Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell: a Victorian Mystery by Howard Engel

Author:Howard Engel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac: FIC000000; FIC022000; FIC022090
ISBN: 9781468309799
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition)
Published: 2014-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Bell cabled Tom Prentice at his talent agency in New York from the trans-Atlantic cable office in Bank Street. That was our outside chance. From the safety of America, he might be willing to send the name he had been encouraged to forget. But we did not have the luxury of waiting for the answer. Bell began hammering Bryce with questions about Inspector Webb. As the other person who knew the identity of XYZ, he moved to the centre of our enquiry. It did not escape Bell’s notice that we were now in search of the man who had only a few minutes ago tried to find us in the market tearoom. “The detective detected,” he muttered as Bryce tried to recall what he knew of the man. We both looked at Bryce.

“Webb is a man who has been walking on my shadow for the past fifteen years. He has been studying my methods. I never liked the man, although I’ve tried. He refuses to use the sense he was born with. He’s always trying to think of the answers he gives in political terms: what is the answer they want to hear? He is a fellow who makes Uriah Heep look like a good, matey sort, if you know what I mean. Robbie Webb is…” He stopped, then continued after a moment for reflection: “a good policeman by most standards. He’s dogged, thorough and clever. Bristol fashion all round. But, as I said, he follows orders. When Keir M’Sween orders Webb to soop, Webb will find a broom and soop. He will find out what the deputy chief wants to know. He will find evidence that I murdered Mlle Clery if that’s what M’Sween sends him out to find.”

“His name is Robert Webb? I know something of the man,” said Bell. “His home was near Dundee, I believe. I remember that he served on the police force there.”

“Yes, Robert Fergus Webb, born in Dundee, son of the town drunkard. He set out to better himself and did so. I don’t think he ever forgot his origins, nor forgave them.”

“If he was trying to arrest us at the market an hour ago, what time will he finish his shift today, Bryce?”

“Unless he has an appointment which will take him away from the station or he has been ordered to work a double shift, he will finish at six o’clock. He lives in one of the lands in a close off Richmond Lane. One of the old tenements.”

“Tonight, I mean to pay him a visit.”

“You will never get him to say a word, Dr Bell.”

“Lieutenant Bryce, you may not remember, but when you came to see Doyle and me the first time, you said many things that you didn’t mean to say. Everybody does. Unless I find him gagged, he will undoubtedly tell me something of value.”

We parted in the small museum, near the Etruscan antiquities, after Bryce had given me Webb’s address hurriedly written on the margin of his newspaper. “Will you not come with us?” asked Bell.

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