Curse of the Purple Pearl

by Adrian Speed

  “Yeah,” I walked down the road and looked at the buildings. They all had welcoming doorways, but glimpsing inside through a window, airport-like security in the foyer. It wouldn't do to dawdle here too long in a suspicious way.

  “One, twelve,” Sir Reginald walked down the street with a confidence I lacked. Security guards and government goons didn't worry Sir Reginald. “Twelve A…twenty-seven.” I followed him closely, keeping an eye on the numbers of the buildings.

  Our footsteps echoed between the buildings in the stillness. The other side of the Charing Cross roundabout was a chaos of cars and buses, a distant roar, like the wind. You could almost hear a pin drop on this street. I felt we should be whispering.

  “Seventy-five.” Sir Reginald smiled as we approached the Ministry of Defence and tapped his cane on the pavement. I looked around. We had run out of street. To the right was St James's Park, and that was it. “As I thought.”

  “What?” I cast around for another brass plaque of building numbers. “Where's 150?”

  “It doesn't exist,” Sir Reginald said, with a pained smile on his face.

  “But Genesis said–”

  “Indeed.” Sir Reginald looked around the street. “Genesis said the Order of the Pearl was forced to leave 150 Spring Gardens in 2008, and they took up the lease in 1789.” He waited patiently for me to catch on.

  “And?” I asked after a while.

  “What style of building are these?” Sir Reginald asked.

  “Regency?” I guessed.

  “And that name pertains to?”

  “The Regency and reign of King George the, er, the something. Third?”

  “King George the IV. And he reigned between?” Sir Reginald said with infuriating patience.

  “Er, until Queen Victoria. So from, I forget when until...eighteen...thirty-seven?” I guessed.

  “My point,” Sir Reginald took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Is that in 1789 these buildings did not exist; 150 Spring Gardens does not exist now and never has.”

  “I thought Genesis was supposed to be the sum of all human knowledge in history,” I frowned. “How can Genesis be wrong?”

  “In one of three ways. Either Genesis's original source is mistaken and contains a typing error, or Genesis's original source is a deliberate misdirection by the Order of the Pearl to prevent people from staying on their tail, or, and this is the terrifying one, Genesis lied to us,” Sir Reginald replaced his hat. “I don’t like any of those answers. Come.” Sir Reginald turned on his heel and took off towards St James's Park. Buckingham Palace was barely visible in the distance, obscured by the trees and flags that lined the Mall. I struggled to catch up, then kept pace as Sir Reginald charged through the park, kicking up dust.

  On the street corner near one of the main entrances to the park a hawker sold Union Jack hats, plastic Big Bens and other tourist detritus that weighed down the outgoing planes from Heathrow. Sir Reginald barrelled up to him.

  “I require an AtoZ guide to London,” Sir Reginald announced.

  “Wha'?” the hawker in the little stand had a Cockney accent thick enough to chop into pieces and use as a low-cost cheese substitute.

  “An AtoZ guide to London,” Sir Reginald repeated. “Or a guide book. Something that would enable me to know precise addresses within the area of metropolitan London.”

  “Alwight, alwight, keep yer 'air on,” the hawker flicked through his merchandise looking for one of his smaller sellers. Eventually he picked up a small book, about a hand span high. “This wha' yer wan', mate?”

  “Precisely so.”

  “Ten pound,” the hawker said. Sir Reginald reached into his jacket and removed a cheque book. The shopkeeper rolled his eyes. “I dun' take cheques mate.”

  “I assure you, you may trust this one,” Sir Reginald wrote the cheque with a flourish of fountain pen. In Sir Reginald's old-fashioned handwriting it looked more like a royal proclamation. Somehow Sir Reginald overturned the hawker's suspicion and took the AtoZ Guide. He flicked through it to the index. Spring Gardens was listed, with addresses from one to seventy-five.

  I had hung back from the brief conversation, and Sir Reginald walked towards me shaking his head.

  “No good?”

