The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

  The man gave him a death’s-head smile that showed blackened teeth. “Greetings, brother.”

  Brandon gasped. “Richard!” He dropped the cold hand and shrank back against the side of the coach.

  “Richard, indeed. But a condemned murderer. Even in the grave I cannot rest.” The apparition inched a little closer. “Neither I nor you will ever find rest, brother—unless you confess.”

  “No! I did nothing. Don’t touch me!” A pale hand was lifting clawlike fingers toward Brandon’s face. Wafting from it came a dank, rotting odor that made him want to vomit.

  “Nothing?” The hand paused, inches from Brandon’s cheek. Water dripped from the loose sleeve. “You call the murder of Walter Fowler nothing? I bring you his greetings… and his accusation.”

  “It was not my doing.” Brandon’s breath came in great, sobbing gasps. “I mean, it happened but it was not my fault. Ask Fowler. It was an accident—an argument. I didn’t mean him to die.” His voice rose to a scream. “Please, for God’s sake, don’t touch me!”

  “One embrace, Brandon. Surely you would not deny that, to a loving brother, when we have been separated for so long? Except that where I dwell now, there is neither time nor place.” The sodden figure squelched closer along the coach seat. “Come, one kiss of memories. Even if you refuse to confess, you are still the little brother of whom I was always so fond and protective.”

  Richard Dunwell lifted his arms and opened them wide. Brandon gave a squeak of terror and wriggled away. He opened the door of the moving coach and tumbled out headfirst. But he did not seem to be hurt, and in another moment he was on his feet and heading at a blind, staggering run away from the road toward a dip in the cliffs on the seaward side.

  Richard Dunwell waited for the coach to stop before he stepped down. Almost as unsteady on his feet as Brandon, he moved around to where Jacob Pole sat in the driver’s seat. “You heard?”

  “Every word.” Pole’s voice was gruff. “His admission is partial, but more than enough.”

  “He says it was an accident.” Dunwell’s tone showed how much he wanted to believe that, but Pole shook his head.

  “Think what came after. Your knife, marked with blood. Bloodstained clothes in your rooms at Dunwell Hall. That speaks of preparation, not accident. And afterwards, silence from Brandon. Even when his own brother stood at the gallows’ foot.”

  Richard shivered, and it was more than wind cutting through wet clothes. “You force me to accept what I would rather deny. But he is still my brother. I would not see him hanged. What now?”

  Pole nodded to the two horses approaching the coach. “I cannot say. However, Dr. Darwin is never without one plan—or a dozen.”

  Those plans had to wait a few moments longer. Richard Dunwell helped Kathleen to dismount from her horse, then the pair stood stock-still and hesitant in the biting sea breeze. Neither seemed able to speak. Finally she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “Ah, I should have mentioned that,” said Darwin. He at least seemed cheerful. “That stench is by deliberate design—and temporary.”

  The trance was broken. Kathleen shook her head and smiled. “I don’t care if he smells like the grave.” And she added, in a low tone intended for Richard alone, “So long as you are not in it.”

  “And will not be, I trust, for a long time.” Darwin came forward, forcing them apart.

  “But how?” Kathleen glanced from Richard to the coach. “The murder and confession I understand, but the thefts—”

  “Patience, Miss Kathleen. There will be time enough for answers—in a little while.” Darwin faced Richard Dunwell. “He has to be followed, and at once. You, or I?”

  “It should be me.” Dunwell glanced away along the deserted cliffs, following the line that his brother had taken. “But I must know one thing before I go. Was it pure avarice, the simple desire to assume the family estate, that made Brandon act so?”

  “It was not.” Darwin took Richard Dunwell’s hand in his. “And the very fact that you feel obliged to ask that question tells me that you cannot be the person to pursue him, lest you stand a second time accused of murder—and this one no forgery of jealousy. Brandon is to be pitied, yet it is not a pity that you can be expected to feel. He coveted something that you had; a thing to be found in a lady’s eyes, not measured in gold or rubies or family holdings.” He lifted Kathleen’s hand, and joined it to Richard’s. “Go back to the inn with Jacob. Leave the horses here. If I do not return within two hours, you may assume that I am… in need of assistance.”

