The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes (31 page)

Rutherford cleared his throat. “Yes. I’m here to see Professor Angelchrist. Is he home?”

The butler narrowed his eyes. “Your name, sir?”

“Peter Rutherford. I’m here on behalf of the British government. I believe the professor may be able to help with my enquiries.”

“Very good, sir. Please come in. I’ll see if the professor is available for visitors.”

Rutherford smiled and stepped into the hall, dipping his head to avoid bashing it on the low beam over the door.

Inside, the cavernous hallway was dimly lit and ticked ominously with the workings of innumerable clockwork machines. Rutherford sensed movement in the dark recesses behind the staircase, but couldn’t discern anything because of the poor light. He waited by the door for the butler to return, feeling a little uneasy.

“Professor Angelchrist will see you in the drawing room, Mr Rutherford,” the man said when he reappeared a moment later, giving a slight wave of his hand to indicate the way.

Rutherford thanked him. He passed along the hallway, stopping before the drawing room door. He rapped loudly, twice.

“Come.” The voice from within the room was stately and firm, but cracked with age.

Rutherford pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The professor was sitting by the hearth in a leather armchair that seemed to dwarf him, giving Rutherford the impression he was smaller than he probably was. His hair was a shock of startling white, and he wore a short beard and wiry spectacles. Dressed in a morning suit, his liver-spotted hands were folded neatly on his lap. He looked up and smiled at Rutherford, beckoning him to the chair opposite his own.

“Good day to you, Mr Rutherford. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.” He held out his hand and Rutherford reached over and shook it firmly. “These old legs aren’t what they once were.”

Rutherford smiled. “Of course,” he said, taking his seat.

“You’re here on behalf of the government, eh? Secret Service, by the look of you.” The old man’s eyes flashed with amusement, but then he looked suddenly serious. “You’ve come for it, haven’t you?”

Rutherford frowned. Direct and to the point. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“It?”
he said, feigning ignorance.

“Come now, Mr Rutherford. Let us not patronise one another. I know you’re here for the Maharajah’s Star. I always knew someone would come, one day. I’m only surprised it’s taken so long.” The old man leaned forward in his chair, fixing Rutherford with a firm stare. “That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Rutherford shrugged, and nodded. “So you admit you have it here?”

Angelchrist gave a crooked smile. “What do you know of the Star, Mr Rutherford?” he replied, avoiding the question.

So, they were going to play a game. Rutherford found himself warming to the old man. “That it once belonged to the Maharajah of Jodhpur, a man renowned for his love of beautiful things. During the course of his reign the Maharajah amassed a great wealth of treasures from all around the world. Precious jewels, ancient relics, famous works of art. That sort of thing. But the Star was always his most prized possession, so valuable, so precious that none of his servants were even allowed to look upon it. No one but the Maharajah himself even knew what it was. He kept it locked inside a specially constructed cabinet in his treasure room, and he kept the key on his person at all times, even when he slept. Legend has it many thieves foolishly attempted to steal the Star, but the Maharajah, wise to these interlopers, had installed a hundred clockwork warriors in the treasure room. Anyone who broke in was cut to ribbons by their flashing blades.”

“Very good,” Angelchrist said, reaching for his pipe and knocking out the dottles in his palm before discarding them in the fire. “Go on.”

“When the British went in after the ’57 rebellion they discovered the palace had been ransacked. The treasure had all gone, the clockwork warriors had been destroyed and the Maharajah lay murdered in his bed. But the thieves had failed to locate the key that still hung around the neck of the Maharajah’s corpse. It was retrieved by the British soldiers and eventually found its way back to London on the airship
Empress’s Grace.
The treasure could not be traced, however, and although the occasional, solitary item turned up on the black market, it remained a mystery as to what had become of it.”

Rutherford paused as the butler appeared in the doorway bearing a silver tea tray. Angelchrist beckoned him in, and the butler came forward and set the tray down on a low table. He beat a hasty retreat. “It’s about this point in proceedings when your name, along with those of Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes, is first mentioned.”

Angelchrist grinned. “Sir Maurice Newbury! What a remarkable fellow.”

“Did you know him well?”

