Hill of Bones (39 page)

For the first time, Malinferno broke the silence that hung like a pall over the assembled throng.

‘I estimate this body is . . .’

There was a communal intake of breath as those gathered to hear the professor’s deductions awaited his opinion. Malinferno did not disappoint them.

‘. . . three thousand years old.’

There was a gasp from the crowd, followed by a ripple of noise as gloved hands were slapped together in the most refined of ways to applaud his skill, and their hostess’s generously proffered entertainment.

Rosamund, Duchess of Avon, was a widow with too much money, and too much time on her hands since the death of her elderly husband, the fifth duke. Her cold and echoing mausoleum of an ancestral home had for all too long induced in her a stultifying boredom that she ached to assuage. Her childless life was tedious and unfulfilled. The idea of purchasing an Egyptian mummy had suddenly come to her over a dull breakfast one day.

She had been reading the
Bathhampton Packet
, to which her husband had subscribed, and which, by an oversight, she had failed to cancel after his death. In fact she had never previously read the slender sheet, it being her husband’s predilection to monopolise the rag. A week after his death, she had had occasion to pick it up idly from the breakfast table where the duke’s old butler had continued to reverently lay it in lieu of other orders. She had been going to tell Goring to dispose of it, but an article caught her eye. It appeared that one of her neighbours had set up shotguns attached to tripwires to dispose of unwanted trespassers on his land. A court case had ensued on the death of a gypsy, and the wrangling of the lawyers and judge, as reported in the
Packet
, was all about whether in such circumstances human life was as forfeit as an errant dog. Lady Rosamund was clear as to her own opinion on the matter, and snorted with satisfaction that the editor of the
Bathhampton Packet
seemed to concur. Since that date, she had read the newssheet assiduously.

On one particular rather dull and drizzly morning, next to a piece about the scandalous goings-on of the Prince Regent, she saw an item concerning Countess Shrewsbury and an Egyptian mummy. It seemed the latest craze was to unroll these beastly things at a soiree, and offer your neighbours the chance of some grisly voyeurism. She instinctively realised this would provide the ideal opportunity to demonstrate her new-found intention to be the centre of social, if not exactly intellectual, life in her corner of the county. She had undertaken enquiries, and soon made the necessary purchase from a man at the British Museum, who was willing illicitly to supply her needs. Along with a man who could effect the unrolling.

For his part Il Professore Giuseppe Malinferno had been delighted when he had been contacted by his old friend from the BM, Thomas Elder, with a request to examine a mummy. He had been both eager to lay his hands on such a rare object, and fearful that his limited knowledge might be exposed. He realised he need not have worried. The unrolling was not going to take place in the presence of expert Egyptologists – of which there were a small but growing number – but at some remote and exotic site before a bunch of provincial socialites, leavened with the odd vicar and bibulous Member of Parliament. Malinferno soon saw that he could bamboozle them with any old nonsense he cared to utter. This he had proceeded to do, along with a subtle touch of showmanship.

When he had stepped out in front of his audience, a magnificent, white-robed figure, a gasp had come from the gentry present in the marquee. He seemed preternaturally tall as his head was topped with a cruel, staring jackal’s mask, its ears abnormally pricked. It was the very embodiment of Anubis – God of the Dead, Guide through the Underworld, and Hearer of Prayers. Several ladies recoiled in terror, and had to fan themselves for fear of fainting. The unbearable heat in the tent and the anticipation was literally breathtaking. Malinferno as Anubis threw his arms high into the air, and cried out, causing another
frisson
to run through the crowd.

The audience was enraptured. But beneath the mask, beads of sweat were pouring down Malinferno’s forehead, and stinging his eyes. However, he was in no position to wipe them away, and blinked, shaking his head slightly. The mask of Anubis wobbled, and settled at a more uncertain, rather jaunty angle on his brow. He invoked the gods once more.

This had been Doll’s cue, but nothing happened. He had cursed under his breath, and called out again, louder this time, ‘Ferry Ankh-Wadjet to us.’

