Francis Simnel was a pathetic old man who lived in a strange world of his own, a world of puppets and marionettes. His sister Agnes was a demoness incarnate, a female fiend in human form, a relentless, ruthless, driving force urging the old man to a macabre destiny. There was something different about Simnel's Puppets. They had personality and a realism that was uncanny. They bore a sinister resemblance to the newly-dead.
What began as the wildest and most improbable suspicion, crystallised into near certainty in the mind of Josephine Starr. She began asking questions, and the Satanists scented danger. She fell into a trap that had been set with diabolical cunning. Her life was balanced on a razor edge, with all the macabre resources of the Black Magicians weighing against her.
Release date:
July 31, 2014
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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FRANCIS SIMNEL opened the door with a hand that trembled slightly, as though the nerves and fibres were so used to manipulating strings and jointed wooden bars that they were incapable of rest. The palsy that afflicted Francis Simnel’s hand spread gently to his whole body, but it was a controlled trembling which did not seriously affect his movements. His pale, watery eyes blinked as he switched on the workshop light. The smell of sawdust and shavings assailed his ancient nostrils. There was another smell in the workshop, a mixture of glue and paint, with a soupçon of pine resin. Francis made his way slowly and shakily towards the bench and sat himself on a high stool. His old hands picked up a small, frighteningly human figure about eighteen inches high.
“Well, now, Johnny,” the old man’s voice quavered as he spoke to the little figure. The puppet looked back at him with tarnished black eyes that were, somehow, accusing.
“I’m sorry you got knocked about a bit,” went on Francis, “but then, you’re one of the stars, aren’t you? I’ll have to get Agnes to do something about your costume. You really must have another one. Can’t expect a man of your importance to perform in an old costume like that.”
Chuckling to himself mildly, Francis Simnel began re-securing the puppet’s arm and leg joints. There was something unpleasantly grotesque about the dismembered little figure, as it lay helplessly irregular on the bench. With infinite care and patience, Francis Simnel put the hooks and eyes into their sockets.
“There you are, Johnny! Now let’s see about your strings,” quavered the old man. He laid the puppet carefully on the bench and combed out the strings with his fingers. His hand came to rest on the underside of the control. The stout black nylon thread was beginning to show some signs of wear. “We’ll have to change this one.”
Francis Simnel patted the puppet’s head, as though the little doll were a living animal of some kind. Chuckling feebly to himself, the old man replaced the string that was wearing. “It’s done very well,” he commented. “You’re cheap to keep, Johnny, that’s one thing! Ah!” he grunted to himself, “I only wish Agnes was as cheap to keep.” He cocked his head on one side in a listening attitude. A footstep sounded outside the workshop door.
“Speak of the devil!” he muttered, and a troubled frown spread across his weak, septuagenarian features.
Agnes Simnel opened the door with cold, calculating precision and came into the room on long, angular legs. Agnes was unnaturally tall for a woman. Her hair, which was grey and mean-looking, was piled high on the top of her head. Her eyes were bright and penetrating, as though they were much younger than the rest of her. She stared about her with a kind of superior detachment and patronising hostility.
“Haven’t you finished yet, Francis?” Her voice cracked out in the workshop like a metal whip. The old man started up from the bench as though he had received a physical blow.
“I’m sorry to take so long with it. …”
“Your dinner is on the table.” Agnes came across and looked at the puppets that lay on the bench.
“That wretched thing needs repainting!” she said coldly.
“Don’t talk to him like that, you’ll hurt his feelings, Agnes, my dear,” protested Simnel.
“Rubbish! You’re getting senile, Francis!”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” the old man muttered to himself. “You don’t seem to understand my work. You don’t seem to take any interest in our show.”
“To me,” retorted Agnes coldly, “these puppets of yours represent our income, nothing else! I’m interested in their efficiency, their smartness and presentability in the same way that any good business man would be interested in the appearance of his shop.”
“That’s not the way to approach them at all. They’re like little people to me,” protested Francis. “Each one has a personality.”
“You talk the most sentimental drivel I’ve ever heard from an adult!”
Something that might have been a tear tried to form in the corners of the old man’s weak eyes.
“Your dinner will be getting cold!” snapped Agnes
Francis tugged characteristically at one side of his drooping moustache. He pointed to the puppet on the bench.
“Will you make Johnny a new costume?” he asked, weakly.
“He’ll have to have something!” retorted Agnes. “It seems strange to me how quickly they wear their costumes out.”
“It’s the wooden joints, you know——” began Francis pathetically.
Agnes sniffed derisively. She followed the old man out of the workshop and slammed the door with unnecessary violence. She stalked ahead of him on those hard, angular legs of hers and, looking at her sadly and helplessly, the old man got the impression that she was not really a woman of flesh and blood at all. She was a puppet, an effigy, that was operated by strings, or unseen wires… The thought struck him as being particularly horrible and macabre. Yet Agnes’ horrible coldness, the frostiness and rigidity of her personality, seemed to give her more in common with a creature of wood and metal than with a living human soul.
