The Darwin Affair

by Tim Mason

  David squinted out the window at his side. They were on a country road, passing farmland; there was a low hill in the distance and a gray stone manor house on the rise. It was late afternoon, green and golden. He heard the skitter-skeet of a skylark and peered up into the blue, spying a hovering black speck far above. Gradually David became aware of what the father was saying to his son.

  “ . . . mainly those small animals that came readily to hand—mice, rats, the odd cat. Birds. One needs a good blade for such work, and I was a poor boy, Tom, I couldn’t dream of walking into a shop and buying one. That’s how, when I wasn’t singing, I came to work for the barber. I was, oh! much younger than you are now. Not for sixpences, mind you, but for my first cast-off razor.”

  David wondered how much farther it would be until the next stop. He leaned back, willing himself not to think of his bladder but instead savoring the fresh country aromas of earth and grass, manure and blossoms.

  “For the larger species—dogs, pigs—I needed more space, of course, and found it down along the river flats, where planks fished from the water became my operating tables and where my activities never raised so much as an eyebrow.”

  Operating tables? Activities? What can the fellow be on about? His boy looks like he’s heard enough; his eyes have a glazed look.

  “Eventually, of course, I moved on to the study of humankind and then my education truly began.” The man suddenly looked up at David and winked.

  Did that actually happen? No. A speck of dust flew into the man’s eye, that’s all.

  The man was focused again on the boy. “Now, then, Tom—what’s the great difference between a man and a beast? Between a boy and a brute, if you will?”

  The lad’s eyes darted from his lap to the man’s face and back again.

  He’s frightened of his father.

  “It’s his brain, of course! His mind! His seat of reason! Just you open up a horse, as I did on a couple of occasions, or some other mammal, and look inside; then open up a man, as I have often done.”

  The elderly woman clutched her bag even more tightly and stared out the coach window.

  “You’ll find similarities of bone structure in all mammals,” continued the man. “Of course you will. But between the two brains? No, Tom. Therein lies the great difference. Now try a monkey. Go on, I dare you! These transmutation fellows would have you believe the monkey’s brain is just like yours or mine, only smaller.” The man seemed to David to be breathing heavier as he went on.

  “Stop, I know what you’re going to say, Tom. You’re going to tell me the brain’s too difficult to examine.”

  Poor boy’s face has gone white.

  “Agreed. It’s an advanced study, is the human brain. But take any human feature.” He glanced up again at David and said, “Take the ear.”

  The man’s gaze was singular, almost mesmeric.

  “Unique. Exquisite. These evolutionists would have you believe we inherit the ear from worms or mollusks or from God knows where! That Darwin fellow claims we’re all one big family. How many brains has he examined?” His voice was rising. “How many men or women has Prince Albert opened up? Not a single one? No, sir, of course not!”

  David stared back at the man. He felt an unwelcome churning in his stomach and sweat running beneath his arms. They were very nearly at Oxford. Should he keep quiet?

  “Believe me, Tom, I have delved into this matter deeply, and if Scripture isn’t enough for you, all my research has shown me that species are immutable and fixed, ordained and predestined, now and forever, amen!”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said David, “did you stop at my father’s shop this morning, asking after me? In Orpington, this would have been.”

  The man ignored him, addressing the boy again. “Why is this important, Tom?” The boy’s eyes flew to David’s face for the first time, imploring. “Well, for one thing, people need to know their place, don’t they, Tom. Not get above themselves.”

  “Sir,” said David, “have you followed me this whole time? Who sent you?”

  “Just so with the beasts, Tom. It wouldn’t do to have a dog or a baboon ordering us about, now would it? Tom? Would it?”

  The boy shook his head, still looking at David.

  “Of course not, it’s just common sense!” In one swift motion, he grabbed the old woman’s walking stick from her and rapped his own forehead sharply with the brass eagle that formed its head. “Dear God, it makes me angry!” he whispered.

  He’s raving.

  The man turned to the woman and said, “Forgive me, ma’am. I am a warrior for truth. I do hope I can count on your support.”

  Stark, staring mad.

