The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  “If that is soldiers, an’ him here…”

  Already four or five of the men had run silently from the room. Maclaren gestured to the women, and they moved to lift the unconscious man from the bed and wrap him in blankets. Before they could reach him, Darwin stood in front of them, his hand raised.

  “Hold this action, and your men, too. Maclaren, that came from the loch—from Colonel Pole. There may be trouble there, but it’s no danger for you or for your prince. If you want to send men anywhere, send them to the loch. That’s where help is needed.”

  Logic had spoken to Maclaren faster than Darwin could. He had recalled the cannon that Pole had brought with him and carried to the loch. He shouted a command to the men outside, then moved swiftly over to the figure on the bed. There was a new hopelessness in his expression, as though he was fully realizing for the first time the import of Darwin’s pronouncements on the future. He bent to kiss the unconscious man’s hand, then looked up at Darwin.

  “Ye are right about Colonel Pole, an’ my men will be at the loch in minutes. An’ if ye are right about this other, he canna’ be revived—ever. It makes no difference now if he is living or dead, if he remains like this it’s over. Our fight’s all over an’ done.” The despair in his voice was total. Darwin moved to his side and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “Malcolm Maclaren, I am truly sorry. If it will ease your mind at all, be assured of this: Prince Charles Edward departed this world as a conscious, thinking human the moment that he took that injury. If you had found a way to transport me here to Scotland the very day that it happened, I could have done nothing for him.”

  “I hear ye.” Maclaren rubbed a knuckle at his eyes. “The line is ended, an’ now I must learn to bear it. But it comes hard, even though I’ve feared that word all these past three years. It is an end to all hope here.”

  “So help me to look to those who can still be assisted. Bring lamps, and let us go down to the loch.” Darwin started for the door, then instinctively turned back to the bedside to pick up his medical case. Before he reached it there was a shout and commotion outside the house.

  “Come on, Doctor,” said Maclaren. “That’s my men calling, something about Colonel Pole.”

  It took a few seconds to see anything after the bright lamps of the room. Darwin followed Maclaren and stood there blinking, peering up the hill to where the group outside was pointing. At last he could see a trio of Highlanders. In their midst and supported by two of them was a stumbling and panting Jacob Pole. He staggered up to Malcolm Maclaren and stood wheezing in front of him.

  “Talk to your blasted men—I can’t get them to understand plain English. Send ’em back to the loch.”

  “Why? Dr. Darwin was worried for your safety there, but here ye are, safe an’ well.”

  “Hohenheim and Zumal.” Pole held his side and coughed. “At the loch, but I couldn’t help. Both dead, in the water.”

  Maclaren barked a quick order to three of the villagers, and they left at a trot. While Pole leaned wearily on supporting arms, Darwin stood motionless.

  “Are you sure?” he said at last. “Remember, there have been other examples where Hohenheim’s actions were not what they appeared to be.”

  “I’m sure. Sure as I stand here. I saw the coble smashed to pieces with my own eyes. Saw Hohenheim broken, and both their bodies.” He bent forward, rubbing at his balding head with a hand that still shook with fatigue. “The ship they were looking at was not the galleon! I saw it, an empty hold in an old wreck, that’s what they died for. The wrong ship. That’s their end.”

  “Aye, the end indeed,” said Maclaren. He was watching as a silent procession of women carried an unconscious body out of the black-shuttered house and away toward the main village. “An’ a bitter end for all. Hohenheim came here of his own wish, but it was no plan of mine that would make him die here.” He began to walk with head lowered after the women.

  “Not quite the end, Malcolm Maclaren.” Darwin’s somber tone halted the Scotsman. “There is one more duty for us tonight, and in some ways it is the most difficult and sorrowful of all. Give me ten more minutes of your time, then follow your lord.”

  “Nothing could be worse,” said Maclaren. But he turned and came back to where Darwin and Pole stood facing each other. “What is left?”

  “Hohenheim. He came here uninvited, and you asked why. You did not seek to bring him, and I certainly did not. He has been a mystery to all of us. Come with me, and we will resolve it now.”