At the last moment, a form appeared as if by magic at the head of the mummy. It was a tall, voluptuous figure wearing the horned mask of Hathor. The diaphanous robe did little to hide the curvaceous attractions of his mysterious companion, whom he had named as Madam Nefre. She was scandalously nude underneath her robe, and the audience loved the fact.

‘Couldn’t ’ear you because of this stupid mask,’ whispered Doll Pocket into Malinferno’s jackal ear, her dulcet tones melting with the heat. ‘And I’m sweating like a pig under it.’

‘I’ve told you before, Hathor is a cow god not a pig, hence the horns. Now let’s get on with this farrago.’

The unravelling of the bandaged mummy had then proceeded well, if a little drily. Malinferno had done his best to perform like a fairground barker, while still slaking his own genuine curiosity about the strange means of burial as practised by the ancient Egyptians. In fact, he had even managed, as he often did, to sneak several funerary souvenirs into the pocket of his jacket as he was exposing the leathery visage of the long-dead Egyptian to the general gaze. He did it not for their intrinsic value, of course – though he had no doubt he could shift them for a tidy sum on the burgeoning antiquities market – but to further his own understanding of ancient Egypt.

He hoped to leave the tedious soiree as soon as his part in it was effected, and carry on with the real reason for his presence on the hill. But he knew his employer expected more. As those she had invited craned eagerly over the large dining table that held the dusty and rather smelly remains of her investment, she reflected on the success of the evening. All in all it had gone well, though she wished that the man she had engaged – this Italian professor with an unpronounceable name – had conducted the event with a little less scholarly sobriety, and a little more élan. His naked assistant had promised well, but the unrolling had been accompanied with too much talk.

‘Professor Ma . . . Malapropos . . .’ screeched the duchess, taking Malinferno’s arm in a vicelike grip. She obviously could not even remember his name, but was determined to get full value from his celebrated, albeit bogus, erudition. ‘You must talk to my dear friend the Honourable Sir Ralph St Germans about the Pyramids and suchlike. He’s the Member of Parliament for . . . err . . .’ She flapped her hand to denote some remote rotten borough that was represented by this august Member. ‘He is fearfully keen on this Egyptian thing, and is acquiring all sorts of impedimenta from . . . well, from Egyptia, I suppose.’

She steered him towards an egregiously overweight, and obviously inebriated gentleman, who was using the edge of Malinferno’s erstwhile mortuary slab to steady his wavering bulk. The small items from the mummy that were the professor’s illicit bonus were burning a hole in Malinferno’s pocket. But there was nothing to be done but whisk a bumper of red wine from a passing tray, and sing for his supper. He toasted the noble Member of Parliament, and enquired after his collection of artefacts, hoping the man wasn’t expert enough on Egyptology to unmask him as a charlatan. Fortunately, St Germans chose that moment to pass out from an excess of alcohol, slumping heavily across the table and landing on Doll’s generous bosom.

It had only been a week earlier that Malinferno had lifted his head reluctantly from that very bosom and sighed.

‘I have to get out of London, Doll. What if I am found out? I will be hanged along with the others.’

The reason for his fears had to do with Malinferno’s soft spot for the plight of the masses, coming as he did himself from humble beginnings. After old King George had died in January of that year – 1820 – the rumblings of the radicals got louder as the situation of the working poor got worse. Joe – he hated his proper name of Giuseppe – often took himself off to the Marylebone Union Reading Society, and filled his head with radical idealism. Doll was more down to earth, and didn’t think much could be done other than looking after number one. They rowed about it off and on.

‘We, who are able to look after ourselves, must help the poor.’

Joe’s pronouncement astonished Doll, bearing in mind they were themselves down to their last few coppers. And the meal on the table in Joe’s shabby lodgings in Creechurch Lane, London, was no more than an umble pie of offal, washed down with beer. She opened her arms to encompass their meagre feast.

‘Joe, we
are
the poor, as things stand. I shall have to troll the streets if we are to pay your landlady the rent for even last month.’