  “You are right to be cautious, ma’am. You want to be careful of that bag of yours. The highway bandits along this road will slit your throat as soon as look at you.”

  What to do? What to do?

  David reached forward to rap on the coachman’s box. The crazy man leaned toward David. “Farewell, dear friend,” he quoted. “How doleful is the sound . . .”

  The heavy brass top of the walking stick caught David on an upward thrust beneath his chin, snapping his head back. He felt his mouth fill with blood and, from a great distance, heard the boy cry out.

  “How vast my stroke . . .”

  “Get help!” David tried to say to the boy, but it didn’t come out right. He brought his hands up to shield his face.

  “ . . . which leaves a bleeding wound.”

  The next blow, to the side of the head, was the last. In the relative silence that followed, the elderly woman emitted a quiet high-pitched mewling as she stared blindly out the window. The clop of the horses’ hooves continued steadily, unchanged. A stinging scent of urine suddenly filled the coach.

  “Empty his pockets,” said the man to the boy. When Tom didn’t move, Decimus boxed his ear savagely. Tom went through David’s pockets, emerging with a crumpled letter, a pocket watch, a few coins, and a crisp new five-pound note. Decimus took the watch, tore the letter in two, and tucked the five-pound note into Tom’s jacket pocket.

  “There’s a good lad.”

  Decimus gently prized the bag from the old woman’s hands. She never once took her eyes away from the fields outside. He took out a small wad of banknotes and handed them back to the woman.

  “Hide these, dearie, I’ve no need of them.”

  He dumped the other contents of the bag on the seats and floor of the coach, and wrenched off the bag’s handle. He let the bag fall and turned to the woman again. “A highwayman did this,” he said. “Say differently and I’ll come find you.” She continued to stare, unseeing, out the window. Decimus opened the door a crack, and when the driver slowed for a curve just outside of town, he grabbed Tom and leapt, tumbling them into a ditch. As the coach moved on into Oxford, he and the boy brushed themselves off and walked after it, Decimus jauntily employing his new walking stick.

  19

  Oxford

  Jack Callow, awaiting David’s return at the coach station, decided to step into the Gloucester Arms, just opposite, for a pint. He was standing at the bar reading a book when the stationmaster entered with a constable.

  “That’s him,” said the stationmaster, and the policeman approached Jack with a grave demeanor.

  “You were expecting a passenger on the afternoon coach, I believe, sir?” he said.

  “I am, yes,” said Jack. “Has the coach been delayed?”

  “It has just arrived, actually. If you please, sir, what was the name of the party?” The man’s manner was profoundly somber.

  “The coach is here?”

  “The party’s name, sir?”

  “David Gates.”

  “Did you know him well, sir?”

  There was a sudden pounding in Jack’s ears. He searched the face of the constable for even a trace of mercy and found none there. He rushed to the door of the pub and saw a knot of police and drivers surrounding a coach, and an elderly woman being led away, shrieking.
r />   The electric telegraph sent word down the line to London: a tall man and a ginger-haired boy (as per the coachman’s scant description of them) were being sought in relation to the bludgeoning death of an Oxford undergraduate. Inspector Field and his men arrived by the nine o’clock train, just as the nightly tolling of Tom Tower finished—101 peals for the scholars of Christ Church, among whom David Gates had proudly numbered himself. The London policemen soon stood round an examining table with the Oxford coroner and a young sergeant Willette of the Thames Valley Constabulary.

  “Handsome boy,” said Field, his hat in his hands.

  “It took only two blows to dispatch him,” said Willette.

  “And you reckon this poor lad had been robbed, do you?”

  When Willette didn’t answer, the coroner did. “Oh, yes. Pockets emptied and turned wrong side out, a bit of broken watch chain. A letter torn up by the attacker, addressed to the victim from his father. Boy’s name is David Gates. His people are down in Orpington, according to the letter.”

  “Which is where he was coming from, is that right?”

  “Indeed. According to the people at the coaching station, Mr. Gates went down from Oxford yesterday and returned, or tried to return, today.”

  “What do you make of it all, Sergeant Willette?”

