Gibbous House 46

It was a measure of how distracted I was, that I gave a start when the Professor dismounted from his siege perilous somewhat acrobatically, and, it must be said, with a modicum of grace that was earller lacking. He gave an exaggerated bow and excused himself to his chamber, no doubt to savour the acrobatic propensities of some of those figures depicted on its walls. Maccabi gave the sketchiest of bows and an indecipherable grunt. The decanter of port was half full when I poured my next glass and I placed it nearby for convenience's sake. Memory found me in Moffat's cell in the Edinburgh asylum on the day of my release; December 24th 183_...

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The saintly Doctor Duncan was present in the company of a tall figure possessed of a formidable nose and the brow of a polymath. I sat on the cot; my two interlocutors had brought an ill-matched pair of gimcrack chairs in rough deal, and placed them adversarially opposite me in the cramped cell. The Doctor and the other fellow had been seated for a quarter hour in complete silence. The stranger had a notebook open and a pen poised, but to that point had written nothing. Abruptly he began with a diffident question:

'Mr Alasdair Moffat is it?'

'Who else might I be?' I offered.

'Well, begging your pardon, according to Dr Duncan's account you might be Napoleon on Monday, Nelson on Tuesday and Nebuchadnezzar by the end of the week, d'you see?'

A reasonable, cultured voice it was; marred only by the uncertain vowels and the hardening of certain consonants.

'It is some time since I have answered to any other appellation but Alasdair Moffat.'

I was sitting up quite straight despite the lack of support for my dorsal area. Silence prevailed for a few moments. The other two gentlemen exchanged a look I could not decypher. The interview, thus far, was broadly similar to many I had had with Dr Duncan. The exotic fellow spoke at last:

'But before, who were you then?' He gave me an encouraging look.

'It is true I am quite changed from what I was. A new man, you might say.'

'What do you remember?”

'I have a past, surely, as everyone does. Is it remembered or related; innate or acquired, who can say? Not I.'

'So you remember nothing before the attack on your person?'

'Remember? Perhaps not. However, a journal is a useful thing, wouldn't you agree Dr.Duncan?'

The good man averted his gaze, and said nothing.

My interrogator wore a round embroidered cap on the crown of his head he appeared to have forgotten to arrange the tail of his shirt in accordance with custom; viz inside his breeches. Said tail was remarkably frayed. The man spoke again:

'So, Mr Moffat, how would you describe your experience? An old life - changed, forgotten ,discarded?'

'A new birth, a virgin birth, maybe.' I laughed at the thought of it.

The man opposite me smiled and nodded:

'Just so, Mr Moffat. Just so.'

The men stood and turned to go. I saw that far from being frayed the tail of the man's shirt was a complex arrangement of tasselled fringe.

I was turned out the next day with a portmanteau containing Moffat's journal, his copy of Malleus Maleficorum and spare linen: two gold sovereigns weighed heavy in my pocket.

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