The Devil's Feast Read online

  “Are you going to deny me entry?” I said combatively, though with every passing second my blundering seemed more and more idiotic. No preparation, no plan, no idea what I should say.

  “This way, sir,” he drawled, drawing out the “sir” until it felt like a snub.

  Through the courtyard, up a flight of steps to a porched entrance. The hall was laid in black and white marble, furnished with elaborate gilt furniture and dominated by a huge, full-length portrait of the czar (Nicholas? Alexander? I could not remember) in a blue jacket with gold epaulets and a chestful of medals. The place was empty save for two footmen (English) in curled gray wigs and knee breeches, to whom I was passed. One took charge of me, while the other went in search of an official.

  Eventually, a gentleman appeared.

  “May I help you, sir?” It was my first encounter with the strange, vowel-extending nasal quality—“hee-yelp”—of the Russian accent. Despite this, I at once understood that he was both bored and unimpressed.

  “I, ah”—wish to know if you are poisoning members of the Reform Club—“I am trying to find a Russian gentleman I encountered at the Carlton Club. Excellent chap. I thought perhaps the embassy would, you know, have a record of Russian gentlemen in London, and their addresses?”

  The official sighed audibly. “We could take a calling card and forward it to the gentleman. We cannot simply give you the address. Do you have”—hee-yav—“the name?”

  “Mr., ah, Ivan, ah, -ovitch.” It was the only Russian-ish name I could think of.

  “That is a very common name. Do you have his first name?”

  “Ah, Alexander.” Was that the name of the czar?

  “I will consult my list.” He disappeared, trotting back a few minutes later.

  “We have no record of anyone by that name.”

  “Oh.”

  I thought the pantomime at an end, but he took pity on me. “We have a Peter Ivanovitch and a Sergey Ivanovitch?”

  “No, he was definitely Alexander. How strange. He was, I believe, a friend of the Russian military attaché, whose name I cannot now remember.”

  “Kiril Michaelovitch Annekoff,” the official said, without thinking. “He is currently on maneuvers with your army. I could take your card and inquire of him.”

  “Oh no, I will write to him. At the embassy? Could you write down his name?”

  The official looked suspicious and resentful, but obliged. I was sure he knew something was not quite right, but was not sure what. I left quickly, cursing my foolishness, and made for Duncombe’s address on Queen Street.

  Within a few minutes, I was certain I was being followed. A man came up behind me on my left and must have remained at the same point some yards behind me for some time, neither passing me nor falling back. When I turned my head slightly, I could see only an outstretched foot.

  Bloody Russians, I thought. I increased my pace and there he was again, the same distance behind me as before; I slowed down, and he did likewise. I continued for a minute more and then turned upon him.

  He was very rough-looking, in a workman’s corduroy trousers, a ragged moleskin jacket and a soft cap which came down low over his ears. He wore a pair of old gloves such as a costermonger would wear so his hands appeared whole. He smelled distinctly unsavory. He began to cough.

  “Not here,” he said. “Not until we are further in and there are more people on the street.”

  Chapter Nine

  Too late now,” I said, remarkably nonchalantly, I thought. “How in damnation did you know where I was, Blake? No, do not answer. I have an appointment in Queen Street. You look like a beggar, and you stink. And you are supposed to be wounded.”

  “We’ll meet after, then,” he said.

  “Will we, indeed?”

  “We will,” he said. “Bit rash of you to storm the Russian Embassy all on your own. Nice to you, were they?”

  I did not laugh.

  “Take a cab to Dean Street when you’re done and tell the old dragon to let you in,” he said. “I’ll come in round the back. She’ll not hear me.”

  “And why should I come?” I said.

  “You’ll come,” he said, and shuffled away.

