in the League's headquarters, he was waiting for us. Seemed pleased enough with the summary Miss Poppins had made on the first page, that's always a good sign. . . He didn't say much, really. Comments were going to have to wait until he'd had a chance to read the whole thing over, he said. I suppose that's sensible. It gave us a little time to breathe, anyway.
While he was looking over the summary, though, Dorothy - who didn't have a finished report of her own, mostly because she and Lord Wimsey had worked on theirs together - got up and wandered away from the table that ran down the center of the room. There were pictures hanging on the walls - group pictures, mostly - I had seen them before but hadn't bothered to look closely. She moved from picture to picture, looking at them with this odd intensity, as if she expected to spot something in particular. All at once she let out a cry- "Oh! Oh, it is him! It's the Wizard!"
That's a fast way to get attention, all right. I think half of us were up and on our feet as soon as the word died out of the air. Miss Poppins excused herself from Jay and came to Dorothy's side. "What do you mean, dear?" she asked.
Dorothy pointed excitedly to the painting in front of her. "Look, Miss Poppins, it's him! Right there, with the others in the picture! Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. That's the Wizard's name, he told me so!"
The others had looks on their faces ranging from skeptical disbelief to a suppressed urge to laugh. Danner's lips were moving as he turned over the names; under his breath I heard him murmur, "Oz Pinhead?"
Dorothy caught that, but it didn't upset her in the slightest. "That's 'zackly right, Mr. Danner! He told me his father gave him all those names, only he didn't like being called Pinhead, so he called himself Oz. Oh, Miss Poppins, do you think he still remembers me?"
"Oh, I'm sure he does, Dorothy," said Miss Poppins thoughtfully. "But he's awfully young in this painting, wouldn't you say? He was an old man by the time you met him."
Dorothy frowned a little at that. "I s'pose," she said. I guess it hadn't occurred to her.
"Nevertheless," continued Miss Poppins, "I shall see if that is the case. Gentlemen, would you be so kind as to stand back, please?" We looked at each other and backed up half a step. "Thank you," she said - and jumped into the picture.
No, I am not joking. Without so much as batting an eye Miss Poppins simply leaped into the air, vanished from in front of us, and appeared in the painting. It was the most eye-wrenching thing I think I've ever seen, and I haven't got the words to describe it. I had to look away from the painting proper for a bit while the others exclaimed over what'd just happened. As I did that my eye fell on a small brass plaque set into the frame. It read:
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
1875
. . . all right, it read more than that - there were names - but I couldn't remember a single one of them if my life depended on it. 1875? Why, the Northwest Mounted Police were only founded in 1873! How old was the League, anyway? How-
I probably could have asked then, or gone and looked at the other paintings, but as I was making up my mind to do so Miss Poppins hopped out of the painting as serene as you please. "I'm sorry, Dorothy," she said, "but this was done when he was a very young man. This version of the Wizard doesn't know you yet, and can't say where the Wizard you know might be."
"Oh," said Dorothy, a bit crestfallen. Then she brightened up. "Well, that's all right. We'll find him anyway, I know we will."
"That's right," said Miss Poppins. She glanced over at J. as she said this, and the man nodded very slowly. "That's right."
Day Twelve - Wednesday, August 19
London
We stayed at League headquarters last night, and in the morning J. summoned us around the table again. "I've read your reports," he said, "and your performance, while not entirely what we'd planned, is satisfactory. I see no reason for you not to continue your investigations of the Prufrock shipping company. The resources of the League are at your disposal for this purpose. All we ask is that you submit your reports on a regular and timely basis, and that you inform us before taking any extraordinary measures." He gave a smile at his choice of words. It didn't touch his eyes.
"Are we confined to London?" asked Tom.
J. shook his head. "You're not even confined to England," said J. "If your investigation takes you to the South Seas, you're free to go - but we need to know about it before you do. Whatever measures seem most appropriate to you are fair game."
Cranston leaned forward. "Then we are free to get other lodgings?" he inquired.
J. nodded.
"My people can assist you in finding a place to let, if you like," chimed in Lord Wimsey.
"That's all right. I'll manage."
"Miss Gale," said J., "you'll be staying in the apartment provided for you. I hope it's satisfactory?"
"Oh, yes," said the girl. "I quite like it. It's much nicer than the asylum."
"I'm afraid you'll have to stay there, unless one of your companions here accompanies you out and about." J. steepled his fingers, looking up to us meaningfully. "London is no place for a little girl to go about alone. Dog or no."
"Oh, I don't think you have anything to worry about," said Lord Wimsey. "We'll look after you - won't we, chaps?" At the general assent that went up, Lord Wimsey smiled. "There, you see?"
"Very well, then," said J., "unless there's anything else any of you wanted to mention. . ."
There wasn't, of course, so we were dismissed.
I'm going to be staying at the headquarters. I've got money, but there's no sense spending it on lodgings when there's a barracks available. There's going to be expenses enough in this investigation as it stands.
