The Death Collector

‘From what Mr Archer tells me of your own exploits it seems I was right. You see, last night, I performed a brief examination of a body that was brought to me. An elderly man called Albert Wilkes. Yes, you begin to see the connection. You know that Wilkes was initially responsible for cataloguing Glick’s diary, and you know that he died — apparently of natural causes. Mr Archer tells me his grave was perhaps opened, and that I find especially intriguing. Because I found, before it mysteriously disappeared, that Wilkes’s body had been tampered with.’

Sir William paused, took off his glasses and polished them on the corner of his jacket. ‘There is a mystery here, Mr Archer and Miss Oldfield,’ he told them. ‘Something is happening that may challenge our understanding of the scientific world. And, with your help, I mean to discover what.’

There was silence for several moments after Sir William had finished. Sir William regarded his audience carefully, the light glinting on his spectacles as he replaced them and waited for their reaction.

Liz spoke first. ‘It is very generous of you to take us into your confidence, Sir William.’

‘And we do appreciate the need for complete secrecy,’ George added, looking at Liz.

Sir William nodded seriously at this. But his manner changed in an instant as a voice called from the doorway:

‘So who was this Glick bloke, anyway?’ Eddie stepped into the room. ‘I only ask ’cause it seems like his diary’s the key to all this.’

Sir William stared at Eddie for several seconds.

‘What?’ Eddie demanded.

‘Have you been out there for long?’ Sir William asked, his voice quiet and strained.

‘Oh yeah, I heard everything,’ Eddie assured him. ‘No need to go over it all again.’

‘This is Eddie,’ George said quickly.

‘He’s, er, he’s been helping us,’ Liz added.

‘If you can call it that,’ George muttered.

‘Indeed?’ Sir William pulled a large white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead. When he returned it to his pocket he seemed to have recovered. ‘And you can vouch for Eddie?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ George said, ‘he’s a pickpocket and a rogue, but I think he’s trustworthy.’

‘He seems to have his own moral code,’ Liz said. ‘Honour amongst thieves or something.’

‘Like I said,’ Eddie interrupted, ‘who’s this Glick?’

Sir William fixed Eddie with a steady gaze, as if summing him up. ‘Sir Henry Glick was a palaeontologist and geologist.’

‘What?’

‘He was a scientist,’ George told him.

‘And a very eminent one,’ Sir William agreed. ‘He was destined for great things, or so it was thought.’

‘So what happened?’ Liz asked.

‘According to my sources, he died young. Very tragic, before he could realise his potential. His diaries are useful as they catalogue his discoveries and theories and give us some insight as to the mental processes he went through on his journey of enlightenment.’

‘So why does someone want the last volume?’ George wondered. ‘If his work is already known about.’

‘I really cannot imagine. His early years were apparently his most productive, before he became ill. He continued to work, of course. In fact he was one of the twenty-one scientists invited to dinner at the Crystal Palace on New Year’s Eve 1853. It was, by all accounts, quite an occasion though I was not myself invited.’ He sniffed, as if irritated by this apparent oversight.

‘What was the occasion?’ Liz wondered. ‘Just the New Year?’

‘No, it was to celebrate the creation of the dinosaur statues that are now in the Crystal Palace Park. In fact the dinner was held inside the Iguanodon statue before the top was lowered. There was a drawing of the event in the Illustrated London News, I remember. Sir Henry Glick was due to make a speech which was eagerly anticipated. But on the evening his illness took a turn for the worse. It was, I think, the beginning of the end for him. He made his apologies and left early. Perhaps,’ Sir William said with a sad smile, ‘he was sickened by the rather self-serving speech that I gather the eminent palaeontologist Richard Owen gave.’

‘I’ve seen a monster that looked like a dinosaur,’ Eddie offered.

Sir William was impressed. ‘You have been to the Museum of Natural History?’

‘Course not. I saw it in the grounds of a big house. Monstrous it was. Huge, with great teeth.’

‘Not this again,’ George sighed. ‘I told you — it’s all in the imagination. All you saw was the branch of a tree blowing in the wind or something.’

‘George is right,’ Liz said gently.

Eddie stared back at them defiantly. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I went back there last night, and I heard it breathing. In a big shed at the edge of the lawn.’

‘You did what?’ Liz said, aghast.

‘Where was this?’ Sir William asked quietly.

‘Just off Clearview Road. The place where they nabbed your mate Albert Wilkes. Place with lizard things on the gate posts,’ Eddie told him.

‘Nabbed Albert Wilkes?’ said Sir William in surprise.

‘But that’s Augustus Lorimore’s estate,’ George said. ‘It has to be.’

‘The industrialist?’

George nodded. ‘Funny thing, you know. But that’s who Percy told me to go to for help.’

‘Not that he was much help, was he?’ Liz said.

Sir William was frowning. ‘How would Percy Smythe know Augustus Lorimore, I wonder. And what’s this about Albert Wilkes being there? Tell me, what exactly did poor Percy say?’

George struggled to remember. ‘He said Lorimore’s name. And he said “help” I think. He was telling me Lorimore could help.’

Sir William’s face was grave. ‘But the man was dying,’ he said quietly. ‘He was asking you for help, for himself. Mentioning Lorimore’s name under those circumstances … Well, isn’t it just as likely that he was telling you who was to blame for his death?’

George felt suddenly cold. ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ he admitted. It was not something that had occurred to him, but now it seemed to make sense. And it explained Lorimore’s strange behaviour when they had met — how he had wanted the last surviving page of the diary. ‘But, Augustus Lorimore? There was something else nagging at him too, something at the edge of his mind.

‘Lorimore,’ Liz said. She was staring at George. ‘If you were spelling that out to someone, and they missed the first letter …’

‘Orimore?’ George said, bemused.

Liz went on. ‘And if they were interrupted or the contact was broken.’

‘What contact is this?’ Sir William asked.

‘I dunno,’ Eddie told him. ‘Think she’s going barmy.’

But George understood now. ‘If you just spelled out the middle part of his name,’ he said. ‘O R I M O.’

‘What you said that glass spelled out at the seance,’ Eddie said jumping about in excitement. ‘Albert Wilkes told you, his spirit told you. Like I said it would.’

‘Well, something did,’ Liz said. ‘Unless it’s just a coincidence?’

‘It sounds like a big coincidence,’ Sir William said. George explained quickly what had happened at the seance, and the older man nodded. ‘We live in strange times, Archer. Though of course it could be just coincidence.’

‘Don’t sound like coincidence to me,’ Eddie said. ‘Specially if this Lorimore lives in the lizard house where the monster is. The house where Wilkes was dragged off by Blade.’

‘Monsters or not,’ Sir William decided, ‘it does seem at least a possibility that Lorimore is indeed behind these macabre events. But we should be wary of jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence.’

‘And I went to see him,’ George groaned. ‘I went and told him about the surviving fragment of the diary, and what I was doing. He knows everything.’

At that moment, in Sir William’s office at the British Museum, Garfield Berry was hunting through the papers on the desk. He found the notes from the examination that Sir William had performed on the body of Albert Wilkes,