by Chris James
‘Yes, Papa.’ But I knew that if Her Majesty would just listen for a moment or two, she would delay any execution before a full investigation of Nicolas Flamel had been undertaken – and perhaps demand a retrial. Whether she could or not, I had no idea. I decided to bide my time and take control of negotiations at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, I had uncovered no more evidence to support my assumption of the professor’s immortality but with Papa’s offer to help, and the Queen’s unlimited resources, I imagined anything was possible.
A balding personal private secretary bowed and shook hands with Papa, like they were old friends. ‘Robert, how nice to see you again. And this is…?’ he queried, obviously not expecting other guests.
‘My daughter, Lizzie.’ I curtsied. He smiled. ‘Her Majesty suggested bring her along, she hasn’t seen her since she was a baby,’ Papa said.
‘Excellent, excellent. Now, I’ve managed to fit you in for seven minutes between the Prime Minister and an Indian Maharaja.’
‘Seven minutes? But this is about a man’s life. I would hope any life is worth more than seven minutes.’
‘Her Majesty’s schedule is extremely tight, Robert. If she likes what she’s hearing you’ll find time is of no object. She won’t mind keeping anyone waiting provided she is being, shall I say, entertained?’ Papa smiled at me. ‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the secretary as he led the way through the splendour that was Buckingham Palace. ‘We’re in the Green Room.’
Her Majesty was seated at an ornate writing bureau as we entered, wearing a wonderful black satin dress with a sparkling diamond necklace. She looked radiant and stood to greet us, the effort appearing to give the elderly monarch some pain.
‘Bobby, oh do come in, it’s been so long and…’ after giving me a delightful smile, ‘this is your dear Lizzie. My, how you have grown, my child.’ I curtsied deeply but she was having none of that. She took my hand and led me over to a table laden with portraits of her extended family. ‘Goodness, surely we can find someone here who would adore such a sweet gel?’
Papa laughed, bowing respectfully. ‘An honour, Your Majesty.’
Pointing at various photographic portraits, Her Majesty commanded I stare at them until I was confident I had found the right man, after which she would order him back from wherever he was in the world to come and sweep me off my feet. I was flattered.
‘But Bobby, what is it that is so urgent?’ she said, as she took a place on the sofa, patting it for him to sit beside her.
I was so proud of Papa at that moment as he presented his case, knowing it was what I had desired.
‘Ma’am, it’s this boy…’
In Pentonville Prison, two legs in grey-flannel trousers dragged to the centre of a windowless room. A pair of polished boots either side ensured the legs shuffled onto a cross chalked onto the bare-boarded floor. A padre said prayers.
‘They’re going to hang him, any minute, Ma’am. We must stop it!’ Papa explained.
I noticed a newspaper headline over on the bureau: ‘Silver Hangs Today’.
‘Ah, the alchemist. Such imagination! Eternal life,’ the Queen said. She threw her hands up to the ceiling, in praise, ‘If only!’
‘But I know so much more about him now. We really can’t afford to lose the boy, Ma’am,’ Papa urged, pulling out a sheath of letters. ‘These pleas are from notable scientists begging your majesty to intervene. Monsieur Simond of the Pasteur Institute says: “The solution to plague is close, thanks to Jacob Silver”; Alexandre Yersin: “Jacob Silver saved us ten years in understanding diphtheria”; Marie Curie, Ma’am: “Mr Silver’s knowledge of radioactivity and X-rays was far in advance of my own theories.” ’ He flicked through more letters. ‘The list goes on and on, Ma’am. They beg you–’
‘Enough!’ the Queen commanded, raising her hand. ‘I hear you.’ She stood and went over to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, hanging on the green satin wall amid a dozen other portraits of her ancestors. Papa stood beside her, resplendent in his high collar and tails.
‘She was rumoured to have had her own alchemist, you know. Turned lead into gold. Heaven knows what she did with it all.’
Papa followed her back to the sofa and offered her his hand as she sat down. ‘I could stop it, Bobby. But there’d be a public outrage. Could do without a revolution this time in my life, thank you very much. Mind, if there were a solution...’ A footman knocked, entered and bowed, then led in a maid with a silver tray. ‘You’ll stay for tea?’
‘ ’Fraid not, Ma’am,’ Papa said, taking my hand and bowing quickly. ‘I need to hurry. We may already be too late. If you’ll excuse us, Your Majesty?’
‘No revolution, Bobby. I implore you!’ Her Majesty called out as we left.
A noose passed over Jacob’s head, the knot slid tight to the back of his neck.
‘I’M INNOCENT, I TELL YOU! You’ll rot in hell, the lot of you!’ he cried out before cotton wool was stuffed into his mouth.
A bag was pulled over his head. No more talk. No more delays. The job had to be done.
His whole body trembled.
A puddle of urine formed at his feet.
BANG!
The trapdoor.
Jacob’s body plummeted ten feet.
The taught rope quivered.
The padre and hangman looked skyward and begged forgiveness for what they had done.
After some moments, the rope snaked down the hatch and lay on the body.
The trapdoor closed back up on a genius dispatched.
Outside the prison, an officer pinned a notice to a board. The deed was done.
A mob cheered. Family hugged aggrieved mothers.
Lizzie Weston watched the elderly Mrs Muxlow sitting alone in her carriage under her black veil, her face betraying just one emotion:
Vengeance at last.