  Followed by Pole and Maclaren, he led the way across the turf to the house where Hohenheim and his servant had stayed. The door was closed, and no light showed within.

  Darwin stepped forward and banged hard on the dark wood. When no answer came he gestured to Maclaren to bring the lamp that he was holding nearer, and opened the door. The three men paused on the threshold.

  “Who is there?” said a sleep-slurred voice from the darkness.

  “Erasmus Darwin.” He took the lamp from Maclaren, held it high, and walked forward to light up the interior.

  “What do you want?” The man in the bed rolled over, pushed back the cover, and sat up. Jacob Pole looked at him, gave a superstitious groan of fear, and stepped backwards.

  The man in front of them was Hohenheim. The tunic and patchwork cloak hung over a chair but there could be no mistaking the hooked nose, ruddy cheeks, and darting black eyes.

  “It’s impossible,” said Pole. “Less than ten minutes ago, I saw him dead. It can’t be, I saw—”

  “It is all too possible,” said Darwin softly. “And it is as I feared.” He leaned toward the man in the bed, who was now more fully awake and beginning to scowl at the intruders. “The deception is over. Hohenheim—for want of a true name I must continue to use your old one—we bring terrible news. There was an accident at the loch. Your brother is dead.”

  The red cheeks paled and the man stood up suddenly from the bed. “You are lying. This is some trick, to try and trap me.”

  Darwin shook his head sadly. “It is no trick, and no trap. If I could find another way to say this, I would do so. Your brother and Zumal died tonight in Loch Malkirk.”

  The man in front of him stood for a second, then gave a wild shout and rushed past them.

  “Stop him,” cried Darwin, as Hohenheim plunged out of the door and into the night.

  “Is he dangerous?” asked Maclaren.

  “Only to himself. Send your men to follow and restrain him until we can reach him.”

  Maclaren moved to the door and shouted orders to the startled group of villagers who were still waiting near the black-shuttered house. Three of them set off up the hill in pursuit of Hohenheim’s running figure. When Maclaren came back into the room Jacob Pole was slumped against the wall, his head bowed.

  “Is he all right?” Maclaren said to Darwin.

  “Give him time. He’s over-tired and he’s had a great shock.”

  “I’m fine.” Pole sighed. “But I’ve no idea what’s going on here. I never saw any brother, or any deception. Are you sure you have an explanation for all this?”

  “I believe that I do.” Darwin walked around the room, studying the cases and boxes stacked against the walls. He finally stopped at one of them and bent to open it.

  “Why did these men come to Malkirk?” he said. “That is easily answered. They came to seek treasure and the galleon. But there is a better question: How did they come—how did they know a galleon was in the loch? There is only one possible answer to that. They heard it from the actors hired to tempt me here. And is it not obvious that we have also been dealing with stage players here? You saw them and heard them. Think of the gestures, all larger than life, and of the hands that drew materials from the air. Their magic spoke to me strongly of the strolling magician, the attraction at the fairs and festivals throughout the whole of England.”

  “But how did you know their feats were not genuine?”

  “Colonel, that would lie outsid
e the compass of my beliefs. It is much easier to believe in prestidigitation, in the cunning of hand over eye. I reached that conclusion early but I was faced with one impossible problem. How could a man be here today, and a few hours later be in Inverness? No stage magic or trickery would permit that. Accept that a man cannot be in two places at once and you are driven to a simple conclusion: there must be two men, able to pass as each other. Think of the value of that for impossible stage tricks, and think how practice would perfect the illusion. Two brothers, and Zumal as the link that would travel between them to protect it.”

  “But you had no possible proof,” protested Pole. “I mean, a suspicion is one thing, but to jump from that to certainty—”

  “Requires only that we use our eyes. You saw Hohenheim at the village. And the next day you saw him again, at the loch. But in the village he favored his left hand, constantly—recall for yourself his passes in the air, and his seizing from nowhere of flasks and potions. Yet at the loch he had suddenly become right-handed, for casting lines, for working the boat, for everything. We were seeing brothers, and like many twins they were one dexter, and one sinister.”

