Death Devil's Bridge (29 page)

“I say bravo!” Kate smiled. “And when we return, we shall travel all around, lecturing to enormous crowds about our exploits and giving magic lantern shows of your photographs.”

Patsy reached for her hand. “Promise me, Kate,” she said solemnly.

“I promise,” Kate said, and squeezed her young friend's hand, thinking that Patsy would do, after all. She would do very well indeed. “But before then,” she added, “we have tonight's lantern show to arrange.”

“Yes,” Patsy said, and lost some of her eagerness. “But I must first go back to Marsden Manor to bid Mama goodbye and pack my dressing cases.” She managed a smile. “A fearless explorer must certainly have something decent to wear.”

“But surely you can postpone your departure for a few days, Patsy—not that I don't want you to come to Bishop's Keep, of course. But your mother has just returned from abroad and—”

“Which makes it exactly the right time for me to do it,” Patsy said decidedly. “If I were to remain with her longer, I might come to fear her again—so much that I should not be able to leave.” She shook her head. “No, Kate, now is the time to begin. A fearless explorer I shall be, fearless and reckless. And I have
you
to thank for showing me how!”

 

 

 

 

C
harles's laboratory and adjoining darkroom were located in the servants' area of Bishop's Keep, in what had once·been a game larder. Since the room was below ground level and often cold, he had installed a gas fire to warm it, and gas lighting above his worktables. The laboratory was one that any scientist could have claimed with pride, equipped as it was with glass-fronted oaken cabinets filled with chemicals and glassware, solid worktables, a gas burner and sink with both hot and cold water, chemical balance, and other scientific equipment. On one table was his Lancaster achromatic microscope. It was fitted with rack and fine screw adjustments and a condensing lens on a universal joint. Now that his electrical plant was in operation, he planned to install electrical wiring, as well. He could then make use of the newly acquired Crookes tube and a Tesla coil from which he hoped to cobble together a homemade X-ray apparatus built to the specifications in Professor Roentgen's recently published paper.

The smaller, windowless darkroom was adjacent to the laboratory. It was outfitted with worktables, a sink with an ample water supply, porcelain developing tanks, washing and drying racks, an Eastman clock, a Knox enameler, shelves filled with photographic chemicals, printing papers, and supplies, as well as a paraffin-burning ruby safelight (soon to be replaced by electric safelights), and a line for drying prints. There was also a Koresco reducing and enlarging camera, and another purchased from Fallowfield in Charing Cross Road, designed exclusively to produce lantern slides, for which Charles had paid four pounds five shillings. This camera had won a silver medal at the Hackney Exhibition, and was one of his happiest purchases, in spite of the cost.

Charles himself was seated on a stool at a laboratory table, intently studying a number of items on the table before him. At his elbow was an enlarged print of the fingerprint he had found on the Daimler's fender. Occasionally, he shifted from an examination of one of the objects to the enlargement, and then back again.

He looked up when he heard a tap on the door. Lawrence came into the room, still wearing the muddy corduroy trousers and brown jerkin he had worn that morning, when they hauled the motorcar out of the ravine.

“Ah, Lawrence,” Charles said. “Did you find anything more of interest in your examination of the motorcar?”

“Not a thing, Sir Charles,” Lawrence said. “Pocket sez I'm to 'elp ye in the darkroom?”

“I would like you to make a dozen or so lantern slides,” Charles said. “They must be ready by seven without fail. The negatives have already been developed—you'll find them in the rack. I won't need the limelight, so you can use it with the enlarging camera, and the Central Oxygen Works has sent down a fresh cylinder of hydrogen gas, if that proves necessary.”

“Thank ye, sir.” Lawrence shifted uncomfortably. “Before I begin, sir, there's somethin' I needs to tell ye about. Somethin' dev'lish.”

Charles, wearing a pair of thin white gloves, had picked up his magnifying lens and returned to his examination. “Something devilish?” he asked absently. “What is it?”

“The gentl‘man 'oo was dug out of the dung heap, sir,” Lawrence said grimly. “I know ‘oo put 'im there.”

“You don't say!” Startled, Charles put down his lens. “Well, then, who
did
put him there, Lawrence?”

“Dick Quilp, Sir Charles. An' ‘e was 'elped by Fred Codlin.”

“And who,” Charles asked, in mild astonishment, “are Dick Quilp and Fred Codlin?”

“Dick is Amelia's cousin, I'm ashamed to say,” Lawrence replied with a long face. “ 'E works in Mr. Hogarth's mill, sackin' grain. Fred Codlin is the boy 'oo sweeps the crossin's on the ‘Igh Street. Each was paid two shillin's to cosh the gentl' man an' bury 'im in the dung heap. Leastwise, that's wot Amelia's cousin Jemmy told ‘is mother, 'oo told Amelia when she went to chapel this morning.”

Charles stared at him, marveling, once again, at the way information was passed around the village. “And did Amelia's cousin tell his mother
who
paid these fellows two shillings for such a task?”

At that moment the door opened, and Constable Laken put his head in. “Mudd said you were here, Charles. Are you fit to be interrupted?”

“Come in, Ned. You are just in time to hear the last of Lawrence's story. He is about to tell us who hired Dick Quilp and Fred Codlin to lam Dunstable on the head and bury him in the dung heap.”

Laken came into the room and put down a brown-paper parcel on the table. “Quilp and Codlin,” he snorted. “I shall haul them in for assault. But who was it who hired them?”

“ 'Twere two men. Jemmy says 'e don't know their names,” Lawrence replied, “but ‘e's seen their motorcars. One o' 'em drives the 'lectric. The other drives the Benz.”

