Alchemy: an historical psychological suspense thriller of perfect murder

by Chris James

  Jacob had been telling the truth when he described to the police a panel by the professor’s portrait giving access to the catacombs. I had stood on the other side of it.

  As to any evidence of the professor’s existence, or of his being seen by others, I had to admit defeat. But with ancient rumours of Old Nick, and a perfectly fit schoolmaster dying of fright only a few yards from the place Jacob supposedly worked with the professor, I had my suspicions that it was not the professor I should be searching for – but his ghost.

  After a restless night I awoke with the realisation that the name Nicolas Flamel did mean an awful lot, something no one had mentioned during the trial. Then, they had only referred to the man in the portrait as the benefactor of Jacob’s old college.

  But Nicolas Flamel was also the name of the author of the encyclopaedia of murder: Alchemy – written hundreds of years earlier.

  Obviously, I had to dig deeper into the background of Greenwold Hall and their mysterious Nicolas Flamel. And where better to start than with Sir Robert Hunter. I was particularly interested to hear what he had found so intriguing in the catacombs.

  Chapter 25

  Once I had reported to him with my findings, Papa was as eager as I to seek out further information on the professor at Greenwold College. After I had informed him that a Sir Robert Hunter had shown some curiosity with the place, he was delighted to be able to give me a personal introduction as he counted him as one of his few close friends. He telephoned him that evening and arranged an appointment for me the next morning.

  ‘Elizabeth Weston,’ I announced to the frock-coated butler in the reception hall, ‘Sir Robert Hunter is expecting me.’ His huge Georgian house sat in Grosvenor Street, off Park Lane, in the Mayfair district of London.

  ‘So you’re the grownup Lizzie,’ Sir Robert said as he strode through the hall to greet me, taking both my hands firmly in his. ‘You were a babe in arms when I last had the pleasure to meet you, your christening at Westminster.’ He laughed loudly. ‘Howled your head off!’ He was a very tall, slender gentleman, with grey hair and long sideburns that reached almost to his chin. Still holding my hand, Sir Robert led me through the hall to a small library, filled floor-to-ceiling with books of every description on all four walls.

  After telling Sir Robert how exciting I thought his new project was, preserving Britain’s heritage, I got straight to the point. ‘Sir Robert, you were interested in Greenwold Hall, the college.’

  ‘Yes, remarkable place. Would make an ideal first candidate for our new company when it’s formed. We’ve dug up loads of history,’ Sir Robert claimed, cheering me up immensely. ‘The roof’s sagging. And they don’t realise how serious the problem is.’

  ‘Is it the rafters? Beetles or something?’

  ‘Not at all,’ my host obliged. ‘It’s the foundations. They’re sinking.’

  ‘I went down there,’ I said. ‘Deep down in the catacombs.’

  ‘And did you notice?’

  ‘Notice?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘A blank void right in the middle.’

  ‘I did. I thought something was odd but couldn’t quite place it.’

  ‘The floor. The flagstone floor.’

  ‘I saw that. But what about it is odd?’

  ‘It’s black, and it’s dead level.’

  ‘That’s it! I remember the walls and columns being quite distorted through age, but the floor as smooth and level as a new stone floor. But not a problem, surely?’

  ‘Well, hold on. Because it is a problem. It shouldn’t be that flat, after five centuries of settling and wear and tear. So I lifted some of the stones and dug down around the steps. The steps go down another four steps, below that floor. The floor’s three or four feet higher than originally. The undersides of the flagstones were all white and worn, well-trodden over the centuries – as it should be. The whole floor had been replaced face downwards.’

  ‘Really?’ Concealing something, I surmised.

  ‘We found all sorts of acid burns and scars on the underside of some stones. Someone had excavated that whole area, I suspect some years ago. But they only back-filled it recently – very recently – with top soil instead of the old, stiff Northampton clay that held everything together.’

  Was this the clue I so badly needed? I thought immediately of the puddled rugby pitch. Students did the work, working through the night. They were exhausted – Miss Dunne had said. Yes, exhausted because they were on a secret mission, no doubt, using the soil to cover up any evidence in the catacombs, raising it three feet or so. They had destroyed any evidence of a laboratory ever having been there. This heralded a tremendous breakthrough.

