The Isle of Devils (48 page)

“But I’ve done nothing!” I protested.

“That’s not true, Doctor. You have told a wonderful story, despite all its evil memories. And there is great power in stories. You have a gift, Doctor, which I would encourage you to develop. Even if this tale can never leave this room, everyone who heard it knows the truth. I will call upon you tomorrow.”

He shook my hand, and moved over to the table where the assembled clues lay. He started to put them back into his satchel, one by one. Just then, the little negress serving girl entered and tugged upon my sleeve to obtain my attention. She wordlessly handed me a wire. Tearing the envelope open, I found that Thurston had been speedy in carrying out my inquiry. I now understood everything. I was about to confront Lucy when my attention was suddenly drawn to the one object upon the table that was out of place. The one object that should never have been in the murdered man’s room. I began to see dimly the answer to another mystery. “Constable!” I called out. The company quieted and turned as one to try to ascertain the meaning for my sudden excitement. “I have one last request.”

Dunkley shrugged. “Name it, Doctor.”

“The clues in the case,” I motioned to the table, “do you have any use for them?”

Dunkley appeared to ponder this. “We have been unable to locate either a will or any relatives of the deceased, so there is no clear inheritor of the man’s property. However, I doubt that the magistrate would look kindly if I gave you his silver watch,” said he, dryly.

“What about the Calvados bottle?” said I, with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

Dunkley looked at me shrewdly, perhaps wondering if I planned to drink the entire bottle myself. He finally shrugged. “I can’t imagine that this inconsequential bottle will be much missed. Take it, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Constable,” said I, simply. I waited for him to finish packing his satchel and, with a final glance at the crowd and a shake of his head, he finally departed the hotel. Once the front door had closed behind him, I turned back to the assembled crowd, who were again watching me warily.

“It seems to me that the murdered man, whatever be his name, was not completely bereft of his ill-gotten fortune, for he was flush with both cash as well as some expensive personal items.” I turned to the naturalist. “Mr. Warburton, do you think that he had any remaining jewels?”

The Englishman studied me for a moment. “If he did, I have no doubt that they
are
secreted away in a series of banks so that no single man should ever know exactly what he has.”

“Like Cox and Company?” I interjected. 

He smiled and shrugged. “Perhaps. Or possibly
Holder & Stevenson of Threadneedle Street
? There are many fine banks in London. Or, since he was French, perhaps the Bank of France or the Credit Lyonnais? He was in Prussia once, so perhaps the Deutsche Bank? It little matters. If he died without a legal heir, they may lay there forever, gathering dust. No one in this room is likely to ever lay eyes upon anything. Which was never the point.”

“And the Empress Emerald? Would he have entrusted that to any bank? Banks can be robbed.”

Warburton licked his lips. “I thought we agreed that the Emerald was a figment of your imagination. You surely did not find it in the room of
Mor
… I mean, Dumas.”

My lips curled up at his slip. “I would ask that you humor me, sir.” I turned to the Italian. “I ask you, Signore Aicardi. You are an artist. If you had a great treasure to hide, where would you do so?”

Aicardi narrowed his eyes and peered at me. “The best place to hide something is in plain sight, but intermixed with other items of great similarity.”

“Exactly! And thus, I ask you, Mr. Sims: if the man we knew as Dumas did
not drink fortified sp
i
rits,
as you and I learned that evening that he drank with us, then
why did he have a bottle of Calvados in his room?
”

Sims frowned. But before he could reply, I did something rash. To his probable astonishment, I suddenly tossed the bottle of Calvados towards him. But I deliberately underthrew it. I knew with his injured knee that Sims stood little chance of ever catching it, and though he instinctually lunged for it, the bottle instead shattered upon the ground into a hundred pieces of green glass. Amber liquid splashed everywhere, wetting the shoes of the nearest men.

“Have you gone mad, mate?” Senhor Cordeiro roared. “That’s a damn fine bottle to waste like that!”

But I paid him no need. Instead I bent down to where the remnant of the base lay. “I think you might find this perhaps a tad
rarer
than the Calvados, Senhor.” I held up the bottom of the bottle, which was now obviously oddly shaped. For there was no punt dimpling upwards. Instead, I popped a brilliantly scintillating round green stone free from the encasing glass. It was similar to a golf ball in size, and of such a purity and radiance that it twinkled like the aurora borealis in the hollow of my hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said I, “I present to you the legendary Empress Emerald.” The wonder on their faces told me that they truly did not know that it was hidden under their noses the entire time. They had done the deed solely for the sake of revenge, not for material gain. Lucy’s eyes in particular were shining, almost to the point of tears, and her cheeks were tinged with color. “Of course, its existence cannot be made known to Constable Dunkley, for it would irrevocably alter his decision. But what is to be done with it? Maximilian is long in his grave, and no amount of emerald-derived funds will bring him back. Carlota is irretrievably stricken with brain-fever. It will do her little good. Perhaps it should now belong to the heir of the man who gave his life trying to
protect it?” I walked over to Lucy and held it out to her.  “Perhaps it should belong to Lucy Harrier?”