Angelchrist nodded. “Oh, yes. Newbury, Miss Hobbes and I, along with Sir Charles Bainbridge, were involved in far more than just the matter of the Maharajah’s Star. Newbury opened my eyes, Mr Rutherford, to the secret world that exists in the shadows, just beneath the veneer of civilisation.”

“So what of the Star?” Rutherford prompted.

“You must understand that in those days, thirty years ago, the government and the monarch were at odds with one another. Publicly, of course, all was well, but beneath the surface a power struggle was taking place. In 1902 I was working for the fledgling Secret Service. Newbury and the others were agents of the Crown. But we knew one another well and had helped each other on many occasions.” Angelchrist paused for a moment while he lit his pipe. “When word came that the Maharajah’s treasure had turned up in London in the hands of a criminal gang, both myself and Newbury were charged with retrieving it. As we had on so many prior occasions, we agreed to pool our resources. It didn’t take us long—with the help of Bainbridge and Scotland Yard—to discover where the treasure was being held. It had arrived on a steamship, disguised as cargo, and was in the possession of a gang of smugglers and pirates who maintained a warehouse out by London Docks.”

Rutherford nodded. So far, everything Angelchrist had said confirmed what was written in the reports of the time.

“Well, the four of us—Newbury, Miss Hobbes, Bainbridge and I—stormed the place with a handful of bobbies for back-up. The smugglers put up quite a fight. It transpired they’d been operating out of the warehouse for some time. The place was heavily fortified, protected by a huge, flightless, carnivorous bird they’d brought back from the Congo, along with an army of mechanically reanimated pygmies. Well,” Angelchrist said, around the mouthpiece of his pipe, “Bainbridge and I dealt with the bird, leading it a merry dance around the docks before felling it with a shot to the head. Newbury, Miss Hobbes and the bobbies were left to handle the pygmies in the meantime. They must have ripped through the place like tornadoes, as a veritable army of the mechanised corpses lay sprawled upon the ground when Bainbridge and I returned a short while later. There was, of course, no sign of the criminals responsible—fled amongst the chaos, we presumed—but we found the Maharajah’s lost treasure locked in a subterranean vault beneath the warehouse.”

Rutherford nodded. He didn’t know whether Angelchrist was embellishing the story or whether the original report had been light on detail, but this was the first he’d heard of the terror bird and the reanimated pygmies. He reached for the teapot and began pouring the tea. “And the Star? The reports state that you retrieved the cabinet but found it empty.”

Angelchrist grinned. “Well, I suppose we were a little...
economical
with the truth. The Star was there, in the cabinet, just as the stories suggested it would be. We turned the treasure over to the Crown as we’d been instructed, but the Star—well, we all agreed to bring it here for safekeeping. It’s been in my possession ever since.”

Rutherford frowned. How could a man so celebrated, with such an impeccable service record, do something such as this? To steal and hide a national treasure? Not only that, but Sir Maurice Newbury, too, conspiring along with him. Rutherford could hardly credit it. “Where is it?” he asked.

Angelchrist laughed. “You’re holding it now,” he said.

“What?” Rutherford looked down at the teapot in his hands. “Surely not...” he said, trailing off. Yet even as he spoke he saw that the old, clay teapot was etched with a rough five-pointed star, around which two lines of Sanskrit had been crudely engraved. “My God!” he said, setting it down upon the tray. “You’re telling me this is it? This is the Maharajah’s Star? It’s just an old, worthless pot.”

Angelchrist was still laughing. “But that’s exactly the point, my dear Rutherford. The inscription, roughly translated, means: ‘That which the heart treasures most cannot be measured in gold’. It was the Maharajah’s secret. The Star was worthless, but it served as a reminder to him that all of the treasure he had amassed, all of that wealth, meant nothing. Not really. They were nothing but pretty trinkets.”

Rutherford leaned back in his chair, staring at Angelchrist in disbelief.