  ‘Disturbing the old clay allowed the foundations to move, causing the roof to sag. They’ll have to have the whole lot dug out again and underpin everything.’

  ‘If you take it on, perhaps you’ll find the ghosts,’ I half joked.

  ‘Ghosts they say? I’ll tell you, Lizzie,’ he said, ‘with that roof sagging, and all the creaking and bumping going on through the night that would cause, it would take someone braver than I to sleep there.’ He roared with laughter, slapping his knee.

  To my pleasant surprise, Sir Robert retrieved his briefcase and pulled out a huge file of papers. ‘This is all the history we dug up on the Greenwold estate and its former owner. One of my assistants extracted it all from historic manuscripts at the British Museum. It makes fascinating reading.’

  ‘I’m frightfully interested,’ I told him, clawing at the file, ‘Would it be possible to borrow this for a day or two?’

  ‘Help yourself. As long I get it back in a couple of weeks. We have a committee meeting. Need to decide if we’re going to help them fix the roof. Make it our first official project soon as we get the money together. Tell you what,’ he said, with a wide smile on his face, ‘why don’t you study all this and write a report on the salient points, something that I can use to persuade fellow donors? We’ll pay you a fee, of course.’

  After declining the fee but accepting an invitation to attend any works should they proceed, I agreed to write his report and took the file, making my excuses to leave.

  During the carriage journey home, I was astounded by what I learned. Sir Robert’s clerk had amassed a great deal of background information on Greenwold Hall, dating back to well before the seventeenth century and Oliver Cromwell. But, of course, I was only interested in one of its occupiers – Nicolas Flamel. Notes pencilled in the margins of the report proved to be of most interest to me.

  Who was this man? – scribbled next to Flamel’s name in a section of the report discussing the capture of King Charles I at the hall, caught my attention, and referred to his hand-written appendix where I read:

  Flamel, Born in Paris. Little else known.

  The item went on to say:

  British Museum ~ August 1893:

  A thorough search revealed nothing of any gentleman of that name throughout the whole of the seventeenth century. In a French Section we only found a Nicolas Flamel, Born in Paris, 1330, scribe and manuscript-seller, later known for his wealth and philanthropy. His house is still there, at No.52 rue de Montmorency.

  He married Perenelle in 1368, said to have been an alchemist. She apparently made him immortal!

  In contradiction, Paris manuscripts show he died on 22nd March, 1418, having designed his own tombstone. His remains are interred at the Musee de Cluny in Paris.

  With two hundred years separating them, my first thoughts were that this Parisian bore little relationship to the Greenwold Hall owner – also thought to be Parisian, according to Miss Dunne – although he may well have been a distant ancestor.

  Finding my extensive notes from the trial in my bag, I searched for pieces concerning Alchemy – the encyclopaedia of murder.

  An ancient manuscript ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci, in 1507, referred to in the trial, confirmed Alchemy was the work of Perenelle Flamel, and added:

  The science is dark – too dark for
mere mortals. But alas, it works.

  During the trial, like most others hearing this, I had assumed Da Vinci’s affirmation was merely confirmation of medieval superstition and sorcery – and publication of such explosive statements did most probably help sell a lot of papers at a time when readers thirst for knowledge was unquenchable.

  But here now, right in front of me, was another reason to question the superstition surrounding immortality. In the margin of his report, Sir Robert Hunter’s clerk had scribbled:

  What if Perenelle’s formula worked?

  Maybe this IS your man – 553 years old?!

  I closed my eyes and, confident the professor was not a figment of Jacob’s imagination, tried to reason further.

  Was Greenwold’s benefactor simply masquerading as a Flamel? And to what advantage? Is it just a coincidence that the professor closely resembled Flamel? And if he were one and the same, a five- hundred-and-fifty-three-year-old, wouldn’t he have boasted to Jacob he was Flamel; proved the formula worked, shown him that he could turn lead into gold? Whoever he was, I was confident our missing nineteenth-century professor could answer a lot of questions. The last line of the clerk’s notes on Flamel added further intrigue:

  Perenelle Flamel died 29th September, 1397.

