The Dead Assassin

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.

The two friends drifted about the shop, poking at things, picking up the odd toy, which whirred or buzzed or jangled as it performed some kind of intricate mechanical motion. As he prowled the space, Conan Doyle’s scalp prickled and he had the feeling he was being watched. Then he saw the shadowy figure watching him from the back of the shop: the Automaton Turk.

“What the devil is it?” Wilde asked.

“A mechanical chess-playing device. You should try it.”

“You mean it actually works?”

“Very well. Too dashed well! You play chess, of course?”

“Naturellement. I was chess champion at Trinity.”

“Go on. Have a bash. Play a game.”

Wilde studied the elaborate device with a puzzled frown.

“How does it function? I see no switch.”

“Simply play your opening move. It somehow activates the mechanism.”

“Really?” Wilde tossed Conan Doyle an incredulous glance, but then squared his shoulders and pushed his knight’s pawn to knight 4.

Instantly, the Turk came alive in a whir of gears. The dusky head lifted, the eyes opened and glowed. It drew the long-stemmed pipe to its lips, paused, and exhaled a jet of steam. The arm jerked across the chessboard and pushed a black pawn to bishop 4, threatening Wilde’s pawn.

Wilde chuckled. “That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen. It plays like my old chess master, Shaughnessy. It even pongs a bit like him.”

Conan Doyle left Wilde to his game and wandered deeper into the shop. The toy steam train sounded its mournful whistle and burst once more from the mountain tunnel, thundered around the walls in a blur of mechanical hurry, and vanished through the far wall. Beneath the alpine tunnel was a door, presumably leading to living premises behind the shop. He rapped his knuckles on the wood and called out, “Hello? You have customers! Hello?”

He waited a polite moment and, when no one answered, tried the doorknob. It was not locked and he stepped into a small sitting room decorated with horsehide settees bedecked with doilies and fripperies. Fresh cut flowers sat in glass vases. A coal fire throbbed in the grate.

“Are you quite certain we should be in here?” Wilde’s voice asked in his ear.

Conan Doyle gave a start. The large Irishman hovered at his shoulder.

“What happened to your chess game?”

A look of discomfort flashed across Wilde’s long face. “The machine cheats. Of that I am quite sure. Check and mate in under a dozen moves? Preposterous! Did I mention I was chess champion at Trinity?”

Conan Doyle noticed a framed black-and-white photograph hanging on the wall. Two figures posed on the foreshore of a large and placid lake: a young blond woman in a light crinoline; by her side a small boy, probably a few years younger than his son Kingsley, clutching a windup toy warship.

“Ah, there’s life,” Wilde said, and nodded out the window.

Like many English properties, the shop had a long, narrow garden. At the far end of the space, sitting in a kind of open pavilion, were two people: a woman in a rocking chair (Conan Doyle guessed it had to be the same woman as in the photograph, but could not be certain as her face was hidden beneath a rather old-fashioned pokey bonnet); at her side was a young boy seated in a bath chair, a cap upon his head and a blanket draped across his lap. His hands worked at the controls of a black box, which evidently threw the switches of the train track and determined the path of the toy steam locomotive. His face was set in a smile of childish delight, and his gaze followed the train’s progress as it sizzled along the shiny loops of track.

“Doctor Doyle, is it not?”

Both men jumped. The shopkeeper stood behind them, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Terribly sorry,” Conan Doyle apologized. “I knocked but no one answered. We had been waiting some time.”

Jedidiah beamed with his usual good humor. “Yes, I was down in the workshop, just putting the finishing touches on… a project. Your little boy’s soldier has been fixed. I have it under the counter, all boxed up and ready to take home.”

“Wonderful.”

Wilde nodded at the figures in the garden. “If I may say so, you have a beautiful boy. A quite radiant child.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jedidiah gazed out the window at the two figures and his eyes misted. “My wife and child are the reason I draw breath. Without them, I would be nothing.”

A silence crowded into the room with them and overstayed its welcome. The toy maker drew himself together. “Shall I ring you up, sir?”

They returned to the shop counter. As Conan Doyle settled the bill, Wilde continued to browse.

“There you go, sir,” Jedidiah said brightly, tightening the twine fastening the box securely. “And as I promised, a lifetime guarantee.”

Conan Doyle thanked him and, seeing an opening, said, “You’re a man conversant in all matters mechanical. As a matter of interest, have you ever seen anything like this?” He fished in his pocket, took out the shiny brass cogwheel, and laid it on the counter.

The shopkeeper glanced down at the object and froze. After a long pause he picked it up and studied it, turning it over and over. His head shook from an involuntary tremor. “No… no, I have never seen its like. Quite remarkable. The machining is exquisite.” He laughed. “I am a mere toy maker. This is the work of a great engineer. A master.” He fondled the shiny gear. “Might I inquire where you obtained it?”

