The Riddle of the River (27 page)

‘Twenty minutes! It’s all over,’ said Mr Munroe.

‘Let’s go back and see if we can see the boats coming around for the finish,’ said Miss Eaglehurst. ‘I’m sure the fog is gone by now, aren’t you?’

A great many other people had the same idea. Parasols went up in the street as a more and more shafts of sunlight pierced through the mass of grey clouds.

‘If they only rounded Kish ten minutes ago, they won’t be coming in for another half an hour,’ said Mr Munroe.

‘No, but if the fog keeps thinning we’ll be able to see them when they’re still quite far out. In fact, I wonder if we can’t make them out already,’ replied Mr Archer, as we came in sight of the sea. ‘Look, Munroe. Can’t you see those moving shadows way over there?’

‘Yes, by Heaven, I think you’re right!’ he exclaimed, and the cry was taken up by a hundred voices and as many pointing fingers. Ten minutes later the first of the returning boats was clearly visible. Comments burst forth all around me.

‘It’s the Bona,’ said someone. ‘But which is the second boat? I don’t recognise it.’

‘It isn’t a yacht,’ someone else answered. ‘Look, you can see it now. It’s just a tug.’

‘Oh, that must be the Flying Huntress, following the race! Yes, there it comes. Just look at the mast!’

‘Seventy-five feet it must be. That’s where the wires are. It has to be so high, they say, to transmit over ten or twenty miles. For a mile or two you don’t need nearly so much.’

‘Wires? Does he use wires? But they call it
wireless transmission
, don’t they?’ exclaimed another voice.

‘Do you mean to say it’s true?’ said a lady who stood so
near me that the fragrance of the fresh violets she wore in her corsage wafted across my face, mixed with the strong, salty, fishy odour of the sea water and all the other nameless odours of the throng. ‘Do you mean to say it wasn’t all a big joke, those messages on the Yacht Club window?’

‘Of course not,’ replied a man near her. ‘It’s perfectly real! The messages are sent in Morse code, by electrical impulses which go up the wire there and out into the air, where they are captured by another wire set up in a tree next to the Yacht Club. The wire is connected to a Morse printer that reads the electrical impulses that come down it, and the messages are then copied out in longhand and handed to the Yacht Club and to the
Irish Daily Express
. The newspaper ordered up the whole operation. Oh, Marconi’s fame is going to multiply by a hundred after this publicity!’

All grew dark before my eyes. The sensation of loss of consciousness, of fainting, was so powerful that I believed I
had
fainted, and was almost surprised when my vision returned, no more at first than a little hole in the centre of which the Flying Huntress rose and fell on the waves. Two young men were now discernible on the boat; one was working at a machine set up on a table, and the other peered at the Bona, and then at the boats which were following behind, and made notes. A great cry went up from the crowd as the boat passed the finish. But it was not the Bona which was being thus acclaimed.

‘MARCONI! We want MARCONI!’ went up from every throat, and the applause swelled into a great thunder as the tugboat approached the dock and the smaller of the two young men stood on deck, waving at the people. A gaggle of journalists wriggled their way to the forefront of the crowd
and began shouting questions at him before he was within earshot.

And in my mind, everything suddenly came together in a dreadful picture, terrifying in its simple completeness.

The wire in the tree!

A wireless transmitter: whatever that was, it was the machine which stood on the table on the deck of the boat now floating before me. And Mr Archer had one of them in his house. Of this I was now as certain as if I had seen it at work.

The
Marconi Company
; I remembered now that I had seen that name on the list of the companies in which he invested! Mr Archer, fascinated by all new technological inventions, had invested in the Marconi Company before the general public had even heard about it, and learnt all the details of the existence of this strange, incredible, unheard-of machine. Mr Archer was supposed to possess an immense talent for choosing intelligent investments. In this one, he had apparently surpassed himself.

The crowd pressed thickly forward, hats were thrown in the air, parasols were waved, and the man called Marconi was hailed as a triumphant victor and welcomed to land on the shoulders of a crowd so excited by his prowess that the skipper of the Bona stepped off his ship onto the dock practically unnoticed. With great aplomb, however, he shouldered his way to where Marconi was being celebrated and interviewed, moved up to him, and shook his hand, offering a great smile to the photographers as he did so.

I stared transfixed at the man who had succeeded in realising what Sir Oliver had made sound nothing more than a myth on the level of fairies and spiritualism séances. He had
sent messages over the sea, through the air, from one wire to another; messages which had been encoded and decrypted, and then read and understood by hundreds or thousands of people. He had accomplished something which seemed but a dream. And there he stood, astonishingly young, barely more than twenty, his fair hair slicked back, his fine-featured face serious one moment, laughing boyishly the next.

