Watchers of the Dead

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘He loved animals,’ sniffed Olive, as he walked Lonsdale to the door. He glanced at the dog, which wound around their legs, feathery tail swaying. ‘If Dusty had been allowed to go home with him, he’d still be alive. She’d have seen those monsters off.’

  ‘Monsters?’ asked Lonsdale, hoping he was not about to be told the Kumu were responsible.

  ‘The ones who killed his friends from the Garraway Club as well – four of them, all dead before their time. The police claim they’re natural, but Mr Gurney didn’t believe it. He said they were murdered because of their good works.’

  ‘The others were involved in charitable causes, too?’

  Olive nodded. ‘They invested time and money in matters they considered important. Of course, not everyone appreciated where they chose to spend it. For example, there’s a man at the Garraway – James Burnside – who became angry with Mr Gurney for donating money to the horse sanctuary. He thought the funds should’ve gone to him instead.’

  Lonsdale frowned. ‘What grounds did Burnside have for making such a claim?’

  ‘That charity should begin at home – his business is failing, and he felt his wealthy friends should help him out. But if there was one thing Mr Gurney couldn’t abide, it was beggars. He hated being asked for money, and if anyone did, they were always given short shrift. Burnside was dismissed with a flea in his ear.’

  ‘Did Gurney ever mention a Garraway Club member who calls himself Grim Death?’

  Olive raised his eyebrows. ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Then what about a group called the Watchers?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Gurney was a Watcher,’ replied Olive. ‘He was proud of the fact.’

  Lonsdale’s pulse quickened. ‘Can you tell me anything about it?’

  ‘Only that the society was exclusive, and that membership was by invitation only. I know Professor Dickerson was admitted, and I believe Archbishop Tait was, too. I don’t know about the other two – Sir George Bowyer and Mr Haldane. The only other thing I can tell you is that they have something very special planned for Christmas.’

  Lonsdale wanted to grab his shoulder and shake it, to emphasize the importance of his next question. ‘What was planned, Mr Olive?’

  ‘Mr Gurney said it was something that would change the way Londoners look at things. I asked what he meant, but he refused to elaborate.’

  ‘Were you under the impression that it was something good or something bad?’

  ‘I expected something good, being as it’s the season to be jolly, but Mr Gurney was angry about it. When he spoke, there was a flash in his eyes – the same kind of flash that came when his son disappointed him. Ergo, I rather think it might be something bad.’

  Unable to flag down a hansom, Lonsdale trotted briskly to Haldane’s chambers at King’s Bench Walk in the Inner Temple. His hurried pace made it easy to see that someone was following him again. He pretended not to notice, aware that the person was small and light on his feet, although he kept his distance. Lonsdale ducked into a haberdasher’s shop and hid behind one of the displays. Moments later, Burnside strode in.

  ‘Looking for me?’ Lonsdale asked, watching the photographer jump in alarm.

  ‘Lord, Lonsdale!’ Burnside exclaimed, putting his hand over his heart. ‘You frightened the life out of me! And no, I’m not looking for you, I’m looking for buttons.’

  ‘You just happened by moments after I spotted someone following me?’

  Burnside’s eyebrows shot up into his sandy hair. ‘I wasn’t following you! I’ve just come from Temple Station. Look – here’s my ticket, with the time and date stamped on it by the conductor. And I always buy buttons here, because they’re cheaper than anywhere else.’

  Presented with hard evidence, Lonsdale could only suppose it really was a coincidence that Burnside had materialized. ‘I’ve just been talking to Gurney’s secretary. He told me that you and Gurney quarrelled before he died.’

  ‘About horses,’ nodded Burnside. ‘He thought they were more important than people, and I told him he was wrong. It was arrogant of me, and I apologized afterwards.’

  They talked a while longer, then Lonsdale left him to his shopping. Out on the street, Lonsdale looked around very carefully, but there was no sign of anyone else taking a particular interest in him, and he wondered if he had let his imagination run away with him.

  Space was at a premium in the Inner Temple, so Haldane’s son had been contacted and politely asked how soon he could clear out his father’s rooms. The younger Haldane had hurried to London to oblige. He had given up the legal profession to join the Church and was now Dean of the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles, so it had been a journey of some considerable duration. Lonsdale arrived to find he was being visited by Lady Bowyer – two people united by loss.

