The Tallyman

Universe: Fallen London
Date: 1897, July 11th


The evening was murky. It was always dark in London, but tonight was gloomy even by the standards of the Neath. The air was cold and the rain drizzled down from the unseen cavern roof high above. A shroud of mist swept through the streets, reaching out with ghostly fingers to caress the darkened stonework of houses throughout the neighbourhood. Down the length of the street ill-maintained gas lamps sputtered dimly with the last vestiges of life. A faint smell of ammonia and gunpowder hung in the air, perhaps the remnant of a battle amongst the rattus faber gangs. The barking of dogs resounded somewhere to the east. Above the roofs in the far distance, across the Stolen River, could just barely be glimpsed the ever-present arterial red glow of the Echo Bazaar.
A carriage drawn by two bay horses came to a stop halfway down the narrow street. A tall man stepped out, drawing his respectable grey trench coat closer around him to ward off the clammy cold and rain. Pulling his felt hat down to shield his face, he paid out a handful of pence for the coachman who sped off into the night.
The grey clad man looked down the street. He was alone, it was deserted. Almost deserted; the blue eyes of a midnight black cat were watching him from the shadows of an alley. He pulled his collar up and his hat further down to obscure his face, he would prefer if his errand here was to remain as unknown as possible. The cat turned tail and stalked back into the shadows.
The man looked up at the house before him. It looked entirely unassuming. It had four stories and was joined with the ones on either side. The entire row of houses was built from bricks the colour of ash. A small staircase led up to a door which was blank but for a pair of rusted copper letters showing this to be house number twenty-two of Cradlejack Street. The windows were dark with curtains drawn. It looked no more remarkable or enigmatic than any other such house anywhere in London. But he supposed that this was the point. It had taken him days to track down the address.
He walked up to the door and knocked twice. It was too late for decent company, but his contact had been specific, his arrival could be no earlier than the chimes hit nine, and no later than they struck eleven, only then would he be accepted. He waited for a while, consulted his pocket watch to make sure he really was on time, and knocked once more.
He heard footsteps on the other side of the door and it slowly swung open to reveal a girl in her late teens, wearing a plain plaid dress and stockings in sombre colours. Her dark hair was short and messy, and her complexion olive and freckled.
”Can I help you, sir?” Her tone was polite, but cold. He could tell she didn't much like the look of him.
”Yes, I am looking for the Tallyman. May I come inside?”
The girl looked up at him, her face impassive. ”There's no tallyman here. Goodnight, sir.”
She made to close the door, but the man placed his foot in the way and gently but firmly pushed it open again. He noticed the girl's left hand on the door, and that the middle finger was adorned by an iron ring with the crest of a stylized spider. Her face didn't change, but she reached out for something behind her, the man was certain he did not want to know what it was.
”My apologies, young miss.” He said delicately. ”I was sent here by the weasel-trainer of Ladybones Road. He told me to inform you that 'surface-silk is softer than ratskin, but whisper-satin is lovelier than either.'”
The girl scrutinised him for a long moment. Her eyes were topaz; they weren't glowing, but still reminded him uncomfortably of those of devils. Then she nodded slowly and opened the door fully for him to enter, and closed it behind him.
The foyer was sparse. Six coats hang off the wall, five of them grey; the second-to-last was white. He wondered if this was significant. At the end of the foyer was a door off to the right and a staircase leading up.
The girl turned back to him. ”Go up the stairs to the third floor. Enter the door on the left, the one with a diamond scrawled into the wood above the handle. Don't go into any other rooms, you have been warned.”
He nodded his understanding and did as he was bid. The stairs creaked loudly underfoot, some disturbingly so. It was an old and decrepit house. A strangely acrid smell hang in the air, as if after a lab experiment gone awry. On the left of the third floor was the door with a small diamond-symbol cut into the wood.
He knocked twice, and no sooner had he stepped back to wait before the door swung quietly open. It was dark inside, but for the flickering glow of candlelight burning somewhere in another room. A man silhouetted against the soft light greeted him. His face lay in shadow.
”Good evening, sir. Please, come in.” He said. His voice was soft and slow.
”You were expecting me?” The newcomer asked. There was something off about this man.
”I was expecting... someone.”
The newcomer made to take off his hat and trench coat, but his host stopped him. ”No, do keep those on. Discretion should be valued above social customs. Besides, they add to your image. Now, please, come this way.”
