Page 1 of Murder at Somerset House (A Wrexford & Sloane Mystery #9)

“Y ou, sirrah, are a disgrace to the Royal Society!” A rail-thin gentleman with bushy black brows and a balding pate leapt up from his chair and blocked the aisle as the evening’s featured speaker gathered up his notes and stepped down from the stage.

“The members of our august institution are the most respected scientific scholars in the world. For you to spout such addlepated ideas in this lecture hall is an embarrassment to rational thought and empirical observation.”

“Here, here,” muttered one of the onlookers.

“Stop shaking your fist under my nose, Milford,” retorted the speaker. “Unless you wish to have it crammed down your gullet.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Punctuating his admonition with a chiding clap of his hands, the secretary of the Society hurried over to quash the confrontation. “Come, come, let us maintain the dignity and decorum expected of our learned members.”

“It is Milford who is the bloody fool, not me,” retorted the speaker. “He has no imagination.”

“Science is about facts, not imagination, Boyleston!” sputtered Milford.

Boyleston made a very rude sound, which earned him another rebuke from the secretary.

Milford turned to confront the Society’s officer.

“In all seriousness, how can you consider publishing Boyleston’s drivel in the Philosophical Transactions ?

Our journal is the world’s leading periodical for scientific progress.

It’s utterly ridiculous for him to suggest that electricity and magnetism are the same thing, rather than different forces.

We’ll be the laughingstock of all rational men if we put his words into print. ”

“Indeed!” chimed in one of the scholars who had gathered around the verbal combatants. “Think of our motto— Nullius in verba ! Which as we all know means Take nobody’s word for it . I agree with Milford that we’ve not seen a shred of evidence that Boyleston’s theory has any merit.”

“What fustian! The French men of science have been working with that idea for years!” countered Boyleston.

“Yes, we know how very fond you are of the French,” piped up another member.

The speaker’s cheeks flushed with anger. “H-How dare you question my loyalty as an Englishman, Fogg!”

“Because you were damnably slow to leave Paris when Napoleon crowned himself emperor and reignited war throughout Europe,” shot back the gentleman standing next to Fogg.

A rumble of agreement rose from the crowd.

“Science shouldn’t be colored by politics, Redding,” replied Boyleston in a querulous tone.

“The French men of science were performing far more sophisticated experiments with electricity than we were doing here in Britain. I stayed because I wished to learn !” He looked around in mute appeal.

“Surely we all agree that Knowledge knows no political boundaries.”

“Save for when a murderous emperor uses it to spread death and destruction across an entire continent,” retorted Redding, his voice shaky with suppressed rage.

“Redding is right. Your high-minded sentiment may sound reasonable in the abstract,” responded Fogg. “But when science aids the enemy in battle, it’s an entirely different matter.”

Boyleston turned white as a ghost. “I gave no aid to the enemy! I returned to England as soon as it became clear that Napoleon was going to put an end to the Peace of Amiens.”

“Don’t prevaricate,” said Redding. “The truth is, you went back to France several years ago to study with your Parisian friends.”

More mutters of agreement.

“They were all men of exemplary scientific reputation,” exclaimed Boyleston.

“And Napoleon was half a world away, attempting to conquer Russia! As soon as he fled back to France, I returned to London. In any case, our experiments had nothing to do with war. We were working on important theoretical concepts that will help change the world for the better.”

He gave an impatient wave. “Why are we brangling about Napoleon and the past? He is exiled to Elba and no threat to anyone now. Europe is enjoying peace and the prospect of great prosperity due in no small part to science. So let us look to the future!”

“How dare you suggest we forget about your past actions,” countered Redding, the softness of his voice belying the emotion on his face. “My son is dead because men like you admired a tyrant.”

Murmuring in sympathetic support, several of Redding’s companions drew him back from the fray.

A crowd had formed around the combatants, and the muttering was growing more hostile.

“I tell you, I had no love for Napoleon.” Eyes narrowing, Boyleston clenched his jaw for a moment.

“As for disparaging the paper on electricity and magnetism that I plan to submit to our journal, you’ll all soon have to eat your words—just you wait and see!

I intend to prove my theory with a grand public demonstration in the very near future—”

“I trust we’re all invited to see you make a fool of yourself,” snapped Milford.

“Enough, everyone! Let us cease this argument before it turns truly ugly,” commanded the Society’s secretary, anxious to put an end to the confrontation.

“As is our tradition, the committee responsible for choosing the scientific papers to be published in our periodical will make the final decision on what merits appearing in its pages.”

A pause. “If you insist on continuing this unseemly bickering, do it elsewhere.” The secretary smoothed the folds of his cravat. “For those who prefer to behave in a more civilized manner, the usual after-lecture champagne and lobster patties are being served in the reception hall.”

Looking somewhat abashed, the crowd quickly shuffled away, leaving Boyleston standing on his own.

After a sharp exhale, he turned and exited the lecture hall through one of the side doors, where a corridor led to the back of the building and an ornate oak portal gave access to the back terraces overlooking the River Thames.

Moonlight played over the rippling water.

The low whoosh of the eddying currents caught in the breeze, bringing with it the mingled stink of coal smoke and decay as the tide ebbed toward the Isle of Dogs.

Boyleston hesitated, then crossed to the marble balustrade and braced his hands on the cold stone.

“To the devil with all their petty minds.” Looking up at the night sky, he picked out the diamond-bright stars of the constellation Orion through the scudding clouds.