You see, I don't think I'm going to be doing much of the ordinary detective work here. This mess is tangled up in areas I've never had to deal with. I could learn quickly enough, I'm sure, but as it stands there are those among us who already know what to do. You couldn't ask for a more English sleuth than Lord Wimsey - when it comes to noticing what's right and what's wrong with a situation by local standards, he's the best one of us, I'm sure. Hugo Danner shows every sign of knowing the shipping trade from the inside; I imagine he must've worked at it before the Great War. And as for the underhanded nature of the Prufrock organization - well, let's just say that I expect Cranston knows that sort of thing the way I know tracking and survival, and leave it at that. I'm not going to jump their claim. I know when to cede the floor to someone else. No, I plan to go about this another way.
You see, every one of those maps and charts (except the looking-glass wardrobe - and I have my suspicions about that) came out of a children's story. A fortnight ago I would have written it off as sheer nonsense. I haven't got that luxury any more, not after the things I've seen. I have never in my life seen anything good of rushing into a case without learning the background of the situation first. The Prufrock people believe in the reality of fairy stories. So does J. Dorothy's been to the lands of one of them. Miss Poppins - well - I don't know what to think of her but if she's not an escapee from someone's tales of the strange I'll eat my hat. There might yet be a deception operating, but I'll never know unless I learn. As soon as I've finished this, I'm getting into my civilian clothes and looking for the best bookstores in London.
Not just for children's stories, either. The kind of deception that the Prufrocks seem to be practicing calls for a certain measure of suspicion. Crowds have been deceived before. Whole governments have been deceived before - my mother told me the story of Princess Caraboo when I was a boy, and how she was received as royalty from Formosa before being unmasked as a common servant girl. I have no illusions about what I know and what I don't. I'd like to maintain that state. As long as I'm buying books, I'm looking up histories of frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. I seem to recall a book by one Charles Mackay on the topic. That'll be a good place to start. There'll be others, I'm sure.
And one last thing. . . I have no intention of being caught off my guard again while I'm here. It's one thing to rely on Prince in the North Country, where the biggest danger is a second man with a gun. Prince is faster than most human eyes can follow, when he makes up his mind to jump, but the Siren army had him pinned. I don't want to have a repeat of that situation. It seems to me that learning unarmed combat beyond the fisticuffs my father taught me would be a wise idea. As I recall, Sherlock Holmes was said to be trained in a fighting art called 'baritsu'. I don't remember whether he learned it in London or some other part of the world, but it can't hurt to look up a teacher as long as I'm here.
Day 13 - August 20, 1936
Early Evening
London, England
I'm no fan of big cities, but I have to say that they do seem to be good places for bookshops to spring up. When I mentioned the line of inquiry I planned to pursue to Lord Peter, he immediately gave me the names of several booksellers he felt could be relied upon. "Unfortunately," he noted, "they do tend more towards my end of the bibliophile's hobby, that can't be helped - but since that one volume, the Mackay, is coming up on the century mark within five years... well, Ffoliott's at least might be able to help you with that, eh?"
Ffoliott's turned out to be a shop dealing mostly in ancient, rare books. And I do mean ancient - most of the stock was in Latin or Greek, neither of which were exactly a big part of my schooling. I would probably still be wandering around in there like a lost calf if Mr. Ffoliott himself hadn't come out to ask if I were the owner of the enormous dog out front. When I told him yes, he must've caught my accent - asked what an American was doing this far from his native waters.
I felt pretty sure he thought I'd come into the store by mistake, so I said, "I'm not an American, sir. I'm here from Canada - I was sent by an acquaintance of mine, Lord Peter Wimsey..."
Well, that changed the look on his face pretty quickly! Apparently Lord Peter does a lot of business with the man. Once I'd told him what I was looking for, he led me to exactly the right spot - he did, in fact, have a copy of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds in stock. It was in amazingly good shape for a book published in 1841, too, but then again the man deals in books easily five times older or more. I haven't got the hang of the currency just yet, but I doubt his Lordship would send me to someone who charged really excessive prices. He offered to show me a few other things as well, but I told him I wanted the book for research purposes, not a collection. "Although," I added, "if you could help me with something else-"
"Of course, sir. Anything for a friend of Lord Wimsey's."
"Ah- yes... I was wondering if you could help me find a bookshop that sells mostly children's books. Preferably one that didn't mind a lot of stuff from American authors."
"Hmmm... well, that's a bit outside my field, but..." Ffoliott scribbled a few names and addresses down on a piece of paper. "Try here, first. I think you'll find them extremely helpful."
I thanked him and came back to headquarters, more to drop off Prince than anything else. He was starting to gather a pretty big crowd on the street - mostly people who thought a wolf had gotten loose from the zoo. I've got to buy him a more distinctive collar if I'm going to take him anywhere. Much as I hate putting the things on him without need, the last thing I want is for some London bobby to assume the worst and get hurt trying to take him into custody.
