Ruler of the Night

by David Morrell

  “I can process the loan so that no one knows who requires the money,” Edward assured him. “But the financiers will ask for collateral.”

  “Do you think they’d consider accepting my railway stocks as collateral?”

  “Because those stocks have lost considerable value, the financiers will probably require your mining, manufacturing, and shipping stocks as additional collateral. Perhaps…”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “To prevent anyone from knowing about this, I’ll finance the loan myself.”

  At Whitehall’s police station, the grizzled jailer listened with great interest as Ryan removed Harold’s handcuffs and explained the charges against him.

  “Smothered your father, did ya?” the wizened man asked. “Whipped your father’s widow and then the widow’s mother, just to be thorough?”

  “All right, I admit to whipping them,” Harold conceded, “but I had nothing to do with—”

  “He also whipped a good friend of mine,” Ryan said. “Cut her face.”

  “Thorough indeed,” the jailer declared.

  “This is lunacy! Wait until the home secretary hears what you’ve done to me!” Harold protested.

  “I’ll make certain that Sir George knows,” Ryan said. “He’ll be interested to learn about your brother also.”

  “My brother?”

  “Two years ago, you and he went on holiday to a casino in the German States, but only you came back, I’ve been told. You claimed that your brother died from typhoid fever, but you didn’t have a death certificate.”

  “The death certificate was in a travel bag that someone stole from a lodging house where I stayed!” Harold responded.

  “Well, I’m certain that a telegram to the German police will confirm the cause of death,” Ryan said. “But in case it doesn’t, a jury might conclude that you killed your older brother so that you could replace him as the heir to your father’s estate. Last night, after two years of waiting, you lost patience and killed your father also. Why don’t you ease your conscience and admit it, Harold?”

  “Stop calling me Harold! I’m Lord Cavendale!”

  The jailer grinned, revealing gaps in his teeth. “We’re not accustomed to peers visitin’ us. My lord, I have a special cell for you. Step this way. Down at the end on the right. What makes it special is it don’t have any drafts.”

  “No drafts?” Harold asked.

  “Because it don’t have a window. If you ask me, it’s better to sit in the dark than in a draft.”

  “I want to see my lawyer!”

  “Your lawyer’s dead,” Ryan pointed out.

  “Then send for someone in his firm!”

  The jailer scratched his hairless scalp. “Do you see any messengers here waitin’ to be sent on errands?”

  “Never mind. I’ll send a messenger,” Becker said. He’d been standing in the background, listening to the conversation.

  Ryan turned to him in surprise.

  Becker shrugged, explaining, “If we give him every advantage, the evidence will look even stronger.”

  “Evidence he admits he tampered with,” Ryan said.

  “Tampered with evidence, did ya, my lord?” the jailer asked Harold, leading him along a corridor of cells. “Busy, busy.”

  Number 10 Downing Street dated back to the 1600s, when Sir Richard Downing built a row of town houses near Parliament. Three of the houses had been combined into a warren of one hundred rooms that formed the prime minister’s offices and living quarters, but prime ministers seldom lived there because the ground was so soft that the floors sank, the walls tilted, and the fireplaces buckled.

  Sitting dismally behind his desk, Lord Palmerston stared at a crack in the wainscoting across from him, a crack that seemed to have widened since he’d become prime minister.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Enter,” he said wearily.

  An assistant stepped inside. “Prime Minister, two police detectives are here to see you. They say you’re expecting them.”

  “Show them in,” Lord Palmerston said.

  “Two other people are with them, my lord.”

  “Two others?”

  “A short elderly man and a woman wearing what appear to be trousers under her skirt.”

  Lord Palmerston groaned. “Show them in also.”

  “Begging your pardon, Prime Minister, but the little man says that it would be better if he first spoke with you alone.”

  Lord Palmerston looked again at the crack in the wainscoting, which now seemed even wider.

  He sighed and nodded.

