by Tony Pollard
‘Where else would a man like Brunel direct his genius after triumphing in all other spheres of engineering? But things have moved on since then. Brodie was only ever interested from an academic point of view. He thinks I’m insane, by the way.’ He may have a point there, I thought. ‘Well, anyway,’ he continued, ‘as more people were invited along, either as members or speakers, it wasn’t long before the club had evolved into a talking shop for all manner of notions – fascinating, I grant you, but a much watered-down version of our original intent.’
I didn’t know whether to admire Ockham’s foresight or pity his derangement, but I suspected there was more to it than just his mother reading him a ghost story when he was a child.
Whatever his motives, it looked as though I had found an ally, and for that I was grateful. Thanks to his revelations it seemed for the first time in weeks that I wasn’t operating on my own and entirely in the dark.
Bringing the conversation back to matters of immediate concern, we briefly discussed how we would proceed in what was now a joint effort to expose Wilkie’s killers. But it was now a double game in more than one sense, as if we were to survive, it would first require us to distract them from their search for the heart. With our scheme sketched out Ockham escorted me back up to the deck.
I had one more thing to say to him before I made my way down the steps to a waiting barge. ‘That the simplest explanation is always the most likely.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Ockham, puzzled by my remark.
‘It’s the principle of Ockham’s razor.’
‘Of course it is,’ he said with a smile. ‘And let us hope that it applies to our own situation.’
I wanted to believe he was right, but from where we were standing, I somehow doubted it.
22
Following our experience on the last excursion of the Lazarus Club, when a close encounter with a dead body had curtailed the proceedings, and also caused me grief with Tarlow, it was a wonder that such a thing was ever tried again. But here we were, standing on a hillside in the North Downs in Kent. The object of our attentions sat above us on the summit, its nose tipped to the earth and the fan splay of its tail turned up towards the sky. Stringfellow had at last decided to move from the safe environment of his mill and the indoor tests to try to release a large-scale model into the open air. Not only that, this craft was to carry a man, or a pilot, as he described the slightly built youth who had volunteered for the task. Listening to Stringfellow talk about what he hoped to achieve with his flying machines was one thing – nobody ever got hurt looking at a picture of a machine flying over India – but this was a different basket of birds entirely.
‘I notice Stringfellow’s not intending to go up in that thing himself,’ noted Hawes cheerily as he watched the inventor issuing instructions to the scrawny youth. ‘But if these things do work,’ he went on, ‘they will change the world for ever.’ He turned to Lord Catchpole, who was standing beside him. ‘Imagine, they could even drop bombs from them. It would change the way wars were fought at a stroke.’
‘You may have something there, Mr Hawes. Has the War Department sent you along to observe proceedings?’
Hawes let out a snort. ‘Good grief, no. There’s not a hope of that thing getting ten feet, at least not without killing the pilot in it.’
‘We shall soon see,’ said a dispassionate Catchpole as the pilot struggled into the machine. Stringfellow held up the lightweight, fabric-covered frame while the young man clambered beneath it and pushed his head and shoulders through an opening into which he was strapped.
‘My God, he’s wearing the damned thing,’ said Hawes.
With his legs and feet now appearing to be part of the machine, the pilot struggled in the breeze to keep the wings level while Stringfellow and an assistant manhandled the buffeting device and its occupant into a position just behind the edge of the ridge.
At a shout from Stringfellow the pilot began to run forward, with his attendants trotting alongside, continuing to support the wing tips. By the time he cleared the edge of the ridge the pilot’s feet were free of the ground and with the machine beginning to lift the handlers had no option but to let go of their charge. The pilot let out a yell – whether through exhilaration or fear it was impossible to say. The nose of the craft rose up, the tail clipping the ground before it too rose up into the air. With legs dangling the pilot was carried upwards. In the excitement Hawes took off his hat and waved it in salute.
Perhaps there was a shift in the wind or a problem with the machine itself because almost immediately it was deflected from a straight course and began to veer towards us. Whitworth was standing next to me and was the first to realize we were in danger. ‘Look out, Phillips,’ he barked before removing his hat and ducking down. The machine was now heading directly towards us and steadily losing altitude as it plummeted down slope. Following Whitworth’s lead, I too took evasive action, and dropped to my knees. The wings were pitching from side to side, and at one point the pilot’s feet made contact with the ground again, running for an instant before lifting up and pedalling for a time through empty air. There were cries of consternation from the men behind me as the bat-like shadow passed over us. I turned to see the pilot’s left foot come into contact with Russell’s hat and tip it from his head. Others dropped to the ground, several of them lying flat on their stomachs, their faces pressed into the grass.
Russell’s hat was fortunately to be our only casualty as the craft passed overhead and then began to climb again. The pilot’s fate, however, was as yet undecided and I watched as the dangling man was carried away, the device having regained its lost altitude. By the time it reached the bottom of the slope, a good few hundred yards below our position, the machine was at least twenty feet above the ground, and by then was partway through a sharp turn which brought the nose back round to face up slope. For a time it looked as though the thing was going to return back up slope but then a wingtip touched ground and the device cartwheeled to a stop, the pilot was thrown from his broken straps and landed some distance from the twisted wreckage.
