Fiendish Schemes (31 page)

“Here is what you should know,” said Evangeline. “As I have indicated already, the leadership of the Mission had suspected for some time that Stonebrake had been playing some kind of double game, as I believe such is called by those given to devious activities. In this case, it was not so much initiated by Stonebrake himself— rather, he was following an agenda directed by other sinister and mysterious forces.”

“Aye, she’s right about that, laddie.” The boatman could not refrain from commenting upon the exchange he overheard. “All of that tosh ’bout passing ye off as a dangerous sort, keen on ’quiring some ’laborate gadget needed for whatever deviltry ye and yer lot were up to—that was but a ruse to get ye face-to-face with that Fletcher woman. Or whate’er it might be, that she is these days. Or so ’twas ’splained to me.”

“Exactly so.” Lord Fusible’s daughter leaned closer to me. “Take this as an indicator of the degree of hazard from which you have been so precipitously extracted. I am confident that such never would have been your intention, but you have unwittingly played a crucial part in what was an assassination attempt upon the Prime Minister. You were but the bait to lure the preternaturally suspicious Prime Minister from her fortified hiding place elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster, to those subterranean cells which Stonebrake’s associates had previously mined with explosives.”

“You are, of course, correct—about me, that is.” I was surprised but not hugely startled by what Evangeline had just told me. Given what I had just experienced of the fearsome Mrs. Fletcher, I would have more likely imagined that attempts to assassinate her were initiated on virtually a daily basis. “Stonebrake said nothing to me of such a motive.”

“Aye, them anarchists are a tight-mouthed lot.” The boatman spoke up again. “If ye were t’ask me, this here Stonebrake fellow might well have been ’un of that Walsall bunch—ye know all ’bout them, I ’magine.”

“No . . . I can’t say as I do.”

“Ye should. Quite a menace they are—leastways, the author’ties say so. Much given to setting off incendiary devices in public places— not quite sure why, ’less it’s for the sheer merriment of doing so.”

“Don’t be so daft,” said the other manning the oars. “If ye’d but stir yerself as to read their man’festo, ye’d know why they do it.”

“That
Anarchist Feast at the Opera
book?” The boatman shook his head in disgust. “Couldn’t be bothered. Seemed a right load o’ rubbish, when I took a glance at it.”

“Bollocks. Quite high-minded, I thought it.”

“Ye would, being the prat ye are.”

“Gentlemen—please. Perhaps you could postpone your political discussion to another time. I have a bit more information to divulge to Mr. Dower.”

“As ye wish, miss.”

Evangeline turned back to me. “It gladdens me,” she said, “that you have been so fortunate. Whatever Stonebrake and his actual associates might have been trying to achieve, your usefulness to them is now ended. And better: Even if there were some remaining value, they have no way of knowing that you are in fact alive. It is much more reasonable to assume that you died in that same explosion in which Stonebrake’s life was ended.”

“There ye be, laddie—ye’re off the hook!”

“Just so,” continued Evangeline. “You can now hide aboard the headquarters ship of the Mission to the Cetaceans, which is where you are being taken now. It will be a safe refuge until it is prudent for you to show your face again, having achieved the anonymity that accompanies being presumed dead.”

“Indeed.” I nodded, impressed with her reasoning. “That would be an advantageous situation.”

“From which, Mr. Dower, you could then proceed to pick up the pieces of whatever is left of the life you had been leading before you got enmired in all these schemes. Or . . .” Evangeline pressed her hand to my arm. “You might choose to be of greater service to me.”

That put me rather on the spot. The possibility of removing myself from this beastly, scorching London and returning to the sheltering obscurities of the countryside was extraordinarily attractive to my sensibilities. My being able to do so, with the rest of the world believing that my existence had come to an end, multiplied the benefits to be derived therefrom.

Thus, the reader might well imagine the wonderment I felt when I heard my reply to the young woman.

