The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (42 page)

The room broke into chaos. Cypher screamed at the Beefeaters, “Make sure he’s dead!”

Conan Doyle and Wilde rushed to Detective Blenkinsop’s crumpled form. When they turned him over, the front of his best suit was soaked in blood. Conan Doyle fumbled for a pulse in his neck. Finding none, his head dropped resignedly.

“Dead?” Wilde asked softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Conan Doyle looked up with a stricken expression, but could not summon the words and merely nodded.

“How terrible,” Wilde breathed. “How terrible…”

Conan Doyle shook his head and croaked, “If it had not been for me, he would not be here today. And so I have caused his death.”

“Nonsense, Arthur. You acted from the very best of motives. You could not have known.”

“The queen!” The Prince of Wales wailed. “Fetch a doctor. The queen has been shot!”

Even through his shock, Conan Doyle realized he was the only doctor in the room. He rose to his feet and numbly approached the slumped form of Victoria. The bullet had struck her squarely in the forehead and a stream of sticky black blood runneled down her face. Her spaniel’s eyes were wide open and staring. But then Conan Doyle frowned at something and reaching out, touched his fingertips to the blood, and examined them, releasing an astonished gasp.

“What?” Wilde asked.

Conan Doyle turned to his friend. “This is not blood. It feels like … oil! Dark red oil.” Still not believing, he reached down and gently tilted the queen’s head. The back of the skull was missing, blown apart, and he expected to see brains and gore. Instead, he found that the shattered skull case contained brassy cogs and a speaking tube that emerged from a hole in the wall behind.

It was suddenly clear they had all been deceived.

“An automaton!” Wilde gasped.

“Yes, another ingenious mechanism.”

At that moment, a door hidden in the paneling opened and a short, stout figure stepped out:

Victoria Regina, this time in the flesh.

Following behind her was a man in a stovepipe hat, the engineer Ozymandius Arkwright.

“Mama!” the Prince of Wales cried out. He rushed over to her, wringing his hands. “I—I—I had no idea. I—I’m afraid I’ve been a fool again, ma’am.”

“A role you are familiar with,” Victoria noted sourly, “and play to perfection.”

She looked about the throne room disapprovingly. “Where is this would-be assassin?”

The Beefeater who had run the marquess through mutely pointed. As she stepped over to inspect DeVayne’s body, Cypher tried to prevent her. “Majesty, this is not a sight fit for royalty—” She silenced him with a wave. The aging queen threw a scowl of disapproval down at DeVayne’s astonished face. “My assassin now lies dead. Traitor to your queen. Your nation. Your class. Your family name. Little man, with your trumped up ambitions, it would take someone far greater than you to slay a queen.”

She looked up at the assembled courtiers and friends, her eyes blazing with self-righteous fury. Despite her tiny stature, despite her advanced age, she cut a formidably regal figure. She turned to the yeoman of the guard and commanded, “Your sword, sir.” The yeoman quickly slid the blade from its scabbard and presented it to her, pommel first. She hefted its steely mass and addressed the room. “We have much thanks to give today. To our loyal servants of the crown. To our fearless subjects who placed the life of their sovereign above their own.”

She focused her stern gaze upon Ozymandius Arkwright. “Step forward and kneel before your queen.” He dropped to one knee and removed his stovepipe hat. Victoria touched the blade to one shoulder, lifted it, and touched the other shoulder. The queen smiled mildly and said, “Arise, Sir Ozymandius Arkwright.”

Conan Doyle’s eyes met Wilde’s and both men wore an expression of deep vexation.

*   *   *

“What did Mister Ozymandius do that made him so deserving of a knighthood?” Wilde bellyached to his friend as they walked across the palace courtyard to his waiting carriage. “We were nearly torn apart by a monster. Drowned in the Thames. Shot. Stabbed. Poisoned by conspirators. All he did was build a giant doll. A mechanical puppet. A—”

“Decoy,” Conan Doyle interrupted. “A very clever decoy that fooled an assassin and saved the monarch’s life.” He looked sagely at his friend. “This whole adventure—all of it—has been about the true face of evil hiding behind a mask. But now a good man is dead and I bear the full weight of guilt.” He looked away into the far distance, despair crouched in the corner of his eyes.

“Mister Wilde, Doctor Doyle,” a fruity and fatuous voice called from behind. “I would speak with you a moment.”

The two friends turned to look. The Prince of Wales strode toward them trailing smoke from the cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth.

They both bowed, but for once the prince had dropped his air of condescension and seemed uncharacteristically bashful, even ashamed. “I must apologize to both you gentlemen,” he began. “This has been a most regrettable business … most regrettable. Our man Cypher has told me of your role in this matter and I now realize that you two have been key to saving the queen’s life, my life, and our nation.”

But Conan Doyle found himself unmoved by the prince’s words and spoke out in a fashion that surprised even him. “I am more concerned about Detective Blenkinsop than accolades for myself. He leaves behind a wife and young child, who through
your
interference have lost a husband, a father, a breadwinner … everything.”

Wilde visibly cringed. Upbraiding a prince of the realm was unthinkable. He laughed politely and said, “Of course, my friend is suffering from a shock to the nervous system, aren’t you, Arthur? He is not
literally
blaming you.” He leaned close to his friend’s ear and whispered sotto voce, “Think of Newgate Prison, Arthur. Think of the dark, dank cell that Burke promised us.”

But the prince did not take umbrage. Instead, he seemed positively contrite. “Of course, you are right to speak out. Quite right. I know what you must think of me. I know what the world thinks of me. And I am ashamed. The death of this brave young man is rightfully laid at
my
feet, not yours. You are correct. He is the true hero. But I give you my word as a gentleman. As a prince. As your future king, that I will see to it that his wife and child receive the full beneficence of the crown and are taken care of for the rest of their days.”