That reminds me - after I check the shops on Ffoliott's list, I've got one more thing to attend to. There's a man who gives baritsu lessons that I intend to see tonight.
Day Thirteen - Late Evening
London
The shops Mr. Ffolliott recommended were extremely helpful, which is more than I can say for the Bartitsu school.First things first, though - the books. I've got several days' worth of reading material here - Peter Pan and two volumes of Lewis Carroll from one shop, something called The Water-Babies from another (it seems to be about mermaids), and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from a third. That last shop was as good as gold, I must say! The owner, an older woman named Mrs. Wetherall, offered to look up the rest of the Oz books for me. Apparently there's fourteen of the things. There was an awkward moment when she asked me who I was buying them for. . . they're not exactly the sort of thing you can call research material, now, are they? Children's books, I mean? I said something about looking after a young orphan girl who happened to be named Dorothy herself. That seemed to be enough, but it left a bad taste in my mouth not to be entirely straight with her. I promised to check back in a few days and headed out to the Bartitsu school straightaway.
Now there was a disappointment. Apparently it was the last school of its kind left in London; the art's been dying out for a long time. That might explain why the teacher I saw insisted on being paid first, even though all I got was an hour's lecture and a demonstration that taught me nothing. It's essentially a combination of wrestling, boxing, and the use of feet and sticks. Really, it looked like a fancy name for the kind of dirty-fighting tricks I had to deal with back home. Not what I'd expected at all. So much for Conan Doyle, eh?
The instructor must've seen the look on my face, because he broke off what he was saying and left two of his students to continue the demonstration. "Something wrong, Mr.....?"
I didn't bother giving him my name. "I suppose you could say that. Apparently I had the wrong expectations when I came here."
He leaned back on his heels, looking me over with narrowed eyes. "And just what were you expecting?" he inquired.
I shrugged. "Something different. This isn't anything I haven't seen before-"
"Oh, really." He crossed his arms. "Where?"
There was something about his stance that I didn't like. He reminded me of a dog fight I'd seen once, the two animals circling each other, growling and snapping and trying to look as dangerous as possible. It didn't sit well with me. "In the saloons of Dawson City."
"Sir, this is a system of self-defence designed to render anyone acquainted with it practically impregnable against all forms of attack, however dangerous and unexpected-"
"Stop right there. I've heard enough." It was the same stuff he'd been talking about for an hour and I was getting tired of it.
"Oh, you have, have you?" He'd turned an interesting shade of red. "Think you could do as well?"
I could sense where the conversation was headed, and I didn't like it. "No," I said. "No, probably not. I couldn't do most of what you've done... but I don't think this is what I wanted to learn."
That deflated him a little, but he was still pretty angry. "Try the Nips, then," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"305 Oxford Street. Japanese School of jiu-jitsu. Run by Yukio Tani and Masutaro Otani. Maybe that'll be a bit more to your liking. Come back when you want to learn how real men fight, though," he said with a jerk of his head.
I left him to his lessons and went back to the street. Yes, he'd been a disappointment, but at least I got something out of him. I'm going to Oxford Street tomorrow night. I haven't got anything to lose, and Messrs. Tani and Otani might be more helpful.
Day Fourteen - Friday, August 21, 1936
League Headquarters
Evening
I have just been repeatedly thrown into the wall by a Japanese man half my size.
I don't want to talk about it.
Day Fifteen - Saturday, August 22, 1936
London
League Headquarters
Mr. Otani seemed surprised to see me last night. "I did not think you would come back, Sergeant," he said when I came in. "Many of my prospective students do not."
"I've had worse."
He was too polite to laugh. I'd knocked myself half senseless the night before, and he knew it. "So you are still interested? You still wish to study jiu-jutsu?"
"Yes, sir; I'm afraid you're stuck with me." I didn't mention I'd spent two hours beforehand in the company of the hottest water bottle I could manage. My right shoulder felt like it'd be sore for a week.
"Then we shall begin," he said softly, and the lesson got under way.
I won't deny that I almost didn't come back. That first demonstration of his was pretty brutal. Masaturo listened to my explanation, that I was a policeman who'd come to rely on my partner to get me out of close quarters, without saying anything. When he asked why I'd come to him in particular, I told him about the Bartitsu school. His expression didn't change much, but his lips got very thin. "So, they sent you to me."
"Yes."
"The Nip."
I winced a little. "Afraid so."
"What do you expect from me that you could not get from them?" he asked. His tone of voice didn't change much, but there was a certain interest behind the words. I knew that speaking carefully wouldn't help me any. He wanted to hear the unvarnished truth.
So I gave it to him. "I expect you to know what you're doing."
"That's all?" he asked. One of his eyebrows went up.
"Well - yes... should there be something else?"
"Mr. Eggleston knows what he is doing. . ."
"With all due respect, sir, I don't believe he does. If he did, he wouldn't have to talk about it so much."
