Edward Kane and The Voice of the Spider. Chapter 5: But Why There?
‘Remarkably clever, your man, Edward.’ Kane and Collins were sipping their coffee in the Advocates Reading Room. Kane smiled: ‘I must have missed that aspect, Collins.’ The other Advocate furrowed his brows: ‘I thought that it was quite ingenious. His view of the spider. An analysis that went to the very heart of our accepted jurisprudence.’ Kane shrugged: ‘I’m not sure that…’. Collins wagged his finger: ‘No, Edward, no. The example is instructive. The spider is proceeding along on familiar ground – well-known to him – and suddenly – without advertisement – a barrier is imposed – quite arbitrarily – upon his ability to progress. With a severe penalty for transgression. To cross the line of the circle – in this case – means death. And the spider does not know that. And then, when spider – inadvertently – even manages to obey the new law, he is still punished. The whole tale is an object example of the arbitrary exercise of power.’
Kane nodded and said nothing. In truth, he had stopped listening and was wondering if there was anything in the larder at home for supper. The conversation was interrupted by a Faculty Servant standing beside the table. Kane looked up: ‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen, but, Mr Kane – a letter has just been placed into your box.’
****
If eyes can be greedy, then the eyes of the young Advocate devoured the contents of the letter. From Blane and Urquhart. Another consultation the following day. But not, this time, at their offices. This time, the consultation was to take place at the glass factory on Salamander Street. At eleven of the clock. Kane looked up from the letter: Why there?’
****
‘But why there, Mr K?’
‘Do you know, Horse, I have been asking myself the same question.’
‘And?’
‘And – I have no idea.’
Horse got up. Kane asked: ‘Where are you going?’
The manservant made his way towards the wardrobe in the bedroom: ‘I’m gonna see if that light-weight jacket of yours in good nick, sir. Check it for moths. Them glass works. Going be sweltering in there, sir, with all them furnaces and such.’
Kane called through to the other room: ‘And what are your plans for tomorrow, Horse?’
No answer.
‘Mr Horse??’
A muffled voice: ‘Oh, you know me, sir – a bit of this…a bit of that, Mr K…’
Kane did indeed know Horse. Despite being a room apart, the Advocate heard something in the manservant’s voice. Something distinctly…what was the word…‘fishy’?
Hmmm.
****
Horse had predicted that the glass foundry would be sweltering and – by jingo! – he was right! Kane stood there as part of that odd collection of visitors, an old lady in a wicker bath chair, a nurse, a solicitor and an Advocate. He stood there, attempting pleasant chat with solicitor Blane, but all too conscious of the droplets of sweat running down his neck under his wing collar.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kane saw a figure came running towards them. ‘So sorry, my lady…’. The group had waited a good ten minutes for the foreman, Boylan, to appear and here he was now – finally – out of breath, wide-eyed, in a state of some disarray, disorientated, his shirt barely tucked in (perhaps he had been caught unawares on what Edward Kane had heard his poorer clients call “the cludgie”). Had foreman Boylan managed to shave this morning? Difficult to tell under today’s dirty face.
Blane, the solicitor, smiled at the foggy foreman. ‘You will forgive our unannounced intrusion into your day, Mr Boylan, but her ladyship thought it better to pay a further visit to the factory…’. The foreman looked a mite put out until Blane continued: ‘… her factory, Mr Boylan, on an ordinary working day. Perhaps more representative of the operation of the works, rather than from that more formal visit of last week.’ He smiled: ‘I hope that meets with your approval?’ How could Boylan object? He forced a smile: ‘Of course. You will find everything in order – like clockwork, Mr Blane.’ Foreman, Boylan was careful to stand a distance apart from the group. Was that a smell of gin on his breath? He gave a low bow to the old lady, unusually silent on this occasion and brooding in that wicker chair like a decaying Egyptian sphinx. Boylan wiped his hand with a dirty rag: ‘Then, I’ll just give you the tour again, eh?’ Blane smiled, but his expression brooked no opposition: ‘No need, Mr Boylan – we know our way around now. You just get on with your work and we will call if we need you.’ Boylan stood motionless for a moment, then forced a smile of agreement to what was – in fact – a fait accompli.
It was an odd excursion, peopled by four very different characters: a uniformed nurse, an expensively dressed solicitor, a decrepit widow being pushed in a bath chair and an impecunious Advocate wearing a coat that had been recently and hurriedly stitched to disguise a number of moth-holes. They floated from area to area.
It was certainly the most curious ‘consultation’ that Edward Kane had ever attended. Drifting from place to place in a glassworks. The client, an old lady squirming in her chair and looking around her like a mole emerging from hole. And the heat. The overwhelming, all-encompassing, pervasive heat. A ‘consultation’ without being consulted. A consultation that more resembled taking a steam-bath while fully-clothed.
Kane – wiping the sweat from his neck – could contain his curiosity no longer. He sidled up to the solicitor: ‘Mr Blane – if I might?’ The solicitor smiled and they drew apart. “Mr Kane, I hardly required to be a fortune-teller to predict your question: what are you doing here?’
Kane gave a smile of relief: ‘What are we all doing here, sir?’
The solicitor nodded towards the lady in the chair: ‘Her ladyship requested your presence here. To be a witness…’
On Monday in The Scotsman: Too Much Iron in the Sand
Edward Kane and Mr Horse: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories. Available from Amazon and Kindle