  Darwin set out along the cliff. He did not look back, but he scanned the grey skyline and every bare rock and tufted mound ahead. Bad weather was on its way. The low cloud layer had descended farther, and a patchy sea-rack was blowing ashore with the wind. The shore at the foot of the cliffs was a jumble of white waves, black slate outcroppings and tidal pools, among which wandered forlorn seabirds. Even Darwin’s rational eye could easily populate that desolate scene with the unquiet ghosts of drowned mariners. To Brandon Dunwell’s superstitious mind, the sudden appearance of his brother close to the point where he had jumped to his death must have been sheer horror.

  Brandon’s physical condition had not allowed him to run far. Darwin came across him slumped on a shelf of rock at the very edge of the cliff. He was leaning far forward with his head in his hands and his eyes covered. He did not hear Darwin’s approach, and gave a great shuddering jerk when a hand gripped his shoulder.

  “Courage, man.” Darwin spoke softly. Brandon seemed too terrified to look around. “What you saw in the coach was no apparition from beyond the veil. Your brother Richard is alive. He presented himself so only to force confession—which you gave.”

  Brandon lifted his head and shook it wearily. But he was beyond denial, and after a few seconds he slumped back to his original position. “Richard is alive. Then I am dead.” And his toneless voice was that of a dead man.

  “Only if you choose it so.” Darwin became brisk and businesslike. “You are a very sick man. But although you cannot be cured, you can be treated. And if I cannot offer you health, I can offer you hope.”

  “Hope.” Dunwell glared up at Darwin, and his tired, red-rimmed eyes showed his despair and exhaustion. “Hope to live long enough to dance on air. Better to go here, and now.”

  “That is your choice.” But Darwin took a firm grasp of the back of Dunwell’s jacket as he sat down next to him on the cliff-edge shelf of black rock. “You should know, however, that your brother is not a man to seek vengeance.”

  “Walter Fowler—”

  “Is in his grave. He will not come forth from it, no matter what we do. Naturally, Richard must assume his estate again, and establish his innocence. But a signed letter from you, before your ‘escape’ and departure forever from these parts—”

  “Sick and penniless.”

  “You know your brother better than I do. Would he send you forth even now, after all that you have done to him, to wither and die a pauper?”

  Brandon said nothing, but he shook his head and stared into the blowing fog.

  Darwin nodded. “You have money on your person? Then take one of the horses waiting along the road, and go to the Posthouse Inn at St. Austell. I will plead on your behalf with Richard, and come to you tomorrow. With writing materials.”

  Brandon Dunwell nodded. He took a deep breath and stood up. Darwin watched him closely until he had backed well away from the cliff and was turning to face inland.

  “I will do as you say.” Dunwell’s pale eyes stared into Darwin’s bright grey ones. “But one thing I cannot understand. Why are you willing to do this for me? I am a murderer, and worse.”

  “Because I too looked once upon a woman’s face, and was lost.” Darwin’s eyes took on their own emptiness. “I believe I would have done anything—anything, no matter how terrible—to win her.”

  “She went to another?”

  “At last. But I was fortunate. I won Mary, and was saved from my wor
st self. Seven years ago, she died.” Darwin gave a strange shiver and a shrug of his heavy shoulders. “Seven years. But at last I learned that life went on. As yours will go on.”

  A fine rain had begun to fall. Neither man spoke as they walked slowly, side by side, toward the waiting horses.

  * * *

  It might have been a time for celebration, but the evening mood at the Anchor Inn was far from boisterous. Milly Meredith and her guests, at Darwin’s request, had been permitted the use of a private room at the rear of the building. The loud, cheerful voices from the front parlor and the clatter of dishes in the kitchen only added to the feeling of restraint at the long table.

  Richard Dunwell sat by the wall across from Kathleen. He had thoroughly bathed, so that no trace of graveyard stench clung to him, and he had scrubbed his blackened teeth to their usual white. Borrowed trousers and jacket from Jacob Pole were a little too long, covering his hands beyond the wrist. He seemed in no mood for food or speech, but sat with the basset hound Harvey at his feet, following Kathleen’s every move.