There was an odd smile on his face as he stood up. "Sergeant," he said as he made his way to the center of the wooden practice floor, "please, come at me. As fast or as hard as you like."
"Excuse me?"
He shrugged. "Hit me," he said simply.
Back in Forty Mile, there was a Russian whose luck in the gold fields had gone sour. He made a nice amount of gold anyway - by betting that he could knock the feet out from under any man in town in the space of a minute. He would have lost every penny of it if he'd ever met Masaturo Otani. I was in that school less than half an hour, and I got all the demonstration I could've asked for - and then some. Wasn't really thinking of it that way at the time, though. Mostly I was getting pretty tired of having my best punches end up with me on the floor and an elbow in my back. The harder I tried, the easier he had it throwing me into the wall, and that didn't sit well at all with me. I think he must've seen it in my face when I left, because all he said was, "Come back if you are still interested."
Like I said, I almost didn't. That kind of treatment stings, on a much deeper level than wrenched joints. I've always been pretty good in fights before, and frankly, it felt like being shown up as a fraud. It wasn't until I went to fill the hot water bottle that I realized it wasn't anything of the kind. There hadn't been anyone else there to see it - and even if there had, it wasn't as if I'd been doing anything wrong. My fighting form just wasn't enough, compared to a fighter like him. Just like an ordinary gun wasn't enough to take down a Siren. It wasn't a comforting thought, but it was a true one, and since we might wind up facing anything- well.
That was when I made up my mind to go back. I've got my hands full just trying to keep up with the rest of the League and I need whatever honorable advantage I can get. I expect the jiu-jutsu will turn out to be useful eventually.
Day Twenty-Two - Saturday, August 29
London, England
League HQ
This past week has been spent in libraries, eating-houses, and other odd places around London. I've spent most of my daylight hours reading more children's books than any man my age has a right to, unless he does it aloud at a child's bedside, and I've spent all of my evenings in Oxford Street. I've filled up several composition books with notes to a degree that would astonish my mother, were she still alive. I have a separate notebook for theories and guesses about what Prufrock may be after, should any particular book turn out to be factual. I've even gone so far as to put in orders at the booksellers' for copies of books about prior League members - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Invisible Man, and so on - in case they might turn out to be useful. My quarters look like they belong to a university student.
I can't stand this.
There, I've said it! My mother was the schoolteacher in my family - not my father, and certainly not me. Oh, I might've wanted to study the law as a boy, but that didn't last long. Not once my father said I'd be big enough to join the Mounties at eighteen, anyway. I don't mind learning new things, and I don't mind studying when I have to, but this is not my idea of a productive way to spend my time. I didn't earn my stripes by analyzing forms and paperwork - I earned them by bringing in the man who killed my father. At least I feel as if the jujitsu lessons are accomplishing something. I only started a week ago, but at least it's doing something. Investigating in books, hunting for something I don't understand and probably wouldn't recognize if I saw - that's an archaeologist's job, or a bookkeeper's, or a churchman's. Not mine.
Unfortunately, I can't do my job at the moment. We don't know what we're looking for - no one does. Danner hasn't had a lot of luck hunting down information on the docks, that's no surprise. Lord Peter's investment inquiries go nowhere whatsoever, so he's trying to get the Prufrock organization to hire someone who'll be loyal to him as a secretary. I have no idea if Cranston's uncovered anything. It leaves us exactly where we were before, with the knowledge that there's a plot, but no clear picture of what it is or where. So all any of us can do is keep digging and hope we're digging in the right place.
It's still profoundly unsatisfying. A man can only take so much of this. I may as well take a day or two of leave from my 'studies'. Prince needs some proper exercise, anyway. I think I'll take him out to one of the parks and see how long we can go without someone mistaking him for an escaped wolf. There's supposed to be some decent museums here in London, too. Those are probably worth a look. They don't have anything like that in Dawson City, I know that much. As long as I’m done in time for lessons in Oxford Street, there shouldn't be a problem. The books aren't going anywhere. . .
sgt_preston lj, so those of you who don't feel like going to the other journal, Thanks.
Day Eleven - Tuesday, August 18, 1936
London, England
League Headquarters
The rest of our trip back to London was as uneventful as they come. Aside from a little bit of midair rocking I don't think anything happened on the dirigible that couldn't just as easily have happened on a train, or the better classes of passenger ships. I still don't much like flying, of course, but the fact that we've so far crossed Canada, part of the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and a good stretch of the United Kingdom is reassuring. For me, anyway. Prince has decided that his den is under the couch in the sitting room. I've warned Danner not to sit there without looking - he's more compact than you'd think. I'd rather he not accidentally fire a couch spring into my dog, thanks.
