Chapter 3 in a proposed historical fantasy, The Death of John Polidori.
Previous chapter.
The door creaked as it cautiously edged inwards. The door had always creaked, but if any door creaked eerily, it was this one. I was often woken in the early hours of the morning by the door singing on its hinges. And it didn’t properly close, a one-inch gap thwarting my privacy. But it at least gave advance warning of an intruder, should I be perusing my collection of lewd sketches and prints acquired in France.
Detective Fielding put a handkerchief to his mouth as he surveyed me on the bed.
I concentrated all my efforts towards getting back into my body. Normally, the discovery that I was outside of it (a phenomenon that afflicted me just before waking) caused me to be immediately pulled back in, as if I was attached to my body by a string and had strayed too far.
But now my problem was the opposite. I knitted my brows and concentrated on reentry. I could feel the strands of attachment reaching out towards my solar plexus, my spine. But as soon as I thought I was close, a force pushed me back towards my desk, towards my poems.
Detective Fielding simulated a cough. He returned his handkerchief to his breast pocket and retrieved some gloves.
I tried once again tried to reclaim my body. I leapt upon the bed, trying to match my ethereal projection with my increasingly pale frame. Shutting my eyes, I imaged myself as sole inhabiter, possessor, progenitor and heir and owner of this – my own physical self.
Detective Fielding swatted at a fly crawling up my nose. I sneezed. Strangely, the irritation proceeded not from my supine body, but from my conscious ethereal form. The blast propelled me back to the desk, sending papers fluttering into the draft stimulated by this nasal emanation. Mr R– rushed around the room putting my poetry and the rest of my belongings in order.
Ximenes, The Fall of the Angels, and my essay, On the Punishment of Death, recombined in a neat pile on the floor.
“Mr R–, at what time did you discover the deceased?”
“Deceased? I am right here.” I marched in front of Fielding. Dearest Reader, I am not in essence a violent man. But when one is fighting for his life, extreme measures may be called upon. With all the force I could muster I cuffed Detective Fielding with an open right palm.
Detective Fielding lightly scratched his cheek and squinted suspiciously. He lunged at the suspected fly. This time his hand did not pass through me. The force of the lunge sent me spinning around the room like one of those whirlwind vortices. The sheets of unfinished poetry twirled into the air, creating a vortex of its own.
Constable Sedgewick tried to dodge the flying papers. He stumbled back upon the bed, upon my body. My hands sprung unnaturally around his waist, but not because they were animated by the force of life. Rather, the weight of Sedgewick pushed my body down into the mattress, which sunk towards the floor and snapped.
I had never had the good fortune to try this mattress out with a lady, so unaware if it could it support the weight of two bodies. The answer was now decidedly in the negative, at least for dames of a certain stature.
As Sedgewick rolled off the mattress he pulled my body with it, my leg locked around his flabby thigh. He ended on the floor with my six foot frame on top of him. Mr R– backed towards the door. And for the first time in my residency the door slammed shut, preventing any egress.
The poetical whirlwind subsided, leaving Mr R– leaning against the door in astonishment.
“Don’t stand there, help me!” Inspector Fielding rolled my body off Constable Sedgewick, who sat up rubbing his head. Sedgewick helped Fielding drag me to the wall and sat me upright.
This I observed from my desk, having spun to a halt next to it.
Inspector Fielding finished putting on his gloves. “I should have done this before I dragged that body.” He looked at me without emotion. “The weather is exhibiting signs of strangeness for the season.”
Constable Sedgewick and Mr R– looked at each other, hoping for confirmation that what they’d witnessed was merely an unusual atmospheric phenomenon. The puzzled looks each man returned showed that no such comfort would arrive.
They watched silently as Fielding rummaged through my pockets, found nothing. He began scribbling on some loose paper, cataloguing the items in my room, paying particular attention to the drug paraphernalia and alchemical apparatus, which were really one and same. He then collected all my notes and diagrams.
“No one is to disturb this room. Leave everything as it is. Mr Polidori is no minor persona. Things did not work out for him in the end, but that doesn’t mean tongues won’t wag.”
Mr R– stuttered before speaking: “His father, Gaetano…”
Fielding finished the sentence for him, “will want a clear account of the incident that preserves both individual privacy and family dignity.”
Mr R– nodded.
“My men will be by to collect any items deemed pertinent for the coroner’s investigation, along with the deceased himself.”
That was it. My status as a dead person had evolved. I was now deceased. I deconstructed the word in my head. De-ceased. Something that has stopped, like a clock, or a carriage stuck in Oxford Street.
Detective Fielding nodded towards my desk by example. He focused on the beaker and leant over for a very cautious sniff. “All deaths that are not by natural causes must go before the coroner.”
“The corronah,” slurred Mr R–.
Fielding packed away his notes.
“Excuse me, sir.” Mr R– picked up my quill and a page of Ximenes from the floor.
“Yes?” Fielding did not turn around.
Mr R– tentatively held the quill and the blank side of the paper under Mr Fielding’s emotionless gaze.
The detective looked down at it.
“May I,” Mr R– hesitated, “have your autograph?”
Mr Fielding sucked in his breath. “In God’s name what for?”
“You are related,” the paper shook in Mr R–’s hand, “to Mr Henry Fielding, aren’t you sir?”
Constable Sedgewick chuckled.
“Not that I know of,” Fielding almost spat the words out. He remembered his family claiming a distant connection, tracing their ancestry back over 300 years. It was more a tenuous hope with little correspondence to reality. “So you want to jump on the Fielding bandwagon? Well my parents named me after that old fellow alright, hoping I’d become a writer. But I take more after his brother, John.”
“That is mighty fine kind sir.” He held the paper hesitantly forward. “Inspector?”
“Detective,” corrected Fielding. He momentarily brightened. He took the pen and signed my copy of Ximines.
To be continued…