The Dead Assassin

CHAPTER 33 A SUMMONS TO THE PALACE

Three days later, the weather trough that had been stalled over England gathered its skirts and swept out into the Atlantic. Gusting winds from the Continent snapped the flags atop Marble Arch and scoured the last tendrils of fog from London’s alleyways and thoroughfares. It was on a blustery, blue-sky day that Conan Doyle debouched from the echoic vault of Waterloo Station to find Wilde’s private four-wheeler drawn up at the curb waiting to collect him.

He clambered aboard to find Wilde in a characteristic pose: legs crossed, an elbow cupped in one hand, the smoke from a Turkish cigarette curling up about his face.

“Oscar.” Conan Doyle nodded in greeting and dropped onto the seat cushion. He drew off his top hat and settled it next to him. Both men were dressed in their finest. Conan Doyle noticed Wilde’s own top hat on the seat beside him, although it was a choice of headgear he rarely favored.

“Did your family not accompany you?” Wilde asked. “The pulchritudinous Miss Jean Leckie?”

“They are coming up from Surrey on the next train.”

“Ah.”

“Are you still residing at your club these days, Oscar?”

Wilde exhaled a drowsy lungful of smoke and gave an insouciant wave. “You will be gratified to know that I spent the entire week in the domestic idylls of Tite Street indulging in the comforts of hearth, home, and family.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Wilde rapped the carriage ceiling with his walking stick and the carriage set off. Conan Doyle noticed the fine envelope on the seat beside his friend.

“I see you have been perusing your invitation.”

“I have read it six times since breakfast,” Wilde replied, picking at a fleck of tobacco on his tongue. “It seems to promise much, but says little.”

“It is vexingly vague as to what we are summoned for. You don’t think…”

“Think what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Is that a new suit, Arthur?”

“Yes. And I note you have your topper with you. A touch formal for you?”

“I thought it appropriate. We are going to the palace, after all.”

“Yes, of course. I am sure it is just an interview, to hear, once again, the details of our side of the story.”

“I am less certain. Everything Mister Cypher does is sub rosa, I doubt he would send out a secret missive using the official stationery of Buckingham Palace. It even has the royal seal upon it.”

“So you think it possible—?”

“I definitely think it possible.”

“That we might be recognized—”

“Rewarded… for our contribution.”

“We did play a vital role in thwarting an assassination plot.”

“Yes,” Conan Doyle agreed. “But, still, it is highly unlikely.”

They rode on in disingenuous silence, each pretending to take an interest in the sights of London rolling past the carriage window. Conan Doyle took out a journal from his leather satchel, flipped it open, and began to scribble.

“One of your Casebooks?” Wilde inquired.

“Yes. And I believe I am about to write the final chapter.” Conan Doyle set to scribbling, his pen filling the blank pages with his neat handwriting in blue ink.

But after several minutes, Wilde could not hold his peace and said, in a musing voice, “Sir Oscar Wilde. It has a certain ring to it, does it not?”

“It does, Oscar, it does. Likewise, I had rather thought that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would look splendid on the spine of a book.”

Both men luxuriated in the daydream of knighthood for a moment longer and then the Scotsman shook himself back into the real world and returned to his Casebook. “Best not to speculate.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“It is unlikely.”

“Highly unlikely.”

“Yes.”

“Impossible.”

“Oh,” Wilde objected, “I would never say impossible!”

At the palace, the two colleagues were conducted into a plush antechamber close to the throne room. Cypher was waiting, sans his companion brutes. Conan Doyle was gratified to see that Detective Blenkinsop was already there. Upon receiving his invitation he had written to Cypher insisting that the young detective be recognized for his contribution.

“Tom!” Conan Doyle said, warmly shaking the man’s hand.

“Just wish the wife and nipper coulda been here,” Blenkinsop said, beaming with pride. “But, I know it has to be kept hushed up and all.” The young detective wore his mop of hair parted in the middle and slicked down with hair oil. He was kitted out in his very finest suit; his shoes, although worn at the heels, were polished to a luster.