Miss Poppins had most of her official report composed long before we came within sight of London; it seemed like a good idea to follow her example. That's the advantage of keeping a running log on a case like this- you don't have far to go when the time comes to report to other people. As we'd decided, I left out mention of the paperwork we found at the Prufrock offices. If it were a straight criminal case I'd have real trouble with that idea. Reporting the maps to fairy countries where no one ever dies or gets old to a Crown official - why, you might just as well mention in a saloon that you buried a man with a map showing the way to the biggest gold strike in the Yukon under his head and expect the grave not to be dug up. There was plenty to speak of in the report as it stands. If J. manages to prove that it's in the best interests of Oz to have real contact with the British Empire I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong, but for now the burden of proof is on him.
Before I forget, though - there was a funny thing about those papers. I was reading through them as we crossed into England, and ran across something that made no sense at all. Here were all these charts of sea routes, fairy lands, and London skies, just the kind of thing any invading general could ever want, and in among them was. . . a set of plans for a wardrobe. Yes, a wardrobe! There wasn't any other thing it could possibly be. The plans called for a looking-glass set in the door and two rods for hanging coats on; they were neat enough for any carpenter with a halfway decent eye to follow. I'd say they must've gotten there by mistake, but how do you make a mistake like that? It makes no sense at all.
At any rate, most of us composed official reports to J. and attached them to Miss Poppins' report. When we returned to the meeting-room in the League's headquarters, he was waiting for us. Seemed pleased enough with the summary Miss Poppins had made on the first page, that's always a good sign. . . He didn't say much, really. Comments were going to have to wait until he'd had a chance to read the whole thing over, he said. I suppose that's sensible. It gave us a little time to breathe, anyway.
While he was looking over the summary, though, Dorothy - who didn't have a finished report of her own, mostly because she and Lord Wimsey had worked on theirs together - got up and wandered away from the table that ran down the center of the room. There were pictures hanging on the walls - group pictures, mostly - I had seen them before but hadn't bothered to look closely. She moved from picture to picture, looking at them with this odd intensity, as if she expected to spot something in particular. All at once she let out a cry- "Oh! Oh, it is him! It's the Wizard!"
That's a fast way to get attention, all right. I think half of us were up and on our feet as soon as the word died out of the air. Miss Poppins excused herself from Jay and came to Dorothy's side. "What do you mean, dear?" she asked.
Dorothy pointed excitedly to the painting in front of her. "Look, Miss Poppins, it's him! Right there, with the others in the picture! Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. That's the Wizard's name, he told me so!"
The others had looks on their faces ranging from skeptical disbelief to a suppressed urge to laugh. Danner's lips were moving as he turned over the names; under his breath I heard him murmur, "Oz Pinhead?"
Dorothy caught that, but it didn't upset her in the slightest. "That's 'zackly right, Mr. Danner! He told me his father gave him all those names, only he didn't like being called Pinhead, so he called himself Oz. Oh, Miss Poppins, do you think he still remembers me?"
"Oh, I'm sure he does, Dorothy," said Miss Poppins thoughtfully. "But he's awfully young in this painting, wouldn't you say? He was an old man by the time you met him."
Dorothy frowned a little at that. "I s'pose," she said. I guess it hadn't occurred to her.
"Nevertheless," continued Miss Poppins, "I shall see if that is the case. Gentlemen, would you be so kind as to stand back, please?" We looked at each other and backed up half a step. "Thank you," she said - and jumped into the picture.
No, I am not joking. Without so much as batting an eye Miss Poppins simply leaped into the air, vanished from in front of us, and appeared in the painting. It was the most eye-wrenching thing I think I've ever seen, and I haven't got the words to describe it. I had to look away from the painting proper for a bit while the others exclaimed over what'd just happened. As I did that my eye fell on a small brass plaque set into the frame. It read:
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
1875
. . . all right, it read more than that - there were names - but I couldn't remember a single one of them if my life depended on it. 1875? Why, the Northwest Mounted Police were only founded in 1873! How old was the League, anyway? How-
I probably could have asked then, or gone and looked at the other paintings, but as I was making up my mind to do so Miss Poppins hopped out of the painting as serene as you please. "I'm sorry, Dorothy," she said, "but this was done when he was a very young man. This version of the Wizard doesn't know you yet, and can't say where the Wizard you know might be."
"Oh," said Dorothy, a bit crestfallen. Then she brightened up. "Well, that's all right. We'll find him anyway, I know we will."
"That's right," said Miss Poppins. She glanced over at J. as she said this, and the man nodded very slowly. "That's right."
Day Twelve - Wednesday, August 19
London
We stayed at League headquarters last night, and in the morning J. summoned us around the table again. "I've read your reports," he said, "and your performance, while not entirely what we'd planned, is satisfactory. I see no reason for you not to continue your investigations of the Prufrock shipping company. The resources of the League are at your disposal for this purpose. All we ask is that you submit your reports on a regular and timely basis, and that you inform us before taking any extraordinary measures." He gave a smile at his choice of words. It didn't touch his eyes.
"Are we confined to London?" asked Tom.
J. shook his head. "You're not even confined to England," said J. "If your investigation takes you to the South Seas, you're free to go - but we need to know about it before you do. Whatever measures seem most appropriate to you are fair game."
