The Way of All Flesh

by Ambrose Parry

  ‘He left and did not return?’

  ‘Days passed, then weeks, then months, until it became clear he had abandoned us. My mother’s brother, a lawyer, had some influence with George Heriot’s school, and a special accommodation was made, as I was to all intents and purposes a fatherless boy. He took in my mother, as she was left mired in my father’s debts.’

  ‘You must feel a great fondness for an uncle who would be so generous. And yet I have never heard you speak of him.’

  ‘I despise the man. His apparent generosity is in fact a cheap bargain for possessing and controlling my mother. He disapproved of her marrying my father and enjoys every opportunity to demonstrate how his judgment was vindicated while hers was responsible for her shameful plight. It is as though every penny he gives her further elevates him and further diminishes her. Thus it is my ambition to make a success of myself and buy back her dignity.’

  ‘Did you ever hear word of what became of your father? Might he one day return? What would your mother do then?’

  These were three questions for which Raven was prepared to offer but one answer.

  ‘We are no longer afraid,’ he told her.

  Fifty-Four

  Jarvis was lighting lamps as Raven descended the stairs from his room, darkness already falling in the late afternoon. He encountered Sarah almost sprinting along the second-floor landing, laundered sheets piled so high in her arms he wondered how she could see where she was going. Raven halted her course before she could trip over David and Walter, who were huddled in her path as they waged an imaginary war down upon the carpet.

  ‘What is your rush?’ he asked.

  ‘I am trying to discharge my duties swiftly so that I have a little extra time on the errands I must run before dinner. I wish to factor in an errand of my own while I am out.’

  ‘You mean Beattie. You may not find him at home,’ Raven warned. ‘I am unsure of the hours he keeps.’

  ‘Then I will make time to return each day until I have the truth from him.’

  ‘After which you will have another problem – that of what to tell Mina.’

  ‘Let us cross that bridge when we come to it,’ she said, brushing past him to resume her work. ‘I cannot tarry.’

  Raven was full of admiration for Sarah’s loyalty and sensitivity. He knew she often found Mina a trial and at times rather demanding, but nonetheless, she was prepared to go to great lengths to prevent any harm coming to the woman. The pity was that if Sarah unmasked Beattie as a fraud and a rogue out to take advantage of her, Mina might never forgive her for it.

  Nonetheless, he was relieved that Sarah was busying herself with this quest right now. She had frequently insisted upon being involved first-hand in his investigations, but his mission today was taking him into more hazardous territory, and was best carried out alone.

  Since their discovery at Duncan and Flockhart, Raven had asked himself how he might best investigate Adam Sheldrake, and the principal answer he had come up with was this: very carefully. He was a man with a great deal to lose, and that made him dangerous. It was possible he had already murdered Rose because of what she might reveal about him. Even if he had not, then his confederate surely had, and with Spiers’s killing Raven had witnessed what she was prepared to do, without hesitation, in order to protect herself.

  Since the encounter at the dockside, he had worried over how quickly the midwife had recognised him. He searched every face in his memory but still could not think of where they must have seen each other before. This was inclining him further towards the belief that Madame Anchou was an alias for someone else. Did Sheldrake know her real identity, he wondered? Had Spiers? She had murdered him as soon as she calculated he was a liability. Was her true name the thing she feared he might reveal?

  Raven and Sarah had speculated that Rose might have been poisoned because she had discovered this forbidden knowledge too. However, if Sheldrake was secretly working as an abortionist, then the dentist had reason of his own to silence his housemaid after her plight led her to the King’s Wark.

  Perhaps they were both capable of murder: each as ruthless and deadly as the other.

  Raven had enquired as to the location of Sheldrake’s dental surgery. Though he also did home visits, he spent several hours each day offering a clinic wherein patients might attend. Raven’s intention was to follow him unseen to discover where else he went once these clinics were over, because at some juncture he would have to resume meeting his partner in these dark arts.

