The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  He was holding the two leashes lightly, while the dogs sniffed and snuffled. “Go on, now,” he repeated. “We’re waitin’. We don’t ’ave all night.”

  His second urging was very necessary. The two dogs had turned around once, then settled on their bellies on the floor, tails wagging happily. But when Tom Triddler shouted them again into action they sank to rest, their jaws on the cold stone. Their tails drooped, and they stared at him with mournful eyes.

  After another few attempts to spur them on, he shook his head. “I’ve never seen nothin’ like it, Mr. Faulkner. They won’t budge. Not an inch. Seems they don’t like it ’ere underground.”

  “What did I tell you?” Pole gave Darwin a superior nod, and began to retreat toward the ladder. “I think the dogs have the right idea. It’s damn cold down here, and it stinks. As you said, ’Rasmus, dogs have powers that we lack. They know we’ll find nothing more. I’m ready to go home.”

  “Powers that we have lost,” Darwin muttered, but his tone lacked its usual conviction. In his disconsolate manner, he was a good match for the two bloodhounds. “I was quite convinced… But maybe you are right, Jacob. We will accomplish nothing more tonight. We might as well to bed.”

  He limped after Pole toward the ladder, so rumpled and so woebegone that Joseph Faulkner called after him: “Come now, Erasmus. There’s always tomorrow.”

  “Aye,” came the testy reply over Darwin’s shoulder. “Another day to make a fool of myself.”

  “Ah,” Faulkner said softly to Mary Rawlings. “That’s not our Dr. Darwin, founder of the Lunar Society and Europe’s leading physician. That’s gout speaking. Come along, my dear, let’s be out of here. There are more pleasant nighttime pursuits than underground sewer wandering. And in the morning you will see a new Erasmus.”

  * * *

  But the morning came to a city immobilized. During the night, the rain had frozen and then turned to snow. A deadly sheath lay on every flat surface, from east of the Tower to a mile past Westminster. A few hardy (or foolhardy) merchants had ventured forth, their draft horses skidding and shivering on treacherous roads, and after a hundred yards retreated. By ten-thirty the whole city was again shrouded and quiet.

  Darwin sat in the parlor at Faulkner’s house. He and Jacob Pole had been persuaded to stay over, but now he was chafing with impatience. The revelation had come to him during breakfast. There was a way to trace Daryush Sharani, and a sure one—if only Darwin could pursue it. But his weight and his gout together conspired against him.

  Finally he went to Florence Trustrum’s room on the ground floor, and asked her if she would deliver a letter to Jamie Murchison. She muffled herself in a wool head shawl, thick overcoat, and ugly leather boots, and set out into the still, white wilderness. Darwin sat at the window, counted the seagulls perched on the gable roof, and wondered at the instinct that sent them flying far inland when the northeasters blew in with the winter storms.

  Florence returned breathless in little more than half an hour. “Jamie will do it this morning,” she said.

  “You are upset.” Darwin took her by the hand. “What happened?”

  “It was… nothing.” She gave him a direct glance from bright blue eyes. “Oh, why not. I will tell you. Jamie—he asked me to marry him.”

  “Ah. And you replied?”

  “I told him—that I did not know. But I think I do.” She was gone, leaving the smell of warm wet wool behind her. Darwin nodded to himself, and went back to watching seagulls.

  It was after noon when Murchison arrived. Joseph Faulkner, Jacob Pole, Florence Trustrum and Darwin were again in the dining room, enjoying a quiet lunch of cold pork, applesauce, sage and onion stuffing, and hot boiled carrots. Darwin had left instructions to the staff and Murchison was shown in at once, snowy boots and all. He hesitated on the threshold.

  “You have it?” said Darwin eagerly, through a mouthful of pork crackling.

  “I do. I went to the chandlers as soon as I received your message.”

  “And you found an address?”

  “I did.”

  “And it is?”

  Murchison looked at Joseph Faulkner, gulped, and stammered: “They gave me an address for the delivery of just the goods that you listed. But it was here!—this very house!”

  “What!” Darwin stared at Faulkner, who shook his head.

  “No good looking at me, Erasmus. I have not the faintest idea what you two are talking about.”