There was no doubt about it: Marconi’s invention was more important than the boat race, more mysterious than telepathy, more powerful than the telephone, more astonishing even than electricity. For telephones and electricity run along wires, and our human brain is capable of comprehending transmission along a concrete object linking us to our destination. But wireless transmission – waves travelling, whether it be through the ether, through the air, or through absolute nothingness –
this
was something which, it seemed to me, would change the future of the world more than any of those.

The magnitude of the discovery thus revealed to me was so exhilarating, that it took many long minutes before I came to the realisation that I was finally in possession of the undoubted truth about Ivy’s death. I stared at Mr Archer as he gazed out over the sea, watching the slower boats arriving. He had pretended all day that he knew nothing about the wireless transmission. He had lied – but it would be easy to get proof!

Without attracting his attention, I slipped off through the close-packed crowd and made my way along the streets to Kingstown’s little station, where I boarded the first train to Dublin. I had only one idea in my mind: I must return to Cambridge instantly, at once, now. There was no time to be lost.

Telegram for Guglielmo Marconi:

Urgent Her Majesty Queen Victoria having been informed of recent success of wireless transmission requests immediate wireless service communication between Osborne House and royal yacht where HRH the Prince of Wales is recuperating after knee surgery.

MARCONI TRIUMPHS: TRANSMITS MESSAGE OVER TWENTY-FIVE MILES

Telegram for Guglielmo Marconi:

Have heard of astonishing accomplishment re reporting Kingstown Regatta New York Herald would like to request similar reporting service for upcoming America’s Cup next autumn

Telegram for G. Marconi, President, Marconi Company:

Construction of receiving station for cross-channel communication proceeding as planned in Wimereux near Boulogne stop first experiments in cross-channel transmission should be possible within six months

SHIP TO SHORE COMMUNICATION MADE POSSIBLE BY INCREDIBLE MARCONI WIRELESS APPARATUS

US Navy commander considering installing Marconi apparatus on all ships if cost can be kept reasonable

MARCONI’S FANTASTIC DISCOVERY ENDS THE ISOLATION OF THE SEA!

Stumbling in my haste and silently upbraiding my carpet-bag, which had struck me as eminently light and manageable upon the outward journey, but had now turned into a heavy and cumbersome burden. The short trip to Dublin passed quickly, but I missed the connection to Dun Loaghaire, and thereby the last steamer of the evening. The employees behind their counters looked upon me with sympathy as I tried to explain that I must return to England instantly. There was a steamer at seven in the morning, they told me. That was sufficiently early, was it not? I fretted and fumed, but there was nothing for it, so I took the last train for Dun Loaghaire, and dined late in a small hotel near the dock, where the lady was kind enough to give me a room for the night and promise to send a maid to call me at six. Of course I woke up one thousand times during the night to look at my watch, but was sleeping soundly when the rap came on the door at first light. I had to hurry madly to call for hot water, prepare myself and purchase my ticket, and finally flung myself onto the gangplank at the last possible moment; it was removed for departure almost from under my very feet as I rushed up it. I dropped exhausted onto the deck and wondered why time seemed to alternate continually between rushing headlong and stopping altogether. The morning rose bright and beautiful as we moved out over the water. It seemed forever
until we reached Holyhead, and I hastened to the ticket window, then stood in a long queue, and finally asked the man the quickest way for me to get back to Cambridge. He took out a book of timetables and made some calculations.

‘You wouldn’t necessarily think it, ma’am,’ he said finally, ‘but you’d do best to take the Day Mail to London and go from there. It leaves at twelve-thirty, and will get you into Euston Station before six o’clock. You’ll have to take the Circle Line to Liverpool Street – you won’t find a cab available at that hour – and catch the train up to Cambridge.’

I couldn’t possibly arrive before the evening! I grimaced with annoyance, then smoothed out my face and purchased my ticket with as pleasant a face as I could muster. It was the knowledge I now held which gave me such distress, such tension and such a need for hurry: the knowledge, and my enforced silence. Even though I knew that a few hours of delay could make but little difference, I felt that I could not bear the knowledge all by myself; I was driven by the need to share it without delay, in order to remove some of the dreadful burden from my shoulders.

Just thinking about Julian Archer caused me to burn inside. He had been disporting himself cheerfully for weeks since the murder, smiling and gay, apparently, even on the very
night
of the murder, and every further minute that he spent in liberty now struck me as a debt he owed to Death itself.

A debt which could no longer be left unpaid.

