Algernon Swinburne clapped his hands together. “Dastardly!” he cried. “The witch and the imposter are hand-in-glove!”
Trounce groaned. “I was the laughing stock of the Yard for decades because I believed in Spring Heeled Jack. Lord knows what mockery I'm letting myself in for now, but I suppose we'd better get on with it. Where do we start?”
“In the kitchen.”
“The kitchen? Why the kitchen?”
“Of course!” Swinburne enthused, as realisation dawned. “Mrs. Picklethorpe's snoring!”
Trounce looked from the king's agent to the diminutive poet and back again.
“You know, I could easily grow to dislike you two. What in the devil's name are you jabbering about?”
“We have Herbert Spencer the vagrant philosopher with us,” Burton explained. “He's staying down in the servants’ quarters. He complained that the cook snores, and that the sound reverberates through the walls. Perhaps it's because the walls are hollow.”
“And there's a dreadful old family poem,” Swinburne added, “which says Consume if thou wouldst uncover. We think the diamond is hidden somewhere under the two wheat fields at the front of the house. Initially, we speculated that the doggerel was instructing whoever wanted to find it to get rid of the crop and dig, but perhaps there's an easier way.”
“You mean a secret passage from the kitchen?” Trounce asked.
“Or, more specifically, from one of the famous pantries,” Burton responded.
“Gad!” Trounce exclaimed. Then again: “Gad!”
“The Claimant is due here soon, so I suggest we have a poke around straightaway. I don't know how welcome we'll be in the manor once he sets foot in it.”
Trounce jerked his head in agreement.
They left the smoking room and sought out Colonel Lushington, who they found pacing in the study, next to the library.
He looked up as they entered. “More news,” he announced. “Bad. Maybe good. Not sure. Could be either. Depends how it goes. Hawkins is of the opinion that it'll be a civil trial: Tichborne versus Lushington.”
“Why so?” Burton asked.
“The Claimant, under the name Roger Tichborne, will contest my right to act on the family's behalf. He'll try to have me removed from the house. Ejected. Out on my ear, so to speak. However, if he's not Roger Tichborne, we'll counter by suing for a criminal trial. Court. Jury. So forth. King versus Claimant. ”
“Good!” Trounce grunted. “That would bring Scotland Yard in on the matter.”
Lushington agreed. “High time. I'd certainly like to know more about what the Claimant fellow got up to in Australia when he was calling himself Tomas Castro!”
“Rest assured, Colonel, the moment it becomes a criminal matter, the Yard will send someone to the colonies.”
Burton interrupted: “Colonel, it may seem trivial and badly timed but, as I mentioned last night, I have good reason for wanting to examine the kitchens. I assure you it's relevant to this whole affair. Would you mind?”
Lushington looked puzzled but nodded. He summoned Bogle and told him to take Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce “below stairs.”
They found that the basement of the manor was divided into a great many small rooms. There were the servants’ sleeping quarters, sitting rooms, and washrooms, storerooms, coal cellars, sculleries, and a dining room. The kitchen was by far the largest chamber, and it opened onto three pantries, all stocked with cured meats, jars of preserved comestibles, sacks of flour, dried beans and sugars, cheeses, oils, and vinegars, vegetables, kegs of beer, and racks of wine.
“Let's take one each,” Burton suggested. “Check the walls and floors. We're looking for a concealed door.”
He stepped into the middle room and began to move sacks and jars aside, stretching over the piled goods to rap his knuckles against the plaster-coated back wall. He heard his colleagues doing the same in the rooms on either side.
As thorough as he was, he found nothing.
“I say, Captain, come and have a look at this!” Detective Inspector Trounce called.
Burton left his pantry and entered the one to the right.
“Got something?”
“Perhaps so. What do you make of that?”
The Scotland Yard man pointed to the top of the back wall, where it abutted the ceiling. Initially, Burton couldn't see anything unusual, but upon closer inspection he noticed a thin, dark line running along the joint.
“Hmm,” he grunted, and heaved himself up onto a beer barrel.
Leaning against the wall, he reached up and ran his thumbnail along the line. Then he stepped down and said: “I'm not the slightest bit peckish, so I'd rather not eat and drink my way through this lot despite the poem's directive. Let's settle for clearing it out into the kitchen.”
He called Swinburne.
“What?” came the poet's voice.
“Come here and lend some elbow grease!”
The three men quickly moved the contents of the pantry out, exposing every inch of the rear wall.
“The line extends down the sides and across the base of the wall,” Burton observed.
“A door?” asked Swinburne.
“I can't see any other explanation. There's no sign of a handle, though.”
Trounce placed both his hands against the wall and pushed.
“Nothing,” he grunted, stepping back.
The three men spent the next few minutes pressing different parts of the barrier. They then examined the rest of the small room in the hope of finding a lever or switch of some sort.
“It's hopeless,” the inspector grumbled. “If there's a way to get that blasted door open, it's not in here.”
“Perhaps we've overlooked something in the poem,” Swinburne mused.
“Possibly,” answered Burton. “For the moment, we'd better get back upstairs. We don't want to miss the Claimant's grand entrance. We'll return later. Algy, go and track down Herbert and tell him what's what. He can be poking about down here while we're occupied. I'll ask the cook to leave this room as it is for the time being.”
Some little time later, the king's agent and his companions joined Colonel Lushington, Hawkins, and Jankyn in the library. It was just past midday.
The colonel, twisting the points of his extravagant muttonchops, paced up and down nervously.
“Mr. Hawkins,” he said, “tell me more about this Kenealy fellow.”
“Who's Kenealy?” Burton asked.
“Doctor Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy,” said Hawkins. “He's the Claimant's lawyer. He also considers himself a poet, literary critic, prophet, and would-be politician. He's a through-and-through Rake-a member of the inner circle thought to have gathered around the new leader, whoever that may be.”
“Well now!” Burton exclaimed. “That's very interesting indeed!”
Laurence Oliphant and Henry “The Mad Marquess” Beresford had formerly led the Rakes, but both had been killed by Burton last year, and the faction had been in disarray for some months.
“Not John Speke, surely!” Burton muttered to himself. Recent events would make a lot more sense if Speke was guiding the Rakes and using them to get at the black diamonds, but, somehow, Burton just couldn't see it. His former partner didn't possess leadership qualities, and furthermore, he was extremely conservative and repressed in character-not at all representative of the Rake philosophy.
Burton wondered whether he'd be able to prise some information out of the Claimant's lawyer.
“Interesting is not a word I'd use to describe Edward Kenealy, Sir Richard,” Henry Hawkins was saying. “Barking mad would be my choice. He's as nutty as a fruitcake, and a confounded brute, too. Ten years ago, he served a month in prison on a charge of aggravated assault against his six-year-old illegitimate son. The boy had been beaten half to death and almost strangled. Kenealy has since been accused-but not charged-with a number of assaults against prostitutes. He's a very active follower of the Marquis de Sade and adheres to the belief that inflicting pain weakens social constraints and liberates the spirit.”
