Ducking his head, Lem shoved long arms into his coat. He was glad she couldn’t see the expression of pride on his face. Pride was a thing that looked silly enough, he often felt, on an older man’s face, let alone on a younger one’s, who should know better. That his mistress might consider him a man now, too—that she had even asked him to join her in a conspiracy of sorts—was something he’d have to think about.
I’ll do my best, his final nod signified. Then he walked out quickly to the main road, to be further tousled by the gusty afternoon.
Chapter 12
WHEN LEM WAS gone, Charlotte continued through the yard, looking forward to a visit with Richard Longfellow, reasonably confident he’d be hard at work on matters of interest to them both. Under bright autumn clouds she forced her way against the wind, across the fading gardens.
She eventually found him in his greenhouse, built against a rock wall that formed the south side of his barn. Cicero sat in its small vestibule, surrounded by late roses on trellises set against the costly glass walls. He appeared to be engaged in pleasant contemplation, with his eyes closed. Through the inner door, Charlotte could see Longfellow bending over a workbench.
“His experiments with the love apples?” she asked the old man, stopping for a moment to share his limestone seat.
“He’ll kill us all, before he’s through,” Cicero growled after a yawn.
“And Diana? Where is she?”
“Miss Longfellow is out this morning. She let it be known she didn’t care much for the smell last night, and that she was going to the inn to recover herself.”
“Ah,” said Charlotte. Diana’s current visit was proceeding along the lines of most previous ones.
The glasshouse was a breath of July in late October, due to the rich soils and growing things within its humid warmth. Southern honeysuckle twined next to pots of Appalachian rhododendrons and bare stalks of South American orchids. This year, a raised bed of West Indian pineapples grew below a permanent and fantastic palm, next to an orange tree in a Spanish jar. Several other beds were generally used for starting annual vegetables, or for growing strawberries.
Near the back, a multi-flued Baltic stove sat ready to protect the tenderest plants on the coldest nights, though the stone wall behind it stored sufficient heat from sunlight to keep the frost away during much of the spring and fall. Each morning, after late September, large felt shades which were attached to the rafters were rolled up, while at sunset, they were unrolled again and overlapped for more thermal protection.
Longfellow frequently explained the workings of the place to Mrs. Willett, and to anyone else willing to listen. And many did. The building and its contents, the result of years of research and experimentation, were the wonder of the neighborhood. This was especially true during the snowy months. Then, favored guests might be asked in for a meal taken almost alfresco. Others had to make do with peering in from outside.
“How are the lycopersicon?” Longfellow’s neighbor inquired with interest, joining him as he bent over clusters of dark green leaves that partly hid several glossy red fruits.
“These inside are still doing nicely,” he remarked, picking back some errant stems with his long fingers, “but I don’t believe pomodori will ever be seriously grown for food here, the way they’re being cultivated in Italy—even though they’re one of our own natives. I’ve found they make an interesting condiment, with some spice added. But I predict it will never take the place of oyster sauce.”
“I seem to remember you telling me that all of the solanaceae, including these, can be deadly.”
“Some parts of them … and the nightshades, in particular. Although even they can have their uses. I’m sure you’re aware that Italian women often court love, and death, by widening their eyes with belladonna. Insanity is another frequent effect. In my opinion, however, it’s tobacco that’s the worst of the family. A wretched, dangerous thing to foist onto society. Our plantation friends are happily leading the rest of us to perdition, solely to line their pockets.”
“‘It’s good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.’”
“Hmmm! Old Ben Jonson was perfectly right. Though he neglected to mention snuff! However,” Longfellow went on more cheerfully, “the potato of the same genus seems to be a more healthful success.” He dropped the tomato shoots he held into a basket of clippings meant for the compost heap outside, and sniffed at his fingers.
“And so, we conclude that this family is both dangerous and beneficial, like so many others. Which reminds me … is Diana enjoying her stay?” Charlotte asked politely.
“About as much as she ever does. If my sister can find something to gossip about, or someone to admire her silks and scents, she’s reasonably happy. If she’s forced to live simply like the rest of us, however, she dies a thousand deaths—and few of them are quiet ones. Still,” he added, reconsidering, “she’s certainly good at creating amusements.”
“As we’ll no doubt discover tonight. Do you think she’ll bite Captain Montagu, or will she be content simply to mumble him?”
“We’ll have to wait and see. But let me tell you what else I’ve discovered, through my scientific inquires. I’ve been reviewing what’s known of combustion, to help you with your interest in this absurd affair out on the highway.”
“And?”
“Not an easy task! No one knows the exact components of combustion. The theory of phlogiston maintains that this element, and another called calx, must be present in all combustible matter—the one escaping in the burning process, the other remaining as a residue. Although personally, I agree with the ideas expressed in the work of the Englishman Boyle, and his pupils Hooke and Mazori. They believed that the mixture of air and the volatile sulphurous parts of combustible bodies causes them to act one upon the other—and, that parts of both ascend during combustion, generally accompanied by smoke and flame, leaving a final, unburnable residue behind.”
“Oh, yes?” Charlotte commented, frowning.
