A Fatal Likeness

by Lynn Shepherd

  He gestures to a chair, but she shakes her head. “I am told, sir, that you are the most competent thief taker in London. That if any man can discover the truth of a mystery, that man is you.”

  Maddox glances at her, more coolly now, and elects to take a chair himself. “Immodest though it may be to admit it, I do indeed believe that to be so, Miss—?”

  “Godwin. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.”

  She pronounces the names as if they were honorifics. Which, in a manner, they are. Badges of an intellectual lineage such as few can boast. That proud set of the head explains itself now. She, meanwhile, has been observing his reaction and noted the recognition in his eyes. She cannot have expected an uncouth man, not living in this house, in this street, but it seems she may not have envisaged such a well-informed one.

  “I imagine,” she continues, a little less confidently, “that the mysteries you resolve are of many different classes. That in one case it might be the identity of a killer, whereas in another a matter as minor as the recovery of a stolen watch.”

  Maddox puts his fingers together, intrigued as to where this may lead. She is circling the room now, just as she appears to be circling the subject.

  “And some, I presume, fall easily into no recognised category—may even defy rational explanation.”

  “Such as, Miss Godwin?”

  She flushes slightly, a flicker of blood under her pale skin. “Such as—for example—if one found oneself haunted—persecuted, even—by an individual, or individuals, without any—who have no—”

  She falters, and her face reddens again.

  “You are the subject of such a persecution, Miss Godwin? Or perhaps your father? I understand his views are deemed by some—”

  But she is shaking her head. “No, not my father, my—that is—my—”

  Her hand flutters—the left hand, that bears no ring—and comes to rest at her belly. It is the smallest of gestures, and at least half unconscious, but Maddox is well versed in the reading of such signs, and beneath her protecting hand he can see now the tiny, almost imperceptible curve of a three-or four-months’ child. There is a silence, and then she appears to come to a decision. “Do you know the name of Percy Bysshe Shelley?” she says, her chin lifting.

  Maddox nods. “I have heard it.” Not in any positive context, it must be said, but he elects not to say so.

  “He is a poet,” she continues, “perhaps the finest our age will ever see. But the greatness of his soul is matched by an almost equal infirmity of body. His health is weak, and he is prey to the most violent and fearful spasms of the nerves. And were that not trial enough, he has been subjected to the most wicked and contemptible pursuit by a villain who will not even show his face. We thought a six-weeks’ absence from England would bring it finally to an end, but it has started again—only this week—only yesterday—”

  She turns away from him now, and leans her hand on the back of a chair. It’s clear she will not allow herself the relief of tears. Maddox respects her attempt at dignity by offering neither salts nor handkerchief, though he has both about him.

  “I am sure,” he begins, “that you did not come here for sympathy, but for assistance. Assistance founded on rigour of thought and prior experience of handling like cases. And therefore I will tell you at once that the likelihood of apprehending such a man will depend in large part on his motivation in undertaking such a course of action.”

  “What do you mean?” she says, turning back to face him.

  “From what you have said, there has been no attempt at extortion in this case—no endeavour to obtain monies by offering to desist. This leaves only two possibilities. The culprit is either a wronged man seeking revenge, or an evil one intent merely on inflicting harm.”

  He expects her to respond at once to this—indeed he formed his words with just such a test in mind—but to his surprise she merely reddens again and turns away.

  “A man in quest of what he deems to be a righteous vengeance,” he continues, “will persist until he achieves it, whatever the difficulties that may lie in his way. A mere mischief-maker has not that motive, and his persecution will not, therefore, endure. You may think that such a point is mere casuistry, but I am sure a very little thought will reveal to you the significance of such a distinction. For the former may be traced by the meticulous application of logic, whereas the latter may never be traced, his choice of victim being determined, in many such cases, by mere caprice. Hence,” he concludes, “I raise the point with you now. Because I assume that is why you are here, Miss Godwin—to ask my assistance in identifying this man?”