“Even if you had not saved my life . . . ,” I spoke as reassuringly as I was able to her, “still, I would not abandon you in whatever hour of need in which you have found yourself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dower—I had hoped such would be your response.” She clasped both her hands upon mine, still clutching the edges of the shawl she had wrapped about me. “For my initiative in making contact with the Mission to the Cetaceans was prompted by concern for another—my
fiancé
.”

“In what danger would Captain Crowcroft be? He pilots the walking lights, and is therefore of value to your father and the other shareholders of Phototrope Limited—but surely their concern for him ends there. Why would they or anyone else, pursuing whatever conspiracies they wish, threaten him?”

“If this were a better world, Mr. Dower, your reasoning would prevail. But alas, it is not. My betrothed is in even greater peril than that from which you have so recently escaped. I feel obliged to tell you this, because you are in fact the only person I can count upon to rescue him from these dire circumstances.”

“I?”

My fear had been that Evangeline would say something of this sort. As charitable as was the spirit I discerned within the young woman, it would hardly seem likely that she would have gone to the speculative effort of stationing herself upon the Thames with two accomplices recruited from amongst her father’s servants, for the mere purpose of saving me from drowning. Indeed, she would have had little reason to believe that I would have landed in the river’s waters, with my person more or less in one piece, rather than be smashed to items by the explosion directed toward the Prime Minister. Thus, it was reasonable to conclude that she had her own motive, one closer to her heart, for embarking upon a venture with seemingly so little chance of success. The situation in which Captain Crowcroft was trapped must be dire indeed, if a slender reed such as myself was her only hope of extricating him.

“Yes . . .” She confirmed my hasty speculations. “I would not attempt to prevail upon you otherwise, given our brief acquaintance— and the hostility I shamefully admit I displayed to you upon our initial encounters.”

“That is nothing you need to concern yourself about. It happens so frequently to me, that I have become quite inured to bafflement at the responses from others, whom I’ve never met before—”

Without intending for them to do so, my eyes drifted shut for a moment as a wave of exhaustion swept over me. I had been fatigued before these most recent events, culminating in my unexpected immersion; their cumulative effects now caught up with me.

“Would it be at all possible,” I spoke, “to postpone your exposition until such time as I have recovered a bit of my strength? Even a few hours’ rest would greatly suffice in that regard. I am sure that time is pressing, as it always seems to be anymore, but I fear that I am close to the end of my personal resources.”

“Yes, of course,” the young lady hastened to reassure me. “Dear Mr. Dower, I had no intent to divest you of every scrap of your capabilities. Indeed, I anticipated that if we were at all able to effect your rescue, you would hardly be able to continue on without respite. Here—” She produced from about her person a small, folded piece of paper and pressed it into my grasp. “I have written down an address, to be found here in the city. That is to where you must—”

“Oy!” A sudden, panicked shout came from the boatman. “ ’Ave a care, you lot!”

I soon saw that which had triggered the man’s alarm. Gripping the gunwales of the boat, he gazed with wide-eyed fright at the dark waters below us. With but the stars and a sliver of moon for illumination, I was also able to discern some huge shape coming up from the depths of the river, directly beneath the boat. With a considerable portion of my thoughts still agitated by my recent experiences, a horrific vision swam before my eyes. It was of Mrs. Fletcher in her steam-powered, ironclad transformation, but even larger and more intimidating than before. Her broad, sullen-aspected face grimaced with all of the malice she had previously directed toward me. Her massive form seemed to hurtle toward us, as though her intent were to capture and drag me under the water’s inky surface.

The broad swell that capsized the boat might have been a tidal wave, so great was its force and capacity. For the second time in one night, I found myself thrown bodily in the air, landing moments later in the Thames’ cold embrace.

This much was different, though—no-one was there to rescue me. Floundering with every limb, struggling to keep what breath I could in my lungs, I could see no trace of either Evangeline or her able companions. Given the violence of that which had just transpired, their situation was likely worse than my own—perhaps fatally so.

Which was likely my fate as well. The black waters closed over my head, all light and air slipping from me. . . .

G
IVEN
that I considered myself more sinned against than sinner in my progress through earthly existence, my first impression of the afterlife was that an egregious injustice had been committed.