Cranston leaned forward. "Then we are free to get other lodgings?" he inquired.
J. nodded.
"My people can assist you in finding a place to let, if you like," chimed in Lord Wimsey.
"That's all right. I'll manage."
"Miss Gale," said J., "you'll be staying in the apartment provided for you. I hope it's satisfactory?"
"Oh, yes," said the girl. "I quite like it. It's much nicer than the asylum."
"I'm afraid you'll have to stay there, unless one of your companions here accompanies you out and about." J. steepled his fingers, looking up to us meaningfully. "London is no place for a little girl to go about alone. Dog or no."
"Oh, I don't think you have anything to worry about," said Lord Wimsey. "We'll look after you - won't we, chaps?" At the general assent that went up, Lord Wimsey smiled. "There, you see?"
"Very well, then," said J., "unless there's anything else any of you wanted to mention. . ."
There wasn't, of course, so we were dismissed.
I'm going to be staying at the headquarters. I've got money, but there's no sense spending it on lodgings when there's a barracks available. There's going to be expenses enough in this investigation as it stands.
You see, I don't think I'm going to be doing much of the ordinary detective work here. This mess is tangled up in areas I've never had to deal with. I could learn quickly enough, I'm sure, but as it stands there are those among us who already know what to do. You couldn't ask for a more English sleuth than Lord Wimsey - when it comes to noticing what's right and what's wrong with a situation by local standards, he's the best one of us, I'm sure. Hugo Danner shows every sign of knowing the shipping trade from the inside; I imagine he must've worked at it before the Great War. And as for the underhanded nature of the Prufrock organization - well, let's just say that I expect Cranston knows that sort of thing the way I know tracking and survival, and leave it at that. I'm not going to jump their claim. I know when to cede the floor to someone else. No, I plan to go about this another way.
You see, every one of those maps and charts (except the looking-glass wardrobe - and I have my suspicions about that) came out of a children's story. A fortnight ago I would have written it off as sheer nonsense. I haven't got that luxury any more, not after the things I've seen. I have never in my life seen anything good of rushing into a case without learning the background of the situation first. The Prufrock people believe in the reality of fairy stories. So does J. Dorothy's been to the lands of one of them. Miss Poppins - well - I don't know what to think of her but if she's not an escapee from someone's tales of the strange I'll eat my hat. There might yet be a deception operating, but I'll never know unless I learn. As soon as I've finished this, I'm getting into my civilian clothes and looking for the best bookstores in London.
Not just for children's stories, either. The kind of deception that the Prufrocks seem to be practicing calls for a certain measure of suspicion. Crowds have been deceived before. Whole governments have been deceived before - my mother told me the story of Princess Caraboo when I was a boy, and how she was received as royalty from Formosa before being unmasked as a common servant girl. I have no illusions about what I know and what I don't. I'd like to maintain that state. As long as I'm buying books, I'm looking up histories of frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. I seem to recall a book by one Charles Mackay on the topic. That'll be a good place to start. There'll be others, I'm sure.
And one last thing. . . I have no intention of being caught off my guard again while I'm here. It's one thing to rely on Prince in the North Country, where the biggest danger is a second man with a gun. Prince is faster than most human eyes can follow, when he makes up his mind to jump, but the Siren army had him pinned. I don't want to have a repeat of that situation. It seems to me that learning unarmed combat beyond the fisticuffs my father taught me would be a wise idea. As I recall, Sherlock Holmes was said to be trained in a fighting art called 'baritsu'. I don't remember whether he learned it in London or some other part of the world, but it can't hurt to look up a teacher as long as I'm here.
Day 13 - August 20, 1936
Early Evening
London, England
I'm no fan of big cities, but I have to say that they do seem to be good places for bookshops to spring up. When I mentioned the line of inquiry I planned to pursue to Lord Peter, he immediately gave me the names of several booksellers he felt could be relied upon. "Unfortunately," he noted, "they do tend more towards my end of the bibliophile's hobby, that can't be helped - but since that one volume, the Mackay, is coming up on the century mark within five years... well, Ffoliott's at least might be able to help you with that, eh?"
Ffoliott's turned out to be a shop dealing mostly in ancient, rare books. And I do mean ancient - most of the stock was in Latin or Greek, neither of which were exactly a big part of my schooling. I would probably still be wandering around in there like a lost calf if Mr. Ffoliott himself hadn't come out to ask if I were the owner of the enormous dog out front. When I told him yes, he must've caught my accent - asked what an American was doing this far from his native waters.
I felt pretty sure he thought I'd come into the store by mistake, so I said, "I'm not an American, sir. I'm here from Canada - I was sent by an acquaintance of mine, Lord Peter Wimsey..."