As the sun set, a plain wooden box was lowered into a hole. A stick with a painted name appealed for some higher authority to come for the soul of one: ‘Jacob Silver ~ Murderer’.
Lizzie Weston arrived home that afternoon heartbroken. Her father had tried, tried harder than most would dare. But he had failed to save the man she loved, he told her.
‘You must now forget this man, Lizzie. Live your own life to the full. He was not right for you, and now justice has been served you need to accept things the way they are. He has gone, and will never return. Don’t waste away your life mourning someone who didn’t deserve you. I beg you. Life is too short,’ he said solemnly.
But Lizzie wanted to mourn – and mourn alone.
She locked herself in her room.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Telephone call for you, ma’am,’ Millie, her maid said, popping her head inside the door.
Lizzie went downstairs to take the call.
‘Miss Weston? Lizzie Weston?’ the caller asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘this is Miss Weston. Who is this, may I ask?’
‘My name’s Pollock, Elizabeth Pollock. They call me Betsy. You came and saw my sister, asking about my mother. I wondered what it was about.’
Chapter 27
‘This one, m’lady,’ said the ruffian carrying the lantern. ‘The soil’s packed down ’ard, I tell yer.’
‘You brought shovels?’ she asked. They had. ‘Then please dig. We need to hurry.’
Lizzie Weston waited nervously as the three men shovelled away at her beloved’s grave in the darkness. It would cost her dearly for their services, but she would pay eagerly.
While they dug she kept watch over her shoulder, anxious they be discovered, all the while her mind in turmoil over what Betsy had told her.
When Betsy had telephoned and Lizzie explained that the purpose of her enquiry was Jacob Silver, Betsy became frightened and disconnected the call. Undeterred, Lizzie had travelled to Highgate, arriving late at night. Her coachman forced Betsy to let Lizzie in.
Betsy confessed everything: how she had helped the professor in addicting Jacob to
convince him Emily was alive; how she had cleared up the bloodied remains after the professor murdered Jacob’s models.
Asked why she had left Jacob to be arrested and stand trial, Betsy replied: ‘The professor threatened to kill me and my sister, if I didn’t go along with it.’
‘And now Jacob is dead. They’ve hung an innocent man,’ Lizzie groaned. ‘The professor got away with murder.’
‘Yes, but no harm’ll come to Jacob, the professor told me,’ Betsy said, taking Lizzie’s hand between her dimpled fingers, ‘You see, the professor needed to prove the elixir worked. If it did, he would use it to resurrect someone special, he said.’
‘And who was this someone special?’ Lizzie asked her. ‘Who was so important that had him murder all those poor women?’
‘His wife,’ she said. ‘He missed her so. It’d been a long time, he said. So Master Jacob was fed the elixir. “His last examination,” the professor said. “A test. If he got it right, no harm’ll ever come to him.” ’ She squeezed Lizzie’s hands and stared into her eyes. ‘I tell you, duck, he wouldn’t’ve suffered none. He’ll be as right as rain. The professor said: “They might think they’ve killed him when they dangle him on the end of a rope, but he’s immortal.” He’ll be back, don’t you worry, deary.’
They had been digging for an hour when a cheap pine coffin lid was revealed in the glow from the lantern.
‘Let me,’ the fattest of the three cried, shocking them as he slithered down into the hole.
He smote the thin coffin lid with a shovel, splitting it from end to end. He struck again, splintering a gaping hole in the top. He reached through into the hole and yanked back half the lid at the head end, shuddering at the blackness revealed inside and averting his eyes. He reached for the lantern and crossed himself, his lips moving in quiet prayer. Squeezing his eyes shut, he raised his head and made no attempt to peer inside.
Lizzie gasped.
Her knees quivered at the edge of the grave.
The two diggers held onto her, lest she fall in.
‘We’re finished,’ she said. ‘Cover it back up.’
Opening his eyes again, the fat man quickly replaced the broken lid and the three of them shovelled earth back over the coffin.
Back at the hole in the fence, Lizzie thanked them, paid them handsomely, conditional on their silence, and bade them farewell.
‘Nobody need know we were ever here, you understand?’ They grunted happily and dissolved into the blackness.
‘Did you look, Bert?’ one of the diggers asked the fat man.
‘What? And be struck by lightning?’ Lizzie heard him reply.
She found her carriage and, after donating her muddied outer clothing to a passing beggar, began the journey home.
Lizzie considered how she might broach the subject with her father, having convinced him she had taken his advice and forgotten Jacob Silver. But regardless of his sentiments, she was adamant that what she had done this night had to be done – after Betsy Pollock had told her story.
Invading the prison graveyard would be difficult enough to explain, but what she discovered there would certainly prove harder.
But for some bags of sand, the coffin of Jacob Silver ~ Murderer, was empty.
The M’Naughten Rule – 1843
The right-wrong test
“Every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of mind, and not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.”
(Queen v. M'Naghten, 8 Eng. Rep. 718 [1843])
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris James was a murder squad detective in the UK and has studied criminology most of his adult life. Alchemy is his debut novel.
He currently lives in Mallorca, in the Mediterranean where it is rumoured he is 297 years old.
Also by Chris James
ALCHEMY – turning Silver to Gold
(the sequel)
Screenplays:
CLASSIFIED: Viper
Miracle Cures
Honey
Doing Time
Tottenham Rules
Alchemy
Adolf’s Queen of Queens
Find My Perfect Hag
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