  Michaelmas Day!

  There it was again. That fateful day. Was it a coincidence that the elixir was completed on that same day – almost five hundred years later?

  Was it a coincidence that the last ingredient was added, the last girl murdered for her soul – on that same day?

  I doubted it. There had to be a connection. Most intriguing, indeed.

  A disturbing scenario, following a night of nightmares, came to me the next morning before making my way to the British Library:

  The alchemist, Perenelle Flamel, had instructed her husband that five essential ingredients, five souls, needed to be added:

  Wench, widow and witch; wife and bitch.

  I surmised that she, whom Da Vinci had said was in poor health, didn’t want to be left behind – if her husband was to become immortal. Jacob had said that here was one way of her travelling into eternity with him – by donating her own soul. So, I concluded hers was the wife’s soul referred to.

  This meant that she had instructed her husband, Nicolas, to murder her – to purge her soul on Michaelmas Day. There was no other explanation.

  And then other possible solutions struck me:

  Either Jacob, in his madness, thought he was Nicolas Flamel, and the professor does not exist – the prosecution’s case – or:

  The professor does exist, and in his own madness, thought he was Nicolas Flamel – or, finally, God forbid:

  The professor does exist – and is Nicolas Flamel. And is immortal.

  The latter two would confirm Jacob’s innocence – but how to prove it, was no easy task. And at that moment, the professor being hundreds of years old seemed absurd. I was determined to learn more about the illusive Monsieur Flamel but had no idea where to start. And with only two days remaining in which to save Jacob from hanging, I feared I would run out of time.

  I needed hard evidence, something to convince the police, and arrived at the British Library, where Sir Robert Hunter’s clerk had been, to try and locate anything else that may have been recorded about Nicolas Flamel. Fortunately, a great deal had been translated into English and deep within the archives in the French Section I found more interesting facts:

  Fourteenth-century Monsieur and Madame Flamel had no issue, no children; and Nicolas, no kin. The name Flamel was therefore buried with them. This convinced me that the man whose portrait hung in Greenwold Hall was unlikely to be related to fourteenth-century Flamel – but still left the possibility, albeit impossible-to-believe, that he was one and the same man. And immortal.

  I could not stop thinking about the clerk’s note:-

  Maybe this IS your man – 553 years old?!

  At the trial, Dr Jensen from Apothecaries Hall spoke of the formulae in Alchemy as being viable. Admitting so, had caused him to faint. And he was a learned man. Had he fainted because he had disclosed an age-old secret? Was he afraid immortals would track him down, do him harm?

  Maybe this IS your man – 553 years old?!

  And then I found something startling: a copy of a drawing of Nicolas Flamel from 1400. It was held by a museum in Paris.

  The resemblance and similarities were extraordinary.

  The Victoria & Albert Museum in Kensington was my next port of call, where I had an appointment with a Mr Hardcastle, a curator and art expert.

  ‘I have found a work signed: Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni,’ I told him, reading the signature I had copied off the Nicolas Flamel portrait.

  ‘Really?’ Mr Hardcastle exclaimed.

  ‘You’ve heard of him, then?’

  ‘Well, who hasn’t?’ he laughed.

  ‘But it’s not a name like Leonardo da Vinci, is it? Everybody knows him.’

  ‘Thanks to Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Signor de’Cioni taught da Vinci. If you have found such a work it would be priceless. He was born de’Cioni but when he became popular, and famous, he was known as Andre del Verrocchio, or simply: Verrocchio. It means: of the true eye. If your work bore his full name, it was painted well before he became famous. Worth an absolute fortune.’

  ‘Enough to buy a new roof?’ I asked him.

  ‘A roof to cover half of London, I would think,’ he laughed.

  ‘So when might it have been painted?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘Before da Vinci. Verrocchio was born in 1435. Died in 1488.’

