by Adrian Speed
“He was,” I corrected him.
“John Arnold died shortly after the fire.” Sir Reginald took over, flashing me a dark look which suggested I’d ruined the line of questioning he was hoping to follow. “May we ask how well you knew John Arnold?”
“We spoke only twice,” Clarendon said. “At the first I was with Mr Pepys when Mr Arnold arranged the supply of Spanish wine to the victuals of the fleet. Having so met me, he saw fit to make a second appointment on pretence of state affairs. Instead I was asked to discourage his brother, the... the...” Clarendon had to pause for a moment again. “Jacob Arnold. I was begged to send Jacob back to Gray’s Inn to finish his study if the man should ever approach me.”
“Did he ever approach you?”
“To my knowledge he did not,” Clarendon shrugged. “Never to request a situation in any measure. He did arbitrate with my clerks – small business matters, I had always assumed on the behalf of his brother John.”
“When were these small business matters?”
“Pass up that ledger there,” Clarendon ordered. On the writing desk was a leather bound book, longer than an A4 page is tall. Sir Reginald picked it up and passed it over. Clarendon opened it, ran his eyes over it and passed it back. “None before the fifteenth of September.”
“Do you consider him family?” Sir Reginald asked. “Jacob Arnold.”
“Family? Does he bear the name Hyde? No, not family,” Clarendon chuckled. “Why would you ask me... no... no you are right,” Clarendon put a finger to his temple. “Joan Hyde, by way of... one of Lawrence’s cousins, they were married, weren’t they? A slim connection. No, I would not.”
“You seem to have remarkable recall of events and people you claim you met so rarely,” I observed. Clarendon fixed me with a glare. His eyes were younger than he was. They weren’t young eyes, but they were filled with furious power. They were the eyes of a great commander, waiting to unleash his power.
“From the earliest age I have set my mind the task of recalling all that passes before it, be it the laws of the realm or the history of the world,” Clarendon said. “Recalling the name of a wine merchant is nothing compared to what I can recall for the good of the kingdom.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Sir Reginald nodded. “Your recall has been profound. If I may ask only one more question of you, could you care to guess how John Arnold died?”
“He was a young man. If it was not the plague it would be some other sudden fever.”
Sir Reginald swallowed. His eyes narrowed. They were tiny motions, Clarendon would not have noticed them, but to me I could tell. That wasn’t the answer Sir Reginald was expecting.
“Well then, I thank you, my lord.” Sir Reginald stood and bowed his head. “You have helped me a great deal.”
“Now you have form stronger than a whisper, perhaps I shall write to you in future,” Clarendon suggested. “There are often disturbances that are beyond our ability to solve.”
“If it interests me I shall come,” Sir Reginald said, almost on autopilot. “Now... now I must go.” Sir Reginald swept out of the room. I waved goodbye to Clarendon and hurried after him. He didn’t stop until he had flung himself into his chair in Covent Garden with a glass of wine in his hand, staring at the fireplace.
“I’ve got to have all the pieces by now,” Sir Reginald said, fuming at the heating stone. “Between you and me we should have all the pieces. It should have been Clarendon. He should have let something slip. Some clue. Some hint.” His words slowly trailed away to mutterings, to just the tack-tack of his tongue against his teeth. “There must be a missing piece... and yet there can’t be.”
I could have told him, I suppose. I could have told him that Andrew Delaronde told Jacob to flee the fire, that John would be safe. But I didn’t even know why I did that. With all his talk about paradoxes, that would probably only drive him insane.
After half an hour of fuming and drinking, Sir Reginald finished his glass and walked over to the bookshelf of old books. He pulled one out at random, settled back in his chair and began to read. Sir Reginald was the only person I knew who could read while thinking. The book wasn’t there to be read, it was there to be a prop. It was there to hide the fact he was thinking furiously. Working on a mystery that had no solution.