While my grumbling compatriots struggled back to their feet and brushed themselves off I galloped down the slope with my bag, not at all sure whether there would be a living man to aid at the bottom of it. To my surprise the pilot had also found his feet and when I reached him he seemed as surprised as me to discover himself almost entirely uninjured. I insisted on checking him over and found only a slight twist to the ankle and a graze to the brow. The machine, however, had not fared nearly as well, one of the wings having been torn entirely away from the rest of the frame. To Stringfellow’s credit he also checked on his pilot’s welfare before looking over the wreckage of his craft. Hawes and Catchpole were the first of our party to reach the scene, closely followed by Ockham and Babbage. Russell was among the last to arrive and was more intent with re-forming his hat than inspecting the site of the crash.
‘It flew,’ said Hawes, clearly impressed. ‘The damned thing flew.’
‘After a fashion,’ added Catchpole.
Stringfellow returned to the pilot and quizzed him about the flight, obviously keen to find the cause of what appeared to be a total loss of control. The craft may have ended up as a twisted heap of wreckage but there could be no denying that the test had been a partial success.
The original plan had been to take lunch at a local inn but, on learning of our presence in the area, Darwin, who lived close by, had sent out a messenger to invite us to his residence. The invitation was unanimously accepted and so we set off into what had turned out to be a delightfully sunny afternoon.
Down House had almost too many windows to count staring out from its bright white walls. Over time various wings and additions, including a hexagonal half-turret, had been added to what had originally been a simple Georgian house. The charm of the place was to be found in its extensive garden, where the lawns and paths were bordered by flowers and shrubs from all corners of the world, many of them, explained
Darwin, brought back from his travels overseas. After coming out to greet us our host was happy to lead a tour of the grounds, during which he informed us that much of his thinking was done while walking in the garden or tending his blooms; indeed, their diverse forms had proved an inspiration while developing his theory of evolution.
Dropping a little behind the others, I fell in with Babbage, who for once seemed happy to entertain a rational conversation, and most illuminating it was too. But, as I should have perhaps expected, Darwin wasted little time in seeking me out and describing his latest symptoms. He now seemed convinced that the source of his various illnesses was an insect bite he suffered in South America. He had convinced himself of the accuracy of his self-diagnosis, but I couldn’t help but conclude that his many symptoms were more likely to be the result of a highly nervous disposition. This theory seemed all the more persuasive when he went on to explain how very uncomfortable he felt about the controversy his theory had caused.
‘I have barely been able to open a newspaper since my presentation at the Royal Society,’ he said, as we caught up with the rest of the party. His description of the particularly unpleasant mauling meted out by members of the Church brought to mind the Spanish Inquisition. ‘Very unfortunate indeed,’ recalled Brodie, who, it transpired, had barely been able to keep order, despite carrying the authority of society president. I could not imagine such a thing happening at a meeting of the Lazarus Club – Babbage’s occasional outbursts notwithstanding, of course. It was obvious, though, that Darwin found the garden a very calming place, and before long the conversation had turned to the role of plant extracts in medicine.
Our tour complete, we congregated beneath a glass awning attached to the side of the house, where we were served tea and sandwiches and continued to enjoy the tranquillity of the garden. Not surprisingly, our discussion turned to the test flight. Unfortunately Stringfellow was not with us to join in the debate about the future of the flying machine, as he had chosen to stay behind and oversee the packing up of his damaged prototype. There could be little doubt that the manned machine had flown, at least for a short time, but not everyone was impressed.
‘If God had meant man to fly he would have given him wings,’ proclaimed the reliably cantankerous Babbage, though judging from his walking-on-water shoes he wasn’t above a little blasphemy himself. With that said he returned to his examination of the contents of several sandwiches, presumably in an attempt to find one suited to his sensitive palate.
‘They would certainly need to be more durable than those provided by Stringfellow,’ commented the ever pragmatic Gurney.
‘What do you think, Darwin?’ asked Brodie, who to my surprise appeared to have enjoyed his morning on the hill. ‘Was man ever meant to fly?’
Darwin waited for his mouth to clear of smoked salmon before offering an answer. ‘There is no evidence to suggest anything of the sort in our own evolutionary line. I think the birds we see today are most likely to have evolved from primitive lizards, and it’s a view shared by my friend Mr Huxley – you must get him to give a talk to your club one day, Sir Benjamin – a little slow at first to take on board my ideas but a fascinating fellow and a very good speaker.’ Brodie nodded at the suggestion. ‘But that said,’ Darwin continued, ‘from what you tell me of Mr Stringfellow’s contraption it sounds feasible that our species will one day fly, not because we will evolve wings but as a result of our own ingenuity, and that will obviously be a byproduct of our advanced evolutionary state.’
‘A good point,’ said Catchpole, who due to a shortage of chairs had, like me, been happy enough to stand. ‘But what do we mean when we refer to “man”? Surely we cannot regard the entire human race as a single entity made up of individuals of equal status. Is it not the case that some of our species, and I include ourselves here, have advanced greatly, while the vast majority have not?’
