Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Read online

  The serving man pours me tea, and the clean bergamot scent uplifts me almost immediately.

  “Look, Gordon,” he says, “I hear a man died and you are saying that there is some sort of tiger or such nonsense on board.” He lets the little dog lick his fingers before he picks up a teacake and pops it in his bearded mouth.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Well,” he picks up his teacup and eyes me over its gold-ringed rim before he takes a swallow. “I sincerely doubt that a large cat did this. But I honestly don’t care whether there’s a leopard on board or not. I want you to find it and dispose of it.”

  “Sir?”

  “That is to say…find whatever did this—man or beast—and kill it. Before it harms anyone else. We’ll make a big show of getting rid of the leopard so that everyone will know they’re safe.”

  I swallow. The lapdog looks at me with disdain, and I notice the little red bows tied around its floppy ears.

  “Sir, let me see if I understand correctly. You want me to find something and kill it and make a big show of disposing of it, regardless of whether it’s the cause of the problem?”

  The captain leans forward. The little dog grunts in disgust and slides off his lap. “Do you know what happens on board a ship when mass hysteria takes hold, Major?”

  I do. And it doesn’t just happen on board ships. It can happen in barracks, in the jungle, anywhere people are enclosed.

  “People die, Major. Lots of people. We need to send a message to the killer that we will deal swiftly with such actions. I think you’re just the man to do it.”

  “Why?” I say.

  “This leopard thing was your idea. You find it and take care of it.”

  I suppress a sigh. “I will need access to the hold. Most of my things are packed away there.” Not to mention the storage crates where something—or someone—might hide. But I still believe, despite the captain’s doubts, that I’m right. I saw a large cat on the deck. The sailor’s wounds are the sort such a creature would make. “You should advise people to keep their berths locked and not go abroad at night,” I add.

  “Fine,” he says. “But I want this dealt with swiftly. The longer people feel unsafe, the more hazardous they become.”

  There seems to be no room for further discussion. “Yes, sir.”

  I dislike the way he commands me. I am not, after all, in the Navy or any other such marine division. He truly has no call to enlist me in giving aid. But he is right in that something must be done, and I will not shirk my duty to protect the citizens of the Empire.

  I have a gut-wrenching feeling that my solution may not be as neat as the captain would like it to be.

  After I leave his quarters, I return to the hold where the boatswain still stands, arms folded.

  “Let me pass,” I say.

  He shakes his head.

  “Captain’s orders, boatswain! Send the cabin boy to confirm, if you don’t believe me.”

  That seems to do it for him. He knows I wouldn’t say that unless it was true. He also knows he can find me if I’m lying.

  He grumbles something rather rude and deprecatory and steps aside.

  I venture down into the hold. I find a lantern secured in an alcove by the bottom of the stairs and light it carefully.

  Things have been re-arranged, crates opened. I poke around for a bit. There is nothing to suggest that my theory is true. But then, I’ve already begun to suspect there is more to this than anyone would guess.

  I can’t search everything right now, but I divide the hold into quadrants and search the first one. Nothing. No hair, no scat, no blood other than the dark stain where the sailor fell.

  I kneel down and place my hand against the cool boards. It’s early summer, so it shouldn’t be sweltering, but the stain is like ice. My fingers almost freeze to it. I draw back my hand, cupping my tingling palm.

  Whatever killed this man was not among the living.

  A ghost leopard? How is that possible? Naturally, I’ve heard of the Black Shuck in East Anglia and other black dogs that strike terror into the hearts of men. Never have I heard of this sort of thing in any other country.

  I remember the ghost of the woman kneeling over this man. I have only heard of fox spirits that can sometimes turn into beautiful women in China and Japan. They are reputed to have nine tails, which you can sometimes see even when they’re in human form. But I have seen no such thing with this ghost.

  I must know more about her. I must know why she followed me here. I must know if she knows why the leopard is haunting this ship. Could it be part of an ancient curse?

