The Darwin Affair

by Tim Mason

  “Good evening, sir,” said Colonel Henry Ponsonby, equerry to Prince Albert and private secretary to the Queen.

  “Colonel Ponsonby and Monsieur Kanné”—the dapper man inclined his head—“allow me to introduce Field and Llewellyn of the Metropolitan Police.”

  “Actually, sir,” said Ponsonby, “I am acquainted with Detective Inspector Field already.”

  “Indeed?”

  The colonel lowered his voice. “The Nightingale business, sir.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the Prince with sudden distaste.

  “Good to see you again, Field,” said Ponsonby.

  “And you, sir.”

  “Well, then,” said Albert, “we have rather a complex schedule of travel ahead of us, Inspector Field. Monsieur Kanné here, who makes our arrangements, has worked it all out for us. If you would, monsieur?”

  Joseph Julius Kanné laid out the itinerary in a crisp Gallic accent. In the morning Her Majesty would cross Antwerp by brougham to the train station, her guests following in similar carriages, with some of her entourage making the journey in a diligence. Others would board Her Majesty’s tender yacht, HMY Fairy, and follow along down the Rhine. At Mainz they would again resort to horse-drawn coaches, transferring to a different train line. Here the Queen would board a railway carriage on loan from the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, traveling just one stop to Frankfurt, where another change would be necessary. From Frankfurt they would proceed in the King of Bavaria’s railway carriages, which they would keep all the way to Coburg, although there would be some complicated switching at Lichtenfels to a different railway line.

  Kanné looked up from the itinerary beaming, as though anticipating applause.

  “Well, that’s all quite completely calamitous,” said Field. “Her Majesty and the Prince are exposed again and again to risk. Let me see that itinerary, sir, if you please.”

  Kanné cast an affronted glance at Sir Horace. “Kindly oblige the inspector, monsieur,” said that gentleman. With an ill grace Kanné slid the ornately illustrated page across the table to the inspector.

  “Good Lord, why is the thing written in French?” cried Field.

  “It is customary,” replied Kanné icily.

  “Well, it ain’t my custom. Kindly copy it out in English, sir. No need to illustrate it, plain black and white will do. Three copies, if you please, before you retire for the night.”

  Kanné fairly staggered, so profound was the affront. Llewellyn and Peter Sims watched the Prince apprehensively but were relieved to see the corners of His Highness’s mouth twitch and his eyes dart to Colonel Ponsonby with a twinkle.

  “Who is familiar with this route and this timetable besides ourselves?” asked Field. “Let me guess: everyone, including the King of Bavaria’s aunties.”

  “This is outrageous!” cried Kanné. “For a journey to be successful it is essential that everyone along the way know the details!”

  “I’m sure that’s how our assassin views it as well, sir. He’s committed all this to memory, no doubt.” Field sighed. “No changes are possible, I imagine?”

  “I’m afraid not, Inspector,” said Ponsonby. “Not at this late date.”

  “No, of course not, it’s only the monarchy at risk. Well, we’ll want tall men. If you would, sir, give me a list of the four tallest men in the crew and I’ll have a private interview with ’em early tomorrow morning before we disembark.”

  “Is the man mad?” whispered Kanné.

  “Shouldn’t you be copying out my itineraries, sir?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  Albert nodded. “Merci bien pour tout, Monsieur Kanné. Bonsoir!”

  Kanné bowed stiffly and left the saloon.

  “Whenever and wherever Her Majesty and the Prince move,” continued the inspector, “from ship to shore, from coach to coach, and from coach to train, the tallest amongst us will surround them—we’ll form a very palisade of flesh, gentlemen, but with as little ado as possible. What you’ll be looking for is someone trying to get close enough to use a blade; our man is a wizard with a knife. Even if he’s armed with a pistol, he’ll try to get near to his target to ensure success. In either case, gentlemen, our duty will be to interpose our own bodies. He’s a tall man, beardless the last we saw him, slender, with memorable eyes. He likely has a lad with him, curly ginger hair, although both may have altered their appearances considerable.