  “Ten pounds, can you believe it? Ten pounds for an AtoZ,” Sir Reginald muttered. “If I were not in a more troubled mind I would go back and give that shopkeeper a piece of it. Why, with ten pounds I could get a table at the Savoy and dine all night with their finest wine and still retain a few shillings at the end of the evening.” Sir Reginald held up the book. “Nevertheless, we will be able to prove whether Genesis lied or not with this, so it is worth having. It is, perhaps, even worth the full ten pounds.” Sir Reginald slipped the small volume into an inside pocket of his jacket and looked at me more closely. My attention was on the white building on the opposite side of the road.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling Sir Reginald's eyes on me. “It's the Royal Society,” I thumbed towards the edifice of white stone that climbed above the trees. It looked like an iced rectangular Christmas cake piled on top of a larger one. “One of the first places I came to visit when I moved to London. The idea of standing where Sir Isaac Newton once stood is pretty breathtaking.” I giggled. “Though I doubt he would approve of me visiting it a second time before the first time.”

  “Oh Sir Isaac rarely approved of anything,” Sir Reginald shrugged his shoulders. “Hideously dour man. I always used to say he was born two drinks too sober.”

  “You knew him?” my eyes widened.

  “I ran across him a few times,” Sir Reginald admitted. “I spent more time with Hooke, although I didn’t see him enough either. With men that famous, you understand, you can never be more than an acquaintance, otherwise you might destabilise history and, despite its numerous flaws, I rather like history.” Sir Reginald tried and failed to hide a wry smile. “Nevertheless l once managed to get them both drunk on madeira at the same time. That was quite an evening.” Sir Reginald sighed. “It is rather sad it affected his scientific ability as Sir Isaac was far more interesting, well, entertaining at least, once he started playing with quicksilver.” He looked at my confusion. “The fumes, you know, cause madness. They'll kill you if you're not careful.”

  “Isn’t quicksilver some kind of old-fashioned word for mercury?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “It's not old-fashioned, it's just more—” Sir Reginald froze.

  “More what?”

  “More...poetic,” Sir Reginald said without looking at me. He came back to life like a shattering ice sheet. “I've got it,” Sir Reginald had crossed the road before I knew he had spoken. He stormed along the pavement back towards Charing Cross, hailing a cab as he did so.

  “Got what?” I had to jog to keep pace, looking for a gap in the traffic to follow him.

  “I know who killed Marcus Aurelius!” Sir Reginald yelled back. “I know who stole the pearl! To the time-machine!”

  Chapter XXVIII

  There was no denying it was morning now, in 180AD. The time-machine appeared with a faint pop, and the quiet click-clack whoosh of its steam engine joined the sounds of the forest. The horses still grazed where we had left them. I looked up at the sky. A column of smoke rose up and dissipated twenty feet above us. Sweat still glistened on the horse's flanks.

  “That...is impressive time travel,” I said. By my estimate less than a minute had passed between when we disappeared and when we reappeared. More than a month had passed for me, and yet Sir Reginald had been able to bring us back to almost the exact moment we had left.

  “Thank you, my dear.” We walked to our horses and Sir Reginald cupped his hands together by my knee. “Now we must make haste.” I took the reins of my horse, stepped on Sir Reginald's hands and pulled myself into the saddle. My horse snorted with displeasure.

  “Oh no, no complaining,” I growled. “Not when we're this close to completing the mystery.” Sir Reginald vaulted into the saddle in one mot
ion and kicked his horse forward. I did the same and the two of us worked the horses into a gallop.

  “Salve!” Sir Reginald called to the gatehouse keeper. “Regulus, the Tribune of Truth, demands entrance and audience with Quintinius Cassius!”

  “Salve Regulus, one moment,” a legionary saluted Sir Reginald. The doors opened with a groan and the two horses trotted inside. I slid off my horse without trouble and handed the reins to the waiting legionary.

  “You were gone barely a quarter hour, Regulus,” Quintinius Cassius, flanked by a centurion, ran to us as Sir Reginald dismounted. “Does this mean you know the killer?”

  “I need to know three things before I can be certain,” Sir Reginald said. He straightened his suit, brushing horse hair from it.

  “Well, you can ask me anything, Regulus,” General Quintinius nodded in respect to Sir Reginald.

  “Is there a jeweller anywhere in the camp, or settlement outside the walls?” Sir Reginald asked.

  “Er,” Quintinius paused for a moment. “I think there's a Jewish merchant—”

  “He's not Jewish, sir, he's Syrian,” Sextus the centurion saluted. “Syphax is his name. He has a tinker's and jeweller’s store in the civilian city.”

