The House of Rumour A Novel - By Jake Arnott Page 0,15

two armchairs by a table in the middle of the study. ‘Let’s sit down. I’ve been waiting for Naval Intelligence to make contact. I take it you’ve seen my file?’

Fleming nodded as he walked over. The Magician sighed and lowered himself slowly into his seat. A chessboard was set out on the table between them.

‘Yes,’ Crowley went on. ‘I’ve done the state some service. You know that there’s a long tradition of those with occult powers being employed in espionage. Doctor Dee, Queen Elizabeth’s court magician, was also one of her best spies, you know. She called them her “eyes”, with two circles indicating this and then a number. Dee was the seventh of her “eyes”, so his code sign was double-O-seven.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes. I suppose I’m secret agent 666.’

‘Actually your code name in the department is the Magician.’

‘Quite,’ said Crowley, slightly out of breath. He began to wheeze and pulled out a Benzedrine inhaler from his pocket, taking a sharp snort in each nostril. A tear lingered in the corner of one eye. ‘Sorry, it’s my wretched asthma,’ he explained. ‘Now look, my dear boy, since you’ve had a good look at my file you know that what I did for your department in the last war cost me dearly. Disinformation and all that, I know. Disseminating absurd German propaganda to discredit the enemy. Worked a treat. But rather cast me as the villain. Don’t think I can go through all that again.’

‘Don’t worry on that account. We’ve other plans for you.’

‘Good. All the scandal, my great notoriety, it’s ruined me. It’s not easy being the wickedest man in the world, you know.’

‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘I’m an undischarged bankrupt. Like our own great realm, I’m now dependent on American support for my survival. Oh yes, my own Land-Lease scheme. The Agape Lodge in California is providing some funds. Just had a charming letter from a new member in Pasadena. A very promising young rocket scientist, would you believe. Rather dashing, too, it seems. You see, my Order is already grooming my successor. I don’t have much time, I know that. The mind’s still sharp but the body, well.’ He made a plaintive gesture to the picture on the easel. ‘I want to finish this. Sorry if I sound pompous about it but it really could be my magnum opus.’

‘A pack of cards?’

‘Yes. A fitting epitaph some would say. To my sinful life.’

He bared his discoloured teeth in a rueful grin. There was sadness in his expression, but little remorse. Holding Fleming’s gaze with an unfocused stare, he started to address him in a direct and intimate manner, his voice soft and hypnotic.

‘You know, of course, that there was an eighth deadly sin, don’t you? Oh yes, the worst of the lot. The early Christians called it accidie, the sorrow of the world, a deadly lethargy and torpor of the spirit that was known to engulf whole villages in the Middle Ages. The most frightful devil of all is this noonday demon of melancholy. Boredom, my dear boy, a terrible vice, and the only one I have been truly determined to resist.’

Fleming suddenly felt as if the Magician was peering into his own soul, that he saw how disappointed he felt in life. All of its empty pleasures and futile plans of action had left him cold. He might be flippant and withdraw into a pose of detached superiority but he was endlessly taunted by the noonday demon, a sinful weariness of the heart. It was this that forced him to seek refuge in a solitary world where he plotted out his secret stories. That other life of obscure substance: the autobiography of his daydreams.

As he began to outline Crowley’s designated role in Operation Mistletoe, he found himself becoming far more expansive in his briefing than was usual. He had hitherto developed a method in the handling of agents where they would be carefully kept in the dark as to the overall nature of their assignment and fed information only when it was strictly required. But with the Magician he felt that he could tell him everything. All the details of this fantastical project that had been conjured out of unofficial and increasingly bewildering interdepartmental strategies of disinformation, counter-intelligence and black propaganda. It struck him that this supremely arcane intellect alone could truly comprehend the complex absurdity of such a scheme. And no one would believe him if he ever told the tale. Crowley was himself a cypher, a