by Tim Mason
“What have you got there, sir?” asked Llewellyn.
Piece of paper, neatly folded. No, it’s a five-pound note, that’s what.
Field opened it. An unschooled hand had written in pencil on the bill, carefully folded it, and tucked it into his waistcoat while they were together in the library.
Missus Andrus, it said. Just below that was scratched Gates.
“This is from our boy, Tom,” said Field, giving it to Llewellyn. “Let’s get moving.”
“Now?” said Willette. “Sir, the police surgeon is going to patch you up before you go anywhere.”
“The lad considered these three words sufficiently important to risk his life, not to mention sacrificing a great deal of money. There is no damn time to waste!”
“Fortunately, Field, I am in a position to insist.”
The inspector submitted himself to the ministrations of the surgeon and emerged with an array of sticking plasters about his head. With the assistance of Sergeant Willette, they discovered there were currently two Mrs. Andrews residing in Oxford: one who was nearly ninety years old and living with her daughter; the other, the owner of a guest house. But that lady, according to the woman who kept a shop next door, had closed up the night before and gone off. Where, the shopkeeper had no idea.
“She stopped her eggs again,” said the woman, “that’s all I know. Mrs. Andrews is always going off, she’s forever stopping ’er eggs, the witch.”
“A witch, is she?” said Field.
“Everyone says so, and not just along of them warts she’s got sprouting out her nose and chin. She’s a witch to her core, she is. Mean as a snake!”
Llewellyn put his elbow deftly through a glass pane in the front door of the guest house and let them in. They found, in a bedroom above, a pair of boy’s dress trousers with their pockets inside out and a boy’s waistcoat with its small side pockets sliced open. A single knitting needle and a thin watch chain lay on the counterpane. In the little court behind, they found a still-moist stream of blacking, which led from the pump to the drains.
“I don’t like the slit pockets,” said Field.
“The boy was in trouble,” said Llewellyn, and Field nodded grimly.
“Strange sort of guest house Mrs. Andrews keeps,” said Sergeant Willette, turning the pages of a large register. “No entries more recent than October of ’59.”
“Perhaps she has an independent income,” said Field. “Let’s tackle the bishop, shall we?”
“Bishop Wilberforce?” said the sergeant. “What exactly is it you are investigating?”
“The links of a chain, Sergeant. D’ you want to come along?”
“Sir,” said Llewellyn, “the service for the Gates boy is about to begin. I wonder if I might attend, sir. I know Mr. Kilvert intended to do so.”
“Yes, yes, you go on. Sergeant Willette and I will interview the bishop.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“When you’ve paid your respects, see if you can find where Captain FitzRoy has got to. Then don’t wait for me—get back to town and onto that groom of yours at the palace. I don’t want the royal couple to move an inch without we know about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant Willette looked sharply at Field. “Is this something to do with the recent attempt on Her Majesty’s life?”
“Quite possibly, Sergeant. Off you go, Sam.”
At Christ Church, Sergeant Willette overcame objections at the porter’s lodge and ushered Field into the vestry, where Bishop Wilberforce was dressing for the morning service. Wilberforce was aghast at the sight of the bruised policeman.
“Inspector, whatever has befallen you?”
Field thrust his face into the bishop’s. “This is nothing. Other folk who come a-nigh you and your friends seem to die violent deaths, so we’d like to know what’s going on and who’s responsible.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
“Inspector Field,” said Willette, “if I might?” The sergeant interposed himself between the detective and the cleric. “According to the porter, you’ve had friends staying here during the past week.”
Wilberforce’s hands were working each other. “Not friends, exactly. I wouldn’t describe them as friends, Officer.” Field darted a sharp, triumphant glance at Willette, his eyes gleaming. “Colleagues, perhaps,” continued the bishop. “Acquaintances.”
Field was nose to nose with the bishop again. “I’m not in the mood, your Reverence, for the parsing of words. Three blokes ate, drank, and slept in your quarters for the past week, and while that may not amount to friendship in your world, it’s enough to make you a person of interest in mine!”
“Are you mad? What are you talking about?”
“One of them acquaintances, FitzRoy by name, told young Mr. Gates that he desired the death of Charles Darwin. Soon after, David Gates is found with his head bashed in. And now there’s my own man, a respected and valiant officer of the Metropolitan Police, killed dead at the museum whilst you’re going on about the natural order of things. When you wish to make a clean breast of it all, your lordship, I will be entirely available.”
Field turned and left the vestry. Willette made a bow and followed him out. The bells ceased ringing, and within the cathedral the processional began, the white-robed boys and men moving down the central aisle behind the crucifix, wreathed in clouds of fragrant smoke from the censer, which swung in front.
The bishop managed to get through his homily, which was, in fact, devoted to extolling the natural order imbued by the Creator to all creation. Throughout, his eyes kept straying to the bandaged interloper who had managed to seat himself among the undergraduates, just above the choir. Visible below the bandages on his head, the inspector’s eyes, resolute and implacable, were locked on Wilberforce.
The bishop ended his sermon and took his seat. The voices of the choir made the high, vaulted arches ring.