“It was also one of the finest security measures ever devised,” Angelchrist continued. “The true power of the Star was the very fact the world believed it to be a treasure of unimaginable value. While it remained locked in the Maharajah’s cabinet, guarded by those hundred clockwork warriors, it was the only thing on the mind of thieves and vagabonds throughout all of India. It represented the ultimate prize. The Maharajah knew that while the true nature of the Star remained a secret, all of his other treasures were safe. His enemies had eyes only for the Star.”

Angelchrist reached for his teacup and brought it to his lips before continuing. “Newbury knew this. And he knew that the Queen was only really interested in baubles and trinkets. She, like all those other thieves who had tried to take it over the years, was enamoured with the notion of the Star as a treasure. She wouldn’t recognise its intrinsic value, even if she did know the truth. So Newbury suggested I take the Star into safekeeping, that we put it about that the Star was still lost. That way the criminal elements throughout the world would have something to keep them occupied while we focused on keeping the Empire safe. He was that sort of man, Mr Rutherford. Always concerned with what was best, what was
right.
It worked, too—there have been many criminals over the years that have sought the Star, dedicating their lives to finding it. The last thing I heard, an albino count from Romania was in London, devoting all of his not-inconsiderable influence into tracing what became of the pirates who stole it.”

Rutherford shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t take his eyes off the teapot. It was a simple, utilitarian object that had been at the centre of a mystery for well over a century. So many people had given their lives in pursuit of the Star. Yet Rutherford couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Newbury had been right. Perhaps it was best to preserve the enigma of the Star. To leave those people searching.

“I suppose you’ll be taking it with you?” Angelchrist said, his voice level.

Rutherford met his gaze. “I... no. I think, perhaps, it would be in everyone’s best interests, Professor, if the Star were to remain here with you. Let’s forget we ever had this conversation. We’ll enjoy this cup of tea, and then I’ll take my leave. I think that would be for the best.”

Angelchrist chuckled. He clamped the mouthpiece of his pipe between his teeth. “Good choice, Mr Rutherford,” he said. “Good choice indeed.”

Rutherford reached for the teapot. He was thirsty, and it was going to be a long drive home.

“I even heard he’d been resurrected from the dead by a blood infusion from some heathen witch doctor. They say he’s not even a man anymore, but some sort of pale spirit, half ghost, half juju.”

Major Absalom rocked back in his seat and fixed Rutherford with a look of absolute sincerity, peering out from beneath his heavy, furrowed brow and bushy eyebrows. He chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pipe, smoke dribbling from his nostrils like the exhalation of a dormant dragon.

Rutherford smiled. He’d always thought the Major was a little too credulous for his own good. “You sound as if you actually believe all these myths about this ‘Monsieur Zenith’ character,” he said, before taking a long draw on his cigarette. He blew the smoke casually from the corner of his mouth, watching his superior officer with interest.

Absalom’s frown deepened. His whiskers—which curled impressively from his ears to meet his moustache—twitched as he considered Rutherford’s words. “To be truthful with you, Rutherford, I’m not even sure I believe the man himself isn’t a myth. I mean, really...” he sighed, leaning forward again and placing both of his palms on the leather surface of his desk.

Rutherford watched him, amused. “I hear the Yard have attributed scores of cases to him over the years. He’s one of the most wanted men in the Empire.”

Absalom snorted.

“You’re not a believer, then, sir?”

“Be that as it may, there are others,” Absalom coughed, as if not wishing to give voice to the names themselves, “who do believe he’s out there, and moreso, that he’s harbouring sinister intentions towards them.”

Rutherford stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray on Absalom’s desk and folded his hands on his lap. “Does the Prime Minister have any evidence to support his claim?”

Absalom raised an eyebrow in surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Rutherford to be so well informed. “Of course he doesn’t,” he said, resignedly. “Simply that he asserts to have received a telephone call from the villain in question.”

“And?” Rutherford prompted.

Absalom shrugged. “Only that Monseiur Zenith told him to expect a change in his fortunes.”

“It’s not a lot to go on,” said Rutherford.

“Indeed it’s not,” agreed Absalom, “and to be honest, if it were anyone else, I should be counselling equanimity. However, we’re talking about the Prime Minister. We need to show we’re taking it seriously.”

Rutherford nodded. “And, of course, rule out the potential of a real threat,” he said, smiling.