The Triforium Read online

  Butterfield looked again at the ghost who was holding his left side down. There was another face that he had to memorize in school. It was Sir Isaac Newton’s. Butterfield tried to pull himself free from the grip of Newton’s ghost by lunging to the right. As he did so, he came face to face with the specter that was holding him down on his other side.

  “Mr. … Berwyn?”

  The ghost of Charles Darwin smiled at Wallace and gave him a friendly nod.

  “Wally! So glad that you’re with us!” Reverend Poda-Pirudi announced from the table where he had been officiating. “Got a lot on our agenda today. Lots of justice to be meted out. But I’m sure that Newton and Darwin will look after you,” he said as he stared disdainfully at the two of them.

  Butterfield was stunned. He opened his mouth to say something, but Reverend Poda-Pirudi waved him off.

  “No time. No time. Would love to chat — perhaps later.” Then he frowned and glared at Artemisia. “Has the prisoner considered making her plea? Or should I add the additional charge of interfering with the course of justice? There is such a charge, isn’t there Bradshaw?”

  Dressed in a black robe with a barrister’s wig atop his blue head, John Bradshaw stood in front of the table and just to the right of the Reverend.

  “Well, the charge I think you are referring to is actually called ‘perverting the course of justice.’ It is meant for perjury or jury tampering, fabricating evidence — that sort of thing.”

  It was apparent by his demeanor that Reverend Poda-Pirudi did not approve of this answer. The ghost of John Bradshaw stopped the legal discourse and promptly executed a legal about-face.

  “But, after all, this is the highest court in the land. All precedence would naturally devolve from here. So, if it pleases the Old Soul — I mean if it pleases the Reverend Poda-Pirudi — such a charge is hereby entered into common law.”

  “Why Johnny, your understanding of legal matters never ceases to amaze me. And you’re right, it does please me.”

  He turned again to Artemisia. “Well, you’ve just heard from our legal scholar. He’s been practicing law for over three hundred years. Do you wish me to add this additional charge?”

  The Reverend then turned his attention back to Bradshaw. “Johnny, I assume that making up penalties is also within my purview?”

  “Why of course, Reverend.”

  “Good. Good. Artemisia, I’m now thinking of a particularly nasty penalty for interfering with the course of justice. Again, how do you plead?”

  Artemisia desperately wanted to speak. She was opening and closing her mouth like a fish gasping for air, but all she could manage to do was sweat. Hecuba again whispered into her ear and sounds started forming out of Artemisia’s mouth. “Gu…il…ty. Gui…lty. Guilty!”

  “Ah yes. I thought you were guilty all along. Please step over there with the others and await your sentencing.”

  As he said this, Hecuba tried to slink back to where she had been standing. The Reverend had had no need to hear any evidence yet because everyone was pleading guilty. It would just be a matter of minutes before he got to her, but she apparently wanted to prolong her arraignment for as long as possible.

  “No. No. Stay right where you are. Hecuba isn’t it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “It’s not sir, it’s Reverend, but that’s okay. No need for formality here, just a plea.”

  “Guilty, Reverend,” Hecuba said with a little girl’s voice.

  “Of course you are. Never doubted it. Now get along over there with the others.”

  Hecuba moved off and disappeared within the ranks of her all-guilty and now-defunct organization, which was bunched up in a semicircle one step below the High Altar.

  The dead monarchs were seated just above them. There were twelve of them. Butterfield had counted. He was hoping very much that what he was experiencing was a complete mental collapse. No doubt brought about by too much anxiety concerning coming up with some decent idea for a tower for this place. The notion that he was going through a massive nervous breakdown was somehow very soothing to him. It certainly helped explain why he was watching ghastly bluish forms of some of Britain’s most famous monarchs constantly change their ancient and bizarre costumes. Black satins turned into clothes of gold, which in turn became red brocades, which then became the deepest green velvets. Butterfield laughed audibly as he watched ruff collars come and go, as did farthingales covered with pearls and doublets studded with precious gems. Within a wink of an eye coronation robes of sable or ermine dissolved into the air, only to reappear a moment later in a newer, but still outdated, fashion.