  She faces him once more, her self-command reclaimed. “Mr Shelley has many enemies. A man of his genius, who passionately opposes religious and political oppression in all its forms, and has the courage to speak out against such acts of tyranny, will always find himself impugned by bigots, and cast forth as a criminal by those unable to appreciate the sublime truth of his opinions.”

  Maddox nods slowly. “I am afraid I can only concur. But I have found, in long years of conducting this profession, that even the most extreme invective the newspapers can express translates but rarely into such a campaign of harassment as you have described. What explanation does Mr Shelley himself offer for these attacks?”

  “He believes they are the work of a quarry-owner named Robert Leeson. Shelley encountered him nearly two years since, when he was living in Wales. At Tremadoc.”

  She sighs. “It is a complex story, and my own knowledge of it is limited, but I do know that Shelley became entangled in a scheme to build a new sea-wall and drain the land behind. He believed the work would be to the benefit of the common people living thereabouts, but he became incensed when he saw this Leeson brutalising the labourers. Relations between the two of them worsened, and there was, in the end, the most dreadful assault one night, which all but cost Shelley his life. He left the house the next day without staying even to pack. But that being the case I do not see why the man should still pursue him now, so many months later, and so many miles away. It defies reason.”

  “I am inclined to agree. I do not have sufficient facts at my disposal for a categorical assertion, but it would appear to be most unlikely. And you can think of no other instance—no event in the past or action on Mr Shelley’s part—that might have prompted some other individual to pursue a retribution of so personal a nature?”

  She shakes her head. “I know of nothing.”

  And he believes her. There is no-one better skilled at discerning the involuntary movements by which the body of a liar betrays the lie, but Maddox sees none of them now. Mary Godwin is holding his gaze with a remarkable steadiness. And so, he thinks, she does not yet comprehend what lies at the root of this, but she knows it is no random act of gratuitous malice. Maddox wonders, for a moment, how well she really knows this man she speaks of—this man to whom she has dedicated her life, and for whom she must have risked both private censure and public ostracism.

  “What form, Miss Godwin, do these incidents of persecution customarily take? Have there been other menaces of physical violence? A threatening correspondence?”

  “Not the latter, I think,” she answers. “But I can speak with certainty only of the most recent occurrences, since our return from France. Thrice now Shelley says he has seen the same man in the street. But each time he attempts to accost him the man has gone—it is, Shelley says, like the fiend of a distempered dream that haunts him, leading him forth into a teeming darkness.”

  “I see,” says Maddox, tempted to smile but recalling that the man is, after all, a poet. “And you have not seen this stranger yourself?”

  “No—neither Claire nor I have had sight of him. And she has been out abroad with Shelley far oftener than I.” If there is the faintest hint of bitterness here, she must have heard it in her own voice for she moves quickly to erase it. “Claire is my stepsister. She lodges with us at present, and as I have often been ill of late, it is only reasonable that Shelle
y should take his afternoon walks with her.”

  “I am sure,” says Maddox, but he is not deceived. Any more than he is yet convinced that this alleged persecution is anything other than a mental phenomenon, the delirium of an overheated fancy.

  “I know what you are thinking,” she says suddenly. “You are thinking that Shelley has imagined it all—that none of it is real. I concede his nerves have been somewhat overwrought of late—that he has not been—entirely himself—but I can assure you—I have seen him after he has returned from these encounters, and I tell you no man could look so under the influence of mere phantasy. He can scarcely breathe—writhes upon the floor, his eyes frantic and his forehead beaded with sweat.”

  Which is not, in itself, sufficient to persuade Maddox, who knows only too well that physical symptoms are not always the consequence of a physical cause. But he chooses not to pursue the point; at least not yet.

  “I believe, all things considered,” he says instead, “that I should talk of these matters with Mr Shelley myself. Information from a third party—however well intentioned, or indeed intelligent—is never the best way to obtain and analyse evidence.”

  She is caught now, he can see that, and one of his suppositions is confirmed: This visit of hers has been taken on her own initiative, and in secret.