Cypher smiled superiorly. “At your request, Doctor Doyle, I had the detective reinstated in the police… and he is to be promoted.”

“Marvelous!” Conan Doyle beamed. “Simply marvelous.” His demeanor suddenly waxed cautious. “And, ah, where is the Prince of Wales? I assume he will be attending.”

Cypher shook his head, looking like an unhappy puppet. “He will not, although it pains me to admit that his exact whereabouts are unknown. The prince somehow managed to evade the men I had following him. I believe he has absconded to Paris. Miss Bernhardt is performing there, and he has evidently rekindled his fondness for her.”

Conan Doyle ruffled his moustaches in an irritated fashion and shared a worried look with Wilde.

Cypher consulted his watch with a frown, and then turned to the men. “The time has come. Are we all ready, gentlemen?”

The men nodded, even while making frantic, last-second adjustments to their dress, cinching ties, combing moustaches.

“Your audience will be brief. I must warn you not to approach Her Majesty. Also, do not speak unless the queen speaks to you. When the audience is at an end, you will bow and take several steps backward, head lowered, before turning and leaving the royal presence. Do you understand?”

They all nodded and mumbled yeses.

Cypher led the way, and the rest of the party followed close behind.

Conan Doyle leaned toward Wilde and muttered sotto voce, “Be prepared, Oscar. Her Majesty is greatly ailing. You may find her appearance quite shocking.”

They crossed the hallway and entered the gilded fantasy of the throne room. Victoria Regina, as ever dressed in mourning black, waited upon her throne. Cypher led them to a spot a cautious distance from the monarch, where they stood in a line and bowed from the waist, although, once again, Conan Doyle had to fight the urge to drop to one knee.

From this distance, Victoria resembled a crumpled doll a child had clumsily arranged in a grown-up’s chair. Her glassy eyes fixed them with a spaniel’s gaze as she regarded them over her many chins. Her chest rose and fell fitfully. The head moved stiffly as Victoria swept her gaze across them and then raised a palsied hand in acknowledgment. When she spoke, her faltering voice could have been coming from a hundred miles away.

“Gentlemen,” she said in a breathless, asthmatic wheeze. “We are informed of the great service you have done for your queen and your nation.”

“We are here to serve, Your Majesty,” Cypher said in an obsequious voice.

But then Conan Doyle caught a whiff of cigar smoke and heard a fruity voice announce, “Ah, there you are, Mother.” He turned to see the Prince of Wales saunter into the room. Edward was not alone, and it took a moment for Conan Doyle to register the slender shadow pacing at his shoulder.

Rufus DeVayne.

“I heard that cousin Rufie has been a naughty boy again,” the prince said. “This time I had to spring him from a madhouse in Latvia.”

Across the room, jaws dropped, eyes widened. The next few seconds of shocked disbelief were to prove fatal.

Before Cypher could scream for the palace guards to seize him. Before Conan Doyle could shout a warning. Before anyone could move, DeVayne snatched something from his cloak — the two-shot derringer he had once offered to Wilde — and aimed it point-blank at the prince’s head. Mistaking it for a prank, the Prince of Wales drew the cigar from his mouth and said, “See, here, Rufie, that’s taking the joke a bit too far—”

“SILENCE!” Rufus DeVayne screamed. The derringer trembled in his hand as he fixed the room with a look that dared anyone to test his resolve.

“Drop the pistol,” Cypher threatened. “Or be cut down where you stand.”

DeVayne merely smiled. “The revolution lives so long as I draw breath. Kill me and I will resurrect myself in three days. But by this act I shall live forever.” He took a step away from the prince and spun around, aiming the derringer straight at Victoria. “So dies a tyrant!” he screamed. The gun fired with a percussive BANG! The bullet struck Victoria in the forehead. She startled. Her head lolled slack and she slumped upon the throne, eyes dead and staring. Blood trickled from the small bullet hole in her forehead and ran down her face.