“It’s also known that a volume of air in a sealed chamber is diminished by the process of combustion—and that once diminished, this air will no longer support burning, if one should attempt to ignite another object within the unopened chamber. It’s curious that the same effects may be obtained by enclosing an animal in the space, and allowing it to breathe until some necessary part of the air is removed.”
“But that’s—”
“This leads many to assume that combustion and respiration are actually the same thing. Although during respiration, of course, combustion is not observed. Still, if the process were to be altered by yet another cause, then the effect of actual fire might conceivably result from respiration in an animal, or even in a man—perhaps even in our Mr. Middleton. No one yet comprehends such a cause, if one does exist. The original research was done nearly a century ago, and it’s high time for some additional progress to be made. Once we know exactly what this substance in the air necessary to combustion is—
Longfellow threw his arms apart and breathed deeply of an unknown source of inspiration.
“But as yet,” countered Charlotte, “we have no good reason to suppose that the man just burst into flames—”
“There are precedents, as well as similar things in Nature. For instance, we all know that spontaneous combustion of certain things can occur when they’re carelessly stored, especially when damp—and that they will sometimes explode into flames after smoldering for a while. Hay, coal, logs—it’s not uncommon. A farmer considers this to be a naturally occurring process, without truly understanding the cause. That is why he dries his hay before storing it in his barn.”
“I think we can assume, though, that Mr. Middleton was neither damp, nor confined in any particular way.”
“But something might have altered his original state, in a way that could be repeated in a similar situation, at another time—something perhaps linked with his natural respiration.”
“Then yo
u do believe it’s likely Duncan Middleton was consumed in some kind of fire?” asked Charlotte cautiously, fingering a stalk of rusty chrysanthemum tied to a stake of cane. Longfellow smiled his sweetest smile, and let his true conclusion out.
“I believe nothing of the kind,” he said firmly. “None of this is actually relevant to the matter we’re looking into. I find it much more likely that substances far simpler than the bodily tissues of Duncan Middleton were burned on Tuesday night.”
“I’ve wondered myself if it might not have been something like Greek fire.”
Longfellow stared at her blankly. He had planned to explain the rest of his idea after Charlotte had been suitably impressed with its beginning. Instead, he was forced to pause and admire the fact that she’d reached his own conclusion without him.
“My library isn’t a very new one,” she reminded him gently, “but it’s well stocked with the classical authors, and I do find some time to read.”
“Come with me.”
“I’ve read of its historical use, of course,” she managed as he towed her by the arm past a startled Cicero, and then on toward the house. “The Byzantines created Greek fire for warfare, didn’t they? And it was later taken up by the Crusaders, I think who used it against the Saracen. But whatever the secret formula was, I seem to remember it was activated by contact with water, so I don’t quite—”
“Sometimes it was,” Longfellow shouted back over the wind. “But with the substitution of phosphorus, which burns when exposed to air—”
“—a kind of land bomb could be made! Oh! But what exactly is phosphorus?”
“A highly unstable element, isolated in Hamburg in the 1660s, derived from … well, at any rate, isolated. It burns first with quantities of white smoke—very useful for camouflage, by the way—and then with a clear blue flame.”
He slowed for breath, and looked up. The faint cries of Canada geese filtered down from the sky, as a flock passed overhead like hounds running after prey.
“Phosphorus may be kept,” Longfellow continued, “in a vial of turpentine, or even water. If the vial is broken and pieces of phosphorus exposed to air, they should burn very nicely. If you add to this a bit of charcoal for a base, some pitch, sulphur, and a dash of saltpeter, then you have a fine, portable package full of fire, smoke, and the smell of Satan at your disposal, waiting to be tossed down. The intense heat would of course cause the glass to melt while the rest burned, making the entire thing appear to have occurred without a natural source!” Reaching the house, he opened the kitchen door.
“I tried it last night with the materials I had delivered. And here you see the results. Nearly identical with what I removed from the road.”
Charlotte stared at kitchen surfaces scattered with glass dishes and tubes, and at a large, flat rock covered with black material, on the floor in front of her feet.
“So that’s how the effect was created,” she finally managed, while her nose wrinkled at the lingering stink of combustion. “I certainly hope your information, with what I have to tell you, will bring us close to a solution.”
“Then Captain Montagu will be forced to conclude that there are more than roots and vegetables inhabiting the country! But, I’m still in the dark, Carlotta, when it comes to explaining how Middleton managed the rest of his trick. How do you think he kept Pennywort from seeing him, as he ran away?”
“I do have a few ideas—”
At that moment there was a banging of the door, and the sound of silk brushing along the hall. Diana Longfellow flounced into the room, the fashionable hoops at her hips causing her skirts to swing barely within the bounds of safety. It was eminently clear that the morning had seen another triumph, and that it, too, was soon to be related.
“YOU SHOULD BOTH be glad,” Diana began vigorously, “that someone cares for the safety of your little village. I’ve just come from expressing my thoughts on recent matters to Captain Montagu.”
“Captain Montagu?” her listeners asked together. Diana paused to examine a fingernail.