  Darwin was next to him, facing Milly, with Jacob Pole beside Darwin at the end of the table and providing the principal interface with the kitchen. A steady supply of food and drink appeared according to Pole’s command, the bulk of it despatched by Darwin alone, who had recovered his spirits and seemed exempt from the subdued, uneasy air that possessed the others.

  “I saw, but did not understand,” he said. “When ‘Jack Trelawney’ appeared on the scene I noticed at once his yellow fingertips and nails. I assumed they were stained from habitual use of tobacco. But there was never a sign of a pipe, and he neither smoked nor chewed.” He turned to Dunwell. “According to the servants at Dunwell Hall, you spent many hours alone engaged in strange pastimes. You had eccentric friends and visitors from the Continent, and dabbled in ‘black arts.’ Now what, to a servant, is blacker art than alchemy? Those are acid stains on your fingers, are they not?—the result of alchemic experiments.”

  Richard Dunwell nodded. “Performed also during my time in France, and again here. Contact with muriatic acid, and slow to fade.”

  “I have seen them a dozen times on the fingers of our friend, Mr. Priestley.” Darwin shook his head in self-criticism. “They should have told me everything. But instead of using my brain to explain the phantom, I went off along a false scent of drugged food and drink.”

  Millicent Meredith had been gazing at Darwin admiringly, but now she caught Jacob Pole’s eye. He grinned at her in an irritating way. “I know, Milly. I’ve been through it myself with Erasmus a hundred times.” He turned to Darwin. “I’m sure that you and Richard think you are being as clear as day, but I have to tell you that for people like Milly and me, it’s all a darkness. Short words and simple, ’Rasmus, and quick. I did exactly what I was told to do when I was driving the coach, so I know who was the phantom—it was Richard—but for the life of me I still don’t know how was the phantom.”

  Milly nodded vigorously. “That’s my question. How could he walk through the walls of a coach, and never once be seen?”

  Darwin raised an eyebrow at Richard Dunwell, who nodded. “Not walk, but float. For the phantom was no more than thin air. In Paris, the celebrated Monsieur Lavoisier showed it to me: a gas, simply prepared, with a faint, sweet smell, which at first renders a person cheerful, and then quickly insensible. That is what you released into the cabriolet, Colonel Pole, when Brandon and Kathleen were within it. I had experimented—on myself—and learned that it is safe to use for short periods. Once the occupants of the coach were asleep, anyone had a good five minutes after opening the door before the fresh air awakened the passengers.”

  “And again, I had evidence placed before my face—and ignored it.” Darwin scowled, placed a whole brandied plum in his mouth, and struggled to speak around it. “Second robbery—downpour of rain. Passengers wet. But coach not leaky—saw that for myself. So someone been inside. If passengers don’t see, they must be asleep.”

  “But why robberies?” Milly seemed as confused as ever. “Surely, Richard, you didn’t come all the way from France to rob your own relatives? Suppose you had been caught?”

  “Caught, stealing that which was in justice already his?” Kathleen spoke for the first time, color touching her high cheekbones. “He had every right to take—”

  “No, Katie.” Richard Dunwell squeezed her hand, and at the pressure and his look she fell silent. “I did in truth steal, simply because I needed money to stay. When I came here I had intended a brief visit, only to look at you once again and confirm that all was well. Your face told me that it was not. And when I saw Brandon, and watched his walk, I knew at that point I could not leave.”

  “Brandon’s walk?” Milly Meredith gave Darwin one startled look of comprehension. “Happiness and health—”

  He nodded his head gravely. “Kathleen is doubly lucky—triply lucky. She has avoided a disastrous union, and will marry a healthy and an honest man.”

  “Honest enough.” Pole snapped his fingers and turned to Richard Dunwell. “But not totally honest. Come on, Richard, admit it. You persuaded young Georgie at the coach house to lie for you. He said that you had been driving the coach from St. Austell to Dunwell Cove for a long time, which convinced me that you at least could not be the phantom.”

  Dunwell frowned back at him. “Georgie said that? I cannot explain his statement. I told you, I came to England little more than two months ago, when I heard word of a possible wedding. And I said nothing to Georgie.”