  “This house.” Darwin subsided into his chair. After a few seconds of open-mouthed gaping at his empty plate, he closed his eyes and breathed a vast sigh. “It is so. And at last I see a whole picture.” He stood up. “Come on. All of you.”

  With the other four trailing along behind, Darwin headed for the ground floor and the rear of the house. At a closed door he knocked and went straight in.

  “But this is Richard’s room!” protested Florence.

  “Aye. Mr. Crosse is fortunately in absentia at the moment. So let us see—what we shall see.” Darwin had moved to the writing desk by the window and was coolly opening drawers and examining their contents.

  “Erasmus, this is a little too much.” Faulkner moved to Darwin’s side. “Richard is from an old Somerset family that I well respect, and I think of him as my guest. To see his room commandeered in such a way, and his private belongings despoiled—”

  He paused. Darwin had reached deep into a left-hand drawer of the escritoire and pulled out a large, glittering stone.

  “The Heart of Ahura Mazda.” He brought it close to his face, turning it to allow its facets to catch the light from the window. “Hm. Jacob, what do you think? This is more your department than mine.”

  Pole took the gem and examined it for no more than two seconds. He sniffed and handed it back. “What a letdown, after such a chase. That’s no ruby, priceless or otherwise. It’s nothing more than high-quality glass. Cunningly cut, I’ll admit that. I’d give you a shilling for it.”

  Darwin plunged his hand again into the drawer. “And now we have a part of the Guardian himself. His beard.” In his hand was a tangle of hair, thick and black and bushy. “And as for the rest of Daryush Sharani…”

  Darwin looked past Faulkner and the others. “Come in, sir, and claim your possessions. My behavior here leaves much to be excused.”

  In the doorway, face ashen, stood Richard Crosse. The dusting of snow on the shoulders of his black coat matched his countenance. At Darwin’s gesture he moved forward and sank down to sit on a narrow window seat.

  Darwin stared at him for a moment, and his expression changed. “When did you last have food and drink?”

  Crosse shook his head. “Last night? This morning? Sir, I am not sure.”

  “This must not be.” Darwin went to Crosse and gestured to Jacob Pole to support him on the other side. “We will go to the dining room, sir, and you will eat and drink. I will advance hypotheses, and you will correct me as you choose. Silence, now—I neither need nor expect an answer yet. Speak if you must, but above all, you must eat. Remember the natural law of the world, Mr. Crosse. Eat, or be eaten!”

  It was an odd little procession. Joseph Faulkner and Florence Trustrum led the way, he looking back over his shoulder all the time. Next came Darwin and Pole, supporting Crosse between them. He walked like a zombie, without either volition or resistance. Last came Jamie Murchison, stolid young face scowling in puzzlement. At the door to the dining room, Crosse at last lifted his head and stared straight at Darwin.

  “How did you know? How could you possibly know?”

  “I know only part. I conjecture much. And on one central element, I am so ignorant that I scarce know what to ask you.” Darwin steered Crosse to the table and nodded at Florence to fill a plate with roast pork and carrots and a glass with a mixture of beer and brandy. “But I do know where to begin. It is to assure you, Richard Crosse, that I know of no law that you have broken. You are as innocent as I, or the colonel who sits at your side.”

&nb
sp; Pole’s audible sniff suggested that might be no great reassurance, but Darwin went on, “In a legal sense, you are blameless. But in a moral sense, Mr. Crosse, things are more complex. You sought to obtain assistance for a dying man, when many would have thought only of flight. That was commendable. But you were guilty of one universal failing—something that we all do, all too often. We wish to prove our own cleverness and importance to the whole world.”

  Crosse bowed his head in assent. After another unhappy look at Darwin he picked up a fork and at last began to eat.

  “I am as guilty of that as anyone,” went on Darwin. “Do you know where my own thoughts began on this matter? In as self-centered and introspective a place as one could dream of. I asked myself, who knew that I, Erasmus Darwin, was at the Boar’s Head Tavern yesterday afternoon? For only someone with that knowledge could seek to summon me to the Exhibition.”

