He was a brave man, although I despised him entirely.
I twisted the blade and slammed it into the teak floor. It quivered and twanged, the silver skull swinging like a reversed pendulum.
“Dr Ellen Marshall. Remember that name.”
Jameson swallowed loudly.
I put on my hat. “The second part of Melville’s message is this: stay out of England.”
He nodded. “I shall.”
Epilogue
Jameson was as good as his word. Two years later, he was elected Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. After four years as premier, he led the Unionist Party, and was instrumental in creating the Union of South Africa in 1910. He served under the first Prime Minister of the Union, Louis Botha, who had commanded the Transvaal army during the war. Jameson never was a man to bear a grudge, so long as Empire prevailed. He was created a baronet the year after that, an extraordinary achievement for a man involved in the Jameson Raid and the Empire Loyalist League. Eventually, just before the Great War, he did return to London, but he played no active role in politics.
My mission from Melville was twofold: to warn Jameson, and to remain in Cape Town until Rhodes’ will was finally proved. I put up at the Royal Hotel, with no idea how long I’d be staying. I took long walks in the rain, and smoked large amounts of spicy Cavendish tobacco, readily available from the Dutch merchants. On the second Monday I received a letter from Roberta, dated Tuesday the twelfth of August.
It read:
My Dear Alec
Your letter was the kindest I have ever received, and I can’t thank you enough for giving it to me with Ellen’s diary. Naturally, when I realised the shocking circumstances of her murder, I blamed myself. Were it not for her friendship with me, Ellen wouldn’t have to mentioned Mr Lyttelton’s name to your father, and he would probably not have done — she would be alive now. My conscience still pains me, but I know I am not to blame. You are right: your father, Dr Drayton, and Lt Carey killed Ellen. It was their doing, and theirs alone, and no one else is in any way responsible.
(I doubt I would ever have been able to write those words, let alone actually believe them, were it not for your eloquence.)
You will probably know by now that your father committed suicide after you left him. You’ll forgive me when I say that I am not sorry, for he showed himself to be a hateful and evil man. Please accept my sincerest condolences on what must, for you, have been an even more dreadful revelation than it was for me. With all three of the culpable parties in Ellen’s murder deceased, I quite agree with your decision. There is no need to blacken your family name with scandal. Aside from anything else, Ellen would not want it. As her loyal friend, I am content to know the truth myself, and to know that you, whom in all the world she held closest to her heart, were able to uncover such a despicable, cowardly act. I shall never forget what you did for Ellen — and me. I trust your commission will be completed with all expedition, and that you will soon be back in London. Perhaps when you return to your home in Sussex Place, you will call upon me. I should like that very much.
I remain yours affectionately
Miss Roberta Paterson
P.S. I placed your advertisement in the agony columns, and was immediately contacted by a Mr Davidson. He was rather a crosspatch over his Honesty. Regrettably, he is not a very patriotic gentleman either: despite my assurances that the safety bicycle had been commandeered in the service of His Majesty’s government, he continued to threaten legal action against the culprit. He was only slightly pacified by the ten pounds you (rather too generously, if I may say) left for him. I reminded him that the donation was more than the price of a brand new Honesty, and sent him on his way. Ungracious, indeed!
I was delighted to read every word printed in Roberta’s small, neat longhand. Having survived first my father and then Jameson, I now had every hope of renewing my acquaintance with her on my return to London. The days after the letter seemed even longer than those before.
A week later I attended a meeting on Melville’s behalf, concerning the public legacy Rhodes is now associated with, the Oxford scholarships. As early as the first of August, Parkin had been appointed to organise the Rhodes Scholarship Trust. He’d left London the same day as I had, on a world tour, to make the first awards. The Ancient House of Congregation of the University of Oxford initially rejected the scholarships. The Congregation and the Chancellor, who happened to be Lord Curzon, were horrified at the idea of Britain’s oldest university being inundated with students whose families couldn’t afford to buy their places. Furthermore, they were outraged that the candidates would be colonials and foreigners: of the first two hundred proposed scholarship students, ninety-six were American.
Oxford admitted only twelve scholarship students in 1903, seven from the Southern African colonies, and five from Germany. With the assistance of Earl Grey, Parkin increased the number to sixty-two in 1904, and established the scholarships as a permanent feature for seventy-two men each year thereafter. John Behan, one of the first Canadian Rhodes Scholars, became Dean of University College just before the Great War, and lent some weight to the success of the scheme. Parkin proved an expert administrator of the Rhodes Scholarships, was knighted for his services, and devoted the rest of his life to the work. I couldn’t help but wonder how efficiently he would’ve organised the membership of the League instead. Perhaps, in a way, he was doing just that. Rhodes believed that Oxford was a mystical vortex, the centre of ‘Englishness’ at the very heart of Empire. The League may have been dissolved, but the scholarships exported Englishness to the world.
On the third Thursday I finally received the news I’d been waiting for: the will had been proved. I went straight from the solicitor’s office to telegraph Melville, and I waited there until I received his reply. It came with thanks, included permission to return to London, and a note that Truegood was back at work. I booked a ticket on the next P&O vessel, due to leave on Sunday the twenty-first of September.
I never returned to South Africa.
Melville was right, I was tired of soldiering. I didn’t use my testimonial from General Broadwood, and the Twelfth Royal Lancers seemed none the worse without me. Special Branch were somewhat worse off without Melville, however. A year and a month after I returned to London, he shocked all of his colleagues and most of his superiors by resigning from the police and becoming a private investigator. Few could understand why the King’s Detective had suddenly decided to retire at a fit and healthy fifty-three. I could, but I had an unfair advantage, because I knew that ‘W. Morgan, General Agent’ wasn’t in fact a private detective agency.
But that is another story.
This one concludes two months after it began, on the afternoon of the eleventh of October. The Osiris docked in Southampton harbour and this time I was one of the last passengers to leave. I was elated to be back. At last, after eleven years, the war, Ellen’s murder, and the Empire Loyalist League, I was home. I savoured the first step onto the quay, smiling stupidly to myself as the rain beat down. Nothing could’ve dampened my spirits, but something made them soar. Standing next to Williams, looking like Helen of Troy, was Miss Roberta Paterson.
Hello, Dolly Gray.
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About the Author
Rafe McGregor is the author of nine books and two hundred articles, essays, and reviews. His most recent book is Bloody Reckoning. He can be found online at @rafemcgregor.
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The Architect of Murder Page 26