Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

Dorothea laughed, and I could not blame her. She is young and therefore all that is old and tried and true is of no value to her — yet. It is hard for me to change my ways, and I cannot believe that a glass of spring water taken in the Walks, popularly known as the Pantiles, would prove a tonic more beneficial than the fresh air of Mount Pleasant. For no one but Jacob and Dorothea would I go to the Walks during the fashionable hours. It was late in June and the high season was upon us. Earlier this century, the Wells would have been host to every person of fashion in London, but by this year of 1783 the delights of Brighton offer an alternative that it cannot match, particularly for the younger visitors. Nevertheless the spa is still crowded with its admirers.

With a wistful glance at Jacob settling down to my coffee and toast, I hastened to remove my cap and to seek wig, hat, and cane. I too must look my best, as Dorothea insisted on accompanying me.

“Make haste, Caleb,” Jacob urged me from the comforts of his own table.

“The spring will not run dry,” I assured him somewhat crossly, “and doubtless the threats of death will by now have cooled.” I was only reconciled to my fate by the thought of the wheatear pie, a Kentish delicacy that I had been promised for dinner that afternoon.

On the Upper Walk of the Pantiles a threat of death seemed as out of place as a Preventive Officer in a parsonage. I suspected Dorothea was less concerned about the fate of some unknown person than about missing the excitement of the day — which would doubtless be long over when we arrived. To enter the Upper Walk was like stepping onto the stage of Mr. Sheridan’s Drury Lane straight from the rainy muddy streets of London town. Gone are the dull cares of everyday and around one is a whirligig of colour, chatter, riches, and culture. Here one may take coffee, read newspapers and books, write letters, dance, play cards, buy Tunbridge Ware — and above all converse. Death does not usually dare speak its name. And yet today, according to Lady Mopford, it had.

How could death be contaminating such a paradise, I wondered? This was a paradise with strict social rules. By now, at well past ten o’clock, the Upper Walk should be all but deserted, as society would have returned to hotels and lodgings to “dress” for the day. Before then, the ladies appear here in dishabille with loose gowns and caps, and the gentlemen are unshaven, as they greet the day by taking the waters. After their departure they would not return until noon, by which time they are boned-and-strutting peacocks in silks and satins of every hue — a delightful spectacle for one whose calling demands more sober colours.

Today, however, I saw to my unease that a great many were still here. Something must indeed be amiss.

“There,” cried Dorothea. Her arm tensed in mine, but I did not need her guidance, for I could see the crowd outside Mr. Thomas’s bookstore and circulating library for myself. He caters for visitors who, having paid a subscription, may have such books as they choose delivered to their lodgings. Mr. Thomas’s shop is always well attended, but today it seemed all Tunbridge Wells wished to advance its knowledge of literature and science. As we pushed our way forward through the throng, Dorothea caught the vital words.

“The Book of Poets,” she exclaimed.

Even I had heard of this tradition — and indeed read the Book in the past with much amusement. For well over a hundred years, this weighty tome containing copies of lyrics from would-be poets had been displayed in the bookstore. At first, these verses had been of a saucy nature circulated amongst gentlemen in the Coffee House, but then they had been requested by a wider public. Ladies now read the love poems in the Book of Poets, each imagining herself the fair damsel addressed — fortunately in more tasteful terms than in earlier times. Nevertheless, the quality scarcely rivalled Dryden, nor their content John Milton.

Seeing Dorothea, who looked most attractive in her printed cotton morning gown, Mr. Edwin Thomas — a fine-looking man of perhaps thirty years — immediately hurried to her side.

“I’m honoured, Miss Dorothea.”

His wife did not look quite so honoured, but was preoccupied in appeasing the sensibilities of the elderly ladies clustered eagerly around the Book, which lay open on a table of its own. Dorothea was equally eager to view it, and so, with Jacob’s mission in mind, was I, as this could be the source of the threat.

Mr. Thomas cleared our path to the Book, after I had explained my presence. “Let me show you yesterday’s verse first, Parson Pennywick,” he said gravely.

A sheet was laid between two pages, and I read:

Fairest nymph, fair — of the Wells

Whose magic spells

Are cast upon thy humble slave

Who but the merest glance doth crave...