The Man From the Diogenes Club Page 6

  This call was new business.

  Catriona Kaye – born in 1900, as commemorated in the 1920s song written about her, ‘Century Baby’ – looked decades younger than her years. Thanks to Thoroughly Modern Millie, her modified flapper style and bobbed hair intersected with a current fashion. Entering the Quiet Room, Richard found her sitting comfortably on the edge of Winthrop’s desk, shoes dangling above the carpet. She wore a low-waisted dress the colour of her pearls and smoked a cigarette in a long, black holder. She made an appealing contrast with the Club’s Victorian founder, who glowered heavily out of a monumental portrait behind her.

  ‘Richard,’ said Catriona, smiling, ‘meet Special Agent Gauge.’

  He turned, and had a little electric shock in the brain.

  Parapsychologists called it ‘psychic feedback’, but Richard knew it as a kind of spark. Like him, Agent Gauge was a sensitive, a Talent. Frankly, a spook. Richard noticed that before noticing she was a she – and he knew her sex from the fragrance of Ô by Lancôme lingering in the corridor.

  A tall blonde about five years younger than Richard, Agent Gauge had a figure Hugh Hefner would get excited about and a don’t-mess-with-me stance which gave warning to the most octopus-handed Playboy subscriber. She had big grey-blue eyes and straight, mid-length hair with a pronounced widow’s peak. Her only flaw was a tiny question mark scar under her right eye – easy to cover with make-up, but she chose not to. She modelled a powder-blue trouser suit over a fawn blouse. Her wide belt, worn high, matched the blouse and was fastened with a large circular buckle. Her jacket, tailored to conceal a shoulder-holster, hung oddly because she wasn’t wearing a gun. That made her an American. So did the fact her title was ‘Special Agent’.

  She stuck out her hand to be shook, but he kissed it.

  ‘Richard Jeperson,’ he said, meeting her eyes.

  That spark was now a crackle. Richard felt his hair rise as if he were touching a Van de Graaf generator.

  She took her hand away.

  ‘Special Agent Gauge,’ she said. ‘Whitney Gauge.’

  Catriona slid elegantly off the desk and stood between them.

  ‘Special Agent Gauge is with a Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

  Richard caught the use of the indefinite article. By decades of self-serving flackery, J. Edgar Hoover made the world think there was only one FBI. Actually, Hoover was merely Director of the Bureau of Investigation of the United States Department of Justice. At least a dozen other arms of government had investigative divisions which operated across state-lines, and were thus officially Federal Bureaux of Investigation, among them the Treasury, the Alcohol and Tobacco Overseers, the Internal Revenue Service, the Commission of Major League Baseball and whatever misleading title Whitney Gauge’s superiors (‘the Unnameables’ in spook circles) put on letterheads if they ever sent letters. Alone among overlooked investigators, the Unnameables never grumbled about Hoover’s publicity-hogging.

  ‘You’re a long way off your beat, Miss Gauge. Or is it Mrs Gauge?’

  ‘It’s Special Agent Gauge,’ she said.

  Richard detected a tiny crack of smile.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ said Catriona, ‘and Assistant Director Spilsby has sent our friend to sit in. It involves the moon.’

  ‘So does everything this week.’

  Catriona arched an eyebrow. ‘Indeed. All the little boys want to grow up to be spacemen now. And girls, thanks to that splendid Soviet lady…’

  Whitney Gauge frowned, reddening her question mark in a manner Richard found curiously fascinating.

  ‘When I was a lad, I wanted to be a cowboy,’ he said. ‘Roy Rogers was my idol.’

  He mimed a fast double-draw and fired off his fingers at Whitney Gauge, blowing gunsmoke away from the tips.

  ‘I suppose you wanted to be Eliot Ness?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I wanted to be a ballerina.’

  She made an extraordinarily limber fast pirouette and froze, thigh and calf-muscles tight, with cerulean-painted toes – she wore open-toed sandals – hovering an inch from Richard’s Adam’s apple. After seconds, she broke the pose.

  ‘But I “overdeveloped”.’

  To Richard’s mind, Whitney Gauge had developed just fine. He knew better than to put it like that this early in their acquaintance.