  “That is,” he continues steadily, “if you are indeed decided to commission my services. Have you been informed as to my rates?”

  She flushes again. “I have—that is, that man—”

  “George Fraser. One of my close assistants. He will keep an account and render a copy to you each week for payment. I trust you are in a position to honour such a debt? My time is valuable and I do not care to waste it on clients who cannot pay.”

  It was, perhaps, a little condescending, and he sees at once that she will not brook such disdain. “Mr Shelley, sir, is the son of a baronet. He has ample means at his disposal.”

  “I am very glad to hear it. You may, then, expect a call from me in two days.”

  “You could come tomorrow if you wish, we will be at home.”

  Maddox shakes his head, and goes to the bell. “I regret I have other business that will claim my attention tomorrow. But I will call promptly on Saturday morning.”

  He has, in fact, no plans of a definite nature to absorb his Friday, but he makes a point of conducting an investigation of his clients before embarking upon any such investigation on their behalf. And there is something about this case that is already making him uneasy. He cannot define what it is, but it is there, and he has learned that such intuitions are not to be despised.

  Fraser appearing now at the door, Maddox makes a bow. “Good day to you, Miss Godwin.”

  Friday dawns clear and bright, and begins with a breakfast of chocolate and hot rolls, followed by a brisk walk up the Strand to Bow Street. So it will surprise you, I think, that when we next find Maddox he is not in consultation with his former colleagues among the Runners, but seated in a stiff gilt chair in an extremely imposing panelled room in Whitehall, in the company of the Home Secretary. Also in attendance we have a short man in a dour and anonymous suit of black, who gives his name as Sir Henry Pearson, and has before him a large pile of notes and correspondence. Opening pleasantries have clearly been conducted, and it is time to attend to business.

  “Here is the first reference to the individual in question,” begins Sir Henry, scanning the papers. “It appears in a report describing a meeting of revolutionary subversives in Dublin in February of the year ’12. A certain ‘young boy’ seems to have made quite an impact, speaking for over an hour on the crimes supposedly committed by the corrupt English Crown upon the Irish. A people, incidentally, the same young man was shortly to describe as a ‘mass of animated filth.’ ”

  The words are sardonic, but the tone curiously flat. He turns a page. “I also have a copy of a pamphlet by the aforementioned boy, and an incendiary letter written by the same to the Dublin Weekly Examiner. It appears this young radical was showing all the signs of becoming a veritable thorn in our sides, but only six weeks after his arrival in Ireland he decamped on a sudden to Wales, sending ahead of him a large box of frankly treasonable material, which thanks to chance and a signal failure to pay adequate postage, we intercepted at Holyhead. I believe, my Lord,” he says, looking up over his spectacles at the Home Secretary, “that this was the first time the name Shelley came to your attention?”

  “Indeed,” says Lord Sidmouth. He is a parched, thin-cheeked man with sallow skin and narrow rather simian eyes. “I determined, upon advisement, and in consideration of his legal minority, that no prosecution should be put immediately in train, but that the subject should be monitored for further evidence of seditious intent.”

  “An agent was accordingly assigned,” resumes Sir Henry, “to gather intelligence as to this Shelley’s associates, and intercept his correspondence. However, it seems he may have become aware of this surveillance, since he soon moved once more, this time south to Lynmouth, where his party attracted considerable attention on arrival, due to the large number of heavy wooden chests in his possession, and the vast number of letters he dispatched about the country. Our agent was here able to observe his insurrectionary activities at first hand, since Shelley elected to convey his inflammatory messages either by launching them upon the sea in bottles and toy boats, or floating them into the air by means of—” He stops a moment, and scans the page again, as if distrusting his own eyes. “—fire balloons.”

