The Amazing Dr. Darwin

THE PHANTOM OF DUNWELL COVE

“Salt ham, bread, sauerkraut cabbage, and near two pints of beer to slake the thirst. So what, then, would you expect?”

Erasmus Darwin seemed to be addressing the question to his own big toe. His bare right foot and broad calf were propped up on a wooden stool in front of him, while he stooped forward to examine the reddened and swollen toe joint. It was no easy task. He was grossly overweight, with an ample belly that hindered bending. The face that frowned down at the offending foot was fat and pockmarked, redeemed only by its good-natured expression and bright grey eyes.

“You would expect exactly what I got,” he went on. He was dabbing ether onto the joint, preparatory to covering it with a waiting square of oiled silk. “For have I not told you, Jacob, that the surest way to induce an attack of gout is through the consumption of ill-chosen food and drink? Salt is bad. Beer is bad. Claret and port are pure poison.”

Jacob Pole took no notice whatsoever. He was prowling between the fireplace, where a good coal fire showed an orange heart, and the narrow shuttered window. He paused to peer out of the crack in the shutter as another gust of wind hit the house, banging on the thick door like a gloved hand.

“Damnable,” he muttered. “Down the Pennines, and before that straight from the North Pole. And it’s snowing again. We ought to be in warmth and sunshine. What man in his right mind would live in a place like this, when he could head south and enjoy the sun by day, and be lulled to sleep by warm breezes at night?”

“Aye. The south, where an Army colonel could develop malaria, to leave him shaking and shivering three or four times a year, regardless of weather.” The square of silk was in position, and Darwin was carefully pulling on over it a woollen stocking. “I have Jesuit-bark in my chest, Jacob, if you need it. It is my professional opinion that you do.”

“Later, maybe.” Pole touched his hand to his jacket pocket, then returned to lean on the mantelpiece. “A slight case of trembles, but I’m in fair shape provided that I don’t catch a chill. Better shape than you, from the look of it. Salt ham and beer! What prompted you, ’Rasmus, after all your lecturings to me?”

Darwin pulled on his soft boot, wincing for a moment as the sore toe felt the touch of leather. “Hunger, Jacob, pure hunger. What else? I was on the road early this morning, in anticipation of the bad weather that you now see. I knew of the childbirth problem at Burntwood, but the case of blood poisoning at Chasetown was a surprise and the supplies of food that I had taken with me in the sulky were gone by midday. Salt ham and beer were all that were available; yet a working man needs fuel. He cannot afford to starve.”

“Be a while before that happens to you.” Jacob Pole nodded at Darwin’s belly. “And you were right about the weather. It’s absolutely foul outside, and it’s not even dark yet. I’m wondering.”

“Wondering what?” Darwin was smiling knowingly to himself.

“Wondering how I’ll ever get home tonight. There’s more snow in the sky, and the road to Radburn Hall was hard going even early in the day.”

“You should not even think of it.” Darwin stood up, pressing his right foot tentatively on the rug. “What sort of host would I be, if I sent a friend out to freeze on a night like this? Moreover, Elizabeth will surely not expect you. Do one thing for me, Jacob, as a favor to my sore toe. Go and tell Miss Parker to set an extra place for dinner.”

Another buffet of wind hit the stone walls of the house, but Jacob Pole had lost his gloomy expression when he hurried away toward the kitchen. He was back in just a few seconds.

“Erasmus, she said you already told her that I would be staying to dinner, and that just the two of us should be present.”

“And was I wrong?”

“No. But how did you know?”

Darwin was grinning, a friendly grin even without front teeth. “You arrive at my home while I am away on my rounds. That is unusual, but not unprecedented. You await my return. Very well. But when I come here accompanied by Dr. Withering, you say scarce a word to either of us. And when he goes, you stay. Add to that your touching of your jacket pocket, not once but half a dozen times. Is it not obvious that you have something that you wish to show to me, and say to me, and that it is something calling for privacy?”

“I do, and it does.”

“And it is not the delicate matter of a medical opinion.”

“How the devil can you know that?”

“Because if it were, you would have spoken long since. You share my high opinion of Dr. Withering.”

“Blast it, do you know everything?”

“Very little—until I am told.” Darwin led the way through to the dining room. Earlier there had been a noise of small children, but now the room was empty. Two places were set, facing each other across the broad oak table. In the middle sat earthenware tureens of parsnips, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts, with between them a gigantic steaming pie, twenty inches across and already cut into ten slices. Jugs filled with milk and water stood at the end of the table, along with a concession to the visitor in the form of a pitcher of dark beer.

Jacob Pole sniffed the air. “Squab pie? My favorite.”

“With apples, onions, and cloves. But before you assign me powers beyond the natural, I will admit that this was to be my dinner long before I knew you would be here to share it.”

Pole pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and sat down at the table. “A pie that size. What would you have done if it were just you at table?”

“My v-very best.” Darwin’s voice took on the slight stammer that came often when he was joking. He had already lifted a mammoth portion of pie onto his plate and was reaching for the tureens. “Now, we are better equipped for conversation. At your service, Jacob.”

But the gaunt colonel shook his head. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to read a letter aloud to you before I say anything else. The only thing you must know before I begin is that the writer, Millicent Meredith, is my cousin. Milly is a widow, and four years ago I helped her with a family problem. Although we have always been regular correspondents, it is so long since we last met.”

Darwin, his mouth already full of pie, reached out for the envelope. It had been opened, sliced cleanly at the top with a sharp letter opener. He slid out four pages of thick ivory-white paper, written on both sides in purple ink.

He handed the pages to Pole but kept the envelope, examining it carefully before placing it on the table to the left of his plate.

Pole, after a preliminary clearing of his throat, began to read.

“She has my ear and sympathy already.”

“Aye. I thought that would catch you.”

Pole laid down the final sheet. Across from him his companion did not seem to have moved, but almost half the pie had vanished and the vegetable tureens were much diminished.

Darwin sniffed and shook his bewigged head. “A mystery, sure enough. And a clear cry for help. But I heard nothing that could not have been read aloud in the presence of Dr. Withering.”

“True enough. But there is more. And it is more personal to the family.” Jacob Pole tapped the letter. “Milly didn’t spell it out to me, because she knew I know all about it, but she has other worries on Kathleen’s behalf. You see, two years ago Kathleen was engaged to another Dunwell. That was Richard, Brandon’s elder brother. But he stabbed a man to the heart, was tried for it, and sentenced to death. The day before he was due to be executed he broke out of his cell and escaped along the cliffs east of Dunwell Cove. When he was cornered he jumped into the sea rather than be recaptured. Three days later his drowned body was found at low tide, trapped in the rocks and the tidal ponds. Kathleen was of course heartbroken by the murder, the trial, the verdict, and then the suicide. So now, when there’s talk of a phantom, and people say it’s the ghost of dead Richard… you can see how poor Milly’s thoughts are running.”