I believe I have never felt a horror or enmity for any human being as powerful as that which I felt for Julian Archer, while I sat motionless, my teeth clenched, hour after hour on the rhythmically shaking train. Every smile, every laugh, every dashing gesture or pleasant word I had seen or heard from
him became tainted, in hindsight, with the horror of
cold-blooded
murder. I hated him and I was angry with myself for having thought him quite likeable. I remembered the first time I had seen him, when I stepped into Heffers full of my question about the old gentleman with the silver-topped cane. I remembered noticing his kindness and courtesy as he helped the customers, and thought that Ivy was already dead, and his heart already full of the secret horror. For the first time in my life, I desired to see a man arrested, tried, and condemned.

Not one man, but two. A father and son as diabolical as the mind can contemplate.

My mind turned over and over these thoughts with the persistence of a nightmare, till I ended by dozing off. I was awakened by the sound of bustle and argument about me. The passengers in my compartment were in the process of being told by a conductor with a most deprecating expression on his face that no specific duration could be given to the delay, which was due to a technological problem.

‘We’ll be going when they’ve mended it,’ he was saying for the fourth time as I came fully to myself. ‘No, ma’am, I cannot tell you when that will be.’

A glance out of the window told me that we had stopped at Rugby. So near Cambridge – a mere sixty or seventy miles, I thought – and yet so far! Oh, why was there no direct train from Rugby to Cambridge?

Like the other passengers, I descended onto the platform and took to walking up and down, trying to get some idea of the progress of the work that a group of men were engaged in about the locomotive. Nearly an hour passed as I fumed and fretted, and then something happened. The stationmaster was
hastening along the platform, holding something out – to me? No, to a woman standing near me, in the grip of an impatience as frenetic as my own.

‘An answer to my telegram?’ she said, snatching it from his hand and reading quickly over the contents. ‘Oh, thank God!’ And she hastened towards the barrier, while I followed her, curious to see what she had arranged.

She waited for some moments at the barrier, and then a couple arrived, and came towards her, nearly running.

‘Oh, I think the train has stopped forever!’ she moaned.

‘It’s all right,’ said the man, ‘everything is arranged. We’ve got as good a pair as you could wish for to start off with, and my man is arranging the relays as we talk. We’ll have you there sooner than you could have arrived by train to Cambridge and then the carriage afterwards.’

She flung her arms around his neck with a sob. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, ‘I am so frightened, so frightened of arriving too late! Oh, you are so good to me. How can I thank you enough? But it’s such a long way to go there and come back. How will you do it?’

‘We’ll leave you in Huntingdon and spend the night in Cambridge, with friends,’ said this blessed gentleman, as she gave up her ticket and passed through the barrier to join his wife and him. ‘It’s nothing, my dear. Don’t put yourself out. Richard is ill, and of course we’ll do anything we can to get you to him quickly! Come along outside now. We ought to leave this very minute.’

‘Wait!’ I cried in a panic, giving up my ticket and swinging past the barrier to run up behind them as they moved quickly away. ‘Wait, please! Are you really going to Cambridge? Can
you take me with you, please? I’m in the same situation as you are – I
must
get there tonight!’

Their natural reluctance to suddenly adopt a total stranger for a journey of several hours in necessarily rather intimate conditions was, I believe, shunted aside by their own preoccupation and haste. It would have taken them longer to explain politely to me why this was not possible than it did to simply accede to my request. In less than two minutes, therefore, I found myself seated in a handsome brougham, assenting with almost excessive eagerness to the gentleman’s explanation that he must leave his sister at the house where her husband lay grievously ill, and that our arrival in Cambridge would necessarily be somewhat delayed. After some discussion of our relative destinations, they agreed to drop me at my home, and I settled into my corner and remained more or less silent for the remainder of the journey, while the sister, sister-in-law and brother analysed and prognosticated over the symptoms of the sick man. At any other time, such a conversation would have held much to interest me, as do all human affairs. But under the present conditions, Richard’s inflammations were as foreign to me as if he were suffering from them in far-away China. I was walled up within myself, and had to force myself to make what friendly conversation I could, as we stopped various times to change the horses, and once, rather late in the evening, when our host insisted absolutely on his wife and his sister taking some dinner at the inn. At any other time, such a pleasant and unusual adventure would have been most delightful to me, and the succulent dishes which were laid before us a welcome variation to our usual fare. But images of the dead girl filled my mind, and I saw the hours pass, and
evening blend into night, with increasing dismay. I had thought we might arrive in Cambridge in some six or seven hours, but I had counted without the lengthy halts for the relays and the dinner, the detour to Huntingdon and the time spent there in farewells and taking news of the sick man. Long before our journey’s end, I was annoyed with myself for not having waited for the mail train to be repaired. But I knew that in the absence of any certainty as to when that might be, I should probably always act the same again.