  Florence Trustrum, showing excellent instinct, placed another piled plate of food in front of Darwin. He began to eat with his fingers, his eyes never leaving Richard Crosse.

  “Let us define that small group of people. Joseph Faulkner and Jacob Pole certainly knew, since they were there with me. Mary Rawlings also presumably knew. Jamie Murchison knew, but since like Colonel Pole he was there with me when the message came, that struck him from the list of candidates. Who else? It seemed that there might be several others, but they must all be people close to Jacob Pole or Joseph Faulkner. Only they could know that we were meeting at the Boar’s Head during the afternoon. So. The possible universe was circumscribed. But I could go no further with logic alone, to point a finger at one man or woman. Something new was needed. That something was what I hoped to find when we returned to the Exhibition Hall last night. At first, I thought that I had discovered it. The garments of Daryush Sharani were my guide, and they would allow us to follow him. But the hounds proved useless. I returned to this house, as baffled as I have ever been in my life.” Darwin shook a finger at Pole. “You, Jacob, had already been planting doubts in my mind, suggesting that the hounds would prove useless at night and underground.”

  Pole shrugged. “I was right. They were useless, ’Rasmus. They told us nothing.”

  “Only because we asked them the wrong question. A dog can answer only in a dog’s terms. Remember when Tom Triddler released the hounds? They sniffed at the clothing, and wagged their tails, and were all excitement. It was only when he shouted at them again, and told them to hunt for the scent, that they lost all enthusiasm. As well they might! They had done their job, and they knew it. They did not deserve harsh words from their master. The source of the scent of the garments was right there—in person.” Darwin pointed to Richard Crosse. “The hounds knew it, and they told us all that they could tell. Was it their fault that we were unable to read the message?”

  “But why?” Jacob Pole scowled at Darwin across the table. “I don’t know about all this dog’s mind reading, but what is the point of all this? False rubies, and curses, and fancy dress, and deception. But ’Rasmus, say what you will, a man died at the Exhibition. You seem to be forgetting that.”

  “Not at all. We come to it now.” Darwin licked his fingers, and nodded across the table at Richard Crosse. “Sir, I could make my estimate of the whole course of events. But at this point, I think you ought to make your statement. Remember, I am not the magistrate, nor is Mr. Faulkner. But a magistrate will be here, if we find it necessary to call for him. Forget your reticence, and speak. Let me preface you with only this: after I examined the contrivance in the river vault beneath the Exhibition, I suspected that the unusual materials for its construction would have been purchased from a local chandler. We have confirmation of that; your own name is I suspect to be found on the receipts.”

  Richard Crosse laid down knife and fork and stared in turn at each person seated around the table. He bit his lip. “I will tell. But after yesterday’s disastrous events, I pledged my own soul to make no public revelation of one element of this affair. For all the rest, Dr. Darwin has said it for me. I wanted to prove my own cleverness, by a successful hoax on the whole world. You see, I had the means to do it—a method of my own devising, that would hold a grown man helpless. And it would do no damage.”

  “To a well man,” said Darwin. “But for a man already suffering from degenerative heart disease, like the would-be thief…”

  “I know that now—too late.” Crosse rubbed at his gaunt jaw. “I thought that I had a harmless hoax. I would fool all this great city with the Heart of Ahura Mazda, and with the great exhibition of the power of the jewel. And then Daryush Sharani would disappear forever. I never intended to boast of my success, or to tell of the hoax. But I was the fool.”

  “And you were taking people’s money,” Florence Trustrum said.

  He nodded at her. “I was. But never with thought of personal gain. The takings were a small amount, far less than the cost to me, and people seemed well pleased with what they saw. My family is well-to-do. If the weather had not turned so foul today, I would be on my way home to Fyne Court, in Somerset. I intended to say no more to you and Mr. Faulkner than that I was tired of life in London, and preferred the quiet of the Quantock Hills.”

  “Which would be a pity,” Florence said softly.

  “But the Earl of Marbury!” Joseph Faulkner, at the end of the table, broke into the conversation for the first time. “And all the other men made helpless by your ‘demon.’ What of them? I can accept the facts of your imposture, and even your disguise as Daryush Sharani. There is nothing new in elaborate robes and false beards. But you have said nothing to explain the true mysteries: how the Earl was persuaded to cooperate with you, or how the man died yesterday when he attempted to touch the Heart of Ahura Mazda. That is what we need to hear.”

