The Fatal Strand. Robin Jarvis

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      The rest of Neil’s morning was taken up showing Austen Pickering around The Wyrd Museum. The man marvelled at every room and each new display. He was a very methodical individual who took great pains to ensure that no exhibit was overlooked, reading each of their faded labels. Therefore, the tour took longer than Neil had anticipated, for the old man found everything to be of interest and had an opinion about all that he saw.

      Quoth found this a particularly tiring trait and yawned many times, nodding off on several occasions, almost falling from Neil’s shoulder.

      Whilst they were in The Roman Gallery, Miss Celandine came romping in, dressed in her gown of faded ruby velvet and chattering away to herself. The old woman was giggling shrilly, as if in response to some marvellous joke, but as soon as she saw Neil and the old man she froze, and a hunted look flashed across her walnut-wrinkled face.

      ‘Don’t leave me!’ she squealed to her invisible companions. ‘You said we might go to the dancing. You did! You did! Come back – wait for me! Wait!’ And with her plaits swinging behind her, she fled back the way she had come.

      Austen Pickering raised his eyebrows questioningly and Neil shrugged. ‘She’s not all there, either,’ he explained.

      ‘The vessel of her mind hast set sail, yet she didst remain ashore,’ Quoth added.

      Their snail-like progress through the museum was delayed even further by the ghost hunter’s habit of pausing at odd moments whilst he jotted down his impressions in a neat little notebook.

      ‘You never know what may turn out to be important,’ he told Neil. ‘A trifling detail seen here, but forgotten later, might just be the key I’ll be looking for in my work. The investigator must be alert at all times and record what he can. It might seem daft and over-meticulous, but you have to be thorough and not leave any holes for the sceptics to pick at. I pride myself that no one could accuse me of being slipshod. Everything is written up and filed. No half measures for me. I’ve got a whole room filled with dossiers and indexes back home up north, accounts and news clippings of each case I’ve had a hand in. It was the Northern Echo what first called me a ghost hunter, although … Blimey – would you look at this!’

      They had climbed the stairs to the first floor where great glass cases, like huge fish tanks, covered the walls of a long passage, making the way unpleasantly narrow. Neil did not like this corridor, for every cabinet contained a forlorn-looking specimen of the taxidermist’s macabre art.

      They were the sad remnants of the once fabulous menagerie of Mr Charles Jamrach, the eccentric purveyor of imported beasts, whose emporium in the East End of London had housed a veritable ark of animals during Victorian times. After both he and his son had died, the last of the livestock was sold off and a portion of it had eventually found its way into The Wyrd Museum.

      Stuffed baboons and spider monkeys swung from aesthetically arranged branches. A pair of hyenas with frozen snarls looked menacing before an African diorama, incongruous next to an overstuffed, whiskery walrus gazing out with large doe eyes. In the largest case of all, a mangy tiger peered from an artificial jungle.

      In spite of the fact that the cases were securely sealed, a fine film of dust coated each specimen and the tiger’s fur crawled with an infestation of moths.

      Shuddering upon Neil’s shoulder, Quoth stared woefully at the crystal domes which housed exotic, flame-coloured birds, and whimpered with sorrow at the sight of a glorious peacock, the sapphires and emeralds of its tail dimmed by an obscuring mesh of filthy cobwebs.

      ‘Alack!’ he croaked. ‘How sorry is thy situation – most keenly doth this erstwhile captive know the despond of thine circumstance.’

      ‘Your raven isn’t comfortable here,’ Mr Pickering commented. ‘I don’t blame him. The Victorians had a perverse passion for displaying the creatures they had slaughtered. Disgusting, isn’t it? Beautiful animals reduced to nothing more than trophies and conversation pieces. You might as well stick a lampshade on them, or use them as toilet-roll holders.’

      ‘I’m not keen on this bit, either,’ Neil agreed, pushing open a door. ‘If we go through here we can cut it out and go around. There’s more galleries this way – even an Egyptian one.’

      Leaving the glass cases and their silent, staring occupants behind them, they continued with the tour. It was nearly lunchtime and Neil was ravenous, remembering he hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day. But the boy wanted to show Mr Pickering one room in particular.

      Eventually they arrived at the dark interior of The Egyptian Suite and the old man gazed at the three sarcophagi it contained. ‘Not satisfied with parrots and monkeys,’ he mumbled in revulsion. ‘Even people are put on display. Is it any wonder the atmosphere is filled with so much pain?’

      But Neil was anxious for the man to enter the adjoining room, for here was The Separate Collection.

      Moving away from the hieroglyphs and mummies, Mr Pickering followed his young guide, but the moment he stepped beneath the lintel of the doorway which opened into The Separate Collection, he gave a strangled shriek and fell back.

      ‘What is it?’ Neil cried. The man looked as though he was going to faint.

      Mr Pickering shooed him away with a waggle of his small hands and staggered from the door, returning to the gloom of The Egyptian Suite.

      ‘Can’t … can’t go in there!’ he choked.

      Neil stared at him in dismay. He hadn’t been expecting such an extreme reaction. The man’s face was pricked with sweat and his eyes bulged as though his regimental tie had become a strangling noose.

      Blundering against the far wall, Austen Pickering’s gasping breaths began to ease and he leaned upon one of the sarcophagi СКАЧАТЬ