“Just where it should be,” he muttered. “The heavens run on clockwork precision, not unstable emotion.” The thought helped cool his temper. As did the fact that anger had impelled him to leave the stuffy confines of Somerset House without fetching his overcoat.

“The world is in constant motion,” he continued, ignoring the night’s chill. “Change is an elemental force of Nature. Why are my fellow members so incurious about understanding all the myriad natural phenomena that are still a mystery to us?”

A wherry, no more than a hazy silhouette against the iron-grey water, made its way across the river to the Old Barge-house Stairs.

Silvery tendrils of fog drifted low over the landing area.

Boyleston drew a cheroot from his coat pocket and lit it with a quick strike of flint against steel.

Drawing in a mouthful of the sweetly scented smoke, he contemplated the quicksilver play of light and dark, welcoming the solitude after the crowded commotion of the monthly Society meeting.

He much preferred the company of ideas to the company of people.

The discourse was far more rational and methodical.

Once the cheroot had burned down to precisely a quarter of its original size, he dropped it onto the stone tiles and ground out the glowing tip with the heel of his boot.

Order and precision. A methodical approach to scientific research—as well as to most every other aspect of life—yielded the best results.

His anger flared again as he recalled the earlier attacks on his research as well as his character.

Rather than return to the grand entrance cloakroom for his overcoat—he had no stomach for another confrontation—Boyleston turned for the terrace stairs that would take him down to the embankment walkway skirting the river and the footpath to Surrey Street.

“New ideas make people fearful.” A voice floated out of the shadows of the stately rear portico of Somerset House, followed by a figure in formal evening attire. “And thus angry.”

Boyleston didn’t recognize the gentleman as a fellow Society member, but then, he rarely attended meetings.

“Only narrow-minded halfwits are frightened by things they cannot understand,” he responded.

“A true man of science should embrace the unknown and celebrate new discoveries that help us better understand the workings of the universe—regardless of where they originate.”

“I don’t disagree with you, sir,” replied the Stranger. “In the past, brilliant thinkers like Galileo and Copernicus were persecuted—”

“For speaking the truth!” interrupted Boyleston.

“Yes, of course. We know that now. But often it takes time for a radical new idea to win acceptance. Not everyone is a genius and recognizes the truth on seeing its first spark.”

“Be damned with the idiots. They should step aside and not block the path to Progress.” Nostrils flaring in irritation, Boyleston turned his back on the fellow and started down the stairs.

“No need to get in a huff, sir,” soothed the Stranger as he hurried to catch up. “I’m simply counseling you to use discretion—which as any military man will tell you, is often the better part of valor. Perhaps if you would simply temper your tongue—”

An irascible snort. “Why should I?”

“Because honey wins more friends than vinegar.”

“Friends are fickle,” snapped Boyleston. “Ideas don’t trip over their own toes trying to follow the latest fashionable theories.”

“I’m trying to help you, sir,” said the Stranger. “It seems to me that a demonstration of your theory is premature. If you wish to earn the accolades that your discovery merits, why not allow people some time to discuss your paper and its—”

“My duty is to the spirit of Discovery and the dissemination of new knowledge!” retorted Boyleston. “Truth is Truth. So stop badgering me, sir, and be on your way. I shall not under any circumstances delay my demonstration.”

The Stranger heaved a mournful sigh. “That’s a pity.”

“I don’t give a fig what you think.”

“That’s a pity, too.” The Stranger appeared to stumble and lurched against his companion.

“Go to the devil—” began Boyleston, feeling a sudden chill against his chest as the Stranger reached out a hand to steady himself. But then his words gave way to a muffled bang and the smell of singed wool and linen—and in the next instant a bullet punctured his heart.

“Alas, you’ll be seeing him first. Do give him my regards,” said the Stranger as he quickly withdrew the pocket pistol gripped in his right hand and danced back, letting the lifeless corpse crumple like a rag doll and roll with a muffled thud, thud, thud down to the lower landing.

In contrast, the lecture notes that spilled from the scholar’s coat pocket fluttered away in ghostly silence, rising and falling with the vagaries of the breeze, until a final swirl scattered them over the footpath skirting the river’s edge.

Glancing around at the stately facade of Somerset House and the mellow glow emanating from its myriad windows, the Stranger cocked an ear and after a moment or two allowed a smile.

The reception hall was on the other side of the building’s east wing, and a surfeit of champagne and scholarly camaraderie had ensured that the sordid reality of the outside world hadn’t disturbed the cozy bastion of intellectual thought.

The Stranger turned back to the river, whose dark currents and eddies moved in concert with the tide. Life’s messy little hiccups had no effect on the ebb and flow of the elemental forces that ruled the universe , he reflected. One must always keep one’s eye on the grand scheme of things .

After brushing out the creases from his evening coat, he descended the stairs, passing the corpse without a glance, and carefully placed the spent pistol in a gap between the balus-trades. Satisfied, he hurried back inside the building and made his way to the crowded reception room.

The mood, well lubricated by the fine wine and food, was relaxed and the conversations convivial, all thoughts of the brief, unpleasant confrontation in the lecture hall lost in the gentlemanly buzz of bonhomie.

Glass in hand, he moved away from the refreshment tables, giving a nod and smile to those he passed before joining a group discussing the arrival of new specimen plantings from America for the Chelsea Physic Garden.

If anyone was asked about a stranger in their midst at a later date, he would be recalled as a most excellent fellow.