  ‘If you young people have finished flirting,’ said Catriona, ‘can we get on with business? I’ve a transatlantic call with Edwin in half an hour, and he’ll need to know you’re looking into the threat.’

  ‘Threat?’ said Richard and Whitney Gauge, together.

  Catriona was apologetic. ‘More of a niggle. A loose end, though it flaps more than it ought and deserves urgent attention. Are you sitting comfortably?’

  Richard and Whitney Gauge were standing, but that wasn’t the point.

  ‘Then I’ll begin. Were you aware that a group calling itself the Temple of Domina Oriens circulated a petition to pressure NASA to discontinue the Apollo programme?’

  Richard looked at Whitney Gauge. They both shrugged.

  ‘Will you stop doing that,’ Catriona said, pettishly. ‘It’s faintly disturbing.’

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Richard and Whitney Gauge, together.

  ‘That. You’re long-lost Corsican twins. I fully understand. I nominate you, Richard, to keep quiet – indeed, to refrain from any gesture. Whitney, if you would respond, when necessary.’

  Whitney Gauge said, ‘Yes.’ Richard suppressed an urge to nod.

  ‘Now, if I may continue… There have, of course, been voices raised against space exploration in general and the moon mission in particular. Some argue it’s an obscene waste of money, when so many problems on Earth remain unsolved. Others worry about a military/political domination of the solar system by America. The Flat Earth Society fear a precipitous decline in membership. And so on. This week, for obvious reasons, the appetite of the press for moon-related stories extends to anyone who says anything, positive or negative, about the Apollo mission. The High Priestess of the Temple of Domina Oriens – which is in Clerkenwell, by the way – holds the moon sacred, and claims setting a foot on her soil is like defiling a vestal virgin. She isn’t in favour of that.’

  ‘Who is this High Priestess and how large is her congregation?’ asked Whitney Gauge.

  ‘She is called Luna Selene Moon—’

  ‘That’s like being named Moon Moon Moon,’ put in Richard.

  ‘—which, as Richard has helpfully pointed out, is gilding the lily. She was born Bridget Gail Tully. It could have been worse. She could have called herself “June Bassoon Moon”.’

  ‘Or Luna Ticwitch?’ Richard ventured.

  Whitney Gauge giggled.

  ‘Very amusing, Richard,’ said Catriona. ‘Now, if you’d pay attention in class, here’s what we have on the silly goose.’

  Catriona handed Richard a sheaf of photographs and press cuttings. After a riffle, he passed the folder to Whitney Gauge, who gave the documents a similar quick glance. The earliest pictures were sepia studies of a long-nosed thin girl in a see-through shift.

  ‘She was an artists’ model just after the War, then turned painter. You can guess her favoured subject.’

  A glossy catalogue contained miniature representations of samey pictures.

  ‘She calls them “moonscapes”, but they look like fairy pictures to me,’ said Catriona. ‘The Diogenes Club has had several unpleasant involvements with the little folk.’

  In recent press photographs, which went with ‘silly season’ stories about Miss Moon’s curse on NASA, the High Priestess was still thin and long-nosed, but wore more demurely opaque shifts. She had masses of white hair usually bound by a circlet with a crescent moon stuck to it.

  ‘The Temple is fair-sized as cults go, with a few mildly influential members. They’re on our List.’

  Whitney Gauge raised an eyebrow, exactly the way Richard would have if he hadn’t known what the List was.

  ‘We divide B
ritain’s home-grown occult groups into cranks, who aren’t on the List, and the potentially dangerous, who are,’ he explained. ‘By “dangerous”, we mean possessed of some sort of verifiable magic resources. You dig?’

  ‘I grok.’

