A Wicked Way to Burn (15 page)

“‘It’s good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.’”

“Hmmm! Old Ben Jonson was perfectly right. Though he neglected to mention snuff! However,” Longfellow went on more cheerfully, “the potato of the same genus seems to be a more healthful success.” He dropped the tomato shoots he held into a basket of clippings meant for the compost heap outside, and sniffed at his fingers.

“And so, we conclude that this family is both dangerous and beneficial, like so many others. Which reminds me … is Diana enjoying her stay?” Charlotte asked politely.

“About as much as she ever does. If my sister can find something to gossip about, or someone to admire her silks and scents, she’s reasonably happy. If she’s
forced to live simply like the rest of us, however, she dies a thousand deaths—and few of them are quiet ones. Still,” he added, reconsidering, “she’s certainly good at creating amusements.”

“As we’ll no doubt discover tonight. Do you think she’ll bite Captain Montagu, or will she be content simply to mumble him?”

“We’ll have to wait and see. But let me tell you what else I’ve discovered, through my scientific inquires. I’ve been reviewing what’s known of combustion, to help you with your interest in this absurd affair out on the highway.”

“And?”

“Not an easy task! No one knows the exact components of combustion. The theory of phlogiston maintains that this element, and another called calx, must be present in all combustible matter—the one escaping in the burning process, the other remaining as a residue. Although personally, I agree with the ideas expressed in the work of the Englishman Boyle, and his pupils Hooke and Mazori. They believed that the mixture of air and the volatile sulphurous parts of combustible bodies causes them to act one upon the other—and, that parts of both ascend during combustion, generally accompanied by smoke and flame, leaving a final, unburnable residue behind.”

“Oh, yes?” Charlotte commented, frowning.

“It’s also known that a volume of air in a sealed chamber is diminished by the process of combustion—and that once diminished, this air will no longer support burning, if one should attempt to ignite
another
object within the unopened chamber. It’s curious that the same effects may be obtained by enclosing an animal in the space, and allowing it to breathe until some necessary part of the air is removed.”

“But that’s—”

“This leads many to assume that
combustion
and
respiration
are actually the same thing. Although during respiration, of course, combustion is not observed. Still, if the process were to be altered by yet another cause, then the effect of actual fire might conceivably result from respiration in an animal, or even in a man—perhaps even in our Mr. Middleton. No one yet comprehends such a cause, if one does exist. The original research was done nearly a century ago, and it’s high time for some additional progress to be made. Once we know exactly what this substance in the air necessary to combustion
is—

Longfellow threw his arms apart and breathed deeply of an unknown source of inspiration.

“But as yet,” countered Charlotte, “we have no good reason to suppose that the man just
burst
into flames—”

“There are precedents, as well as similar things in Nature. For instance, we all know that spontaneous combustion of certain things can occur when they’re carelessly stored, especially when damp—and that they will sometimes explode into flames after smoldering for a while. Hay, coal, logs—it’s not uncommon. A farmer considers this to be a naturally occurring process, without truly understanding the cause. That is why he dries his hay before storing it in his barn.”

“I think we can assume, though, that Mr. Middleton was neither damp, nor confined in any particular way.”

“But
something
might have altered his original state, in a way that could be repeated in a similar situation, at another time—something
perhaps
linked with his natural respiration.”

“Then you do believe it’s likely Duncan Middleton was consumed in some kind of fire?” asked Charlotte cautiously, fingering a stalk of rusty chrysanthemum tied to a stake of cane. Longfellow smiled his sweetest smile, and let his true conclusion out.

“I believe nothing of the kind,” he said firmly.
“None of this is actually relevant to the matter we’re looking into. I find it much more likely that substances far simpler than the bodily tissues of Duncan Middleton were burned on Tuesday night.”

“I’ve wondered myself if it might not have been something like Greek fire.”

Longfellow stared at her blankly. He had planned to explain the rest of his idea after Charlotte had been suitably impressed with its beginning. Instead, he was forced to pause and admire the fact that she’d reached his own conclusion without him.

“My library isn’t a very new one,” she reminded him gently, “but it’s well stocked with the classical authors, and I do find some time to read.”

“Come with me.”

“I’ve read of its historical use, of course,” she managed as he towed her by the arm past a startled Cicero, and then on toward the house. “The Byzantines created Greek fire for warfare, didn’t they? And it was later taken up by the Crusaders, I think who used it against the Saracen. But whatever the secret formula was, I seem to remember it was activated by contact with
water
, so I don’t quite—”

“Sometimes it was,” Longfellow shouted back over the wind. “But with the substitution of phosphorus, which burns when exposed to
air—”

“—a kind of land bomb could be made! Oh! But what exactly is phosphorus?”

“A highly unstable element, isolated in Hamburg in the 1660s, derived from … well, at any rate, isolated. It burns first with quantities of white smoke—very useful for camouflage, by the way—and then with a clear blue flame.”