“She wonders about a ghost, which I can believe in no more than I am persuaded of the existence of a phantom who performs so mundane a function as the robbing of coaches.”

“Perhaps.” Pole was at last helping himself to food, while conscientiously avoiding Darwin’s eye. “But if it’s no ghost, then we need another explanation.”

“Which in the circumstances is quite impossible to provide.” Darwin reached far along the table, to slide within easy reach a round of soft cheese and a bowl of dried plums and candied peel. “Jacob, I love a good mystery as much as the next man, and perhaps a deal more. But if you have heard me say it once, you have heard me say it a hundred times: In medical analysis, there is no substitute for personal presence. For if medication and surgery form the lever of medicine, examination provides the fulcrum of diagnosis which allows them to act. One must observe at first hand: the jaundiced eye-ball, the purple or livid lips, the sweet or necrotic breath. One must examine the stools and the urine, and palpate the cool or fevered skin. Without that direct evidence, a doctor has nothing but hearsay. And in many ways, the curious events involving your cousin and her daughter are little different. So what, to continue the medical analogy, are the facies of the situation? I can list a dozen facts which may be important, and concerning which we know nothing. Without facts to sink them, a thousand ideas can be safely launched. Yet you would propose that we sit here in Lichfield, and conjure an order of events in west Cornwall? I say, that cannot be done with any shred of plausibility.”

Pole nodded gloomily. “I suppose you’re right.” He said nothing more, but went on quietly eating. After a few seconds Darwin reached across to pick up the letter and began reading it over.

“When is the wedding?” His words were hardly intelligible through a mouthful of Caerphilly cheese and plums.

“February 12th—ten days from now.”

“Hmph. Do you know the bridegroom?”

“Neither him, nor his dead elder brother. In truth, the whole Dunwell family are strangers to me.”

“And your niece, Kathleen?”

“I was present at her birth. She deserves the best husband in the world.”

“And finally, your cousin Milly. Would you describe her as an imaginative woman, one with an active fancy?”

“Quite the opposite. She’s direct and straightforward, with a bottom of good sense.”

“Hmph.” The silence this time went on for much longer, until at last Darwin stood up and walked over to the window. He peered out, looking up at the sky. “Ten days, eh? And it is sixteen days to the full moon.”

“That’s right.” Pole was suddenly smiling. “Ample time. It would be four days each way, six at very worst. We would be there and back, and you’d not miss a single meeting of your precious Lunar Society.”

“That is as well. Our group is overdue for a meeting with Mr. Priestley, reporting on his latest experiences with dephlogisticated air. All right.” Darwin was absentmindedly wiping greasy hands on the tablecloth. Once the decision had been made he moved at once to practical details. “Let us assume that Dr. Small and Dr. Withering will serve as locum tenens in my absence. It will take at least four days to reach Dunwell Cove, but such a timetable presumes that we will be able to obtain a coach to take us to the service running south from Stafford. In such weather, that may not be easy.”

“Ah—well, as it happens that’s already taken care of. I arranged for a two-horse dray to collect me here, first thing in the morning. It has ample room for two.”

“Indeed.” Darwin raised his thin eyebrows. “And what of your necessary baggage?”

“It’s all with me. You see, I thought that I—”

“Say no more.” Darwin raised a plump hand, and leaned far back in his chair. “I now wish to ruminate on the fact that my actions are apparently so easily dictated.” He waved at the table, where half the pie remained untouched. “And you must eat, instead of pecking like a sparrow. Come, Jacob, no protests. You know the rule of nature: Eat or be eaten. I do not relish the thought of a winter travelling companion who is weakened by lack of nourishment.”

He scanned the table top, a frown on his face. “And while you do your share, I will inquire as to the status of our hot dessert. Ginger pudding was promised.”

The contrast was striking. As far west as Launceston, winter ruled. The road surface was iron-hard and stable, the crust of snow breaking barely enough to give firm support to a horse’s hooves. Hedgerows, formed from black tangles of leafless hawthorn, marked the converging lines of highway across the white and rolling landscape of the Bridetown Hills. Finches, robins, and starlings, perched within the hedges, were fluffed out to grey and brown balls of feathers. They did not move as the coach passed by. Within the vehicle the passengers sat just as unmoving, swaddled from toes to ears. The interior, no matter how much the occupants might struggle to block each crack and chink of door and window with rags and clothing, remained ice-cold.

But beyond Launceston, the road skirted left of the brooding, craggy mass of Dartmoor. The way to the south lay open. Within a few miles, the snow cover melted magically away, while at the same time, as by coincidence, the sun broke through and began to disperse a long-held low overcast. The road surface softened as the coach proceeded, and at last at the foot of the hedges the snowdrops and first yellow crocuses stood in open bloom. Beyond the boundary hedgerows, birds and rabbits busied themselves in the soggy fields.

“By the grace of the great Gulf Stream.” Darwin had abandoned the broad hat that had protected his head since leaving Lichfield, and for the past few miles he had been peering out through the coach window at the rapidly changing scenery. “The Stream laps the whole of the western peninsula, to the point where winter in Cornwall and Devon never approaches the severity of our inland experience. A few more miles south, and I swear we will see full Spring. But even in Lichfield, we still have reason to be grateful for the Stream’s existence. Were it not for that benign presence, all England would be colder than Iceland.”

Jacob Pole did no more than grunt. For three days he had said little and eaten less, contenting himself with making the atmosphere in the closed coach hideous with strong tobacco, that he first cut in thin slices from a purple-brown solid block, rubbed well between his hands to shred and flake it, and stuffed into a curved meerschaum pipe so well-used over the years that its golden exterior had turned almost black. He lit his pipe with the aid of a small oil lamp, constantly burning for just that purpose. Smoke rose up in pungent blue-white spirals to fill the closed coach. Darwin, as confined in movement as his companion, had grumbled about the nauseating stink as he scribbled both verse and prose in his bulky Commonplace Book, but between rhymed couplets and engineering ideas he had eaten and drunk enough for two from the hamper that sat next to him on the seat. His precious medical chest, too bulky to travel within, was lashed to the coach’s flat top.

“And because it is never true winter in the extreme southwest,” Darwin went on, “the native flora must surely contain members of the vegetable kingdom not encountered farther north and east. Think of it, Jacob. I may return home with the basis for a whole new pharmacopeia, derived from plants that I have never seen before.”

Another grunt was Pole’s main reaction, until at last he removed the pipe from his mouth.

“Blast it, Erasmus, I don’t have your spare padding. If you’re planning to keep up the geography and medical lectures, you might at least do it with the window closed.”

“So that you can once more asphyxiate me with your fumes? You are fortunate that there are no other passengers, less patient and long-suffering than I. Also, the day will come when you regret your emaciation.” Darwin patted his belly in a satisfied way. “This is not mere padding. It is valuable reserves, against the possible vicissitudes of Nature.”

But he pushed the window to, as tightly as it would go, and leaned back in his seat. “Five more minutes, Jacob, and it will be time to dot your pipe and light your brain. That last milepost shows us to be only one mile short of St. Austell.”

