The Silent Boy (41 page)

He is very weary. Fact. He does not know where he is. Fact.

It’s happened again, he thinks. He has been snatched from one place and thrown into another, as helpless as a counter in a board game at the throw of the dice. A memory stirs: Mr Savill’s dice. He feels the outline of them in the pocket of his breeches. Shake them and throw them, and the dots change. The dice have nothing to do with it.

There is nothing he can do. This is yet another fact, he supposes. He cannot even call for help. He is mute.

Charles shivers. Memories and facts and silence. He has had enough of them all. He closes his eyes and waits for sleep to return.

‘You have lost your wits,’ Rampton said. ‘This is a monstrous slander.’

‘No, sir.’ Savill stood in front of Rampton’s desk. ‘Consider these facts, one by one, and forget for a moment how I came by them. Quickly now, for time is precious. And forget your old friendship for him, for it must not colour your judgement.’

He had left Malbourne in Green Street and come directly to the Black Letter Office, where Mr Rampton was in his private room. The only other person in the building was the whippet-thin clerk who had opened the door to him.

‘As you know, Mrs Ogden told me this afternoon that Mr Malbourne and her son were intimate friends at Oxford. Indeed, she blamed Mr Malbourne for her son’s wildness there and his subsequent dissipation. It is no great leap from that to suspect that the connection between them continued. If Mr Malbourne had wanted an agent to act for him in an affair of this nature, then Dick Ogden would have been a natural choice.’

Rampton rubbed his cheeks, which looked baggier and more wrinkled because of the deep shadows thrown by the candlelight. ‘We have discussed that, and I have considered it further. The thing falls down on the question of motive, for a man does not commit such a terrible crime in the hope of a legacy that has not even been promised.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am. And whatever else he may be, Malbourne is not a fool. Where is he, in any case? He should be here by now.’

‘The next point is this, sir,’ Savill said. ‘I found him at Green Street this evening.’

‘What?’

‘You did not sanction it?’

‘I expressly forbade it.’

‘The Count was making much of him. It appears that he was acquainted with Mr Malbourne’s father, and they encountered one another by chance in the street, and Monsieur de Quillon brought him up to Mrs West’s drawing room. A strange coincidence, is it not? And were you aware of the connection between them?’

‘I don’t know everything about Malbourne,’ Rampton said. ‘Besides, we should hear what he has to say before rushing to judgement.’

‘How much has the Count told him about Charles? Is there some deeper connection between them, some more sinister motive for Malbourne’s action? Something perhaps based on the old friendship between the Count and Mr Malbourne’s father?’

Rampton took out his snuffbox and tapped it like a gavel on his desk. ‘Speculation,’ he said. ‘Pure speculation.’

‘But all this pales into insignificance beside this last fact: Malbourne was in Paris in August. According to Monsieur Fournier, he was there on the very night that Augusta was killed. Is that true? If he was, you must surely have known.’

Rampton took a pinch of snuff and sneezed into his handkerchief. ‘Of course I knew. He was in Paris on official business.’

‘Did the business concern Augusta in any way?’

‘I cannot say.’

‘Cannot or will not? I think she was an English spy. Perhaps Malbourne was her paymaster.’

Rampton left the snuffbox alone and toyed with his silver inkwell. ‘Once again – speculation.’

‘Which you can confirm or not, as you choose.’

‘But why on earth should he kill her?’

‘Was she blackmailing him? She was capable of that.’

‘As a threat to the security of the realm? That’s absurd.’

‘Or as a threat to himself.’ Savill felt the ghosts of old jealousies stirring inside him. ‘She was a woman used to employing her charms for her own ends.’

‘You suggest she was his mistress?’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it? And now he’s betrothed to an heiress. That makes him vulnerable, particularly if she held letters of his, perhaps containing promises he made.’

‘Malbourne is not a man to make a fool of himself over a woman,’ Rampton said.

Another jolt of memory stirred and twisted within Savill, for he had made a fool of himself over her. ‘Augusta was not like other women. If it suited her purpose, she could make a man sit up on his hind legs and bark at the moon.’

‘That is not something I am competent to judge, sir,’ Rampton said primly. ‘But I must remind you that you have no proof whatsoever of this.’

