The Captain returned the can to the table and shook his head as one in a dream. None of it made any sense. What could the tramp be planning? What had been his motive in inviting the hated Crowley to the Mission? Certainly on his past record alone it could be expected that his motives were nothing if not thoroughly evil. None of it made any sense.
“Is all correct?” said a voice, jarring the Captain from his thoughts. “There must be no mistake.”
Turning, the Captain peered up at the red-eyed man towering above him. Never had he looked more imposing or more terrible, dressed in an evening suit of the deepest black, a dark cravat about his neck secured at the throat by a sapphire pin. His fingers weighed heavy with rings of gold and his face wore an unreadable expression.
“All is as you ordered,” said the Captain in a querulous voice, “though as to how I do not know, nor do I wish to.”
“Good, our guests will arrive sharp at seven thirty. They must be received in a manner befitting.”
The Captain chewed ruefully upon his knuckles. “What would you have me wear for this distinguished gathering?”
The tramp smiled, his mouth a cruel line. “You may wear the Royal Navy dress uniform which hangs in your wardrobe, the hire company’s label cut out from its lining. Pray remember to remove the camphor bags from its pockets.”
The Captain hunched his shoulders and slouched from the room.
When he returned an hour later, duly clad, the Captain discovered to his further bewilderment that the food had been laid out in the most exquisite and skilful manner, the claret twinkled in cut-glass decanters and the delicious smell of cooking filled the air. The Captain shook his befuddled head and consulted his half-hunter. There was just time for a little drop of short. He had lately taken to carrying a hipflask which he refilled with half bottles of rum purchased from the off licence. This seemed the only defence against the tramp, whose intuition of the location of hidden bottles seemed nothing short of telepathic. The two red eyes burned into his every thought, hovering in his consciousness and eating away at his brain like a hideous cancer. The Captain drew deeply upon his flask and drained it to its pewter bottom.
At seven thirty precisely a black cab drew up outside the Mission. The Captain heard the sound of footsteps crackling up the short path to the Mission door. There were two sharp raps. The Captain rose with difficulty, buttoned up his dress jacket and shuffled unwillingly towards the front door.
Upon the step stood Councillor Wormwood, wrapped in a threadbare black overcoat, a stained white silk scarf slung about his scrawny neck. He was tall, gaunt and angular, his skin the colour of a nicotine-stained finger and his eyes deeply sunk into cavernous black pits. Never had the Captain seen a man who wore the look of death more plainly upon his features. He withdrew a febrile and blue-veined hand from his worn coat pocket and offered the Captain a gilt-edged invitation card. “Wormwood,” he said in a broken voice, “I am expected.”
“Please come in,” the Captain replied making a courteous gesture. The jaundiced spectre allowed himself to be ushered down the corridor and into the dining-room.
The Captain took out the bottle of cheap sherry he kept in reserve for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“I see that I am the first,” said Wormwood, accepting the thimble-sized glass the Captain offered him. “You have a cosy little nest for yourself here.”
The sound of taxi wheels upon the gravel drew the Captain’s attention. “If you will excuse me,” he said, “I think I hear the arrival of another guest.” The Councillor inclined his turtle neck and the Captain left the room.
Before the Mission stood Brian Crowley. He was dressed in a deep-blue velvet suit, which caught the evening light to perfection. A hand-stitched silk dress-shirt with lace ruffles smothered him to the neck, where a large black bow-tie clung to his throat like a vampire bat. His shoes, also hand-made, were of the finest leather; he carried in his hands a pair of kid gloves and an ivory-tipped malacca cane. He raised a limp and manicured hand to the Mission’s knocker, which receded before his grasp as the Captain swung open the door.
“Mr Crowley,” said the Captain.
“Good evening, Carson,” said the young man, stepping forward. The Captain barred his way. “Your card, sir?” said the Captain politely.
“Damn you Carson, you know who I am.”
“We must observe protocol.”
Muttering under his breath Crowley reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a monogrammed moroco wallet. From this he produced the invitation card which he held to the old man’s face. “All right?”
The Captain took the card and bowed graciously. “Pray come in.” As he followed the effeminate young man down the corridor the Captain smiled to himself; he had quite enjoyed that little confrontation.
Crowley met Councillor Wormwood in the dining room. The Councillor took the pale white fingers in his yellow claw and shook them without enthusiasm. “Wormwood,” he said.
Crowley’s suspicions had been alerted. Surely this was a dinner exclusively for members of the Mission Trust to celebrate the centenary and the Captain’s retirement? Why invite that withered cretin?
It was only now that Crowley became fully aware of the room in which he was standing. Lit only by the two magnificent candelabra upon the loaded table, the rich gildings and embossings upon the furniture glittered like treasure in the tomb of a Pharaoh. Crowley’s gaze swept ravenously about the room. He became drawn towards an oil painting which hung in a frame of golden cherubim above a rococo commode. Surely this was a genuine Pinturicchio of his finest period? How could an elderly sea captain have come by it? Crowley had never credited the grizzled salt with any intelligence whatever, yet recalling his surprise upon receiving the invitation cards, he felt that he had truly misjudged this elder. The young man’s eyes glittered with greed.
“Will you take sherry?” the Captain asked. Roused from his covetous reverie Crowley replied, “Yes indeed, thank you.”
He accepted his sherry with a display of extraordinary politeness and wondered just how he might avail himself of the Captain’s valuable possessions. “I have been admiring this painting,” he said at length. “Surely it is a Pinturicchio of the Romanesque school?”
The Captain fiddled nervously with the top of a cut-crystal decanter. “I believe so,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“And the furniture.” Crowley made a sweeping gesture. “Surely fifteenth-century Spanish Baroque. You have some most exquisite examples.”
“It serves,” said the Captain, studying his broken fingernails. “Please be seated gentlemen, place cards have been set out.”
Crowley made a slow perambulation about the table, sherry glass held delicately in his pampered fingers. His eyes wandered over the display of food. “Why, Captain,” he said in an insinuating voice, “this is haute cuisine to numb the brain of a gourmet. I must confess complete astonishment, I had no idea, I mean, well, most worthy, most worthy.”
The Captain watched Crowley’s every movement. While his expression remained bland and self-effacing, his brain boiled with hatred for the effeminate young man. Crowley dipped a hand forward and took up a sweetmeat, pecking it to his nose to savour its fragrance. With a foppish flurry he popped it into his mouth, his small pink tongue darting about his lips. Almost at once his face took on an expression both quizzical and perplexed.
“Extraordinary,” he said, smacking his lips, “the taste, so subtle, hardly distinguishable upon the palate. It is almost as if one had placed a cube of cold air into one’s mouth, most curious.”
“It is an acquired taste,” sneered the Captain.