It was the darkest part of the night when we finally reached Cambridge, and I was deposited in front of my house with the kind wishes of my benefactor. The night was black as pitch: black, and utterly still. There was not a soul to be seen, not even an animal; the only sounds were those of the breeze sighing through the leaves, and the occasional gentle whush of what might have been a small animal. I thought of Ivy, who had walked this very street, that other night, filled with joy and thankful anticipation, unaware of her mortal danger. I wondered painfully if she had realised what was about to happen to her when she saw Julian entering the bookshop, and how many of the last minutes of her life were spent in fear and anguish.

When I entered the house, I found it as silent as though it were utterly uninhabited. Unlocking the door with a feeling of relief, I tiptoed inside, removed my boots and hat, and hurried upstairs into the bedroom to reach the safety of Arthur’s arms. Quickly, I removed my jewellery and the pins from my hair and dropped them on the dressing table, then turned towards the bed, visible as no more than the darkest patch in the darkness. It was only then that I became aware
of the complete silence in the room. There was no sound of breathing; no sound of anything at all.

I moved to where Arthur should have been lying asleep, and felt with my hand. The bed was empty. Startled, I felt for the matches, lit the bedside candle and looked around me. The bed was not unmade, but not perfectly smooth. It looked as though he had lain down on it without undressing. He must have been taking his surveillance of Jenny seriously enough to be too worried to go peacefully to bed.

I hurried out into the hall: the two doors on the opposite side leading into the twins’ room and the nursery, and the door next to ours leading to the spare bedroom were all closed. Jenny should have been in the guest room, but all of my instincts told me that she was not. I hesitated a moment, then opened the twins’ door and let a little glow from the candle shine in. They lay in their cots, their cheeks flushed with sleep. The door communicating directly with the nursery was open, and Sarah was sleeping there near the door. I could not see her, but I heard her stir and quickly closed the door. Then, in a quick gesture, I opened Jenny’s door.

Nothing. She had gone, of course. There was no other possible explanation for Arthur’s absence.

If events of such importance had occurred earlier in the day that the two of them had not come home at all, then his bed would not have been disarranged. Yet I could not believe that he had allowed her to go out at such an hour, or accompanied her purposely. I could only conclude that she had pretended to go to bed and then slipped out, and that Arthur, lying prepared for such a possibility, had heard and gone after her.

Where would she have gone? To find Julian Archer, of
course. She wanted revenge; she meant to kill him. She was quite mad.

In my haste, I ran straight out of the house in my stockinged feet, my hair falling down, then dashed back and tugged on my boots, ignoring the buttons. On an impulse, I snatched up a box of matches and thrust it into my dress, then hastened straight down the path to the gate.

It was while I was feeling in the blackness for the latch that I thought of the Darwins’ bicycle. I had found it difficult to take the quaint-looking toy seriously enough to want to purchase one for myself, and could not really imagine myself riding it around in public. But the thing had become all the rage amongst young people recently; both men and ladies had taken it up as a sport. Our neighbours, always on the crest of the wave of fashion, had enthusiastically made the purchase for their large family of youngsters, and I had frequently seen them wobbling up and down Silver Street upon it, practising riotously. I was tempted.

I had noticed the bicycle in their garden when I was at their house; they kept it leaning against the old granary, just within the street gate. To run there was a matter of a few short minutes; to hurry on foot all the way to the centre of town would be much longer. I hesitated no longer, but hastened down my lane and up the Newnham Road in the darkness until I reached Silver Street, my eyes growing progressively used to the dimness around me. I soon made out the large square of the gate set in the dark mass of the high garden wall, unlatched it, and felt around tentatively within – there was the bicycle! I dragged it out carefully and closed the gate, hoping that I would be able to put it back without mishap before the night was over. But if I could not, the
explanation for my act would be, I believed, sufficient to justify it.

By the time these thoughts had gone through my head, and I had emitted a nervous gurgle of laughter at the mental picture of myself trying to explain why I was doing what I was doing, I had balanced myself upon the machine, hair wild, skirts hitched into a bundle to free my ankles, and was pedalling unsteadily over the bridge and on up Silver Street, then left on King’s Parade. It was fortunate that I was the only vehicle on the road, and even more fortunate that I did not happen to encounter any rock or obstacle over which I should certainly have taken a spill. But the road was smooth and silent, and glided away beneath my wheels, which turned faster and faster as I grew used to the rhythm of the movement. I was driven by fear; I do not believe I could have learnt nearly so quickly or so well if I had been doing it for pleasure.

Not five minutes later, the dark shadows of the Cambridge buildings loomed against the slightly paler sky sprinkled with tiny stars.