She gasped and her hand rose to her lips. Gazing intently at me, her eyes never leaving mine, she reached out and took the Emerald from my hand. “How did you know?”

“When Mr. Boyle was unable to resist the coercion of my brother and gave me a room at the hotel, against the better judgment of Mrs. Foster, your company was suddenly short a room. That explains why Monsieur Dubois was so upset. He did not wish to stain your honor, but there was no other way to keep you all under one roof. And so, you quickly had new papers made with your false name. I believe that there is a printing press here in St. George’s? I imagine that is where you accidently acquired the violet ink spot that blemished your glove on the day when we first conversed in the garden. A wire to the registry office in Hamilton where you disembarked merely confirmed my suspicion of your true last name.”

Her eyes finally broke from mine and dropped to her palm, the famous
É
meraude
coruscating in the lamplight. “And what should I do with this, Doctor?”

I shrugged as carelessly as I could manage. “That is up to you. You have your whole life before you. There is no one left in need of punishment. It is a
fait accompli
. Your father can finally rest,” I threw a meaningful glance over at Mr. Sims. “The world is your oyster.”

She shook her head. “It is not a pearl, Doctor. Nor is it that simple. I’ve not known anything else.”

“It is never too late to reinvent yourself.”

She nodded slowly, but her eyes never rose again to meet mine.

§

I made desultory conversation for a few moments with the other guests until I eventually decided that it would be best if I repaired to my room and allowed them to reflect upon the culmination of their combined adventure. Mr. Boyle was good enough to deliver my supper to my room upon a tray, along with a message from my brother that a ship was leaving tomorrow afternoon for England if I was ready to depart. After a moment’s consideration I asked Boyle to reply in the affirmative. I ate in a reflective silence, hardly tasting what I put into my mouth.

When I put out the light, I soon found that I could not sleep. After struggling against it for what seemed like several hours, I felt that it was quite hopeless. So I rose and looked out of the window into the garden below. The night was fine and clear. The stars shone cold and bright above us, while the moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light. Broad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched out interrupting the darkness, as if to provide a glimmer of hope for the ambiguous future. I finally turned away and lit the candle. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find it was not even one o’clock in the morning. I pulled on my flannel dressing gown, with the intention of continuing Dickens’
Drood
. The book, however, had been left in the billiard room. I strode to the door and flung it open.
What I
found there produced what I can only
assume was an ever-growing astonishment upon my face.
For standing outside my door, her hand raised as if she were about to knock, was Ms. Lucy Harrier, clad only in a sheer chiffon white nightgown, barely obscuring the glories that lay beneath.

Her face lit up with a brilliant smile. “Ah, Doctor, I am so happy that you are awake. I fear that I could not sleep. We owe you a thousand apologies for our myriad of deceptions, and I hope that you will absolve me. We have used you most cruelly.”

“Not at all,” said I, futilely crossing my arms over my chest, for it was quite beyond my power to resist the light shining from her brilliant green eyes.

She reached out and laid her hand upon one of my arms. Her touch sent an electric shock up to the very hairs upon my head. “Doctor, please. It is true. We even placed the slipper in your room for you to find, and then stole it again in order to induce the constable to doubt your veracity. We worried that you were drawing too close to the truth.” She stepped closer to me, crossing the threshold of my room. 

“Ah,” I stammered.

Perhaps seeing the look of incredulity upon my face, she pressed on. “Calm yourself, Doctor. You know your Shakespeare. The tempest has passed. There is no more need for us to take ‘strange-bedfellows.’ The sea is calm around this little isle now. And my bounty is as boundless as the sea…” Her whole face shone with an inward light.

“Romeo ends tragically, Ms. Harrier,” I managed to say, shaking my head.

“Does it have to? Can Shakespeare not be wrong, from time to time? No more moments should be lost.
Now that we no longer have to maintain the illusion that Hector and I are a couple, I am free to sleep where I w
ish
.” She
closed the door behind her, and stepped forward again until there was absolutely nothing between us. A sudden floor of joy, amazement, and incredulity utterly submerged my mind. T
he rest of the night was spent in a realm where words did not matter.

§

And so concludes my sojourn upon the Isle of Devils.
I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me to tell. A duty devolves upon me to omit no detail and not retain in my hands any factors in the mystery, so that some day when we are all beyond the reach of human law, the truth may be known.

When I awoke
alone
the following morn, it was with a curiously empty feeling, as if I was missing some crucial element from my life,
akin I thought to
the sensation that wounded soldiers
occasionally
report after the
battlefield
loss of a limb. I dressed slowly in my finest uniform. I knew that I
simply
had to embark upon
a
new boat, but it felt as if I had a funeral to attend. Packing my valise, I gazed about the room, suspecting that I was forgetting something. But there was nothing there, excepting only the specters of the past.