DeVayne shouted in triumph and then swung the gun back to point it at the Prince of Wales’ heart. His finger was tightening on the trigger when Detective Blenkinsop, who was standing the closest, lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the young aristocrat, smothering his arms. They staggered across the room, grappling. But then BANG! a second shot rang out. Detective Blenkinsop flinched, a sickening tremor shook his frame, and then he relaxed and slumped at DeVayne’s feet.

In the next instant, one of the Beefeaters rushed forward and thrust the point of his halberd into the marquess’s back, running him through so that the spear point burst through his chest. DeVayne’s eyes widened. He staggered forward and looked down in disbelief at the metal shaft skewering his chest. He coughed, shooting out a spray of blood, and slowly crumpled to his knees. His eyes sparkled with tears. His long lashes fluttered. A weird, tremulous smile chased about his lips. Blood, frothy and arterial, trickled from the corners of his mouth. And then, incredibly, he seemed to rally, and spoke in a gurgly voice: “In three days, I shall rise again…” But then the light went out of his eyes and with a prolonged and weary sigh, as if sick of life, he relaxed into death and slumped backward until the spear propped him up, his arms falling akimbo.

The room broke into chaos. Cypher screamed at the Beefeaters, “Make sure he’s dead!”

Conan Doyle and Wilde rushed to Detective Blenkinsop’s crumpled form. When they turned him over, the front of his best suit was soaked in blood. Conan Doyle fumbled for a pulse in his neck. Finding none, his head dropped resignedly.

“Dead?” Wilde asked softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Conan Doyle looked up with a stricken expression, but could not summon the words and merely nodded.

“How terrible,” Wilde breathed. “How terrible…”

Conan Doyle shook his head and croaked, “If it had not been for me, he would not be here today. And so I have caused his death.”

“Nonsense, Arthur. You acted from the very best of motives. You could not have known.”

“The queen!” The Prince of Wales wailed. “Fetch a doctor. The queen has been shot!”

Even through his shock, Conan Doyle realized he was the only doctor in the room. He rose to his feet and numbly approached the slumped form of Victoria. The bullet had struck her squarely in the forehead and a stream of sticky black blood runneled down her face. Her spaniel’s eyes were wide open and staring. But then Conan Doyle frowned at something and reaching out, touched his fingertips to the blood, and examined them, releasing an astonished gasp.

“What?” Wilde asked.

Conan Doyle turned to his friend. “This is not blood. It feels like… oil! Dark red oil.” Still not believing, he reached down and gently tilted the queen’s head. The back of the skull was missing, blown apart, and he expected to see brains and gore. Instead, he found that the shattered skull case contained brassy cogs and a speaking tube that emerged from a hole in the wall behind.

It was suddenly clear they had all been deceived.

“An automaton!” Wilde gasped.

“Yes, another ingenious mechanism.”

At that moment, a door hidden in the paneling opened and a short, stout figure stepped out:

Victoria Regina, this time in the flesh.

Following behind her was a man in a stovepipe hat, the engineer Ozymandius Arkwright.

“Mama!” the Prince of Wales cried out. He rushed over to her, wringing his hands. “I–I—I had no idea. I–I’m afraid I’ve been a fool again, ma’am.”

“A role you are familiar with,” Victoria noted sourly, “and play to perfection.”

She looked about the throne room disapprovingly. “Where is this would-be assassin?”

The Beefeater who had run the marquess through mutely pointed. As she stepped over to inspect DeVayne’s body, Cypher tried to prevent her. “Majesty, this is not a sight fit for royalty—” She silenced him with a wave. The aging queen threw a scowl of disapproval down at DeVayne’s astonished face. “My assassin now lies dead. Traitor to your queen. Your nation. Your class. Your family name. Little man, with your trumped up ambitions, it would take someone far greater than you to slay a queen.”

She looked up at the assembled courtiers and friends, her eyes blazing with self-righteous fury. Despite her tiny stature, despite her advanced age, she cut a formidably regal figure. She turned to the yeoman of the guard and commanded, “Your sword, sir.” The yeoman quickly slid the blade from its scabbard and presented it to her, pommel first. She hefted its steely mass and addressed the room. “We have much thanks to give today. To our loyal servants of the crown. To our fearless subjects who placed the life of their sovereign above their own.”