  De Quincey entered, clutching his laudanum bottle as if it were a talisman. “My lord, thank you for—”

  Something next to Lord Palmerston’s desk made De Quincey stop talking. The little man approached the wall.

  “What’s wrong?” Lord Palmerston asked.

  “This painting. It’s slightly askew.”

  De Quincey straightened it.

  “But this painting is askew also. And this one, and this one.”

  De Quincey proceeded along the wall and straightened all the paintings.

  “It won’t do any good,” Lord Palmerston said. “The soft earth beneath this building causes a shift in the walls. I myself have straightened those paintings several times since I became prime minister.”

  “With all the paintings tilted, my brain might make me believe that I was the one tilted,” De Quincey concluded. “Not realizing, I might start to lean sideways so that the paintings and I were in agreement.”

  “Yes, yes. What did you wish to discuss?”

  “My lord, there’s a German doctor who became famous for saving the life of a field-worker.”

  “I’m sure that’s fascinating, but please get to the—”

  “In the middle of the afternoon, the field-worker felt tired and lay down in the grass to have a nap. A defect in his nostrils required him to breathe through his mouth. While he slept with his mouth open, an adder slithered into it. As several of his friends approached to waken him, they witnessed the serpent’s tail disappearing into the field-worker’s mouth and down his throat.”

  Lord Palmerston tried not to show how troubled the story made him, although not because of the snake.

  “Naturally, there was a great outcry,” De Quincey continued. “The other field-workers ran into town, shouting to everyone they met about the terrible calamity that had seized their friend. They dreaded what would happen when the adder realized that it was trapped in the field-worker’s stomach. No doubt it would try to go back the way it had come, only to realize that some sort of obstacle—a stomach valve, but the serpent couldn’t know that—blocked it. Anger or fear would compel it to thrust its fangs into the resisting object. Surely the field-worker’s life could be measured only in minutes.”

  Lord Palmerston inwardly squirmed, aware of the story’s direction.

  “This happened in one of the German States. As fate would have it, a doctor was visiting the village. He hurried to an apothecary and then to the field-worker, who was by now awake, sweating in terror. The friends who’d remained with him kept warning him not to move in the slightest, lest he alarm the serpent coiled within his stomach. He lay rigidly, straining to keep his chest tight when he breathed. He felt the serpent shifting within him, tickling his stomach. His lips and mouth were dry with panic, but he didn’t dare drink anything to slake his terrible thirst.

  “The doctor amazed everyone by saying, ‘That is exactly what you must do. Drink.’ He opened a bottle that he’d obtained from the apothecary and made the victim swallow from it several times.

  “‘What’s in it?’ someone asked.

  “‘Laudanum,’ the doctor replied.

  “‘What? But the amount you forced him to drink will kill him!’ the victim’s friends objected.

  “‘Or else it will kill the snake,’ the doctor responded.

  “He forced the victim to lift his head and drink from the bottle sever
al more times. Finally, the field-worker moaned, lowered his head to the grass, and lost consciousness. When his body became still and breathless, his friends concluded that he was dead. They wept. They bemoaned the fact that God had created a world in which serpents existed. The allegory of Satan as a serpent wasn’t ignored. The doctor wasn’t ignored either. The crowd threatened to beat him or worse for killing their friend, but the doctor urged them to have faith. The sun sank. Darkness gathered. They covered the field-worker with a blanket, built a fire, and sat around him.

  “‘Trust my skills,’ the doctor told them.

  “The sun rose. The field-worker remained motionless. ‘Send to the next village for the minister. Bring the undertaker,’ the field-worker’s wife told his friends, weeping. But suddenly the field-worker moaned again. His fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered. His chest moved, and he drew a deep, anguished breath.

  “‘It’s a miracle!’ the wife exclaimed.

  “‘Yes, of medicine,’ the doctor told her.

  “The victim wasn’t able to work in the fields for the next two days. His wife prepared his favorite stew and tried to make him eat some of it, but he complained of a terrible fullness of the sort that follows a banquet. It was the dead adder, of course, which he evacuated from his bowels at the end of the second day.”