The prince’s candor did much to disarm Conan Doyle’s anger, but the heir apparent had not finished. “It has not been easy, growing up in my mother’s shadow. I am cognizant of my many failings. Indeed, for much of my life I have rebelled against my station in life. But after this dreadful episode, the scales have fallen from my eyes. When I finally sit upon the throne, trust that I shall be a changed man. Perhaps I could even prove worthy of a hero such as Detective Blenkinsop.” The prince shifted his feet. “Now if in the meantime there is any favor you wish to ask of me. Any. No matter how grand. Please name it.”

Although not fully placated, the prince’s self-abasement did much to assuage Conan Doyle’s wrath. As both men muttered their thank-yous and bowed, a clatter of hooves announced the approach of a carriage. They were surprised to see Rufus DeVayne’s landau, complete with its four zebras, draw up before them.

“What will happen to the carriage?” Wilde asked.

The prince shook his head vaguely. “I understand the zebras are to find a new home at London Zoo. I’m not sure what will become of the landau.”

A sudden notion occurred to Conan Doyle. “Your Highness mentioned a favor? I wonder if I might beg a small indulgence…”

CHAPTER   34

THE SUN BREAKS THROUGH

Conan Doyle found his children, Kingsley and Mary, tossing crusts to the swans gliding the periphery of the circular pond in Hyde Park. His wife, Louise, was ensconced in a bath chair. The day was bright and breezy, but chilly. Pushing the bath chair was a tall, graceful young woman of striking beauty: Miss Jean Leckie.

“Arthur?” Louise Doyle called out as the Scottish author strode across the grass lawns to join them. “Is it still Arthur? Or must I now curtsey and call you, Sir Arthur?”

Conan Doyle smiled sheepishly. “I’m afraid I remain just plain Arthur for now.” He laughed at their disappointed faces. “But not to be sad—the role Oscar and I played has been recognized. And now I have a happy surprise for you all.”

“A surprise?” Jean Leckie asked. “What kind of surprise?”

“A carriage ride,” Conan Doyle answered, and added, mysteriously, “A very special kind of carriage ride.”

When the family emerged from the gates of Hyde Park, the yellow landau drawn by four zebras waited at the curb, where it was rapidly drawing a crowd of curious onlookers. As they caught sight of it, the Doyle children shrieked with glee and ran to pet the zebras. Conan Doyle held the carriage door open for Jean Leckie, and then put his arm about his wife and lifted her into the carriage. Both women were delighted to find Oscar Wilde already ensconced inside.

“Hello, Touie. Hello, Miss Leckie.”

“But whose is this wonderful carriage?” Miss Leckie asked. “And the zebras?”

“A princely favor,” Conan Doyle explained. “We have use of the landau until nightfall.”

Wilde patted a straw hamper on the seat next to him. “Arthur and I stopped at Fortnum & Mason’s on the way here.” He hefted it from the seat and set it down upon the carriage floor to make room for the children. “It’s a tad brisk out, but we thought the occasion called for a ride through the park followed by a picnic.”

And so on the first fogless day in weeks, the friends set off on a long, lazy circuit of Hyde Park, drawing stares of wonder and stopping traffic wherever they went.

*   *   *

A gray morning where dawn was slow arriving beneath a pall of winter clouds. A crowd stood assembled in the courtyard of Newgate Prison. The doors of the execution shed had been thrown open and now, at precisely three minutes to nine, a grim procession filed out: a black-frocked chaplain (whose faltering gait suggested he had, once again, been sampling the communion wine), a balding physician, a pair of uniformed guards, and the dour prison warden, William Bland, bringing up the rear. As usual, Dr. John Lamb accompanied the party, only this time he walked with his hands pinioned at his sides, a burly warder gripping either arm. Without ceremony, he was led onto the trap, where one warder dropped to a crouch as he pinioned his legs. The chaplain stumbled through the prayer of benediction, and then Warden Bland asked if the prisoner had any last words.

Dr. Lamb’s hair had clearly not enjoyed the application of curling papers, and had instead been chopped into spiky clumps by the prison barber’s dull shears. Yet, he stood tall, wrapped in the tattered rag of his former dignity, as he addressed the crowd in a clear, unwavering voice, devoid of fear.

“I believe in the Resurrection,” he said, but then added with a sick smile, “the resurrection of the Marquess Rufus DeVayne. For he will rise aga—”

Warden Bland’s gray face turned black, his frown lines crevassed. At a nod from him, the executioner stepped forward and roughly snatched a white hood down on the doctor’s head, silencing him. With unseemly haste, he looped the heavy hawser about Lamb’s neck, stepped smartly from the trap and gripped the release lever in his gloved hands. The hour began to sound: CLONG … CLONG …

And as the final bell tolled, the executioner yanked the lever, the trap dropped open, and Dr. John Lamb plummeted from this life into the next.

*   *   *

After a brief religious ceremony (which he would have despised), the Marquess of Gravistock, Rufus DeVayne, was quietly interred in the family crypt at the DeVayne family seat, the underground remains of which were the only part of the house not to have been razed by the fire.

Three days later, a gardener found the bronze tomb door wrenched loose from its hinges and the crypt empty apart from a torn burial shroud.

Although the grounds were searched, the mortal remains of the late marquess were never found.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

V
AUGHN
E
NTWISTLE
grew up in Northern England. He completed a Master’s degree at Oakland University, and in the early nineties he moved to Seattle to work as a writer. In his spare time he ran a successful gargoyle-sculpting company. He often writes with one cat on his lap, a Brittany lying across his feet, and one or more cats sauntering across the keyboard. He recently moved back to England, where he lives in North Somerset.

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www.vaughnentwistle.com
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