“Bateman and Ponsonby!” Laken exclaimed. “Well, now!”

“Good work, thank you, Lawrence,” Charles said, feeling no great surprise. Listening to the pair and watching their interactions with Dunstable the night before, he had rather suspected them. “The darkroom is yours,” he added. “If you have any questions, of course, I'll be right here.”

When Lawrence had gone into the darkroom and closed the door, he turned to Laken. “Bateman and Ponsonby, eh?”

“I suppose this clears Dunstable,” Laken said crossly. “And Bateman and Ponsonby as well.”

“You have no liking for Dunstable?”

“He is a vulgar rogue, if you ask me.”

“That may be. But as to clearing Bateman and Ponsonby, I don't think it does. There is nothing to say that they could not arrange Dunstable's lamming
and
sabotage the car in the bargain.”

“Perhaps.” He began to unwrap his parcel. “I did not find the jar of grease you were looking for, but I made off with a pair of tweed trousers.” He pointed. “The right leg, below the pocket, bears a streak of red grease with a certain, quite distinctive odor. The clothing belongs to—”

“Stop.” Charles held up his hand. “Don't tell me, Ned, until I have been able to look at the material under the microscope. In any event, I have something to show you.” He gestured at the nine wine goblets arranged on the table before him. He had dusted each with talcum powder, revealing several clear fingerprints on each glass.

“Where did you get those goblets?” Laken asked in some surprise.

“Mudd took them from the dinner table last night, labeled them with the names of those who drank from them, and placed them in his pantry. A most fortuitous bit of business, wouldn't you say?” Charles gave a short, dry cough. “It relieves me of the need to bully you to obtain the suspects' prints, while it provides us with sufficient evidence to make the comparison. These glasses represent all of our suspects except Roger Thornton—and I have hopes of obtaining his prints by a different method.”

Laken was now in a state of utter stupefaction. “I confess, I am staggered,” he said, still staring at the goblets. “Why in heaven's name should Mudd undertake to perform such an amazingly peculiar task? He could not have known—”

“It was Kate's idea.”

“Kate?” Laken took his eyes off the objects of his amazement and raised them to Charles. “But how ... and why—”

Charles smiled with some discomfort. “I suppose I should have told you this before now, Ned, but I did not see any reason to burden you with the knowledge. My wife, it seems, has a secret identity. She is—”

“I know who she is,” Laken said tersely. “She is Beryl Bardwell, the female Conan Doyle. She writes those ridiculously popular fictions in which some lady detective or another is always making the police look like fools.”

Charles raised both eyebrows. “You know about Beryl Bardwell and Kate, then?
How
did you know?”

“Come, now, Charles. Everyone in the village and all about knows of Kate's scribblings. Once the servants discovered it, there was no keeping it secret. I myself have often wished to ask her to present the police as more intelligent and progressive, but—” Laken shrugged. “I did not like to tell her that her secret was known to one and all.” An ironic smile came and went at the corners of his mouth. “I was also half afraid that I was the model for her dim-witted policemen.”

“Everyone in the village, eh?” Charles remarked thoughtfully, wondering how soon the news would travel to Somersworth, where it would no doubt send his mother into a hysterical fit. But everything about his wife seemed to affect his mother in that way, from Kate's Irish heritage to her American upbringing—why should this be any worse or better?

There was a pause, and when Laken spoke, there was an edge to his voice. “I am curious to know what led Lady Kathryn to collect these goblets last night, before there was any suspicion of a crime. She could not have suspected that the fingerprints on them might be put to use today—or could she?”

“She was conducting an experiment,” Charles replied, with a certain pride. “The solution to Beryl Bardwell's current mystery hinges on fingerprints, you see. Kate has read Galton's work on the subject, but she has never actually studied prints. She collected the goblets with some rather unformed idea of examining the fingerprints on them in order to see what problems her detective might face.”

“Most remarkable.”

“Indeed,” Charles returned. “It was a piece of unbelievable good luck that she also thought to ask Mudd to label the glasses as he took them from the table.”

“Lord preserve us,” Laken muttered.

“I believe He has,” Charles replied, almost smugly. “You must admit that Kate's idea was most fortuitous.” He smiled a little. “I sincerely hope that she has not offended your ethical sensibilities, Ned—as an intelligent and progressive policeman, that is, who is concerned to preserve the privacy of the citizenry.”

Laken looked embarrassed. “Perhaps I overstated the case earlier this afternoon. I do not believe that my conclusions are as settled as I may have made them appear.”

“I am glad for that,” Charles said thankfully. “I was beginning to fear—” He was interrupted by a knock, and then the door opened.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Kate said. “I hope I am not interrupting you.” She held out an envelope. “I have brought the photographs that Patsy gave Squire Thornton to look over. She reports that he handled each of them. I dare say you will discover the evidence you need.”

Charles took the envelope and, opening it carefully, laid out several photographs on the table. “Yes,” he said, “there are a number of quite clear prints.”

“From Squire Thornton?” Laken shook his head, bemused. “We seem to have a surfeit of evidence.”

“I doubt it,” Charles said. “And I must remind you of the point you quite properly raised earlier, Ned. This fingerprint evidence—I am not at all sure that it can be presented to a jury, or that its import could be understood and weighed fairly.” He sighed, remembering the difficulty his friend Tom Stevens had experienced in the trial of George Lamson fifteen years before, when he had presented some sophisticated toxicological evidence to the jury. The poor jurors, several of whom could not read, had not understood a word of it. “But we are far from having a case to present to a jury,” he added. “First, we must examine—”