He slowed for breath, and looked up. The faint cries of Canada geese filtered down from the sky, as a flock passed overhead like hounds running after prey.

“Phosphorus may be kept,” Longfellow continued, “in a vial of turpentine, or even water. If the vial is broken and pieces of phosphorus exposed to air, they should burn very nicely. If you add to this a bit of charcoal for a base, some pitch, sulphur, and a dash of saltpeter, then you have a fine, portable package full of fire, smoke, and the smell of Satan at your disposal, waiting to be tossed down. The intense heat would of course cause the glass to melt while the rest burned, making the entire thing
appear
to have occurred without a natural source!” Reaching the house, he opened the kitchen door.

“I tried it last night with the materials I had delivered. And here you see the results. Nearly identical with what I removed from the road.”

Charlotte stared at kitchen surfaces scattered with glass dishes and tubes, and at a large, flat rock covered with black material, on the floor in front of her feet.

“So that’s how the effect was created,” she finally managed, while her nose wrinkled at the lingering stink of combustion. “I certainly hope
your
information, with what I have to tell you, will bring us close to a solution.”

“Then Captain Montagu will be forced to conclude that there are more than roots and vegetables inhabiting the country! But, I’m still in the dark, Carlotta, when it comes to explaining how Middleton managed the
rest
of his trick. How do you think he kept Pennywort from seeing him, as he ran away?”

“I do have a few ideas—”

At that moment there was a banging of the door, and the sound of silk brushing along the hall. Diana Longfellow flounced into the room, the fashionable hoops at her hips causing her skirts to swing barely within the bounds of safety. It was eminently clear that the morning had seen another triumph, and that it, too, was soon to be related.

“YOU SHOULD BOTH
be glad,” Diana began vigorously, “that
someone
cares for the safety of your little village. I’ve just come from expressing my thoughts on recent matters to Captain Montagu.”

“Captain Montagu?” her listeners asked together. Diana paused to examine a fingernail.

“Could it be,” inquired Longfellow, “that you’ve rejudged the man, and found him human after all?”

“As I say, Captain Montagu—who, by the way, was particularly glad to speak with someone respectable, and intelligible. I’ve been making myself very useful … unlike, he informs me, certain others in the neighborhood.”

Charlotte and Longfellow waited for more.

“He’s apparently having trouble discovering the facts from the local rabble, so I related to him what I had heard of this monster Pennywort, stalking innocent travelers and then covering his crimes by spreading tales so
absurd
that your rustics were bound to believe them. I convinced the captain that this blackguard Pennywort should be arrested immediately, and locked up somewhere until he can be tried.”

“Diana,” her brother asked at last, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, “have you ever seen this character you describe so vividly?”

“No,” she had to admit. But she kept her chin high, inviting a challenge to her powers of intuition.

“Well, Jack Pennywort is shorter than you, he has a deformed foot, his mind is about as active as that of a possum that’s been hanging at a cider bung—and to lock him up would deprive a wife and four small children of the rather dubious livelihood they now enjoy. While it may be fashionable for some in your world to ridicule and torture Nature’s unfortunates, following perhaps the great courts of Europe, it will hardly do to taunt such victims of misfortune
here.
We should all, I think, have a little more compassion than that.”

Much of what Longfellow said was, of course, a lie; laughing at Pennywort had been a sport enjoyed by a good portion of the village for much of their lives, although it was not especially popular among the more enlightened. But Diana’s eyes lost some of their snap as she listened, and considered.

“Besides,” her brother added, “Charlotte and I have already concluded it’s very likely Middleton isn’t dead at all, but only gone away. It seems he himself was the inventor behind his rather theatrical demise.”

“What! But how? And
why!”

“Why? How should I know? But the fact is that you are out to hang an innocent man. My experiments, which you objected to so heartily last night, prove that the merchant
planned
to disappear. And so he did.”

“Yet doesn’t it seem strange,” Diana asked very slowly, savoring each word, “that Middleton, a prominent, wealthy merchant, would leave everything behind—even his ready funds?”

“Do you happen to be acquainted with the man’s lawyers? Or have you acquired a crystal ball?”

“No, I heard it from Edmund—from Captain Montagu,” she corrected herself, smiling at the memory of his confidence. “The captain informs me that his own inquiry leads him to suspect foul play, as none of the man’s wealth has been touched. He’s clearly dead, Richard.”

“Middleton probably arranged to have his property sold by an accomplice. Or else he plans to claim it himself, when he’s good and ready.”

“Then we’ll see,” was all he could get in reply.

Charlotte, though surprised by Diana’s information, also remembered suddenly that she had something else to attend to.

“Shall I call for you around four?” Longfellow asked as she lingered for a moment at the door.

“No … you go on. I’ll join you at the inn. Right now, there’s someone—well, I’ll tell you about it later.”

Leaving her neighbors to continue their family fray, Mrs. Willett made her way back across to her own safe and ordered kitchen. She felt greatly in need of a strong cup of tea, as well as a few moments for quiet thought.