Well, that changed the look on his face pretty quickly! Apparently Lord Peter does a lot of business with the man. Once I'd told him what I was looking for, he led me to exactly the right spot - he did, in fact, have a copy of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds in stock. It was in amazingly good shape for a book published in 1841, too, but then again the man deals in books easily five times older or more. I haven't got the hang of the currency just yet, but I doubt his Lordship would send me to someone who charged really excessive prices. He offered to show me a few other things as well, but I told him I wanted the book for research purposes, not a collection. "Although," I added, "if you could help me with something else-"
"Of course, sir. Anything for a friend of Lord Wimsey's."
"Ah- yes... I was wondering if you could help me find a bookshop that sells mostly children's books. Preferably one that didn't mind a lot of stuff from American authors."
"Hmmm... well, that's a bit outside my field, but..." Ffoliott scribbled a few names and addresses down on a piece of paper. "Try here, first. I think you'll find them extremely helpful."
I thanked him and came back to headquarters, more to drop off Prince than anything else. He was starting to gather a pretty big crowd on the street - mostly people who thought a wolf had gotten loose from the zoo. I've got to buy him a more distinctive collar if I'm going to take him anywhere. Much as I hate putting the things on him without need, the last thing I want is for some London bobby to assume the worst and get hurt trying to take him into custody.
That reminds me - after I check the shops on Ffoliott's list, I've got one more thing to attend to. There's a man who gives baritsu lessons that I intend to see tonight.
Day Thirteen - Late Evening
London
The shops Mr. Ffolliott recommended were extremely helpful, which is more than I can say for the Bartitsu school.First things first, though - the books. I've got several days' worth of reading material here - Peter Pan and two volumes of Lewis Carroll from one shop, something called The Water-Babies from another (it seems to be about mermaids), and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from a third. That last shop was as good as gold, I must say! The owner, an older woman named Mrs. Wetherall, offered to look up the rest of the Oz books for me. Apparently there's fourteen of the things. There was an awkward moment when she asked me who I was buying them for. . . they're not exactly the sort of thing you can call research material, now, are they? Children's books, I mean? I said something about looking after a young orphan girl who happened to be named Dorothy herself. That seemed to be enough, but it left a bad taste in my mouth not to be entirely straight with her. I promised to check back in a few days and headed out to the Bartitsu school straightaway.
Now there was a disappointment. Apparently it was the last school of its kind left in London; the art's been dying out for a long time. That might explain why the teacher I saw insisted on being paid first, even though all I got was an hour's lecture and a demonstration that taught me nothing. It's essentially a combination of wrestling, boxing, and the use of feet and sticks. Really, it looked like a fancy name for the kind of dirty-fighting tricks I had to deal with back home. Not what I'd expected at all. So much for Conan Doyle, eh?
The instructor must've seen the look on my face, because he broke off what he was saying and left two of his students to continue the demonstration. "Something wrong, Mr.....?"
I didn't bother giving him my name. "I suppose you could say that. Apparently I had the wrong expectations when I came here."
He leaned back on his heels, looking me over with narrowed eyes. "And just what were you expecting?" he inquired.
I shrugged. "Something different. This isn't anything I haven't seen before-"
"Oh, really." He crossed his arms. "Where?"
There was something about his stance that I didn't like. He reminded me of a dog fight I'd seen once, the two animals circling each other, growling and snapping and trying to look as dangerous as possible. It didn't sit well with me. "In the saloons of Dawson City."
"Sir, this is a system of self-defence designed to render anyone acquainted with it practically impregnable against all forms of attack, however dangerous and unexpected-"
"Stop right there. I've heard enough." It was the same stuff he'd been talking about for an hour and I was getting tired of it.
"Oh, you have, have you?" He'd turned an interesting shade of red. "Think you could do as well?"
I could sense where the conversation was headed, and I didn't like it. "No," I said. "No, probably not. I couldn't do most of what you've done... but I don't think this is what I wanted to learn."
That deflated him a little, but he was still pretty angry. "Try the Nips, then," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"305 Oxford Street. Japanese School of jiu-jitsu. Run by Yukio Tani and Masutaro Otani. Maybe that'll be a bit more to your liking. Come back when you want to learn how real men fight, though," he said with a jerk of his head.
I left him to his lessons and went back to the street. Yes, he'd been a disappointment, but at least I got something out of him. I'm going to Oxford Street tomorrow night. I haven't got anything to lose, and Messrs. Tani and Otani might be more helpful.
Day Fourteen - Friday, August 21, 1936
League Headquarters
Evening
I have just been repeatedly thrown into the wall by a Japanese man half my size.
I don't want to talk about it.
Day Fifteen - Saturday, August 22, 1936
London
League Headquarters
Mr. Otani seemed surprised to see me last night. "I did not think you would come back, Sergeant," he said when I came in. "Many of my prospective students do not."
"I've had worse."
He was too polite to laugh. I'd knocked myself half senseless the night before, and he knew it. "So you are still interested? You still wish to study jiu-jutsu?"
"Yes, sir; I'm afraid you're stuck with me." I didn't mention I'd spent two hours beforehand in the company of the hottest water bottle I could manage. My right shoulder felt like it'd be sore for a week.
