Mr Lynch's Prophecy

by Evelyn James

  “Do you?” Tommy asked.

  “You know as well as I do, Tommy, that men who have suffered a significant trauma often blank it from their minds. Such amnesia is not uncommon,” O’Harris shrugged. “Does that mean he killed the woman? I don’t know. I think Peterson is the sort of fellow who would be so horrified by any violent act he committed, that he would not pretend to have forgotten about it. At least, that is what I used to think.”

  “Don’t start to second-guess yourself now,” Tommy told him. “Innocent until proven guilty, remember?”

  “It does look bad though, Tommy. The woman was lying there dead, the only knife was in Peterson’s back and he was covered in her blood. There is no sign of anyone else being there.”

  “That does not mean there wasn’t another person,” Tommy insisted.

  “And yet, Peterson does look to have killed the woman,” O’Harris could not get his thoughts away from that idea. “This was not how I expected to begin the day. I thought he had slipped away to hang himself or something. I was feeling bad enough about that.”

  “Don’t condemn him, or yourself, until you know for certain what happened. I mean, why would he kill this woman? Outside of him having a severe hallucination, there would be no reason. He didn’t know her, did he?”

  O’Harris shrugged.

  “And you said yourself he had never been dangerous when hallucinating before,” Tommy added.

  “No,” O’Harris agreed. “He had never been violent. My nurses all agree he is a gentle soul.”

  “Then hold onto that thought and don’t despair. Whatever the truth of this, Clara will find it out.”

  O’Harris let out a long sigh.

  “I do hope so, Tommy!”

  Chapter Five

  Professor Montgomery left Clara alone to peruse Professor Lynch’s papers. The box was restored to Mr McGhie, who hastily took it away to lock it up in his cupboard. He did not trouble Clara as she worked.

  The papers were in a dreadful muddle. They spanned over thirty years; from the time when Professor Lynch first came to the Institute, to his final days. No one had organised them, they had simply been packed up in boxes and deposited in the library. Among notes on the orbit of Saturn, Clara found a receipt for tea leaves and tobacco, along with a letter from the Brighton Public Library informing Lynch that one of his books was overdue. There were shopping lists and half-written speeches for public lunches, things that should never have been kept among the papers of a professor. There was a handwritten prescription from Lynch’s doctor, detailing two different medicines he wanted the man to try and a recipe for a herbal tonic at the bottom. She found adverts that had been snipped from the local newspaper for a variety of random items – a horse hair stuffed footstool; a medicine for baldness; two different brands of soap; a metal bath tub; and a small geology sample collection. They had obviously been important to Lynch, but had no relevance to his papers.

  Clara had to sift through this motley assortment before she was able to start working on the papers themselves. These consisted of observational notes, star charts, papers from lectures, papers that Lynch had written for academic journals, a variety of diaries (some personal, some detailing the movements of the stars) and a vast wad of correspondence, mainly to other astronomers, but also to friends and family.

  There were ten boxes of material and Clara had no option but to sort them all, as there was no guarantee that all the papers from the 1880s, for instance, were in one box. She acquired one of the reading tables and began making piles. Sorting papers first by decade, and then by type. She placed all extraneous items to one side. It was not her place to deem if they were important or not, but they were not relevant to her search and most were undated and impossible to place in a pile. It was not until she came to the eighth box to sort that she found anything of an astrological nature. Up until that point, everything had been solidly scientific with no hint of horoscopes about them.

  The box she found the astrological charts in was unmarked, just like the others, and gave her no hint of its contents. The papers were a muddle yet again and began with some material from 1893 on lunar eclipses. Just beneath those papers was a star chart that Clara almost overlooked – her eyes had stopped taking in information by now – until something made her give it a second glance.

  On the paper was a large circle, with a smaller inner circle drawn within its circumference. The outer circle was divided into twelve equal segments which bore the symbols of the zodiac. The inner circle was also bisected by straight lines which radiated out from the centre. However, these were not evenly spaced, so some of the triangular areas were bigger than others. Clara thought of it like uneven slices of a pie. There were further symbols in the inner circle, all along the edge where it touched the outer zodiac rim. Clara was not at first sure what the symbols were, until she realised one was in the shape of a crescent moon and it dawned on her that they represented the planets and stars of the solar system. These planetary sigils did not lie evenly across the chart, instead most of them were grouped to the top left, while three were scattered about the bottom right.

  Clara turned the paper over for a clue as to what the chart meant or when it was made. She was surprised to read the date 1840, written in ink on the back of the chart. There was also a date and time – 24 June, 1pm. It was the oldest paper in the boxes, and due to Clara’s limited understanding of astrology, she was not sure what it meant. Could it be that Professor Lynch’s fascination with astrology had a far older origin that anyone guessed?

  She was about to begin searching for more charts, when she became aware of someone stood by her shoulder. Clara glanced up into the face of a man in his fifties. He was portly and rather bald, but he had a very pleasant smile on his face.

