Death and the Running Patterer (29 page)

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Authors: Robin Adair

BOOK: Death and the Running Patterer
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DUNNE WAS STILL dozing when the room’s rightful occupant arrived early the next morning. A speechless Rossi shook him awake. The patterer’s first words were, “Who betrayed me?”
The policeman shrugged. “I just don’t know. I didn’t know anything about the … the mess until after you’d been arrested. A message had come to the office early. My man acted on his own initiative, in good faith, I believe. Here’s what started it all.” He handed over a note that read:
He’s killed again, there’s none that’s meaner.
For his bloody new work, go to
The Gleaner.
The script was in the left-handed style they all had come to expect.
“Who delivered this message?” asked the patterer.
“No one remembers clearly. The messenger simply handed it over and disappeared. Who would take any notice—it was just an ordinary-looking note? When its import was realized, it was too late to seek out its carrier.” Rossi held up a hand. “Now, you can’t blame the constable. You were holding the pistol and were covered in blood. And then you ran—in his eyes, hardly the action of an innocent man.”
Nicodemus Dunne flushed. “Do
you
think I’m guilty?”
“Of course not! But you must admit that the evidence is compelling.”
“
Is
compelling? Don’t you mean,
was
compelling? Am I still a wanted man?”
The captain looked uncomfortable. “Well, it still looks bad for you.”
“But that’s exactly the reason I had to run! It’s a vicious circle.”
“I don’t quite know what to do with you,” admitted Rossi. “The governor is furious. He thinks he’s been made to look a fool. You’ve put him in an awkward position.”
“Him? What about
my
position? They’ll try to hang me!”
“Oh,” said the captain airily. “You won’t dance the Newgate jig.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Rossi was dismissive. “We wouldn’t let it happen to you.” He did not elaborate. “But, on a brighter note, Miss Dormin is also on your side. She rushed here as soon as the news had spread. She was white with shock, but I reassured her.”
So, she still cares enough, thought the patterer. I must certainly see her.
“But,” the policeman continued, “what are we to do to justify my assurances?”
“Captain, I need at least today to clear my name and at the same time finally unmask our murderer—”
“You know now? Who is it?” Rossi broke in excitedly.
“Have patience until I’m sure. But this is what must happen. I give you my parole that I won’t escape. What I want in return is a
passeport
so that no one will be able to take me while I’m hunting. And I require a letter from you giving me authority to question any officials and functionaries—don’t worry, they’ll all be well below the governor’s level. I’ll call on you later this afternoon. Do we have a deal?”
Rossi pondered a moment, then nodded.
THE PATTERER BEGAN what he hoped would be his last rounds of detection with his hat pulled low over his face. He had his papers of safe passage but he still wanted to avoid wasting valuable time endlessly producing them.
He called first on the apothecary who had made the arsenic sale. There he received fresh information he had failed to elicit earlier: The mystery buyer was much shorter than Dunne. Dr. Owens, noted the patterer, was a tall man. But Dr. Halloran was considerably shorter.
At the building that housed the Colonial Treasurer, Dunne did not find that august gentleman, William Balcombe, who had once been an intimate of the exiled Bonaparte on Saint Helena. As an East India Company official, Balcombe took the fallen emperor in while a rat-infested farmhouse was being repaired for him.
Thus Balcombe’s son, Thomas (who rejoiced in the middle name Tyrwhitt), and the defeated Frenchman became firm friends, two lonely figures on the remote island. And it was this young man, now nineteen and determined to become an artist, whom Dunne was pleased to come across.
They talked casually about their favorite artworks of the colony. Balcombe liked the early paintings and sketches of John Rae, Thomas Rowlandson and George Raper. The patterer praised Joseph Lycett and Augustus Earle, in particular the latter’s likenesses of King Bungaree.
“It has been a sad time, with deaths in the art world,” said the younger man. “Mr. Lycett is gone, I fear. It seems, no one knows for sure, that a year or so ago, in Bath, he forged some banknotes—unhappy man, forgery is what sent him here originally. Upon his arrest he slashed his throat and then, while recovering in hospital, he ripped open the wound and died. The other death has, of course, been the recent passing of Francisco Goya.” Balcombe continued, smiling wryly, “It is ironic that Goya, my artistic hero, used his brush to condemn the atrocities perpetrated by the army of which my old friend, the Emperor Napoleon, was the commander.”
On that note, they parted, the patterer to continue his studies in art—only this was the fine art of murder.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Captain Louis Renault: Round up the usual suspects.
—Julius J. Epstein
et al., Casablanca
(1942)
 
 
 
 
 