“I’m aware of that. Why d’ye think I’ve been sitting here steaming, the past half-day?”

“Are you afraid that your cousin may have alerted others to our impending arrival? I thought that you in your letter were to warn her against such action.”

“I did. And I rely on Milly completely. So far as anyone in Dunwell knows we are no more than guests for the wedding party on the bride’s side.”

“So why the long face?”

“Her reply created that.” Pole patted his chest, but made no move to draw a letter from within his quilted and buttoned overcoat. “Too much gratitude, in advance of results. She seems to think we’re gods—especially you.”

“And why not? We are as much gods as any that exist.”

“You don’t want to go talking like that around the people at Dunwell Hall. Especially Brandon Dunwell. According to Milly he’s a very pious, God-fearing man—a bit too much, I suspect, for her taste.”

“And therefore far too much for mine.”

“No doubt. But the real problem is, I’m afraid Milly is hoping for a lot more than we can deliver. I can tell from her letter, she’s thinking we’ll arrive at Dunwell Cove with a full explanation. And you told me yourself, you have absolutely no ideas about the phantom.”

Darwin’s full mouth pursed. “I said no such thing. If you will but recall our conversation on that first evening, I said that I had a thousand ideas. That is still true. But until we arrive at Dunwell I have no sieve, no way to retain truth and riddle away plausible nonsense. But that will change. In fact, it is already changing.”

While they were talking, the rhythm of the wheels was taking on a different cadence. The rumble of movement over town cobblestones replaced the crunch of gravel of a well-kept country road.

The coach was arriving, a few minutes earlier than the driver’s estimate, at the St. Austell coach house. The wheels were still turning when Darwin opened the door. He swung himself to the ground, lightly for a man of his size, and stared around with eyes gleaming.

They had arrived on a private vehicle, not a regular service, and the only person waiting at the coach house was a straw-haired boy nine or ten years old. Seated on a bench, he was enjoying the new-found sun and staring at Darwin with open curiosity.

“A bad start.” Pole, climbing out more slowly and gesturing to the driver to unload their cases and the medical chest, glared at the lad. “Nothing here. I was hoping we’d learn something in St. Austell and have a suggestion to offer Milly.”

“And so we may. Make no mistake, Jacob, as a witness a young boy is far to be preferred to a grown man or woman. He has fewer preconceptions as to what he believes he should see.”

Darwin walked across to the lad, who was still gawping at the new arrivals. He reached into his pocket, and fished out a shilling.

“Roight, sir.” The voice was full of the singing tone of the far West Country, and at the sight of the coin the boy had come to his feet at once. “You’ll be wanting me to handle the cases, sir?”

“No. Just answer one or two questions.” Darwin sat down on the bench and gestured for the lad to do the same. “What’s your name?”

“Georgie, sir.”

“Well, Georgie, we will be taking the coach from here to Dunwell Cove. Will it be arriving soon?”

“Yes, sir. He be here any time now.”

“Is it always the same coach that is used for Dunwell Cove, or are there several?”

“There’s only the one. Same coach, and mostly same horses.”

“And it is always driven by the same coachman?”

“Yes, sir. Always the same man, it be, for a long time now.”

“What is his name?”

“Jack Trelawney.” Conflicting expressions ran across the boy’s open face. “Stinkin’ Jack, some around here be callin’ him.”

“But it is not a fair name?”

“No, sir. He were once powerful smelly, a while back. But not now.”

“I see. You like Jack, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, that I do.” Georgie blushed, a fiery scarlet like a sunburst. “He never thrazzes me for nothing, not like some as drive the coaches.” He looked down, then turned to glance up at Darwin through thick eyelashes that any girl might have envied. “He’s not being in trouble, is he?”

“No trouble at all, so far as I know. But would you point him out to me when he comes in?” Darwin stood up, dropped the coin into a grubby hand, and was rewarded with a shy smile.

“Yes, sir. I’ll point ’im out. Thank’ee, sir.”

Pole had watched and listened from over by the coach, which had already been turned and provided with fresh horses in preparation for its journey back to Taunton. “A good shilling down the drain,” he grumbled, as Darwin returned to his side. “And we’ve not been in St. Austell above five minutes.”

“But my shilling, to spend as I chose.” Darwin’s voice took on a more thoughtful tone, and he went on, “A shilling spent, not wasted. You see, Jacob, there is a hidden calculus, not recognized yet by our philosophers but perceived instinctively by many financiers. Knowledge is a close relative to money, just as money is related to knowledge.”

Pole flopped down to sit on his travelling chest. “Damn it, ’Rasmus, you’re getting too deep for me. Money leads to knowledge, eh? So what knowledge did your shilling just buy from yon lad?”

“I do not yet know.” Darwin shrugged his heavy shoulders. “As I said, it is not a recognized calculus, and its working rules have still to be established.”

“Then for the moment I’ll hang on to my shilling.” Pole nodded toward the bench, where Georgie was gesturing urgently to Darwin and pointing along the road. “Here’s what you got for yours.”

Approaching the coach house on foot was a dark-clad figure holding a leather gun case. His long overcoat was marked in front with pale brown stains, and he wore a round hat with a rim pulled low to shield his single eye from the bright sun. A black patch covered the other eye, and bushy brows and a full black beard emphasized rather than concealed thick lips, red and glistening. The man’s complexion was very dark, adding credence to the idea that the remnants of the defeated Armada had two centuries earlier discharged their exhausted Spanish crews onto the Cornish coast. The coachman took in Darwin, Pole, and luggage with one swift glance, nodded a greeting at the boy, and strode on through into the coach house.

Two minutes later he was back from behind the building, driving a two-horse cabriolet with a modified wooden body. He held the reins lightly and the team was fresh and frisky, but the coach wheeled smartly around to stop precisely at the pile of luggage.

He jumped down from the driver’s seat and grinned at his passengers with a rapid gleam of white teeth. “Jack Trelawney, at your service. Dunwell Cove or Lacksworth, sirs? Or are you for Dunwell Hall?”

The voice, like the man’s actions, was quick and economical, lacking the Cornwall burr. The brown eye scanned the two men, head to toe. Without waiting for an answer he bent to hoist the medical chest to the rear of the coach.

“Dunwell Cove. The Anchor Inn.” Darwin had done his own share of rapid observation. Jack Trelawney was of medium height and build, but he had lofted the heavy chest with no sign of effort. The tendons on the backs of his work-hardened brown hands stood out as he lifted, showing in white contrast to fingers and nails yellow-stained on their end joints as by heavy and prolonged use of tobacco.

“Very well.” Trelawney had just as rapidly loaded the other luggage. “We have a light load today, and you are the only passengers. Payment before we start, if you do not mind. Thank you, sirs.” He pocketed the money without seeming to look at it and gestured them to board.

“I think maybe a ride in front, with the weather so improved.” Darwin moved to stand close to Jack Trelawney, then paused and frowned. “What do you say, Jacob?”

