Fiendish Schemes (34 page)

A
NUMBER
of speculations rapidly coursed through my thoughts, in regard to this latest mysterious occurrence.

“I had been under the impression that the unfortunate woman was deceased.” I pointed to the bed, its mattress still soaked with blood but now otherwise vacant. “Or so it appeared to me.”

“So she was—I assure you of that.” Captain Crowcroft stared at the aspect before us, his eyes widening with incomprehension. “This is terrible, Dower. All is now lost.”

“Do you think so? I confess that I see it rather differently.” However it had happened, the disappearance of such a dire piece of incriminating evidence as a murdered body struck me as a happy circumstance. Crowcroft and I had been so engrossed in our conversation, with all its references to valve girls and the malign influence of the previously unnamed and enigmatic Duncan MacDuff and his partner, Valvienne, that if some degree of animation had remained in the prostitute, despite her apparent wounds, she might very well have been able to resurrect herself from the scene of whatever crime had taken place and exit from the room, all unnoticed by us. The room and the corridor beyond were so enshrouded in darkness that the door might well have been stealthily opened without either Crowcroft or myself being aware of it, the sound of its latch and hinges disguised by those creaking noises common to ancient, dilapidated buildings such as this. Nor might anyone else have taken notice, for that matter. In this district, a naked and bloodied woman emerging from one of the ramshackle buildings, then disappearing into the night, very likely happened so frequently that it caused relatively small comment amongst the locals.

Alternately, if the woman had indeed been as lifeless as both Crowcroft and I had surmised, some other party might have surreptitiously entered the room and carried the body from it. My understanding was that there was still a flourishing trade in providing fresh subjects for dissection to the less scrupulous medical schools in the city. Prowling about for additional commerce, any number of stealthy body-snatchers might have glanced inside the room, ascertained that the attention of both Crowcroft and myself had been absorbed elsewhere, entered, and then absconded with the poor woman’s remains. To my mind, if they had in fact done so, they might very well have provided to us a favor—

Or not. As I reviewed these possibilities, a dismaying clamour arose from downstairs. I could hear the thudding of booted feet upon the rickety wooden steps and the shouting of various gruff voices, including that of one with the evident tone of command, directing the others.

“The police!” Crowcroft raised his head, having come to the same quick conclusion that I had. “We’ve been discovered—”

“Not yet.” From the sounds below, it seemed as if the officers were intent upon searching the rooms of the floor beneath us, kicking open doors as they proceeded. “We must make haste, though.”

I made no effort to determine what exact chain of events might have led the authorities to this location. Perhaps the nearest street constable had intercepted my hypothesized resurrectionists in the act of carrying away their cold, limp prize, who had then sought to absolve themselves of guilt in the woman’s death by revealing from where they had acquired it. Whatever the sequence, it scarcely mattered. All that concerned me was to escape from the scene as quickly as possible—and to bring Captain Crowcroft along with me, not from a sentimental concern for his late
fiancée
’s wishes, but to preclude any witness to my presence at this dire scene from falling into the hands of the authorities.

“Let us throw ourselves upon their mercies.” Crowcroft expressed a rather different wish. “Perhaps they will be so kind as to execute us upon the spot, thus sparing us the humiliation of a public trial.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “we should keep that as a last resort. In the meantime, there is the window.”

I stepped hurriedly across the room. With a teeth-clenching concentration of effort, I managed to draw open the stubborn aperture in question. Peering out, I discerned the one feature of the building that would be of possible assistance to us: close to hand, a drainpipe extended from the roof’s edge down to the alley. The plumbing appeared to be of dubious provenance and construction, as flimsy and ill-prepared to bear our weight as though it might have been a leafless vine clinging to the dark, wet bricks.

“Come along—” I already had one leg over the sill when I spoke again to Crowcroft. “This is our only chance.”

“Save yourself, if you must.” He turned his face toward the door, as though expecting a fiery salvation to burst through it at any moment. “I await judgement with as much equanimity as I can muster.”

“That is all very well for you—but what about your beloved Evangeline?”

It was a despicable ruse on my part. Greater honesty would have been mine if I had simply abandoned the addlepated man to his chosen fate, rather than pretending that his
fiancée
might still be alive. But I could hardly expect that Crowcroft, once launched into full confession before a magistrate, would have the necessary discretion to omit any mention of me.

“If you do not come with me now,” I continued, “you have scant chance of ever seeing her again.”

This observation appeared to have some effect upon him. He swung his gaze from the door and over toward me, his brow furrowing.

Hearing footsteps clattering in the hallway beyond him, I determined that I could tarry no longer. I reached over and grasped the drainpipe, my hands locking tight upon it as I cast my bodily weight from off the windowsill.

