Chapter Text
Something changed after Peru. Put it down to the humidity, or some mosquito-borne illness, or the eighteen days they spent sweltering in that godforsaken mountain prison waiting for death. Whatever it was, it rattled some of the sense back into Haddock. He put away the tailored suits and Italian loafers. He stopped wearing the stupid monocle and going to the theatre, and gave the horse away to one of the neighbours, who would take better care of it than he could have anyway.
“It was too much altogether,” he said to Tintin. “Enough to do your head in, really. All the fuss and nonsense—and the caterers! If I never have to host a dinner party again, it’ll be too soon.”
Tintin, too polite or disinterested to comment either way, closed his eyes and took a long sip of tea. Snowy was dozing away in his lap, tuckered out from his morning walk in the fresh countryside air. It had been a quiet few days at Marlinspike since the flight back from Callao, which suited Haddock just fine. Sunburnt, jetlagged, and thoroughly ridden with bug bites, at the moment, he would’ve sooner trekked through the Andes again than entertain visitors.
“And you certainly,” he went on, putting his slippered feet up on the ottoman, “won’t catch me wasting my time at that ridiculous variety show again. What an absolute farce.”
“Have you given up on figuring out that magic trick, then?” Tintin asked mildly.
Haddock made his displeasure known with a scowl and a testy hmph. Water into whisky—just who had he been kidding? Well, Bruno the Magnificent could go right to hell, along with the rest of those fruitcakes at the Hippodrome: Ragdalam the fakir, and Madame Yamilah, and Castafiore, and that knife-throwing lunatic Zarate, or Alcazar, or whatever his name really was. It was their fault, somehow, this whole nasty business with the Sanders-Hardiman expedition and the Incas. How exactly, he had yet to work out, but it was convenient to blame them, so he did.
Just as well, really. After Snowy’s little outburst in the box, not to mention that mortifying debacle with the prop bull’s head, he doubted any of them would’ve been allowed to set foot back into the theatre even if they’d wanted.
“I’m through with it, Tintin,” he said, and splashed some Loch Lomond into his own tea for good measure. “All of it. The shows, the soirées—everything. No more living the high life for old Captain Haddock.”
Tintin’s smile spoke more of relief than amusement. “Now you’re starting to sound like your old self again.”
Haddock wondered, which one?
Tintin folded over his newspaper and ran his thumb along the crease to press it down flat. He held his pencil between his thumb and forefinger, eyeing the crosswords with great focus while his free hand mindlessly stroked Snowy’s head.
Looking at them now, Haddock mused to himself, you would’ve never guessed that just the other week, they’d been trudging through the jungle, knee-deep in vines and snakes and God-only-knew-what. As the thought occurred to him, he reached under his sweater to scratch at a particularly stubborn cluster of bites just above his right hip. Damned mosquitos. There ought to have been a law against them, the man-eating pests.
“Enough about me,” Haddock said, taking a puff from his pipe. “How have you been getting on with your article?”
Tintin hesitated in answering, which was unlike him. Not the pause, but its duration—thoughtful, that was Tintin, even if his maddening habit of leaping before he looked had the tendency of leaving Haddock a wreck of frayed nerves. Indecisive, now, he decidedly was not. Haddock frowned, his pipe crooked at an odd angle.
“I haven’t written much of anything at all, actually,” Tintin said finally.
Haddock gave a short huff of surprise. That, of all the wild and improbable things he’d been witness to over the past few months, just about took the cake. The Tintin he knew had a mind like a steam engine, a prodigious thing that whirred away so constantly and furiously it was a wonder he managed to catch a wink of sleep at night. And now, for him to lounge about Marlinspike Hall like some unemployed layabout. Just what had the world come to?
“Well, a man needs a bit of rest and recreation now and then,” he said, with what he considered an appropriate measure of authority. “And God knows, with the way you keep running after trouble—”
“It’s not that, Captain,” said Tintin, even as his mouth tightened at the word trouble. “You remember the promise we made to the Incas.”