“Not for me. I’m still thawing out.”

“Oh, very well. Then I’ll keep you company.” Darwin swung open the door of the coach and led the way inside. He waited until the door was closed. Trelawney had climbed up front in the driver’s seat, and the two-wheeled cabriolet was on the move. Then he was out of his place again.

“Devil take it, Erasmus, can’t you sit still for a second?” Pole, in the act of taking out pipe and tobacco, was forced to stop, because Darwin was leaning right over him, examining doors and windows. “What are you up to?”

“Looking for a way for the phantom to enter.” Grunting with effort, Darwin progressed from ceiling to floor, and was soon on hands and knees peering under the seats.

“For God’s sake! If you think the phantom hides away under there, and pops out when nobody’s looking…”

“I do not.” Darwin, hands and sleeves filthy with cobwebs and old dust, finally climbed back to his feet and dropped into his seat facing Pole. “A modification to the original vehicle, with well-fitting doors and windows. It would please my friend Richard Edgeworth, because it is not of conventional design. But it is soundly made. Be silent for a moment, Jacob. I wish to listen.”

Jacob Pole sat, straining his own ears. “I don’t hear a thing.”

“You do. Listen. That is the squeak of coach bodywork. And all the time there is the clatter of the wheels over hard surface. That snort was one of the horses, hard-breathing.”

“Of course I hear those. But they are just noises. I mean, there’s nothing to listen to.”

He had lost his audience, because Darwin was up again, this time opening a window. He stuck his head out, peering in all directions.

“The coast road, of course.” His bulk filled the opening and his voice sounded muffled. “Typical Cornwall, granite, slate and feldspar. But St. Austell has reason to be glad of that, for without decomposed feldspar there would be no treasure house of china clay. Furze, broom, and scabgrass. Poor soil. And I note lapwings, terns, and an abundance of gulls. Forty yards from road to cliffs, and beyond them a drop to the sea. Very good. And now for the other side.” He was across the coach in two steps, to open the window there.

“Are you all right, sir?”

Jack Trelawney’s voice, calling from the front of the coach, showed that he had noticed the activity within.

“Perfectly well. Enjoying the scenery and the weather.” Darwin stayed for half a minute, then closed the window and slid back to his seat. “Rising ground to the right, we’re on the edge of a little moor. More granite, of course, and no sign of people. I doubt that the ground here is very fertile.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Pole sniffed, and continued stuffing his pipe. “I didn’t know you were thinking of setting up farming here, or planting a flower garden. And I’m wondering what you are proposing to tell Milly and Kathleen. They have as little interest as I do in a catalog of local muds and rocks, and still less in the Cornish bestiary.”

“I am not proposing, initially, to tell anything. It would be premature. I intend first to ask questions. As for an inspection of the surroundings and setting of Dunwell Hall and Dunwell Cove, we are seeking to explain a strange event. And any event, no matter how strange, inhabits a natural environment, which must itself reside within limits set by the physically possible. Therefore, we must first establish those bounding conditions.”

“Aye. And after that?”

“After that we will meet the phantom; and, as Shakespeare puts it, ‘give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’ ”

Darwin’s tone was cheerful and confident, but Jacob Pole merely shook his head. The rest of the ride went in silence, one man smoking and the other deep in thought, until the motion of the coach slowed. Jack Trelawney rapped hard on the front of the partition.

“Dunwell Cove. What about the luggage, sir?”

“Place it all inside the inn.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” In less than a minute Trelawney had bags and medical chest down and within the door of the inn. “Be by tomorrow, about eight of the morning,” he said. And then, before Darwin and Pole had time to turn, he was back up onto the footboard of the coach and rolling away down the road.

“Not one for wasting time,” said Pole gruffly. But there was no further chance to comment on Jack Trelawney’s departure, because the inn door was opening again, and a woman emerged.

“Cousin!” She ran forward and gave Pole a hearty hug, then turned to his companion. “And here is the great Dr. Darwin. Exactly as I imagined you from Jacob’s descriptions, but much more handsome.”

“And you, madam, are much more beautiful.” Darwin offered his hand, at the same time as he gave Pole an accusing side-glance. “I have seldom seen so fair a complexion or so engaging a smile. Indeed, were it not for the color of your hair, I would mistake you for your own daughter, Kathleen.”

“Now, sir!” Milly Meredith was fair, short, and plump, with red cheeks and lively blue eyes. She dimpled at the compliment, then shook her head. “Although neither Kathleen nor I is able to smile much at the moment. If you will come inside, I have something new that I must show you.”

She led the way. The interior of the Anchor Inn was dim-lit, since the glazed windows were small and the frugal innkeeper would offer no oil lights until darkness forced it. But the table was set, and at Milly’s nod a stout woman in a flowered skirt headed at once for the kitchen.

Milly sat by the window and invited the two men to take seats across from her at the long bench. “Your room is ready upstairs, but I thought that after your long journey you might welcome a meal. I hope that travel has not spoiled your appetite.”

“Not in the least.” Darwin placed himself opposite Milly. “I am famished, and look forward to dinner with the liveliest anticipation.”

“I fear that it will be fare less fancy than you are accustomed to. Only Cornish pasties, with potatoes, leeks, pickled onions, and pickled cauliflowers.”

“It sounds excellent—and I will not inquire as to what form of meat may be in the pasty. There is an old Cornish saying, madam: ‘The Devil will not come into Cornwall, for fear of being made into a pie.’ ”

Milly Meredith laughed, but Darwin sensed the undercurrent of anxiety within the sound and went on, “Perhaps we can dispose of serious concerns before dinner, ma’am. First, you mentioned that there is something new?”

Milly glanced around before she answered. “New, and most disturbing.” She reached into the waistband of her skirt, pulled out a folded piece of yellow paper, and handed it across the table to Darwin. “Two days ago, I discovered this within my sewing kit.”

He opened it and read aloud, while Pole leaned across to see the paper. “ ‘Kathleen must on no account marry Brandon Dunwell. If you value your daughter’s health and happiness, make sure the wedding does not take place.’ That is all? No other message, no envelope?”

“Nothing.”

“And Kathleen?”

“Knows nothing of this. She returns in the morning.” Milly drew in a deep breath, and her lips trembled. “I have been so tormented, wondering if she should be told.”

“Not unless some purpose is served by doing so. I deem it premature to burden her with this. In fact, if it is possible to avoid any involvement of Kathleen in my actions, I will do so.” Darwin looked again at the note, and his face became perplexed. “Before this note I had been pursuing a certain line of thinking, which must now perhaps be abandoned. May I keep this?”

“Of course. But Dr. Darwin, what should I do? The wedding is in five days, the guests are arriving, the plans proceeding. Brandon is arriving later today, to discuss more arrangements with me.”

“What time do you expect him?”

“Soon.” She glanced out of the window. “Before dark. He has an aversion to the night. But before he comes, may we talk? Dr. Darwin, I am desperate, and desperately worried. Jacob assures me that you are the most learned man in the whole of Europe, and the wisest. Tell me what I must do, and I promise that I will follow your advice.”

