The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Man (21 page)

Jankyn joined them.

“He was thrown from the window,” Burton explained.

Tichborne looked up at them, blinked, coughed, and whispered: “It hurts, Doctor Jankyn.”

“Lie still,” the physician ordered.

Sir Alfred’s eyes held Burton’s. “There’s something—” He winced and groaned. “There’s something I want—I want you to—do.”

“What is it, Sir Alfred?”

A tear slid from the baronet’s eye. “No matter who claims this—this estate tomorrow, my brother—my
real
brother—he and I were the last Tichbornes. Don’t allow anyone else to—to take the name.”

He closed his eyes and emitted a deep sigh.

Jankyn leaned over him. He looked back at Burton.

“Sir Alfred has joined his mother.”

Even though it was near enough midnight, Burton took a horse and trap and galloped to Alresford, where he hammered on the door of the post office until the inhabitants opened a window and demanded to know what in blue blazes he thought he was bally well doing. Displaying the credentials granted to him by the prime minister, he quickly gained access to the aviary and gave one of the parakeets a message for the attention of Scotland Yard.

Early the next morning, an irregular ribbon of steam appeared high over the eastern horizon and arced down toward the estate. It was generated by a rotorchair, which landed with a thump and a bounce and skidded over the gravel on the carriageway in front of Tichborne House.

A burly figure clambered out of it, pulled leather-bound goggles from his eyes, and was mounting the steps to the portico when the front door opened and Burton emerged.

“Hello, Trounce. Glad to see you!”

They shook hands.

“Captain, please tell me the parakeet was joking!”

“Joking?”

“It told me murder had been done—by ghosts!”

“As bizarre as it sounds, I’m afraid it’s true; I saw it with my own eyes.”

Trounce sighed and ran his fingers through his short, bristly hair.

“Ye gods, how the devil am I supposed to report that to Commissioner Mayne?”

“Come through to the parlour, I’ll give you a full account.”

Some little time later, Detective Inspector Trounce had been introduced to Colonel Lushington, Henry Hawkins, and Doctor Jankyn, and had taken a statement from each of them. He then examined Sir Alfred’s body, which lay in a small bedroom, awaiting the arrival of the county coroner.

Trounce settled in the smoking room with Burton and Swinburne.

“It’s plain enough that he was killed by the fall,” he muttered. “But how am I to begin the investigation? Ghosts, by Jove! It’s absurd! First Brundleweed and now Tichborne!”

“That’s a very interesting point,” Burton said. “We can at least establish that the two crimes are linked—beyond the presence of a ghost, I mean.”

“How so?”

“We dismissed Brundleweed’s spook as either imagination or a gas-induced hallucination. However, last night I witnessed ghosts pulling poor Sir Alfred straight through solid matter. It strikes me that if they can do that with a man, then they can certainly do it with diamonds.”

“You mean to suggest that, some little time before Brunel’s clockwork raiding party arrived, Brundleweed’s ghost reached into his safe and pulled the François Garnier gems right out, replacing them with onyx stones, all without even opening the door?”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

“And was it the Tichborne ghost, Captain? This Lady Mabella?”

“It would be fair to assume so. The motive appears to be the same; she has an interest in black diamonds. There’s rumoured to be one, of the same variety as the Choir Stones, concealed somewhere on this estate. Lady Mabella has spent night after night knocking on the walls around the house. What does that suggest to you?”

“That she’s been searching for a secret hiding place?”

“Precisely—although it’s strange that she should knock on walls when she has the ability to walk right through them. That aside, we appear to have a diamond-hungry spook on our hands. I propose that our priority should be to discover the stone before she does; perhaps then we can find out why it’s so important to her.”

Trounce rubbed his hands over his face, his expression a picture of exasperation. “Fine! Fine! But it beats me why a diamond should be of
any
blessed use to a ghost!”

“As I say, my friend, that is the crux of the matter.”

“And why murder Sir Alfred?”

“Perhaps to make way for the Claimant?”

Algernon Swinburne clapped his hands together. “Dastardly!” he cried. “The witch and the imposter are hand-in-glove!”

Trounce groaned. “I was the laughing stock of the Yard for decades because I believed in Spring Heeled Jack. Lord knows what mockery I’m letting myself in for now, but I suppose we’d better get on with it. Where do we start?”

