A Fatal Likeness (27 page)

PART TWO

1814

TEN

Autumn

I
T
IS
OCTOBER
. A chill rain is falling, and the warm sun is wan. Outside a huddle of small lodging-houses hard by the Pancras workhouse a young woman stands in a doorway and looks up into the shrouded sky, wondering if she will brave the day. She is, what, sixteen—seventeen? But despite her youth there is something about her that suggests she is not used to living in such a down-at-heel district. Either that or she believes this is merely a passing difficulty and the world will right itself soon enough, and deliver her a local habitation more suited to her name. And what, might you ask, is that name? Watch patiently a moment more and you will see the dark woollen shawl about her head slip and a skein of bright hair escape wildly into the wind, and you will know at once who this is. It is little more than two weeks since she returned from the dazzle of the Alps and a dream of love, to the grim London day-to-dayness of mud and making-do. And bitter recriminations: Even now, the man who will eventually become her husband is sitting in their cramped room on the second floor composing yet another letter to his wife. A letter full of icy philosophy and hot self-justification. There are rumours too, as this girl well knows, that the bailiffs may have discovered their dwelling place, but it is not that particular pursuit that concerns her now. She tucks her hair back into her shawl and makes her way down towards London. It’s a long walk she has before her, especially on such a day, but she is used to walking. Did they not walk for four solid days south from Paris? Thirty long, slow miles a day through a landscape scathed by conflict, and in an atmosphere between the three of them that festered scarcely less. The memory sets a grim line now across her brow, and yet in a dozen years from now she will write of that journey as a golden time, the acting-out of a novel, a romance made real. I suspect this is only the first of many such contradictions we may observe, only one of many such self-deceits, but for the moment, at least, we will let it pass.

We move now to Buckingham Street, and the quiet of that first-floor room where Maddox permits entrance only by invitation. He is sitting there, intent on his pen, covering the pages of his current case-book at a measured pace, pausing only occasionally to consult a much smaller notebook he carries always about his person. The fire is lit, and a pot of coffee sits at his elbow. His coat has been hung carefully on the back of the door, and he is wearing a fine embroidered silk waistcoat, which is only one of many such fashionable items his closet boasts: His is a very lucrative calling, and clothes have always been rather a weakness. There is no sound, now, but the rhythm of the pen across the paper, and the ticking of the clock above the fireplace. And then, suddenly, the bell downstairs. A sound both expected and unexpected in this house: unexpected because Maddox has no appointments today; expected because it is the nature of his occupation to have visitors unannounced. He lifts his head a moment, hearing the sound of the door opening and voices downstairs, and notes in passing that one of them appears to be a young woman’s, before calmly resuming his task.

You might find this a little odd—that a man who has built so much success on the principles of logic and observation should not seek to apply the latter to a caller who is clearly both unanticipated and—surely—unusual, both in her gender and her age. And indeed I should have loved to describe him, Holmes-like, watching as she made her way down the street five minutes before, and deducing every detail of her character and history in a single appraising gaze. And had he done so, what might he have seen? Confidence and purpose, first and foremost, for there was no hesitation in this girl’s step, no last-minute equivocation at the door. There is a lift to her head that is rare among women, and rarer still in one so young, and alone. He would have noticed, too—having an eye for dress in others as well as a partiality for it in himself—that under her long dark shawl there is a striking, colourful, and (for London) very unusual tartan dress, and thereafter drawn various preliminary conclusions (all correct) about not only the independence of her taste but some of her likely recent travels.

But this is Buckingham Street, not Baker Street, and Maddox has no convenient side-kick to impress, nor any inclination to waste his valuable hours idling at the window.

Though that is not to say that he does not ready himself to conduct just such an assessment when a knock comes to his office door. But when George Fraser shows his caller into the room and Maddox rises to meet his visitor he sees only one thing.

Her face.

The eyes, the broad clear brow, the small careful mouth. It is—and yet it cannot be—

“Mary?” he stammers as the door closes and the girl puts back her shawl. And then the red-gold hair spills about her shoulders and the likeness fades. Fades, but does not die, not entirely, for the impression of that impression will linger in his mind and colour his behaviour long after his conscious intelligence has dismissed it as nothing but a curious coincidence.

“So you were given my name?” she says then, somewhat nonplussed.

“No,” he flounders, unaccustomed to beginning a professional consultation in so inauspicious a manner. “It was—a misunderstanding. Nothing more.”

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, but 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. Miss 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 has 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 step-sister. She lodges with us at present, and as I have often been ill of late, it is only reasonable that Shelley 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 over-heated 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.