The Darwin Affair

by Tim Mason

  As the royal visitors moved through the cavernous room, Field noticed an ancient wooden door on the left swing inward. He paused for a moment to see who would emerge. No one did. The party was ahead, gathered round one of the various instruments of torture on display. Field hesitated, then walked back to the open door.

  It was entirely dark within; a mossy draft eddied out. The inspector was about to turn back to the group when a voice came from the darkness.

  “Sir, a word.”

  Field’s hand went to his breast pocket, but he was unused to carrying his pistol and realized with a jolt that the gun was still in his trunk.

  “Who is that?”

  Silence.

  He hesitated a moment further, then stepped into the dark passage. “Who just spoke?” Silence. “Mr. Cobb, do I have the pleasure?”

  He heard no other sound but the soughing draft and the voices of the entourage behind him. Field took another step and blundered noisily into a helmeted mannequin in full body armor, throwing his arms round it in a clanking embrace to keep them both from falling. The passageway, barely lit by the faint light from the open door behind him, seemed to be littered with many such things: suits of armor and weapons that hadn’t been put on official display. He strained to see. And then, from behind, came a rusty squeak. He turned in time to see the massive door swing lazily shut, plunging him into utter darkness. Field groped his way as hastily as he could, back toward the door.

  It was locked. Field swung round, putting his back to it. He could imagine it closing on its own with a draft of air but was quite certain the door had not bolted itself.

  He spoke to the darkness. “Was it the boy just did that, Mr. Cobb? Young Tom?” A possibility suddenly occurred to him. “Or is it Sir Horace Dugdale, your particular friend at court?” Of course. Sir Horace, who had been present months ago when all this began and when Field had first uttered the word conspiracy. “He is the bloke who just shut and bolted this door, is he not? Was this planned in advance, me trapped in here with you, or is Sir Horace, like you, a creature of impulse and opportunity?”

  Did he hear breathing? Surely his own eyes soon would adjust to the darkness, putting him on an even footing with Decimus. Somewhere there was a metallic click. “‘How now?” said Field. “A rat?’ That’s Shakespeare, Mr. Cobb.” The inspector gingerly took a step toward his fear instead of away from it, which had been his agonizing practice since childhood.

  “Where is the boy? Where is Tom, Mr. Cobb? Have you taken off his ear and used him yet?”

  Yes, there was someone breathing not far from him.

  “A German policeman told me they found a dead girl near Antwerp with her left ear off. Ring a bell at all? He called you a . . . Well, it was a foreign term, so you can take it for what it’s worth, but this German said you had yourself a fetish. Is that what you have, Mr. Cobb? Peculiar cravings? When tossing yourself off, I mean.”

  “I had intended,” said a disembodied voice, “to make you a generous offer.”

  Suddenly Field smelt a man’s breath, inches from him in the darkness.

  “I bled your man,” said Decimus finally, “the thin, bony one.”

  It took Field a moment to master himself. “So you did, and I mean to see you hanged for it.”

  “You put him in my hands, Mr. Field. And now you have delivered Constable Llewellyn to my care. He will soon be in London.”

  A worm of fear wriggled in Field’s gut.

  “You had this information from Sir Horace Dugdale, I imagine.”

  “I have sent instructions to Mrs. Andrews and she is awaiting him at No. 2 Bow Street. You have put your wife and your constable at great risk needlessly. You could ensure the safety of both, you know. Even now.”

  Field tried to control his breathing.

  “Oh, yes? And how would I do that?”

  “What do you care about these people? What do you care about the Prince? You might continue as you are, standing guard, following him about, looking a bit ridiculous in hand-me-down clothing, but when he dies you can say, almost honestly, that you did your very best to protect him. You could even say, I told you so. Could you not do that, Mr. Field? To protect those about whom you do care?”

  He could do, and he knew it, but he forced the thought from his mind. “This is your generous offer?”

  “Not to mention,” continued Decimus, “preserving your own life, of course.”