  Filled with equal quantities of outrage and relief, I determined not to give him another thought until I met him. Naturally, I arrived at Duncombe’s residence in Queen Street thoroughly discomposed. I was taken to a fine sitting room on the first floor, decorated in green and cream and full of large vases and bronze statuettes posed on French furniture. Everything was very expensive. On the walls there were portrait sketches—one was of Duncombe himself—and over the fireplace a painting of Old Testament prophets which I should have said was Italian, though I knew little of such things.

  Mr. Tommy Duncombe swept in, smiling beatifically. He was somewhat red and creased about the eyes, but the rest of him appeared to have sprung starched and dewy from the dawn. He wore a fresh, white, billowing shirt under a light blue velvet waistcoat, under a navy blue velvet frock coat with satin lapels, and blue-and-white striped trousers and elegant patent boots. He grasped a bottle of seltzer water.

  “Captain Avery, what an honor! I am afraid you find me just risen, and a little the worse.”

  “You have been ill?” I said. It was by now four o’clock.

  He smiled sheepishly. “No, I was out till the early hours at Crockford’s. Nothing more than a sore head, entirely self-induced. Please, be seated. I am so pleased to make your further acquaintance. Mr. Blake isn’t with you?” he said hopefully.

  “I am afraid not.”

  “As I mentioned the other night, I believe that you and Mr. Blake did a good deal to secure the cause last year.”

  “The cause?”

  “Of Chartism, of course. It is about to reach its zenith. In a month I shall be presenting a new petition demanding the vote and the other five points of the Charter to the House of Commons in May. We have raised the country: we expect to have over three million signatures. The petition will be so long I do not know how we will actually get it into the Chamber!”

  In other circumstances, I would have dwelled on the sheer unlikeliness of this butterfly dandy’s devotion to his proletarian cause, but Blake’s reappearance and the news I was about to deliver rather eclipsed it. As if he had read my mind, he began to speak of his friend.

  “I must say, I am rather concerned about Rowlands. I have not seen him since our dinner. It was a remarkable evening, was it not? I called at the club yesterday, and they said he was not there, but he was not at home either.”

  “I have some bad news, Mr. Duncombe.” I cleared my throat. “Mr. Rowlands passed away some hours after the dinner.”

  “What did you say?”

  I repeated the words.

  “Rowlands died?” he said dazedly, and took a gulp of his seltzer water. “But I asked at the club yesterday. He was scarcely twenty-five . . .”

  My own age. “Thomas Wakley performed a postmortem investigation upon the body yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, good lord! How did he die?”

  I told a half lie. “We are waiting for the results. I am so sorry to bring you such bad news. But if you could bear the thought, I would be very grateful if you could help me with some questions I have. Of course, if you would rather I left . . .”

  “Oh, not at all. I must just . . .” He looked away. When he looked up at last, his eyes were quite wet.

  “Ask away, sir,” he said.

  “You knew Rowlands well?”

  “He was a good deal younger than me but a keen patron of the turf and the tables. He was a sweet-natured boy but a dyed-in-the-wool Whig, though I tried to persuade him otherwise.” He took another swig of his water and called, rather hollowly, for a coffee and a brandy. “Why do you ask me this? Did something terrible happen to him? Was he attacked?”

 
“Do you have any reason to think he might have been?”

  “No. Just your questions . . . I did think he looked rather ill at dinner . . .”

  “Mr. Duncombe, the Reform Club have asked me to look into Mr. Rowlands’s death, but to do so discreetly. May I have your word as a gentleman that my words will not go beyond this room?”

  “Well, I suppose so . . . yes, of course.”

  “Mr. Wakley has some reason to believe he was killed by arsenic poisoning.”

  “Good lord!”

  “Can you think of anything which might explain this, or cast any light on his circumstances? Had anything disturbed him in the previous weeks? Was there anyone who disliked him? A feud? A gambling debt, perhaps?”

