Limekiller!

“Tidings of gret jye, Coptain,” a soft, soft voice wished him. He looked down and saw it was the half-hydrocephalic little cripple called, God knows why, Baron Benjamin. (Nicknames in British Hidalgo were a subject on which a thesis might be written: easy enough to say why a certain gaunt, pale missioner was called Holy Ghost and why a certain rough-skinned merchant was known as Mawmee Opple. but why was a certain clerk called “Mr. Mottram” to his face but otherwise referred to as Noncy-hahv-ah-behby-in-de-high grahss? go know.) “I am begging for my charity,” said Baron Benjamin. Limekiller reached into his pocket and found there a coin of two shillings, a fifty cent piece, still here if nowhere else called a florin; gave it to him, and, with a gesture, said, “Keep [meaning, guard] the boat;” and was off. Never so bad a boy or even so brazen a thief would risk the little Baron’s displeasure: “Me no want heem to give me ah bull-eye, mahn!”

Spy Glass Alley was not very long, and its end was quite ended by a great wooden barn of a building, the property of an ancient endowment and popularly called The Hall. Over its wide-open doors was a weathered sign reading, Society for the Promotion of Christian Evangelism, in large letters. Under this, in only slightly smaller ones: Make ye a joyful noise unto the Lord. To one side on a blackboard was chalked in colored chalk, St. Nich Day Dance Join the Funs. Limekiller heard the joyful noise, thought he might as well join: anyway, this was where Lelix must have gone. It was as good a where to go as any, and better than many.

Also about to enter were a man and a woman. Jack politely stepped aside; it was Neville. And Nicholine. Their faces, which had been fairly appropriate for Making a Joyful Noise, drew formally downcast as they recognized him. “Bad show, eh?” said Neville.

“Poor mahn,” said Nicholine.

“Who? What? eh?”

“Major Deak, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Was Neville going to mention the sad decay, the rapidly increasing ageable quality, the illness, the —?

“Ah, you’ve not heard.” Nicholine’s face grew rather cheerful at being arm-in-arm with a bearer of sad tidings. Neville took a deep breath. “Well, he’d said goodbye to Stickney Forster and me and Nicky, and as we were leaving, you know, we saw him start up the steps, and we turned away to stow our gear, you know, in the boat. And we heard him give this ghastly cry. And down he fell! We dashed up directly, but it was clear that he was quite dead.”

Jack at once said, “Heart attack.”

Neville pulled his nose. It was a long and very English-looking nose. “Don’t know about that, old boy. Praps. Been no autopsy. Yet. Broke his neck. Hmm. Quite obvious, angle which. yes. Dead.

“You know…”

And, laying their hands upon him, they passed on into The Hall with him.

Who was in there? Felix, of course. And Alex Brant. Dancing. don’t you know. Jack didn’t mind this anymore than he would have minded an ice-pick up his sphincter. Alex was his friend. Wasn’t he. And anyway Felix didn’t look as though she were terribly intensely enjoying it. Although neither did she look as though it hurt. Why shouldn’t she be dancing with, well, anybody? No reason at all. Though of course Alex was not anybody. He was a lecherous, treacherous son of a bitch. He was probably, among men, his, John Lutwidge Limekiller’s, best friend. Who immediately recalled Clair Hoffman’s definition, worthy of Ambrose Bierce, of Cuckold as Someone whose best friend has it in for him. Immediately after that at once noted and noticed the really impressive number of really charming women, ivory to ebony, who clearly did not equate the Promotion of Christian Evangelism with the wearing of a chastity belt: way they looked at him. Why not? He was certainly lookable, wasn’t he. What said Solomon the King? Rejoice, young man, in the days of thy youth, ere the evil days draw nigh. Was what. At that moment the music stopped. And as he began to look around with more precision, a voice which well he knew in British Hidalgo, and who did not? was heard speaking in a not unpleasantly penetrating tone.

Someone who was supposed to be everywhere at once (but had not been, Jack now realized, at Gallows Cave. and no wonder that for almost two hundred years folk had been somehow reluctant to call it by its necessary but nasty name; had called it’ by any other name sounding enough like it to identify it): “Ah, Mr. Jack Limekiller and where is your lovely lady, ah there you are me dear Mrs. Felix, hello me dear Alex! I can only stop a moment as I am due at a Convocation of the Grand Lodge of the Wise Men of Wales of which I am Titular Grand Wise Man —”

“Yes, Chief Minister.”

“Yes, Chief Minister.”