The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [51]
“Ruthven seems to make a habit of parting with folk on poor terms,” Quire muttered as he folded away the sacking and pushed it into the pocket of his long coat. “An assistant of his—Carlyle—fell out with him recently. I don’t suppose you know the man?”
Macdonald shrugged apologetically, and then shook his head for good measure.
“What about Blegg? Do you know that name?”
“Blegg, Blegg.” Macdonald frowned and gazed up towards the ceiling, in pursuit of an errant memory. “Yes, I think he’s been attached to Mr. Ruthven for a considerable number of years. I have some vague recollection of him. Quite the shy fellow. Obsequious, to be honest.”
“That’s not entirely my experience of him.”
“No? Well, I don’t know the man, of course. Only ever saw him fawning at Ruthven’s elbow, but it has been a good few years. Perhaps he has changed. Many of us do, with the passage of time.”
Quire grunted. Men changed less often than most thought, in his experience, and seldom in the deeper fibre of their character.
“A Frenchman by the name of Durand?” he asked without great expectation, and was surprised to see Macdonald’s expression brighten considerably.
“Oh, yes indeed.” The curator nodded. “Him, I have met. A fascinating man. Do you know him, then?”
“We were introduced, that’s all. Nothing more. I had the impression he was not much given to conversation. Not in English, at least.”
“Oh, he is exceptionally fluent in our language, Sergeant. A fellow of the Institute of Sciences in Paris, with—so it seemed to me, in any case—a quite profound knowledge of the antiquities of the Levant, and Egypt. He was a member of that expedition which accompanied Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, you know. A dreadful business, no doubt, but they obtained a remarkable amount of…”
“He’s lodging with Ruthven,” Quire interrupted. He had no desire for an education in Napoleon’s achievements in the East.
Macdonald blinked, whether in surprise at the information or at Quire’s curtness it was difficult to say.
“Is he? I did not know that. I met him perhaps eighteen months ago, when he was only recently arrived here. I had the pleasure of showing him around some parts of the collection.”
“What’s his business here? In Edinburgh, I mean?” Quire asked.
“I took him to be a simple traveller with a thirst for knowledge, seeking out those of like mind. And I envied him that, I must admit. The freedom to wander at will amongst the world’s great centres of learning…”
Quire watched the curator drift into a reverie of itinerant scholarship. Then he sneezed, which returned Macdonald to more immediate concerns.
“If you want to renew your acquaintance with Durand, you would likely have the chance tomorrow,” the curator suggested. “There’s to be an exhibition. You must have seen the preparations for it downstairs. No? An American artist showing his wares. Ruthven invariably attends such events, I believe, and the exhibition is entirely unconnected to the Society, so he will undoubtedly have received an invitation. I’m attending myself, as it happens. Most exciting. I should imagine Durand would accompany Ruthven, if he is indeed his house guest. The French are great ones for painting, you know.”
Mr. Audubon’s Exhibition
A fog embraced the city the next day. It had the sharp scent of industry and smoke buried within it, but the salt tang of the sea, too; the work of both Man and Nature.
Amidst it, the gaslights along Princes Street burned: diffuse globes of pale fire suspended eerily in mid-air. They receded, each in the chain a little fainter than the last, into the grey oblivion that shrouded everything.
From that murk, the carriages emerged one by one, the clattering of their wheels muted by the dank air. They came to the Royal Institution and disgorged on to its steps Edinburgh’s moneyed, propertied elite. Men of the law and of science and of letters; landowners, merchants and clerics. They came in their finest clothes, with wives and daughters upon their arms,