Alchemy: an historical psychological suspense thriller of perfect murder

by Chris James

  Arriving back at the college late that evening, Muxlow soon cheered him.

  ‘Grabbed this at supper,’ he said, unfolding a napkin filled with grub. ‘My sisters arrive tomorrow, remember?’ Muxlow reminded him.

  Jacob nodded, stuffing his face with a contented grin.

  Jacob was napping across a bale of straw in the stable yard when Muxlow shook him.

  ‘Jake? Jake! Rebecca and Emily.’

  Jacob regained his senses to find two beautiful creatures in their finery, the elder smiling and seeking attention. The younger hid shyly behind her sister. Rebecca Muxlow was eighteen and appeared to Jacob to be of such beauty and perfection he was convinced right then that she peed holy water. Giggling, Rebecca curtsied deep and low to ensure he saw her cleavage. Staring with his mouth open, Jacob jumped to his feet, bowed and kissed Rebecca’s hand.

  Utterly amused, Rebecca hauled her reluctant sister forward – a spitting image, just two years younger. They could have been twins. Equally beautiful yet immensely shy, Emily proffered her hand with her chin lowered.

  Jacob bowed and kissed it, but clung on, and their eyes locked. Emily’s face was so familiar – the subject of a thousand sketches. He knew no other nose or pair of eyes better. As the sun glinted on her golden hair, he said, ‘My pleasure, Emily, but I feel I know you both.’

  Rebecca put a finger to her chin, twirled, posed this way and that, and tried to catch Jacob’s attention – or more precisely, draw him away from Emily. ‘Tommy says you’ll paint us given half the chance.’

  But Jacob couldn’t take his eyes off Emily. ‘You had a blue-and-white-striped parasol, at the National Gallery. You bought my portrait.’

  ‘The Mona Lisa? That was you?’ Emily said, surprised. She looked down at his leg braces. ‘My. You’ve changed so.’

  Rebecca swooped between them. ‘I’m studying the history of art in London.’

  Jacob leaned around Rebecca, ignoring her and catching Emily’s eye. ‘I must paint you. You’ll sit for me?’

  Rebecca hopped in the way to block his view. ‘Yes. Paint us. I’d love to see you working. I could learn a lot. You can do us both after Open Day, if you’ve time. But me first, I’m the eldest. We’re staying with the Bedfords for the summer.’

  ‘He’ll make time, won’t you Jake?’ offered Muxlow.

  ‘Do us half as good as my Mona Lisa and we’ll love you, won’t we Becca?’

  Rebecca laughed and pressed against him, provocatively. ‘Make us immortal.’ She giggled. That was when Jacob’s sharp artist’s eye discovered Rebecca’s imperfection – pox scars. Piled with powder, her attempts to completely conceal them had failed. Jacob would soon learn that these and other stains on Rebecca’s character were quite sufficient to turn holy water to pee.

  ‘The Bedfords expect us. Come on,’ Tommy said, dragging Rebecca away. Looping both their arms he led his two sisters off across the yard.

  Jacob fell back onto the bale of straw, elated, visions of Emily with her parasol floating through billowing cloud. How glad he was to be at Greenwold on this glorious day.

  The blackboard was crowded with hieroglyphics. The professor called out ingredients as Jacob wrote them down.

  ‘Ergot fungus; psilocybe semilanceata and peyote cacti. Now begone. It’s well past midnight.’

  Jacob sneaked back into the college corridor through the secret panel and turned to check the hall clock.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ the elderly school secretary, Miss Dunne, barked.

  Jacob promptly stared up at the portrait of the school benefactor, and mumbled to himself before answering. ‘I’m just sketching Old Nick. Isn’t he fascinating?’

  ‘Be off with you, or it’ll be six of the best.’

  Miss Dunne found him in the same corridor on two more occasions, in the early hours. He pretended to be in deep discussion with the portrait, claiming he was helping him with his homework.

  Miss Dunne was as good as her word.

  A line of nervous boys waited outside Housemaster Williams’ office the following morning.

  Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

  They cringed, their eyes blinking with every stroke, praying it would stop. Jacob came out of the office, wincing, rubbing his backside, grateful it was now someone else’s turn. He would watch out for Miss Dunne more carefully in future.