  “So I am right, it is the Prince you’re after. What do you care about Albert, Mr. Cobb, if it comes to that? You could as easily go home as me. Indulge your fancies and your knives until you and me meet up again and I get your neck into a noose. Or do you, too, have a bone to pick with Mr. Darwin? What is it about Darwin and his theories, Mr. Cobb? Why would you fear them so?”

  Field sensed movement and stepped back. The blade caught the palm of his left hand with a slashing motion. A red rage filled him and he thrust his right hand out, grabbed blindly, and was rewarded by a high-pitched scream.

  Damn me, it’s his prick I’ve got hold of and the bloody thing is stiff! Well, of course it is, the bastard was about to cut me up!

  With a sharp cry Decimus wrenched himself out of Field’s grip. Footfalls followed, blundering at first, and then running, turning off into another passage, and another, and finally passing out of hearing. Field flailed about, searching the air about him, until he laid hands on a long shaft. He carefully fingered the end of the pole and found an ax head there. With the ax he turned back to the locked door and split it in three blows.

  The royal party had moved on, but a castle retainer was there, looking horrified at the shattered door and the bleeding man with the battle-ax who emerged from it.

  “Was haben Sie getan?” said the servant in a whisper.

  “Did you lock this door a few moments ago?” Holding his bleeding hand with his other, Field made the motions of a man throwing a bolt.

  The servant, petrified, nodded. “Ja.”

  Field inspected his left hand. It was bleeding profusely but not deeply cut. The servant turned and walked quickly to the exit, looking back over his shoulder in wide-eyed terror.

  Field made his way as unobtrusively as he could do out of the fortress. The royal party had indeed left without him, so the inspector walked back to the Ehrenburg Palace. He was relieved to find Sheldon Olderwiser in the palace kitchens, just finishing a cup of tea. Olderwiser was less concerned about Field’s cut hand than scandalized at the state of his clothing.

  “D’ you think it’s easy outfitting a man of your dimensions, Mr. Field?” The valet briskly bound up the inspector’s injury with a kitchen cloth. “Now it’s up to me to get you clothed again, just when I’ve got to get the Prince ready for his travels.”

  “What travels?”

  “Himself, his son-in-law, and his brother are riding to Gotha tonight. Got to arrange for their stepmama’s burial, don’t they.”

  Field swore. “Where is the Prince now?”

  “Lunchin’ with Her Majesty in the Marmorsaal. Hi! You can’t go in there looking like that! Let me find you a clean shirt, anyway. Mr. Field?”

  The luncheon party was just breaking up when the inspector reached the colonnaded, vaulted dining room. He stood with head bowed respectfully as the Queen passed, chatting with her daughter, but he caught Albert’s eye with a meaningful look. The Prince paused.

  “Yes, Mr. Field? Good Lord, what have you done to yourself?”

  “Sir, a slight cut.”

  Victoria paused and turned.

  Field lowered his voice. “You travel tonight, sir, I’m told. Your Highness, allow me to accompany you.”

  The Prince glanced at his wife.

  “But you are here to protect the Queen, Mr. Field. I expect you to remain here with Her Majesty.”

  Victoria laughed. “My dear,” she said to her husband, “Mr. Field is always and forever under foot. Let him protect you for once, and give us poor ladies a single night’s respite!”

  The
attack, when it came, was swift.

  There was a chill in the late September evening air and the three passengers in the coach—Albert, Ernest, and Fritz—were well wrapped up, conversing softly as the horses clopped out of Coburg. Field, his hand freshly bandaged, sat in front with Peter Sims, scanning the road ahead. About three miles from town the road narrowed, approaching a railway crossing, the trees drawing in on the Coburg side of the train tracks and opening up again on the opposite side.

  “The barrier’s down,” said Peter, slowing the horses, “but where’s the train?” Field strained to hear the sound of an approaching locomotive, but there was only the evening chirp of crickets and the murmuring voices of the princes in the coach. Field jumped down onto the road. He approached the little hut where the crossing keeper was housed while on duty. It was empty.

  Field turned and saw a strange man climbing onto the Prince’s carriage.

  “Oi, Cobb!”