As I awkwardly clambered down to the alley, I looked up and saw that my entreaties had succeeded in their intent. Crowcoft was directly above me, having reconsidered the extent of his previous remorse and now deciding to make his escape as well.

But only for a moment. As I had initially feared, the drainpipe proved inadequate for the purposes to which we had put it. Our combined weight tore it free from the building’s exterior, then it disassembled itself entire, every component section separating from the others.

I was still so far above the ground when the pipe gave way that I landed upon my back with sufficient force to knock the breath from my lungs. Worse, the impact left me too dazed to evade the blow of Crowcroft’s equally toppled mass coming down directly on top of me. For him, though, this proved fortunate: my prostrate form cushioned his fall sufficiently that he was able to scramble to his feet. With the world reeling about in my sight, I was just able to catch a glimpse of him running for the mouth of the alley, then vanishing into the unlit maze of the surrounding streets.

My fortunes deteriorated yet further. Scarcely had I managed to gather myself up onto my knees than rough official hands seized upon my upraised shoulders.

“Murderer!” A truncheon was applied with some obviously expert skill, rendering me nearly unconscious. “You’ll bluidy well pay for what you’ve done—”

I could hardly protest this accusation, so enfeebled was I by the harsh manner of my apprehension. For the second time in a dismayingly short period, my wrists were bound behind in iron shackles. Quickly, I was more flung than carried into the unlit compartment of what might well have been the same unwelcome carriage in which I had ridden before. Lying on its damp floor, a trickle of blood seeping down from the corner of my brow, I was dimly aware of its horses being urged into motion. The wheels jounced across the cobblestones as I was conveyed to yet another unpleasant destination.

EVEN
though the stone cell in which I had previously found myself had been explosively transformed to dust, I expected to find myself in one of similar dimension and discomfort. To my extreme surprise, when the shackles were removed from my wrists, my immediate environs were rather that of a properly upholstered drawing-room, the furnishings as lavish and expensive as that of Lord Fusible’s townhouse. Recent memory supplanted my amazed condition, as I realized that I had been here before, with Stonebrake, in fact. This was the luxurious environs of the Fex establishment.

It was equally startling when I perceived that it was not a uniformed constable or dark- suited police agent who freed me, but rather a liveried servant, of the stiff and formal bearing that one might well have expected to encounter in such elegant surroundings.

“Pray have a seat.” With a bow of his head, he directed me toward one of the handsome couches. “Mister MacDuff will be with you shortly.”

My capacity for shock having been exhausted, I sat myself down as directed and awaited the arrival of that enigmatic person, of whose name only I had been previously apprised. As I did so, I spied a small sheet of deckle-edged notepaper on the low table before me. I picked it up and read the words inscribed upon it in a delicate ladylike hand:

“George Dower!” a braying voice sounded from a doorway behind me. “Well, just look at
you
! How frickin’ long’s it been?”

Such had been the astonishing variety of events through which I had just suffered that I had thought myself incapable of further surprise—the heavens might have opened up and rained pomegranates and I would have gazed upon the scene with perfect
sangfroid
. But in the actual event, it turned out that this world could yet startle me.

For I recognized those coarse, strange vocal tones. From long ago. . . .

I dropped the notepaper and turned about on the couch, looking toward the one who had so addressed me. He seemed older—but not greatly so—and perhaps better and more expensively dressed than as I recalled him. But otherwise he was remarkably the same as when I had last seen him.

“Scape—” His name emerged unbidden from my lips. “Somehow . . . somehow . . . I should have known it would be you.”

“Yeah, you should’ve.” As he passed by the drawing-room’s fireplace, he lifted a decanter of brandy from the heavy oaken mantel. “You know what they say:
Can’t keep a good man down
. Hey, you’re here, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have expected that, either.”

Another figure, well remembered by me, had followed him into the drawing room. “Hello, Dower . . .” The consort and accomplice of my old nemesis bestowed upon me one of her wickedly knowing smiles. Miss McThane seemed even less touched by the greying hand of time than her partner, Scape. “Long time no see.”