  Maclaren was nodding to himself. “I saw it, but I had not the wit to follow it. Now one of them is dead, and the other…”

  “Knows a grief that I find hard to imagine. We must seek him now, and try to give him a reason for living. He should not be left alone tonight. With your permission, I will stay here, and when he is brought from the loch I will talk to him—alone.”

  “Very well, I will go now and see if they have him safe.” Maclaren walked quietly to the door.

  “And here is your proof,” said Darwin. He lifted from the open chest in front of him a long cloak. “See the hidden pockets, and the tube that can be used to carry materials from them to the hands. No supernatural power; only skills of hand, and human greed.”

  Maclaren nodded. “I see it. An’ when ye find the reason that makes him want to go on livin’, ye can tell it to me.”

  He left, and Jacob Pole looked across at Darwin. “Does he mean that? Why would he think to stop living?”

  “He has had a bad shock tonight, but for him I do not worry; Malcolm Maclaren is a brave man, and a strong one. When he recovers from his present sorrow, his life will begin again—better, I trust, than before.”

  Pole went across to the empty bed and sat down on it with a groan. “I’ll be glad when tonight is over. I’ve had too much excitement for one day. Let tomorrow come, and I can go to the loch again and seek the real galleon.” His eyes brightened. “If there’s one thing to pull from this sorry mess, perhaps it will still be the bullion.”

  Darwin coughed. “I am afraid not. There is no treasure—no galleon, even. It was only a part of the tale that was used to draw us here.”

  “What!” Pole lifted his head. “Pox on it, are you telling me that after all our work we came three hundred miles for nothing? That there is no treasure?”

  “There is no treasure. But we did not come for nothing.” Now it was Darwin’s eyes that showed a sparkle of excitement. “The Devil is still in the loch. Tomorrow we will go there and learn the true nature of the animal.”

  Jacob Pole coughed. “Aye, well, the Devil. You are determined to study it?”

  “Indeed I am. For that I would travel far more than three hundred miles.”

  “Well, Doctor, that’s something I was going to mention to you. You see, after I fired the cannon—”

  He paused. Something in Pole’s look told Darwin that the night’s bad news was not yet complete.

  THE HEART OF AHURA MAZDA

  The young man in the expensive topcoat leaned casually against the tavern wall and sipped at a pint of dark ale. He was eavesdropping and trying to disguise the fact, although the three people sitting in the corner were too absorbed in their own conversation to care in the slightest if they were overheard.

  They were an ill-assorted trio. The one leaning on the table was well into his sixties, and instead of a wig he wore a round fur hat to cover his domed bald head. Now and again he would illustrate a point he was making with a sharp rap of his nails on the smooth board, or a snap of fingers in the air. His energy and animation of manner suggested a man half his age.

  His two companions presented a less attractive prospect. Jacob Pole was in his fifties, thin to the point of being gaunt. His sallow complexion gave him a look of slight but perpetual jaundice. He sat briskly upright, the set of his shoulders marking his long years of military service.

  Erasmus Darwin was if anything even less prepossessing. He was in his early forties, but his corpulence, lack of front teeth, and jowly face marked by smallpox conspired to make him look much older. Only the eyes redeemed his coarse appearance. They were grey, patient, and sagacious, and they twinkled with appreciation of the humor of the conversation.

  “She’s very intelligent,” the fur-capped man was saying, in an English accent that was hard to place. “Pretty, too. Any man would be proud to be seen with her on his arm. So think about it, Erasmus. You have been a widower too long, maybe it’s time you took another wife.”

  “Easy for you to suggest—you are already married, even if your lady is living in another country.” Darwin gestured at a waitress to bring another pot of beef tea and a plate of savories. “Marriage is a large step. Answer me this, Joseph, and Jacob can be a witness. If you were free, would you honestly wish to be bonded to young Mary? I talk not of bedding her, now, I talk of marriage. Think of it, Joseph. Within a month she’d have reorganized your whole life.” The slight stammer in his speech showed that he was enjoying the banter.