  ‘Children,’ snorted Catriona, amused. ‘The Temple haven’t got a record for human sacrifice or souring the milk or laming the Prime Minister, but they’ve registered a needle-flicker of power, especially recently. Phases of the moon, I expect. And Miss Moon Moon Moon began issuing veiled threats through the popular press. We’d let it go, except she’s suddenly changed her tune. For a few weeks, any hack in Fleet Street hoping to fill a puff piece could get an ominous quote from her about how the Apollo 11 mission was a sacrilege. Terrible would be the vengeance of the ravaged goddess, woe, woe and thrice woe. She came near as spitting to claiming responsibility for the Apollo 1 launch-pad fire that nearly scuttled the lunar adventure before it was started. Two days ago, the High Priestess shut up. Pulled out of appearing on something called The Simon Dee Show. A big protest outside the American Embassy has been quietly called off. One of the busy bees we have combing the cuttings turned up an old associate who is extremely interesting to us. In 1948 or thereabouts, Miss Moon formed a liaison with a Magister Rex Chalfont.’

  Catriona paused, as if the name might ring bells. It didn’t.

  ‘What do we know about him?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Catriona. ‘Not a thing. Just his name, and rank in academic sorcery. Which is wrong and impossible. I mean, we know everything…’

  Catriona was referring to the secret files of the Diogenes Club.

  ‘Whitney’s Bureau know even less about Chalfont than we do,’ said Catriona. ‘But they’re interested now. Enough to fly her over on a military aircraft and put her up at Claridge’s on the sort of expenses the Royal Family can’t claim. If we don’t have a dossier on Chalfont, information must have been kept from us. That is very, very difficult to do.’

  Richard understood that, as Chair of the Ruling Cabal of the Diogenes Club, Catriona Kaye know the birth-name of the tommy buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey, the present addresses of Ambrose Bierce and Judge Crater and why Borley Rectory burned down in 1939. Come to that, she knew where the woozle went, what songs the sirens sang and how flies landed upside down on the ceiling.

  ‘I am perturbed more by the apparent invisibility of this Magister Rex Chalfont than the High Priestess’ ominous utterances. For the sake of all our peaces of mind, it’s been decided you two should look up Miss Moon and see what can be learned about her old beau. Do you think you can do that little thing for me? Good. I’m glad. Call Hills and tell him when you can make a report. Better make it before “touch-down” in the Sea of Tranquillity… “Touch-down”? Ugh, what a word…’

  Richard and Whitney Gauge looked at each other.

  * * *

  Whitney Gauge saw his scarlet Peel Trident parked outside the Club and laughed. The vehicle had been described as a ‘flying saucer on wheels’.

  ‘How do you expect us to fit into that?’

  ‘If three astronauts can get into a capsule, two can ride in a bubble-car,’ said Richard. ‘Comfortably.’

  ‘They said I was too tall to be an astronaut,’ she declared. ‘The boys in NASA didn’t like being shown up.’

  He unclipped the fibreglass chassis and lifted it like a cutaway diagram, disclosing comfortable red leather seats mounted on three go-kart wheels.

  ‘I guess your Bentley is at home?’

  ‘I drive a Rolls, actually,’ he said. ‘Not very manoeuvrable in Central London.’

  The American woman looked up and down the empty Mall.

  ‘It’s not like this, usually,’ he said. ‘It’s as busy as New York, with politer beeping and shouting.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘This is a space-related anomaly, Miss America.’

  ‘You can say that again, Carnaby Street. At least you don’t have this thing painted up like a British flag.’

  ‘I considered the option, but we’re supposed to be a secret service. We try to exercise a little discretion.’

  ‘That explains the way you dress.’

  ‘You’re not exactly unobtrusive, Agent Gauge. Six-foot Giselles are scarce in these here parts.’

  She ducked and folded herself into the passenger seat, smoothed her hair and crossed her arms so they wouldn’t be cut off when the dome closed. With practised ease, Richard took the driver’s seat and pulled the chassis down. The Trident clicked together. The Plexiglas bubble-dome interior was scented nicely with Ô.

  ‘Pre-launch check, Major Tom?’ she said. ‘All systems go for take-off?’

  ‘Roger Charlie Chester Wilko.’

  He pulled the starter. The radio came on – more commentary from Florida. Apollo 11 had left Earth orbit.

  He pulled the starter again. The Zweirad motor turned over, purring like a tiger cub.

  ‘What do you call this roadster? The “Dickmobile”?’