  “Do you want him brought in to be interrogated?” Quintinius looked to Sir Reginald.

  “No, I merely needed to know if a jeweller existed locally,” Sir Reginald said.

  “What else do you need to know?” Quintinius asked.

  “The remaining answers only the late emperor can give me,” Sir Reginald shot a look at me to make sure I was paying attention, and the two of us headed for the vault where Marcus Aurelius had met his end.

  Seeing the vault again made me start, the smell of the cold stone like an empty church, the darkness of it, the chill. It had only been twenty minutes since I'd stood in this room, and at the very same time it had been almost six weeks.

  Without slowing down but without disturbing any evidence, Sir Reginald moved like a locomotive towards Marcus Aurelius. He pulled from his pocket a small black box. Without looking at it he opened it up and withdrew a pair of scissors and a spirit lamp the size of an ink pot. Quintinius followed him, the centurion Sextus carrying a tri-flame oil lamp to cast a reddish glow on the room.

  “This is the second question.” Sir Reginald set the spirit lamp down on the desk, reached over to the emperor's hair and snipped off one of his curls. “If you could spare me that flame to light this lamp,” Sir Reginald cast his eyes down to the lamp on the desk and Sextus moved to light it. A very faint blue, almost colourless flame appeared above the spirit burner.

  “Write this down, Hannah,” Sir Reginald pushed the lock of hair into the flame. It crackled into a tongue of yellow fire, flecked with dark red flame. I tapped the result into my phone. “Do you understand now, Hannah?”

  “I still don't see how it fits together,” I confessed.

  “You will soon,” Sir Reginald dropped the remains of Marcus Aurelius's scorched hair to the floor and ground it under his heel. “Quintinius, Sextus, could you please fetch Lucilla? I would like to interview her one more time.”

  “Sextus, stay with Regulus in case—” Quintinius started, but Sir Reginald’s quiet insistence drowned him out.

  “Both of you please,” Sir Reginald's face was hard. Quintinius inclined his head to the request and both men strode out. The room was lit only by the light from the doorway. Once Sir Reginald was quite sure they were gone, he turned to the body once again.

  “Forgive me, august one,” Sir Reginald said in Latin. He closed his eyes and reached down to grab the emperor from behind. As if trying to give the emperor the best reverse bear-hug in the world, Sir Reginald pulled the stiff body out of the chair and began to rub his hands down the torso and abdomen.

  “Er,” I backed away from this sudden apparent display of necrophilic homoeroticism.

  “This, I am afraid to say,” Sir Reginald wheezed a little as he wrestled with the old man's body, “is answering my third question.” After several minutes of chaos Sir Reginald's hands pressed down on the emperor's stomach, just under the rib-cage. “Ah. There we are then.” Sir Reginald released the emperor and tried to recompose him into the same state of reverence he had been in before.

  “So you have the three remaining answers you needed?”

  “All three.” Sir Reginald rubbed his hands together as if wiping them clean of imaginary soap.

  “Then what was the last one?” I looked at the body of the emperor.

  “Just below his rib-cage there is a hard, solid mass,” Sir Reginald said, lowering his voice as shadows moved across the light in the doorway. “Without a proper post-mortem by a pathologist I cannot be certain; however, I am comparatively sure.”

  The smell of Lucilla arrived first. A hundred thousand sweet-smelling flowers must have died for her perfume. She descended into the vault, accompanied by her slave Attia, Quintinius Cassius and the centurion Sextus.

  “You have a few questions for me, Regulus?” Lucilla's voice wobbled slightly. There was a slight puffiness around her eyes from crying again. Perhaps, I thought guiltily, because of the way Sir Reginald had thrown her out of the room fifteen minutes ago, six weeks ago.

  “I must speak to you alone,” Sir Reginald said. “If you others could wait outside please, and out of ear shot.” Quintinius nodded and he and Sextus walked out smartly, armour rattling as they did so. “And your slave, please.”

  “You want me to cast Attia away?” Lucilla drew the slave close to her, as if she were a comfort blanket.

  “If you would please,” Sir Reginald said politely but sternly. “I must be sure you will speak without fear of ego or conscience.”

  “I have no secrets from Attia,” Lucilla said and drew herself up with pride.

