Spring-heeled Jack and the President's Ring

Epilogue ~ Magnetron's Black Presage

"No doubt Grant would enjoy a certain measure of relief at the return of his ring, as did I, but a sense of finality eluded me.  Indeed, I felt as though I had accomplished nothing of note in weeks."

It was night, many hours after leaving home, and many miles of our journey yet remained.  The Luftigel's engines' drone was a comfort to me, but I was troubled and homesick all the same.

My motion that we stop in Virginia to interview Dr. Glockenholz was voted down in favor of embarking forthwith to our Presidential rendezvous in Paris, and thence to Southeast Asia, where we would visit Siam, Australia, and then China.  I desired very strongly that we steer for China first, so as to leave Pung to his own agendum there while we continued southeastward, but I was overruled on this point as well.  Pung's wheedling campaign had succeeded in persuading the other Hogalums to permit him to tag along on our travels.  It was also agreed over my strenuous objection that we would stay with Pung's family during a lengthy stop on our return route.

President Grant was touring central Paris when we arrived in France.  Rather than pursue him through the vast city, we elected to deposit his West Point ring with his security detail, which was attached to a naval vessel then moored at Cherbourg.  During his otherwise uneventful transference from civil to military custody, General Southwick struggled and writhed and threatened grave bodily injury to everyone within earshot.  He hurled empty threats and contumelious brickbats at the stony-faced young sailors who received him, and at their former Commander-in-Chief.  "Hrrrnt!  Butcher Grant will—hrrrnt—rue this day!"

Upon questioning, Southwick had pleaded complete ignorance with respect to Dr. Hogalum's death.  He claimed his only interest was in stealing Grant's ring—for purely selfish reasons—and that he had agreed to assist Compost with no foreknowledge of his evil plans.  Nevertheless, I felt I was beginning to unravel the mysteries surrounding the good doctor's demise.  In addition to burning down the patent-office and commissioning the theft of the Luftigel plans, Compost had unquestionably played a central role in murdering my dearest friend, with the perhaps unwitting assistance of Corbière and Glockenholz.

No doubt Grant would enjoy a certain measure of relief at the return of his ring, as did I, but a sense of finality eluded me.  Indeed, I felt as though I had accomplished nothing of note in weeks.  Boileau would not bother us again for many months, but apart from that stunning bit of luck, the fortunes of the Hogalum Society appeared disconcertingly less promising than in earlier times.

Boileau had said we lacked a leader, and Valkusian had replied that we had five leaders.  Nevertheless, I felt that—were he alive—Dr. Hogalum would have already devised a plan to rout Compost and Mangaliku, end the unholy tyranny of their spellbinding ritual masks, and thoroughly investigate the potentiality of another Luftigel at the disposal of the fiends of the League of Miscreants.  We would have been engaged in a titanic struggle, rather than these comparatively trivial errands.  Of course, I could not have known then that our heading would lead us into the single most intriguing mystery in the history of mankind.

As I looked out at the blackness of Central Asia, I was taunted by shapeless, imaginary malefactors, smothered by groundless trepidation.  Was this the work of Mangaliku?  Was I being driven mad by him, connected through some indiscernible supernatural conduit by which he might fill me with irrational fear?  Or were there other forces at work, also beyond my limited ken?  I would soon find out.

But that is a story for another time…