  “You mean that he was lying?”

  “Not so, Jacob.” Darwin had eaten everything in sight. Now he was sitting back contentedly and ogling Milly Meredith, not at all to her displeasure. “For a while I was as puzzled as you by Georgie’s duplicity. Then I realized that he was not lying. He was telling the exact truth—as he perceived it.”

  Darwin pointed down below the table, to where the basset hound was blissfully licking Richard Dunwell’s hand. “For to a ten-year-old boy, or to a dog—are not two months an eternity?”

  THE LAMBETH IMMORTAL

  The morning had threatened rain and it was finally arriving. At the first warm drops the old horse whinnied protestingly and distended her nostrils. She lowered her head and walked on steadily through the darkened summer morning, pulling the sulky easily behind her.

  “I told you, Erasmus.” Jacob Pole turned and looked at his companion triumphantly. “I knew in my guts we’d have rain after that east wind last night.”

  Darwin, squeezed in beside him, pulled a brass-bound instrument from the side box of the coach and looked at it gloomily. “This still shows a setting for fair.”

  “Aye, and it will, while we get soaked. I’ll back my old bones over that fancy new contrivance of yours every day of the week.”

  “I begin to think you may be right.” Darwin looked up at the clouds, pouted his full lips, and shook his head. “Yet my barometer is based on sound scientific principles, whereas the behavior of your joints remains one of life’s mysteries. I am wondering now if the lessons I learned at Lichfield must be studied anew in East Anglia. Perhaps this must be somehow reset to local values.”

  He poked at the barometer thoughtfully with a stubby finger, ignoring the rivulet of water that was beginning to stream from his broad-brimmed felt hat. Jacob Pole looked at it skeptically.

  “I wish you could reset me along with it. Rain brings me the same aches and pains whether I am in Lichfield or Calcutta. If we had waited at the inn for an hour or two, as I suggested, we’d be snug and dry now and tapping a bottle of good port wine.”

  “And tonight we’d have gout to make your present aches seem nothing,” retorted Darwin.

  His companion pulled his leather cloak about him and hunched down in his seat, looking moodily at the road ahead. Its chalky surface ran, arrow-straight, off into the distance, paralleling the canal and earthen dike on their left.

  “Three miles to Lambeth, at the last stone,” said Jacob Pol
e, his thin face gloomy. “And not so much as a barn in sight to shelter in. We’ll be soaked through before we are halfway there.”

  “No doubt we will.” Darwin sounded undismayed at the prospect. “And if we are, Jacob, I will be obliged to remind you that it was at your urging that we took this detour from our original plan.”

  His friend looked slyly at Darwin’s calm profile. “It was my idea to go to Stiffkey, that I admit. You’ll agree with me when you taste the Blues—the best cockles on the East Coast. But it was no idea of mine to come to Lambeth. Ancient ruins hold no fascination for me, unless there’s something like this inside them.”

  He pulled a snuffbox of chased gold from a pocket inside his cloak, opened it, and sniffed a substantial pinch.

  “And it was no idea of mine to go to Norwich in the first place,” he continued. “I could be back home now, with Elizabeth and my young Emily. You were the one invited to inspect the new hospital. I had a miserable time. I’ve bargained with men and women across the face of the globe, and I tell you, there’s no slyer, sharper dealer than a Norfolk tradesman.”

  “That must tell something about you, Jacob, I’m afraid, since it was only last night that you were boasting about the low price you paid for the Norwich boots you are wearing. But I doubt that you’ll find opportunity to haggle in Lambeth. I expect to find flint pits there, not shopkeepers. Do you realize those diggings were old before the Romans set foot in Anglia? Some of the flints were used to build the Legion’s Fort at Brancaster, and even those were from the newer site.”

  As he spoke, the old mare was plodding patiently on. The rain was warm, and not unpleasant. The surface of the canal, reflecting a steel-grey sky, was a broken pattern of small ripples as the heavy drops spattered the still waters. The line of poplar trees along the bank marched steadily away in front of them, shrinking to green dots on the far horizon.