GRAPES OF WRATH

The cabal was further depleted. Mr Waverly was gone, though no one remarked on his passing. Mycroft again held the chair. Sir Mandeville Messervy sat quiet throughout the interview, face fallen. Whatever path Beauregard pursued in Whitechapel, he could never know of the secret campaigns his masters waged in other quarters. In Limehouse, the Professor had referred to the business of crime as a shadow community; Beauregard knew this was a world of shadow empires. He was privileged to see the veil lifted, if only at odd moments.

He recounted his activities since the inquest on Lulu Sch?n, omitting nothing of importance. He did not, however, feel obliged to report the matters that passed between him and Genevieve in Clayton's cab shortly before the attack by the vampire elder. He was still unsure in himself what precisely he had shared in that moment of intimacy. He concentrated on the facts of the case, elaborating on the details available in the press, adding his own observations and comments. He spoke of Dr Jekyll and Dr Moreau, of Inspector Lestrade and Inspector Abberline, of Toynbee Hall and the Ten Bells, of Commercial Street Police Station and the Cafe de Paris, of silver and silver knives, of Genevieve Dieudonne and Kate Reed. Throughout, Mycroft nodded intently, fleshy lips pursed, fingers steepled under his soft chins. When Beauregard's account was concluded, Mycroft thanked him and said he was satisfied with the progress of the affair.

'Since these letters, the murderer is generally known by the "Jack the Ripper" soubriquet?' the Chairman asked.

'Indeed. You never hear of "Silver Knife" any more. Whosoever devised the name must have some species of genius. The consensus is that he must be a journalist. The fellows have the knack for the memorable phrase. The good ones, at least.'

'Excellent.'

Beauregard was puzzled. So far as he could see, he had been of no use at all. The Ripper had murdered again. Twice, with impunity. His own presence had deterred the madman not one whit, and any involvement he might be contracting in Whitechapel hardly bore upon the investigation.

'You must catch this man,' Messervy said, his first words since Beauregard entered the Star Chamber.

'We have every confidence in Beauregard,' Mycroft said to the Admiral.

Messervy grunted and slumped into his armchair. He wrestled with a pill-box and popped something into his mouth. Beauregard suspected the former Chairman had suffered an indisposition.

'And now,' Beauregard said, consulting his half-hunter, 'if you will excuse me. I must return to Chelsea on a personal matter...'

In her mother's house in Caversham Street, Penelope would be waiting in her cold fury. Waiting for an explanation. Beauregard would rather have faced the Chinese elder again, or Jack the Ripper himself. But he had a duty to his fiancee, as solemnly undertaken as his duty to the Crown. He had no idea what conclusion their conversation would reach.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, as if surprised personal matters should enter into it. Not for the first time, Beauregard wondered what manner of men were set over him in the Diogenes Club.

'Very well. Good day, Beauregard.'

Sergeant Dravot was not at his post outside the Star Chamber. A warm rough with the weather-beaten face and knuckles of an old-fashioned pugilist stood in his place. Beauregard went down to the foyer and left the Diogenes Club. He emerged into Pall Mall to find the afternoon chilly and overcast. Fog was again gathering.

He should be able to get a cab to Chelsea. Looking about, he noticed the streets were thick with people. He recognised a thumping sound as a marching drum. Then he heard the brass. A band was coming down Regent Street. He was not aware of any formally announced parade. Lord Mayor's Day was nearly a month off. With irritation, he realised the band would make hailing a hansom difficult. Traffic would be disrupted. Penelope would most definitely not understand.

The band rounded the corner and marched down Pall Mall, towards Marlborough Street. Beauregard assumed they were zigzagging through the streets, picking up followers, aiming to congregate in St James's Park. The uniformed bandmaster marching at the head of the parade held up a giant flag of St George, the standard of the Christian Crusade. The thin red cross on a white background billowed as the band advanced.

After the band came a choir, mainly of middle-aged women. They all wore long white dresses with red crosses on their fronts. They were singing some version of the song that had been 'John Brown's Body' and evolved into 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.'In the beauty of the lillies, Christ was born across the sea,With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,While God is marching on...'

The crowds now pressed around on all sides. Most of the onlookers, and all of the marchers, were warm, but there were a few jeering murgatroyds on the pavement, brought out by the gloom of the late afternoon, flapping their batwing cloaks and hissing through red lips. They were outnumbered and ignored. Beauregard thought their mocking attitude unwise. Potential immortality was not actual invincibility.

After the choir came an open carriage drawn by six horses. Standing on a platform, surrounded by worshipful acolytes, was John Jago. Behind him came an orderly rabble with banners bearing holy pronouncements, 'Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Vampire to Live' and 'Holy Blood, Holy Crusade'. Amid these marchers struggled a couple of hefty crusaders who carried between them a twenty-foot pole, upon which was impaled a papier-mache figure, a vampire Guy Fawkes. The pole pierced its breast, and there was red paint splashed around the wound. It had red eyes, exaggerated fang-teeth, and was dressed in tatty black.