  It was apparent to him that this was all part of some sort of delusional fit. The dead faces of Charles II, Elizabeth I, Edward the Confessor, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry III, Henry V, Henry VII, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Anne, and James I were staring at him. All, no doubt, symptoms of his craziness, maybe brought on by drinking too much of that absinthe stuff with Maeva. He chuckled again, thinking that this was all due to La Bleue Clandestin, and that he must have killed off a sizeable number of his brain cells with it.

  “Wally, please, you are interfering with this trial. Your laughter is distracting the jury,” Reverend Poda-Pirudi admonished.

  Butterfield nodded his compliance with a bold grin on his face. However, Butterfield’s ghost wasn’t taking things so lightly. For the first time in the ghost’s and Butterfield’s relationship, it was his ghost, and not Butterfield who was in absolute terror.

  Wallace was stuck in his high-back chair, held there by Darwin and Newton. He couldn’t turn left. He couldn’t turn right. He couldn’t see what was behind him. But Butterfield’s ghost could. Since their arrival at the Abbey, he had grown a little taller and needed merely to twist his head around to see well over the back of the chair.

  In complete disbelief, Butterfield’s ghost stared at the pews behind him. Except for the members of the court, everyone who had ever been buried at the abbey was seated there. Sir Lawrence Olivier’s ghost was seated in the front row. Next to him was the Unknown Warrior’s ghost. Next to him was the ghost of Father Benedictus. And so it went, one illustrious ghost after another: Ben Jonson’s, David Livingstone’s, Neville Chamberlain’s, William Pitt the Younger’s, Geoffrey Chaucer’s, George Frideric Handel’s, and so on, over three thousand of them … except for a one living person. Seated in the front row, next to the ghost of Tom Parr, was a teenage girl.

  It was a congregation of the dead, and they were moving through the costumes of their once-living hosts in full luciferase bioluminescence, winking off and on like giant florescent fireflies. But there was more to this situation than the dead being glow-in-the-dark, quick-change artists. They were angry, very angry, with Butterfield’s ghost.

  “Will the prisoner who calls himself, Mega Therion, Count Svareff, Lord Boleskine, Great Prince Chioa Khan, the Great Beast of Revelations, the Baphomet, 666, and I suppose I’ve missed a few titles, approach the bench?”

  The ghost of Aleister Crowley scurried forward. He stood before Reverend Poda-Pirudi furtively clutching his hands while bobbing up and down, as though he was just waiting for the opportunity to get down on his knees.

  “I take it you are Mega Therion, Count Svareff, Lord Boleskine, Great Prince Chioa Khan, the Great Beast of Revelations, the Baphomet, 666?”

  “Oh no my lord! Those are just some foolish pet names the girls gave me. I’m sure that someone as important as yourself wouldn’t know my name.”

  “You’re the ghost of Aleister Crowley,” the Reverend Poda-Pirudi butted in as a point of fact.

  “Oh, so you do know my name. You do me such an honor. How can I be of service to you Old Soul, Great Phantasm, Spirit of Spirits, Shepherd of Shadows, the Shining One, the Bright One?”

  “Well, first of all by keeping quiet long enough so I ma
y ask you a few questions.”

  Crowley’s ghost pursed his lips and made a zip motion across the front of his mouth with a ghostly hand and nodded his compliance.

  “Good. How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?”

  “Of what, my lord?”

  “Of the attempted murder of Wallace Butterfield over there. Have you been listening to these proceedings?”

  “Oh yes. Yes. Yes. But I thought that I was here to bear witness against that vile cult of deranged women.” He nodded toward where Hecuba and her associates were standing. “I never dreamed it possible that I would be charged. I’m just another victim, like Mr. Butterfield over there. Those WITCHes summoned me against my will. They intimidated me so with their black magic that, against my better judgment, I divulged the sacred rights of Sekhmet to them. My participation was involuntary and more of an historical discourse. A lecture. I never thought that they would attempt to put any of what I told them into practice.”

  “I see. So you are entering a plea of not guilty?” The Reverend gave Crowley’s ghost a deep penetrating stare. He continued, “Of course the court is far more lenient when it receives an admission of guilt, but if you insist upon your innocence — the punishments that I can devise — I’m very creative, you know?”