He was still there the next day. My attempts to rouse him did little. Oh, he’d talk, and walk, to get a glass of wine and sit back down, but he wouldn’t leave until he was finished. On the second day I tried to talk the mystery through with him, but that only seemed to make him dig further into the book. On the third day I dressed up as Andrew Delaronde.
“I’m going to go and see John.”
Sir Reginald looked up at me, and at that instant I could see something in his mind clicked. I didn't know what, but he had just seen a glimmer of something in the fog of mystery when he saw my face.
“What information are you hoping to get out of him?” Sir Reginald asked.
“Er… well none. I just thought… it’d be good to see him,” I confessed. Sir Reginald’s book closed with a snap.
“Then our time here must be at an end.’
“What?’
“John is fated to die and we are cursed with knowing the moment of his death.” Sir Reginald stood up and returned his book to the shelf. “I cannot allow you to walk further down this path my dear corn rose. It is profoundly dangerous.”
“What path?” I scoffed.
“Friendship,” Sir Reginald smiled sadly. “For people whose fates we do not know, we may make friends freely. But for men like John… the temptation to attempt to save him, to create a deadly paradox, grows with every step of friendship one makes. John is not a man you can be friends with. He is a murder victim, and every conversation you have with him should be an attempt to solve his murder. To do anything else is to open yourself to heart break.”
“It’s not as if I’m going to fall in love with him–”
“I did not suggest that, nor did I wish to imply it.” Sir Reginald leant heavily on his cane and scrunched up his face with a sigh. “This is your first experience as a chrononaut having to truly weigh your duty to solving a crime to the common human desire for friendship. John Arnold is I am sure a pleasant man to spend time with, but you must put him aside.”
“It was only going to be while you sit and stew–”
"Sit and think. As you should be.” Sir Reginald didn't snap, but the rebuke was as painful as if he had. “You have the brightest mind of your generation; I only ask you put it to use. If you cannot get new information out of John Arnold, what use is meeting with him? It only sets you up to feel his loss.”
“Well someone should.” I crossed my arms. “He is the kindest man I’ve met in this time.”
“All the more reason to stop seeing him, now, before you do something you regret.” Sir Reginald tapped the floor with his cane. “Come come, you are a time detective my dear, with faculties easily the equal of my own. Stop thinking about John for a moment and consider the entire mystery at hand. We are searching not just for John’s killer, but a missing branch of the Arnold family, and a motive for Professor Sotheby to attempt to doctor the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and beyond all of that, we have the twenty-second century film director Jonathon Arnold to consider. Take a step back from John and truly apply yourself.”
“But if John’s death is what causes the branch in the Arnold family–”
“Then you won't find out about it by going to a coffee house with him, will you?”
My face burnt with embarrassment. Sir Reginald was right. But how could I explain it? John was so… pleasant. A safe local guide through this nightmare time in English history. He was so clean, so forthright, so thoroughly decent it was as if he had stepped out of a century later. With John at my side the chaos of the coffee house or the clamour of the markets felt… safe. And I wanted to experience those things with someone who wasn't Sir Reginald.
Just like Paris, I wanted a holiday instead of doing
the job I was supposed to be doing. I was a detective, people were counting on me. Sir Reginald was counting on me. And all I wanted to do was waste time.
I sank into a chair and pulled my hat brim over my eyes and thought. Sir Reginald settled into a chair opposite and held his cane between his knees. He politely avoided watching me think.
“If this is where the branch line of the Arnolds forms… it will be because of Elizabeth’s unborn child and the matter of inheritance,” I said, feeling my way along the train of thought. At times like this it always seemed so delicate that speaking it too loudly would scare it away. “If we can talk with Jacob after the fire and try to convince him to care for the child… if it was the start of the branch line both of us would start to get a pretty powerful headache, right?”
“Most likely.”
“But we could back out of it before we disturb the flow of time, and create a true paradox, right?”
“Reasonably likely.”
“Then… for the greater mystery… let’s go talk to Jacob after the fire.”
“And then on to the twenty-second century,” Sir Reginald insisted.