  Back in the catacombs, the professor stood at a bench full of bubbling chemistry paraphernalia as Jacob placed a sprig of purple-leafed deadly nightshade on the bench.

  ‘How did such a deadly poison get the name belladonna?’

  ‘Beautiful woman?’ said the professor, holding a piece up to a lamp. ‘Well, isn’t she? In fact, she’s had many names over the centuries: devil's berries, naughty man's cherries, death cherries, beautiful death, devil's herb and deadly nightshade. Wash your hands. It’s lethal.’

  Jacob rinsed his hands in a rusty pale of water. The professor gripped the sprig with tweezers, sliced the roots with a scalpel and put them in a glass beaker over a flame. Then he passed the tools to Jacob. ‘Only the roots.’

  ‘What will it do?’ asked Jacob, chopping fine pieces.

  ‘Drops of this deadly herb were used by women to dilate the pupils, make them more appealing,’ said the professor. ‘Hence its nickname belladonna.’

  ‘Like peacock feathers?’

  ‘Precisely. And used by artists. Concentrated belladonna in a final coat of varnish will oxidise, vaporise for years, spreading its deadly wings. Applied over a portrait, only the top most coat mind, as people stood and stared, their eyes would dilate. This signalled to others observing them that they had found the painting desirable, come and see. And so a crowd gathered, admiration soon to follow. And so an undeserving reputation expanded, exponentially.’

  ‘The old masters did that?’

  ‘Anybody who could daub paint on canvas did it – if they knew of the trick,’ the professor said, his fingers running through his beard. ‘You surely don’t think I discovered this, Master Jacob?’

  Alcohol was added and the concoction stirred, poured into miniature glass vials and then corked. Jacob wrote a label and made an entry in their lab journal.

  ‘Desire. Tincture of belladonna.’

  ‘And a cure for the pox,’ added the professor.

  ‘Really?’ said Jacob, incredulously.

  ‘Assuredly. Freckles too.’

  Jacob placed the small bottle in a line along with another dozen of their discoveries.

  ‘And we’ve a whole lot more sorcery to cover yet, dear boy,’ said the professor, closing their manual: Alchemy.

  Everyone was asleep when Jacob hovered over Muxlow. He dripped one drop from a glass vial onto Muxlow’s freckled cheek, giggled and climbed into bed.

  The following morning Muxlow sat up in bed, scratching his face like mad as Jacob awoke, leaped over to him and pulled his hands away from his face. In the middle of a face full of freckles, a completely blank spot shone in the morning sun.

  ‘Freckilitis! It works!’ Jacob yelled. Other boys sat up, wondering what was going on. Excited, Jacob ran off through the dormitory with his clothes in his hand – then collapsed.

  The whole dormitory laughed.

  ‘Legs!’ Muxlow called after him, sliding Jacob’s leg braces across the floor to him.

  The following night, Jacob applied more drops to his sleeping friend’s face, crawled into bed, and giggled himself to sleep. Jacob awoke the next morning to find Muxlow clawing at his face again. He leapt out of bed and held Muxlow’s face to the sunlight. A miracle. The freckles on that side of Muxlow’s face completely gone; red-raw skin in their place.

  ‘I’ve cured you,’ laughed Jacob. ‘You’re normal, now.’

  ‘Cured me? Are you the reason I’m scratching my face off?’ yelled Muxlow, lashing out at Jacob.

  ‘No. I’m the reason you’ll be favoured by the fairest in the land,’ said Jacob, leaping back onto his own bed. The whole dormitory burst into laughter a
s Muxlow chased Jacob around his bed, waving his fists.

  Suddenly, Muxlow stopped and vomited. A dozen shoes flew at him as disgusted boys grimaced and heaved bed covers over their heads to avoid the stench.

  ‘Should see Matron about that, Muxlow. Might be catching,’ Jacob warned.

  Banners and bunting; laughter and revelry on Open Day. Mother hens mollycoddled their boys. Pompous fathers boasted and bragged, sipped champagne and scoffed unashamedly from hampers fit for kings. A rugby ball bounced across the courtyard with rowdy boys in pursuit. It was kicked again, harder.