  In my things, there is a book from the Ministry Archives about the proper way to conduct a séance. I brought it knowing that ghosts might be a possibility in the old Imperial palaces, but never guessing I might actually need it to interrogate one about a murder.

  I find where they’ve stowed my trunk and unlock it. Everything is louder in the flickering silence. The thought that I am alone with a murdering ghost-beast possibly watching my every move is small comfort. In the jungles and palaces of China, at least I knew my enemy.

  The book is under a folded winter jacket that’s oddly heavy. As I lift it, the ginger jar slips out into my fingers. I remember that I meant to find it to begin cataloguing all the things I’ve collected. The book is beneath the coat. I juggle them both while securing and locking the lid, knowing that at any time the ghost leopard could pounce.

  Nothing pounces, though, and I manage to return the lantern to its place and climb the stairs without incident.

  In my berth, I lock the door. If I could possibly move the desk in front of it, I would, but the desk is bolted to the floor, like every other bit of furniture. Instead, I place my Wilkinson-Webley by my side on the bed. The light is fretful and my stomach growls, but I’m used to long, hungry nights. This one will be no different. Settling on the bunk with the book, I glimpse something in the flicker of the lantern I hadn’t noticed.

  On the ginger jar, a classic scene has been rendered in exquisite miniature. The roving mountains, the steadfast pines, and peaceful bamboo of Chinese literature are all present. It seems typical, and I’d not given the scene much thought since picking it up on my way out of the burning hall in the Old Summer Palace. But now I see a tiny, white-robed woman winding her way up the mountain path. On a crag above her, a leopard crouches, his tail sweeping down among the rocks. Her head is tilted as if she’s just noticed him, and I can make out the way horror crimps her features in just a brushstroke. Above them on the mountain are the tombs of the dead, where presumably she was headed before she encountered her certain doom. It is a stunning piece of chinoiserie, to be sure.

  I turn to the first page of the book. There is much mumbo jumbo about the evolution of the universe, the influence of the planets and so on. Eventually, I find that my eyelids are far too heavy. I put my hand down on the barrel of the Wilkinson-Webley to reassure myself. I don’t notice when the lamp gutters and goes out.

  Moonlight on water wakes me, and then I realise that I am still in my berth, still abed, with my hand on the gun. The book is heavy on my chest.

  I’m trying to get my sleep-crusted eyes fully open when the phantom thrusts her face toward mine. I scrabble for the gun and plaster myself against the wall, while the useless book slides off the bed and crashes onto the floor.

  “Ni shi shei?” she asks. “Who are you?”

  No one, I want to say. I am no one.

  “Charles Gordon. Gordon Zhongwen.” Chinese Gordon some people have called me because of my help with the Taiping rebels.

  She receives this information in silence. The room is freezing. Ice rimes the bedstead and I can see my own laboured breath. Fretful ghostlight flickers through her form. She turns her face away from me and for an instant, I see the spots and whiskers of a leopard.

  I gasp and the cold reaches deep into my lungs. I cough and she is looking squarely at me again, her eyes blacker than a starless night.

&n
bsp; “Ni shi bao,” I say. You are the leopard.

  She inclines her head.

  “Weishenme?” I whisper. Why? How?

  “In the Emperor’s court, a powerful general named Li Dajun became enamoured with me. He wanted me for himself. Shi kun rao…” She shakes her head as if searching for a word she’ll never find.

  “Obsessed?” I venture. I cannot believe I am having this conversation.

  She nods. “What I didn’t know was that Li also followed the dark path of gu.”

  Chinese black magic. Gu practitioners were said to be capable of breeding demon worms from which they decanted poisons so subtle and refined as to be almost untraceable. But that didn’t seem to be the case here. I had never heard of anyone being able to poison someone into becoming a ghost.