  “You have no secrets from me. Send Attia away, immediately, or I will go to Quintinius right now and tell him that you are Marcus Aurelius's murderer, and believe me, the evidence will be compelling. I think your brother will enjoy throwing you from the Tarpeian rock.”

  Lucilla's eyes and neck tendons flared with anger, but she managed to control her temper.

  “Go, Attia,” Lucilla ordered. “I shall be all right with Regulus.”

  Sir Reginald waited until he was sufficiently confident that everyone above was out of earshot and then he turned to Lucilla. His expression softened, which made hers harden.

  “I do not believe you killed Marcus Aurelius.” Sir Reginald put his cane between his feet and rested on it.

  “How kind of—”

  “I believe you tried, however,” he said, letting the silence hang in the air.

  “I did not–”

  “The evidence is rather circumstantial,” Sir Reginald admitted, putting his head on one side. “But enough for a Roman court to find you guilty of his murder.” Sir Reginald walked over to the desk. “Hannah, if I could trouble you for your painfully bright light please.” I drew out my phone and turned on the flashlight, to Lucilla's confusion. Sir Reginald looked over the desk, hands hovering above it.

  “When you and I had our first interview,” Sir Reginald said, “you reached for the desk. At the time I thought you were reaching for Marcus Aurelius's wax tablet, perhaps to see if anything incriminating had been scribbled there.” Sir Reginald caught sight of what he was looking for and reached for it. “But in fact you were reaching for this.”

  Sir Reginald held up the oil lamp Marcus Aurelius had been using to light his work.

  “Because if I open this lid, we find something very interesting.” He opened it up and turned it towards the light. Even in the harsh white light of my phone, the oil inside glistened red. “Women's make-up, exactly the same as you have in your rooms in the principia. A lovely red paste of ground minerals and animal fat to give your cheeks a beautiful glow.” Lucilla's eyes narrowed. “What's incriminating about that?” Sir Reginald shrugged mockingly. “It's incriminating because this make-up is made of ground cinnabar, to give it
that red colour. Cinnabar is a rock made of sulphur and mercury. Rubbing this into your face will cause no ill effects, you absorb very little through the skin. But if you heat it up or burn it, perhaps in an oil lamp...” Sir Reginald glowered at Lucilla, who remained as still and unmoving as a statue. “You allow the mercury to enter the air, and then the lungs of anyone who breathes it in. A daily dose of cinnabar like this will kill a man in a fortnight. His heart beat will rise, his kidneys will fail and he will die. And better, it will make him weak, it will give him a flu-like fever.”

  Lucilla licked her lips as if preparing to speak, but no words came out.

  “After all, what is suspicious about an old man dying from a fever? Old men die in such a manner all the time.” Sir Reginald's voice grew in volume and anger. “Who would ever suspect the greatest emperor since Augustus would be poisoned by those he loved?”

  Lucilla quaked like a poplar tree in a high wind, but didn't break. She had guilt written all over her face but she didn't speak.

  “You were the only one with the ability, the opportunity and the motive,” Sir Reginald thrust his cane at her angrily. “You came here last night after everyone else had gone to bed knowing the old man would still be working. You wore your best make-up but decided against wearing your perfume. Such odorous, distinctive perfumes would make you easy to track. You had to look your best, because that was the best way to charm the guard on the door. He still stank this morning, you know, of the animal-lard make-up you rubbed on his skin as you kissed him. As you would so stink if you were not drenched in perfume.” Sir Reginald almost shouted as he spoke. “You bribed your way past the guard with a kiss, then sat up talking with your father, even as you planned to kill him! You could not be here while the poison hung in the air, so you talked with him until the oil lamp needed refilling. Rather than calling for a slave, you refilled it yourself, slipping in the cinnabar, dirtying your fingers in the process! Then, when Marcus Aurelius handed you a pile of scrolls to read, you left your thumbprint on them.” Sir Reginald pointed to the papers now lying on the table. The incriminating red mark was livid as blood. “And what was the motive? Power. Until Commodus came of age your husband Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus was co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius. You wanted him to be so again, but not co-emperor this time. You wanted Marcus Aurelius to name Tiberius Claudius his heir. The weaker the emperor got from the mercury the more likely he would be to agree to your demands until, finally, when you had that agreement you could give him the final lethal dose and kill him. Then Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla would once again be Empress of Rome.”