End of the Century (49 page)

They had learned, through an examination of Blank's social directories and references, that Peter Bonaventure was not a member of the Royal Geographical Society, though he had been offered a fellowship some years before. For reasons of his own, Bonaventure had declined the offer. If he was not a member in good standing in the Hytholoday Club, an exclusive society of explorers, it would be easy to assume that Bonaventure was simply not a “joiner,” as the Americans would say; as it was, one had to conclude that something in the policies or practices of the RGS impelled Bonaventure to decline the proffered invitation.

They also learned that, prior to the birth of his son Jules earlier that year, Peter Bonaventure had lived an apparently ceaseless life of travel, journeying to the four corners of the globe, not once, but repeatedly. Bonaventure was a tireless explorer, autodidact, and polymath, who studied language and legend with the same passion with which he pursued geography and geology. In addition to a number of monographs on geographical subjects, he had penned his own translation of a book of medieval Arabic poetry, a survey of Indonesian mythology and folklore, a ethnological memoir of the year he spent living among the native Te'Maroan people of Kensington Island, a study of the history of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, and an as-yet uncompleted and unpublished history of swordsmanship.

Miss Bonaventure received this information with an expression something like pride, as if Peter Bonaventure was in fact a member of her family and not simply an unrelated namesake. For his part, Blank was sorry that his and the professor's paths had never yet crossed, as he sounded a singular individual. With any luck, when this business was over and done and Peter Bonaventure and his family returned from the continent, perhaps Blank would be able to make his acquaintance. Such a man might well be of some
use in Blank's plans for the future which even now were slowly beginning to unfold.

What Blank and Miss Bonaventure were unable to find, however, in this mountain of printed material, was any hint as to why Professor Bonaventure had taken it in his head to dig holes atop Glastonbury Tor, hunting the source of ancient British myths.

As a matter of course, Professor Bonaventure had filed any number of reports on his excursions and expeditions with the RGS, apparently as much out of a desire for there to be some record of his findings, should some unfortunate fate befall him in the field, as in the hope of benefiting the organization itself. The most recent of these dated to the autumn of 1896, some months before the excavations at Glastonbury Tor had begun, and sadly included no reference to any research in Somerset or mention of Gwynn or Nudd or Annwn or any such mythological oddities.

Turning from the most recent reports, Blank and Miss Bonaventure worked their way backwards, one report after another, digging back through the dusty stacks of the RGS library, searching for any clue.

Thursday afternoon, after more than three days of near-continuous study, Miss Bonaventure finally chanced on something of interest which, while it did not relate to Glastonbury or Somerset or British myth, seemed to have real bearing on their current investigation.

The report detailed an expedition in 1885, some twelve years before, when Peter Bonaventure had been commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to investigate reports of a new island sighted some few hundred leagues from the coast of Ireland. Chartering a steamer ship, the
Clemency
out of Liverpool, Professor Bonaventure had searched the area and found what he described in the report as a large floating object. Not an island, it was organic rather than mineral, and though the report was vague on the point, the language used conjured images of a mat of seaweed and driftwood inadvertently lashed together by wind and wave and drifting aimlessly upon the oceans. In any event, the mass was solid enough for a landing party to go “ashore,” and Professor Bonaventure led a small party in rowboats.

In the end, Professor Bonaventure reported that there was little of interest on the “island” and advised commercial sea vessels to steer clear of
the area until it had floated elsewhere, doubtless in the hope that the organic matter which constituted the object would not foul their propellers. In a note appended to the report, the chairman of the RGS issued a blanket denial for any future request to investigate the object.

The report mentioned four names, two of which Miss Bonaventure and Blank found of considerable interest. The first two, those of the crewmen who had accompanied Professor Bonaventure in the landing party, were inconsequential. The other two were Professor Bonaventure's traveling companion on the expedition, Jules Dulac, and the representative of the Royal Geographical Society who had accompanied the expedition, one Mervyn Fawkes.

The link between Fawkes and Professor Bonaventure, previously unsuspected, was an illuminating one. Blank remembered coming across the brief mention in Fawkes's biographical detail of an incident on an expedition for the Royal Geographical Society in 1885, after which Fawkes was a patient for a time at Colney Hatch, but in the days of coughing in the dust knocked loose from files and folders in the RGS library he'd never imagined there might be a connection. Fawkes was suddenly a much more likely suspect as the Jubilee Killer, whatever his motives.

Blank intended to journey to Crystal Palace or to Fawkes's lodging house in Camberwell right away. But Miss Bonaventure pointed out that the Jules Dulac of the 1885 report was very likely the same Dulac who had assisted Professor Bonaventure in his excavation on Glastonbury Tor, as Bulleid reported.

“I'd come across a reference to a ‘Jules' in some of the reports,” Miss Bonaventure commented, rubbing her bleary eyes, “but for some reason I'd just assumed that the professor was referring to his son.” She wore a hangdog expression. “Precisely
how
he was referring to his infant son in reports up to ten years old, I can't imagine.”

“You're tired,” Blank said, patting her shoulder in a consoling gesture. “I likely skimmed right across those sorts of references myself without even noticing them. We've had precious little sleep the last few days and reviewed
thousands of pages of material, so we can't be blamed for missing a word or two, can we?”

She brightened somewhat. “Well, shall we check the Blue Book and see if we can't find a listing for a Jules Dulac?”

