‘So, we’re off to Cambridge, are we?’ he said. ‘And what are we a-going to do when we gets there?’
‘There are questions to ask the erudite professor. Including, of course, the question of the mysterious Euphorion of whom we have heard so much.’
‘ ’Ow the devil we going to get there?’
‘You speak as if I were proposing an expedition in search of Dr Livingstone. We have only to look in Bradshaw to discover the times of the Cambridge trains. And now, if you please, Quint, I would be grateful if you would cease your questioning and allow me to enjoy these excellent devilled kidneys you have provided.’
‘If that’s what you wants,’ the manservant said, although clearly he continued to harbour nothing but doubts about the wisdom of an excursion out of town.
‘It is,’ his master replied, and turned his attention exclusively to his breakfast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Fast, ain’t it,’ Quint said, peering out of the carriage window as the Hertfordshire countryside raced past.
‘On some railway journeys the delays are such that you rid yourself entirely of the restless spirit of the age. But on the London to Cambridge run…’ Adam left his sentence unfinished, thinking that the speed of the train spoke for itself.
‘What we doing exackly, charging out of town like this?’ Like most Londoners, Quint was deeply suspicious of the world beyond its streets and thought that all that life offered could best be enjoyed within hearing distance of Bow Bells.
‘We are heading, I hope, in the direction of enlightenment.’
The grimace on Quint’s face suggested that he thought they were unlikely to reach their destination very easily.
‘I ain’t so sure why we need enlightening. Why don’t we just turn our backs on everything and go back to taking sun-pictures of old buildings like we was doing before?’
‘The train is slowing. We are coming into a station,’ Adam said, leaning forward in his seat and peering ahead. ‘Royston, I think.’
The train was indeed arriving in a station. The first-class carriage in which Adam and Quint were travelling juddered and came to a halt at the platform. A man and a woman, well-dressed and prosperous-looking, approached the carriage door but stopped when they saw it was already occupied. Adam raised his hat politely. The man did the same and reached for the door handle. The woman, who was gazing at Quint with the kind of appalled fascination that visitors to the Zoological Gardens bestowed on the monkeys there, tugged swiftly at his arm.
‘We shall look for another carriage, Henry,’ she said, and the two moved further up the platform.
‘I’m disappointed in you, Quint.’ Adam was accustomed to the effect his manservant often had on his social betters and felt no need to make any remark on the couple’s behaviour. ‘Two men are dead. We cannot just carry on as if nothing had happened.’
‘We ain’t got no real business with dead men, though. We just had the bad luck to find ’em. Why’n’t we leave it to Pulverbatch to lay hands on whoever killed ’em? He’s already got that Stirk cove.’
‘Mr Stirk could not have killed Jinkinson. Even the inspector recognises that, since he was holding him in custody at the time I was stumbling across poor Jinks. And, despite what Pulverbatch says, Stirk is about as likely to be the murderer of Creech as I am. As the Archbishop of Canterbury is.’
‘What we planning on doing then?’
‘We are doing more than planning, Quint. We are already turning our minds to the curious events that have overtaken us.’
With another judder, the train began to leave the station. ‘Let us consider what we know and what we can deduce. And a few leaps of deductive reasoning are surely acceptable.’ Adam settled himself deeper in his seat. ‘When I sat beside him at the dinner at the Marco Polo, Creech spoke to me of a manuscript. Of a manuscript which, he claimed, holds a great secret. A secret which rests in the hills of Macedonia. He wanted my assistance to discover the secret. A week later, you and I made our way to Herne Hill to visit Creech.’
‘But he was already croaked.’
‘Croaked, indeed. And when we found Creech, we also found a notebook.’
‘It was me what found it,’ Quint pointed out.
‘As you say, you were the man who laid hands upon it and let no one try to take the credit from you. However, the importance of the notebook lies not so much in the identity of its finder as in what it contained.’
‘Jinkinson’s name. And word of all them comings and goings by the toffs.’
‘In addition, there was the word “Euphorion” written in the middle of one of the pages in Greek script.’ Adam had slipped further and further down the seat until he was almost staring upwards at the roof of the carriage. ‘So, Jinkinson was employed by Creech. For purposes not yet entirely clear.’
‘ ’E was gathering all the juicy titbits so’s Creech could rook the toffs.’
‘That seems most likely, I grant you. In the light of what we now know about Lewis Garland’s relations with the actress in St John’s Wood, Lottie Lawrence. But it is not certain. The purposes may have been connected, for all we know, to the great secret. Anyway, I go to see this Jinkinson. I beard him in his Lincoln’s Inn den.’
‘And ’e says, “I ain’t never ’eard of this Creech gent. You’ve got the wrong cove altogether when you come calling on me.”’
‘He says almost exactly that. But, of course, we do not believe him. We give no credence whatsoever to his evasions and mendacities. We follow him through the streets of the city and find the proof that he has been misleading us. We see him talking to Sir Willoughby Oughtred and Mr Lewis Garland. Not gentlemen usually to be found in Jinkinson’s social circle.’
‘Toffs,’ said Quint, who had evidently taken a great liking to the word.
‘Exactly. But, after a few days, our quarry eludes us. He disappears.’ Adam had made a steeple of his fingers, resting his hands on his chest, as he continued to gaze upwards. ‘Despite this setback, we are men of resource. We refuse to believe that, even in the dark morass that is London, a man can simply disappear. We ask questions of those who knew him. We follow his trail through the streets of the city. We make enquiries of those who know him.’
‘I find his tart,’ Quint said.
‘You find Ada,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘She will tell us nothing of the whereabouts of her ageing paramour but she does mention the fact that he has been talking of how his future fortunes may depend on a foreign fellow named, she believes, Yew Ferrion. Eventually, thanks to my encounters with the oleaginous Elisha Dwight, we track Jinkinson himself down.’
‘And then ’e gets croaked as well.’
‘Very true, Quint. The poor man is murdered by the river, even as I am slipping and sliding in the mud no more than a few dozen yards from where he meets his wretched end.’ Adam remained silent for a moment, still resting back in his seat, before hauling himself into a more upright position. ‘When I found Jinkinson on the riverbank, he had about his person a card. The word “Euphorion” was inscribed on it just as it was in Creech’s notebook. Euphorion, I am certain, is the name of a Greek writer. In the absence of any other thread to guide us through the labyrinth, it is reasonable to assume that the manuscript of which Creech spoke was a manuscript of a work by Euphorion.’
‘Sounds right enough to me. Who’s this Euphorion cove, though?’
‘As I say, I cannot be certain that my memory is not playing me false but I seem to recall, from the dim distant days when I read such things for fun, he wrote poetry.’
‘What’s there going to be in a load of old Greek poems?’ Quint asked with some contempt. ‘What’s a poet going to know as nobody else did?’