“But John–”
“We will find John’s killer, my dear corn rose, on that you have my promise.” Sir Reginald stood up. "But we will remain objective.” He stepped towards me and held out his hand for me to take. I took it and pulled myself upright, but he held on after I was standing and looked me in the eye. “It is the chrononaut's eternal curse as we travel the vastnesses of time, that even though we fight as eternal crusaders for justice in an uncaring and unjust world… sometimes we must surrender to fate. John Arnold must die, because we have seen his death already. It is cruel, but it is life, and we cannot change it.” He squeezed my hand gently. “I am sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” I looked down at the floor, I couldn’t meet his gaze. “I wish I had your strength.”
“It comes with practice.” Sir Reginald let go of my hand and smiled again, but it was broken, like a wilting flower. “And pain.” He rapped his cane against the floor. “Come come now, let’s head to Jacob and see if we can’t rattle a paradox out of him.”
*****
The City of London rang with the sound of a great battering ram. It slammed into the ruins of St Paul’s. Christopher Wren and his men needed to bring down the last of the stonework before they could begin work on its replacement. The great piece of brass and wood could have brought down the gates of any castle in Europe but against stone it was slow going. The constant thump echoed like the city’s slow heartbeat.
Sir Reginald and I stood at the corner of Hatton Street and Holborn. He rolled his cane between his hands while I gently twisted my umbrella tip against my shoe buckle. The man we waited for didn’t arrive on foot. His carriage swung up from St James’s Palace and trundled along to its owner’s house in Piccadilly. Sir Reginald tsked.
“If I didn’t know the future, I’d have said our Jacob Arnold is destined for swift destitution,” Sir Reginald said. The two of us fell into step behind the carriage. We did not have to follow it far. It dumped its owner outside his front door and bobbed off to the mews. Jacob was about to close the door when my umbrella’s tip got in the way.
“Confounded, blasted–” Jacob Arnold turned expecting to see a door jam and in his moment of surprise Sir Reginald advanced inside. “Andrew? Andrew Delaronde? To Scotland you said you were heading.”
“Indeed I was,” I glowered. Behind me Sir Reginald closed the door and kept guard. “But I needed to come back to the city for some business.” My eyes flickered to the maid standing in the hallway.
“Mary, please ah... please fetch a jug of wine for my guests,” Jacob said.
“That won’t be necessary, we’re not staying long,” I said. I turned to the maid. “You should head to the kitchens though. And stay there.”
The obvious menace in my voice sent the maid scarpering. Jacob himself took a few steps back and his hand moved to his belt where his folding knife sat.
“Elizabeth Arnold,” I said, and glared. The moment I said the name he flinched. He knew, I knew it. “She’s going to have your brother’s child before the year is out.”
“I... I knew that,” Jacob said. “I made sure she’s all set up in Deptford. ’Tis a goodly country with vigorous humours for children.”
“And yet according to the ‘will’ of your brother that child will inherit nothing.”
“It would inherit nothing if it were a girl-child in any case,” Jacob shrugged his shoulders and tried to smile. “My brother prepared with a lawyer for every particular but did not–”
“You’ve told everyone John sat up with you in his dying breaths to dictate that will, and yet I can testify John died alone in the fire,” I snarled. “You knew Elizabeth Arnold was pregnant before the fire broke out and you knew with John’s death everything would pass to the unborn child.”
“If it were a son...” Jacob said.
“If it is a son,” I advanced on Jacob. He took a step towards the stairs. “If it is a son I expect him to get what is his due. Is that understood?”
“And leave my own children with nothing?” Jacob’s eyes flashed from me to Sir Reginald. “I have no future in law, you know that, and caring for my brother’s business leaves no time for other matters. What would my sons inherit if all falls to John’s?”
“An even share as payment for your governorship of the fortune,” Sir Reginald suggested.
“And we can trust you to decide an even share, can’t we Jacob?” I said.
“I... I... have a thorough record of the business’s value when the estate passed to me,” Jacob’s voice needled. “I will make sure John’s son, if Elizabeth passes a son, will inherit at least that when he comes of age. I was never going to deprive the child. I only want something left for my own children.”