  Both were happy to talk to Lonsdale, although neither had heard of the Watchers, Grim Death, or a significant event planned for Christmas. The dean thought his father would have spent Christmas Day at prayer, while the Bowyer household had a tradition of church, then games and music. The dean then went on to say that while his father had experienced a recent financial setback, it was nowhere near as serious as Humbage had claimed so gloatingly.

  ‘People accused him of being miserly,’ he said, ‘but the truth is that he gave a lot of money away. For example, when I was a curate at Calne in Wiltshire, he paid for nearly all the pews when he learned my congregation couldn’t afford them.’

  ‘The same people accuse my husband of having a cutting tongue,’ put in Lady Bowyer. ‘He could be sharp, but only to those who deserved it – like that dreadful Gervais Humbage. And he was quietly generous, too – he helped the families of the criminals he sent to prison. How many barristers can claim that?’

  ‘Not many,’ agreed Lonsdale.

  ‘They were both murdered, you know,’ Lady Bowyer went on unsteadily. ‘I don’t care what the police claim now. I saw my husband’s body, and he did not die a natural death. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.’

  ‘Inspector Wells,’ put in Dean Haldane. ‘He’s the liar. Superintendent Hayes was assigned to both cases at first, and he promised us answers. I believe we’d have got them.’

  ‘But Commissioner Henderson saw fit to replace him with that blundering buffoon Wells,’ said Lady Bowyer bitterly.

  ‘Wells came to see me yesterday, but all he did was drink tea and eat cakes,’ said the dean. ‘You’ve asked me about Grim Death, Watchers and Christmas, but he asked nothing and he told me less.’

  ‘I think that Garraway Club has something to do with their murders,’ put in Lady Bowyer. ‘My husband sometimes stayed there very late, but when he did, he never came back rosy-cheeked with drink as he did when he went to the Savile Club. I asked him what he did there that entailed him lingering until the early hours, then rolling home stone-cold sober, but he always refused to say.’

  ‘Talking, probably,’ said the dean darkly. ‘Because it was the same with my father. I had the sense that he’d been in some sort of meeting.’

  A Watchers’ meeting, Lonsdale thought, but did not say.

  ‘Break in to the place,’ suggested the dean, and his eyes gleamed. ‘That’s the only way you’ll get answers. I’ll help. I’ve never committed burglary before, but if it’ll catch my father’s killer …’

  ‘Count me in, too,’ declared Lady Bowyer, who was well into her seventies and stout.

  ‘It’s a kind offer,’ said Lonsdale hastily. ‘But let’s stick with more conventional methods first. I promise to keep you informed.’

  He stood to leave, and saw the dean was using copies of The Echo in which to wrap his father’s valuables. He supposed the porters had supplied them, as he was sure the dean had loftier tastes. On the front of one was a drawing of Maclean, which made him look vaguely like a bowler-hatted rodent.

  ‘A sly face,’ remarked the dean, seeing where he was looking. ‘But one I’m sure I’ve seen since I arrived in London.’

  ‘You’ve probably
seen him,’ said Lady Bowyer, pointing through the window to where a man stood on the pavement opposite. The hat hid most of his face, but Lonsdale was sure it was the man who had been following him – and who had tried to incinerate the mortuary.

  He did not wait to hear more. Blurting his apologies, he left the chambers at a run, tearing into the street so fast that a passing hansom struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder. He staggered, trying to regain his balance, as Bowler Hat took to his heels. The hansom driver swore, and there was an unpleasant crunch as his vehicle collided with one coming the other way. Lonsdale jigged around the resulting melee, but Bowler Hat had gone. Lonsdale raced to the end of the road, but there were too many directions his quarry could have taken, and he was forced to concede defeat.

  He rubbed his shoulder as he went to apologize to the hansom driver. Had the figure been Maclean? He was sure it was not when the possibility had first been mooted, but now he was less certain. The man could well be the would-be regicide – small, slightly built and nondescript – although Lonsdale failed to understand why Maclean would follow him. Was it because The Pall Mall Gazette was exploring the five murders? But if Maclean was the culprit, what powerful and influential person was contriving to cover it up by dismissing competent detectives, hiring lazy ones, and ordering pathologists to alter their reports? It made no sense.

