CHAPTER 15
CHECK AND MATE
“Does that look familiar?” Conan Doyle asked, tossing the 13/13 flyer down on the table.
The Scots author had run Oscar Wilde to ground in his habitual morning haunt: the domino room of the Café Royal, a favorite spot for London’s artists, longhairs and bohemians, a place where the buzz of gossip competed with the clink of coffee cups and the clack of domino tiles being slapped down onto marble tabletops. Wilde looked up from the chair he reposed in. As always, he was smoking, one hand cupping the elbow of the arm holding the cigarette, his chair pushed back from the small table to allow room to cross one leg over the other.
The Scotsman dropped into an empty chair and spoke in a voice both urgent and excited. “I have many new discoveries to share. I just procured that flyer from St. Giles. If you read it, you will see that there is to be a meeting of anarchists. I believe it to be a kind of war council for revolution.”
Wilde studied his friend with a doubting expression and then shook his head dismissively. “Revolution? Surely, not in England. Yes, it is possible to whip up discontent and fiery fervor in the English but only until the moment the pubs open. It is difficult to plan, organize, and maintain a revolution around licensing hours.”
“Perhaps, but you will never guess who was distributing these leaflets.”
“You have a lot of questions for this early in the morning, Arthur. I seldom achieve full awakening consciousness until after my third coffee.”
“Dobbs. You know the man. The police commissioner’s lackey.”
Wilde’s eyes widened. “Dobbs? No wonder he was mister-johnny-on-the-spot when it came to locating the subversive literature he claimed to have discovered in the valet’s room. But why would the police be distributing anarchist literature?”
“Why indeed? And you’ll never guess who else was there.”
“More questions, Arthur? I feel a headache coming on.”
“Tristram Oldfield.”
“Really? Tristram Oldfield?”
Conan Doyle paused a moment, then said, “You have no idea who Tristram Oldfield is, do you, Oscar?”
“I knew I could rely upon you informing me.”
“Another member of the Fog Committee. What’s more, did you hear that the president of the Bank of England, Tarquin Hogg, died last night.”
“A deceased banker. Shall I break out the bunting and celebratory champagne?”
“It’s nothing to laugh about, Oscar. The man was murdered, or rather, assassinated.”
“Ah!” Wilde said. “Yes, that is rather indecorous of me. In the fashion of Lord Howell?”
Conan Doyle nodded. “And by an assassin you and I know. Only this time he did not get up and walk away.”
Wilde grew suddenly serious. “Are we, by chance, talking about the noctivagant, Charlie Higginbotham?”
“The same.”
“Good gracious, indeed!” For the first time, Wilde shifted his attention to the figure seated on his left, who had sat silently throughout the whole exchange. “By the way, Arthur, you know my friend, Robbie Ross.”
The diminutive art critic — completely ignored up until this moment — occupied the chair directly across from Wilde. He sat in slack-jawed amazement listening to their extraordinary exchange, the domino he was about to play still clutched in his hand.
“Yes, ah, hello, Arthur,” Ross looked at them both askance. “What on earth are you two discussing?”
“Ah, just an idea for a play that Oscar and I are working on,” Conan Doyle said. He rose to his feet and nodded for Wilde to do the same. “I’m afraid I must spoil your domino game, Robbie. Come, Oscar, we have much to discuss.”
Moments later, they spilled out of the café, Wilde still objecting as he pulled his arms into the sleeves of his coat. They secured a hackney carriage from the nearby cabstand and piled inside. As the cab drew out into the thrash and brawl of London traffic, Conan Doyle reached into his pocket and flourished the cogwheel. “Do you know what this is, Oscar?”
Wilde pursed his lips and peered at the object with a frown. “If it’s an engagement ring I have to say it is rather clunky looking.”
“It is a cogwheel.”
“Ahhhhh, a cogwheel,” Wilde said, nodding his head. But then added a moment later. “What on earth is a cogwheel?”
“Part of a gear train used in mechanical devices of great complexity.”
Wilde cogitated upon that and finally shook his head. “No… that still doesn’t help.”
“As I told you, Tarquin Hogg, the president of the Bank of England, was assassinated last night. This morning, Detective Blenkinsop and I visited the murder scene.”
The Irishman’s muddy complexion turned ashen. “Tell me you speak in jest, Arthur. Commissioner Burke expressly forbade—”
“I know. This was an unsanctioned visit. And I now suspect that the commissioner is part of an ongoing conspiracy.” Conan Doyle went on to narrate their visit to Tarquin Hogg’s house, his discovery of the infernal device and their near miss with Burke. He concluded by narrating how he followed his adjutant Dobbs to the scene of a riot at St. Giles.
“Good Lord!” Wilde said. “What is this all about?”
“I’m not sure, but someone is dabbling in unnatural things: the reanimation of corpses using mechanical hearts. This cogwheel is a component. I need to find who has the knowledge to fashion such a thing, and I believe I know who might be able to help us.”
The hackney carriage dropped them in the Fitzrovia neighborhood of central London. As he stepped down, Conan Doyle happened to glance back up the stretch of Mortimer Street in time to see a familiar pair of bowler-hatted figures descend from a hansom.
“Damn and blast!”
“Whatever is it?”
“We’ve been followed by Cypher’s bully boys. They must have been lurking outside the Café Royal. Do you see the two large gents in bowlers? I call them Dandelion and Burdock.”
Wilde chuckled. “That’s very amusing and quite apropos, I might add. These are your erstwhile protectors, sent by the enigmatically monikered Cypher?”
“I believe they are his men — protectors, spies, whatever they may be. But I don’t like being followed everywhere. The Emporium is just up the street. We need to give them the slip. I shall attempt to get them to follow me and then hopefully elude them. Oscar, you walk on. Go to the end of the street and then cross over and double back. Lose yourself in the crowd. Dodge into a shop doorway now and again. Try to be inconspicuous.”
Wilde flashed a deeply wounded expression. “Inconspicuous? Moi? Now you go too far, Arthur. Oscar Wilde has many hues to his palette, but inconspicuous is not amongst them.”
Conan Doyle had been loitering outside Jedidiah’s Emporium of Mechanical Marvels for ten minutes before Wilde finally sauntered up. “What took you so long? I deliberately hurried all the way here.”
“Really? I deliberately dawdled. If they were pursuing me, it is likely they overshot.”
“Quickly, let’s go inside.”
The bell jangled as the two friends stepped inside the shop, and were greeted by its dazzling cornucopia of toys, dolls, and mechanical wonders, a place permeated with magic and the lingering odor of machine oil.
“I say,” Wilde exclaimed, looking around in amazement. “I must never bring the boys in here. I would leave bankrupt.”
The shop proprietor was not manning the counter when they entered, and failed to appear after a long wait.
“Hello?” Conan Doyle called aloud.
No response.
A train whistle moaned and the toy steam train whooshed from the alpine tunnel and circuited the shop on its elevated track before plunging into another tunnel at the far side of the room and vanishing.