With one last burst of courage, Captain Robertson swiftly slipped into the room, pistol raised, to find a figure by the window dressed in black as thick as the midnight sky. He was ready to open fire, but something made him hesitate. Unsure of whether it was his keen intuition or if he’d just been out of practice, Captain Robertson decided to go with his gut instinct and held off from pulling the trigger. After the confusing day he just had, he wasn’t sure if he could trust his own judgement anymore.
And oh boy, was he glad, for the figure dressed in black was none other than the Duke of Argyll, with his bright orange hair being the only splash of colour on his otherwise rather dull attire.
“Bloody hell! Put the gun down!” hissed the Duke.
Captain Robertson realised he still had his gun levelled with the Duke’s chest and quickly returned it to its holster, “My apologies, Mr Secretary. I’m rather on edge today.”
“Indeed. I’ve read the reports. It seems our friend, Mr Dame, hasn’t been entirely honest with us, doesn’t it?”
Captain Robertson didn’t answer but didn’t object either. It was somewhat true. He’d been running around with Mr Daim for nearly a month now, and everything he knew about him was dwarfed by what he didn’t.
“I believe it’s time you were filled in on what’s really been going on, Captain,” continued the Duke, “but first, why don’t you recount the events of the past few weeks. And please, don’t leave out any details, no matter how absurd they may seem.”
While Captain Robertson conversed with the Duke, Mr Daim was downstairs in his hotel room preparing the vial containing Spring-Heeled Jack’s residual aura. He started by removing the vial from the coat Captain Robertson had lent him. Unlike his companion, Mr Daim could see the aura swirling about inside, a light pinkish-red like the petals of a Damascan rose. He gave it a quick but gentle flick of the finger. Satisfied with how the pinkish-red vapour dissipated then coalesced, Mr Daim moved onto the second stage of the well-practised procedure.
Grabbing his battered old briefcase from the opposite side of the room, he unbuckled the clip and rummaged around inside. There, nestled between Hafez and Ghalib, was an old compass, so old it could be no younger than five centuries, with symbols whose meaning was remembered only by those who engraved them. Mr Daim carefully removed the crystalline glass cover protecting the glinting metal needle beneath, the only part of the device which hadn’t succumbed to rust.
It was really time Mr Daim got his hands on a new one; only this particular compass had been given to him by a dear friend. Or was it a lover? Truth be told, it was so long ago he couldn’t remember their exact status, but he could still feel the remnants of his affinity for this long-lost person and so opted to hold on to it. At least until it stopped functioning or fate forced him to part with it.
The final part of the well-practised procedure was the one which required the most concentration. Mr Daim placed the compass in the centre of the oak desk beneath the mirror opposite his bed. He looked into the eyes of his reflection, then down to the spangled inky hairs of his unkempt beard and decided he’d commit himself to a grooming session before bed, but first, he had to focus his mind and free it from the distractions of the material existence.
Firmly gripping the glass vial, Mr Daim began chanting in a language unknown to the Children of Adam. Continuing the incantations, he tightened his grip, shattering the vial into a thousand tiny pieces. The pinkish-red vapour tried to escape but was trapped by the prison of Mr Daim’s clenched fist, any small fragments poking through his fingers forced back in by the rhythm and tempo of his incessant chant.
The vapour suddenly expanded, engulfing the entirety of Mr Daim’s fist, the pinkish-red now a deep burning purple, but this didn’t interrupt the sweet melody of his tongue. With the vapour reaching a fever pitch, Mr Daim hurled it into the compass, firmly sealing it shut with the crystalline cover.
With nowhere left to go, the aura began aggressively swirling around inside the compass like the wheels of the steam engines back in India before being sucked directly into the compass needle itself. Only once all the vapour was consumed, the needle glistening violet, did Mr Daim cease his incessant chanting. He tapped the crystalline glass cover twice, and the needle began spinning rapidly before grinding to a complete halt; however, this time, it wasn’t facing the magnetic north but rather in the direction of his quarry: Spring-Heeled Jack.
Convinced everything was in working order, Mr Daim removed a bar of shaving soap and razor from his battered old briefcase and went about his long-overdue grooming session.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Captain Robertson’s jumbled thoughts were finally ordered into something a little more coherent. The mental fogginess plaguing him since he left Lahore for London had faded away, leaving him with a clear picture of events since he met the mysterious Mr Daim. Anything he couldn’t rationalise was packed away in a box labelled ‘lunacy’ and shelved into the deep recesses of his mind. He was just glad to finally have someone to talk to. Someone who’d actually listen to him and give him straightforward answers. A welcome break from the ambiguity of Mr Daim.
As it turns out, the Duke had been observing Mr Daim for over a year now. Rumours of an individual possessing extraordinary abilities had been circulating around Lahore for weeks in the monsoon of eighteen sixty-nine. Of course, these sorts of rumours were commonplace in India. Still, they had to be investigated should the individual in question utilise the superstition surrounding them to rile up the discontents. After the events of the Mutiny, the Duke wasn’t taking any chances.
He immediately put Mr Daim under temporary surveillance, as was routine protocol, until the size of the threat he posed to the British Raj could be determined. Expecting Mr Daim to be deemed a none-threat, it was quite the surprise when reports started piling in about a disturbance in one of the city’s outlying villages…
To be continued…
This is part of a larger series called Midnights in London