  “According to the old woman who shared the coach, highway robbery. Nonsense, according to the coachman, who is quite certain he would have noticed had his coach been boarded by highwaymen.”

  “And yet he was unaware of the attack?”

  “Completely. But he says it had to have been the two passengers who went missing, a man and a boy. They were already seated when the driver came on in London, so he did not get much of a look at them, except to note that the man was tall and slender and the boy, about fifteen years of age and ginger-haired.”

  Kilvert spoke up. “Surely the old woman can give us a better description?”

  “A gibbering imbecile,” said the coroner bitterly.

  “She was unable,” said Willette, “or unwilling, to talk about anything but her own losses. Her handbag emptied and her walking stick stolen, a family keepsake.” He did a shrill impersonation: “The one with the eagle’s head wot was give me by the gaffer!”

  “This wound here on the left temple, gentlemen,” said the coroner, “was made by something pointed and metallic, possibly in fact the beak or talon of an ornamental eagle.”

  “The poor fellow’s still got his left ear, at least,” said Kilvert quietly to his colleagues.

  “Killer didn’t use a blade,” said Llewellyn.

  “Different go-about entirely,” Field said. “Perhaps it’s two other blokes altogether and nothing to do with us. Let’s have Mr. Callow in.”

  After a few moments, Jack was shown into the room. He had been asked to identify the body earlier. Now his handsome face was haggard, his eyes red. He moved deliberately to the table and stood for a moment in silence. He brushed David’s cheek with the back of his hand.

  “We need to ask you a few questions, son,” said Field.

  “Are you in charge here?”

  “No, that would be Sergeant Willette. But I am an interested party. Inspector Field of the Metropolitan Police, London.”

  “What was the purpose of your friend’s journey, do you know?” asked Willette.

  Jack turned his eyes back to the still form on the table. “I thought he was being absurd.”

  “Mr. Callow?”

  “David went off to warn Mr. Darwin about a threat to his life. I could have stopped him, I could have said no.”

  The others glanced at each other.

  “Mr. Charles Darwin?” said Field.

  Jack nodded. “David has known the Darwin family since he was a boy.”

  “What threat to Darwin’s life?”

  “David encountered an old man a few days ago at his college. A sea captain named FitzRoy. He told David that Darwin needed to die.”

  The coroner was shocked. “FitzRoy? That seems unlikely—he’s the man who piloted Charles Darwin round the world!”

  “Well, all I know is he’s here in Oxford, staying with Bishop Wilberforce, David’s tutor. Everyone is gathering for the meeting of the British Association tomorrow. I imagine that’s why this captain is here, if he’s connected with Mr. Darwin. David was keen to attend it himself.” Jack briefly covered his eyes, then took a breath. “For him, Darwin’s work didn’t represent a threat. It seems odd to say it, perhaps, but David loved God. He wasn’t put off by any surprises that the Creator may have had in store for him or the rest of us. That’s how he put it, anyway.”

  “We’ll need to talk with this sea captain,” said Field to his men, “and the boy’s tutor, and we’ll need to interview Mr. Darwin, I suppose, at some point, and find out what young Gates said to him.”

  “He didn’t say anything to Mr. Darwin,” said the coroner. “It was in The Times— Mr. Darwin is not at home, he’s at Richmond, doing the water cure. The boy made his journey for nothing.”

  Jack put his face in his hands and wept.

  Field took Willette aside. “We may learn something from the family. You’ve notified them?”

  “They arrive in the morning. Gates Senior and a daughter, I believe. As it was a lifetime’s dream to get the boy up to university, their wish is to bury him here.”

  Sir Jasper Arpington-Dix struggled to sit up in bed. He was staying in college as a guest of the bishop and had retired early after lightly dosing himself with laudanum for his gouty toes.

  “Who’s there?” he said.

  He could just make out the silhouette of a man, perched on a chair near the window. Sir Jasper groped for the heavy walking stick that always lay beside him in bed. It was gone. Fear brought him wide awake.

  “Who are you?”