Blank smiled. “Miss Bonaventure, we should alert Frank Podmore and the SPR, as I believe that you've been reading my mind.”

A short while later, Sandford Blank and Roxanne Bonaventure stood before a house in Chelsea, just as the sun was beginning to set in the west. The house in particular was humble compared to its more grandiose neighbors that faced the Thames up and down Cheyne Walk but would have stood out as respectably large and sturdily built if relocated to another address in the city. Three stories tall, with three curtained windows on each floor above the ground level, the house was constructed of dark red bricks that seemed almost black in the dying light, the mortar between them gleaming like ivory. The door was also white, with a curious knocker in the shape of a dragon's head.

Stepping through the wrought-iron gate that separated the door from the sidewalk, Blank let fall the dragon-head knocker once, then twice, waiting for an answer. A short while later, the door opened, and a man stood framed in the light from within. He was about Blank's height, with short-cropped dark hair and few weeks' worth of beard growth. He had a square chin and well-defined jaw, a narrow nose, and high cheekbones. His face was unlined, but at the same time lacked the unbaked smoothness of youth, and so it was impossible to judge his age; he could have been anywhere from thirty to a well-kept sixty years of age. Evidently not expecting visitors, he was dressed only in shirtsleeves, riding boots, and trousers, his cuffs rolled up to the elbow, in his hand a pipe of briarwood, tobacco still smoldering in the bowl.

“Yes?” the man asked.

“Jules Dulac?” Blank replied with a question of his own. He found the man's appearance compellingly familiar, but couldn't place where he'd seen him before.

The man narrowed his eyes, warily. “Who is it asking?” His accent was
odd and difficult to place. It seemed to partake of many different accents, something of French commingled with a little Welsh, the Home Counties mixed with a touch of German. Wherever the man was originally from, it seemed evident that he had traveled, and widely.

“My name is Sandford Blank,” came the reply, “and this is my associate Miss Roxanne Bonaventure.”

At the mention of Miss Bonaventure's name, the man's eyes widened. Seeming to forget all about Blank, he took a half step forward, studying her face intently.

“
Miss
Bonaventure,” he repeated. “Yes, yes,” he said, nodding slowly, narrowing his gaze. He looked her up and down, taking in her fashionable bicycle suit of jacket and matching bloomers over stockings, before finally coming to rest on her face. “You definitely share the family features. But I've not heard of a
Roxanne
Bonaventure before.” The man tilted his head back, looking at her down the length of his nose, looking for all the world like a farrier inspecting a horse. “Who was your father, girl? Did Josiah have a bastard about whom Peter was never told? Or did Erasmus live long enough to have progeny, after all?” He snapped his fingers. “You're not from Varadeaux, by any chance, are you?
D'où venez vous?
Varadeaux?
Hein
?”

“
Je suis britannique
,” Miss Bonaventure said, shaking her head. “
Je viens d'Angleterre.
”

The man scowled for a moment, then smiled good-naturedly. “You'll have to excuse me,” he said, chuckling slightly. “I…I have an interest in genealogy and have made a particular study of your surname. I thought I knew of all the Bonaventures currently living in the British Isles and was surprised to hear a name unknown to me.”

Miss Bonaventure treated him to a smile, though to Blank it seemed that her smile was somewhat forced, as if the man had struck a nerve or given her some cause for concern. “No offense taken, sir,” she said. “On the subject of names, are we to assume that yours is Jules Dulac, after all?”

The man drew himself up straighter, heels together, and inclined his head in a nod, a formal-seeming gesture. It struck Blank that the man had the carriage of a military officer. “Guilty as charged, miss. Jules Dulac at your service. What might I do for you?”

“My colleague and I are assisting Scotland Yard in an ongoing investigation,” Blank answered, “and we were hoping you might be able to assist us.”

“Certainly,” Dulac said, genially. He paused, and then slapped his forehead. “Where are my manners, leaving you out in the street like tradesmen. Come in, won't you?”

Stepping aside, Dulac ushered them in, then closed the door behind them.

Blank and Miss Bonaventure found themselves in a large sitting room on the ground floor of the house. But aside from a pair of simple chairs, an occasional table, and a sofa, the room more closely resembled a museum than a residence. More precisely, a museum devoted to the art of war.

Dulac knocked the ashes from his pipe into a tray and casually packed more tobacco in the bowl from a pouch he pulled from his trouser pocket.

Bladed weapons of every imaginable shape and size crowded the room, hung on hooks from the walls or in simple wooden display cases that lined the floor: swords, of every imaginable provenance, sabers and scimitars, cutlasses and katanas.

But there were more than just swords in the collection. One wall was given over to flags, banners, and signets, dominated by a large white cloth upon which was embroidered the VOC monogram of the Dutch East India Company, with the motto “Terra et Mari” above and the words “Fidelitas et Honor” below.

“You wouldn't happen to have some interest in weaponry, would you, Mr. Dulac?” Blank asked, easing himself onto one of the plain wooden chairs.

Dulac smiled. He pulled out a silver vesta case, on which were engraved his initials, “J.D. ,” and a stylized dragon's head, like that which served as the doorknocker, and striking a match against the case, held it to his pipe. “It's an interest bordering on mania, I suppose you could say,” he said, around short puffs, drawing the flame into the bowl, “but with little else to occupy my time, it seems harmless enough.”