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
The bishop’s glance moved to the inspector, who stared back, unblinking. Wilberforce closed his eyes in fervent prayer, but when he opened them again the inspector was still staring. All right, he would speak with the officer after the service. He would be forthright. After all, he had nothing to hide. He knew nothing of any killings, certainly. Surely it was not conspiratorial to oppose Darwin? It was not a crime, surely, to have interceded with the Queen about a knighthood for the man?
Perhaps, the bishop reflected, he would not mention that to the policeman. It was confidential, after all. Between him and his monarch. It belonged to the past. He closed his eyes again.
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
At the finish of the hymn the policeman’s eyes were still on him, as he knew they would be. Try as the bishop might to quell them, it was of no use. The tears came coursing down his face and would not stop.
23
London
Tom Ginty opened his eyes. Muffled cries from the street below suggested that it might be morning, or nearly. He lay still, covered by the thin white blanket the china doll had given him, which he saw bore a stencil in one corner that read st. bartholomew’s hospital. He knew that name. St. Bart’s was just round the corner from the Fortune of War. Tom looked up at the young woman.
She sat at the table, holding in her right hand a quill pressed pensively to her lips. Her nightcap was off, her golden hair spread over her shoulders. Had she been sitting so all night, had she not slept? Tom peered down the room. No, there was a distinct dent in the pillow, although the bedclothes were crisp and taut. Suddenly Mary stirred and looked at Tom. She smiled and bent over the page again, her quill scratching on.
Tom pulled the scarlet dressing gown close about himself.
> “If I’m here long enough,” said Tom in a voice still thick with sleep, “I could do up the numbers.”
“I beg your pardon, Tom?”
“I could put numbers to your pages.”
Mary gazed at him thoughtfully. “If you’re here long enough, that would be very nice. I began with Genesis and from there I’m trying to find my way to the present age, so you see it’s a long road I’m on.”
Tom nodded vigorously and Mary resumed her work.
“Him below sent another up to stay with me,” she said. “His name was Rendell. I did not care for him; I was frightened the whole time he was here. He was mad, I’m quite sure of it. I believe the master thinks of it as a test to stay with me, though for whom I’m not sure—for the guest or for me?” She laughed her barely audible tinkling laugh and Tom’s heart raced.
“Master is mad, too, Tom, I’m sorry to say.” Mary dipped her quill in the pot and wrote briefly before pausing again. “You should know,” she continued, not looking at him, “he thinks you’re likely to take sick and die up here.”
From where he sat, Tom reached for the cheese in the cupboard.
“I do know that, Mary,” he said. “You do not astonish me in the least.” He broke the cheese into two large pieces and ate his half ravenously.
At the same moment, on the foggy street three stories below, the master stepped into a hansom cab, wooden kit in hand, looking brushed and scrubbed and shining. “Lincoln’s Inn Fields, driver,” he said briskly. “Royal College of Surgeons.”
Field came down from Oxford on the early train. His first stop was an address in the Mall given him by the bishop, the town residence of Sir Jasper Arpington-Dix.
Fancy that. It was just round this corner that little Stevie Patchen got his throat cut for him and his ear took off.
The servant at the door surveyed Field—his clothes disheveled and torn, his head bandaged—and informed him that Sir Jasper was out.
“Be so good as to tell Sir Jasper that a policeman is calling.” Field brushed past the butler and into the marble hall. “Tell him that my lord, the bishop of Oxford, sent me.”
“Sir,” said the butler, “I must ask you to leave immediately.”
“Ha! I see someone lurking in the library. Is that you, Sir Jasper?”
Sir Jasper emerged, leaning on his stick and limping. “Police?” he barked. “What do I care for the police? What’s Wilberforce been telling you?”
“A law unto yourself, are you, sir?”
“In the Punjab you had to be.”
“We are in London currently, but don’t let’s quibble over details. I remember you, sir. From the great debate. You were there up front with the toffs. As was a tall fair-haired man who stuck a thin blade into one of the Metropolitan’s finest men and killed him dead. You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you?”
“Not a thing. Get out.”
“Eyes like the darkest abyss. I suspect the same fellow of putting a fatal dent in the head of an Oxford undergraduate by the name of Gates.”
“What’s that to me? Now get out, or do I have to complain to your superior, Sir Richard Mayne?”
“Friend of yours, is he?”
“Bosom.”
“Lucky you. Philip David Rendell—ever heard of him? Tried to shoot the Queen a few weeks ago?”
“Lewis?” said Sir Jasper to the servant. “Show the man out. Summon the police if you need to.”
“Ducks, I am the police!”
Sir Jasper turned and went back into his library, slamming the door after him.
With an aggressive smile, Field seized the butler’s hand and pressed a calling card into it. “I’ll call again.”
His next stop was Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Royal College of Surgeons.
“You remember me, don’t you, Professor?” said Field.
Sir Richard Owen sat behind his desk, his hands in an attitude of prayer, finger-tips touching his pursed lips.
“Indeed.”
