It was a place he had only recently discovered. Rogerson, an acquaintance from the Marco Polo and a fervent advocate of the philosophy of mens sana in corpore sano, had recommended it to him: ‘Best location in town for a bout of fisticuffs, old boy,’ he had said. ‘Always someone there prepared to go toe to toe with you.’
Adam, however, had disclaimed any interest. ‘I think,’ he had replied, ‘perhaps I had enough of the noble art when I was at college.’
Rogerson had looked surprised, as if it was impossible that any man might tire of the joys of punching another, but remained undeterred. ‘Not just boxing, old boy. Parallel bars, horizontal bars, Indian clubs, wrestling, fencing. Everything to harden the body and improve the mind. All for a negligible fee. You should toddle along and see what they have to offer.’
It was the last activity that Rogerson had mentioned which had caught Adam’s attention. He had fenced for a short time in his final year at school and enjoyed it. He had occasionally, in recent months, thought it would be a good idea to take it up again. Here was the opportunity. He had made his way to the German Gymnasium, built and opened only a few years earlier in Pancras Road, and joined the ranks of its members. In the months since he had done so, he had become a twice-weekly visitor to the place.
‘We have crossed our blades enough for the day, Señor Carver.’ The man with whom he had been fencing bowed gravely in his direction and removed his face mask. Adam unfastened his own and returned the salute. Not for the first time, he wondered about the past history of his fencing instructor. Juan Alvarado was from the Argentine city of Buenos Aires – or, at least, he had several times spoken of it with the easy familiarity of someone who had lived there, but he had been obliged to leave the country and come to Europe a decade ago. His reasons for leaving were shrouded in mystery. Alvarado never spoke of them. Adam suspected that they were connected to the civil wars that had plagued Argentina for most of the decades since its independence from Spain. Alvarado had probably finished on the losing side in one of the many conflicts and decided that it was safer to travel into exile. Adam also suspected that the serious and distinguished-looking gentleman in early middle age who taught him fencing had found adjustment to a new life in London difficult. He spoke English fluently, if occasionally eccentrically, and hinted at the existence of a wife and children living in lodgings in Highgate with him, but he seemed, to Adam at least, a solitary, reserved man who had long ago decided that the best of life was behind him.
Now Alvarado bowed once again and, with the briefest of polite farewells, walked briskly out of the hall. Adam, carrying his rubber-tipped rapier and mask, followed him into the corridor. The Argentine had already disappeared from view. Only rarely did he linger for conversation after their practice.
Adam made his way to the changing rooms. Within half an hour, he was dressed in his own clothes and sitting in the comfortable library which the gymnasium also provided for its members, idly flicking through the pages of The Cornhill Magazine. He came across a fresh instalment of a serial about a character named Harry Richmond and began to read it, but his attention soon wandered. He had read none of the previous instalments and the prose of the story’s author, a gentleman named Meredith, seemed curiously convoluted.
After a few minutes, Adam put the magazine to one side and leant back in his chair. Why had he agreed so readily to do what Sunman had asked of him? The truth was, of course, that he was bored. Since he had returned from Greece the previous autumn, he had had little to occupy his time. The weeks of searching for the gold of Philip of Macedon, which had culminated in Professor Fields’s savage attack, had been difficult and dangerous but never dull. Coming back to London had meant a descent into an everyday normality which he had, he now realized, found hard to endure. He had taken up photography again but the recording of London’s architecture, which had once fascinated him, proved a chore rather than a delight. He had put pen to paper to record his experiences at the monasteries of Meteora and in the hills of Turkey in Europe, but he had discovered that much of the truth about them needed to be omitted, and he had grown weary of the process. His world had all too rapidly become one of tedious routine. He had even begun to ask himself what he intended to do with the rest of life. And then, out of the blue, there was the Honourable Richard Sunman offering him an escape from that same routine. It might, of course, turn out to be the simplest of tasks to find the girl but, for some reason, Adam doubted it. There was more to her disappearance than Sunman was telling him. And whether the search proved brief and easy, or long and difficult, it would be something different to do.