  De Quincey sipped from his laudanum bottle.

  “I see no point to your story unless you’re telling me that you believe your opium habit makes you immune to adders,” Lord Palmerston said.

  “The doctor’s name was Martin Wilhelm von Mandt,” De Quincey noted.

  “Mandt?” Lord Palmerston pretended to search his memory. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of—”

  “The incident made Dr. Mandt so famous in the German States that it was printed in many newspapers, several of which I was in the habit of reading when I lived in Edinburgh and I mingled with a small German enclave there as a way to retain my fluency in German.”

  “I really don’t have the time for this,” Lord Palmerston said, standing.

  “Indulge me a moment longer, my lord. The relevance will soon be obvious. The incident also made Dr. Mandt famous outside Germany, especially in Russia, where Czar Nicholas became so fascinated that he invited Mandt to his court at St. Petersburg and asked him to become his personal physician.”

  At the mention of Czar Nicholas, Lord Palmerston felt that the floor of his office was tilting.

  “Last night, at the water-cure clinic in Sedwick Hill, Emily and I encountered a German doctor,” De Quincey said.

  Lord Palmerston sank back into his chair.

  “So did Inspector Ryan and Sergeant Becker. The German doctor was terrified. Two Russians were searching for him—hunting him, in fact.”

  “Russians,” Lord Palmerston murmured.

  “A third Russian had also been searching for him, but the doctor later told me that when the Russian discovered him hiding in the clinic’s attic, the doctor stabbed him.”

  Lord Palmerston felt ill.

  “In the process, a lantern broke, and a fire started,” De Quincey added.

  Lord Palmerston now felt that he too had swallowed a serpent. “I know about the fire.”

  “The doctor spoke only German,” De Quincey emphasized. “In the company of Emily, Inspector Ryan, and Sergeant Becker, I was the only person with whom he could communicate. He told me something that I didn’t translate to the others.”

  “What was that?”

  “His name.”

  Lord Palmerston let out a long breath.

  “Emily, Inspector Ryan, and Sergeant Becker don’t know who he is. They have no idea that he’d been the principal physician to Czar Nicholas until the czar died two weeks ago. I can think of only one reason why angry Russians would pursue him all the way to England and make him frightened enough to hide. But it’s not something that I dare say aloud, even in the privacy of this office.”

  Lord Palmerston worked to keep his voice calm. “And where is Dr. Mandt now?”

  “To stop the Russians from hunting him, Inspector Ryan and Sergeant Becker made it seem that Mandt died in the fire. Ryan arranged for a coffin to be brought to what remained of the clinic. The coffin was then taken to the local undertaker’s shop, from which other coffins were soon dispatched, one to a train leaving for London, another to Lord Cavendale’s house. Alive or dead, Mandt had gone in so many possible directions that the Russians were powerless to pursue all of them. Meanwhile, Wainwright and Dr. Mandt assumed disguises and escaped.”

  “You refer to Dr. Wainwright?”

  “Wainwright is no more a doctor than the boy selling newspapers on the street corner. But he evidently has other skills. Mandt said at one point that if he survived the night, Wainwright would know where to take him.”

  Lord Palmerston hesitated, finally saying, “That is true.”

  “My lord, I came here to assure you that neither I nor Emily nor Inspector Ryan nor Sergeant Becker will ever reveal our suspicions about what happened at the water-cure clinic last night. In fact, Ryan and Becker helped your intentions by speeding Dr. Mandt on his way. Commissioner Mayne is totally ignorant about all of this. He believes that the coffin contains the corpse of an unidentified beggar who took shelter in the clinic during last night’s storm and accidentally set the place on fire. Your secret is safe. In turn, I hope that my daughter and the others are safe.”

  “You think I’d harm any of them in order to protect—”

  “My lord, like the paintings on your walls, the universe has tilted.”