  He looked aghast again. “He could be contrary, even inflammatory, but only about politics. He made a speech against extending the suffrage, and another in praise of Palmerston and the war in Afghanistan which raised the hackles of many radicals. Though we are supposed now to be one party, there is, I must admit, not precisely a feud but what you might call a froideur between the radicals and the Whigs. He exasperated some of my younger radical friends, but not unto murder. And I am proof that such things can be bridged, we were great friends—and friends with Mr. Disraeli, who is a Tory. There was no particular girl. A couple of ballet dancers at the Haymarket. Nothing serious.”

  I coughed. “Debts?”

  “Well, yes, but we all have debts. And his were nothing”—he smiled—“on the scale of mine.”

  “Any habits? I mean, can you think of anything that might have exposed him to arsenic?”

  “What, you mean such as licking green wallpaper? Tom Wakley’s hobbyhorse? No, nothing of that sort.” He sat up. “Are you suggesting it was Soyer’s dinner?” He took another pull from his water. “Do forgive me for this; I find it helps my dyspepsia.”

  “Mr. Wakley says it might have been something at the dinner. But as far as I can ascertain, no one else was taken ill. Did you experience any, ah, queasiness?”

  “No, save a certain biliousness the next day. But I am not in the first flush of youth and my digestion is not all that it should be. If not the dinner, then what?”

  “Was Rowlands in good health? His dressing room was full of pills and tonics.”

  “Good enough. I mean, he ate and drank a good deal. No doubt more than he should. But I am no slouch in that quarter. As for pills and tonics, well, you should see my dressing room! It is something of a craze at the moment for us city idlers. We stay up too late and then attempt to restore ourselves with hocus-pocus potions and remedies.”

  “Well, we should have the results soon. And may I say again, I should be most grateful if, for the moment, you were able to remain silent about the circumstances of Mr. Rowlands’s demise. I shall give you news as soon as I have it.”

  “You have my word on it, Captain Avery. His people are from Yorkshire. I know them . . . I suppose I should write to them.”

  • • •

  AS I WALKED to Blake’s lodgings, I began to rehearse the recriminations I would throw at him, growing more incensed with each passing minute. I was so deep in my furious but eloquent telling-off that I did not even hear his neighbor Miss Jenkins rush out of her shop and call to me. When she caught me gently by the arm and asked me if I had heard from Blake, I shook my head discourteously.

  Blake’s landlady began to grumble as soon as she set eyes on me. She had not seen him in a month. She was out of pocket. Did I think I could simply turn up at any time of the day or night (it was approximately five o’clock in the afternoon)? I informed her that I had a list of items that Blake had requested, and that I knew perfectly well the rent had been paid (which I did not). At this she wheezed and reluctantly let me past.

  His rooms had become even chillier and more unloved since last I had visited. Books piled on the table, a dried-out piece of bread on a shelf and two oranges dusted with mold. I threw these out of the back window and left it open for him to climb in. There was no wood in the grate—a matter I suspected the landlady knew more about than she let on. I rattled downstairs and gave her a penny for a bucket of kindling and some logs, and lit a fire.

  I did not hear him come in through the window at all and, when I saw him in the bedroom doorway smeared with dirt, I was muttering crossly to myself. I had planned to be taking my ease in a lordly fashion on the settle when he arrived.

  He was amused. “You got my books? And something to eat?”

  “We shall attend to my questions first.”

  “I could not have told you. You must see it.”

  “No. No, I do not,” I spluttered. “Evidently, I am never to be trusted with your confidence. And what are you planning to do? Live as a fugitive? Leave the country?”

  He held his hands up in supplication. “It’s good to see you, William. You found my note?”

  I choked back a gust of rage. “Of all the stupid, hare-brained ideas! Collinson will never forgive you, and you will be a fugitive forever!”

  I jumped up—I could not keep still another moment—and began to pace. “Could you not just have nodded your head and got out of prison with Collinson’s say-so? Would it not have been so much easier?”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Could you not?”