  “I apologise for interrupting,” the gentleman said, looking slightly bashful. “I am Roderick Evans, the bursar at the Institute. I heard the Director had hired someone to look through Professor Lynch’s papers.”

  Roderick had a strong Welsh accent. He was looking at Clara with a hint of caution, as if he was worried she might prove to be a monster in disguise. Clara recalled Professor Montgomery had said the bursar was one of those who was keen to have Lynch’s box opened.

  “Clara Fitzgerald,” Clara introduced herself. “Nice to meet you Mr Evans.”

  “You must be the first soul to go through those papers in two decades,” Evans said, his attention drifting to the boxes of documents.

  Clara sensed his unease.

  “My understanding is that these have never been catalogued. They are not even arranged in date order. As you can see, I have been doing a little sorting,” Clara waved a hand at the piles of papers on the table before her. “Fortunately, the late Professor Lynch was very good at dating even his mundane documents.”

  The bursar looked along the length of the table.

  “Where those in the boxes too?” He asked, pointing at the pile of random papers Clara had sorted from the rest.

  “Yes. It seems whoever packed these up just placed everything into the boxes without considering what it was. There are receipts for hair oil, prescriptions from the doctor, a shopping list or two and some papers that appear to be quick notes that must have meant something to Professor Lynch, but are cryptic to me.”

  “I feel rather awful to think of the mess these papers are in,” the bursar did appear ashamed at what Clara had found. “They should have been sorted long ago. It really is disgraceful, but I am as much responsible as anyone else. These papers were placed here because it was felt they should not be lost, but then everyone forgot about them.”

  Clara smiled at him, trying to make him relax.

  “Why don’t you sit down and join me. I have worked through several boxes already and you can take a look at the papers I have sorted.”

  The bursar hesitated, though Clara was not sure why he was so anxious around her. He finally sat down on the opposite side of the table to her. He glanced at the nearest pile of papers whic
h was from the 1890s.

  “Oh, here is the official proposal for the replacement of our main telescope,” the bursar picked up a set of papers clipped together with a rusting paperclip. “Our previous telescope was no longer powerful enough. Professor Lynch outlined in this document why we needed a new one and sent it to all of our benefactors. We rely heavily on donations to keep running. I remember this paper so vividly, as it was all the talk among the staff. I wasn’t bursar then, of course, I was barely out of my student days.”

  The bursar started working through the papers and he seemed to find something that interested him with each one. For a while he was distracted, and Clara carried on with her own sorting process, hoping to find more astrological charts or any papers that related to them.

  Evans finally finished with his pile of papers and reached over for the astrology chart Clara had found. It was sat next to her elbow. He lifted it up and studied it, his forehead creasing.

  “I found that among some papers on the supposed composition of the rings of Saturn,” Clara said.

  “It’s a long time since I last saw this,” Evans said quietly. “Do you know what it is?”

  “An astrological chart,” Clara said.

  “Yes, but, more specifically?”

  Clara didn’t like to admit ignorance, but she really had no choice.

  “I supposed it was a horoscope.”

  “It is old Lynch’s birth chart,” the bursar did not gloat over Clara’s lack of knowledge. “This shows where the planets were at the exact time of his birth. The various positions are supposed to tell a person about themselves, their strengths and weaknesses and how they can improve.”

  “Then the date on the back is that of Professor Lynch’s birth, not when the chart was created?”

  “Yes,” the bursar studied the chart for a moment more. “Lynch became interested in this sort of thing in his later life. He would draw up birth charts for people, if they wanted. I never had mine done.”

  “Did Lynch’s interest in astrology begin when his health started to fail?” Clara asked.

  The bursar pulled a face as he considered.

  “I’m not entirely sure. It certainly increased as his sickness overtook him,” the bursar glanced shyly at Clara. “You have been asked by the Director to prove this box business is all nonsense. You must think I am terrible fool for believing in that box.”

  “I am here to give an unbiased opinion,” Clara replied, trying to reassure him. “It would hardly be productive of me to have already formed an idea. I am looking into these papers to see what caused Lynch to create this box and if there is any reason to take it seriously.”

  “Professor Montgomery is very sceptical, and I can understand that, had events not occurred to change my mind, I would have sided with him. But I have seen the power of Lynch’s predictions.”

  “Maybe you could explain that to me?” Clara asked.

  The bursar cleared his throat, slightly agitated.

  “Professor Lynch spent his last days working on horoscopes, they filled his every waking moment. People like Montgomery will say it was a desperate act of a dying man to give himself hope. I think he was trying to be as productive in his last days as he could be. He knew he had this power to make predictions from the stars. Lynch had finally understood the misjudged art of astrology after being critical of it for so long. I think he was trying to make up for lost time.

  “Anyway, the week before he died, he presented me with three astrological charts and detailed written explanations for them. They all related to my future. He had marked on them the year when the events would occur and said they were not a gimmick, but a way of helping me to face obstacles in my life. I didn’t truly understand just then.