Savill switched his line of approach. ‘Tell me, sir, who collected the letters I sent you from Charnwood? You remember? Addressed to Frederick Brown at the White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly?’

Rampton looked up. For a moment he said nothing. ‘As it happened, I sent Malbourne to fetch them.’

‘If he opened those letters before he gave them to you, or read their contents in some other way, he would have learned that Charles has been struck dumb and will not even communicate by writing. He would also have learned that Charles may well have been a witness to his mother’s murder.’

The room was silent now, apart from the rattle of a carriage in the street below. Rampton took another pinch, which led to another sneeze. The old man’s anger had vanished. He seemed to have shrunk physically, as if the news of Malbourne’s treachery had deflated him. Savill sensed the battle was nearly won, if not the war.

‘It explains the timing, sir,’ he went on. ‘I had wondered about that. That’s why Malbourne didn’t send Ogden down to Somerset earlier. Because – until he saw my letter to you – he didn’t realize that Charles might have been a witness to the murder. But once he did know that, it was imperative that he should prevent Charles from reaching London. Because one day Charles may start to speak or write again.’

Rampton shook his head slowly. ‘I – I cannot but acknowledge there is some sense in what you say. But Malbourne? I have known him since he was a boy … It beggars belief that he would commit a cold-blooded murder … And it is not just Augusta, either, is it? If you are correct, Malbourne must also have murdered Richard Ogden, his former friend.’

‘A man will do anything to save his own skin,’ Savill said. ‘Mr Malbourne could not hope to avoid the boy once he was in London. Then Charles would come face to face with his mother’s murderer. It would be strange indeed if Charles did not show some sign of it. Even if he were still mute.’

‘I must have time to consider this. It is not—’

‘Sir, every moment is important. He must know I suspect something. Can you not have a warrant made out for his arrest?’

‘I concede that you are right, Mr Savill,’ Rampton said slowly, ‘at least in this: that there are grounds for suspicion. Whether they amount to enough to persuade a magistrate to issue a warrant is still not certain. I shall give Malbourne a chance to refute these accusations first. I owe him that.’

‘But it would merely give him a chance to escape justice.’

‘Why would he flee?’ Rampton pulled at his fingers, wincing as if they pained him. ‘That would be an admission of guilt – assuming he is guilty of doing more than call on Mrs West when he knows I would not have wished it.’

‘Mrs West told me that he met the Count and Monsieur Fournier on the street quite by chance. And they swept him into the house, presumably, and introduced him to her.’

‘Then perhaps that is precisely what happened. Malbourne is the soul of politeness. He would not wish to offend the Count, his father’s friend, especially now when he is little better than a penniless refugee.’ Rampton consulted his watch. ‘Anyway, Malbourne should be here within the half-hour. I shall put all this to him and see how he replies. One way or the other we shall get to the bottom of this. If you wish, I shall summon a constable and station him downstairs.’

Shortly after this, Savill went downstairs, intending to cross the road to his lodgings and change his shirt, which was sadly soiled. The duty clerk greeted him by name in the hall.

‘I should have enquired when you came in, sir – did you receive your letter?’

Savill stopped. ‘What letter?’

‘It came this afternoon, sir – about two o’clock.’

‘I’ve had no letter. Who brought it? A carrier?’

‘A servant, sir.’ The clerk was a bright fellow: when he saw Savill’s expression he went on quickly: ‘Ugly-faced fellow. Had a wall-eye.’

‘The left eye?’ Savill said. ‘Streaked with white and seeming to look over your shoulder?’

‘That’s the man to the life.’

‘What did you do with the letter?’

‘Took it upstairs, sir, and gave it to Mr Malbourne. He said he’d make sure it reached you.’

Though the hour was growing late, it was fortunate that the proprietor of the Beaufort Academy for Young Ladies had not retired for the night, and nor had the two young ladies. Troughton admitted Savill into the house with a great rattling of bolts and bars. He was wearing a long brown apron and had clearly been engaged in cleaning the silver.

‘You keep late hours,’ Savill said.

The manservant pursed his lips and winked his wandering eye. ‘Mrs P is not what you might call a restful lady, sir. Especially now, with the nuptials hanging over us.’