  Feeling guilty over the collision, although there was luckily no damage to vehicles or horses, Lonsdale hired the hansom driver to take him the short distance to the Royal Courts of Justice, where Haldane had worked and died. He learned nothing of note, and it was mid-afternoon and beginning to rain by the time he emerged. Bowyer’s offices were in Kensington, so he hurried there next, but although the man’s colleagues were eager to help, they knew nothing of relevance.

  As he was close, he decided to visit Roth, and arrived to find his friend working on more artefacts from Dickerson’s collection. This time, it was an exquisite selection of beads, some of which were silver.

  ‘These are pretty,’ he said, picking one up. ‘Are they valuable?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Roth. ‘Although I like them for the artwork. Of course, they’re not as nice as Khoikhoi beadwork. The public would’ve had a rare treat if our Khoikhoi had put on the display we’d organized. The professor was right about that.’

  ‘Kumu,’ corrected Lonsdale. ‘That’s the second time you’ve got their name wrong, Tim, and you can’t blame work this time, because these beads aren’t from West or Southern Africa.’

  ‘No – they’re Kikuyu,’ said Roth, scrubbing tiredly at his face. ‘East Africa. It’s hard to keep track of them all.’

  ‘That’s not something a professional ethnographer should admit,’ chided Lonsdale jocularly, ‘especially the one who’s been given the task of curating the Dickerson Collection.’

  Roth smiled wanly. ‘No, it’s not, so let’s not tell anyone, shall we?’

  They chatted desultorily for a while, then Lonsdale broached the subject of the Garraway.

  ‘I met Gurney there once,’ said Roth. ‘He smelled of dog.’

  ‘Your rooms smell of something.’ Lonsdale sniffed the air, trying to place an aroma that was instantly familiar. ‘It reminds me of Africa.’

  Roth waved a thin hand at the piles of crates. ‘It’s coming from these. It’s nice, isn’t it? Puts me in mind of happier times, when I still had my health and my life seemed full of promise.’

  ‘It’s full of promise now,’ said Lonsdale. ‘You’re financially secure and you have interesting work to keep you busy for years.’

  ‘But I also have the police accusing my cannibals of murdering the professor, and your Miss Friederichs convinced that I did it. Tell her to back off, will you, Alec?’

  Lonsdale nearly laughed at the notion of telling Hulda what to do. He plied Roth with more questions about the club and the Watchers, but his friend could tell him no more, so he took his leave.

  Outside in the street, Lonsdale hesitated, wondering what to do next. There was no sign of Bowler Hat, although he thought he saw Voules slithering out of sight. He sighed irritably. He had to show the grass to Francis Galton that evening, and he could not have Voules trailing him there – Galton would never forgive him if a reporter from The Echo rolled up and started asking impertinent questions. Then he remembered Turkish Ma.

  Ma, who was not Turkish at all, was the owner of a small ‘gentlemen’s parlour’ that catered to middle-class men with time on their hands in the middle of the day – she closed at six o’clock prompt, on the grounds that she had better things to do with her evenings than work. She and Lonsdale had been friends ever since he had helped her after a road accident several years before.

  Making sure Voules kept him in sight, Lonsdale walked the short distance to Ma’s domain and pretended to look around furtively before stepping inside. Ma was at the front desk and broke into a beam of welcome when she saw him.

  ‘There’s a man following me,’ he said, slipping her ten shillings. ‘I need to lose him. Will you help?’

  Ma grinned and indicated two pretty young women who had draped themselves over a nearby couch. ‘Henrietta and Florence will distract him for you. He won’t even remember you exist after ten minutes. They’re very good.’

  While the two ladies readied themselves for what Lonsdale thought would be a very distasteful session, Ma led him to the back of her house, where she unlocked the door to a small yard. He emerged in a dank lane, but it was only a few steps before he was back on Cromwell Road. He took a hansom home, where Sybil the maid handed him a note from Galton, inviting him to dine that evening.

