Free The Detective and the Devil by Lloyd Shepherd Page B

Mrs Johnson.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I believe some items may have been taken from her dressing table. There was a lock on it, but the drawer was empty.’
    Harriott frowned.
    ‘But that might be the key to the entire case! Why have you not told me this before now?’
    Horton affected embarrassment, but instead felt relief. He had turned the magistrate’s attention away from the East India Company, and back onto the Johnsons. He felt in his pocket for the
paper that sat folded within. On the way out of the Atlantic Office section, with Putnam hard on his heels, Horton had barrelled into one of the clerks who was trying to leave the room at the same
time.
    ‘Oh! My puh-puh-pardon, constable! I was lost in my usual drah-dreamworld.’
    It had been Lamb, the stammering clerk who had spoken when they first went into the room.
    Stepping back, Horton indicated the door.
    ‘After you, Mr Lamb.’
    ‘My thanks to you, Cuh-Constable Horton.’
    Lamb exited, turning right to go further into the capacious interior of John Company’s headquarters. Horton turned left, Putnam close behind.
    The sharp-edged note in his pocket must have been inserted there by Lamb when they bumped into each other. He had noticed it as soon as they left the private trade committee office, and had read
it surreptitiously while Harriott climbed into the carriage.
    ‘Horton – I would speak to you of Johnson. Prospect of
    Whitby, tonight at 7.’
    It was a random element in the story, and it promised answers to questions. Not the least of which was how an East India Company clerk had known his name.

1590: JACOBUS AT THE ISLAND
    It took another couple of years, but eventually they boarded a ship and sailed south. They could have left earlier, but by now Mina was heavily pregnant for the first time, and
they waited for the child to be born before taking ship. Sailing with a newborn could have been an awful experience, but the infant seemed to take the rolling world of the ocean without anxiety, as
if Neptune himself rocked him to sleep.
    South they sailed, and as the child slept, Jacobus taught his wife the contents of the manuscript, lest something happen to him and she had to take over the Project. They had been calling it the
Project for some time now, the initial capital pregnant with conspiracy.
    ‘Can it be true, Jacobus?’ Mina asked as he coached her, and she heard the contents of the book for the first time. ‘Can this miracle really take place?’
    ‘Yes, my dear, it can be true. It
is
true.’
    He said it with faith, though he could still not be sure. He had not been able to follow the instructions which had been set out in the manuscript. He needed the right environment and
conditions, and he believed he had found them on the island. He had spoken to several men who had visited it, and they told him about its rocky fastness and its isolation. It seemed perfect.
    But now, seeing it for the first time, he felt that certainty slip, disturbed by the high rollers of the ocean beneath him.
    ‘My days,’ said Mina, holding little Jacobus in her arms. ‘It looks like a prison.’
    And it did. The island was encased in walls of rock, and it stood alone in the blue-green ocean. They approached from the south, the only direction which the wind would allow, and sailed around
to the north side where the only reliable landing place could be found. As they went, Jacobus caught sight of men working on one of the headlands.
    ‘Look, my love!’ he shouted, excitement conquering his dismay at the initial sight of the place. ‘They are building our fort!’
    He found her hand with his, and they held the baby together as the South Atlantic winds moved them around the island which was to be their home.

CONSTABLE HORTON IN THE PROSPECT OF WHITBY
    Horton arrived at the Prospect soon after six. He bought himself a pint of porter and sat down near a window looking out onto the river. With Lamb not due until seven, he had
some time to himself, valuable