  The surgery was on the edge of the New Town, on London Street, not half an hour’s walk to the Leith tavern. The clinic was likely to finish within the hour, so like Sarah, Raven had no time to tarry.

  Raven opened the front door and promptly felt the ice-cold wind sting his cheeks. He closed it again and looked covetously at Dr Simpson’s coat, hanging up just inside the hall. The professor was home for the evening now, busy upstairs in his study. He surely wouldn’t miss it for a couple of hours.

  Raven looked around for Jarvis, who had disappeared into the drawing room. He slung the coat about his shoulders, its weight pleasingly heavy. He felt transformed, like a knight in armour better equipped to face his foe, even if his foe was merely the weather. He only wished that he could take on the professor’s mantle so easily as donning his sealskin.

  As he stepped through the front door, the coat swirling about him like a cloak, a number of disparate fragments swirling at the forefront of his thoughts coalesced at once into a visible whole.

  He saw the figure in the cape, walking towards him on Leith Shore.

  Someone pretending to be what they are not.

  Each as ruthless and deadly as the other.

  A French midwife who may not be French.

  A person transformed by a single garment.

  ‘Such an arrangement would allow a doctor to practise this dark art without the risk that would attend advertising such services.’

  Sheldrake was not in league with Madame Anchou. Sheldrake was Madame Anchou.

  He saw it all now. Sheldrake’s already feminine face, disguised beneath powder, peering out from the shadows of a hood. And how much easier to hide your true voice when speaking in another language or accent. It was the perfect way to protect his reputation while carrying out his illegal but lucrative sideline.

  Raven’s head spun with it as he stepped onto Queen Street, which was why he failed to notice the three men rapidly approaching, their eyes fixed upon him. In this moment of revelation, he was heedless of the danger until it was too late.

  Two of them grabbed him from either side and bundled him into Dr Simpson’s carriage, the third knocking the protesting coachman to the ground and seizing the reins.

  Raven did not recognise them, but it took only one name to tell him all he needed to know.

  ‘A Mr Flint humbly requests your attendance, sir.’

  Fifty-Five

  Sarah felt a familiar unease about walking the streets after dark, particularly as her journey had just taken her beyond the bounds of the New Town. In her growing fear, she could not help but ask herself what she hoped might come of this. If there was an innocent explanation for Beattie’s apparent dishonesty, then she would surely be dismissed once he reported her impudence and accusations to Mina and to Dr Simpson. However, until she had such an explanation, she could not in good conscience allow her employer to be deceived like this, and for Mina to be so ill-used.

  There was only one house on the narrow lane, a good thirty yards along Shrub Hill from Leith Walk and the comparative reassurance of its street lights. Beattie’s address was a solitary cottage, a glow from the windows enough to guide her path. She recalled Raven saying he might not be at home, but clearly someone was. Sarah didn’t know if Beattie kept a housemaid like herself. Perhaps if he did, and he was indeed from home, she might prove someone from whom Sarah could discreetly solicit some information.

  She approached the front door on quiet tread, fearful of the sound of her
own footfalls. From what she could make out in the dark, it was a neat little cottage, a dwelling she could imagine being maintained with the same attention Beattie afforded his own appearance.

  She rang the bell and heard footsteps in response, which she confidently predicted to be male. It was indeed Beattie who opened the door. He looked most surprised to find her there, and not pleasantly so.

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you at home, Dr Beattie, but I have difficult news concerning your uncle, Mr Latimer.’

  Beattie was taken aback, though whether his expression reflected concern for the welfare of his uncle or suspicion over the potential unravelling of his deceit remained to be seen.

  ‘You must come in,’ he said.

  There was a sternness to his tone, at once commanding and yet eager. He bade her follow him into the house. It was brighter than she anticipated. There appeared to be lamps lit in several rooms, as well as the hall itself.

  There was no maid in evidence, and Sarah wondered whether the expense of having one would prove an economy over the wasteful burning of so much oil and gas. Perhaps he was busy with activities that required him to flit from room to room, though such matters would surely be simpler to deal with by day.