  “Preserve me from that. I’m on trial now, am I?” The older man glanced from one of his companions to the other. “I rely on you, Erasmus, and on you, Jacob, to let no word of this reach Mary. But at my age, a man is either organized or he will never tolerate organization. And Mary Rawlings is too young for me”—he held up a hand to forestall comment—“too young for me to marry. The years after fifty are like late-season hothouse fruit, their enjoyment must be carefully planned. We have so few of them, and they must rest on a suitable dish.” He pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a curious pair of spectacles that were divided horizontally in each lens, and used them to peer at a tiny fob watch. “No more tea for me. Five minutes, and I must be off. As for Mary, I’m too old and fragile to keep up with her young blood.”

  The fat man’s grey eyes took on a new look, and he sat for a moment with his head cocked to one side. “What think you of that, Jacob?”

  “You’re the doctor, ’Rasmus, but I’ll do my best.” Jacob Pole peered at the older man as though seeing him for the first time. “For my money, Joseph, I’d say that you appear unnaturally hale, hearty, and energetic.”

  “Ah, but neither you nor Dr. Darwin has made an examination of me.” The fur-capped man was grinning. “If you could just see my ruined liver and poor withered body—”

  “A competent physician does not need that. The evidence of health is written in your bearing and your countenance.” Darwin swivelled in his chair, so that he could take in the whole room of the tavern. “Look around you, now, and read the Book of Nature. See what is stamped in each face and body. There, by the door, side by side, we at once find goiter and rickets.”

  “You need to do better than that, ’Rasmus,” Jacob Pole said gruffly. “Why, dammit, I can see that much myself.”

  “Patience, both of you. We begin with the easiest. Look along the bar, now, and take the men in order. The first is again too simple: consumption, in its middle stages. The second is in good health. Take the next one, the ex-sailor in the ragged jacket with his back to us. What do you see?”

  Joseph Faulkner adjusted the spectacles on his nose, and peered carefully. “Without seeing his face… Hm. At the least, we have the effects of strong drink.”

  “Bravo. The half pint of gin clutched in his hand might be considered a clue, but we certainly admit the harmful effects of an indulgence in strong dr
ink. What else?”

  “Palsy?”

  “No.” Darwin shook his bewigged head in satisfaction. “That is a symptom, not a cause. Regard the uncertain set of the heels on the floor, and the way that the arm moves to reach the glass. You are viewing third-stage syphilis.”

  “You are sure?” Faulkner regarded the ex-sailor with a new eye.

  “I am positive. He is far gone. If you could see his face, the ravages would become clear. But both of you, consider the man farther along, in the plum-colored fustian, looking this way and getting ready to leave. What of him, Colonel?”

  Jacob Pole shrugged. “Ruddy face, clear eyes, a strong, square build. Thick black hair.”

  “True enough. But look below the surface. Well, Joseph? What do you say?”

  “He ought to be healthy as a horse. But…” Faulkner paused.

  “Aha! State your but. Your instincts are sound, Joseph, but you lack the detailed knowledge to support them. My friends, we must go beyond the superficies of hair and frame, if we are to achieve valid diagnosis.” The stammer vanished from Darwin’s voice when the subject was medicine. “Look rather at the color of the lips—is there not a purple tinge to them? Look at the veins in the temples, look at the posture, look at the cheeks, with a suggestion of grey. Look at the strain in his walk. Look at the clubbed fingertips. He suffers from severe and degenerative heart disease.”

  The other two men stared again as the black-haired stranger walked out of the tavern. Joseph Faulkner shook his head and took off his glasses. “Bedaddle. You are serious, are you not?”

  “Completely. That man has perhaps a year to live.”

  “Scampages! If I did not know you to be a recent visitor to London, I would swear those people all must be your patients.” He turned. “Unless you, Colonel Pole?…”

  “Not guilty.” Pole shook his head. “I never set eyes on any one of them before.”

  “Then you are lucky, Erasmus, that we live in the Age of Reason. Two centuries ago you would have surely been burned for wizardry. When you sense such quick mortality, do you not feel the urge to speak to men and women of their diseases?”