Richard and Judy Bookclub - 3 Bestsellers in 1: The American Boy, The Savage Garden, The Righteous Men. Andrew Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ Mother,” said the dentist, turning to me, and once again the torrent of words began to flow. “In my profession, sir, it is inevitable that even the most skilled practitioner must inflict the occasional moment of pain upon his patient. Laudanum and brandy may blunt its edge, but they cannot resolve the difficulty altogether. And operations involving the removal of a wisdom tooth can be particularly painful. The posterior molars are invariably the most difficult to extract.”

      I felt a sympathetic twinge in my own teeth. “If you would like, sir, I will undertake to reunite my friend with his satchel.”

      “You will be doing us a service, sir,” said the dentist.

      “But you must give us a receipt,” the woman said sharply, turning those unsettling orbs towards me.

      “Of course, madam.”

      Taking out my memorandum book, I scribbled a receipt while the dentist fetched the satchel which had been hanging all this time from a peg on the back of the door. It was made of brown leather, much scuffed, and its straps had broken so the flap was now secured with string. I tore out the page with the receipt and took my leave. The dentist begged me to consider his services should I need treatment for my teeth, and even offered to give me an examination, gratis, upon the spot. I declined and hurried away.

      I walked rapidly to a tavern in Charlotte-street, where I found an empty booth and ordered ale. When the girl had gone I tugged at the knots that secured the satchel. My hands were cold and the knots obstinate. I lost patience and sliced through the string with my penknife.

      The fog outside seemed to serve as a pretty metaphor for the fog inside my own mind. I opened the satchel, and the first thing I saw, traced in blotched ink on the inside of the flap, was the name David Poe. The letters had faded to the colour of dried blood.

      The satchel’s contents spilled on to the scrubbed surface of the table. My fingers explored the little heap of possessions – a small flask which had once contained brandy, a shirt of fine quality but in need of a wash, a grubby neckcloth and a cigar case made of leather. I opened the case and shook out its contents.

      As I did so, I was thinking that, every time I turned up what I thought was a fact, it seemed that the more I inspected it, the more it retreated into the realms of hypothesis. I longed for certainty, for indisputable facts. Now it seemed probable, but of course by no means certain, that the dentist’s patient had indeed been David Poe, the American. In this case, of course, it followed that there was no longer any reason to suppose that the dead man in Wellington-terrace had been anyone other than Henry Frant. But such speculation was as fragile as a dandelion’s feathery pappus. A breath of wind would suffice to destroy it.

      Behind me, and above my shoulder, came a sharp intake of breath. I turned quickly. The girl had brought my ale. The tray was trembling in her hands. She was staring not at me but at an object on the table.

      There followed a moment of superhuman clarity, of prodigious ratiocination: my mind accelerated and packed into an instant thoughts which would normally fill a minute, an hour, a day.

      “I am a student of medicine,” I snapped. “What are you gawping at? It is nothing but a rare specimen of digitus mortuus praecisus lent me by the professor himself. If you value your position, do not spill beer on it.”

      I covered it with the neckcloth – casually, as though making room for her to set down her tray without risk of spillage. The girl laughed – still nervous, but the reassuring opacity of the Latin words had soothed her alarm. Despite my warning, though, a few drops of beer slopped on to the table. Her hand flew to her mouth; she muttered an apology and scuttled away.

      I took a long pull of ale. When I was alone, and safe from observation, I twitched aside the neckcloth. The object was rust-coloured in part, but mostly dirty yellow. On one end was a long fingernail spotted with what might have been ink.

      The trouble with wishes is that they sometimes come true. I had at last found something which no matter how long I looked at it would not dissolve into a mere speculation. I had discovered an indisputable fact. And I wished with all my heart that I had not.

       Chapter 30

      “My dear young fellow,” said Mr Rowsell, bouncing to meet me with his hand outstretched. “How delightful to see you. Mrs Rowsell was asking if I had news of you only the other day.”

      He shook hands most cordially and pressed me to take some refreshment. My mind was in a whirl. At this juncture in my affairs I would have given much for the advice of a disinterested friend. I was sensible of Mr Rowsell’s recent kindnesses to me, and I was sorely tempted to lay the whole matter before him. But I was not sufficiently intimate with him to know whether I might trust him entirely.

      My own position had become delicate, and indeed susceptible to misinterpretation. In the last two days I had pursued the trail of David Poe, telling packs of lies as I went. I was by no means certain that I was not compounding a felony by my failure to alert the authorities to what I already knew and suspected. I needed the comfort of a friend’s company, but not a friend’s counsel. Or rather – I needed counsel badly, but I dared not ask for it. It was possible that Mr Rowsell would feel it his duty to alert the authorities himself. Nor would it be fair to him to ask him to keep a secret that might place him on the wrong side of the law.

      “Well, dear boy, I must say – and do not think me impertinent, I beg – but you seem in low spirits.”

      “It is the fog, sir. It gets into my lungs.”

      “Very true,” he said comfortably. “Is that a bruise I see upon your temple?”

      “I – I must blame it once again upon the fog. I tripped and fell against a railing.”

      “And what brings you here?”

      I explained that I had been asked to spend a few days in London with Charlie Frant, and that we were staying at the house of his cousin, Mr Carswall, in Margaret-street. “Mr Carswall sent me on an errand, and finding that I had a few moments I might call my own, I decided to see whether you were at leisure.”

      “Mr Carswall? You are staying with him?”

      “Not for long. The family intend to remove to the country in a day or two.”

      “To Mr Carswall’s estate in Gloucestershire, no doubt. And will the boy and Mrs Frant go with them?”

      “I believe so, sir.”

      Rowsell shook his head sadly. “I feel for Mrs Frant and her son. How are the mighty fallen! I understand they have not sixpence to call their own.” Mr Rowsell opened a corner cupboard and took out a decanter and glasses. “It is an unlucky family. Mr Henry Frant brought the bank down around his ears because of his appetite for gambling, and his father and his uncle were the same. Forty years ago, the Frants were considerable landowners, both here and in Ireland.”

      I looked up sharply. “I had not realised that the Frants had Irish connections.”

      “Oh yes. I believe the Irish estate was the last to go.” Mr Rowsell set down the decanter and glasses on the table and stood there for a moment, stroking his stomach, which as usual looked as though it were on the verge of bursting out of his waistcoat. “For your aunt’s sake, Tom, I must tell you that Mr СКАЧАТЬ