  He coughs; a small sound, but one he manages to endow with a whole world of disdain. “Other such material was posted about the countryside on trees and farm buildings, though this particular task—whether from guile or indolence—he consigned to his luckless servant, who was promptly arrested and fined. The sum of two hundred pounds being clearly far beyond the foolish man’s purse, he was committed to a six-months’ imprisonment. The true purpose of this proceeding was, as you will no doubt have guessed, to smoke Shelley from his lair. But contrary to all expectation—and his own sanctimonious rhetoric as to the necessity of assisting the ‘opprest and poor’—he refused to pay his servant’s fine and fled the district, leaving his unlucky underling to languish out his sentence in the Barnstaple jail. Further enquiries were instructed by Your Lordship”—this with a nod to Sidmouth—“but due to an unpardonable lapse on the part of our then agent in the town, we lost all trace of him. Indeed it was not until the unfortunate servant was finally freed that we were able to gain any intelligence as to Shelley’s whereabouts, for the man was dull-witted enough to lead us straight to his master, who was then residing at a house called—” He turns the pages and looks closer. “—Tan-yr-allt, if my pronunciation is correct, in Tremadoc, on the coast of North Wales.”

  There is a silence as a servant appears at the door with a message for the Home Secretary, who makes his excuses (“a matter of State”), bows, and departs. The servant is dispatched for coffee, and returns a few moments later with a silver tray. As the coffee is poured, we might take advantage of the pause and consider what we have heard. That so inconsequential a figure as the nineteen-year-old Shelley should have provoked so comprehensive an intelligence operation sounds, at first, incomprehensible. But you must remember that this is a time of riots, and machine-breaking, and the threat of invasion. A time of all-too-recent revolution in Europe, and the simmering suggestion of it still in England. A time when new ideas are suppressed as ruthlessly as insurrections, and those—like Shelley—who choose to publish them might well find themselves damned for it, if not hanged. You must remember, too, that even if Shelley’s political effusions appear preposterously impractical and incoherent now, they would certainly not have seemed so at the time.

  Maddox, meanwhile, has made a few notes in his book, and waits until the door closes behind the departing servant to turn to Sir Henry.

  “As to the matter of Tremadoc,” he begins, but Sir Henry holds up a hand.

  “We will come to that in its due
place. I think you would find it instructive to hear what else our agents were able to discover as to the previous history and character of this man Shelley.”

  Maddox bows; he is familiar with the ways of those of Sir Henry’s calling, and indulging the man’s pomposity is a small price to pay for the quality of information he is able to bestow. “I would be most obliged.”

  “Enquiries were put on foot in his native Sussex, as in Oxford, whence he had been expelled after but two terms on a charge of atheism.”

  Maddox raises an eyebrow, but makes no comment.

  “It is not, I have to say, a very pretty tale they had to tell,” continues Sir Henry. “It seems Shelley is of an extremely excitable temper, and has been subject since boyhood to violent paroxysms of anger, most especially when contradicted or opposed. Conversely, as you might say, he has suffered repeated and extended periods of somnambulism. One acquaintance related a tale of his being discovered in Leicester Square at five o’clock one morning, dirty and dishevelled, and unable to give any account of how he got there. He will likewise—and this may prove to be significant—construct elaborate stories that bear all the appearance of truth, and which he himself appears to believe, but which are utter fabrications from first to last. This curious mania of his may lie behind an accusation of adultery directed at his own mother, and an oft-expressed conviction that his father wished to have him committed to a madhouse as a child; though on the latter count it seems there was indeed a period of some weeks during which he was kept under lock and key away from the rest of the household, which might suggest a genuine lunatic episode. Whatever the truth of it, had I been Sir Timothy I might well have considered such an expedient. The boy was not yet thirteen when he attempted to blow up his school with gun-powder. His vacation pursuits appear to have included setting fire to the house, and torturing the family cat. He even,” he concludes dryly, “composed a poem on the subject.”

  Maddox looks up; it’s not the first time a man he is investigating has exhibited such characteristics as a child; indeed it has struck him more than once how many murderers begin their descent into crime with the ill-treatment of animals, and the setting of fires. But Shelley, surely, is not a murderer. He writes a few words in his book, aware that the room has fallen silent.