Barchester’s jaw dropped. “You? You’re a—”
“I’m a reporter. I have written stories that revealed terrible working conditions in factories, political corruption, the plight of slum-dwellers. I didn’t have to go to court. Exposing their practices to the general public set demands for reform in motion.”
“I—I see.” Barchester still looked faintly shocked—more, Megan suspected, at the revelation of her job than at their plan to expose a member of the British aristocracy.
“I will dig into it, just as I do with any other story, and when I have found enough evidence, I can write a story. My newspaper will publish it, and I suspect there will be British papers that are eager to put out the story, as well. Nothing sells like scandal among the wealthy—I would imagine it is even truer when that person is not only wealthy but also titled.”
“No doubt you are right.” He hesitated for another moment, then said, “Well…um…let’s see…where shall I start?”
“Why don’t you begin by explaining to us how you and Mr. Moreland—I mean, Lord Raine—joined up with Dennis and his group?”
“Of course.” Barchester nodded. “I had not known Lord Raine before we went to Brazil together. Though we were of an age, we did not exactly move in the same circles. My grandfather made his money in trade, you see.”
Megan nodded. She had started out on the Society Desk, where she had learned enough to be aware that old money did not regard the nouveau riche with respect. She could well imagine that in England the lines were much more distinctly drawn, and that money, new or old, could not cast one into the rarified class of the aristocracy.
“I was in my early twenties at the time. I had gone to university, as my grandfather had insisted. He wanted very much for me to be a ‘gentleman.’ So I did not go into the family business, as my father had. I was, quite frankly, a trifle bored with my life, so when my grandfather suggested that I go on the Cavendish expedition, I was more than happy to oblige the old chap. It sounded like quite an adventure.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, it turned out to be far more of one than I would have liked.”
“The Cavendish expedition?” Megan inquired, jotting the name down in her notebook.
“Yes. Old Lord Cavendish was quite interested in the cultures of other times and places. He turned his ancestral home in London into a museum. It was a huge old place, built shortly after the Great Fire, and it was no longer in a fashionable area. The family had built a new home in Mayfair. So he decided to house his collection of artifacts there, as well as whatever other ones he could get his hands on. He was particularly avid about the ancient cultures of South and Central America—Incas, Aztecs and all that—so that was the specialty of the museum. It wasn’t much, really, just a wealthy old man’s hobby, but he wanted to make it into something known all over the country, if not the world. So he hired a curator, and he started sending out expeditions to the Americas to find and bring back information and artifacts for the museum.”
“I see. So Lord Cavendish financed your expedition?”
“Yes.” Barchester nodded. “The curator went along—well, frankly, he was the only employee of the museum at the time. His name was Julian Coffey. I knew him rather well. We had gone to school together and had been casual friends. My grandfather was also interested in artifacts, and he has corresponded and spoken with Lord Cavendish from time to time, and Grandfather had made one or two gifts to the museum, as well. Grandfather suggested to me that I might like to go. It sounded like an adventure, and as I knew Julian…”
“How was Theo Moreland involved?”
“Raine’s father, the Duke of Broughton, was a friend of old Cavendish’s, too. They were both collectors, you see—though the duke’s field was the ancient Greeks and Romans. But I guess he told Lord Raine about the expedition, and he wanted to join. He had caught the exploration fever a couple of years before that after he finished university. Wound up in the Levant, then Egypt, and finally trekked into the Sahara. He liked the adventure, I suppose. He’s been on a number of trips since, so I understand.”
“What was he like?” Megan asked.
Barchester shrugged. “Actually, quite a regular sort of chap. Julian and I were rather surprised when we met him. We had expected him to be a lightweight, full of himself and thinking everyone else ought to do for him. But he was always the first to pitch in, never asked for special treatment. We hadn’t been on the ship a day before we were calling him Theo. It was…well, we all thought it was going to be the trip of a lifetime.”
The man’s blandly handsome face saddened for a moment. “It was, I suppose…just not in the sense that we thought it would be.” He seemed to shake off his moment of reverie and went on more briskly. “The head of our expedition was a chap name Thurlew. Howard Thurlew. He’d done a good bit of exploring and had worked for Lord Cavendish before—dug up some Aztec ruins some place in Mexico, and it was he who had proposed this trip to the old fellow. He wanted to follow the Amazon deep into the interior and perhaps find some Inca ruins. That was what Lord Cavendish was interested in, of course. I think Thurlew was in it more for the exploration—and Theo, too. Julian was a naturalist, and he was eager to see the wildlife and draw it and so on.”
“How did you meet Dennis?” Frank asked.
“Well, Thurlew fell right after we reached Brazil. Poor chap broke his leg—quite badly. It was obvious that he could not travel for weeks, even months. Even once his leg was healed, he wouldn’t have been up to such rugged travel. So there we were, with our equipment, all set to go into the interior, and we had no guide. None of us could have dealt with the native guides and so on. We had no experience, didn’t know the language. But we hated to just give up and turn around and go home—nor could we wait for several months for Thurlew to be up to the journey, as it would have thrown us into the rainy season. Then, as luck would have it, we ran into your son, sir. He and his friend Eberhart, as it turned out, were all that was left of their party. The others had either gotten ill or simply become disenchanted with the idea. Captain Eberhart seemed a knowledgeable sort, and he had already hired some native guides. So we decided to throw our lot in with Dennis and Eberhart.”
“A doomed venture from the very start, wasn’t it?” Frank said, shaking his head.
“I suppose one could say that,” the other man conceded. “But it isn’t all that unusual for some members of any expedition to drop out along the way. Far too many people set out expecting some fantastic adventure, with no realization of the hardships involved, or the dangers. Diseases, accidents—and all miles from civilization, of course.”