Adam returned the copy of The Cornhill Magazine to the rack in which he had found it. He glanced briefly around the almost deserted library of the German Gymnasium. A red-bearded gentleman whom he recognized vaguely from previous visits nodded in his direction. Adam returned the salute and left the library with something of a spring in his step.
* * * * *
A newspaper boy was standing by the gates at the entrance to Doughty Street, bellowing about ‘’Orrible murder in ’Ackney’. Adam stopped to pay a penny for the late-afternoon edition of the Daily News from the urchin before turning into the street. Nodding to the porter in his wooden sentry box, and with the paper tucked under his arm, he walked fifty yards, took out a key and unlocked the door to the Georgian house in which he rented a set of first-floor rooms. Alert to the possibility that Mrs Gaffery might be in residence and intent upon conversation, he took the stairs at a gallop and was in front of the entrance to his own domain within seconds. He had no wish to listen to his formidable landlady expound her ideas on the ills of the world. Mrs Gaffery was a woman who knew her own mind and was not one to allow ignorance of a subject to get in the way of expressing a strong opinion on it. Adam was not always, or even often, in the mood to stand by the door to her rooms, nodding his head repeatedly as she told him what she thought of Mr Gladstone and Mr Disraeli, the recent marriage of Princess Louise, and the reasons why the French could never be trusted.
Safe now, he took a second key from his pocket and let himself into his rooms. As he entered his sitting room, Adam placed his hat on top of the sideboard and threw his coat and the newspaper he had just bought into an armchair. When he heard the sound of wood scraping on the floor in the next room, he realized was not alone.
Adam’s manservant, Quintus Devlin, was already at home. He was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, reading a cheap edition of David Copperfield with a frown of concentration on his forehead. Quint was not a regular reader, nor was he a swift one. To Adam’s certain knowledge, he had been reading the Dickens novel for the last four months and he had still not progressed much beyond page 200. His habit of returning to re-read again and again passages which had caught his attention was slowing him down, and Adam suspected that the one book might last his servant the rest of his life. Quint was clearly intrigued, however, by the imaginative world of The Great Inimitable. He would occasionally deliver his opinion of certain of the novel’s characters, sometimes speaking of ‘them days’ after the last time he had been looking at the book, which meant that Adam would initially be puzzled by his remarks: ‘This cove what can’t keep his ’ands on his rhino,’ Quint would say. ‘This ’ere Micawber,’ he would continue, noticing Adam’s raised eyebrow. ‘’E’s a prize duffer, ain’t ’e? What a bleedin’ juggins and no mistake. I reckon ’e got some kind of knock in ’is cradle. ’E wouldn’t know ’ow many beans make five if ’e could count ’em on ’is fingers.’
On this occasion, Quint looked up as his master entered the kitchen. ‘Working with bottles ain’t that bad, you know,’ he remarked.
‘Whoever said it was, Quint?’
‘The Copperfield bloke.’ The manservant waved the book in the air. ‘Whining on about ’ow he ’ad such a time of it when ’e was a lad, pasting labels on bottles in ’is old man’s warehouse.’
‘His stepfat
her’s warehouse, was it not?’
Quint shrugged. ‘Father, stepfather. Ain’t no matter. The point is I done it. Worked with bottles. And it ain’t that bad. I’ve done much worse.’
‘I don’t doubt it, Quint.’ Adam could well believe that his servant had, in the course of a chequered career, faced more unpleasant tasks than the labelling of bottles. Abandoned as a baby on the steps of the St Nicholas Hospital for Young Foundlings in Ely Place, he had been christened Quintus by the Reverend Malachi Merridew, spiritual director of the institution, who had already been presented with four other orphaned infants that week and had turned to the Latin numbering system in his search for names for them. ‘Devlin’ had come from a label on the blanket in which he had been wrapped when he had been left in Ely Place. ‘The property,’ the label had read, ‘of Devlin’s Boarding House, Ardee Street, Dublin.’