She focused her stern gaze upon Ozymandius Arkwright. “Step forward and kneel before your queen.” He dropped to one knee and removed his stovepipe hat. Victoria touched the blade to one shoulder, lifted it, and touched the other shoulder. The queen smiled mildly and said, “Arise, Sir Ozymandius Arkwright.”

Conan Doyle’s eyes met Wilde’s and both men wore an expression of deep vexation.

“What did Mister Ozymandius do that made him so deserving of a knighthood?” Wilde bellyached to his friend as they walked across the palace courtyard to his waiting carriage. “We were nearly torn apart by a monster. Drowned in the Thames. Shot. Stabbed. Poisoned by conspirators. All he did was build a giant doll. A mechanical puppet. A—”

“Decoy,” Conan Doyle interrupted. “A very clever decoy that fooled an assassin and saved the monarch’s life.” He looked sagely at his friend. “This whole adventure — all of it — has been about the true face of evil hiding behind a mask. But now a good man is dead and I bear the full weight of guilt.” He looked away into the far distance, despair crouched in the corner of his eyes.

“Mister Wilde, Doctor Doyle,” a fruity and fatuous voice called from behind. “I would speak with you a moment.”

The two friends turned to look. The Prince of Wales strode toward them trailing smoke from the cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth.

They both bowed, but for once the prince had dropped his air of condescension and seemed uncharacteristically bashful, even ashamed. “I must apologize to both you gentlemen,” he began. “This has been a most regrettable business… most regrettable. Our man Cypher has told me of your role in this matter and I now realize that you two have been key to saving the queen’s life, my life, and our nation.”

But Conan Doyle found himself unmoved by the prince’s words and spoke out in a fashion that surprised even him. “I am more concerned about Detective Blenkinsop than accolades for myself. He leaves behind a wife and young child, who through your interference have lost a husband, a father, a breadwinner… everything.”

Wilde visibly cringed. Upbraiding a prince of the realm was unthinkable. He laughed politely and said, “Of course, my friend is suffering from a shock to the nervous system, aren’t you, Arthur? He is not literally blaming you.” He leaned close to his friend’s ear and whispered sotto voce, “Think of Newgate Prison, Arthur. Think of the dark, dank cell that Burke promised us.”

But the prince did not take umbrage. Instead, he seemed positively contrite. “Of course, you are right to speak out. Quite right. I know what you must think of me. I know what the world thinks of me. And I am ashamed. The death of this brave young man is rightfully laid at my feet, not yours. You are correct. He is the true hero. But I give you my word as a gentleman. As a prince. As your future king, that I will see to it that his wife and child receive the full beneficence of the crown and are taken care of for the rest of their days.”

The prince’s candor did much to disarm Conan Doyle’s anger, but the heir apparent had not finished. “It has not been easy, growing up in my mother’s shadow. I am cognizant of my many failings. Indeed, for much of my life I have rebelled against my station in life. But after this dreadful episode, the scales have fallen from my eyes. When I finally sit upon the throne, trust that I shall be a changed man. Perhaps I could even prove worthy of a hero such as Detective Blenkinsop.” The prince shifted his feet. “Now if in the meantime there is any favor you wish to ask of me. Any. No matter how grand. Please name it.”

Although not fully placated, the prince’s self-abasement did much to assuage Conan Doyle’s wrath. As both men muttered their thank-yous and bowed, a clatter of hooves announced the approach of a carriage. They were surprised to see Rufus DeVayne’s landau, complete with its four zebras, draw up before them.

“What will happen to the carriage?” Wilde asked.

The prince shook his head vaguely. “I understand the zebras are to find a new home at London Zoo. I’m not sure what will become of the landau.”

A sudden notion occurred to Conan Doyle. “Your Highness mentioned a favor? I wonder if I might beg a small indulgence…”