  “The first chart was for the year 1909. Lynch’s notes described how in this year the planets would be aligned in such a way that a great shift in my career would occur and if I was quick enough to grasp the opportunities that came my way, great things would follow. It was in 1909 that the position of bursar opened up unexpectedly. I had never thought of applying for a clerical post at the Institute, I was content being a lecturer. But with the implication of the chart at the back of my mind, I decided to submit an application. As you can see, I succeeded.”

  “That was what first convinced you there was something in these charts?” Clara said carefully, not wanting to offend the bursar.

  “Yes. The next chart was for 1915. This one predicted that the year would be the worst of my life. I would suffer greatly emotionally and physically. I should prepare myself by being up-to-date with my work and expect to be called away from my duties for the greater part of the year,” the bursar continued. “It was not a very nice prediction and I ignored it right up until the final months of 1914, when I started to feel uneasy. I can’t quite explain it to you, but I felt a little ‘off’.

  “I decided to do as the horoscope suggested and worked hard to make sure I had no backlog of paperwork on my desk. I was in my office late so many nights and began to feel worse and worse. I had just caught up with myself at New Year’s 1914. The next day I became seriously ill. My doctor was rather stumped, but thought it was a complaint of the heart. He prescribed a great deal of bed rest, and I found myself having to neglect my duties as bursar.

  “I thought I was going to die, those first months of 1915. I felt so weak and tired of life. My body seemed to be giving up. To make things worse, just before Easter I learned from my sister that my only nephew had been killed in the war. My devastation cannot be described. That boy was the closest thing I had to a son and we had talked about him coming here to the Institute to study astronomy. The war got in the way, as it did for so many young men, and then disaster occurred.”

  The bursar fell silent as the hard memories came back to him and broke him a little all over again.

  “Lynch’s astrological chart had predicted it all,” he said at last. “I did suffer greatly emotionally and physically, but, by the end of the year, I was making progress and I recovered completely. My doctor still does not know what was wrong with me. Yet, because of that chart, I had made sure my office was in good order, my paperwork was all done and so my temporary absence was not as damaging as it might otherwise have been.”

  Clara could see how, on the back of such turmoil, Evans would become convinced that the astrological charts held some sort of power. Even if their predictions were rather vague. If the chart had specified that Evan’s nephew would die, or could have explained the nature of his illness and thus helped his doctor to heal him, she might have been impressed. As it was, it was like so many fortune telling scams – hazy guesses, easy to interpret in a variety of ways, and lacking in specific details. Clara did not say this aloud, however.

  “What of the third chart?” She asked.

  “Ah, well, that is dated for this year and it says that a great divide will threaten the place I am most fond of, and I must be strong in my convictions. You see, don’t you?” The bursar’s eyes lit up. “It is referring to the revealing of Lynch’s box and how it has put a wedge between those of us who believe in it and those who do not. As for being strong in my convictions, that refers to my new found belief in astrology, more to the point, my belief that Lynch had a gift for seeing into the future using the stars. I must stick to this belief, no matter what.”

  Clara held her tongue and did not point out that, as Lynch had prepared his box and given strict instructions for when it was to be revealed, his horoscope for 1922 would be easy to write. He knew the future, because he had planned it, he also had enough clarity at the last moment to realise his box would create tensions within the Institute.

  What Clara could not say was whether Lynch had believed in his powers, or whether this was some game he had played to test his colleagues. Maybe it was some long-drawn-out test of their gullibility he concocted on his sickbed. She needed to know more about the man behind the charts, more about Lynch and just why he fell into astrology.

  Until she did,
men like the bursar would continue to follow him doggedly, and potentially destroy the reputation and the future of the Institute.

  Chapter Six

  Captain O’Harris was agitated as they entered the hospital and asked if they could see Private Peterson. Due to the serious nature of the crimes Peterson was accused of, and the concerns about his mental health, he had been placed in a private room with a constable on guard outside. He was also allowed visitors outside the usual time, as the police would need to speak to him whenever they wished. Captain O’Harris had asked to be placed on the list of special visitors who Peterson was allowed to receive at any time. Inspector Park-Coombs, knowing how important this matter was to the captain, had agreed, and had also suggested adding Clara’s name to the list.

  The inspector was sympathetic to O’Harris’ plight. He had been at the opening of the Convalescence Home and knew its significance to both O’Harris and to the men it would help. He didn’t like to think that that would now all fall apart, but he was a cynic and feared that Private Peterson had condemned the captain’s grand schemes. In any case, O’Harris and Tommy were allowed to go upstairs to Peterson’s room.

  The constable on the door knew them both and gave them a sad smile as they approached. Tommy was beginning to feel a dread about the kind sympathy everyone was bestowing on O’Harris; it made the matter seem ten times worse. At least O’Harris was too much in a daze over everything to notice the policeman’s look.

  They entered the room and found Private Peterson lying on his stomach in the bed, his head turned to the left as he lay on the pillow. He had become hot beneath the blanket of the bed and thrust it back, revealing the heavy bandages around his torso where his pyjama top had rolled up.