  ‘She answers to “Nanny”.’

  ‘Very British.’

  The Trident picked up speed, zooming through Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square. A plague of pigeons took off in a rapid flutter. No tourists around to feed them. The only people in sight were a gaggle of drivers at the taxi-stand and a couple of policemen – all bent around a wireless cabinet, listening to news from space. Orson Welles would have loved an audience like this. At the top of his column, Nelson was probably lifting his good eye to the stratosphere and waving on the lunar mariners.

  Richard could get used to a city empty of traffic and pedestrians. Nanny was modified to his specifications, but he’d never had an opportunity to test her at top speed in an urban daytime environment. He thought he could at least double the ordinary Trident’s advertised 45 mph.

  ‘I suppose you drive something the length of a skittle alley with fins and an open top?’ he ventured.

  ‘I have a Tucker Tomorrow. Best automobile ever made.’

  Turning a corner into Charing Cross Road, Nanny lurched as one of her front wheels lifted from the road, tipping his passenger against him.

  ‘You did that deliberately,’ she said.

  He supposed he had.

  ‘Don’t do it again.’

  He was warned. On the whole, he thought Special Agent Whitney Gauge was rather fun.

  ‘So you abandoned promising careers as a ballet dancer and a space-woman,’ he said. ‘What else did you try before you signed with the Unnameables?’

  ‘I was a Mouseketeer. They took away my ears when I told Uncle Walt I thought his pal Senator McCarthy looked like Monstro the Whale from Pinocchio. I appeared in the first Beach Party movie, but quit because they wouldn’t let “the girls” surf. I can hang ten. Frankie Avalon can barely hang one-half. Do you even know what all this means?’

  ‘I speak fluent American.’

  ‘I passed all the NASA astronaut tests, except the one about not menstruating. Otherwise, Buzz Aldrin wouldn’t be Number Two on the moon, you better believe it.’

  ‘Are you Air Force?’

  ‘USAAF intelligence. Officially retired. Like you, a spook. I passed the other tests they ran at NASA, the ones with the Rhine cards and the spinning needles. You know what happens when you score high psi. I got seconded to, as I said, a Federal Bureau of Investigation. Where you’re famous, by the way. They teach a course about the Ghost Train you shut down in the 1950s. How old are you anyway, Mr Chips?’

  ‘Cheek,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know, Gidget.’

  ‘Of course, you have no memory of your childhood. It’s in the file. And nobody’s been able to find out who you really are. That gives you something in common with Magister Rex.’

  ‘I try not to think about it.’

  ‘Liar. I can tell when people lie. That’s not one of my tricks. Just a small-t talent. Comes from growing up near Hollywood agents.’

  ‘So what ar
e your “tricks”? Can you hard-boil an egg with your mind?’

  ‘No, of course not. Active Talents like that are incredibly rare. I’m a Reactive Talent, like you. A psychomancer. You’re an empath. That’s a weird combo, they say. Not advisable.’

  ‘You have feelings about things, I have feelings about people. Those ought to be complementary.’

  They were in Holborn now, whizzing down Theobald’s Road. A fish ’n’ chip shop chalkboard offered ‘moon’ rock and ‘loonar’ chips.

  ‘Catriona thinks we can work together,’ he said. ‘I assume Assistant Director Spilsby does too.’

  A pause. ‘I passed the immediate criteria for this assignment.’

  ‘Which was…?’

  ‘Being in the building at the time the alert came in.’

  ‘You have a duty rota? Intrepid agents ready at all times, like the Minutemen?’

  ‘Not exactly. I was in Spilsby’s office.’

  ‘Receiving a commendation after your latest victory over the forces of evil?’

  ‘Submitting my resignation after an eleven-month assignment to the reception desk.’

  ‘I see a pattern emerging.’

  ‘You would. While I was passing all those courses in the Top Three and qualifying as a field agent, do you know who my hero was?’

  Richard huffed modestly.

  ‘No, Oh-Oh-707, not you… Her, your chief. Catriona Kaye. In the States, the Boys’ Club won’t let a woman into the field. Here, she gets to sit on the board. And her record makes yours look feeble.’