  He ushered her to the drawing room, where he took the time to light still more lamps. An uncharitable part of her wondered if it was so that he might better stare at her bosom. On her way down the hall, she had noticed another open door and caught a glimpse of Beattie’s study, which, from the equipment she spied, appeared to function also as a laboratory.

  He gestured her to a chair. Beattie sat down opposite, a low table between them at their knees. Sarah was unused to being seated at such a fixture, more accustomed to serving tea upon it.

  ‘So, what news is it that you have for me?’

  Sarah swallowed. She hoped that the anxiety she might be displaying would be read by him as evidence of her apprehension at sharing difficult tidings.

  ‘Your uncle’s house is in Canaan Lands, is it not? On the Morningside?’

  Beattie paused a moment before responding. It struck her that one should not be so wary of a question to which the answer is a simple yes or no. Did he suspect she was testing him? Probably not. Men such as him did not believe the lower orders to have the audacity or imagination to so deceive.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Miss Grindlay told me how you described it, with its views and fine gardens and even a large hothouse. She said your mother was born and raised there, which makes this all the more difficult.’

  He regarded her with piercing eyes, his expression impatient.

  ‘What of it? Come to the point, Miss . . .?’

  ‘Fisher,’ she reminded him, though she was unsure he had ever heard her surname before. ‘I met a friend today, in the service of a family in Canaan. She was talking about what sounded like the very same house, which was occupied by an elderly gentleman who lives alone. Canaan Bank, I think she said the house was called. Is that your uncle’s? Or did she say Canaan Lodge?’

  ‘What of it?’ he demanded, his irritation growing. Sarah noted that he had not answered the question.

  ‘The most dreadful calamity. The reason she mentioned it was that there was a terrible fire overnight. They woke to the sight of smoke. The house is ruined. I had hoped word might already have reached you, so that I would not be the one to bring such news, but alas it does not appear to be the case.’

  ‘I had heard no word.’

  She noted that he did not ask after the welfare of his uncle.

  ‘I realise this must be particularly distressing as you were to inherit this house, were you not? Though Miss Grindlay said it was in a state of some disrepair and would not be all you once hoped.’

  She could see cogs whirring behind his eyes. Raven had warned her that Beattie would not answer questions of a housemaid, so she had considered her strategy accordingly. The bait in her trap was to offer Beattie a lie that would extricate him from a previous deceit, one she believed he was already laying the groundwork to escape. Tales of the house’s disrepair and his uncle’s illness were a means of preparing the path to tell Mina there would be no house to inherit, from an uncle who would die before she could meet him. If it turned out there was indeed a house in the area that had been so devastated, inhabited by a single elderly gentleman to boot, then this would solve the problem for him.

  ‘Indeed. This is distressing news. You describe the place I know so well. Canaan Bank is lost.’

  Sarah suppressed a smile of satisfaction. By naming the house, he had committed himself. She had him.

  ‘I must say, Dr Beattie, I am troubled that you have not enquired as to the welfare of your uncle.’

  Beattie was unfazed in his response. His answer was calmly logical, and for that, betrayed him all the more.

  ‘I assume he was not a casualty, otherwise you would have led with his demise.’

  ‘Or is it not that you have no such concerns because you have no such uncle? There was no house named Canaan Bank, and no fire either. I made it up – as did you. I would know why.’

  Beattie appeared frozen for a moment, his expression fixed like one of Miss Mann’s calotypes. He blinked once then gave his answer, his nose wrinkling in distaste.

  ‘I cannot think what possessed you to undertake this charade, Miss Fisher, but I knew you were making it up from the moment you walked in here. Which is why I indulged your silly parlour games in order to see where this impertinence might lead. And the answer is that it will lead to the street. I will see you dismissed without character.’

  As a threat Sarah had lived under for some time, it held far less fear than Beattie intended. Sarah met his eye brazenly.