The old man sighed deeply as he sat at the table. Agnes nodded at the plate she had placed in front of him.
“Begin,” she said coldly. Francis closed his eyes and hesitated for a moment as though he was saying a silent grace to himself. Agnes sniffed.
“You’ve got religious mania as well, have you?” she demanded coldly. The old fellow shook his head, not only at her but at life. He was in a mood of deep self pity as he thought of what life had done to him. He thought of the still, pathetic, motionless figure of flabby little Johnny, lying on the bench, waiting for his new costume. Somehow, Agnes’ coldness towards the puppets hurt old Francis more than the woman’s coldness towards him himself. The little wooden man worked so hard, thought Francis. Now that the winter season was on he would go out with Johnny and Bimbo and the others, the wooden horses, the wooden reindeer, the puppet Father Christmas, and the puppet fairies, the dolls and marionettes that made up his show. They would dance and sing as he manipulated them with his skilful, shaky old fingers. Their voices would come out of the tape recorder and the amplifier in response to the pressure of his foot on the switch. He thought of the money that he and his puppets would earn. He thought of what would happen to it. What little appetite he had vanished as he thought. Agnes would have yet another new hat. Agnes would buy yet another thick winter coat, trimmed with fur. Agnes would equip herself with yet more dresses. Agnes would spend every penny that the old man could earn, and more. He would drag along in the same old suit. He would eke out his colourless existence on such culinary frugalities as Agnes cared to place before him.
“You’d better get on with your dinner. You’re just playing with the food!” The voice of Agnes, sharp as a razor, jagged as an old hacksaw, attacked his eardrums, and he twitched noticeably.
“I’m sure you ought to see the doctor, Francis! Your nerves are very bad indeed!”
“I’m all right, me dear. It’s just that the sudden sound of your voice startled me.”
“Rubbish!” exclaimed Agnes. “Your nerves are bad. You need a tonic of some kind. I don’t think you get enough exercise, that’s a lot of your trouble!”
“But I do—I have to keep on the move with the show, you know, my dear. It keeps me quite active.”
He smiled up at her pathetically, hopefully, like a dog that has come cringing to its master, wondering whether it is going to be thrashed. The spirit of Francis Simnel, could it have been projected as an animal symbol, might well have been projected in the form of a cringing dog. The potentialities were there. He was a man who could have scintillated, who could have been gay, charming and the possessor of flashes of genius. He could have been a dedicated artist in his own small, rather homely medium. … But he was none of these things. His world had been soured, embittered, diminished by this dragonlike sister, who had overwhelmed him and stifled his personality until scarcely any of it remained.
“You’re not attending to what I say!” The voice cut through his thoughts again. He blinked at her, with the weak, watery eyes.
“I was lost in my own thoughts; I’m sorry, me dear.”
“Daydreaming again! It’s a sign of senility, of course.” He sighed wearily. “Do you know that you have a show this afternoon?” she demanded.
“I didn’t know.”
“You are very forgetful.”
“I have been so absorbed in my work.”
“If you don’t pay more attention to what you are doing, you will be getting absorbed into the earth!” said Agnes meaningfully.
Francis Simnel shuddered. The idea of earth revolted him. The grim reminder which Agnes had just thrown at him with cold deliberation was a particularly unkind trick of hers. To talk to Francis Simnel about death was like taunting a cripple because he was unable to take part in athletic performances, or mocking a man with rheumatic hands because he was unable to repair watches. Agnes pressed home her advantage with shrewish triumph.
“You’re at Sullybridge village hall,” she said. “Lady Sullybridge is giving a party for the poor children of the village.”
“Oh, God!” muttered Simnel to himself.
“You should think yourself lucky that her ladyship decided to have you!” snapped Agnes.
“I’ve been to some of their ‘do’s’ before,” mumbled the old man. “Why didn’t you refuse the job?”
“Refuse money? You must be out of your mind, Francis! You know very well that we need every penny we can get. There’s my budget account at the milliners——”
“Budget account,” muttered the old man.
“What did you say?” she demanded.
“Nothing, my dear, nothing.”
“I should think not. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be in an old people’s home, where you belong! You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“No, my dear, I wouldn’t like that.”
“You couldn’t manage without me at all! You couldn’t cook your meals, see to the laundry, or anything. You take advantage of me, Francis. I come here and act as an unpaid housekeeper.”
“But I do keep you, my dear.”
“Yes, but in what a poor style! A woman of my quality shouldn’t have to consider money when she’s choosing her clothes!”
“I’m sorry about that,” replied Francis. There was a note of gentle irony in his voice.
Agnes was grinding home her triumph ruthlessly and relentlessly. At last Francis pushed his plate away.
“What time is the show?” he asked grimly.
“At four o’clock!” replied his sister. There was ill-concealed malevolence in her voice.
“Oh, dear, I shan’t have time to get fitted up. . .
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