“Until I have had the opportunity for more thought concerning this new missive, I am not sure that I am equipped to offer advice. But let me hold for the moment to my original idea. Let us consider the phantom. I realize that you were not visited by that phenomenon in your own journeys from St. Austell, but I would like you to think hard, and to recall the circumstances in which the robberies took place. What can you tell me of each, beyond what you described to Jacob in your letter?”

“I will try.” Milly sat for a moment, her rounded forehead broken by frown lines. “January 15th, the first occasion. The coach left St. Austell about five, just as dark came on, and reached Dunwell Hall a little before seven. The evening was clear and cold, and we had been wondering if it would snow, which it did not. But the second and third times were very different. On January 23rd we had an absolute deluge of rain, and the coach arrived in mid-afternoon with all the luggage soaked. The passengers also complained of being slightly wet, but their main concern was with the loss of their valuables. And on January 28th, the last appearance of the phantom, the weather was a cold, ugly fog, and the day hardly seemed to become light from morning to night. The coach again arrived at Dunwell Hall in mid-afternoon. And its occupants had again been robbed.”

“Strange indeed. Do you know, had they enjoyed a meal while on the coach? Or perhaps shortly before leaving St. Austell.”

“I am sure that the last group at least did not. When they arrived here they were in high good humor, except that they pronounced themselves famished to the point where hunger was making them positively queasy.”

“Indeed?” Darwin raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No food or drink. Then I must think again, and set another notion in train. Is there any other circumstance that you deem worthy of mention?”

“Not really. I was not actually present on those coach journeys, you see, and everything was related to me secundus rather than primus. But all agree, the coach did not stop. Nor did anyone enter it. I am sorry, but that is all I can tell you.”

“Sorry? For what?” Darwin was anything but displeased. “If only my patients described their symptoms with such brevity and clarity, the practice of medicine would be a good deal easier.”

The food was at last arriving, and Darwin halted his questioning while it was being served. Jacob Pole and Milly Meredith chatted, catching up on family matters, while Darwin ate heartily, stared at nothing, and from time to time looked again at the note in front of him.

“Health and happiness,” he muttered at last. “No food or drink. Happiness and health. How strange. Mrs. Meredith, I would very much like to meet Brandon Dunwell, even if only for a few moments. Could you perhaps introduce me, as a friend of yours?”

“Dr. Darwin, Jacob has told me so much of you, I consider you as such a friend.”

“Then you must call me Erasmus, not Dr. Darwin. And you should begin doing so at once. It must appear natural by the time that Brandon Dunwell arrives.”

“Very well. Erasmus.” Milly glanced from him to Jacob Pole and back. Her cheeks turned a brighter pink. “There is one problem. You are not on the list of guests for the wedding. Brandon would accept your presence the more readily if he thought—if we were to somehow suggest—that you were here for other reasons. That you had come, perhaps, because you and I—”

“Say no more. He will learn that I am interested in Millicent Meredith, as any sensible man would be interested.”

“And you must call me Milly.”

“I already think of you that way.” Darwin bowed gallantly, as far as his girth and the table top permitted. “Milly, if it will not disturb your meal, I would like to ask a question or two concerning friend Brandon. He seems to keep curious hours. Do you happen to know why he pursues activities only in the daytime?”

“I have no idea, but it was not always so. Brandon today is sober, quiet, and serious. Years ago, from what I have heard, it was very different. He indulged in gambling, and drinking, and hard living, and was out to all hours.”

“But you are sure that he has abandoned that style of living?”

“Quite sure. I would not normally have mentioned his earlier actions at all, since they are so inconsistent with his behavior today.”

“You were right to do so. I compliment you. It is a rare intelligence, Milly, who answers what a man means, rather than what he asks.” Darwin cocked his head at a sound from outside. “Is that a horse?”

“Brandon, for a certainty. I recognize the harness bells.” Milly stared about her. “Doctor—Erasmus—I hope I do not betray your interests. I am new to deception.”

Darwin reached across and gripped her hand in his. “It is like sin, Milly. Improvement comes rapidly with practice.” He deliberately held on, until the door opened and a newcomer stood at the threshold, a brown basset hound at his side. The dog sniffed at Darwin’s luggage, still standing just inside the entrance, and wagged its tail.

“Sit, Harvey.” The man waited until the dog sank to its belly, then propelled himself into the room with an almost spasmodic surge of energy. His heels clattered on the floor, as though he was deliberately stamping them. Milly Meredith sprang to her feet with a matching urgency.

“Brandon, this is my friend, Erasmus Darwin.” Her blush could have come equally well from embarrassment or knowledge of deception. “He will be staying here for a few days.”

But Brandon Dunwell showed little interest in Darwin. He nodded a greeting, blinking pale, tired eyes, and moved at once to the window. He leaned forward toward Milly, gripping the edge of the table.

“Kathleen has not yet returned?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Good. For her sake, I would like to discuss certain financial arrangements for the wedding without her presence.” He paused, and stared pointedly at Darwin and Pole.

Darwin nodded reassuringly at Milly Meredith. “Our journey here was a long one. If you will excuse us, Milly, Jacob and I will retire. We need rest.”

He led the way, off up the curving wooden staircase. He and Pole were sharing a room under the eaves with two beds. Between them stood a dresser bearing a large bowl and a jug of water. Darwin went across and drank directly from the pitcher, then sat heavily on one of the beds. He pulled out the yellow paper and stared at it.

“Pox on this, ’Rasmus.” Jacob Pole was over by the window, prowling the bare boards. “I’m sorry. I bring you here for one mystery, and Milly hits you with another before you’re halfway in the front door.”

“This, you mean?” Darwin tapped the paper. “It will help, Jacob, not hinder. There is surely only one mystery underlying all events, and a concatenation of strange events reduces the possibilities.”

“You mean you know what this is all about?”

But Darwin merely sniffed and puffed out his cheeks. He was silent for a long time, until finally Pole said, “Well, if you’re going to sit in a stupor I’d better have the cases brought up.”

He was absent for maybe five minutes, and returned with two servants from the inn. Between them they were carrying the bags and medical chest, and Milly Meredith followed close behind.

“He’s gone,” she said, “if you want to come down.”

Darwin shook his head. “I was not deceiving Brandon Dunwell when I said I was in need of rest. Also, I must have time to think. Before that, however, I would like to ask you a few more questions. Please bear with me. Some you may feel are tedious and pointless, and some will be extremely personal.”

“Personal?” Milly blushed, but her gaze did not waver. “Ask me anything. And I will tell you everything I can.”

“Then I will not stand on ceremony. Do you like Brandon Dunwell?”

Milly looked miserably at Jacob Pole, who shook his head. “The truth, Milly. No weasel words. You can trust Erasmus as you would me.”

