Death and the Black Pyramid

Twenty-Nine

John had never made an entrance like it. Thrown onto the Black Pyramid’s shoulder like a doll, he was carried into the grand saloon and dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

‘Look what I have found,’ said the black man. ‘The nosy creature who has been snooping round us all has just committed his final act of spying and followed us here.’

There was a snicker of laughter but generally the faces that regarded him were tight with suspicion.

‘Mr Rawlings,’ said Lucinda Silverwood, ‘I would have thought better of you. What on earth brings you to Vinehurst Place?’

John swallowed and made a gallant attempt at regaining his equilibrium. ‘I have come in search of my daughter,’ he said, his voice sounding somewhat hoarse to his ears. ‘She has gone missing and I had a feeling she might have come here.’

‘And why should she do that, pray?’ asked Cuthbert Simms.

‘Because she is fascinated by the house as apparently are all of you.’

‘Aye, as well we might be,’ answered Nathaniel Broome in a tone so bitter that the Apothecary scarcely recognized it.

The man standing in the midst of them all, the only person that John did not know, gave him a peremptory bow. ‘Allow me to introduce myself, Sir. I am Richard Bassett.’

‘The brother of Helen, the one who was…’

‘Shot? Yes, I am he. Pray take a seat.’

And suddenly the whole situation became as strange and weird as anything the Apothecary had ever seen upon the stage or read in a novel. Here were almost the whole contingent of that coach ride from London to Devon, the ride that had ended in a man being bludgeoned to death, all knowing one another as John had suspected and now gathered together as guests of Helen Bassett’s brother.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ Richard asked.

‘Yes, I would. Anything. This has come as something of a shock.’

Yet it hadn’t really. It was just that the whole situation was utterly bizarre. Beyond anything that the Apothecary had ever had to deal with or had experienced. Far from knowing how to handle himself, he decided that the best policy was to keep quiet and let them question him. Yet they seemed strangely silent, almost nonplussed by his presence. It was the Black Pyramid who was the most vocal.

‘Well, I must say, Mr Rawlings, that you did a clever job in tracking us here. What put you onto it?’

John sighed. ‘Actually it was a chance remark of the coachman who drove us to Devon. He recognized Gorringe and said he had taken him to a stop near Lewes where a carriage had picked him up. He also remembered that the man had used another name though he could not recall it.’

‘So you came to Lewes on the off chance?’

‘Yes, I did. And then I heard about Vinehurst Place, that a terrible tragedy had been enacted within its walls. But at that time I had not made the connection.’

Richard Bassett interrupted them.

‘He’s got this far, Jack. We may as well tell him the whole story.’

‘But Richard, that would make him the most dangerous person to all of us.’

‘He doesn’t look dangerous to me. He looks like a man of honour. Are you, Sir?’

John gulped the cognac which had been passed to him and found he had drained the glass.

‘I believe that I am,’ he answered. ‘I tell lies sometimes, I adopt guises in order to aid Sir John Fielding’s enquiries, but I think I can answer that I am generally an honourable person.’

Richard leant his face close to the Apothecary’s. ‘Then I want you to take a solemn oath that what you hear tonight will remain your secret and yours alone.’

John was silent, considering his options and feeling the seriousness of the occasion. He either had to make a swift escape — which was an impossibility — or go along with their instructions. He looked round the room. Paulina Gower was shooting him a very black look. Mrs Silverwood, though serious, was giving him a half-smile, while Jemima actually seemed sympathetic. Nathaniel Broome was expressionless, Cuthbert Simms was looking perturbed, but the Black Pyramid seemed utterly fearful. He spoke.

‘What is the alternative, Richard?’

Richard — a tall man of medium physique with fair hair that had started to recede — answered very simply, ‘We should have to kill him.’

John sat rigid, then said, ‘In that case you leave me little choice but to swear an oath.’

There was an indrawing of breath from the onlookers and Nat Broome called out, ‘Let’s kill the bastard. He’s been a regular pain in the arse since we first met him.’

Richard was clearly in charge of the meeting because he said, ‘Do we need another death on our conscience?’

Lucinda Silverwood spoke up firmly. ‘No, we don’t. Let Mr Rawlings take an oath to remain silent and that will satisfy me.’

There were general murmurs of approbation and John gulped, almost certain that his life had been saved. But added to this feeling of relief was an enormous sense of curiosity. He longed to know the secret of Vinehurst Place. He longed to know which of them had actually murdered Fulke Bassett.

‘Get me a bible,’ he said, ‘and I will swear.’