Adam had met Quint on his first foray to European Turkey. Adam had then been a gentlemanly companion to Professor Fields, much interested in the Ancient Greek past; Quint had been an ungentlemanly servant, interested mainly in drinking and brawling. However, they had formed an unexpected alliance and, on their return to London, Adam had offered Quint the position of manservant. Quint, rather to the surprise of both men, had accepted. He had accompanied his master to Athens and Macedonia once again the previous year and been a witness to the terrible crimes and strange death of Professor Fields. Now he was perched on a stool in rooms in Doughty Street, regaling Adam with his views on David Copperfield.
‘This is no time to be discussing the finer points of Dickens’s work, Quint.’ The young man took the novel from his manservant’s hands and placed it carefully on the kitchen table. ‘Nor your past history of employment. We have work to do. We have a young woman to find.’ As swiftly and concisely as he could, Adam explained the commission he had been given the previous day. He did not mention Sunman’s name, although he assumed it would have meant little to Quint had he done so.
His servant listened, chewing stolidly on a plug of tobacco.
‘I ain’t sure I’ve got this,’ he said, once Adam had finished. ‘If some cove wants to cure ’is horn by bedding a dollymop, why’s anyone worry about it?’
‘The affair is not quite as simple as you seem to think, Quint. The gentleman in question is, I suspect, in a senior position in the Foreign Office. He cannot be jumping in and out of the arms of such as Dolly Delaney without causing trouble.’
‘Even swells need a bit of fun.’
‘Yes, but their fun must be discreet fun. And, in this case, it seems it has not been.’
Quint shrugged, as if acknowledging that the ways of his betters were a mystery to him. ‘So we got to lay our ’ands on this Dolly mort?’ he asked.
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Tomorrow you will make enquiries in the pubs around Drury Lane. Stand a drink or two. Find out if anyone knows anything about the girl.’
‘And you’ll be doing the round of the boozing-kens as well?’
‘No, I shall not.’ Adam headed towards his sitting room. ‘I shall be visiting my old friend Cosmo Jardine.’
CHAPTER THREE
Adam thought about his long friendship with Cosmo Jardine as he and Quint made their way towards Covent Garden. He and Cosmo had known one another for years, both at school and at Cambridge. Like Adam, Cosmo had left college without a degree. Adam had been forced to do so by the death of his father and the disappearance of the family fortune; his friend, much to the outrage of his own father, the dean of a West Country cathedral, had been too idle to pursue his studies and more interested in painting and sketching than in reading Homer and Cicero.
Jardine had decided he would be an artist. Settling in London with little more than the lease on part of a cheap studio in Chelsea and a letter of introduction to John Millais, Cosmo had proved himself surprisingly committed to his new profession. He had even had some small successes. Works had been accepted at the Academy, although they had been hung so high that opera glasses had been required to view them. A Yorkshire mill-owner with a taste for nude women in the kinds of classical settings that made them respectable rather than shocking had commissioned a ‘Judgement of Paris’ from him. Paintings of Cosmo’s own preferred subject matter – Arthurian legend – had been less easy to sell. A huge canvas of King Pellinore and the Questing Beast still languished in the Chelsea studio. Cosmo’s debts had mounted. Eventually, as his creditors clamoured for legal action to be taken against him, he had been forced to take up painting scenery for a theatre. Much to his own astonishment, he had discovered he enjoyed the work and now, although the need to earn money was less pressing, he continued to make his way to Drury Lane most mornings.
After saying farewell to Quint, who disappeared swiftly into a pub on Long Acre, Adam found his friend in a corner of one of the large props rooms at the back of the Prince Albert theatre.
Cosmo Jardine was standing at the edge of a huge backdrop, depicting what looked like Derby Day at Epsom, which was stretched flat across the floor. He was dressed in an ancient white frock coat, liberally speckled with paint, and was dabbing at a distant corner of the set with a long brush. He was so absorbed in his task that Adam was at his shoulder before he noticed him. ‘Hullo,’ he said in surprise. ‘What brings you to this dark corner of Drury Lane? I believe this is the first time you’ve deigned to visit me in my humble place of work.’
