Gibbous House 84

Allen, having fought off the ministrations of Miss Pardoner to his smouldering apparel, fixed me with a rheumy eye ;

'If your dreams do not disturb your slumbers, Moffat, they do disturb mine. Who is Brougham, sir?”

Evidently, a deeply slumbrous state was no barrier to oral expression in my case: I chose ignoring him as the being most expedient course. However, my ward declared herself to be quite interested in the identity of the fellow who stalked my dreams. This last was accompanied by an arched brow. I confess I was tolerably non-plussed and before I had collected my thoughts, she added:

'A noble fellow, I'll warrant.'

'The man no more exists than Springheeled Jack. Enough of this nonsense, Miss, I'll join you for dinner.'

Before I had made good my departure through the french windows into the library, Miss Pardoner added:

'You would find few to agree with you in London, Mr Moffat, from Peckham to Cadogan Square.'

Her rejoinder almost gave me pause, but I showed her my back nonetheless. A man must have some time to call his own.

My first intention - having been to reflect, in solitude in my monkish apartments, on a further course of action regarding achieving some pecuniary advancement from my current position - was unchanged as to location. By the time I had operated the new-fangled brass lever on the door to my cell, my proposed activity was transformed into a determination to read Arabella Coble's diary with some diligence.

It was with some alarm that I noted that the said journal lay not on the threadbare counterpane where I had left it. This alarm subsided somewhat when I caught sight of the book, spine up, covers splayed ,on the boards beneath the iron bedstead. It might well have fallen from the bed whereon I had left it, but I had been sure that Allan's womanly squeal had awakened me – and not some seismological phenomenon. For the journal was heavy, the leather binding being of quality and the paper within it, too. The hasp which had surrendered all too easily to my spear blade pen knife was of metal, gilt or possibly even gold, having been marked easily by the blade. So, a substantial book, with many pages.

It was astounding to see that the book, which I had assumed would contain little after Arabella's anticipatory speculations concerning a certain Cadwallader's arrival – which revelations occurred only a little way into the tome – was inscribed to the very last page. Beyond, indeed; for the endpapers and the inside of the cover were bedecked with an inky trail resembling a spidery imitation of my late wife's writing as I had known it. The very last words were written just so:

' 'Ware the homunculus, “Alasdair”,'

and a line meandered downward from the extravagant serif at the foot of the letter 'r' to the bottom edge of the book.

I slumped, aghast, onto the cot. It was no great revelation that my late wife had been in the habit of keeping a secret journal during the course of our marriage: our life together had necessitated much independence of thought and deed. No; what I could not understand – or rather - conceive of, was how any such journal, having been nowhere in evidence at the time of Arabella's death, had appeared in timely fashion at Gibbous House. Before I myself had, in fact.