The perceptive reader will note the peculiarities of these persons’ distinctive speech. When I had first encountered them, upon the occasion of my initial enmirement into the mysteries and conspiracies revolving around my father’s creations, I had thought their vocal eccentricities to be both off-putting and bewildering. Never did I become accustomed to them. At some point, however, the explanation offered by Scape for them had gained, if not probability, then at least some measure of possibility in my estimation. This was, of course, due to my further acquaintance with the awesome capabilities of those devices invented and constructed by my immediate paternal ancestor. To one of these in particular, with which I had no direct experience, Scape attributed all of those effects which so distinguished both him and Miss McThane from myself and other living Englishmen. By his description, the device had consisted of a source of brilliant illumination, before which was suspended a rapidly spinning disk, the pattern of holes and slits in it producing a unique pattern and sequence of light flashing into the eyes of anyone so reckless as to gaze thereon. Which was, of course, exactly what the two of them had done, both being unexpectedly transformed as a result. For it was Scape’s claim, made as he had been so busily instigating all those troubles that had befallen me then, that my father’s device had somehow been able to summon
personae
from some distant point in the Future—complete with the knowledge and habits of what would be the progeny of current persons—and install them inside the receptive skulls of himself and Miss McThane. He had assured me that he had become, in not just speech and other manners, but in every other mental and spiritual aspect as well, what everybody would be someday. At the time, I had scoffed at such a prediction—but now, having seen that into which the world had been transfigured through the power of Steam, I was no longer so confident in my dismissal. All that which I had known and with which I had been familiar now seemed to be fleeing into the obscurity of a Past soon to be forgotten; the discouraging specter of the world to come, which the man so embodied, appeared to be dolefully inevitable. With any small stroke of fortune, I would be safely dead by then. Not for the first time, I reminded myself that all earthly things end in the grave—and that was the good news.

“It has indeed been a considerable time,” I replied to Miss McThane. While she was as much a scoundrel—and perhaps more reprehensibly so, given her gender—I bore her somewhat less resentment than I did her companion. The previous association between the two of us had culminated in the thwarting of the demented Lord Bendray’s attempt to shatter the Earth to pieces. That this had been achieved through a carnal act and the sacrifice of my innocence—hers had been disposed of quite some time before then—did to some degree make my feelings toward her a bit more on the tender side, though certainly not enough to allay my justified suspicions toward her every action and statement. “The last I had heard of you,” I continued, “was that crofters in the remotest Highlands were being swindled of their meager savings by way of your various confidence schemes.”

“Yeah, well—you know how it is,” interjected Scape. He took a swig from the decanter, then offered it toward me. Upon my refusal, he took another pull before setting it down on the low table before him. “Gotta make a living, right? We had a pretty good thing going for a while, before it all blew up in our faces. For us it did, I mean—
you
came out of it nicely set up.”

“Are you insane?” I stared back at his lean, vulpine face, still adorned with the lopsided, insinuating smile I recalled from before. “I was irrevocably scarred by those events.”

“Really?” Miss McThane set herself down on the arm of the couch. “That’s not a very flattering thing to say.”

“Perhaps not
all
those events, then. But bear in mind that I was so disgraced in the eyes of polite society that I was obliged to flee from my native London.”

“With a pile of loot, you lucky bastard.” Scape laced his hands behind his head, leaning back and studying me. “And now you’re back here again. That’s wild, Dower. How exactly is that?”

I could feel my eyes narrowing to slits as I returned his gaze. “Somehow,” I said, “I believe you already are familiar with those circumstances.”

“Bingo.” Scape’s smile grew wider and even more disconcerting. “Though you’d probably still be surprised at finding out exactly how much we know. All
kinds
of stuff.”

“On the contrary—I’m no more surprised than I am to discover that you are once more engaged in various disreputable schemes. It is entirely in your natures—”

“Duh.”

“Nor am I shocked to learn that you conceal your identities behind these absurd pseudonyms. How long have you been passing yourself off as . . . what is it? Ah, yes—as
Duncan MacDuff.
Is that really the best you could come up with?”

“Does the job. Everybody here in the south thinks that Highlanders are all crazy wild men and stuff. And I like people thinking I’m crazy. Adds to the dangerous factor, you know?”

“As if you needed that.” I looked over to Miss McThane. “And
Valvienne
? Please.”

“What’re you gonna do?” She pointed toward Scape. “It was his idea.”

“About that, at least, I am not surprised. He had a great many ideas before; I am certain he has as many now, if not more.”

“You got that right, Dower.” Sitting forward on the couch, Scape pointed toward me. “And you’re part of them. Cool, huh?”

“Let me assure you,” I spoke stiffly, “that I have no wish to be.”

“Too late for that. You already are.”

“He’s telling you the truth,” said Miss McThane. “You were already in hip-deep with us, even before what happened with you and Crowcroft, back in that little room.”

“Indeed?” I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What exactly do you know about all of that?”

“Everything,” she replied. “I was there. I listened in on every word that you and Crowcroft said to each other.”

“I do not understand. Where would there have been for you to hide?”

“Hide? Who needed to hide?” There was a glint of triumph in her smile, the same that she expressed whenever she put something over on a fellow human being. “I was right there on the bed.”

“That . . . was
you
?”