  Field sprinted. The man on the carriage step raised a pistol and the inspector hurled himself through the air. He caught flying hold of the man’s legs just as a volley of gunfire exploded. The man spun violently, taking the inspector with him to the ground.

  Men were running from the woods toward the coach, shouting, and the horses were rearing, Peter Sims struggling to control them. Inspector Field sat up, wiped some wet matter from his eyes and realized it was the assailant’s brains. A stocky blond man stood above him.

  “Mr. Field, it is a good job we didn’t shoot you!”

  Field got to his feet.

  “You remember me, of course—Hauptmann Klimt? Of the German Police Bund? Your comrade, Mr. Bucket, your comrade!”

  Field looked down at the body. He got to his knees and put his hands on what was left of the assailant’s head, turning it this way and that. There seemed to be fragments of a red bandana around it. It was certainly not Decimus Cobb. Field went through the dead man’s pockets, empty except for a few pfennigs and a quantity of coarse black tobacco. He stood again and approached the carriage.

  Albert was staring at him, ashen but jubilant. “It is over, then!” said the Prince. Klimt stepped up and bowed.

  “My lord,” he said, “it is indeed, sir. I am Hauptmann Dieter Klimt of the German Police Bund. We have followed for days now this anarchist assassin, from Hamburg to this very spot, acting on information we had some weeks ago. We are hunters, like my good friend Inspector Field, and here we are at the end of the hunt!”

  “You have our gratitude, Hauptmann Klimt, you and your men.”

  Albert looked to Field, beaming, the color returning to his face.

  “We do not know who he was,” said Field. “We do not know who put him onto it, if anyone did. We know nothing, but I am quite unhurt, thank you.”

  Field turned brusquely and walked away, feeling the anger course through him and trying to quell it.

  “Mr. Field?” said Albert, stepping down from the carriage and following him.

  Field whirled on him. “It’s not him, sir! Do you understand? It’s some other bloke. Nothing is over, nothing whatsoever!”

  Ernest and Fritz climbed out of the coach and approached gingerly, eyeing the bloody corpse.

  “Albert, let us thank God for our deliverance,” said Ernest, “but on no account must anyone know of it. My own position here, yours, Fritz’s . . .”

  “I must agree,” said Fritz. “If my esteemed father, the emperor, were to hear of this assassin from Hamburg, I fear all our efforts toward unification will have been in vain.”

  “And the three of us, saved by members of the Bund?” added Ernest. “Amongst the people, Albert, they are despised. No, no, it will not do.”

  Albert nodded slowly. “For Her Majesty the Queen it would be the ruination of this entire journey, which she has so deeply enjoyed. And, to be frank, Victoria would not approve of any assassination attempt in which she was not the target.”

  “No one must ever know,” repeated Ernest.

  “My lords,” said Klimt, “my men and I can make it disappear, all of it.”

  The Prince nodded. “Do so, then. And let us continue to Gotha.”

  Ernest and Fritz returned to the carriage. Albert regarded Charles Field appraisingly. He saw a man covered in blood and gore, just as he had been the first time they met, months earlier. “Mr. Field, you will need a change of clothing and we haven’t time for that now. I won’t require your services tonight, but I do thank you for all your efforts.”

  Field said nothing. Albert’s eyes moved reluctantly to the corpse and then returned to the coach. “Sims, you are quite well?”

  “Quite well, thank you, sir,” said Peter.

  “We’ll be off, then,” said the Prince.

  One of the German policemen raised the barrier at the crossing and the carriage moved on into the evening. While Klimt’s men went to work, digging a grave, Field stood staring after the royal coach. The snort of a nearby horse jerked him out of his dark reverie.

  Field moved toward the sound, on the wooded side of the tracks. “Who’s there?” Field entered the wood and stopped. He heard the horse walking away, fallen leaves crunching beneath its hooves. “Is it you?” The inspector walked briskly into the wood, accelerating, dodging trees and stumps, but it was dark and getting darker. “Halt, damn you!” He ran, nearly weeping with rage and frustration. Finally his toe caught on a root and he fell hard. The hoofbeats faded into the night.