That I had awakened, after my watery transition from the realm of the living to whatever came next, in some place of eternal punishment seemed obvious to my perception. As though to mock me further, its essential elements all provided unappealing reminders of the world I had just left. If I had ever believed that by the mere act of dying I could leave behind all the clanking, hissing dismalness of Steam-transformed London, my illusions were now quickly dispelled. Far from fleeing that relentlessly mechanical world, I found that I had been translated to one even more given to gear and boiler, crankshaft and cog. The realization that I would be here for Eternity greatly disheartened me.

At the least, I could have been given a dry change of clothing by whatever meddlesome demons were in charge of the facilities. The same garments in which I had drowned still clung damply to my frame as I pushed my hands against the gritty, oily terrain on which I had been deposited. With what little strength had been allowed to me, I managed to bring myself into a roughly sitting position, from which I could survey my new abode. If there had been the roaring flames that the stern and terrifying preachers of my childhood had promised, I would have almost welcomed them as a means of rendering my jacket and trousers dry and my body somewhat less chilled from its final immersion.

Eternal night—that, at least, came as no surprise. My vision slowly adjusted to the darkness into which I had been cast, enough that I could discern the rude metal shapes surrounding me.

It might as well have been the afterlife of every defunct steam engine and other thundering device, rent asunder by the force that had once driven its functions. I could see enormous constructs on all sides, railway engines toppled onto their sides, spiraling copper tubes thick in diameter as a man’s body, driving shafts that might have propelled the earth’s own motion about its axis, industrial furnaces that might have sent a thousand looms spinning, carriages and cranes so vast as to blot out the dark sky against which they reared— all the gargantuan, hypertrophied machinery of a world bereft of any organic animation. Yet as massive as were the silent, unmoving devices, they seemed somehow pathetic, more to be pitied than feared due to their evident broken and discarded condition. The entire scene, extending in every direction from where I sat, might have been some giant toddler’s playpen, all his playthings reduced to rubbish by a display of infantile spleen. Scattered across the ground were the smaller bits and pieces strewn by that hypothetical tantrum, gears and sharp-toothed cogwheels lying thick about as the flinty stones of one of Britain’s more inhospitable ocean strands.

Oddly, an indication of mortal life came to hand as I gazed about the forlorn purview. I pricked my finger on the jagged end of a spring- coil close to me— my brow knit in puzzlement as I detected a drop of blood ooze from the tiny wound. Such seemed improbable to me—why would I require the circulation of vital fluids through my body, if I were no longer alive? Even more strangely, when I placed the flat of my hand against my soggy shirtfront, I unmistakably felt the pulse of my heart—seemingly wearied by all the exertions preceding my death, yet still staggering on relentlessly, one beat after another.

A glint of light struck my eye, unexpected as a flash of lightning. I raised my head and watched as the same yellowish gleam moved across the brass and iron forms nearest to me.

The voice that sifted through the gloom did not seem demonic in tone; rather more like one’s average Englishman, at least of the uneducated sort.

Wobbling a bit, I gained my feet and peered toward the source of the illumination. I perceived a lantern with a fluttering wick inside, held aloft in the hand of a silhouetted figure. Another cloth-capped figure, of slightly lesser stature, accompanied him.

The two men perceived me at the same time. The shorter of the pair brandished a pry-bar in my direction.

“If ye’re lookin’ for trouble, mate—” He lowered his voice to what was evidently meant to be a threatening growl. “We’re more than ready for yez.”

They both seemed rather coarser and given to violence than the two servants that Lord Fusible’s daughter had recruited to man the boat by which I had been briefly rescued from drowning in the Thames. I felt a twinge of regret, knowing that the pair—and Evangeline as well—had evidently suffered the fate from which they had sought to save me. Being of rather more respectable moral character than myself, no doubt the young woman had been translated to a more felicitous district of the afterlife; perhaps her companions had accompanied her there. I should have felt happy for their sakes, but I admit the thought actually rendered me somewhat sadder. I would have appreciated some familiar company in my new, even more doleful circumstances—especially given that I was slated to endure the situation for all Eternity.