The murgatroyds fell silent for a moment. Beauregard knew there would be trouble. There were two mounted policemen in the street, but no one else with any authority. Warm people had flooded from somewhere. He could not move of his own accord, but found himself swept along with the march. Jago preached his usual hate and hellfire and Beauregard was pushed along beside his carriage. They swept down Marlborough Street towards the park. Once in the open, he could escape the crusaders.

One of the murgatroyds, a pale adonis with black ribbons in his golden hair, picked a handful of horse-dung from the gutter and flung it, with a degree of accuracy that betokened no little skill as a bowler, at the preacher. The ball exploded against Jago's face, browning him like a fakir. For an instant, between the notes of the marching hymn, the crowd was as frozen as a photograph. Beauregard saw burning fury in Jago's eyes, a mixture of triumph and dawning fear in the face of the murgatroyd.

With a cry as loud as the last trump, the marchers fell upon the murgatroyds. There were four or five of the new-borns. Dandified in their dress, effete in their gesture, spinelessly vicious, cold-hearted poseurs: they encapsulated every fault commonly considered to epitomise the vampire. Beauregard felt himself thumped in the back by people struggling towards the scrum. Jago still preached, inciting the wrath of the righteous.

There was blood in the street. Pushed down to his knees, he knew that if he fell underfoot he would be trampled. To have survived so much in so many quarters of the globe only to be killed by an anonymous London crowd...

A strong hand took his arm and hauled him upright. His saviour was Dravot, the vampire from the Diogenes Club. He said nothing.

'Here's one of them,' shouted a red-haired man. Dravot's hand shot out and smashed his teeth, whirling Beauregard away into the mass of people. As he punched, Dravot's jacket fell open. Beauregard saw a pistol slung in a holster underneath his arm.

He tried to thank the sergeant. But his voice was lost in the shouting. And Dravot was gone. He took a knock on the chin from someone's elbow. He resisted the temptation to strike out with his cane. It was important to keep his cool. He did not want more people hurt.

The crowds parted and a screaming figure, blood in his hair and on his face, burst through, tripping and falling to his knees. The murgatroyd's coat was ripped apart. His mouth split open, teeth coming through in irregular lumps. It was the murgatroyd who had pelted Jago. Crusaders held the vampire's shoulders and someone thrust a broken pole-end into his throat, jamming it down through his ribcage. Everyone fell back as soon as the spear was through him. From the pole fluttered half a banner: 'Death to...' The wooden spar missed the murgatroyd's heart. Although hurt, he was not killed. He got a grip on the pole, and started to draw it out of himself, snarling and spitting blood.

Beauregard could see St James's Palace across the road. People clung to the railings, climbing high to get a view. Straddling the top was Dravot, looking purposeful. Someone grabbed at his leg, but he kicked them off the perch.

The wounded murgatroyd ran through the crowd, screeching like a banshee, tossing people about like dressmaker's dummies. Beauregard was thankful he was not in the former fop's way. Jago shouted now, howling for blood. He sounded more like a vampire than the creatures he condemned. The preacher's arm went up in the air, fist raised against the Palace and the white-faced creatures behind the railings. In the hub-bub, Beauregard heard the unmistakable crack of a gun going off. A red carnation appeared high up in Jago's lapel. He fell from his carriage, caught by the crowds.

Someone had shot Jago. Looking again at the railings, Beauregard saw Dravot was gone. Jago had blood all down his front. His supporters pressed rags to the wounds in his front and back. The bullet must have passed clean through, without doing much damage.

'I am the voice that will not be silenced,' Jago yelled. 'I am the cause which will not die.'

Then the crowds burst into the park and scattered, spreading out like spilled liquid towards Horse Guards Parade and Birdcage Walk. Beauregard could breathe again. Shots were fired into the air. Scuffles were all around. The sun was going down.

He did not understand what he had seen. He thought Dravot had shot Jago but he could not be sure. If the sergeant had meant to kill the crusader, Beauregard assumed John Jago would be dead, brains spilled rather than blood. The Diogenes Club did not employ butter-fingered dead-eye marksmen.

There were more vampires around. The murgatroyds had fled, replaced by hard-faced new-borns in police uniforms. A Carpathian officer charged through the rabble on a huge black horse, waving a blooded sabre. A warm woman, shoulder slashed open, ran past, holding her baby to her, head down. The crusaders were losing their momentary advantage, and would soon be routed.

He had lost sight of Jago, and of Dravot. A horse sweeping past knocked him down. When he regained his feet, he found his watch smashed. It hardly mattered. The afternoon was over, and Penelope would be waiting no longer.

'Death to the Dead,' someone cried.