  “He waited for me on the mountain when I went to visit the tomb of my old master. He tried to make me break my vow to the Emperor, but I would not. Li used the gu to transform into a leopard. And then he devoured me.”

  I have to remind myself to shut my mouth. My fingers are loose on the cold barrel of the gun.

  “But he was not content with this,” she continues. “He ground my bones into his inkstone. He painted the jar with that ink and sealed my spirit. He made me into a guizi, a demon to serve him. As a leopard, I kill. As a ghost woman, I frighten people with my mourning.”

  She is very nearly weeping now. “Li’s son gave the jar over to the Emperor when Li died. The Emperors have kept the jar as an heirloom and as a weapon. I have begged them for centuries to break it. None of them would.”

  I can see why. A ghost assassin chained to one’s service would indeed be a powerful thing. And such an artefact might be useful at some future date to the Ministry, particularly in unwinding the occult practices of China’s dark mages.

  Perhaps the Ministry could recruit this spirit and seek her aid against our supernatural foes.

  I shake off the idea immediately. Could this ghost truly be controlled? I think about the torture our men suffered in the Imperial Palace and I wonder if not all of it was entirely done by physical means. Wouldn’t it be better to free her and spare our agents any potential harm? Recruiting a spirit into the service of the Ministry? Preposterous.

  “You want me to break it, don’t you?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “If I do this, you will harm no one else?”

  “Dui.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “More will die.”

  I’m reluctant, I must admit. It’s a beautiful, ancient piece of art, a bit of history that can never be recovered. The archivist would be head over heels for it.

  The captain had said that something must die to stop the deaths of others. The sacrifice of one ginger jar is both easier and harder than taking a life and making a show of a burial at sea.

  “Do it in daylight,” she says. “And throw the shards into the sea.”

  Then, without another word she is gone. The room warms by slow degrees.

  I look at the jar. It is a small price to pay, I suppose.

  I rise and uncap the ink bottle, dip in the nib, and open my ledger.

  I write at the top of the lined page in an unsteady hand.

  One Ming Dynasty piece of chinoiserie. Lost at sea.

  Panther Nights

  Glenn Freund

  Taken from the Journal of Edward Riches

  May 28, 1888

  I found another lumberjack killed last night. Upon inspection of the body, large gashes were found on his chest and arms. The wounds appear to be from an extremely large Jaguar or other animal. The odd part is that it looks like he did not die from his wounds but instead drowned. I am not a medical man, but I wonder if he drowned on his own blood. A horrifying thought.

  A loud animal cry was heard right before a man’s scream.

  May 29th 1888

  It was a rough night last night. Victor, my friend in camp was killed. We went our separate way after dinner, and before I got back to my cabin, I hear him scream. The sound went straight to my bones like a icy finger nail. Running, I got to him, but it was too late. I drew my gun and shot at the black mass that was over him, but it seemed to do no good, the monster just bounded off into the night. I am going to miss Victor. I will have one more drink for him tomorrow, and find this creature, and stop it once and for all.

  Belize, Central America

  June 15th 1888

  After arriving in Belize a little worse for the wear, Agent Flowerdew stepped onto land. Thinking to himself while departing the trade ship, Pirates. Pirates attacked us. What is this the bloody 17th century? As if navigating the reef wasn’t bad enough… he met with a familiar heat. After having been a field agent in Jamaica for years, Mathew Flowerdew was no stranger to heat. He dreaded the cold air of London, and tried to go back to the Ministry as little as possible, but he revelled in the heat of Jamaica.

  He had been assigned to Belize after Agent Edward Riches had disappeared. Riches had been making reports of men going missing from the lumber camps when the reports suddenly stopped. Never a good sign. Early briefs suspected that it was just the locals making another attempt to rid the coast of the British. After several nights of scouting around the camp, Riches had come up with the conclusion it was a monstrous jaguar. The reports had stopped shortly after.