“In the kitchen.”

“The kitchen? Why the kitchen?”

“Of course!” Swinburne enthused, as realisation dawned. “Mrs. Picklethorpe’s snoring!”

Trounce looked from the king’s agent to the diminutive poet and back again.

“You know, I could easily grow to dislike you two. What in the devil’s name are you jabbering about?”

“We have Herbert Spencer the vagrant philosopher with us,” Burton explained. “He’s staying down in the servants’ quarters. He complained that the cook snores, and that the sound reverberates through the walls. Perhaps it’s because the walls are hollow.”

“And there’s a dreadful old family poem,” Swinburne added, “which says
Consume if thou wouldst uncover.
We think the diamond is hidden somewhere under the two wheat fields at the front of the house. Initially, we speculated that the doggerel was instructing whoever wanted to find it to get rid of the crop and dig, but perhaps there’s an easier way.”

“You mean a secret passage from the kitchen?” Trounce asked.

“Or, more specifically, from one of the famous pantries,” Burton responded.

“Gad!” Trounce exclaimed. Then again: “Gad!”

“The Claimant is due here soon, so I suggest we have a poke around straightaway. I don’t know how welcome we’ll be in the manor once he sets foot in it.”

Trounce jerked his head in agreement.

They left the smoking room and sought out Colonel Lushington, who they found pacing in the study, next to the library.

He looked up as they entered. “More news,” he announced. “Bad. Maybe good. Not sure. Could be either. Depends how it goes. Hawkins is of the opinion that it’ll be a civil trial:
Tichborne versus Lushington
.”

“Why so?” Burton asked.

“The Claimant, under the name Roger Tichborne, will contest my right to act on the family’s behalf. He’ll try to have me removed from the house. Ejected. Out on my ear, so to speak. However, if he’s not Roger Tichborne, we’ll counter by suing for a criminal trial. Court. Jury. So forth.
King versus Claimant.
”

“Good!” Trounce grunted. “That would bring Scotland Yard in on the matter.”

Lushington agreed. “High time. I’d certainly like to know more about what the Claimant fellow got up to in Australia when he was calling himself Tomas Castro!”

“Rest assured, Colonel, the moment it becomes a criminal matter, the Yard will send someone to the colonies.”

Burton interrupted: “Colonel, it may seem trivial and badly timed but, as I mentioned last night, I have good reason for wanting to examine the kitchens. I assure you it’s relevant to this whole affair. Would you mind?”

Lushington looked puzzled but nodded. He summoned Bogle and told him to take Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce “below stairs.”

They found that the basement of the manor was divided into a great many small rooms. There were the servants’ sleeping quarters, sitting rooms, and washrooms, storerooms, coal cellars, sculleries, and a dining room. The kitchen was by far the largest chamber, and it opened onto three pantries, all stocked with cured meats, jars of preserved comestibles, sacks of flour, dried beans and sugars, cheeses, oils, and vinegars, vegetables, kegs of beer, and racks of wine.

“Let’s take one each,” Burton suggested. “Check the walls and floors. We’re looking for a concealed door.”

He stepped into the middle room and began to move sacks and jars aside, stretching over the piled goods to rap his knuckles against the plaster-coated back wall. He heard his colleagues doing the same in the rooms on either side.

As thorough as he was, he found nothing.

“I say, Captain, come and have a look at this!” Detective Inspector Trounce called.

Burton left his pantry and entered the one to the right.

“Got something?”

“Perhaps so. What do you make of that?”

The Scotland Yard man pointed to the top of the back wall, where it abutted the ceiling. Initially, Burton couldn’t see anything unusual, but upon closer inspection he noticed a thin, dark line running along the joint.

“Hmm,” he grunted, and heaved himself up onto a beer barrel.

Leaning against the wall, he reached up and ran his thumbnail along the line. Then he stepped down and said: “I’m not the slightest bit peckish, so I’d rather not eat and drink my way through this lot despite the poem’s directive. Let’s settle for clearing it out into the kitchen.”

He called Swinburne.

“What?” came the poet’s voice.

“Come here and lend some elbow grease!”

The three men quickly moved the contents of the pantry out, exposing every inch of the rear wall.