  ‘He died in 1488?’ I exclaimed. ‘But the sitter is said to be seventeenth century.’

  ‘Impossible, I’m afraid. If it is an early Verrocchio piece, take my word for it, second-half, fifteenth century. No later. Can I see it?’

  ‘I’ll make arrangements,’ I promised him, and couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  There was now no doubt in my mind.

  Perenelle’s formula in Alchemy had worked.

  Five souls had been added to the elixir, including hers on Michaelmas Day, 1397, and Nicolas Flamel had consumed it.

  The professor was Nicolas Flamel – and IS immortal.

  The only question remaining was: why did he need more elixir?

  ‘I’m onto something,’ I told Mr Ecclestone on the telephone that evening, having explained what I had found. ‘Can you force a recess, tell them you have found new evidence?’

  ‘But we haven’t found new evidence, have we – yet?’ Mr Ecclestone replied on the crackling line. ‘You may be onto something, but until you can stand the man in front of me, it all simply strengthens the prosecution’s case; that Flamel was there in Jacob’s head. Nowhere else. No one will accept your say-so that–’

  ‘I know you’ll think I’m a lunatic but I am convinced our professor is immortal!’ I almost shouted. ‘I just need more time to prove it. There’s proof of his existence fifty years or so after his reported death in 1418, and over two hundred years later than that. Won’t that be enough to convince the jury he may still be alive and well today? Cast a shadow of doubt? It all makes perfect sense.’

  ‘Miss Weston, I shall finish what defence we have tomorrow afternoon. But they won’t hang Mr Silver quite yet, even if he is found guilty. We might consider presenting any further evidence, if you obtain such, on appeal. But it needs to be something substantial, something solid. Find your professor. It’s the only way.’

  ‘Or someone to confirm his existence. Betsy Pollock,’ I offered.

  ‘Yes. She’ll do. Whichever one, just get them here as quick as you can. We’re running out of time.’

  No sooner had I replaced the receiver, the telephone rang again. It was Miss Dunne, from Greenwold.

  ‘I retrieved some old employment records and can tell you that Miss Elizabeth Pollock, whom we ca
lled Betsy, joined us in 1874, having been a nursing sister at the Small Pox and Vaccination Hospital in Islington.’

  ‘Do you have her previous address, or next of kin, Miss Dunne?’ I asked.

  ‘Her next of kin were shown as her mother and a younger sister, Mary Pollock, from her given address: Haigh Lodge, Swain´s Lane, Highgate, in London.’

  The next morning, Papa being out until late, Giles and William, our tall and strong coachman and footman, drove me to Highgate, only five miles or so from my home. I was determined to get a confession from Betsy Pollock, one way or another.

  Upon arrival, we found Swain´s Lane had a high stone wall along its entire length, on one side, and modest houses with mature tree-lined gardens on the other. It would be a little while later when I would discover the purpose of that wall.

  Dilapidated Haigh House sat in the shadow of the wall. From the grime and dirt hanging off the windows I feared it was empty. Giles knocked at the door. He was returning to the carriage when suddenly, behind him, the front door creaked open. A plumpish lady of about fifty or so, stood at the door in a dirty white pinafore.

  Was this Betsy, I wondered?

  ‘Milady would like a word, madam,’ Giles told her as I made my way past overgrown shrubs up the garden path towards her.

  ‘Would you happen to be Miss Pollock? Elizabeth Pollock?’ I asked her. She eyed me suspiciously before shaking her head. ‘You must be Mary. I’m Elizabeth Weston. I’m looking for Elizabeth.’

  ‘She´s gone.’ A tear welled in her eye and she caught it with a corner of her pinafore.

  ‘Gone?’ I asked. ‘Gone away, you mean?’

  ‘She´s over there,’ the lady said, pointing across to the high wall. ‘Can take you to her, if you like.’

  Convinced Betsy Pollock existed, here was her sister offering me a personal introduction. My pulse quickened. We had just enough time to get her to the court. ‘We can go in my carriage, if you prefer,’ I told her as she slammed the door to the house behind her and took off her pinafore. Giles and William seemed eager to get started.