“Let me assure you”—I addressed my words to the two shadowed figures—“I am not looking for any more trouble than I have, possessing already a surfeit thereof.”

“Ooh—he do speak well, Cyril.” One turned to the other and nodded in appreciation. “Very fancy-like.”

“Summat of a visitor, then.” The second signaled his agreement with a matching nod. “Obv’usly not from ’round these parts.” He peered at me, scratching his own head with the point of his improvised cudgel. “Wonder how he got here?”

“I beg your pardon . . .” My sight had adjusted enough that I could see the man’s unshaven face and the greasy rag knotted around his neck. “Did you say
visitor
? Perhaps I heard amiss, but it seems that was what you said.”

“Aye, I did. Surely that’s what ye be, mate—unless ye’re fixing to take up residence here. Which, as a gen’ral rule, I’d scarce advise.”

“I was under the impression that I didn’t have a choice about the matter. That in fact I had been consigned to stay here for all Eternity.”

“That sounds rather harsh,” said the first of the pair. “What fracas has a respectable gennulmun such as yerself gotten into, that ye’d need to hide out for as long as that, in a sty such as this ’un?”

“Well . . .” Much of what had been spoken puzzled me. “Not so much of a fracas, as it were—more the result of a series of bad decisions, most of them admittedly my own. Resulting, of course, in my death—”

“In yer what?”

“My death,” I repeated. “There was a time when I actually wished to be dead, and was even prepared to act upon that resolve. However, upon initial acquaintance with the next world—this one, that is—I’m starting to regret that rash impulse.”

“Did you hear that, Cyril? Blighter thinks he’s
dead
.”

“Aren’t I? It seemed a reasonable assumption.”

“Can’t say I know as how reason’ble it is.” Another scratch of his head. “I do know that it’s not true, however.”

“Indeed?” A bright thread of hope insinuated itself into my spirits. “And these are not the infernal regions?”

“The what?”

“Hell,” I said. “I am not aware of how much time you might have spent in church, but surely you are aware of that much of Christian doctrine. You know—the place of eternal torment, to which sinners are consigned beyond the grave.”

“Oh,
that
. Well, there’d be many as would say it’s not the most pleasant place to find oneself—and I’d be the first t’agree. I only come down here for purposes of commerce, as it were. But Hell?” The man gave a decisive shake of his head. “I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it in sech a manner.”

“He’s a loony, Cyril.” A note of alarm sounded in his companion’s voice. “Ye need be careful around him, in case he snaps and throws hisself ’pon yez.”

I made no comment regarding that observation, the man being perfectly justified in that assessment, based upon the evidence I had provided him. It hardly mattered to me, now that I had been gratefully disabused of my previous convictions as to my mode of existence. I was still alive—remarkably so—and not yet suffering for my sins. Wherever I was, it seemed at least a small improvement upon my initial conclusion.

My mind was still flooded with questions, though. Something had happened while I had been in that small boat, of which I had only the most fragmentary and confusing recollections. A hazy memory slipped into my thoughts, of some great shape coming up from below, the river swelling therefrom with sufficient force and volume to capsize the vessel. No doubt the others, including my rescuer, Evangeline, had been hurled into the dark water as I had been. That I had survived, and they evidently hadn’t, oppressed my spirits to some degree.

Nevertheless, my safety was hardly assured, merely by having reached whatever place this was. And my options were greatly diminished—I might no longer be ensnared in the devious Stonebrake’s various schemes, due to his death in the explosion at Westminster Palace, but I was also now devoid of what assistance he had given in navigating through London’s treacherous, Steam-transformed streets.

The realization came upon me with even greater force, that I did not even currently know where I was. If not Hell, then where? That
lacuna
in my bearings seemed to be the first one I should rectify.

“Excuse me . . .” I addressed my two new acquaintances. “Would it be at all possible for you gentlemen to tell me where I am?”

“Ye don’t know?”

“I said as much, Cyril—bugger’s completely daft.”