  ‘I suspect Dr Simpson might take a different view, unless you can produce this uncle of yours and the house he lives in. I have consulted the parish register and there is no record of a Charles Latimer. I have been also to the Post Office, where I verified that nobody by that name lives in the city even now. Why are you deceiving Miss Grindlay, Dr Beattie?’

  Fifty-Six

  The carriage bucked and rattled, travelling faster than it ever had before, faster than it was designed for, in fact. Raven heard crack after crack of the reins, Flint’s man showing no restraint as he urged on the horses, giving little consideration to the growing dark and fog. Many an unwary pedestrian had found themselves in need of Syme’s ministrations after straying into the path of a carriage when visibility was this bad, but at such speed it was unlikely any unfortunates would survive long enough to face the further ordeal of surgery.

  Each corner threatened to tip the brougham, though it never quite came to that; more’s the pity, Raven thought, as it might have offered the opportunity to crawl from the wreckage and flee. He tried to estimate the damage should he throw himself from the carriage in order to escape, but it was as though his captors had anticipated such a manoeuvre. They were seated tight on either side of him, wedging him in place. One of them bore a scar from his forehead to his chin, as from a sword blow. The other was distinguished by a goitre so pronounced that he looked like a toad. They had said little, and Raven less.

  He saw his foolishness now. He had come to believe he merely had to keep evading Gargantua and the Weasel, and had reserved his vigilance for his ventures south of Princes Street, as though the New Town was some protected kingdom beyond Flint’s reach. They had been lying in wait, apprehending him as soon as he stepped outside the door to 52 Queen Street. They had asked questions and tracked him down, and now he was being taken to his doom, a fate he had long tempted.

  You have the devil in you.

  He thought of the recklessness with which he had regarded his debt. He feared men such as Flint, but that did not leaven the contempt in which he held them, and sometimes the former was over-ruled by the latter. It satisfied that perverse and angry part of himself to defy them. Thus he had not merely evaded making repayment, but had insulted Flint in the way he resisted, and even injured his men.

/>   As though mocking him, Dr Simpson’s bag sat upon the bench opposite, a totem of the future he dreamed for himself and which he would not live to see. It had been at the coachman’s behest that he leave it in the brougham between trips, Angus having too frequently been forced to double back mid-journey because Simpson had forgotten it in his haste to reach an urgent case.

  Raven found it difficult to make out the buildings clearly in the gloom, but his sense of direction told him they were in Fountainbridge, on the outskirts of the Old Town. Tellingly, the carriage pulled up not in front of a building, but at the rear, where he was bundled out of the coach and marched into a back court, gripped either side by Scar and Toad.

  The Weasel came scurrying from the close at the back of the building in response to the coach’s arrival. He gazed upon Raven with an ugly mix of anger and confusion at him being delivered thus. Raven wondered why he would seem surprised.

  The Weasel was followed by a frightened young woman sporting the beginnings of a black eye, the skin around her right orbit red and swollen with a small amount of conjunctival haemorrhage. She looked drained and pale, with blood smeared about her clothes. Raven could barely guess at her role here, and wondered at the whereabouts of Gargantua.

  The Weasel strode across and punched Raven hard in the stomach but was pushed back by Toad.

  ‘What the devil are you doing? This is Dr Simpson, whom Flint bid us fetch.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Weasel replied. ‘This is Will Raven, the whelp who near blinded me and who yet owes Flint two guineas.’

  ‘I assure you it is Simpson. Flint told us he lives at 52 Queen Street and is to be recognised by his black sealskin coat. We saw him leaving that very house dressed thus.’

  ‘And I’m telling you this one might be wearing his coat, but that’s as close as he will ever get to being Dr Simpson.’

  At that moment, out strode the man to whom Raven owed the debt: Callum Flint himself. He was as Raven remembered: not the biggest of men, but lean and wiry, quick of mind and quick of movement. The build of a pugilist and the brain of a schemer.