 
T
HE COLONIAL SECRETARY’S OFFICE, WHICH WAS MUCH GRANDER than that of the treasurer, was the hub of record-keeping for the colony. There Dunne sought details of shipping arrivals and departures, and their complements, and narratives of incidents on the crossings. Most of the files were voluminous and comprehensive, but sometimes they were not. In one famous instance, the
Anne
, a convict transport, arrived in 1801 with no papers for its human cargo. The lists finally turned up, eighteen years later.
The patterer found the records for the ill-fated
Morley
, which had caused Dr. Cunningham so much pain, but although he failed to find the names he was particularly seeking, he nonetheless left the office feeling greatly enlightened.
AT THE SUBSCRIPTION Library, his disguise failed and the attendant coolly pointed out that his annual subscription of two guineas was due. On becoming financial once more, he called for and studied a German dictionary. He also found what he was after in a volume of Shakespeare’s works. In his pursuit of the Exodus clue, however, he became bogged down. But Genesis was more rewarding.
As he handed back the foreign dictionary, Dunne had an idle thought. He called for a world gazetteer. When the dying Muller had said the word
Schwein
, had he simply been cursing his killer rather than naming him—surely no one’s name began with “pig!” Or did his last breath point perhaps to a place?
In the atlas, Dunne looked for a German location beginning with “Schwein-.” He found one, in the realm of Bayern—or Bavaria. There it was: Schweinfurt—ford for swine—which was necessary, as the spot lay on the River Main. But what help was that?
He had an idea, but several of the books he requested next were unavailable. So he moved on to the stationery office and library attached to
The Gazette
. There, Mr. William McGarvie found what the patterer required, including a comprehensive pharmacopoeia—a heavy volume listing drugs and medicines and describing their preparation, uses and effects.
Mr. McGarvie also proudly produced a prize. On the day before his arrest, the patterer had digested a thought-provoking entry in a general medical book. Now he had before him an English commentary on the work of the Spanish poisons expert, Dr. Mathieu Orfila. Dunne recalled Thomas Owens mentioning the expert. The Spanish doctor now spoke clearly to him. The patterer realized that so, too, had the unfortunate Muller. And his message was breath-taking, confirming all of Dunne’s suspicions.
Although there was still one gap, that did not put off the imminent denouement—he was certain he had solved the murders. The accidental tomfoolery at the impromptu Sandhills funeral had turned the key to the killing machine’s identity.
What a fool I’ve been, he thought, not to have listened sooner to a dead man. Several such, in fact. And one of them gone to dust two centuries ago.
AS DUNNE DREW closer to the waters of Sydney Cove, the tang of salt and mud, even the ships’ smells of tar, hot canvas, hemp and, from time to time, carpenters’ sweet shavings battled valiantly against the too-often pervading stenches of the dry and thus unwashed town. The drought that baked the colony looked like never ending. Even the seagulls seemed tired.
To the patterer, the strongest smells came as he passed a sentry and entered a Customs Office bond storeroom, which was cluttered with bagged spices and sandalwood from the East, furs from as far away as Canada, whale and seal oil from the southern ocean, rum from India and wine from the Cape. Even the commodities that were tightly sealed somehow managed to stamp their aromatic identities onto the close air. These things and a thousand more were all held in bondage until customs duty was paid.
It was a colorful place, but Dunne thought that it must be duller without the presence or influence of its former chief collector, Captain John Piper. His successors, such as Captain Rossi, oversaw the operations, but more covertly, without Piper’s lordly, proprietary swagger.
Of course, nowadays there was not quite the same incentive. Captain Rossi received a flat salary, but when Piper reigned he had taken 4 percent of all duties collected. Originally, his masters expected he might skim off 400 pounds a year, but as business boomed, his fees reached 11,000 pounds.
The patterer well recalled when the customs accounts were found muddled and Piper lost his lucrative post. The collector took it hard and went to sea in his luxury yacht, crewed by blue-and-silver-uniformed sailors who were also skilled musicians. On the open sea, Piper jumped over the side but his serenading sailors fished him out. He then retired across the mountains to hunt kangaroos and wild dogs. In full hunting pink, naturally.
Dunne’s daydreams were interrupted by the arrival of the first customs officer he had asked to see. Captain Rossi’s letter of introduction worked wonders and the man was eager to cooperate. This fellow enjoyed the title of “gauger,” but he could not help the patterer; his function was to work out the quantities of cargo items on which duty was to be applied.
The “tide-waiter” explained that he, suitably enough, awaited the tides’ ebb and flow, overseeing ships’ arrivals and departures to detect or deter contraband. His colleague, the “landing-waiter,” explained that he, on the other hand, waited on the wharf and checked off landed consignments against the ships’ manifests.

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