"Then we shall begin," he said softly, and the lesson got under way.
I won't deny that I almost didn't come back. That first demonstration of his was pretty brutal. Masaturo listened to my explanation, that I was a policeman who'd come to rely on my partner to get me out of close quarters, without saying anything. When he asked why I'd come to him in particular, I told him about the Bartitsu school. His expression didn't change much, but his lips got very thin. "So, they sent you to me."
"Yes."
"The Nip."
I winced a little. "Afraid so."
"What do you expect from me that you could not get from them?" he asked. His tone of voice didn't change much, but there was a certain interest behind the words. I knew that speaking carefully wouldn't help me any. He wanted to hear the unvarnished truth.
So I gave it to him. "I expect you to know what you're doing."
"That's all?" he asked. One of his eyebrows went up.
"Well - yes... should there be something else?"
"Mr. Eggleston knows what he is doing. . ."
"With all due respect, sir, I don't believe he does. If he did, he wouldn't have to talk about it so much."
There was an odd smile on his face as he stood up. "Sergeant," he said as he made his way to the center of the wooden practice floor, "please, come at me. As fast or as hard as you like."
"Excuse me?"
He shrugged. "Hit me," he said simply.
Back in Forty Mile, there was a Russian whose luck in the gold fields had gone sour. He made a nice amount of gold anyway - by betting that he could knock the feet out from under any man in town in the space of a minute. He would have lost every penny of it if he'd ever met Masaturo Otani. I was in that school less than half an hour, and I got all the demonstration I could've asked for - and then some. Wasn't really thinking of it that way at the time, though. Mostly I was getting pretty tired of having my best punches end up with me on the floor and an elbow in my back. The harder I tried, the easier he had it throwing me into the wall, and that didn't sit well at all with me. I think he must've seen it in my face when I left, because all he said was, "Come back if you are still interested."
Like I said, I almost didn't. That kind of treatment stings, on a much deeper level than wrenched joints. I've always been pretty good in fights before, and frankly, it felt like being shown up as a fraud. It wasn't until I went to fill the hot water bottle that I realized it wasn't anything of the kind. There hadn't been anyone else there to see it - and even if there had, it wasn't as if I'd been doing anything wrong. My fighting form just wasn't enough, compared to a fighter like him. Just like an ordinary gun wasn't enough to take down a Siren. It wasn't a comforting thought, but it was a true one, and since we might wind up facing anything- well.
That was when I made up my mind to go back. I've got my hands full just trying to keep up with the rest of the League and I need whatever honorable advantage I can get. I expect the jiu-jutsu will turn out to be useful eventually.
Day Twenty-Two - Saturday, August 29
London, England
League HQ
This past week has been spent in libraries, eating-houses, and other odd places around London. I've spent most of my daylight hours reading more children's books than any man my age has a right to, unless he does it aloud at a child's bedside, and I've spent all of my evenings in Oxford Street. I've filled up several composition books with notes to a degree that would astonish my mother, were she still alive. I have a separate notebook for theories and guesses about what Prufrock may be after, should any particular book turn out to be factual. I've even gone so far as to put in orders at the booksellers' for copies of books about prior League members - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Invisible Man, and so on - in case they might turn out to be useful. My quarters look like they belong to a university student.
I can't stand this.
There, I've said it! My mother was the schoolteacher in my family - not my father, and certainly not me. Oh, I might've wanted to study the law as a boy, but that didn't last long. Not once my father said I'd be big enough to join the Mounties at eighteen, anyway. I don't mind learning new things, and I don't mind studying when I have to, but this is not my idea of a productive way to spend my time. I didn't earn my stripes by analyzing forms and paperwork - I earned them by bringing in the man who killed my father. At least I feel as if the jujitsu lessons are accomplishing something. I only started a week ago, but at least it's doing something. Investigating in books, hunting for something I don't understand and probably wouldn't recognize if I saw - that's an archaeologist's job, or a bookkeeper's, or a churchman's. Not mine.
Unfortunately, I can't do my job at the moment. We don't know what we're looking for - no one does. Danner hasn't had a lot of luck hunting down information on the docks, that's no surprise. Lord Peter's investment inquiries go nowhere whatsoever, so he's trying to get the Prufrock organization to hire someone who'll be loyal to him as a secretary. I have no idea if Cranston's uncovered anything. It leaves us exactly where we were before, with the knowledge that there's a plot, but no clear picture of what it is or where. So all any of us can do is keep digging and hope we're digging in the right place.
It's still profoundly unsatisfying. A man can only take so much of this. I may as well take a day or two of leave from my 'studies'. Prince needs some proper exercise, anyway. I think I'll take him out to one of the parks and see how long we can go without someone mistaking him for an escaped wolf. There's supposed to be some decent museums here in London, too. Those are probably worth a look. They don't have anything like that in Dawson City, I know that much. As long as I’m done in time for lessons in Oxford Street, there shouldn't be a problem. The books aren't going anywhere. . .
