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“Your dreadful penmanship seems to have improved remarkably,” henoted. “I can actually read these reports.”
“I've been using a writing machine.”
“Really? I didn't know such a thing existed. Well now, you'vebeen busy this summer, haven't you? These accounts are remarkable:The Case of the Tottenham Court Road Vampire; The Men Who Jumped;The Secret of the Benevolent Sisters; The Problem of the PoliteParakeet. You're earning your keep, though I rue your tendency tohang such lurid titles on your reports. These are government files,sir, not pe
He peered over the top of his lenses.
“But what of the Tichborne matter? Why am I still reading aboutit in my morning newspapers? Why have you spent the past threeweeks overseas?”
Burton fished a cheroot from his jacket pocket. “Do you mind ifI smoke, sir?”
“Yes, I do.”
The king's agent looked at the Manila wistfully as he consideredthe Tichborne case. Since April, though working on otherassignments, he and Swinburne had contrived to follow Kenealy andthe Claimant. Now, at the tail end of September, events appeared tobe building a new head of steam.
Steam! By God! He would forever associate the Tichborne casewith steam! The entire season, London had been akin to a Turkishbath, enveloped in hot white vapour, quite unlike the usual “Londonparticular” fogs.
It wasn't just the unusually hot weather causing the problem; itwas also the frenzy of creativity that had gripped theTechnologists. Their Eugenicists had simplified and perfected theprocess of breeding giant insects, and the Engineers wereexperimenting with species after species. In May, Isambard KingdomBrunel had declared himself alive, much to the joy and astonishmentof the British public. In his bell-like voice he'd a
By July, the number of steam-driven insects on the capital'sroads had increased so dramatically that few could disagree withhis claim. The city was literally swarming with scuttling,crawling, hopping, and buzzing vehicles, and, just as DetectiveInspector Trounce had feared, the consequence was total chaos.
Amid all this, the Tichborne affair dragged on, and even withthe capital in crisis and the country at war, it managed to makeheadlines on a weekly basis.
Burton had, for the time being, kept quiet about the FrancoisGarnier Choir Stones, not even telling Detective Inspector Trouncethat they were embedded in the Claimant's head. Better to find outwhy they were there than to have the lumbering creature arrestedfor their possession and never discover what their opponent was upto. So the king's agent maintained his distance and watched as Dr.Edward Kenealy instigated legal action to recover Sir Roger'sproperty.
Midway through May, there arrived at 14 Montagu Place acommunique from Herbert Spencer, who was still below stairs atTichborne House. It was delivered by a small blue and yellowparakeet, which landed on the study windowsill and tapped at theglass.
Burton had pulled up the sash and exclaimed: “By James! Surelyit's Pox?”
“Shut your trap!” came the squawked response, then: “Messagefrom the beautiful and magnificent Herbert Spencer. The Claimant,Kenealy, Jankyn, Bogle, and moronic Lord Lushington are holdin’weekly seances in the bloody billiard room. They've been summonin’the ghost of Lady Mabella. I haven't been able to overhear theirconversations with her. Message bleeding well ends.”
“Well now, I wonder what they're up to?” Burton muttered. “Andwhy is Lushington playing along with them?”
“Stinky twisted bum-face!” POX JR5 responded.
“Message for Herbert Spencer,” Burton said. “Get out of there.Take the swans home. Message ends.”
Pox gave a whistle and flew away.
By early summer, the Tichborne case was such a cause celebrethat legal processes were hastened to bring it to trial as soon aspossible. The Claimant was the plaintiff, of course, but, in truth,few people regarded him as such-he was going to have to prove thathe was the man he represented himself to be.
The trial had opened in May.
Kenealy began by reviewing Sir Roger Tichborne's youth, which,he claimed, was a thoroughly unhappy affair. James Tichborne, healleged, was an alcoholic and violent father, while the boy'sdomineering mother was smothering in the extreme.
Roger had been driven into the company of gamblers andreprobates, and this had eroded his aristocratic nature. It wasthen further weakened by the terrible ordeal he'd suffered duringthe many days adrift in a longboat after the sinking of LaBella.
“Undoubtedly,” said Kenealy, “long exposure to the unremittingsun affected the young man's brain.”
Rescued, Roger Tichborne was landed at Melbourne and wanderedaimlessly through New South Wales until he eventually settled inthe little town of Wagga Wagga. He lived there as Tomas Castro, aname borrowed from a man he'd known in South America, and worked asa humble butcher until the day he opened a newspaper and saw LadyHenriette-Felicite’s plea for information.
After the reading of the affidavits, witnesses for the Claimanthad been paraded before the court. They included Anthony WrightBiddulph, one of Sir Roger's distant cousins, who'd mumbled his waythrough an incoherent statement of support; Lord Rivers, a Rakisharistocrat who'd refused to reveal why he was providing money tothe Claimant; and Guildford Onslow, a Liberal member of parliamentwho was very obviously working his own agenda. A great commotionhad then erupted when Colonel Lushington declared himself a firmsupporter of “Sir Roger,” even though it was he himself againstwhom the legal case had been brought.
Next, a number of Carabineers, who'd served with Tichborne, hadcome forward, as had residents from the estate, servants, a tailor,Sir Edward Doughty's former coachman, and, unsurprisingly-at leastto Burton-Doctor Jankyn.
When the latter took the stand, he made a point of mentioningthat while in the army Roger Tichborne had been tattooed on hisleft arm by a fellow soldier. The Claimant was asked to remove hisjacket and roll up his shirtsleeve. He did so. His left forearm,quite unlike its opposite, was white and slender. On its i
In mid-June, Edward Kenealy sat down, Henry Hawkins stood up,and the cross-examination commenced.
Swinburne, in the gallery with Burton, made the observation thatSir Roger seemed to have grown even fatter.
“Sir Roger?” Burton asked.
Swinburne massaged his temples, winced, and mumbled: “Why do Ikeep saying that? I meant the Claimant, of course.”
The court clerk said: “State your name, please.”
“Sir Roger-Charles-Doughty Tichborne,” came the drawling reply.Hawkins tested the Claimant's education, his knowledge of theTichborne family, and his familiarity with Roger Tichborne'shistory. To anyone with a modicum of intelligence, the replies werewholly unsatisfactory, yet somehow, opinions of the Claimant'sperformance differed in the extreme.
One journalist wrote: In all the fifteen years I have spentreporting court dramas, I have never witnessed such a shambolicperformance as that offered by the Tichborne Claimant. That anyonecan doubt he is anything other than an audacious confidencetrickster fair boggles this writer's mind.
Another countered with: For shame! For shame! That a man shouldreturn home and be subjected to this pitiful circus! What foul plothas Sir Roger Tichborne in its clutches? For none who see him canpossibly believe he is anyone other than the person he says heis.