“By the time I got going it was already lunchtime, so I went to a small restaurant in an old corner of the City, a place people from my college use when they’re in town. There I met Lene. I’d known her at Oxford as one of the outstanding women athletes.
“Well, I don’t want to flatter her, but I’ve always thought of her as a clever, active, thoroughly decent sort — in a word, a real man. I decided to ask her to be my assistant. Luckily she had the time.”
“When would I not have time to be with such a lovely man?” she interposed.
Again he quickly turned away, and continued.
“We put our heads together to see what could be done. For inspiration, we tried to dredge up memories of our reading and films we had seen, but unfortunately neither of us had ever been an devotee, not realising how useful it might turn out to be in later life. We thought of reading through the entire works of Edgar Wallace, but there wasn’t time. The only memory we did share was of the German film Emil and the Detectives. “Drawing on what we could recall, we went through it trying to establish the method by which little Gustav-with-the-Horn and the other children caught the man in the bowler hat. We discovered that it was every bit as simple as great truths usually are. They just followed in his footsteps until all was revealed.”
“Never let him out of your sight,” Lene intoned, as if it were a moral axiom.
“But it occurred to me that Morvin might recognise me. Events have proved that someone has been providing him with precise information about everything to do with Pendragon House — just the sort of thing you would expect from a systematic murderer. We decided to disguise ourselves, myself so as not to be recognised, and Lene to fit in with me.”
“Indian costume was best,” Lene interjected, “because in London it doesn’t stand out, it really does change your appearance — and it’s nice and colourful. I’ve a lot of Indian friends, male and female, so it wasn’t difficult to borrow what we needed.”
“Anyway, we put on our stunning disguises, took up position outside Morvin’s house, and when a man came out looking like what we expected from Seton’s description, we followed him by taxi and on foot. First he went to Grosvenor House, then on to your hotel. He hung around there for quite some time, and spoke to a man in Highland costume — obviously the one who took the manuscript — and then went to a chemical works in Southwark. After that he had lunch at the Elephant and Castle, as we did. From there he went all over the place, but nothing of interest happened. In the afternoon he went back for tea in the lounge of Grosvenor House, with a rather good-looking lady.”
“She was nothing special, just very expensively dressed,” Lene remarked, rather warmly.
“I hope you had a good look at her,” I said. “It was probably Mrs Roscoe.”
“So that’s my uncle’s taste … ” said Osborne, and paused for thought. His face gave no indication whether he shared it.
“A really repulsive woman,” said Lene. “How could anyone have her hair that vulgar reddish-blond colour?”
“So that’s how we got to the Café Royal. You can imagine my surprise when I saw Morvin approach you. He was right about one thing. If we hadn’t overheard that conversation, appearances would certainly have been against you. But we caught every word.”
“And that was enough to complete your mission,” I retorted. “Now you and I both know that Mrs Roscoe was a party to Maloney’s expedition. I also know it from when we drove together to Chester. Did you hear what Morvin promised me? Where would he get the money for all that if he didn’t have access to the Roscoe millions? Besides, as you will have gathered from our conversation, I spent some time in her company. Like Morvin, she tried repeatedly to persuade me to give evidence. I’ve no doubt that if we tell all this to the Earl he’ll see that she certainly isn’t innocent, but a real threat to his life.”
“Do you know, I’m not so sure of that. My uncle is much cleverer than we are, and a clever man always manages to find reasons for what his instincts dictate. You might tell him all this and he’d still give you ‘proof’—as broad as daylight to him — that she’s innocent. Besides … I don’t know … if I were you I certainly wouldn’t mention the intimate relations you had with Mrs Roscoe. Given his past — and possibly still current — feelings, it wouldn’t be very tactful.”
“That’s very true. But what should we do next? There’s no time to lose. After today’s setback Morvin will almost certainly resort to desperate measures. I think we are in some danger, all three of us.”
“Well, I’m not scared. We’ll use another disguise tomorrow. But you should get straight back to Llanvygan and wait there for developments. Don’t tell the Earl any more than the simple facts, the theft and recovery of the manuscript, not forgetting my manifold merits. We’ll prowl around London for a day or two, this time after Mrs Roscoe. Perhaps we’ll have the same fantastic luck as we did today.”
“Never let her out of your sight,” Lene chanted again.
Cows were grazing in the meadows, and the English ladies in my compartment were being served tea on trays as we trundled by. I leant back and once again perused du Fresnoy’s Memoirs, the recovery of which had been such an adventure.
Lenglet du Fresnoy led a busy life. A defrocked clergyman, he was one of those unsatisfactory types who later came to be known as ‘seekers’. In his day, however, ‘seekers’ did not grow beards and question the existence of God. Fresnoy’s quest was for the secret of making gold and he was the author of a book on the history of alchemy which is still in use today.
His memoirs reveal the intellectual life of the second half of the eighteenth century in all its (for me) charming confusion. These were the years when people tried to create gold and produced the iron of the industrial revolution: a mental climate woven from the threads of Freemason quackery and theatrical philanthropy, the world familiar to us from The Magic Flute and Dumas’ biography of Cagliostro. The manuscript advanced deeply religious, ethical and humanitarian ideas side by side with anecdotes that even today would be considered bawdy, in which Casanova himself, the truest son of the century, makes a fleeting appearance.
Then one day du Fresnoy came suddenly face to face with the unbelievable in which he had always nominally believed, the terrifying way in which ‘nature conquers nature’; and at this point his simple, straightforward narrative turns into the fragmentary jottings of a man shaken to the core of his being. Awestruck with terror, he saw everything larger than life, and his account would have lost all credibility had I not been forced to consider that he would not have been so shaken without good cause, and if his wildest assertions hadn’t so closely reflected my own recent experiences, about which doubt was no longer possible.
But I must let him speak for himself. Some time later, after returning to Llanvygan, I prepared a rough translation of a key passage, describing the period from his initiation into the Hope Masonic Lodge to the moment of revelation. I reproduce it here, with minor omissions:
After much pleading from me, Monsieur Ch — the Great Inquisitor of our Lodge, finally promised that as soon as the next stage of the work was completed he would begin the necessary preparations for my initiation to the higher level.
When I next presented myself at the door of the Hotel V — and gave the secret sign, my heart was beating wildly. ‘So, today is the day,’ I told myself. ‘Today you will, at long, long last, place your first foot on the royal path you have yearned for since your youth.’ In the same moment I made an undertaking that whatever treasures I might glean through the noble art would be devoted to the wellbeing of mankind as a whole.