“Look, I know we only had the one time before and all, and there was kind of a lot going on back then, with the whole place falling down around us—but a girl’s not exactly flattered when you don’t recognize one of her best parts. I mean, it’s not like you’ve seen a lot of others, have you?”

“Hardly the point that needs to be addressed.” The rudeness of her observation served to nettle me into regaining a measure of my composure. “Why would I have expected someone of even brief acquaintance to masquerade as a bloodied corpse? I hope I am correct in assuming that all of your apparent wounds were but theatrical in nature.”

“That much you got right.” With no pretense at modesty, she lifted the hem of her gown sufficiently to expose much of the naked flesh I had glimpsed before, still daubed with the red greasepaint that I had previously mistaken for blood. “Got
you,
suckah!”

“Don’t fret about it,” interjected Scape. “We weren’t doing it just to run a number on you. We were gaming ol’ Crowcroft.”

“Which you certainly seem to have succeeded at. The poor man was distraught to the point of self-destruction.”

“What a moron,” Scape sneered as he shook his head. “You know, if you can’t roll with the punches, you’re in a world of trouble.”

“You display no more sympathy for your fellow man than I would have expected from you. What exactly could have been the purpose of making him believe that in a fit of drunken passion, he had somehow murdered some unfortunate prostitute? Or valve girl, as I’ve been informed they are called.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Scape. “Let’s talk about
you
.”

“Yeah . . .” A typically disconcerting smile appeared on Miss McThane’s face. “Let’s.”

“Because this was totally cool that you showed up there.” Scape nodded in satisfaction. “We weren’t expecting that.”

“But when I saw it was you,” said Miss McThane, “I really flashed on how useful you could be.”

“Useful? To whom?”

“To us, of course. Jeez.” Scape glanced over at his partner. “Did he land on his head when he climbed out of that building?”

“I have absolutely no interest in becoming once more involved in your various schemes, whatever they might be.”

“Too bad. Like I told you, you’re already in them. You’re too valuable for us to just let you slip away.”

“That’s why I snuck out of the room.” Miss McThane continued her own exposition. “Good thing we already had some of our people waiting nearby. That made it a lot easier to organize getting you out of there. And over here, where we can talk.”

“Your people?” These words invoked a frown from me. “Are you telling me that those were not actual agents of the Metropolitan Police force, who seized upon and conveyed me hither?”

“Of course they were.” Scape made a show of being offended. “We’re a quality operation. We don’t go in for fakes.”

“But then that would imply . . . that you are in league with the authorities.”

“Sure—all the best criminals usually are.” His oddly lunatical smile was even wider than before. “We’ve come up in the world, Dower.”

“I had been led to believe that you were merely some sort of disreputable entrepreneurs.” I struggled to make sense of all this new information. “I mean, that is, in your roles as the so-named Duncan MacDuff and Valvienne.”

“Oh, you mean all that Fex stuff?” Scape nodded. “Yeah, that’s been a pretty good little racket. Real decent money in that—but then there always is, when you’re dealing with people with more cash than brains. Those people are so whacked out—the weirder you get, the easier it is to lift a wad off of ’em.”

As before, the man’s odd diction and vocabulary left me a trifle unsure as to his exact meaning, though the general intent was easily deduced.

“So you have formed some sort of mutually profitable alliance with important elements of the police.” I saw things a bit more clearly now. “That explains a great deal, as to why you have been able to conduct such a business without interference.”

“Oh, Dower—it’s not just the cops.” Miss McThane gazed pityingly at me. “Keeping the vice squad off your tits isn’t that big a deal. What we’re talking about is—we go all the way to the top. And by top, I mean the
top
top.”

“What meaning is that supposed to convey to me?”

“Simple,” she said. “We work for Mrs. Fletcher.”

PERHAPS
I should have expected that latest revelation. But I confess that it caught me unprepared. Without being invited, I sat down on the couch, Scape making room for me beside him, to prevent my legs giving out from beneath me due to the shock.

“You poor thing.” From her perch on the couch’s arm, Miss McThane ran a caressing hand through my hair. “I don’t think you’re really cut out for all these conspiracies and stuff. You look a little overwhelmed.”

“If I appear so, it is because I am.” I closed my eyes for a moment as I leaned my head back against the cushions. “Forgive me if I point out that I am more accustomed to thinking of the pair of you as little better than felons, irrevocably opposed to the regular functioning of society. To discover that you are now in alliance with the highest levels of government—”

“Yeah.” Scape nodded. “Disappointing, isn’t it? Took me a while to get my head around it, I can tell you. Kind of a new thing for us. Like the people in these days would put it, we’re a little more used to running with the hares than the hounds. But, like the people from up in the Future would say:
Hard times will make a rat eat a red onion
. Gotta hustle to make a buck, in other words.”