“Could it be,” inquired Longfellow, “that you’ve rejudged the man, and found him human after all?”
“As I say, Captain Montagu—who, by the way, was particularly glad to speak with someone respectable, and intelligible. I’ve been making myself very useful … unlike, he informs me, certain others in the neighborhood.”
Charlotte and Longfellow waited for more.
“He’s apparently having trouble discovering the facts from the local rabble, so I related to him what I had heard of this monster Pennywort, stalking innocent travelers and then covering his crimes by spreading tales so absurd that your rustics were bound to believe them. I convinced the captain that this blackguard Pennywort should be arrested immediately, and locked up somewhere until he can be tried.”
“Diana,” her brother asked at last, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, “have you ever seen this character you describe so vividly?”
“No,” she had to admit. But she kept her chin high, inviting a challenge to her powers of intuition.
“Well, Jack Pennywort is shorter than you, he has a deformed foot, his mind is about as active as that of a possum that’s been hanging at a cider bung—and to lock him up would deprive a wife and four small children of the rather dubious livelihood they now enjoy. While it may be fashionable for some in your world to ridicule and torture Nature’s unfortunates, following perhaps the great courts of Europe, it will hardly do to taunt such victims of misfortune here. We should all, I think, have a little more compassion than that.”
Much of what Longfellow said was, of course, a lie; laughing at Pennywort had been a sport enjoyed by a good portion of the village for much of their lives, although it was not especially popular among the more enlightened. But Diana’s eyes lost some of their snap as she listened, and considered.
“Besides,” her brother added, “Charlotte and I have already concluded it’s very likely Middleton isn’t dead at all, but only gone away. It seems he himself was the inventor behind his rather theatrical demise.”
“What! But how? And why!”
“Why? How should I know? But the fact is that you are out to hang an innocent man. My experiments, which you objected to so heartily last night, prove that the merchant planned to disappear. And so he did.”
“Yet doesn’t it seem strange,” Diana asked very slowly, savoring each word, “that Middleton, a prominent, wealthy merchant, would leave everything behind—even his ready funds?”
“Do you happen to be acquainted with the man’s lawyers? Or have you acquired a crystal ball?”
“No, I heard it from Edmund—from Captain Montagu,” she corrected herself, smiling at the memory of his confidence. “The captain informs me that his own inquiry leads him to suspect foul play, as none of the man’s wealth has been touched. He’s clearly dead, Richard.”
“Middleton probably arranged to have his property sold by an accomplice. Or else he plans to claim it himself, when he’s good and ready.”
“Then we’ll see,” was all he could get in reply.
Charlotte, though surprised by Diana’s information, also remembered suddenly that she had something else to attend to.
“Shall I call for you around four?” Longfellow asked as she lingered for a moment at the door.
“No … you go on. I’ll join you at the inn. Right now, there’s someone—well, I’ll tell you about it later.”
Leaving her neighbors to continue their family fray, Mrs. Willett made her way back across to her own safe and ordered kitchen. She felt greatly in need of a strong cup of tea, as well as a few moments for quiet thought.
Chapter 13
HANNAH SLOAN WAS peacefully shredding cabbage for pickling when the kitchen door burst open and Charlotte bustled in, with Lem trailing close behind.
At first, the young man only stood, and gulped. Then, quite abruptly and to the amazement of both women, he began to pour forth a description of his visit to the Blue Boar. Whi
le she listened, Charlotte filled a green glass goblet with buttermilk, from the jug on the cellar steps. It was as if, she thought, a lava cone had been lifted up, and a new Vesuvius born.
“Right away, I found Jack Pennywort sitting there, the way you said he’d be. When I told him you’d offered to give him work for a day, and food, he called for another pint of ale. I doubt,” Lem added, pausing in his narration for a moment, “if we’ll get much work out of him when he comes, or if he’ll have much money left from what you pay him, after Mr. Wise collects what he’s owed.”
“Why on earth do you want Jack Pennywort coming here?” Hannah cried out, her cap shaking. “The man’s liable to-make off with anything that isn’t pegged in or nailed down! The last time he worked for Julia Bowers, and her husband the constable, no less—”
“Don’t you think offering a kindness to someone in need is worth our taking a chance?” Charlotte interrupted softly, a quiver of unclear origin in her voice. Hannah swallowed a further protest for the moment. But her expression showed that she was far from convinced.
“Then,” Lem leaped on, apparently enjoying the new exercise, “there was a noise at the door, and Peter Lynch came in with several others, who could barely keep still while the miller spoke. He told Mr. Wise that he’d been harboring a thief in Mary’s friend, the Frenchman, and then Peter and the rest demanded to see the Frenchman’s room.”
At this, Hannah stopped her muttering to listen.
“And did Phineas agree?” Charlotte asked quickly.
“They pushed Mr. Wise aside before he could even answer, and started climbing the stairs. I went up behind, and when I got to the door, the farthest one, I saw Peter Lynch rise up from behind the bed. And he was holding a gold coin! It was a Dutch one, too, he said, a gulden; then he passed it around for all to see.”
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