Richard went out of the room and in his absence the Black Pyramid murmured, ‘If you let us down, Rawlings, I vow I’ll come after you, hunt you down, and this time I will kill you.’

But John hardly listened, feelings of worry for Rose consuming him once more. Had Irish Tom found her? Or was she not at Vinehurst Place at all? Had she, in fact, gone for a walk somewhere entirely different?

Richard Bassett came back into the room bearing a large and heavy family bible. He placed it on the table and told the Apothecary to raise it in his right hand. With a struggle John managed to do so. Then he said in as solemn a voice as he could manage, ‘I swear by Almighty God that everything I hear tonight shall be kept secret by me until the day I die.’ He turned to the Black Pyramid, alias Jack Beef, ‘There. Is that good enough for you?’ he said.

The black man merely shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that needed no words. Richard spoke again.

‘Please, all sit down. I intend to tell Mr Rawlings the story of how my father murdered my beloved sister — and the aftermath of his actions.’

There was a general shuffling of chairs and John, too, sat down on a small sofa. Richard began, his voice pitched so that everyone could hear him.

‘I think the tale really begins when my mother acquired a little blackboy to accompany her as was the fashion in those days amongst ladies of rank and fortune. She bought him when he was six and a frightened little fellow. We were living in town at the time but subsequently my father made a considerable amount of money in the City of London and built this house and moved Helen and myself out of London to live here. She was ten and I was twelve. Indeed I was the same age as the blackboy whom we had christened Jack.’

Even before Richard had said any more the Apothecary had made the connection.

‘Anyway the boy reached puberty a year or so later and my father was all for sending him to the plantations but my mother insisted on keeping him. She did not have any more living children. She lost two, born after we were, and then died giving birth to a stillborn child. By this time Jack had reached the age of sixteen and had become a useful servant with whom we often unofficially used to play. It was inevitable that he and Helen should fall in love. Inevitable but heartbreaking.’

Richard paused and looked straight at Jack Beef who had plunged his face into his hands.

‘They kept their secret with difficulty, even when Helen became pregnant. She was eighteen and in a state of despair lest my father should find out. Eventually she made the excuse of going away to stay with an aunt but in fact she rented a house in the company of our housekeeper and it was there that she gave birth.’

John was utterly silent, waiting to hear that the child had died, but much to his surprise Richard added, ‘To my beautiful niece,’ in such a pleasant manner that the Apothecary immediately assumed that she was alive after all. And then something totally astonishing happened. The dark-haired Jemima Lovell got to her feet and crossed the room to where the Black Pyramid was clearly weeping. Putting her arms round him, she said, ‘Don’t be upset, Papa. You know I love you.’

John was too astonished to do anything more than stare open-mouthed. Jemima smiled at him.

‘My adopted mother — or the woman I regard as such — is Mrs Silverwood. She nursed me from birth and brought me up in her little cottage on the estate. I owe her so much.’

The Black Pyramid wiped his eyes. ‘When Mr Bassett instructed Helen that she was to wed that filthy and ancient swine the Marquis of Dover, she refused, saying she loved another. But Bassett insisted and she blurted out that she had a daughter. Then he took a gun to her and shot her in the heart.’

‘He was always a violent man,’ said Richard. ‘Many’s the time that both Jack and I had a thrashing or were locked in the cellar. I don’t know what punishment he exacted from Helen.’

‘I do,’ said Jemima quietly, but would say no more.

John asked a question. ‘But how do the rest of you fit in? And what about Fraulein Schmitt? Were you really angry with her, Jack? Or was it all play-acting?’

‘It was a masquerade,’ the Black Pyramid answered sorrowfully. ‘She decided to moan all the way down — thought I must admit that that performance was not stepping very far out of character…’

He was interrupted by Paulina Gower who had remained silent up to this point. ‘She was a kind old creature, once you got to know her.’

‘But that was difficult,’ answered Nathaniel Broome.

‘And where did you fit in?’ asked John.

‘I was a footman here and when Jack decided to become a professional fighter I offered to go as his manager.’

‘And when was that?’

‘Just after Helen was shot. When Mr Richard Bassett closed the house and went to London.’

‘I picked up my child and took her on the road with me. That was until she was seven years of age when I placed her in a school. I tried to be a good father, Mr Rawlings,’ put in the Black Pyramid sorrowfully.

‘So Fraulein Schmitt’s death was a total accident?’

‘It was indeed. The poor old thing must have wandered too near the edge and fallen off the cliff.’

