Arundell broke off as a waiter approached. “Shall we order?” he asked Burton.
The king's agent, who'd been absorbed in the other man's tale, waved his hand distractedly and said: “Yes, yes, of course, please do.”
Henry Arundell requested a chicken vindaloo and Burton, hardly caring what he ate, asked for the same.
“So this Roger Tichborne is the prodigal who's lately been the preoccupation of all the journalists?”
“Yes. He was doted on by his mother and raised as a Frenchman. He didn't learn to speak English until he was about twelve years old, and always spoke it with a strong French accent.
“A second son was born, too. A surprise, really, considering that James and his wife grew to hate each other. This one, Alfred, was a weak-willed lad, and was all but ignored by Henriette-Felicite, who remained devoted to her firstborn.
“To return for a moment to the grandfather, Sir Henry; when he died, one of his other sons, James's elder brother Edward, became the eighth baronet. Edward had changed his surname to Doughty as a condition of an inheritance. This is where my family comes into it, for after becoming Sir Edward Doughty, he married my aunt, Katherine Arundell, and they had a child, ‘Kattie’ Doughty, in 1834. She became romantically involved with young Roger Tichborne, who had, after being educated at Stonyhurst Jesuit School, joined the Sixth Dragoon Guards, and was spending his furloughs at Tichborne House. My aunt objected strongly to this romance on the grounds that Roger lacked prospects and didn't act in a sufficiently English manner. Plus, of course, he and the girl were cousins.
“Having been banned from seeing Kattie for at least three years, Roger determined to prove himself. Typically, he followed a flight of fancy. According to a family legend, Sir Henry had discovered a fabulous diamond in South America-”
“ What?” Burton cried, causing an outbreak of tut-tutting from the surrounding tables.
Arundell looked at him in astonishment then shook his head. “No, no, Burton,” he said. “It's just a fancy. There's never been anything to substantiate it-certainly no such gem has ever been seen, and, considering the family's current finances, it obviously doesn't exist.”
“Frankly, I hardly know what to think!” Burton revealed.
“Why so?”
“Because the-the-well, it doesn't matter-suffice it to say that I've experienced rather a profound coincidence!”
“Anything I should know about?”
“No. Yes. No. Um-my apologies, sir, I'm somewhat at a loss. A few weeks ago there was a rather daring diamond robbery-”
“I don't remember that.”
“It wasn't reported. Scotland Yard has been keeping it quiet while the investigation proceeds. I had some involvement with the affair, and my subsequent inquiries suggest that the missing diamonds are connected with one that is rumoured to have been discovered in Chile by an English aristocrat.”
“Ah.”
“I wasn't told the aristocrat's name.”
“So now you're thinking it was Sir Henry Tichborne? I'm sorry to disappoint you but, really, the whole thing is nothing but a fairy tale.”
Burton cleared his throat at the mention of fairies.
“An enticing one, to be sure,” Arundell continued. “Certainly young Roger fell under its spell, and decided to visit all the places where his grandfather had travelled in the hope that he, too, would stumble upon untold wealth. A quite ridiculous endeavour, and it would have been an utter waste of time had he gone through with it-but no sooner did he step ashore at Valparaiso than word reached him that his uncle, Sir Edward Doughty, had passed away.”
“So the baronetcy passed to his father, James?”
“Quite so-until, seven days later, Sir James dropped dead from heart failure. Our prodigal was now the new baronet, entitled to all the wealth and estates of the Tichbornes. Rather eagerly, I imagine, he hopped aboard a ship- La Bella -to make his way home. On the 20th of April, 1854, it sank without a trace, and the third baronet in less than a fortnight was lost. His young brother, Alfred, inherited the estate instead, and would have bankrupted it in no time at all had his mother not sent her friend Colonel Lushington to Tichborne House to take him in hand.”
Henry Arundell paused to sip his wine and to nod a greeting to an acquaintance seated at a nearby table.
Burton asked: “If Sir Alfred is such a liability, why are the Arundell and Doughty families so concerned that his elder brother has shown up alive and well? Why contest Roger Tichborne's claims to the baronetcy?”
The older man blew out an exasperated breath and said in a sharp tone: “Simply because the man currently in Paris is most definitely not Roger Tichborne.”
The king's agent looked surprised. “He isn't? That's not what Lady Henriette-Felicite says. Surely you don't doubt a mother's recognition of her own son?”
“I do, absolutely!”
“On what grounds?”
“On grounds that the dowager is on death's doorstep and is desperate for her lost son's return; on grounds that she's almost entirely deaf and blind; on grounds that Roger Tichborne always, without exception, wrote to his mother in French, yet the man currently posing as him wrote to her in English-and very, very bad English to boot-and on grounds that his handwriting is entirely different.”
“A man's handwriting can change over the course of a decade.”
“Can a man forget how to spell?”
“Hmm,” Burton grunted.
The waiter arrived with their food and for a few minutes the men ate in silence.
“So Sir Roger Tichborne-” Burton began.
“The Claimant,” Arundell snapped. “I'll not honour him with the name Tichborne until he's demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is who he says he is.”
“Very well then, the Claimant-he's still in Paris?”
“Yes. Apparently he has a scalp infection and is being treated by a doctor, though he's expected at Tichborne House during the course of the coming week. I fear he means to eject Colonel Lushington.”
“I would like to be there when he arrives. Could you arrange it?”
Arundell looked Burton in the eye. “If you go as representative of the Arundell and Doughty families, yes. My question is: can I depend on you to act in our interests? You and I don't have a good history, Burton, and my wife would have a hysterical fit if she found out I'd drawn you into the affair.”
“It was the prime minister who drew me into the affair, sir, and what you can depend on is that I will do my utmost to get to the truth of the matter, whatever it may be.”
Arundell pushed the food on his plate around with his fork, then sighed and said: “Fair enough. I'll get a message to Lushington. He's a dependable sort, if a little long-winded in manner, and will give you whatever assistance you need. When do you intend to go?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good. You'll definitely be there before the Claimant arrives. In addition to the colonel and Sir Alfred, there are a couple of other people at the house you should be aware of. The first is Doctor Jankyn, the family physician. He belongs to an unbroken line of medical practitioners who've been associated with the Tichbornes since the year dot, and he's currently nursing Sir Alfred through some sort of nervous complaint.”
“Related to his brother's return?”
“I don't know. The second person is Andrew Bogle, an old Jamaican who served as butler to Sir Edward Doughty and who now works in that same capacity for Sir Alfred. Both men knew Roger Tichborne before he left for South America.”
With that, Henry Arundell had little more to tell Burton, so the two men finished their meal and Isabel's father took his leave.
The king's agent retired to the smoking room and there fell in with Samuel Baker and John Petherick from the Royal Geographical Society. They were bluff, hearty, bushy-bearded men, whose plan to go in search of Henry Morton Stanley by following the course of the Nile from Cairo to its source struck Burton as naive and overly ambitious. The warring tribes around the upper reaches of the great river had so far prevented any such penetration into the heart of Africa.