V 02 - Domino Men, The (46 page)

He does not seem to have aged a day but remains, eternally, a child.  He does not perspire even slightly.  No drop of sweat has been found beneath his prepubescent armpits, no trickle of perspiration on his calves or boyish moisture on the small of his back.  He is well cared for, and although he is kept under lock and key, I make certain that the best of everything is brought to his cell.  I have been adamant that those who keep and care for him are scrupulously vetted in order to avoid any repetition of what has come euphemistically referred to as “the Hickey-Brown problem.”

Naturally, Henry never leaves his cell.  I owe him my life but it would hardly do for the poor fellow to walk abroad.

As usual, on my last visit, he did not seem to know that I was there.  I brought Silverman with me for company but Henry seemed wholly oblivious to our presence, spending the entirety of our meeting intoning the same five words.

Curiously, there was a small gray cat sitting in the circle with him, curled up by Henry’s feet, purring happily and apparently quite content.  I have asked how the animal came to be there but it may not surprise you to learn that a sufficiently persuasive explanation for its presence has yet to be advanced.

After I had said my goodbyes, still dabbing at my eyes and pledging my continued support, I took a detour into the smallest room and, despite his objections, ordered Silverman to wait for me upstairs.

I had completed my business and was midway through my ablutions at the basin when I caught a blur of motion, a sudden flash of color in the mirror.

Two men stood behind me.  How they had entered unobserved and unchallenged, I had not the slightest notion, although — needless to say — I recognized them at once.

With their uniforms, their gnarled knees, their unforgettable air of menace, who could not?

“Hello, sir!”

“What ho, Arthur, old son!”

I dared address myself only to their reflections and asked them what they wanted of me.

“Just thought we’d drop by, sir!”

“Pop in for a bit of a chinwag!”

I spoke softly, trying to keep my head, and remarked that, without their actions, London would stand in ruins.

“Oh, but you’ll make us blush, sir!”

“Stop it, sir, or you’ll embarrass us.  Boon here goes the color of Tommy K.”

I told them that I could never fathom their motives.

Those awful creatures laughed at me.  “Give it time, old thing.”

“You’ll be seeing a lot more of us in the future.”

As my throat turned dry, I asked them what they meant.

“We’ll be dropping by regularly, sir.  Hawker and me.”

“Just to keep an eye on things.”

“We want to be sure you make a better fist of it than the rest of your family.”

“We’re going to be your advisers, sir!”

“The power behind the throne!”

“No need to pull a face, old thing!”

“Trust me.”  Boon grinned and touched the brim of his cap in mock salute.  “You’ll hardly notice we’re here.”

I shivered and looked away.  When I turned back, the Prefects were gone, the only evidence that they had ever been there at all the lingering scents of fireworks and sherbet dip.

I left that place as fast as I could, not stopping to dry my hands and barely restraining myself from breaking into a run as I hurried past the photographs of dead prime ministers, past serving staff, security men and the open-necked parade of civil servants.

Outside in the unforgiving sunshine, I had to stop to catch my breath and gather my wits because I knew, in an awful moment of understanding, that I had seen the shape of the rest of my life.

Silverman was waiting.  “Sir?” he asked, his voice, as ever, the model of equanimity and deference.  “Is everything all right?”

I tried to speak but the words would not come.  I found myself wholly unable to say their names aloud.

Silverman took me away, helped me into the car and did what he does best, calming me down, soothing me, giving me hope and succor.  But I have no illusions.  I know how things are going to be.

The Domino Men will be with me all the days of my life and I shall not, I fancy, write again.

—
AW

ABOUT  THE  TYPE

Goudy is an old-style serif typeface named for its designer, Frederic W. Goudy, for American Type Founders (ATF) in 1915.  In its original ATF form and the Linotype derivatives, only the roman and italic weights of Goudy are called Goudy Old Style.  In versions sold by other foundries, such as Bitstream, all weights are referred to as Goudy Old Style.  Other weights, such as Goudy Bold and Goudy Extra Bold, were based on Goudy Old Style but designed by Morris Fuller Benton.

Suitable for both text and display applications, Goudy Old Style is a graceful, balanced design with a few eccentricities, including the upward-curved ear on the g and the diamond shape of the dots of the
i
and the
j
, the points found in the period, colon and exclamation point, and the sharply canted hyphen.  The uppercase italic
Q
has a strong calligraphic quality.  The gently curved, rounded serifs of certain glyphs suggest a Venetian influence.