‘I don’t follow your meaning, Lord Catchpole,’ said Darwin, who I suspect understood his meaning only too well.
‘Why, here we are, a small, elite group, discussing the finer points of human ingenuity while the vast majority of the population are concerned about little more than where their next meal is coming from.’
‘That may be, but surely as an industrialist you should know that the disparity is due to economic and social factors and not a result of people existing on a lower branch of the evolutionary tree?’
If he did he didn’t want to admit it. ‘I very much doubt that those factors are enough to explain why one class is naturally superior to another, why one race would allow itself to be enslaved by another.’
‘I take it you refer here to the African slaves who pick your cotton in America?’
‘Among others, yes.’
Whitworth seemed set to say something but I interjected before him. ‘Sir, with all due respect, slavery is an abomination and I find your attempts to legitimize it by using Mr Darwin’s theories highly distasteful.’
I caught a momentary flash of contempt before Catchpole responded in his normal, measured tone. ‘I was merely using Mr Darwin’s argument to suggest that evolution is as responsible for the things men do, be it flying or taking slaves, as it is for giving feathers and wings to birds.’
Darwin scowled, his thick eyebrows curling upwards like a pair of pugilistic caterpillars. ‘I have to agree with Dr Phillips when he says you are misrepresenting my ideas, Lord Catchpole, though I am sure you will not be the last to use evolutionary theory to set one race or class above another. I have opened a Pandora’s box; of that much I am certain. Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I am feeling a little liverish and would like to rest.’
‘Well said, Phillips,’ whispered Ockham as he fell in beside me and watched Catchpole stride towards our waiting carriages.
‘Do you think he’s our man?’ I asked.
Ockham shook his head. ‘He may lack compassion but that doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer. If it did then most of the people we know would have been strung up at Newgate by now.’
He was right of course. ‘I suppose there is little room for compassion when you’re running a business empire as large as his.’
‘Soft heart never won hard cash, as they say. Perhaps Darwin just needs to evolve a thicker skin.’
I tried to raise a laugh but couldn’t get over the disappointment that we were no nearer to learning the identity of Wilkie’s killer.
23
Miss Nightingale was in my office, where to my surprise she had just given me leave to address her as Florence, though she immediately threatened to withdraw the privilege when I suggested shortening it to Flo. Her edict also came with the caveat that I was to revert to the less familiar form when we were in company. ‘And you shall call me George,’ I told her in return.
It was no coincidence that this announcement arrived on the back of very good news.
‘They want to build a new station!’ Florence had announced, waving the letter from the Charing Cross Railway Company. Why this proposal should inspire such rejoicing was at first a mystery to me, but then she went on to explain that the company wanted to build the station on the site of the hospital, but only after purchasing it for a more than fair price. ‘We can build a new hospital,’ she said, jumping up and down in her excitement. I snatched the letter from her and read it for myself. The money would certainly go a long way to fulfilling her dream.
‘Progress begets progress,’ I said. ‘No more going cap in hand, for a penny piece here and a penny piece there.’
Our conversation was halted by a knock at the door, followed by William’s entrance. True to form, he displayed no discomfort at interrupting my meeting with Florence, who with his arrival had reverted to being Miss Nightingale, though he habitually addressed her with an almost regal ‘ma’am’.
‘Sir Benjamin’s on the warpath; there’s a key gone missin’ from Mumrill’s office,’ he said, closing the door behind him.
‘It sounds like our friend Mumrill has been a little c
areless with his charges,’ I replied, having known full well that my failure to return the key would eventually have a consequence.
William looked at me knowingly. ‘The boss is in a right old mood. You might want to stay out of his way.’
‘Thank you for the warning,’ said Florence, ‘but I think the news we have for Sir Benjamin will put a missing key into perspective.’
‘I wish you well,’ said William as he made to leave, ‘but I for one will be keeping out of his way for the rest of the day.’
Brodie caught up with us not long after. Mumrill was highly agitated and the hard-hearted part of me was pleased to see that he would inevitably take the blame for the missing key. As Florence had predicted, however, Brodie was most interested to hear our news, and it was agreed that a meeting should be set up between ourselves and the potential purchasers as soon as possible. With Brodie’s departure Florence and I parted ways and returned to our business, mine revolving around a cadaver laid out on the dissection table.
The next formal meeting of the Lazarus Club was to be held two days later, and I had agreed with Ockham that despite drawing a blank thus far we would once again attend in the hope of picking up even the slightest hint of a clue as to the identity of Wilkie’s assassins, but this time we had one further aim. Having agreed that the killers must have long been aware of the viscount’s interest in the device and by now must surely have realized he had taken possession, it could therefore be only a matter of time before they made their move. Our hope therefore was to buy time by convincing our fellow Lazarians that the mechanical heart was not yet complete and in doing so to postpone a confrontation between them and us – our preference obviously being to learn their identity while we were still alive to act on the information. How this bluff was to be achieved we had not yet agreed, though we had toyed with the idea of staging a private conversation for public consumption. As it happened, though, events were to intervene before we had a chance to test our joint talents at subterfuge.