She drew in a shuddering breath. “I know. Dr. Darwin—Erasmus—I dislike him. And yet I dislike myself for disliking him. He has been so good to Kathleen, and he is so clearly fond of her. Perhaps too fond, to the point of obsession.”

“And she?”

“That is much more difficult. She says nothing. But sometimes I wonder if she is marrying him for my sake.”

“I gather that he is extremely wealthy. While your own situation is—what?”

“You shame me. I am of good family, but Kathleen and I are poor. As you may have deduced, Brandon will bear the bulk of the wedding costs, even though by tradition that falls to the family of the bride. You see, by every rational standard this is a most excellent marriage for Kathleen.”

“Do not despise yourself for that. There is no virtue in poverty. But now I must proceed to an even more delicate matter.”

“I cannot imagine one. But I will answer whatever I can.”

Darwin turned to Pole. “I wish to warn you, too, Jacob, before you respond with outrage to my question. But this is vital information. Milly, is it possible that Kathleen and Brandon Dunwell have in certain matters anticipated their marriage vows?”

Jacob Pole grunted, while Milly Meredith turned fiery red. “I understand.” She looked down at the wooden boards. “Even a mother cannot be completely sure. But unless Kathleen is lying to me, and unless my own instincts are also totally wrong—she and Brandon have not.”

“And anyone else? Is Kathleen virgo intacta?”

“That is my belief.”

“Thank you.” Darwin nodded in satisfaction. “Kathleen is lucky to have you for her mother. Let me move on to what I trust will be less delicate ground. Since you have known him, has Brandon Dunwell ever been away for an extended period?”

“About a year ago, he was absent from Dunwell Hall for several weeks.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“I understood that it was to London.”

“The great center of everything—including disease. That makes excellent sense, though it proves little. By that time, of course, his brother Richard had been arrested.”

“Arrested for the murder of Walter Fowler, convicted, and dead, over a year before.”

“And you knew Richard, also?”

“Very well.” Milly sat down abruptly on one of the beds.

“And did you like him?”

She stared hard at Darwin. “I have never before said this to anyone, and I beg you not to repeat it—particularly to Kathleen. But until I learned that Richard was a murderer, I far preferred him to Brandon. Even though he was deemed odd by the staff at Dunwell Hall.”

“Define, if you can, that oddity.”

“They say that in spite of his family’s wealth, he had no interest in managing the estate. He was trained as a physician, but chose not to practice. He spent many hours alone, engaged in strange pastimes. He had eccentric friends and visitors, many of them from the Continent, who with Richard dabbled in what the servants at Dunwell Hall judged to be black arts.”

“I gather you do not agree with their assessment?”

“No. It is his brother, Brandon, who believes in portents, demons, and magical effects. Richard was a skeptic. But at the same time he was rash and impractical, and except for his odd friends he seemed to prefer animals to people.”

“And yet he wooed and won your daughter.”

Milly smiled sadly. “Say, rather, that she wooed him. I remember, they met at the Bodmin Goose Fair, and that night Kathleen would talk of nothing else. She said she had looked into Richard’s eyes, and seen his soul. His arrest and then his death, only three months later, broke her heart.”

“A true tragedy. For everyone.” Darwin spoke softly, and placed his hand on Milly Meredith’s arm. “One more question, if you will permit it, and then I will cease. I can see that this memory distresses you.”

“I will not deny it. But you came here to help me, and I must do my part. Ask on.”

“Richard Dunwell killed a man, Walter Fowler. It seems out of character with what you have said of him.”

“Certain events would drive him to anger, almost to madness. The man had apparently been beating a lame dog. It was later discovered dying, and its master, Walter Fowler, dead.”

“But surely, if Dunwell had explained the sequence of events…”

“He attempted concealment. Fowler’s body had been dragged away and hidden in the gorse bushes. Richard’s monogrammed knife, marked with blood, was buried close by.” Milly swallowed. “A servant found Richard’s clothes, also stained with blood, in his rooms at the hall. Erasmus, if you please—”

“I understand. You have been more than helpful, and we will talk of this no more.” Darwin sank onto the bed, his fat face thoughtful and his eyes suddenly far away. “You have given me enough to think about. More than enough. With your leave, I will turn this over in my mind. And then we will see what tomorrow may bring. I would appreciate one other thing before you retire: a general map of Dunwell Hall.”

“The interior?”

“That, if you are able to provide it. But most important, I need the location of the kennels.”

The next morning was brisk, with a damp and gusting west wind. When dawn broke, Darwin was already fully dressed and standing at the window. Behind him Jacob Pole was sitting up in bed, coughing and spitting.

“Damn it, Erasmus, to wake a man in the middle of the night, when his blood’s as thin as water and his guts are—”

“There is hot tea on the dresser. I permitted you to sleep as long as possible.”

“Aye. And woke me when I was in the middle of the best dream I’ve had in a twelvemonth, me in my uniform and Middletown aflame—”

“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.

The transformed Richard Dunwell swung quickly up into the saddle. “We must hurry!”

Darwin did not release the reins of the other horse. “On the contrary, we must not.”

“But Colonel Pole—”

“Knows exactly what he has to do, and is thoroughly reliable. We will follow, but cautiously. If we were to be observed by Kathleen, or by your brother, our plans would become worthless.”

He started his horse along the deserted road that led toward St. Austell.

“Kathleen still knows nothing?” Richard Dunwell came forward to ride two abreast.

“Nothing. I wish that it had been possible to take her and Milly into my confidence, but I fear their inability to dissemble. Patience, my friend. Play your part correctly, and soon all need for dissimulation will vanish.”

“God grant.” Richard Dunwell rode on, his face grim. As they rounded every turn, or breasted a hill, his eyes were constantly scanning the road ahead. At last he gave a little cry and urged his horse to a gallop. The cabriolet was visible a quarter of a mile in front of them, with Jacob Pole dismounted from the driver’s seat and standing in the road beside the coach.

Darwin followed at a more leisurely pace. When he came to the cabriolet a door was already open. Richard Dunwell, with infinite tenderness, was lifting from within the coach the unconscious body of Kathleen Meredith. He sank to his knees, holding her and staring hungrily at her silent face.

“Not now, man.” Darwin swung himself off the horse’s back. “You have other duties to perform. Fulfill them well, and you will have a whole lifetime to gaze upon that countenance. But hurry!”

Richard Dunwell nodded and laid Kathleen gently on the ground, with Darwin supporting her head. “You will explain?”

“Everything, as soon as she wakens.” Darwin passed across to Richard a gallon jar. “Seawater, with a little wormwood and asafoetida mixed in. Disgusting, but necessary. Now—go! Jacob is waiting, and you have little time to prepare.”

The other man nodded, but he received scarcely a glance as he headed for the waiting coach. When it rumbled away Darwin’s attention was all on Kathleen. Soon he detected a change in her breathing.

Just in time! The creak of coach wheels was still audible when her eyelids trembled. He held the sal volatile vial of ammoniac water under her nose, and leaned close as her eyes fluttered open to show their whites.