  “The boy, in particular, presents a problem. He was an innocent, we believe, took by the assassin months ago and kept all this time. Who is he now? Does he represent a menace also? I don’t frankly know what to expect from young Tom Ginty. Well, my lords, I need to confer now with Mr. Llewellyn. I’ll have further instructions for you all in the morning.”

  He passed the ornate itinerary across the table to Sir Horace and was about to rise when he caught himself.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Highness—may I?”

  “Detective Field,” said Albert, “a nautical expression comes to mind. You’ll want to mind how you go, because you are sailing close to the wind.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Bright and early tomorrow, then,” said the Prince.

  “Thank you, sir.” He bowed, then suddenly held up three fingers. “The itinerary, black and white and in English, three copies to our cabin tonight, please. Peter, you may retire for the night. Sam?”

  With that he strode from the room, followed by Llewellyn, who blushed to his scalp.

  Master was off to see about the horses. Tom stood before the glass in the room at the inn, washing his face in the basin. The fine clothes he had been given at the country house were packed into a rough satchel. In their place he wore long brown trousers of a coarse fabric and a loose gray blouse with a red scarf knotted about his neck. Master had shaved Tom’s hair close to his scalp. Tom ran his hand over the fuzz on his skull and put on the soft flat cap given him by Master.

  But here he was: Master, standing silently in the door, reading something. He, too, had altered his appearance. The two of them had arrived at Antwerp in the garb of a well-to-do Englishman on holiday with his son. Now they were poor but respectable artisans, a tinker and his boy, traveling the countryside, sharpening knives.

  Master approached Tom at the basin. “You never learned your letters, is that right, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head, his heart suddenly pounding.

  “So you wouldn’t know what it says on this paper.” Master held the telegram before Tom’s eyes:

  with boys mother fields wife the boy can read write

  Master thrust Tom’s head into the basin and held it there. Tom struggled fiercely, but Master was very strong, circling his torso with one arm and holding the boy’s head underwater with the other. Must inhale, must inhale. But then Tom was free, snorting water and mucus, struggling to breathe again, and Master was leaving the room.

  “We leave in ten minutes,” said Decimus.

  34

  Antwerp–Frankfurt–Coburg, Germany

  Their early start quickly evaporated. Charles Field’s team of oversized crewmen stood ready to surround Albert and Victoria and usher them from the deck of the yacht to the open launch, which would ferry them to the quay, but it was all taking forever. Field was learning how very inconvenient it was to be royal. Everything was cumbersome, everything encrusted in ceremony and circumstance; nothing was simple or easy.

  And then a ladies’ maid thinks she’s left Her Majesty’s brushes on board, and a shriek goes up from staff, but no, she’s got ’em after all, bloody hell.

  Finally Her Majesty and His Royal Highness were seated in the launch, headed to shore. Field himself stood with the crewmen encircling the couple, trying to keep his balance, eyeing the crowd on the quay. Awaiting the royal couple was the Queen’s beloved uncle, Leopold, King of the Belgians, along with dozens of local dignitaries, a cheering crowd, and a marching band. When the launch docked, Albert handed the Queen up to Colonel Ponsonby with a look of warm co
ncern in his eyes.

  He’s fond of the girl, ain’t he, thought Field. It’s no wonder they have so many royal offspring.

  A cheer went up from the people as Victoria successfully entered the ornate brougham. Albert’s foot was on the carriage’s lowest step and his hand on the golden rail by the door when a fearsome volley of gunfire sent dozens of gulls screaming into the sky. Field leapt up behind the Prince, clinging to the carriage and blocking Albert’s body, the two of them in an awkward, spooning embrace.

  “Get in, sir!”

  Field, pistol in hand, looked back over his shoulder, scanning the crowd.

  “The Belgian militia is saluting Her Majesty, Mr. Field,” said the Prince with a flicker of a smile. In the square just above them Field saw a line of uniformed men with wisps of blue smoke about their heads.

  Victoria leaned forward, looking at Field curiously. “You will become accustomed to the salutes,” said the Queen, “as we go along.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said the inspector. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  He dropped down from the carriage as a second volley of rifle fire exploded in the crisp morning air, and the royal party was off at a stately pace. Charles Field, thoroughly abashed, trotted behind.