  38

  London

  It was early evening when Bessie Shoreham emerged unsteadily from the tavern with her head held defiantly high. It was all a lie, no doubt about it. This detective nonsense was just a ruse her mistress was employing to replace her with that Miss Coffin, the old hag. As Bessie walked home, tears rolled down her cheeks. What could she do to make her mistress care for her again?

  In a flash of unaccustomed ingenuity, Bessie had an idea, the possession of which was such a novelty it left her breathless. She would go along with the lie and be the very best detective she could be! She would spy upon Miss Coffin’s every movement! And then came the sign that her idea was indeed a good one.

  There she is now, the witch!

  The woman’s dull black clothing rustled drily as she walked. She clutched a fold of paper in one of her knobby hands. She, too, appeared to be heading back to Bow Street. Bessie hurried slyly after her.

  With Mr. Field away, Jane most often ate in the kitchen with her menagerie, as she privately called them. Tonight’s supper was a peculiar affair. As “Miss Coffin” cooked the meal of boiled mutton, Bessie never once took her eyes off her. While she always before had only scowls for the woman, tonight she never stopped smiling. Bessie had been so excessively helpful that Coffin had been obliged to tell her to clear off. Bessie had lumbered up the four flights of stairs then, to her room, but when she returned for the meal, she was all smiles once more. Grinning, she watched Miss Coffin’s every forkful, from plate to warty mouth, every sip of beer, and each dab of napkin.

  “What are you lookin’ at?” snapped Miss Coffin finally.

  At this, Bessie put on an enormously shrewd face, laid one finger alongside her nose, and said, “You know better than me,c

  dearie.”

  “Bessie,” said Jane, “that is hardly gracious.”

  Bessie nodded at Jane and winked confidentially. “No more is it.”

  “Are you drunk again, or have you lost your mind?” said Miss Coffin. She turned abruptly to Martha Ginty, whose foot tapped incessantly beneath the table, and snarled, “Keep still, can’t you!”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” said Martha. “I get this way.”

  “Well, get some other way!”

  “It’s my son, you see. He went off and he never came back.”

  “Yes, yes, we know all about it!” Miss Coffin pushed back from the table, at which Bessie pushed back her chair and stood in unison.

  “Bessie,” said Jane, “what are you doing?”

  “Nuffink, Missus,” she said
, beaming.

  “I don’t know what has got into you, but whatever it is, I want it to stop!”

  Bessie sat again with a thud, tears springing to her eyes.

  “This is a madhouse, that’s what this is,” said Miss Coffin. “I’m going to bed.”

  She sniffed contemptuously and left the room. Jane, Bessie, and Martha listened to her footsteps climbing the stairs. The unspoken relief they felt at the woman’s departure went round the room; it was as though they could breathe again. Jane moved to sit beside Bessie, touching her shoulder gently.

  “I am sorry I snapped at you Bessie, but your behavior tonight has been so peculiar.”

  Bessie hiccoughed and sniffed. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “About what?”

  Bessie tilted her head extravagantly in the direction of Martha Ginty and raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Jane.

  Bessie dropped her voice down to a throaty whisper. “About our secret.”

  “Mrs. Ginty,” said Jane, “be so good as to clear the table, will you?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” Martha rose and began collecting the plates.

  Jane turned again to Bessie and lowered her voice. “Yes, Bessie?”

  Bessie pulled a folded piece of paper from her bodice. “When Miss Coffin was stirring the pot, I found this in our room. It was hid in one of her boots. I can’t read it, but you can, Missus.”

  Jane hesitated for a moment, then took and unfolded the telegram. As she read, Martha leaned over to remove the meat platter and carving knife. She froze, reading the message over Jane’s shoulder.

  “Wot’s it say?” whispered Bessie.

  “She’s been lying all this time,” said Martha. “Mrs. Field, who are these people?”

  “Someone is coming to Bow Street, that’s clear,” said Jane, rereading the slip of paper. “They’re setting a trap for someone.”

  “My Tom’s not safe, he’s anything but safe!”