“Do not be afraid, Kathleen.” He spoke slowly and clearly. “I am a good friend of your mother and of your uncle, Jacob Pole. You are in no danger.”

Her lustrous dark eyes rolled down, to focus on the fat, amiable face close to hers.

“Who are you?” The words were hardly a whisper.

“I am Erasmus Darwin. I am a physician.”

“Brandon—”

“Is not here.”

“But just a second ago he was holding my hand—in the coach—” She lifted her head and her gaze roamed over the coast road and deserted cliff. “And now—”

“I know.” Darwin lifted her to her feet and watched to make sure that she stood steady. “That is very good. I have much to tell you, and I believe that you will find it all welcome news. But first, as soon as you are clearheaded, one other unpleasant act must be completed. When you are ready, you and I will ride a little way together. The horses are waiting.”

Even at noon the air was chilly, made more so by a cutting wind from the sea. Brandon Dunwell had closed the windows tight, but still he felt chilled. He held Kathleen’s hand, yawned, and shivered a little. Someone was walking on his grave. Even the hand gripped in his suddenly felt damp and clammy.

He turned to look at her, and flinched back in horror. Kathleen had vanished. Instead he was holding the hand of a man, a pale-faced figure whose damp hair flopped lank on his forehead and whose dark, wet clothes clung to his body like cerements.

The man gave him a death’s-head smile that showed blackened teeth. “Greetings, brother.”

Brandon gasped. “Richard!” He dropped the cold hand and shrank back against the side of the coach.

“Richard, indeed. But a condemned murderer. Even in the grave I cannot rest.” The apparition inched a little closer. “Neither I nor you will ever find rest, brother—unless you confess.”

“No! I did nothing. Don’t touch me!” A pale hand was lifting clawlike fingers toward Brandon’s face. Wafting from it came a dank, rotting odor that made him want to vomit.

“Nothing?” The hand paused, inches from Brandon’s cheek. Water dripped from the loose sleeve. “You call the murder of Walter Fowler nothing? I bring you his greetings… and his accusation.”

“It was not my doing.” Brandon’s breath came in great, sobbing gasps. “I mean, it happened but it was not my fault. Ask Fowler. It was an accident—an argument. I didn’t mean him to die.” His voice rose to a scream. “Please, for God’s sake, don’t touch me!”

“One embrace, Brandon. Surely you would not deny that, to a loving brother, when we have been separated for so long? Except that where I dwell now, there is neither time nor place.” The sodden figure squelched closer along the coach seat. “Come, one kiss of memories. Even if you refuse to confess, you are still the little brother of whom I was always so fond and protective.”

Richard Dunwell lifted his arms and opened them wide. Brandon gave a squeak of terror and wriggled away. He opened the door of the moving coach and tumbled out headfirst. But he did not seem to be hurt, and in another moment he was on his feet and heading at a blind, staggering run away from the road toward a dip in the cliffs on the seaward side.

Richard Dunwell waited for the coach to stop before he stepped down. Almost as unsteady on his feet as Brandon, he moved around to where Jacob Pole sat in the driver’s seat. “You heard?”

“Every word.” Pole’s voice was gruff. “His admission is partial, but more than enough.”

“He says it was an accident.” Dunwell’s tone showed how much he wanted to believe that, but Pole shook his head.

“Think what came after. Your knife, marked with blood. Bloodstained clothes in your rooms at Dunwell Hall. That speaks of preparation, not accident. And afterwards, silence from Brandon. Even when his own brother stood at the gallows’ foot.”

Richard shivered, and it was more than wind cutting through wet clothes. “You force me to accept what I would rather deny. But he is still my brother. I would not see him hanged. What now?”

Pole nodded to the two horses approaching the coach. “I cannot say. However, Dr. Darwin is never without one plan—or a dozen.”

Those plans had to wait a few moments longer. Richard Dunwell helped Kathleen to dismount from her horse, then the pair stood stock-still and hesitant in the biting sea breeze. Neither seemed able to speak. Finally she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Ah, I should have mentioned that,” said Darwin. He at least seemed cheerful. “That stench is by deliberate design—and temporary.”

The trance was broken. Kathleen shook her head and smiled. “I don’t care if he smells like the grave.” And she added, in a low tone intended for Richard alone, “So long as you are not in it.”

“And will not be, I trust, for a long time.” Darwin came forward, forcing them apart.

“But how?” Kathleen glanced from Richard to the coach. “The murder and confession I understand, but the thefts—”

“Patience, Miss Kathleen. There will be time enough for answers—in a little while.” Darwin faced Richard Dunwell. “He has to be followed, and at once. You, or I?”

“It should be me.” Dunwell glanced away along the deserted cliffs, following the line that his brother had taken. “But I must know one thing before I go. Was it pure avarice, the simple desire to assume the family estate, that made Brandon act so?”

“It was not.” Darwin took Richard Dunwell’s hand in his. “And the very fact that you feel obliged to ask that question tells me that you cannot be the person to pursue him, lest you stand a second time accused of murder—and this one no forgery of jealousy. Brandon is to be pitied, yet it is not a pity that you can be expected to feel. He coveted something that you had; a thing to be found in a lady’s eyes, not measured in gold or rubies or family holdings.” He lifted Kathleen’s hand, and joined it to Richard’s. “Go back to the inn with Jacob. Leave the horses here. If I do not return within two hours, you may assume that I am… in need of assistance.”

Darwin set out along the cliff. He did not look back, but he scanned the grey skyline and every bare rock and tufted mound ahead. Bad weather was on its way. The low cloud layer had descended farther, and a patchy sea-rack was blowing ashore with the wind. The shore at the foot of the cliffs was a jumble of white waves, black slate outcroppings and tidal pools, among which wandered forlorn seabirds. Even Darwin’s rational eye could easily populate that desolate scene with the unquiet ghosts of drowned mariners. To Brandon Dunwell’s superstitious mind, the sudden appearance of his brother close to the point where he had jumped to his death must have been sheer horror.

Brandon’s physical condition had not allowed him to run far. Darwin came across him slumped on a shelf of rock at the very edge of the cliff. He was leaning far forward with his head in his hands and his eyes covered. He did not hear Darwin’s approach, and gave a great shuddering jerk when a hand gripped his shoulder.

“Courage, man.” Darwin spoke softly. Brandon seemed too terrified to look around. “What you saw in the coach was no apparition from beyond the veil. Your brother Richard is alive. He presented himself so only to force confession—which you gave.”

Brandon lifted his head and shook it wearily. But he was beyond denial, and after a few seconds he slumped back to his original position. “Richard is alive. Then I am dead.” And his toneless voice was that of a dead man.

“Only if you choose it so.” Darwin became brisk and businesslike. “You are a very sick man. But although you cannot be cured, you can be treated. And if I cannot offer you health, I can offer you hope.”

“Hope.” Dunwell glared up at Darwin, and his tired, red-rimmed eyes showed his despair and exhaustion. “Hope to live long enough to dance on air. Better to go here, and now.”