“The bishop was kind enough to sit down with me after Sunday’s service. He was distressed, sir. He was agitated, he needed to unburden his soul. So we had ourselves a chin wag.”
Owen regarded him in stony silence.
“Wonderful stuff, natural philosophy. The evolutionists versus the . . . whatever you lot call yourselves. If I was to have another lifetime offered me, I don’t know but what I’d seriously look to pursuing the untold mysteries of the natural world.”
“And what did my friend the bishop have to say?”
“Oh! You know, this and that. Good God, the man can talk once he makes up his mind to do so. Sir, do you recall me telling the bishop about the tragic death of one of his students, David Gates?”
“I do.”
“Did you ever clap eyes on the chap?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Odd. Young Gates was hanging about the bishop’s study just days ago whilst you were reminiscing—this, according to the bishop, you understand—reminiscing humorously about a negro’s head you once removed and stole. That would be the young Mr. Gates. Subsequently dead of a blow to the skull.”
“Ah, yes. I did just glimpse the young man.”
There were three knocks at the glass door of the professor’s office and then a fourth a moment later. Field saw reflected in the cheval glass near the fire a tall shadow on the frosted door pane, but Owen made no move to respond.
“Don’t mind me, Professor,” said the inspector. “Do go ahead—I’m perfectly content to wait.”
Owen remained where he was, but Field noticed a flaring of his nostrils and a quickening of respiration. Field rose and moved to the door.
“Please,” said Owen, “do not disturb yourself!”
“No trouble at all, Professor.”
Field seized the knob and pulled the door open. There was no one there. He quickly stepped out into the corridor, looking from one end to the other. A short bald man was walking slowly away, a stack of ledgers in his arms.
“You, there!” shouted Field. The man stopped and turned, revealing a neatly trimmed graying beard and thick spectacles.
“Sir?” replied the man, looking puzzled.
“Did you not just now knock at this door?”
“No, sir.”
Field looked up and down the hall again and then realized that Owen was standing directly behind him in the door.
“That will do, Harris,” said Owen, and the man with the ledgers continued on his way. “Mr. Field, what precisely is your business here? Is this an official inquiry?”
“Call it whatever you bloody well like.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“One of my best men was cut by someone who knew how to cut. Punctured and drained of blood. Killed dead by someone, Professor, with the skill of a surgeon. I’m guessing that you know very well who I’m talking about.”
“Do you realize who I am, Officer? Do you know with whom I am in daily intercourse? Commissioner Mayne, for one.”
“Good Lord, how that man must get around—everyone’s mad for him! So. How would you go about draining a living body of blood? You are a surgeon, I believe.”
Owen surrendered a brief acidic smile. “I am an anatomist. As such, I have extensive surgical experience. Vast, I should say. But I am not a surgeon, Mr. Field.”
“It’s Detective Inspector Field, actually.”
“It is for now.”
The inspector put his face close to the professor’s. “‘Do you think I’m easier to be played on than a pipe?’ That’s Shakespeare, sir.”
Field turned brusquely and walked away down the corridor, Owen staring after him. Finally he turned back into his office. After a moment a communicating door near the bookcases opened and the Chorister entered.
“Ah, yes,” said Owen. “Decimus.”
Decimus inclined his head toward the outer door. “Mr. Bucket needs tending to.”
“You recognized him, did you?”
“At Oxfo
rd. He came close.”
“Never mind, I think we can manage the man, thank you. Mr. Cobb, you have been, if I may say it, somewhat too active of late.”
Decimus stiffened.
“Am I to understand that you . . . interfered with a policeman?”
“One of Bucket’s men.”
“Good God. Were your actions concerning the policeman strictly necessary?”
“The man saw and recognized the instrument used on the student, Gates.”
Suddenly Owen was shouting. “And whose fault was that? Whatever possessed you to hang on to the bloody walking stick? Surely you could have thought of a safe place to stash your damned instrument!”
Decimus smiled. “I can indeed, sir,” he said, his eyes suggestively running up and down the professor’s body. Owen’s heart raced; he softened his tone.
“In any event, we have determined, Sir Jasper and I, that our aims will be best served by taking a different course. We wish to thank you for all your help, of course.”
Decimus stared, unmoving and expressionless.
“I didn’t intend to raise my voice, Mr. Cobb. The detective’s visit was upsetting.”
Still Decimus said nothing.
“Very well, then, Mr. Cobb,” said Owen.
“Germany?” said Decimus softly.
“No, sir,” said the professor, as firmly as he could. “No longer on.”
“Sir Jasper agrees?”
“This, my dear man, is his decision.”
“And you concur, Sir Richard?”
Owen took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
“I will need to speak with Sir Jasper.”
“Mr. Cobb,” said Owen, “I’m confident the Royal College will continue to rely upon your . . . remarkable skills, as it always has done. Likewise St. Bart’s and St. Thomas’.”
Decimus ignored the suggestion. “We had discussed admonishing Mr. Huxley.”
“No! I mean to say, there’s no need, my dear man. I may have spoken rashly.”
“But I have a plan, sir.”
“Not necessary, thank you.”