  Lonsdale groaned. He had hoped to learn what he needed to know in half an hour, whereas dinner with Galton – an eccentric who loved to talk – might last all night. He groaned a second time when he saw the postscript at the end of the message, saying how delighted Galton would be if Lonsdale would bring his colleague, Hulda Friederichs, who had written ‘the brilliantly biting review of that nonsense Iolanthe today’.

  He dashed off a message to Hulda, telling her she would be expected, and was about to change when a carriage arrived outside. His heart sank when he saw it was Humbage.

  ‘I’m not here to see you, Lonsdale,’ said Humbage rudely, pushing his way past Sybil the moment she opened the door. ‘I want your brother. My friend Lord Carlingford has a question about the law, and I offered to answer it for him.’

  ‘Jack’s at work,’ said Lonsdale. ‘He always is on weekday afternoons.’

  ‘But you’re here lounging around, I see,’ sneered Humbage.

  ‘Changing for an appointment with Francis Galton,’ said Lonsdale, aiming to shut him up with his own bit of name-dropping. It failed.

  ‘Galton isn’t even a knight of the realm,’ said Humbage in disdain. ‘You should nurture more important connections than that if you want to make something of yourself.’

  ‘I understand you’re a member of the Garraway Club,’ said Lonsdale, going on an offensive of his own. ‘A place where five members have been murdered.’

  ‘Not according to the police,’ said Humbage between gritted teeth. ‘You should get your nose out of The Echo and read a respectable paper, then you’d know the truth. Besides, I only joined because Lord Carlingford recommended it, but he rarely goes there, so neither do I.’

  ‘He was there on Sunday,’ retorted Lonsdale. ‘With Fleetwood-Pelham and several of his other close friends.’

  Humbage could not hide his dismay. ‘But he told me he was going to White’s.’

  Although it would have been deeply satisfying to suggest that Carlingford had lied in order to escape from him, Lonsdale could not bring himself to be cruel. Instead, he asked if Humbage had met anyone nicknamed Grim Death.

  ‘No, but if I did, I’d tell him such an appellation was in bad taste and suggest he change it.’

  ‘Then have you heard of some event involving Garraway Club members at Christmas?’

  ‘No, but do you know if Lord C
arlingford is going?’ asked Humbage eagerly, and for the first time, Lonsdale felt he was more to be pitied than disliked. ‘Because if he is, I’ll have to cancel my engagement here and go with him instead. He’d want me at his side on such an auspicious day.’

  ‘Why is it auspicious?’ asked Lonsdale, wondering if Humbage had heard something in the club, but had not realized its importance.

  ‘Because it celebrates the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ,’ replied Humbage haughtily. ‘Why else?’

  Lonsdale had asked Hulda to meet him at Hyde Park Corner at seven o’clock. It was an hour before they were due at Galton’s house, but he wanted time to discuss the case with her first. He specified the centre column of Decimus Burton’s Ionic Screen – originally built as part of the grand approach to Buckingham Palace – which was always well lit and had benches where they could sit and talk.

  He was surprised when she arrived with Fleetwood-Pelham, who had agreed to be interviewed about the Queen’s Christmas travel plans, as long as she asked her questions while he shopped for presents at Liberty and Harrods. To save her taking notes, he had offered to lend her his copy of the itinerary, and as St James’s Palace was not far from Galton’s home, he had suggested she collect it that evening. So much for our discussion time, thought Lonsdale resignedly.

  ‘Perhaps I should write about how Richard Owen refuses to set a date for Her Majesty’s visit to his museum,’ said Hulda, as the three of them set off across Green Park together.

  ‘He says he’s too busy for the commotion it will entail,’ said Fleetwood-Pelham, and grinned rather slyly. ‘She’ll be furious when I tell her.’

  ‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t,’ suggested Lonsdale, although if the courtier heard, he gave no sign of it, suggesting he rather relished the prospect of setting the cat among the pigeons.

  ‘Isn’t it treason or something?’ asked Hulda. ‘To deny the Queen?’

  Fleetwood-Pelham chuckled, revealing small, even teeth in his curiously minuscule lower jaw. ‘If only it were! I wouldn’t mind putting Owen’s head on the chopping block, as I’ve never met a more odious individual. He told me he was glad the cannibals had killed poor Dickerson, because he’d never wanted that exhibition in the first place.’