“That is your choice.” But Darwin took a firm grasp of the back of Dunwell’s jacket as he sat down next to him on the cliff-edge shelf of black rock. “You should know, however, that your brother is not a man to seek vengeance.”

“Walter Fowler—”

“Is in his grave. He will not come forth from it, no matter what we do. Naturally, Richard must assume his estate again, and establish his innocence. But a signed letter from you, before your ‘escape’ and departure forever from these parts—”

“Sick and penniless.”

“You know your brother better than I do. Would he send you forth even now, after all that you have done to him, to wither and die a pauper?”

Brandon said nothing, but he shook his head and stared into the blowing fog.

Darwin nodded. “You have money on your person? Then take one of the horses waiting along the road, and go to the Posthouse Inn at St. Austell. I will plead on your behalf with Richard, and come to you tomorrow. With writing materials.”

Brandon Dunwell nodded. He took a deep breath and stood up. Darwin watched him closely until he had backed well away from the cliff and was turning to face inland.

“I will do as you say.” Dunwell’s pale eyes stared into Darwin’s bright grey ones. “But one thing I cannot understand. Why are you willing to do this for me? I am a murderer, and worse.”

“Because I too looked once upon a woman’s face, and was lost.” Darwin’s eyes took on their own emptiness. “I believe I would have done anything—anything, no matter how terrible—to win her.”

“She went to another?”

“At last. But I was fortunate. I won Mary, and was saved from my worst self. Seven years ago, she died.” Darwin gave a strange shiver and a shrug of his heavy shoulders. “Seven years. But at last I learned that life went on. As yours will go on.”

A fine rain had begun to fall. Neither man spoke as they walked slowly, side by side, toward the waiting horses.

It might have been a time for celebration, but the evening mood at the Anchor Inn was far from boisterous. Milly Meredith and her guests, at Darwin’s request, had been permitted the use of a private room at the rear of the building. The loud, cheerful voices from the front parlor and the clatter of dishes in the kitchen only added to the feeling of restraint at the long table.

Richard Dunwell sat by the wall across from Kathleen. He had thoroughly bathed, so that no trace of graveyard stench clung to him, and he had scrubbed his blackened teeth to their usual white. Borrowed trousers and jacket from Jacob Pole were a little too long, covering his hands beyond the wrist. He seemed in no mood for food or speech, but sat with the basset hound Harvey at his feet, following Kathleen’s every move.

Darwin was next to him, facing Milly, with Jacob Pole beside Darwin at the end of the table and providing the principal interface with the kitchen. A steady supply of food and drink appeared according to Pole’s command, the bulk of it despatched by Darwin alone, who had recovered his spirits and seemed exempt from the subdued, uneasy air that possessed the others.

“I saw, but did not understand,” he said. “When ‘Jack Trelawney’ appeared on the scene I noticed at once his yellow fingertips and nails. I assumed they were stained from habitual use of tobacco. But there was never a sign of a pipe, and he neither smoked nor chewed.” He turned to Dunwell. “According to the servants at Dunwell Hall, you spent many hours alone engaged in strange pastimes. You had eccentric friends and visitors from the Continent, and dabbled in ‘black arts.’ Now what, to a servant, is blacker art than alchemy? Those are acid stains on your fingers, are they not?—the result of alchemic experiments.”

Richard Dunwell nodded. “Performed also during my time in France, and again here. Contact with muriatic acid, and slow to fade.”

“I have seen them a dozen times on the fingers of our friend, Mr. Priestley.” Darwin shook his head in self-criticism. “They should have told me everything. But instead of using my brain to explain the phantom, I went off along a false scent of drugged food and drink.”

Millicent Meredith had been gazing at Darwin admiringly, but now she caught Jacob Pole’s eye. He grinned at her in an irritating way. “I know, Milly. I’ve been through it myself with Erasmus a hundred times.” He turned to Darwin. “I’m sure that you and Richard think you are being as clear as day, but I have to tell you that for people like Milly and me, it’s all a darkness. Short words and simple, ’Rasmus, and quick. I did exactly what I was told to do when I was driving the coach, so I know who was the phantom—it was Richard—but for the life of me I still don’t know how was the phantom.”

Milly nodded vigorously. “That’s my question. How could he walk through the walls of a coach, and never once be seen?”

Darwin raised an eyebrow at Richard Dunwell, who nodded. “Not walk, but float. For the phantom was no more than thin air. In Paris, the celebrated Monsieur Lavoisier showed it to me: a gas, simply prepared, with a faint, sweet smell, which at first renders a person cheerful, and then quickly insensible. That is what you released into the cabriolet, Colonel Pole, when Brandon and Kathleen were within it. I had experimented—on myself—and learned that it is safe to use for short periods. Once the occupants of the coach were asleep, anyone had a good five minutes after opening the door before the fresh air awakened the passengers.”

“And again, I had evidence placed before my face—and ignored it.” Darwin scowled, placed a whole brandied plum in his mouth, and struggled to speak around it. “Second robbery—downpour of rain. Passengers wet. But coach not leaky—saw that for myself. So someone been inside. If passengers don’t see, they must be asleep.”

“But why robberies?” Milly seemed as confused as ever. “Surely, Richard, you didn’t come all the way from France to rob your own relatives? Suppose you had been caught?”

“Caught, stealing that which was in justice already his?” Kathleen spoke for the first time, color touching her high cheekbones. “He had every right to take—”

“No, Katie.” Richard Dunwell squeezed her hand, and at the pressure and his look she fell silent. “I did in truth steal, simply because I needed money to stay. When I came here I had intended a brief visit, only to look at you once again and confirm that all was well. Your face told me that it was not. And when I saw Brandon, and watched his walk, I knew at that point I could not leave.”

“Brandon’s walk?” Milly Meredith gave Darwin one startled look of comprehension. “Happiness and health—”

He nodded his head gravely. “Kathleen is doubly lucky—triply lucky. She has avoided a disastrous union, and will marry a healthy and an honest man.”

“Honest enough.” Pole snapped his fingers and turned to Richard Dunwell. “But not totally honest. Come on, Richard, admit it. You persuaded young Georgie at the coach house to lie for you. He said that you had been driving the coach from St. Austell to Dunwell Cove for a long time, which convinced me that you at least could not be the phantom.”

Dunwell frowned back at him. “Georgie said that? I cannot explain his statement. I told you, I came to England little more than two months ago, when I heard word of a possible wedding. And I said nothing to Georgie.”

“You mean that he was lying?”

“Not so, Jacob.” Darwin had eaten everything in sight. Now he was sitting back contentedly and ogling Milly Meredith, not at all to her displeasure. “For a while I was as puzzled as you by Georgie’s duplicity. Then I realized that he was not lying. He was telling the exact truth—as he perceived it.”

Darwin pointed down below the table, to where the basset hound was blissfully licking Richard Dunwell’s hand. “For to a ten-year-old boy, or to a dog—are not two months an eternity?”