The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 Read Online Free

then turned it slightly to his right. If the man got up to attack him, he would walk straight into the barrel. At which point, Quinn would squeeze the trigger.
    There was risk involved in this strategy. The man might not mean him any harm. He might simply be an odd cove. Also, someone else might get hurt. The innocent bystander so beloved of newspapers, although Quinn doubted the existence of anyone who was wholly innocent.
    Nevertheless.
    He imagined the screams and panic that would ensue once the lights came back on and he was discovered holding a revolver out in front of him. That was bad enough. It would be worse still if the gun had been discharged and some harmless old buffer lay stretched out on the floor, blood pooling around him. He had seen enough violently slaughtered men to know it was not a good way to start the day.
    Quinn returned the gun to its holster. There was a leather tightening around his chest. His heart beat harder, glad to have it back.
    The brief outing of fatal metal had gone unwitnessed in the darkness. And no one saw now which of their number gave out a burst of sharp, nervous laughter. No one could mistake it for the sound of amusement. It was the sound of a man on the edge of losing control. A dangerous hilarity.
    But this had gone on long enough, seemed to be the consensus in the compartment. Voices cried out, ‘ What the devil … ? ’ They disapproved of the loss of power. They were affronted by that laughter. The door to the carriage opened and a yellow beam projected from the gateman’s electric torch. As the beam licked wanly at their faces, Quinn saw that the man opposite was still looking at him. The direction of his gaze had not changed one iota. In the brief play of light across the man’s features, Quinn formed an impression of his age and character. He was not a young man. No. He was more or less the age Quinn’s father would have been, had he lived. Had he not taken his own life, that is to say. There was something set and determined about the face. As if it was held in the grip of a great and unchanging emotion. The torch beam moved on. The face sank back into darkness, but Quinn was haunted by it. A deep, perpetual frown was cut into the forehead. The lips were pressed together in a grim, tense clench. The emotion he had seen on the man’s face was unspeakably bitter. And for some reason it was directed at him.
    Quinn had the sense that if he shot the man now in the darkness, he would be doing him a great service.
    Steadfastly ignoring all enquiries, the gateman walked the length of the carriage and pulled down the window to communicate with the gateman in the next carriage. It was decided that he would do the same, so that a chain of communication could be established with the driver.
    Quinn had the sense that the darkness was enjoying itself now. And that the game it was playing was with him personally. Only he and the darkness knew the nature of that face. Only he and the darkness knew about Quinn’s careless gun-wielding.
    And only the darkness knew where both these secrets might lead.
    As unexpectedly as they had gone out, the lights flickered back into life. Newspapers were snapped back up in front of faces. Eyes flitted to find the points they had focused on before.
    It almost seemed as if the darkness had brought them together. Some level of communal feeling had been allowed by it. Now that light was restored, every man fled back into himself, as if from an unseemly spectacle.
    Quinn refused to look at the man. He stared at the dim reflection of his own face in the window opposite. It was blurred and hollow, almost featureless. The idea of a ghostly outrider came back to him. We are haunted by ourselves , he thought. And also sealed off from ourselves .
    If we cannot understand ourselves, what hope do we have of understanding one another?
    The gateman in the next carriage returned to pass on a message to their own gateman. Whatever the news