  Meanwhile, Sam Llewellyn hurried through the crowd toward the diligence, which was taking some of the entourage to the train station. The inspector had dispatched him and Sims to prowl the harbor since dawn, in plain clothes, to search the gathering crowds for the man with the dark eyes and the boy.

  “Come along, Peter,” cried Llewellyn over his shoulder, unaware of the tall blond man who followed him only a step behind. “We don’t want to miss the ’bus!”

  “Never mind Peter,” said the man, overtaking the constable and pressing the barrel of a pistol into his back. “You come along and don’t make a fuss.” The accent was German. A second man appeared on Llewellyn’s right and linked his arm through the constable’s. In moments they were off the main square and in a narrow cul de sac. Peter Sims was there soon after, in the custody of two others.

  “You are English,” said the first man.

  “Certainly not,” said Llewellyn, “we’re Welsh! Who the devil are you?”

  “What do you do here? What is your business?

  “We are traveling with Her Majesty the Queen,” said Llewellyn. “How dare you interfere with Her Majesty’s party?”

  “Is that so? And what do you do for Her Majesty the Queen?”

  Peter Sims was ashen-faced but defiant. “We are grooms, if you must know.”

  “The two of you have been since early morning in the harbor, here and there and everywhere.”

  A light dawned. “Oh!” cried Llewellyn. “You’re policemen! So am I!”

  “First you are a groom, then you are a policemen? What next will you be, Englischer?”

  “No, I really am a policeman. He’s a groom.”

  The first blond man nodded soberly and doubled Llewellyn up with a fist to his belly. The interrogation had begun.

  Their abductors were, in fact, policemen, of a sort. The Police Union of German States, das Bund, had been formed in response to the popular uprisings of 1848. It was one of the first cross-border alliances among policing bodies and involved primarily the suppression of political dissent. The union embraced the principalities of Sachsen, Prussia, Hannover, and Bavaria and extended all the way to Austria. The group spied, shared information, confiscated political materials, and enforced newly minted laws regulating and effectively strangling freedom of assembly and speech. This particular unit of the Bund had no legitimate business within the sovereign kingdom of Belgium on the twenty-fourth of September 1860, but the union did not much bother itself with the niceties of law.

  At the train station, while Field looked out over the crowd in vain for Llewellyn and Peter Sims, a band played “God Save the Queen” and then “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Again, the transfer of the royal party proceeded much more slowly than Field would have liked for safety’s sake, but in this case, with his own men unaccounted for, he was grateful for the delay. He saw the royal couple safely seated in their resplendent private railway car and actually ventured to address Her Majesty, suggesting Her Royal Highness might wish him to draw the blinds. (He did not add that this would hinder an assassin from firing on her or her husband through the window. It was, in any case, moot; the Queen did not deign to hear the suggestion.)

  When he returned to the station platform, Sir Horace motioned to him. There was a blond man at his side and others approaching.

  “Detective Field,” said Sir Horace, “allow me to introduce Hauptmann Dieter Klimt, an officer of the law. He has recovered your people.”

  Llewellyn and Sims appeared, in the custody of a small cadre of men. Field noted a thin trickle of blood running from Peter Sims’ right nostril.

  “These two,” said Klimt, “have been cleared for passage into the territories of the German Police Union.”

  “What did you do to my men?”

  “We had to establish their bona fides, you understand.”

  “I’ll rip your bona fides clean off, mate, how would that be?”

  “Mr. Field!” said Llewellyn. “Stop! He’s got news, news that will interest you!”

  “Detective Field,” said Klimt, “your man says you are here to protect the Queen of the Englischers. We applaud you! We ourselves are chasing an anarchist, which is also fine, yes?”

  The train’s whistle blew.

  “What’s your news?”

  “I have long wanted to meet you, sir, ever since I was reading “On Duty with Inspector Field” long ago. So here is a happy accident!”

  “What’s your damn news?”

  “Two, three nights ago, the Polizei in a small town of the Belgians, Sint-Niklaas, they found a girl. Dead, of course. We know this because many Polizei tell us things, even the Belgians. It meant nothing to us, but your fellow says to us you are seeking a man who takes from people their ears, and from this dead girl her ear had been taken. Another happy accident, yes?”