  Lord Palmerston looked again at the crack in the wainscoting. “You have my word—no harm will come to them.”

  “Thank you, my lord. If I may be so bold as to inquire, was your tactic successful?”

  “You are fearless.”

  “I fear only for my daughter and my friends, Prime Minister. As for me, I told you six weeks ago that I’m the only man you know who has so little regard for himself that he’ll speak with you honestly.”

  Lord Palmerston stared at him for a long time.

  Finally he nodded. “The new czar doesn’t have the appetite for the war that his father did. There are signs that he cares less about the Crimea and more about the growing rebellion among his people because of food shortages caused by the war. We’re planning a new offensive. I predict that hostilities will conclude by this time next year.”

  “But you don’t sound jubilant, my lord.”

  “I’m reminded of something else you told me six weeks ago.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Absolute power is an absolute burden.”

  “Daniel Harcourt was your attorney, my lord. When you refused to allow the police to have access to the documents in his office, was it to conceal that Harcourt helped you with projects you didn’t wish anyone in the government to know about?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Then perhaps you can answer this. Was your motive for wanting Inspector Ryan and Sergeant Becker to stay away from the water-cure clinic motivated only by your need to prevent them from learning about Dr. Mandt?”

  “What other possible motive could I have had?”

  “Perhaps you suspect who killed Daniel Harcourt and you want to protect his murderer.”

  “Protect his…Good heavens, Daniel was a friend! It pained me to interfere in the investigation.”

  “Then you’ll no longer interfere now that Dr. Mandt is on his way to safety?” De Quincey asked. “Are Inspector Ryan, Sergeant Becker, Emily, and I at liberty to use all our skills to hunt the killer?”

  “If you catch whoever did it, I myself would be tempted to act as the hangman.”

  Harold saw not one but two lawyers approaching along the shadowy corridor—a solicitor and a barrister. He stood up excitedly from the cot in his cell.

  “Skiffington and Lavery, thank you for coming!” Harold knew them not only as attorneys but as gambling companions and felt free to address them as friends. “I
was beginning to despair!”

  “Your legal difficulties have been explained to us,” the handsomer of the two men said.

  “Then you know how preposterous it all is. Prepare whatever documents you need. Get me out of this horrid place.”

  Both men regarded him uncomfortably.

  “We decided to give you the courtesy of coming here in person,” the thinner man said.

  “Of course you’re here in person. I can see that! Just do what’s necessary to get me out of here!”

  “Well,” one of them said, “there’s a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone hired us not to represent you.”

  “Not to represent me?”

  “Normally we wouldn’t divulge a client’s name, but in this case, we were specifically instructed to tell you that the person who hired us is Mrs. Edward Richmond.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not the only attorneys Mrs. Richmond hired not to represent you,” the barrister said. “But leaving that aside, I don’t see how any respectable solicitor and barrister would take your case. They know they’d be laughed at if they tried to defend you.”

  “Laughed at?”

  “Consider the facts as though we’re in front of a jury,” the barrister suggested.

  “Yes! You’ll see that it’s all a mistake!”

  “You blame your stepmother for your father’s murder.”

  “Don’t call her my stepmother. I hate that word.”

  “Obviously you loathe her because she took the place of your dead mother. Logically, she’s the one you’d try to cast blame upon. You have massive gambling debts, is that not correct?” the barrister continued.

  “You know I have gambling debts. Some of them are owed to you.”

  “You admit to having interfered with evidence that made you look guilty.”

  “I didn’t want anyone to think I’d—”

  “Harold, keep looking at this from a jury’s point of view. With your older brother in the grave—a suspicious death that I’m sure the prosecutor will explore—by right of male succession, you’re the next person in line to inherit your father’s estate. The widow has no rights. She always depends on the good graces of the male who inherits, and you demonstrated your new power over her by throwing her out of the house into a hailstorm. So, tell me, Harold. What possible motive would your stepmother have had to kill your father? She had nothing to gain.”