Charles Sheffield - The Amazing Dr. Darwin

“I need your help, Jacob. Urgently. I have a pony and trap ready, and in five minutes I must be on my way.”

Pole was out of bed at once, nightshirt flapping around his thin legs. “Where the devil are my clothes? Are you after the phantom? Do you want me to come with you?”

“Not on my first trip, which will be a short one. But when I return, half an hour from now, I would greatly value your presence.”

“I’ll be ready. So will your breakfast.”

It was closer to an hour when the pony came clip-clopping back to the Anchor Inn. Jacob Pole, standing outside with his overcoat on and his head muffled by a scarf, stared at what was sitting next to Darwin.

“Christ. Is that what’s-its-name?”

“Harvey.”

“You stole Dunwell’s dog!”

“Borrowed him. Come aboard, Jacob.”

“Hold on a second. The food hamper. It’s keeping warm.” Pole hurried inside, reappeared in a few seconds, and climbed into the trap next to the dog, which sniffed at the laden wicker basket and wagged its tail. “Get your nose out of that! Erasmus, you’re going to have competition.”

“He’s entitled to a share. If I am right, he has as much a task to perform as we do.”

“Well, he may know what you’re up to, but I don’t. Come on, man. I’m damned if I’ll be more in the dark than a dog.”

“If you would but be quiet for a few moments, Jacob, all will be made clear.” Darwin shook the reins, and the trap started forward. “Listen…”

The ride from Dunwell Cove to St. Austell took less than forty-five minutes. By the end of that time the hamper was nearly empty, the basset hound was gnawing on a meaty ham bone, and Jacob Pole was shaking his head dubiously.

“I don’t know. You’ve added two and two and made twenty.”

“No. I have subtracted two and two, and made zero. There is no other possible explanation that fits all we know and have heard.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“We will think again. At the very least, this experiment can do no harm.”

They were approaching the coach house. It stood even quieter than the previous afternoon.

“There’s nobody here.”

“Patience, Jacob. There will be, very shortly, if Jack Trelawney is to make good on his word and be at Dunwell Cove by eight. You stay in the trap, and call him this way when he appears.” Darwin climbed down holding the dog by its leather collar. He stood so that they were shielded from the road by the trap itself. The only sound was the panting of the basset hound.

“Coming now,” said Pole in a gruff whisper, after another five minutes had passed. And then, at full voice, “Mr. Trelawney! Will you be making the run to Dunwell Cove this morning?”

“Aye, sir. If you can wait ten minutes. You’ll be going?”

Darwin stood motionless, as the sound of booted feet came steadily closer. Finally he released his hold on the dog, and stepped around the trap.

The basset hound was already moving. It raced across to Trelawney and gambolled around him, tail wagging back and forth like a flail. Trelawney, after the first futile effort to push the dog away, allowed it to jump up and push its nose at his face.

“You see, Mr. Trelawney,” Darwin said quietly, “a man can stain his complexion to a darker hue. He can disguise his eyes with false eyebrows and a patch. He can redden and thicken his lips with cochineal, or other coloring matter. He can even change his stance and his voice. But it is as hard for a man to change his smell , as it is to persuade a dog to adopt a new name.”

Trelawney stood perfectly still. The single brown eye beneath its bushy brow stared at Darwin for a moment, then looked away along the road.

“Flee, if you will.” Darwin gestured to Pole. “Neither my companion nor I is in any condition to catch you. But do you wish to spend your whole life running?”

“I may not run. Not so long as Kathleen Meredith plans to marry Brandon Dunwell.” The dark face twisted in anguish. “It is no matter of jealousy, sir, or of simple envy. It is a matter of—I cannot say what.”

“Of your loyalty to Brandon? But you do not need to say it, sir, for I can give you your second opinion statim . I saw it the moment that he made his entrance to the Anchor Inn.”

“You know!”

“The stamping on the ground, as though his feet are padded and cannot feel it beneath them. The loss of balance in the darkness, which forces him to shun unlit rooms and go out only during daylight. The need to grip an object whenever possible, so as to remain steady. These are the clear symptoms of tabes dorsalis . Brandon Dunwell is paying a high price for his wild early years. He is suffering from syphilis, in its advanced state of locomotor ataxia .”

“And Kathleen…”

“Is healthy. He must not marry her, or any woman. And I will make sure of that.”

The other man sighed, and the muscles of his face relaxed. “Then that is all I care about. For the rest, I am in your hands. How much do you know?”

“I know little, but I suspect a great deal and wish to propose even more. For instance, I guessed last night that this must have been your basset hound. Who but a student of medicine, as you were, would name his dog Harvey , after the immortal William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood? Your brother might take your dog, but he could not change its name. And who but a student of medicine might have ready access to a corpse, when one was needed to inhibit further pursuit? Even before that, I wondered at an incongruity. You were known, I was told, as Stinking Jack . But I deliberately moved close to you yesterday, and detected no odor.”

“When I had reason to go to Dunwell Hall, I did my best to offer Harvey a false scent. I succeeded, but apparently at some slight cost in reputation.” Trelawney pushed the eye patch up onto his forehead. His brown eyes were clear and resigned. “Very well. I admit it. I am Richard Dunwell. Although you are apparently a perceptive physician, you are not a magistrate. Do you intend to arrest me? If not, what do you propose?”

“I have definite plans. How permanent is the stain of your skin?”

“It can be removed with turpentine. The glued eyebrows may be more difficult.”

“But scissors would reduce them. The three of us must join in serious discussion— inside the coach house. I do not wish to be observed.”

Before marrying a woman, look at her mother.

But the maxim worked poorly with Kathleen and Milly Meredith. Standing together outside the Anchor Inn in the pale light of a cold, overcast noon, the two women formed a study in contrasts: Milly fair, short, and dimpled, with the peaches-and-cream complexion of a milkmaid; her daughter tall and stately as a galleon in light airs, high cheekboned, gypsy-dark, and with flashing black eyes.

And yet, Darwin thought, admiring them from his hiding place, perhaps the old rule was not so wrong after all. Both women would be very easy to fall in love with. Certainly there was no mistaking the adoration on Brandon Dunwell’s face, as he helped Kathleen to board the coach and climbed in after her. The two sat side by side, and Kathleen waved to her mother before Milly went back into the inn. Kathleen closed the window. The cabriolet, with Jacob Pole driving, rolled off at a moderate pace along the road to St. Austell.

One minute later Darwin was inside the inn stable and climbing up on horseback. He did not look too comfortable there. As the cabriolet vanished from view, a second man holding a horse by the reins ran toward him from the rear of the stable.

His thin-featured face had the unnatural pallor of a man who has just shaved off a dense beard. Brown eyes beneath cropped black eyebrows seemed worried and perplexed.