As he was bid, the grey-clad newcomer followed the man through the dim apartment into a large room with a single window on the far wall. It might once have been a study, but now it was clearly something else entirely.
The walls were covered in sheets of paper. Some were charts, drawings, or photos of London’s street and monuments; others were letters, or articles ripped out of newspapers and magazines, or pages torn or copied from old books. A few were sketches of strange-looking symbols that seemed to crawl and writhe when viewed out of the corner of the eye. If there was some hidden order or meaning to the miscellany it escaped him.
A dozen tables, armoires, and cabinets filled most of the room. Some were plain and could have belonged in the home of a common worker; others were ornamented, carved from dark hardwoods and probably worth a small fortune. Each piece of furniture was littered with an assortment of truly bizarre and enigmatic objects. Here was a collection of vividly coloured vials of liquid; there was a glass jar seemingly half-filled with dust or ash; and there stood a skeleton of what looked like a small winged monkey. Other items included a collection of open books – the pages of all of which were blank – a mirror framed in ivory which reflected another room, a fragile-looking instrument resembling a strangely curving flute, and many others besides.
Though he did recognise a few items. Here lay a fork of the kind spirifers used to extract loosely-tethered souls, and there was a wax-preserved human face that could only be a snuffer's mask. In the far end of the room was a stuffed, inky black cat with blue eyes that seemed to follow him across the room, and in the corner stood a cage housing a ghastly pale sorrow spider.
Illumination was provided by a dozen foxfire candles spread haphazardly across the chamber, and a fireplace with only smouldering embers remaining. An old, faded carpet with a strangely geometrical series of burn marks stretched across the floor.
A pair of comfortable-looking armchairs faced each other at the end of the room. As he watched, his host took seat in one and indicated for his guest to take the other.
The newcomer sat down and first then did he get a proper look at the person he had come to meet. He was in his early middle-age, with hair and beard neatly styled, and impeccably dressed in a handsome suit the exact shade of a blue rose at night and gloves of dark velvet. A gold ring crested by a spider adorned the middle finger of his left hand. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of opaque cat-eye spectacles, the gold-tinted lenses of which flashed eerily like remembered sunshine in the half-light.
The newcomer cleared his throat uncomfortably. He didn't like being here. ”Forgive my manners; my name is Salen Razikale, it's my pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. You are the Tallyman, are you not?”
The bespectacled man leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. A smile? A sneer?
”An obfuscating title, but yes, it suffices. What can I do for you, detective?”
Salen narrowed his eyes in suspicion. ”How did you know who I was?”
The Tallyman poured each of them a cup of tea. The detective took his reluctantly.
His host started sipping his drink. ”That is what I do. I know things. Isn't that why you are here? You seek knowledge of something... or someone.”
The detective raised his tea cup and drank a bit pensively. He recognised the sweetly fecund taste, honeyed rose-tea, likely imported from the southern reaches of the Unterzee, perhaps even the Elder Continent.
”Watch where you put those dirty fingers, you hairless ape! I have just been cleaned.” The cup said. The detective almost dropped it in shock.
”Ah, yes.” The Tallyman made a half-smile. ”Polythreme tea cups, they don't like it when you hold them anywhere but the handle. That particular one I got from a zailor at half price. He said it wouldn't stop insulting his mother.”
The detective very carefully put his cup down; he could have sworn that the floral patterns on the side formed a smug face. The Tallyman slowly sipped his tea; his own cup seemed delighted.
The detective tried to relax, before pulling out a photo from his inner breast-pocket and handing it to his host. ”This is why I have come.”
The Tallyman examined the photo attentively. It was dark, but showed a slender woman wearing some manner of close-fitting outfit that seemed to slip from memory the moment you looked away. All but a suggestion of an alluring face was obscured by a devilish fedora and the angle of the shot. A near-invisible cat stalked in her wake, its fur black as sin.
”Intriguing choice... very intriguing.” He glanced up. ”I was under the impression that you merely concerned yourself with mere criminals.”
”That would depend on my clients. But in any case she is a criminal.” Salen said.
The Tallyman sighed. ”Despite what you people may like to think, the world is more complex than merely criminals and law-abiding citizens. This is truer than ever since the Fall. The young lady here may not abide by the law, but she is something quite beyond a mere thief, or murderer.”
”But you do know her then?”
