*[i.e. transportation. Ed.]
†[Slang term for a gullible victim. Ed.]
31
Flamma fumo est proxima*
I left Field-court in the highest of spirits. At last I had the means to destroy Daunt’s reputation, as he had once destroyed mine. It was exhilarating to feel my power over my enemy, and to know that he was even now going about his business in ignorance of the Damoclean sword hanging over him. But still there was the question of when to draw on Pettingale’s testimony, and on the evidence that he claimed he could provide concerning Daunt’s criminal activities. To do so before I could prove to Lord Tansor that I was his son would be an incomplete revenge. How infinitely more tormenting it would be for Daunt if, at the very moment of his destruction, I could stand revealed as the true heir!
My thoughts now returned to Mr Carteret’s murder, and to the question of his ‘discovery’. He had said to me, during our meeting in Stamford, that the matter that he had wished to lay before Mr Tredgold had a critical bearing on Daunt’s prospects. I was now absolutely certain that Mr Carteret had been in possession of information relating to the Tansor succession that would have helped me establish my identity; it might even have provided the unassailable proof that I had been seeking. It therefore followed that what was of the utmost value to me had also been of value to someone else.
Suspicions and hypotheses filled my head, but I could come to no clear conclusion. Back in my rooms, I wrote a long memorandum to Mr Tredgold in which I attempted to marshal under various heads all the various matters relating to recent events. Then I walked briskly to Paternoster-row, and knocked on the Senior Partner’s door.
There was no reply. I knocked again. Then Rebecca appeared, coming down the internal stairs that led to Mr Tredgold’s private apartments.
‘’E’s not there,’ she said. ‘’E left for Canterbury yesterday, to see ’is brother.’
‘When will he be back?’ I asked.
‘Thursday,’ she said.
Three days. I simply could not wait.
When I sat down at my desk I found an envelope containing a black-edged card, with the following communication printed in black-letter type:
I duly sat down to write a formal note of acceptance to Mr Gutteridge, and a personal note to Miss Carteret, which I called for one of the clerks to take to the Post-office.
This business done, I determined at once to go down to Canterbury, to see my employer. I therefore instantly dashed off a note to Bella, whom I had been engaged to meet that evening, and consulted my Bradshaw.
I arrived in Canterbury at last to find myself standing before a tall, rather forbidding three-storey residence close by the Westgate. Marden House stood a little back from the road, separated from it by a narrow paved area and a low brick wall topped with railings.
I was admitted, and then shown into a downstairs room. A few moments later, Dr Jonathan Tredgold entered.
He was shorter and a little heavier than his brother, with the same feathery hair, though darker and in somewhat shorter supply. He held my card in his hand.
‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, I believe?’
I gave a slight bow.
‘I beg you to excuse this intrusion, Dr Tredgold,’ I began, ‘but I hoped it might be possible to speak with your brother.’
He pulled his shoulders back, and looked at me as if I had said something insulting.
‘My brother has been taken ill,’ he said. ‘Seriously ill.’
He saw the shock that his words had produced, and gestured to me to sit down.
‘This is sad news, Dr Tredgold,’ I began. ‘Very sad. Is he—’
‘A paralytic seizure, I am afraid. Completely unexpected.’
Dr Tredgold could not give me a categorical assurance, as things then stood, that his brother’s paralysis would pass quickly, or that, even if it did abate, there would not be severe and permanent debilitation of his powers.
‘I believe that my brother has spoken of you,’ he said after a short space of silence. Then he suddenly slapped his knee and cried, ‘I have it! You were amanuensis, secretary, or what not, to the son of the authoress.’
I struggled to conceal the effect of this wholly unexpected and astonishing reference to my foster-mother, but evidently without success.
‘You are surprised at my powers of recall, no doubt. But I only have to be told something once, you see, and it can be brought to mind in perpetuity. My dear brother calls it a phenomenon. It was a matter of much amusement between us – a little game we would play whenever he came here. Christopher would always try to catch me out, but he never would, you know. He mentioned to me, some years ago now, I believe, that you had such a connexion with Mrs Glyver, who I believe was a client of the firm’s and whose works of fiction he and I – and our sister – used greatly to admire; and of course I have never forgotten it. It is a gift I have; and, in addition to the harmless amusement that it affords my brother and me whenever we meet, it has had some practical use in my medical career.’
His words were delivered with a succession of deep sighs. It was apparent that a close bond united the two brothers, and I divined also that the doctor’s expert knowledge made him less sanguine, with regard to the Senior Partner’s prognosis, than he might have been without it.
‘Dr Tredgold,’ I ventured, ‘I have come to regard your brother as more than an employer. Since I first came into his service, he has become, I might almost say, a kind of father to me; and his generosity towards me has been out of all proportion to my deserts. We have also shared many interests – of a specialist character. In short, he is a person I esteem highly, and it pains me greatly to hear this terrible news. I wonder, would it be at all presumptuous if—’
‘You would like to see him?’ Dr Tredgold broke in, anticipating my request. ‘And then, perhaps, we might take a little supper together.’
I accompanied Dr Tredgold upstairs, to a bedchamber at the rear of the house. A nurse was sitting by the bed, whilst in a chair by the window sat a lady in black, reading. She looked up as we entered.
‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, may I present my sister, Miss Rowena Tredgold. Mr Glapthorn is come from the office, my dear, on his own account, to ask after Christopher.’
I judged her to be some fifty years of age, and, with her prematurely silvered hair and blue eyes, she bore a most remarkable resemblance to her afflicted brother, who lay on the bed, deathly still, eyes closed, his mouth drawn down unnaturally to one side.
The introductions over, she returned to her book, though out of the tail of my eye I caught her looking at me intently as I stood, with Dr Tredgold, by the bedside.
The sight of my employer in such distress of body and mind was most painful to me. Dr Tredgold whispered that the paralysis had affected his brother’s left side, that his vision was seriously impaired, and that it was presently almost impossible for him to speak. I asked him again whether there was a chance of recuperation.
‘He may recover. I have known it before. The swelling in the brain is still in the acute phase. We must watch him closely for any deterioration. If he begins to wake soon, then we may hope that, in time, he may regain motivity, and perhaps also some operative residue of his communicative faculties.’
‘Was there any immediate cause?’ I enquired. ‘Some extreme excitation of feeling, or other catastrophe, that might have precipitated the attack?’
‘Nothing discernible,’ he replied. ‘He arrived here last night in the best of spirits. When he did not come down at his usual hour this morning, my sister said I should go up to see whether all was well. He was in the grip of the seizure when I found him.’