  Richard Crosse stared down at the tablecloth and shook his head. “I have promised myself that I will never speak of that. If I were able to forget it myself, I would do so.”

  “Then we’ll have the magistrate in, and the devil with it!” Faulkner slammed his hand down on the table. “Without the rest, what you have said is no explanation at all.”

  Crosse did not look up. “So be it,” he said at last. “So be it.”

  Darwin held up a hand greasy with pork fat. “One moment, Joseph, before we rush to the law and the clumsy clutch of official justice. Mr. Crosse, I do not ask you to go beyond your own conscience. But I do ask you to come with me and listen to what I have to say. Colonel Pole and Mr. Faulkner will accompany us, under condition that they promise to remain silent on what they hear.”

  “You are my guest, Erasmus, and you would swear me to silence in my own house!” But Faulkner was already on his feet. He led the way out, turning as he left to say, “Florence, this is the day for hot chocolate. Order for yourselves, would you, and have a pot brought through to us.” He glanced at Darwin. “A big one.”

  The panelled study across the entrance hall was unheated, and cold enough for frost patterns to sit on the inside of the window panes. Faulkner shivered, gestured to the armchairs, and sat down hard himself on a stuffed ottoman. “Should I have the fire lit in here, Erasmus?”

  “I think not. This will be brief.”

  Faulkner rubbed his hands together. “Speak, then, before we all freeze.”

  “Without delay.” Darwin turned to Richard Crosse. “I begin with a statement that might be considered more as personal opinion than fact. To men of inquiring minds, few elements of today’s natural philosophy excite so much interest as the experiments of van Musschenbroek of Leyden, von Kleist of Pomerania, Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, and of our own Jesse Ramsden. Would you not agree?”

  “You know all!” Crosse’s face went even paler, and his dark eyes widened.

  “Far from it. I know a little, and I guess a great deal. But let me imagine a tale for you. Suppose that we have a young man, one of feverish imagination and genuine inventive powers, who reads of the findings that I mentioned, and becomes fascinated with the whole
field of electricity. He reads Mr. Franklin’s great work, Experiments and Observations, and Mr. Joseph Priestley’s encyclopedic History of Electricity. And his own imagination is, to employ an appropriate term, sparked. He has original ideas. He himself begins to experiment—but secretly, because he is still unsure of where his own notions will lead him.”

  “Dr. Darwin, you are a wizard! How can you know these things?”

  “He’s right, ’Rasmus,” Pole added. “How the devil do you know?”

  “I do not know. But events in this house gave sufficient reason for conjecture. Observe.” Darwin leaned across to the desk and picked up an amber paperweight. He rubbed it hard against his own rough jacket, then held it out toward one of Joseph Faulkner’s fur caps, perched on the arm of a chair. “See how the fur moves, to set each of its hairs separate from its neighbors. It is the oldest electric effect, already well known to the old Greeks—our very word, electricity, derives from their word for amber. When I heard that Florence Trustrum had reported her own hair standing separate on arms and legs, and odd sensations on her skin, within this very house, my thoughts turned idly to Leyden jars, and to electric sparkings. But I dismissed the idea as an irrelevance, and my musings went no further. Then last night I saw the underground vault, and within it the diverse but mysterious apparati of some electrical experimenter, copper wires and bars of iron and plates of lead. Yet still I made no connection! Only today, with the chandler’s report of materials delivered to this very place, did my brain offer its synthesis. I recalled the smell of Exhibition Hall when I arrived there—the very air itself held the whiff of electrical discharge. And, at last, I could offer a rational explanation of the hounds’ failure—or rather, to be fair to them, of their success. But who would have suspected it, that Daryush Sharani was last night one of our own company.”

  “You would.” Richard Crosse had somewhat recovered his composure. With his secret revealed, a more thoughtful, fatalistic man emerged. “Your every suggestion is precisely right. So now I ask, knowing all, what do you want of me?”