Conan Doyle did not want to reveal too much, and offhandedly muttered, “I found it. In the street somewhere.”

“In the street?” Jedidiah repeated in a tone brittle with skepticism. “Do you recall which street?”

Conan Doyle shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Just happened upon it in my travels.” He held out his hand. “Well, there you are. Thank you for trying.”

Jedidiah hesitated. “I’d be very interested in finding the maker of these gears, sir. Their use would contribute greatly to my business.”

“Afraid I can’t help.” Conan Doyle kept his hand held out. With obvious reluctance, the toy maker handed the gearwheel back.

Wilde arrived at the counter. “Might I inquire, sir, which are the noisiest toys in your shop?”

“The noisiest?” the shopkeeper repeated, puzzled by the question. He squinted around. “I suppose the tin trumpet and the drum. Between them they make a fair old racket.”

“Splendid,” Wilde said, laying his calling card on the counter. “Please box them up and have them delivered to my home address.”

The bell chimed as Conan Doyle and Wilde left the shop. As soon as the door closed on their backs, Jedidiah rushed from the counter. He flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and turned his key in the lock, watching through the glass as the two friends stood conversing on the pavement.

From behind, the Ottoman Turk stirred to life in a purr of greased gears. The head lifted, the eyes sprang open and glowed eerily. A jet of steam shot from the automaton’s caved lips. The wooden arm lifted, swung across the chessboard, and tapped the tip of its pipe one… two… three… four… five times upon the chessboard.

“Yes, Otto, you are right,” the toy maker said without turning to look around. “This is a most worrisome development.” His eyes momentarily dropped from the men outside to the calling cards clutched in his trembling hands. “Fortunately, the two gentlemen”—he squinted to read the finely calligraphied names—“Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, Author, and Mr. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, Playwright, have been kind enough to provide me with their calling cards. Now I know who they are… and precisely where they live.”

Out in the street, Wilde and Conan Doyle were still arguing over their respective chess prowess, or lack thereof.

“I haven’t played chess in ages,” Wilde rationalized.

“No, of course not.”

“And playing against oneself hardly counts.”

“I had precisely the same excuse.”

The Irishman was incensed. “Beaten by a, a, a—”

“Glorified cuckoo clock?”

“Precisely! Did I mention I was chess champion at Trinity?”

“This would make the third time.”

Wilde fixed his friend with a look of concern. “Are we growing old, Arthur? Losing our faculties?”

“No. Nowadays we play different games. With greater outcomes.”

Something up the street caught Conan Doyle’s eye. He grabbed Wilde by the lapel of his coat, propelled him into a nearby shop doorway, and pressed him up against the door.

“What? Must we really fight about this? Or are we about to dance?”

“Look.” Conan Doyle nodded at two bowler-hatted men standing on a street corner, looking about, studying the faces of passersby.

“Dandelion and Burdock! Not again! Did they see us?”

“I think not.”

“What now?”

Conan Doyle reached into a pocket, removed the cogwheel and tossed it in his hand. “The shopkeeper is possessed of a keen mechanical bent, and yet he said he’d never seen the like of this gear. He concluded it was clearly the work of a master engineer. It just so happened that a master engineer visited Tarquin Hogg shortly before he was murdered. I think we need to pay a visit to Ozymandius Arkwright.”

At that precise moment a hansom veered around a stationary omnibus and clopped in their direction. “Here comes a cab now, Oscar. Quickly.”

They stepped from the shop doorway and flagged the cab. The two friends clambered aboard and Conan Doyle shouted for the cabbie to drive on.

“Did they see us?” Wilde asked.

Conan Doyle turned and peered out the back window.

“If they did, they show no signs. I think we made a clean escape.” He instructed the driver to take them to an address Wilde had never heard of, a place on the very outskirts of London.

“Where are we going?”

“Arkadia.”

“What’s that?”

“Arkwright’s factory. This may take a while. I’m afraid it’s a bit out of the way.”

“Ah,” said Wilde, and then took out his silver cigarette case and counted how many cigarettes he had left. “So long as it’s no farther than seven cigarettes there should no problem.”

The two fell into reverie as the cab clopped through the busy streets. Finally Conan Doyle turned to Wilde and said, “Why did you ask for the noisiest toys in the shop?”

Wilde paused in lighting up his second cigarette of the journey. “My wife, Constance, suffers from the most excruciating migraines.”

“What? You can’t. You couldn’t do that!” Conan Doyle said, utterly scandalized. “Oh, that’s terribly cruel, Oscar!”

“As I have told you, Arthur. These days, Robert Sheridan is there to keep her company. He lingers in the parlor like the aroma of bacon long after the breakfast things have been cleared. I feel quite forgot. However, my little gift to our boys will be sure to keep me uppermost in her thoughts.”