Arthur & George

'And did you hear that afterwards Rugeley sent a deputation to Lord Palmerston in Downing Street? They wanted to change the name of their town because of the disgrace the Poisoner had brought upon it. The PM thought about their request for a moment and replied, "What name do you propose – Palmerstown?"'

There is a silence. 'I don't follow you.'

'No, not Palmerston. Pal-mers-town.'

'Ah! Now that's very amusing, Greenway.'

'Even our Manchoo friend is laughing. Underneath his moustache.'

For once, George has had enough. 'Roll up your sleeve, Greenway.'

Greenway smirks. 'What for? Are you going to give me a Chinese burn?'

'Roll up your sleeve.'

George then does the same, and holds his forearm next to that of Greenway, who is just back from a fortnight sunning himself at Aberystwyth. Their skins are the same colour. Greenway is unabashed, and waits for George to comment; but George feels he has made his point, and starts putting the link back through his cuff.

'What was that about?' Stentson asks.

'I think George is trying to prove I'm a poisoner too.'

Arthur

They had taken Connie on a European tour. She was a robust girl, the only woman on the Norway crossing who wasn't prostrate with seasickness. Such imperviousness made other female sufferers irritated. Perhaps her sturdy beauty irritated them too: Jerome said that Connie could have posed for Brünnhilde. During that tour Arthur discovered that his sister, with her light dancing step, and her chestnut hair worn down her back like the cable of a man-o'-war, attracted the most unsuitable men: lotharios, card-sharps, oleaginous divorcees. Arthur had almost been obliged to raise his stick to some of them.

Back home, she seemed at last to have fixed her eye on a presentable fellow: Ernest William Hornung, twenty-six years old, tall, dapper, asthmatic, a decent wicketkeeper and occasional spin bowler; well-mannered, if liable to talk a streak if in the least encouraged. Arthur recognized that he would find it difficult to approve of anyone who attached themselves to either Lottie or Connie; but in any case, it was his duty as head of the family to cross-examine his sister.

'Hornung. What is he, this Hornung? Half Mongol, half Slav, by the sound of him. Could you not find someone wholly British?'

'He was born in Middlesbrough, Arthur. His father is a solicitor. He went to Uppingham.'

'There's something odd about him. I can sniff it.'

'He lived in Australia for three years. Because of his asthma. Perhaps what you can sniff are the gum trees.'

Arthur suppressed a laugh. Connie was the sister who most stood up to him; he loved Lottie more, but Connie was the one who liked to pull him up and surprise him. Thank God she had not married Waller. And the same went, a fortiori, for Lottie.

'And what does he do, this fellow from Middlesbrough?'

'He is a writer. Like you, Arthur.'

'Never heard of him.'

'He has written a dozen novels.'

'A dozen! But he's just a young pup.' An industrious pup, at least.

'I can lend you one if you wish to judge him that way. I have Under Two Skies and The Boss of Taroomba. Many of them are set in Australia, and I find them very accomplished.'

'Do you just, Connie?'

'But he realizes that it is difficult to make a living from writing novels, and so he works also as a journalist.'

'Well, it is a name that sticks,' Arthur grunted. He gave Connie permission to introduce the fellow into the household. For the moment he would give him the benefit of the doubt by not reading any of his books.

Spring was early that year, and the tennis ground was marked out by the end of April. From his study Arthur would hear the distant pop of racquet on ball, and the familiar irritating cry made by a female missing an easy shot. Later, he would wander out and there would be Connie in flowing skirts and Willie Hornung in straw hat and peg-topped white flannels. He noted the way Hornung did not give her any easy points, but at the same time held back from a full weight of shot. He approved: that was how a man ought to play a girl.

Touie sat to one side in a deckchair, warmed less by the frail sun of early summer than by the heat of young love. Their laughing chatter across the net and their shyness with one another afterwards seemed to delight her, and Arthur therefore decided to be won over. In truth, he rather liked the role of grudging paterfamilias. And Hornung was proving himself a witty fellow at times. Perhaps too witty, but that could be ascribed to youth. What was that first jest of his? Yes, Arthur had been reading the sporting pages, and remarked upon a story in which a runner was credited with completing the hundred yards in a mere ten seconds.

'What do you make of that, Mr Hornung?'

And Hornung had replied, quick as a flash, 'It must be a sprinter's error.'

That August, Arthur was invited to lecture in Switzerland; Touie was still a little weak from the birth of Kingsley, but naturally accompanied him. They visited the Reichenbach Falls, splendid yet terrifying, and a worthy tomb for Holmes. The fellow was rapidly turning into an old man of the sea, clinging round his neck. Now, with the help of an arch-villain, he would shrug his burden off.

At the end of September, Arthur was walking Connie up the aisle, she pulling back on his arm for striking too military a pace. As he handed her over symbolically at the altar, he knew he should be proud and happy for her. But amid all the orange blossom and backslapping and jokes about bowling maidens over, he felt his dream of an ever-increasing family around him taking a knock.

Ten days later, he learned that his father had died in a Dumfries lunatic asylum. Epilepsy was given as the cause. Arthur had not visited him in years, and did not attend the funeral; none of the family did. Charles Doyle had let down the Mam and condemned his children to genteel poverty. He had been weak and unmanly, incapable of winning his fight against liquor. Fight? He had barely raised his gloves at the demon. Excuses were occasionally made for him, but Arthur did not find the claim of an artistic temperament persuasive. That was just self-indulgence and self-exculpation. It was perfectly possible to be an artist, yet also to be robust and responsible.

Touie developed a persistent autumn cough, and complained of pains in her side. Arthur judged the symptoms insignificant, but eventually called in Dalton, the local practitioner. It was strange to find himself transformed from doctor to mere patient's husband; strange to wait downstairs while somewhere above his head his fate was being decided. The bedroom door was closed for a long time, and Dalton emerged with a face as dismal as it was familiar: Arthur had worn it himself all too many times.

'Her lungs are gravely affected. There is every sign of rapid consumption. Given her condition and family history…' Dr Dalton did not need to continue, except to add, 'You will want a second opinion.'

Not just a second, but the best. Douglas Powell, consulting physician at the Brompton Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, came down to South Norwood the following Saturday. A pale, ascetic man, clean-shaved and correct, Powell regretfully confirmed the diagnosis.

'You are, I believe, a medical man, Mr Doyle?'

'I rebuke myself for my inattention.'

'The pulmonary system was not your speciality?'

'The eye.'

'Then you should not rebuke yourself.'

'No, the more so. I had eyes, and did not see. I did not spot the accursed microbe. I did not pay her enough attention. I was too busy with my own… success.'

'But you were an eye doctor.'

'Three years ago I went to Berlin to report on Koch's findings – supposed findings – about this very disease. I wrote about it for Stead, in the Review of Reviews.'

'I see.'

'And yet I did not recognize a case of galloping consumption in my own wife. Worse, I let her join me in activities which will have made it worse. We tricycled in every weather, we travelled to cold climates, she followed me in outdoor sports…'