Malinferno’s face was set in a mask of defiance. He had first met Doll Pocket in Madam de Trou’s bawdy house in Petticoat Lane. He had been astonished by both her quick mind, and her obviously pulchritudinous assets. Instead of exploiting those assets as intended, he had spent the night teaching her all he knew about Egyptology. She had absorbed it like a sponge. They had forgotten all about the reason why he had paid the madam in good gold coin. And now that they were good friends, he didn’t want Doll to return to her former trade.

‘No. If the worst comes to the worst, you can become an actress. I know Mr Saunders, the manager of the New Theatre in Tottenham Street. He will find you a position.’

Doll pulled a face. ‘An actress? Why should I want to do that? They have the same reputation as a whore, and earn less than half the money.’

‘At least that is the lesser of two evils.’ Malinferno hesitated a moment. He was trying somehow to get round to telling her the truth about the rent. Finally, he decided he had better just come out and say it. ‘And it’s not one month we owe but three.’

Doll pushed her rickety chair away from the table, and put her hands on her hips in a pose of outrage.

‘But I gave you the money for the other month. It was the last of my savings.’

‘I know. But Arthur wanted some funds and I—’

‘You gave it all to Arthur Thistlewood?’

By now, Doll was stomping up and down their tiny room, causing the chipped crockery on the table to rattle. Malinferno steadied the table and grinned.

‘You know, you would make a wonderful actress. They are putting on
The Taming of the Shrew
at the Theatre Royal.’

Doll growled, and grabbed one of the plates from off the table. She only stopped herself from throwing it at Joe, when he yelled a warning.

‘Careful, Doll, we’ve got only two plates left. If that one goes, we will have to share our repasts like two dogs fighting over the same bowl.’

She contented herself with another growl, and sat back on her chair abruptly. It creaked ominously under her. She waved her hand at Malinferno dismissively.

‘Go and plot treason with Thistlewood. That’s all you are good for, you and the Spendthrift Philanderers.’

‘Spencean Philanthropists,’ Malinferno corrected her. ‘We follow the ideas of Thomas Spence. Anyway, it’s no good me going to the meeting house today. They are meeting up somewhere else, but I am not in on the secret of what’s afoot.’

Doll snorted with derision. ‘You are not all that important to them, then. Now they have your money. Where are they meeting, anyway?’

Malinferno tossed his head, as though his not being in on the secret meeting mattered not at all to him.

‘Somewhere near Grosvenor Square. Cato Street, I think he said.’

Later, when the news came out of the murderous conspiracy led by Thistlewood, Malinferno was glad he had been excluded. After the conspirators were arrested in a pitched battle in the Cato Street hayloft, it emerged that the Spencean Philanthropists had plotted to kill every single cabinet minister at a dinner hosted by Lord Harrowby. Malinferno, pale and shaken, had refused to leave his lodgings in Creechurch Lane for days. He spent his time peering cautiously out of the dusty window on the first floor, imagining every passer-by was a Bow Street runner come to arrest him for treason. Doll scoffed at his worries, but Joe would not be reassured.

‘George Edwards was an
agent provocateur
acting for the government, and I spoke to him at a meeting once. He might remember me.’

‘Joe, it’s been weeks since the others were arrested. Has anyone mentioned your name? No.’

Malinferno fingered his damp linen collar nervously. ‘Even so, they say Thistlewood and the others will be hanged.’

He shrank back from the window, where he had been standing, and slumped down on the lumpy bed he shared with Doll. She sighed, and went off to the chop house to fetch in some food, as she had done since the Cato Street Conspiracy had been exposed.

When in April the verdict was reached on those who had refused to turn king’s evidence, Brunt, Davidson, Ings, Thistlewood and Tidd – all known to Malinferno – were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. And though their sentences were later commuted to merely hanging, a deed that took place in May, Malinferno decided it was time to sneak away from London for a while. He wondered if his friend Bromhead had anything for him to do that would remove him from the febrile atmosphere of the capital.