  “Oh yes! Of course! Master! Forgive me!” Crowley’s ghost was on his knees before the bench frantically bowing up and down. “Guilty my lord! Guilty!”

  “Guilty are we?”

  “Yes. Yes. Most guilty. Repugnantly guilty. Reprehensibly guilty.”

  “Very good. I shall find you to be simply guilty. Now step over there with — I believe you called the ladies a ‘vile cult of deranged women’ — go stand over there with them.”

  As the ghost of Aleister Crowley crossed the sacrarium, Hecuba came forward to meet him.

  “The Great Beast of Revelations, my ass! You’re nothing more than an old tosser!”

  This caused Crowley’s ghost’s bluishness to pinken. He glided around Hecuba and hid himself at the back of the WITCHes, just as the Reverend brought his gavel down.

  “Quiet! I will not have any more disruption in my court. Bradshaw, how many more prisoners to go?”

  “Just one, Reverend.”

  “Oh yes … I see him on my list here. Wallace Butterfield, approach the bench!”

  “Me?” Butterfield said incredulously.

  “Why, yes, Wally. You.”

  “But I’ve done nothing. They tried to torch me!”

  “I’m more than happy to hear the facts but you must approach the bench. A plea must be entered. Now come here. Up. Up.”

  Butterfield didn’t want to move. He tightened his grip upon the arms of his chair, but the ghosts of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin broke his hold effortlessly. Hauling him to his feet, they dragged him unceremoniously across the Cosmati Pavement and up to the High Altar.

  Reverend Poda-Pirudi looked down upon Wallace from his judicial perch.

  “Well, how do you plead?”

  “Plead? Plead to what?”

  “Wally, do keep quiet. This is serious business. How do you plead?”

  “What am I supposed to have done?” Butterfield was losing his conviction that this was all just a stress-induced figment of his imagination.

  “If you must know, the charge is attempted murder.”

  “Murder of whom?”

  “Why of you my dear boy.”

  “There must be some mistake. They — those women and that blue thing tried to murder me. I certainly wasn’t trying to commit suicide by having them dose me with petrol.”

  “Wallace, this really doesn’t require your testimony. Please be silent. This is serious business. Johnny, what is he doing?”

  “Apparently blinking my lord.”

  The Reverend Poda-Pirudi stared into Wallace Butterfield’s eyes. “Odd. But of course, he hasn’t been born yet. Can’t talk, can he? Just blinking hey? That’s not much of a response. Not good enough you know? You see, I don’t speak blink. Bradshaw, what does it mean when the prisoner is silent?”

  “He stands mute, Reverend”

  “I can see that.”

  “No my lord, if a prisoner refuses to enter a plea it is automatically assumed that he is pleading not guilty.”

  “Wonderful! So we are going to actually hear some evidence. I’m so excited. You may return the prisoner to his chair.”

  Reverend Poda-Pirudi motioned to Newton and Darwin’s ghosts, who dutifully dragged the unruly Butterfield back across the marble floor. As they did so, Wallace Butterfield caught sight of the assembly of ghosts that were seated just behind him. Abruptly, he stopped protesting his innocence and began to scream again. As Newton and Darwin forced him back into his chair, they each placed a hand over his mouth.

  “Oh this is so delicious. We are going to have a trial. Johnny, will you please present the case?”

  “Why yes Reverend. What we have here is a conspiracy between the organization known as Women In Therapeutic Chemical Healing, the ghost of one Aleister Crowley, and the unborn ghost of the victim, Wallace Butterfield. The object of this conspiracy was to burn alive the aforementioned Butterfield at the site of Cleopatra’s Needle. The motivation being the release of Mr. Butterfield’s spirit, so that it could be interrogated by the now self-confessed malefactor Aleister Crowley incorporeal. Oh yes, there was some hocus pocus concerning the sacrifice of Mr. Butterfield to some ancient mythological deity. The prosecution is now willing to present a witness to this conspiracy. Miss Emma Ludshorp, a member of this coven and a polite and upright teenage girl.”