Ah, Haddock thought dimly. He leaned back against the sofa, his head swimming again with memories of that great stone city hidden in the mountains and its secret hoard of riches. Yes, that did complicate things somewhat. It had been bad enough with those blasted archaeologists poking about where they weren’t welcome, digging up temples and graves and whatnot as if they owned the damn place. One word in the wrong ear—or on the wrong page—and it was anyone’s guess what sort of chaos that might lead to.
“I don’t imagine your editor was happy to hear that,” said Haddock, returning to his pipe.
“No,” said Tintin. “But it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
Good lad, Haddock thought with an unexpected start of pride. How the world hadn’t stamped it out of him yet, he hadn’t the foggiest idea. But if men like Sakharine hadn’t managed it, then he wasn’t sure what could.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “The readers of Le Petit Vingtième will miss out on your brilliant trick with the solar eclipse.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it brilliant,” said Tintin. “Situational awareness, more than anything.”
Billions of blue blistering barnacles, Haddock thought indignantly. Tintin had saved his life, certainly, his and the professor’s alike, for which he would be forever grateful. But did he have to be so insufferably humble about it?
“Alright, you dunderhead,” Haddock retorted. “Go write an article on how you almost broke your idiot neck swinging across a waterfall, then. See how that sells instead.”
Tintin seemed to resist laughter. He scribbled something on his crossword, shaking his head to himself with a look that bordered on fondness. Better than the bare annoyance or even scorn Haddock might have expected before. Now that he thought of it, for all the hell they’d raised together the past few weeks, they hadn’t had a proper falling-out since that awful evening at the sheikh’s palace in Bagghar.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the camaraderie that came with almost being burnt at the stake together.
Then Tintin asked, “Did you ever lose faith in me?” and Haddock’s brain made a sound like a fork stuck in a car engine.
“Lose faith?” he repeated, as if having lost all command of speech.
“In prison, I mean.”
Haddock blinked. Just how exactly was he meant to answer a question like that? You couldn’t rest your hopes on a miracle out on the open water; friends or not, he couldn’t say he’d had faith in anyone or anything to begin with. Even knowing what he knew now, the whole scheme still seemed, frankly, absolutely cuckoo. If he was being honest with himself—he was making an effort these days—he’d gone to bed every one of those cold, miserable nights perfectly convinced that Tintin had lost the plot, and they would never lay eyes on Marlinspike again.
“I—lad, you don’t exactly make it easy,” was all he managed to say.
Now Tintin did laugh. Haddock felt himself relax back against the sofa, let relief settle over him, then cringed inwardly. Water into whisky. How easily he’d been taken by a stupid parlour trick. So why could he not trust the one person who had, so far, never let him down?
“At least Calculus is in good spirits about the whole thing,” said Tintin.
“Cuthbert?” said Haddock, grateful for the change of subject. He glanced over his shoulder, to the armchair where the professor usually sat on lazy afternoons like this with a book or newspaper in his lap. But Calculus was still tinkering with his gadgets in the shed-cum-laboratory, where he’d been since the early morning. Not that it would’ve made much of a difference either way. Almost a week they’d been home, and he seemed no more in the know than he had on the execution pyre.
“Of course he is,” Haddock said grumpily. It was downright infuriating, the ability some people had to move through life unwitting and unscathed. There ought to have been a law against that too. “The man’s as deaf as a pile of bricks. He wouldn’t know danger if it bit him in the backside.”
“You have to admit, it’s served him quite well so far.”
“Him, perhaps,” Haddock huffed. “And what a load of good it’s done us! Running off to South America like a couple of madmen. Eaten alive, half-frozen to death, then almost roasted to a crisp—and you don’t even get an article out of it!”
“Now, Captain,” said Tintin, almost chiding, “where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Sensibly left behind aboard the Karaboudjan!”
It was said only half in jest. Gangsters and crooks, that was one thing. That was flesh and blood, the sort of mundane human madness he could make some sense of. Magic, voodoo, the occult—whatever you called it—that was something else entirely. Not for the likes of a Haddock, at least.
