Julius and the Soulcatcher (5 page)

Mr Flynn stepped out from the doorway and tipped his hat.

The constable's face broke into a wide smile. ‘Strike me down,' he said, with a touch of a West Country accent. ‘It's Mr Flynn.' He tapped the rim of his top hat with his forefinger by way of salute.

‘Constable Abberline, the very man,' said Mr Flynn. ‘You're well, I trust?' He extended his hand to the constable, who shook it vigorously.

‘Very well, thank you, Mr Flynn,' said Abberline. ‘I've been practising those moves you showed me.'

‘Glad to hear it, Constable,' said Mr Flynn.

‘Watch out.' The constable ducked into a boxing stance and jabbed a lightning fast punch towards Mr Flynn's chin and then twisted at the hip to aim a punch at his solar plexus.

Mr Flynn was too quick, though. He blocked the
punch with his left elbow and swung his right arm to tap the constable's top hat just enough to dislodge it without knocking it off.

The constable laughed as he straightened his hat.

‘Not bad,' said Mr Flynn.

Constable Abberline raised his eyebrows in good-natured disbelief. ‘Who's this young man,' he said, nodding towards Julius.

‘Allow me to introduce Julius Caesar Higgins,' said Mr Flynn.

The constable eagerly shook Julius's hand. ‘Hello, my lad,' he said. ‘Any friend of Mr Flynn, and all that. Mr Flynn's all right with me and that means you are too.'

‘Yes…er, thank you, sir,' said Julius.

‘We're not meeting by chance, Constable Abberline,' said Mr Flynn.

Abberline's smile remained on his face. ‘I surmised as much, Mr Flynn. People don't loiter in cold doorways for no reason. Something's come up has it?'

‘You could say that,' said Mr Flynn. He took
The Times
from his coat pocket. It was folded with the orchid report to the outside. ‘It's about this,' said Mr Flynn.

Abberline glanced at the newspaper. ‘Yes, the lads at the station have been giving me a good old ribbing about it.'

‘The thing is…' said Mr Flynn.

‘Go on,' said Abberline.

‘Julius's grandfather received a visit at his bookshop last night,' said Mr Flynn. ‘From an odd fella named Tock.'

Abberline's eyes narrowed as he looked down at Julius. ‘Tock, you say? Where have I heard that name before?'

‘He was looking for a diary written by a Mr Darwin,' said Mr Flynn.

‘Now there's a coincidence,' said Abberline.

‘And the fella had Rapple and Baines with him.'

‘That pair? Go on.'

‘When they took the diary they left an orchid as a parting gift.'

‘Odd.'

‘Very.'

‘And you think it's connected with what happened at Mr Darwin's lodgings?' said Abberline.

Mr Flynn shrugged. ‘Perhaps. In any case, friends of mine have been threatened and, well, let's just say I'd like to know what's going on.'

‘I suppose you'd like a look around Mr Darwin's lodgings, then?' said Abberline.

‘If it wouldn't be too much trouble, Constable,' said Mr Flynn.

It was a short distance to Walnut Tree Walk.

‘Here it is,' said Abberline. He, Julius and Mr Flynn stood outside a respectable-looking house. A handwritten sign at the window advertised rooms for rent, at reasonable rates to single professional gentlemen.

‘Bedlam's just round the corner, so when he couldn't be reasoned with I took him there,' said Abberline. ‘He was still raving when I left him.'

‘What was he saying, Constable?' said Julius.

‘All sorts of nonsense. He was clearly mad. About an orchid climbing out of its pot. About his soul being stolen by someone called…what was it? Mr Dock? Or was he saying Tock? That's it. It must have been Tock.'

‘So there is a connection,' said Julius.

The front door opened a crack, then more fully, to reveal a woman in a woollen bonnet.

‘Constable Abberline, I thought I heard your voice,' she said. ‘Come about poor Mr Darwin, have you?'

‘Yes, indeed, Mrs Clitherow. I have a couple of independent investigators with me. They're keen to look at Mr Darwin's rooms.

The woman looked the large bare-knuckle boxer and the schoolboy up and down. Mr Flynn doffed his top hat, and Julius blew into his mittened hands and stamped his feet.

‘Well, if you're sure, Constable. I…um, I suppose it'd be all right,' she said.

Constable Abberline, Julius and Mr Flynn followed the landlady up two flights of stairs.

‘How long had Mr Darwin been lodging with you?' said Mr Flynn.

‘Not long, sir. A few months. A very respectable young man, he was. He'd recently returned from a long voyage. He saw some things an Englishman shouldn't see, if you ask me. That's what made him like he is. Oh, don't get me wrong, sir, I never had any nonsense from him. Not like some of my other gentlemen. No, he's just a bit highly strung that's all. The nervous type, you might say, on account of being among foreigners for too long.'

‘I see. Did he have any visitors?'

‘Oh, no. He kept to himself. Always in his room scribbling in his notebooks, mumbling to himself about Heaven knows what. You'll see when we get there—not natural it's not.'

‘Did he have a profession?' asked Julius.

‘He had private means, which in my book is better than a profession. He didn't keep regular hours, but he always paid his rent in advance and was never any trouble.'

They came to a door with a sheet of paper pasted over the lock. It bore Abberline's signature.

‘I thought it best to seal the room so that any clues
wouldn't be disturbed,' said the constable. He tore the paper off the door and unlocked it with a key provided by Mrs Clitherow.

‘Thank you, we'll manage by ourselves from here,' he said.

Julius stopped as soon as he entered the room. Papers, books and clothes were strewn everywhere. ‘It's like a whirlwind been through here,' he said.