‘I’m obliged to you,’ Savill said, parting with a sixpence. ‘I understand you delivered a letter for me to Crown Street in Westminster earlier today.’

‘Yes, sir, Miss Elizabeth was most insistent. “Urgent” she said, and she wrote it on the outside. Madam said I could go – I hope everything’s all right, sir?’

Savill chose his words with care: ‘I’m not sure. The letter was mislaid after it was taken in.’

‘The porter said you’d been there an hour or so earlier but he was sure you’d be back.’

The letter must have arrived either during or just after his conference with Rampton in the Park, Savill thought; while he was at Bell’s Library. He said, ‘Do you know why it was so urgent?’

‘Young girls, sir.’ The eye dipped and swooped like a swallow on the wing. ‘At their age, everything is urgent. Full of fancies. Sometimes it’s as good as a play in a theatre here.’

For an instant, the thought of swallows was a momentary distraction, tugging gently at Savill’s attention. ‘Pray let Mrs Pycroft know I’m here,’ he said. ‘Give her my compliments and my apologies for calling at this hour and beg her to allow me to speak to my daughter in private for a moment. Tell her it’s family business that will not wait till the morning.’

The eyebrow drooped again. ‘Seeing as it’s you, sir.’

Troughton showed Savill into a dining room that smelled of old greens and forgotten roasts. He paced up and down by the light of a single candle until he heard Lizzie’s hurried footsteps. He turned to face the door as she burst into the room.

‘Have you found Charles?’ she said.

She was breathing hard and her colour was up. He drew out a chair and made her sit. He sat beside her and took her hand.

‘What is it, Papa? Is he hurt? Is he—’

‘No, my love, not as far as I know. But I haven’t found him. Listen – your letter went astray.’

‘It can’t have done. Troughton said he’d—’

‘What did it say?’ Savill interrupted.

‘That I’ve seen Charles. I’ve talked to him. I said I’d write to you and you would come.’

It was as if she had thrown a bucket of water over him. When the shock subsided, he said, ‘Where?’

‘He’s at home. Mary and I went there this morning to fetch the lace my aunt gave me.’ She glanced up at him, and he guessed there had been a spark of rebellion in her decision to go to Nightingale Lane – a desire to assert her right to go home if she wished, despite his prohibition. ‘It will work beautifully with her dress,’ she added quickly. ‘Mrs Forster let us in, and I went upstairs by myself to fetch the lace. You know the closet where we keep the winter cloaks? My
Robinson Crusoe
was open on the window seat and there was a jar of quince jelly on the floor. So I knew that someone must be—’

He took her hand. ‘Slowly, my love. And lower your voice.’

Her fingers tightened around his. ‘Papa,’ she whispered, ‘he was hiding in the alcove behind the curtain. And he looked so small, so frightened, so delicate, so … so
dirty
. He has big, big eyes, you know, and they stare at you, and they look right through.’

‘I know they do,’ Savill said. ‘What then?’

‘I knew he must be Charles – who else could he be? Besides, I think his eyes were like mine. So I talked to him.’ A note of pride entered into her voice. ‘In English and in French. I said I would write to you, and you would come and take care of him. I’m sure he understood. I could see it in his face.’ She was still holding his hand. ‘Was I right to do that? Have I made things worse?’

‘You were absolutely right,’ he said, wishing to God that he had allowed her to keep house for him in Nightingale Lane in which case she would have been there when Charles arrived, however he contrived it. ‘And you’re right about its being him, too. He is very like you, you know – or rather how you were when you were younger.’

‘He wouldn’t say anything. Is he really …?’

‘He is mute. He used not to be. But – but since he lost his mother – he has not spoken a word.’

‘Why?’

‘No one knows.’

‘He can read.’

‘Oh yes. There’s nothing wrong with his mental faculties.’ Savill released her hand and smiled at her. ‘And a lady in Somerset was reading
Robinson Crusoe
to him.’

‘That proves it was Charles, then. We must go there now and bring him here. Mrs Pycroft will not mind my going with you, I’m sure, not if you ask her yourself.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You must stay here.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I must come with you.’

Nightingale Lane was as black as a coal pit. The gables of the old houses on either side craned towards each other. Above them the sky was stained with the faint glow from London at night.