What a sad ending, thought John, and remembered the woman’s dying words and how at last they were fitting into the jigsaw. Unconsciously he turned his head towards Paulina Gower and she, seeing him look at her, raised a supercilious eyebrow.

‘No doubt you are wondering where I fitted into the household.’

‘The thought did occur.’

‘I was a lady’s maid, first to Mrs Bassett, secondly to Helen. I knew all her secrets — and she knew mine. How I longed to go on the stage because my mother had done so. How all I needed was a chance. It was she who advised me to leave my position and try to make my way in London. And thank God I took it and went. But not before I knew my little lady was pregnant by a black slave and had Lucinda’s solemn word that she would care for her and keep the child in secret.’

John cleared his throat. ‘So I presume you all decided to murder the man?’

Richard spoke. ‘We decided to be avenged for Helen’s death and put down a being who wasn’t fit to live. But we had great difficulty in hunting my father down. It took years but my son, Charles — the boy who staggered off the coach the night you got on it, Mr Rawlings — finally found him and followed him and told us his movements.’

‘Bassett’s own grandson!’

‘Yes. Never seen by him because he had run away and hidden before I was even married, let alone had a child.’

John shook his head, his mind almost cracking under the weight of the facts which had just been given to him.

‘But how is it that he didn’t recognize you all and get off the coach?’

‘I think you can put that down to the passing of the years,’ said Cuthbert Simms, speaking for the second time. ‘Alas we are all a little fatter — or thinner as the case may be. We have lines and wrinkles. We do not look the same.’

‘And you forget one thing,’ said Paulina Gower. ‘They were all altered facially by the use of theatrical make-up.’

‘Except for me,’ replied the Black Pyramid. ‘The bastard recognized me. Did he not complain to Martin Meadows that he had seen me before somewhere, that he believed that there was a plot abroad to kill him?’

‘Yes, he did. And Mr Meadows asked me about it.’

Richard spoke again. ‘The truth is that I think he recognized all of you and knew that his life was in danger.’

‘Then why did he not get off? Why not change coaches?’

‘Who knows? Perhaps he thought he could outwit the lot of you. It was part of his character so to do. And it was an evil, black character, Mr Rawlings. He had done much harm in his life and so, finally, the man got his just deserts.’

‘So which of you committed the crime?’ John asked.

There was a moment’s silence and then the Black Pyramid answered slowly, ‘We all did.’

John held out his glass and Richard filled it without saying a word. The Apothecary was quite literally speechless. He had never in his life heard such a story, almost to the point where his brain rejected it. Yet he knew it was true. That everyone of those present had gone into that room and beaten their tormentor about the head. It was a terrible, ghastly thought but yet there had been a dark justice in it.

Though the Apothecary was staring into his drink he knew that every eye in the room had turned upon him expecting some reaction. Eventually he said, ‘It’s a terrible story,’ but could think of nothing further to say.

‘My father was a terrible man,’ Richard answered solemnly.

‘Indeed he was,’ Jemima added quietly.

There was a weighty silence into which spoke a familiar voice.

‘If any of you daredevils so much as approach my son I’ll blow your blasted brains out, so I will.’

John shook his head and almost laughed aloud. Sir Gabriel had crept up on them intent on saving the day. John rose and went towards him, where he stood outside the French doors one of which he had opened quietly.

‘It’s all right, Father. Put that pistol away. I shall leave here quite safely, I can assure you.’

Sir Gabriel glanced round the room. ‘A dastardly clutch of criminals,’ he murmured under his breath. Then he paused, ‘’Zounds, isn’t that Miss Lovell? What is a decent girl like her doing with this motley crew?’

‘She’s the Black Pyramid’s daughter,’ John said with a smile, and watched his father go pale and sink into a chair.

Richard spoke. ‘It would seem, Sir, that your father has come to collect you. I take it that you will not be visiting Vinehurst Place again.’

John nodded. ‘No, we shall go back to London first thing tomorrow morning. Provided, that is, that I can find my daughter.’

‘The little imp was brought back to the coach by Irish Tom and I must inform you John that I gave her six smacks on her derriere.’

‘Which she richly deserved.’

John bowed to the assembled company who were still staring at the amazing sight of Sir Gabriel decked out in stunning black and white, his three-storey wig adding to his already considerable height. Then Jemima Lovell found her delightful voice.

‘Goodnight, Sir Gabriel, goodnight, Mr Rawlings. I trust that you will keep the promise you swore to honour.’

‘I assure you, Madam, and the rest of you,’ answered John, giving another, more formal, bow, ‘that the secret shall go with me to the grave.’