  Alone on the edge of the quadrangle, Jacob watched as the ball soared high into the sky and then bounced in front of a coach-and- four – startling the horses. They reared and whinnied. A coachman grabbed the bridles of the leader pair, fought to calm them, the others becoming frantic. The carriage lurched, knocking the coachman aside. Then they bolted.

  A group of women directly in their path chatted and laughed, oblivious. Rebecca looked up, terrified. The horses tore towards them. Rebecca screamed. Pushed Emily aside, grabbed her brother. Dived out of the way. The coach tore past, missed them by inches and, passing close to Jacob, headed directly to the largest group gathered – Bateman and his boys. Jacob, his leg irons clunking, strode into their path and leapt onto the leading horse’s bridle. The boys scattered – but for the smallest boy, timid and terrified little Rachman, directly in line with the stampeding horses: frozen.

  Jacob struggled with the leaders, but the wheelers, behind, were stronger, pushing harder. He hung on for his life, got a boot up onto the troika and pushed hard against it. He turned the frothing horses into a tight circle. Bateman was off to the side laughing his head off, ridiculing little Rachman peeing his pants, inches in front of the halted panting and sweating horses, their eyes vibrating in terror

  The coach, its forward steering wheels hard over, angled over, the horses still rearing and lurching, sweat pouring off them. Jacob unfastened some straps and suddenly, the horses broke away, galloping off to adjacent fields.

  The carriage teetered.

  Observers stood aghast, pointing, fearing which way it might fall.

  Rachman glared at it, screaming as it crashed down onto its side.

  On the ground, a dress fluttered in the wind – Emily. Rebecca screamed. Ran to her. Jacob clanked over to her side, agony etched in his face.

  ‘Emily!’ he yelled, tapping her face. He turned to the staring Lord and Lady Bedford, his lordship still clinging onto a glass of champagne.

  ‘Get a doctor!’ Lord Bedford barked, sipping champagne as others did his bidding.

  Little Rachman quietly approached Jacob, his face expressionless. Spots of blood appeared on Emily’s dress.

  ‘Blood,’ Jacob screamed, scrabbling around trying to find Emily’s injury. More blood dropped onto his hand. He looked up.

  In Rachman’s hands – the source of the dripping blood.

  The Trial: Day 4

  ‘Please state your name and occupation and address your answers to the jury,’ Mr Ponsonby instructed the young man in the witness box. From where I sat in the gallery his head barely appeared above the parapet.

  ‘Ralph Rachman. Estate manager, sir,’ came the barely audible response.

  ‘And just to make it clear you are the fifth son of Lord Rochford and the estate to which you refer is the Rochford Hundred Estate in Essex, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came another quiet reply.

  ‘I must ask you to speak up, young man, so we can all hear. Now,’ Mr Ponsonby showed him a sketch, ‘do you recognise this drawing?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Exhibit 6, m’lud.’ Giving the jury only a brief glimpse, and we in the gallery no idea what was drawn, Mr Ponsonby turned back to the witness, ‘Tell the court how you acquired it.’

  The little man looked nervously at Jacob over in the dock. ‘I... I took it, sir.’

  ‘You took it. I see. From whom did you take it?’

  ‘I watched him,’ he pointed to my Jacob, ‘Silver, draw it and give it to Muxlow. Then I took it.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘When we were all at Greenwold College, sir. After Muxlow was duffed up by Bully’s boys.’

  ‘Bully?’ asked Mr Ponsonby.

  ‘The boy in the drawing, sir. Bateman. Bully Bateman, sir.’

  ‘Are you referring to the late Bradley Bateman the Earl of Burrington.’

  ‘Yes. That’s him, Bully,’ Rachman chirped.

  Mr Ponsonby passed the drawing to the jury. They gasped. After they had each examined it, the drawing was handed back to Mr Ponsonby. He held it up to the court and ensured we in the gallery saw it clearly. Those with a good view gasped. I examined it through my opera glasses. While we could not have known if the caricature bore any likeness to the late Earl, or not, it was the finishing touch which caused so much dismay – his head severed by a guillotine, watched by a host of bewigged and laughing young aristocracy – his peers no doubt. Terror was very apparent in the young earl’s face.

  ‘Were you a witness to the incident in the quadrangle at the college on Open Day that same year?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Describe what happened to the boy in this drawing.’