  Flowerdew had not known Riches well. He was a gruff old man with a meticulous hand and a reputation as a crack shot. Riches had saved Flowerdew a couple of times when things got out of hand. He also had a penchant for women a man his age maybe shouldn’t have, and that penchant had landed him in trouble a time or two. His box of wedding rings was known all throughout the islands and Central American field agents. But out of respect, the local women didn’t. Over all, he was a superlative field agent.

  After being assured his cargo would be taken to the lumber camp, Flowerdew grabbed his gun belt, and his vibration blade machete, threw his bag on to the back of a cart, and jumped up to take his seat with the cargo for the journey to the camp. As the cart trundled along the road, the slow rocking and knocking of the cart combined with the gentle breeze coming in from the sea lulled him into a trance-like relaxation. The heady smells of the jungle added to this peaceful, soothing feeling, but the tranquillity was not savoured as he reflected back on his orders from Doctor Sound:

  Flowerdew,

  I need to you go to Belize and check in on Riches. He has been reporting on some disappearances in the area. Riches’ weekly reports have stopped however, and I need you to find out what is going on there. Check in on him make sure he is okay, or see if he found himself another ex-wife. If he has, inform him to desist such raucous behaviours immediately. There are worse places he can be then Belize. Places with far fewer women.

  Be careful, Flowerdew. Bring your full kit. We do not know what happened to him.

  Doctor Sound

  A hard jostle from the cart snapped Flowerdew out of his reverie, and he found on awakening, the jungle giving way to a clearing. Looking like a giant’s muddy footprint in the forest, the sounds of industry came pouring out into the clearing. Saws ripping. Axes chopping, wood cracking. Different languages and accents floating on the air. A strong smell of earth and mud filled the air as he approached the main camp.

  Hopping off the cart, Flowerdew sauntered towards the main camp building. As he approached, a mountain of a man emerged from the doorway.

  “Hello there! Foreman around?” Flowerdew yelled across the yard as he approached.

  He received a gruff reply of “Who wants to know?” surprisingly enough, in an accent of the southern US as the man looked Flowerdew up and down.

  “Mathew Flowerdew. I was sent from Miggins’ Antiquities of London,” he said, as he walked past the block of humanity that was standing next to the door of the main building.

  With the sound of the yard fading into the background, Flowerdew entered the main building. Giving himself a second for his eyes to adjust, he surveyed the interior of the room. I
t had a very modest arrangement with just a few desks and several long benches and tables. On one side there was a large desk covered in maps and piles upon piles of papers.

  “Boss ain’t in here” the human block replied, walking into the doorway. “He’s around back.”

  The man paused. “The name’s Zeke.” He extended his hand to Flowerdew, who couldn’t help but notice it was like hams had been tied together with fingers cut out. Calloused and hard, he had a surprisingly precise hand shake.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Zeke.”

  “Follow me.” Without another word, Zeke turned and went back outside.

  Walking around the building, Zeke pointed to a fellow who must have been a powerful man in his youth, with a strong square jaw and broad shoulders. However, time had stripped him away, deflating him like a cliff face after decades of ocean battering. He was wearing glasses as he looked over his work. Behind those glasses were eyes that looked like they were prone to smiling, and lines around his face.

  “He got a lot on his mind of late. He feels responsible for the loss of these men. He comes out here to think and take a load off.” And with that he walked back around the building, yelling orders to people to unload the cart in the centre of camp.

  “Hello, I am Mathew Flowerdew of Miggins’ Antiquites,” he announced, continuing the cover story that Riches should have established as he walked toward the foreman.

  “Oh! Hello. Come over and sit down. What can we do for you, sir?” The man seemed very distracted and slightly nervous.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Flowerdew said as he righted a log.

  “Bloody hell, I am sorry. Silvester, Silvester Bates,” he replied resting his axe on his shoulder and promptly thrust a large sturdy hand out. It looked like it had gone around the world and back, but had been back for several years.