“I’ll tell you this now,” he said, punctuating his point with a sharp jab from his pipe. “The next time Calculus decides to get himself tangled up in some supernatural conspiracy, I’m not traipsing halfway across the globe to save his sorry neck.”
But he said it with a sinking pang of guilt, remembering the Temple of the Sun, and how perilously close they had come to not having a Calculus to drive them mental at all. If he had come to any harm—well, to tell the truth, Haddock hadn’t even allowed himself to consider that. The thought of Marlinspike Hall without barmy, infuriating Calculus was simply unthinkable. By some strange trick of fate, he had become just as much a fixture of the house as Nestor, or Thaïke, or the roof.
At that moment, there came a long, low shearing sound, followed by a tremendous bang that shook the chandelier and sent the vases on the sideboard rattling. Snowy yowled awake and bolted under the coffee table. With a start, Haddock whirled around and threw the curtains aside. No sign of bombs or enemy aircraft. But across the grounds, where the lawn had been freshly seeded with rose bushes, the roof of the shed spewed thick clouds of black smoke, and the door swung crookedly on its hinges. A dazed-looking Professor Calculus stood before the wreck, scratching the top of his head.
“By Neptune,” Haddock said, gripping the armrest to stave off his rage. “I’ll wring that man’s neck one of these days, I swear it.”
Tintin sighed tiredly and started from his seat. “I’ll ring the fire brigade. Again.”
Before the week was out, a wire arrived from Professor Tarragon inviting them to visit.
Haddock drove them up in his Lincoln-Zephyr, which, posh or not, was too useful to be gotten rid of. The gate was still crawling with armed guards, and as Haddock looked over his shoulder to the wooded road, he saw a tangle of barbed wire snaking over an electric fence.
“Thundering typhoons,” he muttered, stepping on the brakes. “Does he really need to keep up with all the pageantry?”
“Can you blame the poor fellow?” said Tintin.
“I certainly can,” said Haddock. “All the close scrapes we’ve had, and you don’t see me setting booby-traps at Marlinspike. It’s downright paranoid, I say.”
From the backseat, Calculus said, “No, I don’t think he’ll be annoyed to see us at all.”
After the gate, they were shown upstairs and into the study. The room still smelled faintly of sulphur, and at the far end, behind the shattered glass case that had once held the mummified remains of Rascar Capac, they could see a starburst-shaped burn mark on the wallpaper. Ball lightning, Calculus had called it afterwards, as they tidied up the wreckage from the storm. A rare and unexplained scientific phenomenon he had long tried and failed to replicate in his laboratory. And then, for it to come hurtling down the chimney and out of the fireplace like some unholy apparition from hell…
He-who-unleashes-the-fire-of-heaven indeed, thought Haddock, glaring daggers at the glass case.
A door opened, and a voice like a foghorn boomed, “Welcome, gentlemen!”
Tarragon was up and out of bed—against the doctor’s orders, no doubt—dressed in his day-things, just as stout and barrel-chested as Haddock remembered. The size of two men, and the volume of five.
“My dear Hercules!” said Calculus, throwing his arms open.
Tarragon laughed and embraced Calculus, clapping him soundly on the back. He looked well, Haddock supposed, for a man not a fortnight out of a coma. But a tinge of pallor still lingered in his face, and when he shook Haddock’s hand, his grip held no crush.
“Where’s your fancy suit, Captain?” he chuckled.
Haddock grimaced and quickly freed his hand. Still a smart-aleck. That much hadn’t changed. “Must’ve lost it in the jungle,” he said.
“It’s good to see you again, Professor,” said Tintin.
“Back from deepest darkest Peru, eh?” said Tarragon. He prodded Tintin in the chest, with enough force to make Tintin wince. “Will you be writing an article on that next?”
Tintin’s laugh was a little unsteady, and more than a little winded. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I don’t know about that.”
“We were all so relieved to hear about your recovery,” said Calculus.