  Rachman, frightened and stammering, described a runaway carriage overturning, and then added: ‘His head– The coach– In front of me. He– He was– Decapitated.’

  Oh dear. Gasps rose again from the gallery – recalling the decapitated head in the drawing, of course.

  ‘And what happened to the head?’

  Rachman cowered, glanced at Silver in the dock. ‘I carried it over to Silver, sir.’

  A buzz swept through the gallery; ladies either side of me crossed themselves repeatedly.

  ‘You carried a severed head over to the accused?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was exactly like – Like the drawing. Like Silver predicted.’ Rachman cowered at the back of the witness box, shielding his face.

  I noticed he was afraid to look Jacob in the eye.

  Mr Ponsonby left him to stew a moment.

  ‘I still have nightmares, my lord,’ the pipsqueak added, looking to the judge for sympathy.

  ‘And what did the accused say when you offered him the earl’s head?’

  ‘He just said: “Bugger off, Rachman. It’s dripping all over Emily.” ’

  Groans circulated the courtroom.

  ‘One moment, sir, one moment. Are you telling us that despite a noble earl of the land losing his head in a most gruesome accident, all the accused had to say was “Bugger off”?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘After the incident, what were your sentiments towards the accused, Mr Silver?’

  ‘We– It was like he– We were frightened, sir. Nobody messed with him anymore.’ Turning to the judge, he added: ‘We thought he was the devil, my lord.’

  How absolutely absurd. Where’s Mr Ecclestone? Mr Ponsonby is staging more drama to have the jury harbour the worst thoughts towards my Jacob.

  ‘My lord,’ yelled Mr Ecclestone, defence counsel, jumping to his feet and proving, at last, he was awake today. ‘This is absurd. An innocent sketch and the prosecution are demonising my client because of ridiculous superstition.’

  Well done, Eustace, if I may be so familiar.

  ‘I agree,’ the judge said, turning to the jury. ‘The jury will ignore the witness’ sentiments.’

  Well done, my lord.

  Turning to Mr Ponsonby, the judge said, ‘More facts, Mr Ponsonby, and less theatre, if you please. I hope it will not be necessary to warn you again.’

  ‘Obliged, m’lud,’ said Mr Ponsonby, popping up as Mr Ecclestone popped down.

  But I was extremely annoyed. Just how a jury could forget that drawing and what Rachman had so vividly described, would not cause Mr Ponsonby the slightest concern. The image would remain in the jury’s minds until the final day, the day of judgement, and he well knew that. Jacob was now a demon as
far as the jury was concerned. Mr Ponsonby is a bounder. But more shocking, was what now followed. Mr Ponsonby had one further angle to exploit with this little upstart, obviously calculated to add further weight to the prosecutor’s cause: that the accused was far more wicked than a mere five counts of murder suggested.

  ‘Tell us about the boy Muxlow, Mr Rachman,’ Mr Ponsonby asked.

  ‘He was a mate – a friend of Silver’s. I wanted to be his friend, too. But Bully wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘What happened to Muxlow, do you know?’

  ‘He left college early, sir. After Silver got expelled.’

  ‘Do you know why he left?’

  ‘He was ill, sir.’

  ‘Had the accused been treating him for some ailment?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Come lad, everybody in the school knew. Removing his freckles? Remember that?’

  Mr Ecclestone jumped up. ‘M’lud! Perhaps you should ask my learned friend to take the witness’s place in the witness box, as he much prefers the jury benefit from his own version of events.’

  Well said, Mr Ecclestone. You are beginning to earn my respect, sir.

  The judge held up his hand; defence counsel sat.

  ‘Mr Ponsonby, you know better. The witness said he didn’t know. Now, bearing that in mind, how do you wish to proceed with this line of questioning as I fail to see it has any relevance?’

  And neither do I, my lord, I wanted to shout out.

  ‘If it pleases, my lord,’ Mr Ponsonby continued subserviently, confident that removal of freckles was stuck firmly in the jurors’ minds from his last trick – along with Jacob supposedly getting away with Bateman’s decapitation, ‘Where is young Muxlow now, Mr Rachman?’

  ‘Finchingfield, sir.’

  ‘Finchingfield? Where in Finchingfield?’