  “Good God.”

  The train’s whistle gave three short blasts.

  “We must be getting along,” said Sir Horace.

  “How far from here is this town?” said Field.

  Klimt shrugged. “A few kilometers, not far.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective Field,” said Sir Horace, “but there’s no more time.”

  “Sir,” said Field, “send His Highness back.”

  “What?”

  “If Her Majesty must, let her go on, but send the Prince back on the yacht, tell everyone it’s down to his health, tell them anything you like, but get him away, sir!”

  “You must be mad,” said Sir Horace. “This trip is all about the Prince!”

  “Dear God, which of us is mad? Your Prince is being hunted by a man who lives to kill. He’s brazen and he’s unstoppable. Do you actually care for the safety of His Highness?”

  “Keep your voice down, Mr. Field. You are profoundly insolent!”

  Sir Horace turned and strode to the train.

  Klimt laid a hand on Field’s shoulder. “We, too, are hunters, Mr. Bucket.”

  “My name is Field,” he said, shaking off Klimt’s hand.

  “As you and your retinue continue on in splendor, we poor Germans must seek our unwashed anarchist, but now, also, we will hunt your strange Fetischer, ja?”

  “My what?”

  “This man has a Fetisch, surely, Mr. Field.”

  “Did the police in St. Nicholas identify a suspect?”

  Klimt pursed his lips and tilted one hand this way and that. The train’s whistle blew loud and long.

  “Sir,” said Llewellyn, “we really must board now.”

  “How was he traveling, Herr Klimt?” asked Field. “Do you know?”

  Klimt shrugged, as if to say, Who knows how these dismembering killers get about?

  “Was he alone, Klimt? Was there a boy with him? What name was he using
?”

  “Auf wiedersehen, Herr Bucket! In Frankfurt perhaps our path will cross! Or somewhere! Later or sooner, ja?”

  Peter Sims hurried on ahead. Llewellyn threw an arm round his superior’s shoulders and firmly turned him toward the train. Moments later the train bearing the Queen of the English chugged out of Antwerp at a stately speed.

  The countryside beyond the train’s windows was flat and featureless. White gulls dotted the shorn black fields, and for a time the air spoke of the sea. A fog tumbled in, causing the slowly turning windmills to fade and vanish. The sky grew leaden, matching the spirits of the policemen. They sent Peter Sims, shaken by his encounter with the Germans, to the rear of the train to join the other palace staff while they patrolled the train from one end to the other.

  “Decimus Cobb comes all this way pursuing the Prince,” said Field, navigating the narrow corridor with difficulty, “but takes time off for a spot of fun with a local girl? Either he’s so confident of his plan he can allow himself a capital crime that’s got his signature writ all over it, or it means he don’t have a plan, he acts on impulse, he’s out of control.”

  “Perhaps the one don’t rule out the other, sir. Remember all those books in his library, sir—the maps of Germany and all. That says planning.”

  “Of course it does,” said the inspector dismally. “And Sir Jasper What’s-It, cut to bits on the parlor floor, seems to say impulse.”

  Field paused at a window just as the fog shifted, revealing for a moment the Rhine and then hiding it again. “The Queen’s other boat, what do they call it, the royal tender? She’s sailing down the river along of us, is that right?”

  “I expect the Fairy is well ahead of us by now. She got an early start and no delays.” Llewellyn touched his temple gently and winced.

  “How’s your head?”

  “As thick as you always said it was. Peter Sims got the worst of it. Sir, I wish Peter was with the horses on board the tender. He’s a stout lad, you couldn’t want a better, but he’s a farm boy at heart. This show ain’t for the likes of him.”

  The two policemen moved from one car to the next and found themselves in the clamor of the galley, where staff were busily preparing the royal luncheon; there was an aroma in the air of roast beef and panic. In the next compartment two young women were taking a tissue-wrapped gown from a trunk while a third heated an iron on a small stove. The train passed cities glimpsed through intermittent fog: Cologne, Bonn, Wiesbaden. Finally they came to a halt in Mainz.