  “Those are outstanding credentials for a witness Johnny, do continue.”

  John Bradshaw bowed as a gesture to Emma who smiled back nervously.

  “To conclude, your lordship, Miss Emma Ludshorp was in a hallway, at the abandoned restaurant, Tipsy Dolls, in Mayfair and overheard all of these foul plans. With your lordship’s forbearance, the prosecution will now call Miss Emma Ludshorp forward to take the stand and give evidence as to the entire nefarious conspiracy, whereby Mr. Butterfield’s unborn ghost first suggested the murder of his host to the assemble miscreants gathered there. As you know, since you were involved in their arrest by our local constabulary, they all came very close to murdering Mr. Butterfield. I would also put forward that these deeds go beyond attempted murder, and that an additional charge of treason should also be entertained by your lordship.”

  “Treason, Johnny?”

  “Yes Reverend. Petty treason. As delineated in Parliament’s Treason Act of 1351: No one shall attempt to murder or actually murder his or her superior. It is primarily meant to curb wives’ acting unkindly towards their husbands, but I think it would be good common law to extend it to ghosts against hosts.”

  “Really? I was unaware of this. I haven’t been paying much attention to the newer laws — still boning up on Hammurabi’s Code, don’t you know. Well, if you say so Johnny. I’m willing to add this extra charge. But I don’t see any need to call the inestimable Miss Ludshorp to the witness stand. For one we don’t have one, a witness stand, that is. I suppose we could use the pulpit over there, but I really see no need. I’m sure that the jury doesn’t need to be inconvenienced by too much testimony. As I recall, when you were the presiding judge during King Charles’s trial, you missed the first three days of testimony. You didn’t need to be filled in on all that extraneous evidence did you?”

  “Ah, no my lord.”

  “Well, why should this court?”

  “No reason, my lord.”

  “Thought not. I guess the only thing we should consider is that Mr. Butterfield’s ghost gets some good legal counsel. Have we someone from our public defender service available?”

  “Why, yes, my lord. The spirit of Mr. Charles John Huffam Dickens is willing to t
ake his case on.”

  “Oh, this is very satisfactory. What sort of legal training does he have?”

  “It is my understanding that, back in the day, Dickens and Inspector Charles Frederick Field chummed around a lot. In fact, Mr. Dickens wrote several articles about him and even used him as a model for the character of Inspector Bucket in his novel — I’ve forgotten which one your lordship.”

  “It was ‘Bleak House,’ Johnny.”

  “Right, ‘Bleak House.’”

  “So he knows our chief investigator. Acquaintance with someone in law enforcement is as good as any apprenticeship one can get at the Inns of Court. He’ll do fine. Are you done presenting your case?”

  “I am, my lord.”

  “Well then, Mr. Dickens’ ghost front and center.”

  An elegant specter, well-tailored in a lint-free black frockcoat that refused to cycle into the numerous pieces of apparel that he had worn during his host’s life, stepped forward. He did not glide, but walked up to Butterfield’s chair, punctuating each one of his steps with an ivory-topped bog oak cane. There was a sense of purpose communicated in his gait, a deep profundity to his every step.

  The ghost of Charles Dickens was apparently still embarrassed by his thinning hair and wore a comb over, with the remaining hair on either side of his head brushed forward, to form a coiffeur resembling wavy blue wings. The mustache of his youth was gone. Dickens’ ghost chose to present himself in his later days, sporting a long wiry goatee.

  As he approached Butterfield, the ghosts of Sir Isaac and Charles Darwin both let go of their grip on Wallace’s mouth.

  “This is unfair! This is madness! Let go of me! Get me out of here!”

  Dickens’ ghost shot an angry look at both Newton and Darwin. They immediately recovered Butterfield’s mouth.

  Wallace choked and sputtered under their ghostly stifling as Dickens proceeded to lecture him.

  “You have been advised that this matter does not need your participation. I am here to represent my client, who so happens to be your spirit. I will not allow you, through these perturbations, to hamper the defendant’s case. It is impossible for me to have you removed from this court, but I shall do everything in my power to keep these disruptions of yours contained. Be silent, sir.”