“The line extends down the sides and across the base of the wall,” Burton observed.

“A door?” asked Swinburne.

“I can’t see any other explanation. There’s no sign of a handle, though.”

Trounce placed both his hands against the wall and pushed.

“Nothing,” he grunted, stepping back.

The three men spent the next few minutes pressing different parts of the barrier. They then examined the rest of the small room in the hope of finding a lever or switch of some sort.

“It’s hopeless,” the inspector grumbled. “If there’s a way to get that blasted door open, it’s not in here.”

“Perhaps we’ve overlooked something in the poem,” Swinburne mused.

“Possibly,” answered Burton. “For the moment, we’d better get back upstairs. We don’t want to miss the Claimant’s grand entrance. We’ll return later. Algy, go and track down Herbert and tell him what’s what. He can be poking about down here while we’re occupied. I’ll ask the cook to leave this room as it is for the time being.”

Some little time later, the king’s agent and his companions joined Colonel Lushington, Hawkins, and Jankyn in the library. It was just past midday.

The colonel, twisting the points of his extravagant muttonchops, paced up and down nervously.

“Mr. Hawkins,” he said, “tell me more about this Kenealy fellow.”

“Who’s Kenealy?” Burton asked.

“Doctor Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy,” said Hawkins. “He’s the Claimant’s lawyer. He also considers himself a poet, literary critic, prophet, and would-be politician. He’s a through-and-through Rake—a member of the inner circle thought to have gathered around the new leader, whoever that may be.”

“Well now!” Burton exclaimed. “That’s very interesting indeed!”

Laurence Oliphant and Henry “The Mad Marquess” Beresford had formerly led the Rakes, but both had been killed by Burton last year, and the faction had been in disarray for some months.

“Not John Speke, surely!” Burton muttered to himself. Recent events would make a lot more sense if Speke was guiding the Rakes and using them to get at the black diamonds, but, somehow, Burton just couldn’t see it. His former partner didn’t possess leadership qualities, and furthermore, he was extremely conservative and repressed in character—not at all representative of the Rake philosophy.

Burton wondered whether he’d be able to prise some information out of the Claimant’s lawyer.

“Interesting
is not a word I’d use to describe Edward Kenealy, Sir Richard,” Henry Hawkins was saying.
“Barking mad
would be my choice. He’s as nutty as a fruitcake, and a confounded brute, too. Ten years ago, he served a month in prison on a charge of aggravated assault against his six-year-old illegitimate son. The boy had been beaten half to death and almost strangled. Kenealy has since been accused—but not charged—with a number of assaults against prostitutes. He’s a very active follower of the Marquis de Sade and adheres to the belief that inflicting pain weakens social constraints and liberates the spirit.”

Detective Inspector Trounce eyed Algernon Swinburne, who frowned back and muttered: “Some are givers, some are takers, Inspector.”

Hawkins continued: “He also subscribes to a rather incoherent theology which claims that a spiritual force is beginning to change the world—that we currently exist on the borderline between two great epochs, and the transformation from one to the other will cause a social apocalypse, overthrowing the world’s ruling elite and passing power, instead, into the hands of the working classes.”

Burton shifted uneasily, remembering Countess Sabina’s prophecy and his subsequent strange dream.

Hawkins went on: “He’s published a number of long-winded and nonsensical texts to promote this creed but, if you ask me, the only useful information one can draw from them is the fact that their author is an egomaniac, fanatic, and fantasist. All in all, gentlemen, a very dangerous and unpredictable fellow to have as our opponent.”

“And one who’s currently travelling down the carriageway, by the looks of it, what!” Jankyn noted from where he stood by the window. “There’s a growler approaching.”

Lushington blew out a breath and rubbed his hands on the sides of his trousers. “Well, Mr. Hawkins—ahem!—let’s go and cast our eyes over, that is to say, have a look at, the man who says he’s Roger Tichborne. Gentlemen, if you’d be good enough to wait here, I’ll introduce the Claimant and his lunatic lawyer presently.”

The two men left the room.

Swinburne crossed to the window just in time to see the horse-drawn carriage pass out of sight as it approached the portico.

“What do you think?” he asked Jankyn quietly. “Swindler or prodigal?”

“I’ll reserve my judgement until I see him and he makes his case, what!”