  There was the scratch and flare of a phosphorus match and the lamp on the table by the window came to life, revealing Decimus Cobb. There were two walking sticks lying across his lap, one with a brazen eagle’s head and the other Sir Jasper’s own.

  “Good God, how the devil did you get in here! How dare you! Get out!”

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “D’ you hear me, get out!”

  “He wasn’t there,” said Decimus again.

  “Who wasn’t? What are you talking about?”

  “The student. You misdirected me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I had to find him on my own, miles from Richmond Spa. He went to the man’s own home to talk to him, of course.”

  “Ah. The Gates boy. And?”

  Decimus laid one of the walking sticks on the floor, stood abruptly, and swung the eagle-headed stick toward Sir Jasper’s head, stopping just short of his skull. “I got him with this.”

  Sir Jasper blinked back tears.

  “I met Darwin himself down at Richmond,” said Decimus. “Sat close beside him. Talked with him. I could have dispatched him easily, but you have forbidden me. It angers me, Sir Jasper, do you understand? All this angers me profoundly.”

  It took a moment before Sir Jasper was able to answer; he knew his life hung in the balance. “I do understand. I am certain it must have been a trial to your spirits, old man. But don’t you agree, Mr. Cobb, that rather than create a martyr, you should instead stop those capable of promoting him and his work throughout the world, now and forever? There’s the real danger. At some future date, perhaps, you will be able to do what you will with Darwin, when he’s become inconsequential.”

  Decimus seemed to ponder this.

  “What did you make of Darwin, Mr. Cobb?”

  “His bowels are troubled. The gallbladder is poisoned.”

  Good God, the man is positively bizarre.

  Sir Jasper had met with Decimus several times at Sir Jasper’s London house, discussing with him travel itineraries and the identities of like-minded allies in Germany and elsewhere. That Decimus was well and truly insane Sir Jasper had no doubt, but he was clear
ly very intelligent and passionate about his work.

  “I do apologize for the mixup with the Gates boy, Mr. Cobb.”

  Decimus nodded.

  “I didn’t expect to see you in Oxford,” said Sir Jasper.

  “But you do. You do see me.”

  The old man hesitated. “I should have thought, given the death of the Gates boy, that you would go to ground. Lie low for a time.”

  Decimus lifted both walking sticks and eyed them narrowly, comparing their respective heads. “I have a greater sense of history than that, Sir Jasper. I am a part of it, and I make it.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Sir Jasper wanly.

  “You cannot have thought I would miss tomorrow’s meeting, me or my boy.”

  “Well,” said Sir Jasper doubtfully, “no, I suppose not. Your boy?”

  “If he is to join me in making history, it will be a test of his abilities and his loyalties.”

  “Bumboy, is he?” Sir Jasper realized he’d made a mistake the moment the words left his mouth. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Cobb, I meant no offense. Back East it was . . .”

  The Chorister leaned forward and prodded Sir Jasper’s gout-swollen foot with the eagle’s beak. The pain was electrifying.

  “The gout is merely troublesome, Sir Jasper; it is not your real problem. The tumor in your neck is your real problem, but I could have it out in no time.”

  “What tumor?” said the old man as evenly as he could.

  “You’ll find out within the year, I imagine. That thyroid of yours is growing like a little squash.”

  Sir Jasper realized his brow was covered in sweat.

  “To your slumbers, Sir Jasper. I’ll let myself out.”

  A missile was flying through the air. Sir Jasper covered his head and then cried out when something hard hit his chest. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath. His own walking stick lay on his sternum. Decimus was gone.

  Master called it Oxford. He had taken rooms at Mrs. Andrews’ Guest House where there weren’t any guests as far as Tom could tell. Mrs. Andrews, dressed in black, was a severe-looking woman of perhaps fifty-five or sixty hard years. Her narrow features were dominated by two hairy black warts, one emerging from her chin and the other from one side of her pointed nose. She had assisted at the dyeing of Tom’s hair, jet black. There was a new suit of clothes for him: a broad-lapelled coat with tails, a gray waistcoat and trousers, and a wide-collared white shirt with a velvet cravat. A soft gray cap lay on the bed.