‘It certainly does,' said Abberline. ‘Mr Darwin turned everything upside down when he was battling the imaginary orchid.'

Julius looked at the walls. They were covered with page after page of drawings of flowers and strange animals Julius had never seen before. Intricate diagrams of petals and leaves, and eyes, beaks and hooves as well as watercolour paintings of strange landscapes and native people.

In the far corner was a bed and on the bedside table was a plate, bearing the greasy remains of a half-eaten pie.

‘That's where he was lying when it happened. He said he fell asleep and was woken by the thing creeping towards him,' said Abberline.

Julius moved the tangled blankets aside. There was only a creased bed sheet and pie crumbs beneath.

‘Mr Darwin was rather a distracted and driven young gentleman. Nobody knew anything about him except that he'd been abroad for some years. I'll be
speaking to him in a day or two, when he's calmed down,' said Abberline.

Mr Flynn shuffled through the detritus on the writing desk.

‘Yes, apparently he was one of those orchid-maniacs you hear about,' said Abberline. He pointed to a row of orchids in pots on a narrow table set against one of the windows.

Julius studied them. The orchids were different colours and forms but all had the same four-petal structure. ‘Did you notice this?' he said to Abberline.

‘What?' said the constable.

‘There's an orchid missing.'

‘Well I'll be…?'

Mr Flynn closed the desk drawer he was shuffling through and came to the table.

‘There.' Julius pointed to an empty pot.

‘Blow me down,' said Abberline. ‘I never thought to check, not with all the commotion. I feel a complete fool.'

‘Look at this,' continued Julius. ‘There's an indentation in the soil, as if the plant was pulled out, and there's soil scattered around the pot.'

‘Our Mr Darwin might have been telling the truth,' said Mr Flynn.

‘Not necessarily. He might have pulled it out of the pot himself in his mania,' said Julius.

‘So, where is it now?' said Mr Flynn.

They searched the room until Abberline found a squashed orchid hidden under some papers.

‘Looks like he stamped it to death,' he said.

Julius poked it with the tip of a pencil. ‘It's the same as the one Tock gave us,' he said.

‘Are you sure?' said Mr Flynn.

Julius looked at the other orchids then back at the petal hanging from the end of his pencil. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘It's the same, I'm sure.' He looked up at Mr Flynn. ‘Tock said it might surprise us one day. That's why Emily wanted it.'

‘Is it, now?' said Mr Flynn. He took the pencil and examined the battered petal. ‘Moving or not, it's only a flower,' he said. ‘What harm could it do?' He tossed it onto the desk. ‘All the same, I think we'll pay her a visit.'

Mrs Clitherow was waiting at the bottom of the stairs polishing the already shiny banister when Julius, Mr Flynn and Constable Abberline came down.

‘Find any clues, Constable?' she said.

‘One or two,' said Abberline.

‘Mrs Clitherow,' said Julius. ‘Did anything out of the ordinary happen
before
Mr Darwin had his unfortunate turn? Anything in the previous few days? Anything at all?'

‘No, nothing that I can think of.'

Mr Flynn tipped his top hat and turned to leave.

‘Except the orchid that was left on the doorstep,'
said Mrs Clitherow.

Julius, Mr Flynn and the constable stopped. They turned back to the landlady.

‘Orchid?' said Abberline. Mrs Clitherow started polishing again. ‘Yes, it was sitting on the doorstep on Wednesday evening. I found it when I put Napoleon out.'

‘Napoleon?' said Abberline.

‘The cat. I know it's unpatriotic, but the cat's a wrong 'un so I thought it would be all right.'

‘You found an orchid?' said Mr Flynn.

‘Yes, in a pot.'

‘Was it red?' said Julius.

‘Let me think. Yes, it was. And there was a little note tied to it with a piece of cotton thread.'

‘What did it say?' said Julius.

‘It said,
Mr C. D., a gift from a secret admirer
.'

‘And do you still have it?' asked Julius.

‘The note?'

‘No, the orchid,' said Mr Flynn.

‘No, sir. I imagined “Mr C. D.” was my Mr Darwin so I knocked and left it outside his door.'

‘Why didn't you tell me on the night of the disturbance, Mrs Clitherow?' said Abberline.

‘Well, you didn't ask me, did you?'

‘It must have been Tock,' said Julius.

‘Emily,' said Mr Flynn, to no one in particular.

CHAPTER 5

Friday 19th January 1838

3:16 PM

Julius and Mr Flynn hurried toward Mrs Trevelyan's Academy for Young Ladies, leaving Abberline to go back to his beat. Mr Flynn's face was like stone. He ignored the sleet darting at his cheeks. Julius could almost hear the thoughts grinding against each other under Mr Flynn's top hat.

‘I don't like this, Julius,' said Mr Flynn.

‘The orchid, you mean?'

‘The odd little fellow, Rapple and Baines. Everything. Come on, hurry.'

‘Mr Flynn?' said Julius, as he trotted to keep up.

‘What is it?'

‘Er…about Emily…'

‘What about her?'

‘You're not going to…to…'

‘To what?'

‘To send her away?'

Mr Flynn looked down at Julius, as if trying to peer through the surface of a murky pond.

‘Of course not. What gave you that idea?'

‘She mentioned something about lighthouse keeping.'

‘Oh, that,' said Mr Flynn. ‘It was an idle threat, made in a moment of desperation, and obviously to no effect.'

‘You won't send her away, then?' Julius could see the ladies' academy ahead.

‘No, I wouldn't do that,' said Mr Flynn. They stopped at the gate. ‘I couldn't if I wanted to, Julius. You see, Emily's my ward.'