Tarragon laughed, with less air this time. “You and me both, Cuthbert,” he said. “Did they tell you every member of the expedition came to at the same time? In the same ward, no less. You can imagine our shock, seeing each other’s faces again. We thought we’d properly lost our heads!”
He went on laughing to himself, then slapped his knee for good measure. A right comedian, Haddock thought. And to think, poor Calculus had suffered through his university years with this clown.
“Professor,” Tintin said measuredly, already on to business, “when you were unconscious, there were—well, brief waking spells, I suppose, where you appeared to be in great distress.”
That, Haddock thought, remembering the whole affair of howling and flailing limbs, was something of an understatement.
“The seizures, yes,” said Tarragon.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly do you remember?”
There was a tight, strained set to Tarragon’s jaw. He drummed his fingers against his desk, as if to distract himself. “Well,” he said. “I mustn’t lie, it was terrible. Endless torment, really. I remember fading in and out of darkness. Sometimes I dreamt that the Incas came after me with their spears and torches, and…”
Tarragon swallowed and let his words trail off into nothing. There followed an unsteady pause. Then he sighed, seemingly returning to himself.
“It’s over now, in any case,” he said. “And for that, I’m most grateful.” He leaned a hand against the empty glass case with a fond look. “But to tell you the truth, I shall miss this one terribly.”
Haddock swallowed. He couldn’t very well say he pitied Tarragon on that count. Not in the least for the fact that the sight of Rascar Capac’s body, with his terrible grinning skull, his knees bound to his chest, and his bones all twisted and blackened with age, still had yet to leave his nightmares. Looking at the glass case, he could hear the Inca prince’s voice again in the back of his head: These men came here like hyenas, violating our tombs and plundering our sacred treasures.
Haddock gave a little shiver. Nasty business, the lot of it.
Tarragon eased himself back into an armchair. “Now, tell me, gentlemen,” he said, with a look of thin bravado. “What sorts of excitement did you find on your travels?”
Tintin shot Haddock a quick look, his eyes alert and insistent. Haddock stopped himself just short of winking. For perhaps the first time since they’d met, he would not let his friend down. A promise had been made, and a Haddock never broke a promise. Least of all to humour a pompous, grave-robbing blatherskite like this.
“Miles of rainforest, mostly,” he said loudly, adopting a nonchalant air. “And more mosquito bites than I care to remember.”
Tintin smiled.
Tarragon chuckled. “Well, of course!” he said. “But I’m sure there’s much more to it than that.”
“Not really, Professor,” said Tintin, drawing out the lie just as smoothly as discussing the weather. “Though Callao was quite spectacular.”
“I could’ve done without the spitting llamas,” offered Haddock.
Calculus frowned. “What about your pyjamas?”
“Be plain with me now, gentlemen,” said Tarragon. A thin sheen of sweat dampened his forehead. “You must understand what I speak of. You were all there that night—you saw what happened. Surely you know the otherworldly forces that are at play here.”
Oh, did Haddock ever know.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Tintin said. “But there was nothing we saw in Peru that could give you any answers.”
Tarragon furrowed his brow. His hands dug fruitlessly into the armrests of his chair. “Nothing of the occult? The prophecy? Rascar Capac’s curse?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Zilch,” said Haddock. Was it wrong to enjoy himself this much? “Zip. Zero. Nada.”
Tarragon cast a helpless look at Calculus, who looked back quizzically, well and truly lost in the conversation. No hope of any answers on that end.
Dazed and hollow-eyed, Tarragon slumped back in his chair. “I don’t understand,” he said, holding a hand over his heart, and sounding almost out of breath. “Rascar Capac’s prophecy was fulfilled. I was struck down by his curse. And then, for every member of the expedition to wake from their sleep at the exact same moment, just as you returned from Peru…the doctors said they’d never seen anything like it. It makes no sense!”
Tintin smiled politely. Cheekily, even. Clever lad, thought Haddock. Thousands of miles away, he imagined the Prince of the Sun laughing to himself. “Well, Professor,” he said, “I suppose we’ll just have to chalk it up to a miracle.”