“Please . . . the matter is somewhat important to me.”

“No doubt.” The first of the pair took pity on me. “Ev’ryone needs to know where they’re at, leastways some of the time. Ye’re in the boneyard.”

Though it was sincerely given, this information availed me little. “Precisely what and where is this . . .
boneyard
?”

“However ye got here, fellow, ye’ve made yer way to the east part of London. Not gen’rally considered the poshest part of the city by yer likes, but it’s as much home as we working types will ever know.”

“Gent arrived here by the river, of course. That’s why he’s all soaked through.”

“The Thames?” I searched across their faces. “Is it nearby?”

“Scarcely a dozen yards away from you. Ye could see it if it weren’t for that great bluidy pile of junk directly behind yez.” The lantern was lifted higher, illuminating the ground about me. “There be yer track, where ye likely crawled here from th’edge of the water.”

“Very well.” The information was sketchy, but afforded me with at least a vague idea of my location. “And what is this boneyard of which you spoke? What sort of place is it?”

“Ye’ll hardly be flattered when ye know. Ye’ve wound up where all the various sorts of rubbish are discarded. Partic’larly of the industrial and mechanical type.”

“Powerful lot of that sort of thing,” his companion agreed. “As of recent times, ye know. All these steam-powered contraptions, one wild-eyed monstrous device after another—it do lead to reg’lar mountains o’ junk and tosh. Seems like most every day, some contrivance is blowing up, somewhere in the city. Scalding puir innocent folks raw with their unleashed gouts of steam, beheading them with flying bits o’ scrap—just terr’ble, it is.”

“But, Cyril—” The other protested this judgement. “We wouldn’t have all the modern conveniences we do, if it weren’t for incinerating a few people now and then. ’Tis a hard lot for them, of course, but that’s the price o’ progress, innit?”

“Hm. Not so sure ’bout that—”

“Please. You were saying . . .”

“Aye, the boneyard here. I must say, ye seem profoundly unfamil’ar with matters that are common knowledge for most.”

“Pray forgive me,” I said. “I have but recently arrived in London.”

“Do tell.” The man rubbed his dark- stubbled chin, regarding me as if he had never seen such a wonder before—and which he probably hadn’t. “Then as I were telling yez, this be where all manner of scrap metal and defunct machinery gets barged down the river to, then heaved out ’pon the banks. No doubt it ’pears to one of your cultured sensibilities as less than aesthetic and all, but it do provide some opportunities to resourceful types such as ourselves.”

“You rummage about here for discarded items of value?”

“Exactly so. Some bits o’ metal are more valuable than others, and are worth the labour o’ breaking apart from the rest. Takes a keen eye, it does, to know the diff’rence. And a strong back for the prying and wrestling about o’ the great lumps. Which is why I bring him along.” He smiled and pointed to his companion.

“Yer arse, Cyril.”

I decided that I had ascertained as much of specific value as I was likely to from the men. In addition, my garments had dried to a tolerable degree. This, plus the return of a small measure of my bodily strength, motivated a further resolve.

“You gentlemen are familiar with the streets and alleys of East London?”

“We’d bluidy well better be. Seeing as how we live here.”

I dug inside my coat, then produced the folded scrap of paper that had been given to me by Evangeline, just prior to the capsizing of the boat.

“Then perhaps you would be so kind . . .” I unfolded the damp paper and held it before them. The words were still legible upon it. “To direct me to this address.”

The lantern was brought lower, both men leaning into its glow to study the white square in my hand.

“Ye must be joking—” The first of the pair reared straight again, fixing an angry glare upon me. “Of all the . . .”

“I told ye to keep an eye on him!” His companion’s expression was that of wide-eyed horror. “Let’s away, Cyril—’fore summat worse happens!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” I stepped closer to the men, the paper still extended before me. “I have money—I can pay you to take me to this address.”

“Leave off—I’d no more take ye or anyone else there, for all the Chinee tea there is!”

“But why not?” Their responses had rendered me even more baffled than before. “Surely there is no danger to you, familiar as you are with these environs.”