‘You are right,’ Adam said. ‘I have not been here before.’
‘You were once so regular a visitor to my studio that I began to think I would have to ask you for a contribution towards the rent. But, since I became an artisan toiling away in the theatre, you have deserted me.’
‘I apologize, Cosmo, I have been guilty of neglecting you.’
‘You have indeed. But I forgive you.’ The painter swung the enormous brush he was using away from the backdrop and propped it against a wooden trestle. The brush dripped red paint onto the floor. Jardine wiped his hands on his white coat as he looked at his friend more closely. ‘However, I harbour a strong suspicion that there are other reasons for your visit today beyond mere sociability.’
‘Is it so obvious?’
‘Only to one who knows you as well as I do. Come, tell me what motive you have for bearding me here in my den, beyond the mere pleasure of seeing an old friend.’
‘I’m looking for a girl who has gone missing. Her name is Dolly Delaney.’ Adam took out the cabinet card which Sunman had given him and showed it to his friend.
‘Ah, Dolly,’ Jardine said, glancing briefly at the photograph. ‘Who could forget her? I thought I hadn’t seen her for a day or two. She’s only been here a few weeks but her presence has noticeably brightened up the place.’
‘You knew her, then?’
‘Alas, not in the biblical sense. She is one of the chorus girls here.’ Cosmo looked hard at his friend. ‘But is there a reason why you are employing the past tense in speaking of her?’
‘As I say, she has disappeared. That is all.’
‘Good. I would hate to think that anything unpleasant had happened to her. She is a sweet thing. But why are you in search of her? Why are you charging around like a paladin in a medieval romance, intent on rescuing his lady?’ Jardine looked sidelong at his friend. ‘Ah, I have it. You knew her yourself.’
‘Your mind runs on such predictable tracks, Cosmo.’ Adam smiled. ‘I have never met the girl. I did not know of her existence until two days ago.’
‘So, what other reasons could there be for your interest in the fair Delaney?’ Thumb and forefinger under his chin, Jardine eyed Adam in a parody of a man engaged in deep thought. ‘I know,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘She is, in truth, a runaway from some landed family, fleeing her ancestral home to avoid an unwanted marriage. And her noble father, for reasons best known to himself, has employed you to seek her o
ut and drag her back to the altar.’
Adam laughed. ‘I don’t suppose there are many daughters of the gentry employed in London’s theatres.’
‘You would be surprised. Actresses will happen even in the best-regulated families,’ Jardine said off-handedly, turning to look once more at the backdrop on the floor. His thoughts were clearly centred more on his work than the fate of the missing girl. ‘And dancers. You would be surprised by the backgrounds of one or two of Dolly’s colleagues in the chorus here. I am told that we even have a vicar’s daughter. Although that may be nothing more than rumour and calumny.’
Their conversation was interrupted by two stagehands, who passed behind Adam and his friend. A few moments later, they were staggering and grunting under the weight of a vast Chesterfield sofa, labouring noisily to move its red leather bulk out of the props room and into the corridor outside.
‘However,’ the young artist continued, watching the men disappear through the door with their burden, ‘I do not think that Dolly’s family would be found in Burke’s or Debrett’s. Or even in Crockford’s Clerical Directory. More likely to see her kinsfolk on the passenger lists of boats from Dublin to Liverpool.’
‘I’d assumed from the name that she was – is – Irish.’
‘In origins, I’m sure – Dolly herself is as Cockney as they come. To listen to her drop her aitches is an education in the language of the ordinary Londoner.’
‘But no aristocratic branches of the family.’
‘No, I think not. So that explanation of your interest cannot be correct. Perhaps she has fallen from virtue and you have been employed by one of the do-gooding societies to rescue her from the consequences of her sin?’
‘You are wrong again, Cosmo. I have not found work with a charitable organization.’
Carver's Truth Page 2