”Perhaps. You have chosen an enigmatic subject. I will require a payment in knowledge or memory.”
The detective nodded reluctantly, he had been told as much by his contact. What he had to do was against both the law and his own personal code. But this investigation had already brought him beyond both, and this might be his only opportunity to learn the truth. He pulled out a classified file about a case he had worked on as a consultant with the constables. It concerned the puzzling murder of a well-known poet nearly a decade past, one which had never been solved.
His host read the file through, thoroughly and repeatedly, as if committing it to memory. Then he picked up one of the books on his right-hand table. Leafing through the blank pages, he eventually found the one he sought. He pressed each page of the file against a page of the book, closed the book and laid it back. Then he handed the file back to the detective. Disturbingly, each page of the case-file was now blank too, as if someone had just wiped the ink off the pages. The detective chose not to inquire. He reached into his pocket to retrieve his notebook and pen.
”There is one last thing.”
The detective eyed the man suspiciously. ”Yes?”
”There shall be no record of this conversation, no notes. Anything you learn you must remember or forget, as is the way of secrets.”
He made to protest, this was too important not to write down. But something told him that this was not a negotiable request and denying it would mean that he might not learn anything at all. Reluctantly, he nodded.
The Tallyman examined the little photo once more, and then he casually flung it into the fireplace.
The detective leapt from his chair. ”What are you doing?! That was the only photo of her I had!”
The Tallyman just nodded calmly as it was quickly devoured by the kindling embers. ”Which was exactly why I did it. A secret is only as valuable as how hidden it remains. Without evidence, knowledge is all the more precious.”
Gnashing his teeth, the detective sat back down and took a deep breath. ”Who is she?”
Leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers, the Tallyman's face was impassive.
”Allow me to tell you a story...”
As he talked the time glided by; the candles grew ever so imperceptibly shorter, and the night beyond grew deeper as a few gas lamps sputtered and died. At first the detective interrupted and asked questions, but gradually he just listened, mesmerised by the story and the hypnotic sight of the light flashing in those golden lenses.
When the story ended the detective seemed unaware of the fact that he was shaking. The Tallyman was smiling enigmatically.
”Does this satisfy your curiosity, detective?” He asked.
“I...” The detective went quiet, and then rose from his chair. He didn't meet his eyes. ”Yes, thank you, sir, you have been most helpful.”
”May I ask a question of you then? For the sake of my own curiosity.”
Salen hesitated. ”Yes, go ahead.”
”Why are you investigating her?”
The detective didn't want to reveal it, but he also knew that it was not a simply request. He attempted to keep an inscrutable face. He failed. After a moment he sighed, for good or ill he felt compelled to at least give this little bit in return.
”A... friend of mine disappeared some time ago. I believe that she was involved, and I will discover the truth of the matter.”
The Tallyman nodded; his expression unreadable as a sphinx. ”I understand, thank you. But a word of warning, detective. This lady is both charismatic and intelligent, but above all, she is dangerous, you might consider giving up this endeavour. You could lose more than you realise.”
At last the detective met his eyes, or spectacles at least. ”This is something that I have to do, and I won't shirk it. But don't worry, I know what's at stake, I won't cross her if I can at all avoid it.”
”Be that as it may, but you now know things about her, things that she may not appreciate being known.”
”I value the concern, sir. But I don't plan to tell her I know.” Then he hesitated. ”I presume I have your discretion as well?”
The Tallyman grimaced at the mere suggestion. ”You have my word, detective, I won't tell her.”
”Good.” He nodded solemnly. With a last glance around the room he pulled his coat closer around himself in anticipation of the rain outside, and then left. The door made a soft click at his departure.
The Tallyman was silent for several long moments in the absence. ”I won't tell her.” He repeated to himself, almost as an afterthought. He walked over to the window, pulled the curtains aside, and opened it, watching the silhouette of the man leaving. ”I don't need to.”
”True to your word.” A soft voice purred. The inky cat with the blue eyes jumped down from the table where she had posed as a stuffed animal since the very start of the conversation. She stalked with steps of deepest silence across the floor and jumped up in the open window.
The man nodded graciously to her. “Give the Lady Delacroix my regards; it is as always a pleasure to work with her.”
”She’ll know before midnight.” The cat purred. Then she leapt out the window and disappeared into the darkness. The Tallyman gazed out after her, the mysteries of London reflected in his cosmogone spectacles.