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  “I assume the knife I provided was the one that Nathaniel Gore—if that is his real name—used to attack you?” He looked a fraction abashed. “So it was. And who is Nathaniel Gore?”

  “Someone who owed me a favor. Where are my books?”

  “At the Reform. How the devil did you get out?” I threw myself on the settle.

  “There’s a small door in the washrooms. Leads to the cesspool, and that to an open gutter into the Thames. The trustees have to be able to get at it when it gets blocked, otherwise the whole prison becomes an open sewer. I had a key. I walked through it down to the river, and swam to the bank. The currents are strong but it was low tide.”

  “And that is why you stink. Could you not have just walked out the front gate?”

  “Acquiring sufficient hot water was not straightforward.”

  “I would have expected you to have several changes of clothes and a full purse secreted somewhere about the city.”

  “Well, I did not.”

  “And Mr. Gore?”

  “On a ship bound for New York.”

  “And your plan?”

  “Look, William, I was thinking to put myself beyond Collinson’s reach. I thought I would leave the country. But I am here.”

  “Why?”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you here to say good-bye, or to help your ludicrous friend Soyer?”

  He rubbed his ear. “There’s a ship to New York in four days. A boat to France tomorrow, if I’d rather.” He began to pick clothes off the floor.

  “You cannot go,” I said. “Soyer needs you. Matty needs you. I cannot do without you. Besides, you look sick. Blake, I know you have thought about this. Else there would have been no note. Else you would not have met me here.”

  He picked up a book. Then he sat down on the edge of a chair, pulled off his foul gloves and held his palms out toward the fire, rubbing the stumps of his missing fingers. Something crawled out from his jacket.

  “Fire and fury! You have fleas.”

  “Have you really nothing to eat?” he said, and looked so ill that I felt my fury begin to slip from me, which I found most provoking.

  “Here.” I had bought two crushed pastries from a French bakery. He tore into them like some starved beast.

  “If I were caught,” he said, “you would be charged with aiding and abetting me. As would anyone else who recognized me and had not turned me in.”

  “We will find a way to square it with Collinson. I am sure we will. I am lodging at the Reform. C
ome back with me. You could stay in my room tonight. Have one of their hot baths. Water comes steaming from the faucet. It is marvelous. At least be well and clean when you leave.”

  He stared at the fire.

  “I could hide you. You could take on a disguise.” In a flush of inspiration, I said, “You could be my manservant!”

  “I bloody could not.”

  “Once you were fumigated, of course. Why not? It is a good notion. You can be in attendance to me, see everything. I am sure you can come up with a disguise. Do they know you at the Reform?”

  “I visited Matty once or twice.”

  “Would they know you?”

  “Even if they didn’t, how would you get a tramp into the Reform, Captain Avery?”

  “We will find a way. By the by, Blake,” I said excitedly, “what if we solved Soyer’s matter together? We might get you off the hook. Collinson loves his subterfuges. We could say you absconding was all a plan to get you into the Reform in disguise to survey the scene anonymously. The Reform committee are desperate to have your help. If we were to meet with success, Collinson would have to withdraw his charges.”

  “Have you not noticed that life does not generally play out like a fairy tale?”

  “I truly think if we can resolve this and you are willing to accept the credit—”

  “Enough fantasy. Tell me about this murder at the Reform.” You will remember I had written to him in the Marshalsea.

  What did I do? I obliged him, of course. I told him everything, from my arrival at the Reform to the moment when I departed from Duncombe’s.

  “Whom I rather took to,” I said.

  “A champion of the poor who is thousands in debt and puts small tradesmen into penury while he plays the tables at Crockford’s with money he does not have and hands out thirty-pound tips.”

  “Soyer likes him,” I said accusingly.

  “Soyer’s a fool and a snob,” said Blake.

  “Isn’t he? Vainglorious, affected, full of airs, distinctly evasive about the truth, and he fawns on a title so dreadfully it is unseemly. Perhaps we should simply take the boat to New York.”