Generous, I thought. An offer gained uncharacteristically easily.
“Eighteen years is a long time to amass a fortune,” I said.
“Or spend it,” Sir Reginald said. “John’s child cannot inherit what does not exist.”
“It is hardly unfair for John’s child to inherit all John had in life,” Jacob pleaded.
“Then I want it in writing,” I said. “Dated and signed, so if I ever hear you treating that child other than our agreement I can come back and destroy you.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jacob said.
“Because John was my friend. And he did not deserve to die.”
“You were the one that convinced me to abandon him in the first place!”
“I know.”
Jacob’s eye twitched in irritation, then he gave up.
“Fine, fine, follow me to my lectern.” He ordered and we followed him into his drawing room where he drew up a note. Sir Reginald signed as its witness. Jacob handed me the note once it was folded over and sealed with wax.
“Does John have a gravestone?” I asked.
“What? No, I–”
“Have one made. Lay it somewhere, anywhere. Give Elizabeth somewhere to grieve.” I took the note from him and slipped it into a pocket. “And then you won’t see us again.”
Sir Reginald and I strode out of the house and into the street.
“Not even a twinge of a headache,” Sir Reginald said and tapped his cane against the cobbles in irritation. “This can’t be where the minor branch line of the Arnolds starts.”
“Either that or a note and a veiled threat isn’t enough to stop Jacob from stealing his brother’s fortune,” I said, touching the paper through my pocket lining.
“We shall see.” Sir Reginald turned his heels towards the time machine. “We must head to the twenty-second century. Only more data will answer this.”
Chapter XX
The first sight I had of the twenty-second century was an old concrete multi-story car park. The time machine hovered for a moment on a sea of grey water, and then plunged with a sploosh.
“Oh yes,” Sir Reginald’s hand move
d in instinct. “Twenty-second century.” The water barely had time to steam against the boiler before the time machine disappeared again. This time when the time machine landed it sat in a gleaming hall of cars. The fleet of nearly identical black cars sat waiting. All the windows were blacked out, including the drivers’.
“Got to hook this up,” Sir Reginald leapt from the controls towards a length of tubing connected to the ceiling. With a boost from a step ladder Sir Reginald was able to climb up onto the canopy of the time machine, grab the tubing and seat it tight over the funnel of the time machine’s steam engine. “New York’s clean air laws became very stringent, especially on the subject of coal furnaces in buildings.” With the tubing in place funnelling the smoke away to some unknown place in the building, Sir Reginald slid off the canopy and dropped to the base plate of the time machine. “Come, we’ll take a taxi to the movie studio.” Sir Reginald reached out a hand to open the door of one of the nearby cars.
“Those are taxis?”
“They are municipally owned discrete units of mass transit, sitting in one of New York’s only remaining car parks awaiting call out,” Sir Reginald slid into the front seat. “Provided you can pay, they’re anyone’s to use. To my mind this defines a taxi. Now climb in.”
I slid into the driver’s side but there was no steering wheel, just a smooth dashboard with some adverts and an ‘infotainment’ device. Welcome to the future, I suppose.
“Capital Pictures building,” Sir Reginald announced once I was safely inside. “Third Street.” With the request made, the electric engine of the car burst into life and it began to move.
“So is that why the car park you landed in first was full of water?” I asked. “Because they’re all abandoned?”
“One of the reasons,” Sir Reginald said with a cryptic smile.
I watched the ‘infotainment’ screen. It cycled through a few news updates and then a government advert played.
‘Flood risk: be prepared’, it declared in English and Spanish. ‘Have a plan, have supplies, have an exit’. Each command was accompanied by a stick family planning for an emergency. ‘If a flood hits: get high, make a light, and await rescue.’ The next command had CGI survivors climbing up a building and being rescued by helicopter. Then it went back to the news. There was no sound and the subtitles were in Spanish, so I ignored it.
