The Osiris Ritual (11 page)

Newbury put an arm on Purefoy’s shoulder and guided him to the door, avoiding the spil ed fragments of glass as they walked. He lowered his voice. “Three things you need to be aware of, Mr.

Purefoy. Firstly, if you’re going to sneak around at the scene of a murder, it’s preferable not to get caught. Secondly, there are more professional agencies at work in this Empire than simply Scotland Yard and Her Majesty’s military. I belong to one of them. Thirdly, Winthrop was murdered because of his connection to the mummy he brought back from Thebes. Now, when you write about this morning’s events, you will refrain from printing any details of the murder or any mention of Sir Charles or I.” He looked the young reporter in the eye. “I don’t expect to catch you like this again.”

Purefoy took Newbury’s hand and shook it firmly. “No, Sir Maurice. I don’t expect you do.” He pul ed on the door handle and, without looking back, stepped out into the foyer and the street beyond.

Newbury turned back to Bainbridge. “One day, Charles, that boy wil make an excel ent agent.”

Bainbridge shook his head, exasperated. “One day, Newbury, I’ll have a notion of what goes on in that mysterious head of yours.” He leaned heavily on his cane. “Now, what of Winthrop?”

Newbury ran a hand over his chin. “I’m not sure what else there is to say. Until we have a notion of what has or hasn’t been taken. . it’s just another despicable murder of a society gentleman. You need to talk to Blake, of course. And I need to find out where Ashford is hiding. I can’t help thinking he’s at the heart of it, somehow.”

“I usual y trust your instincts, Newbury, but this time I can’t help feeling that you’re on the wrong track.”

Newbury sighed. “Time will tell, I suppose, old man. Time will tell.” He turned up the collar of his coat. “Dinner? There’s a new chef at the White Friar’s. Excellent Pigeons a la Duchesse.. ”

“What? You’re leaving?”

Newbury looked pained. “There’s little more I can do here, Charles, and I promised Miss Hobbes I’d assist her with this damnable situation of the missing girls. You have Foulkes. Have him and his men turn the place over. Then meet me at my club at seven and we’l talk it over. I need to give some thought to this situation with Ashford, too.”

Bainbridge waved his cane at the door. “Very well. Tonight. Seven o’clock. I imagine I’ll be needing a brandy.”

Newbury laughed. “I imagine we both wil .” He inclined his head in farewel , and then quit the house, relieved to be putting some distance between himself and the horribly brutalised corpse of Lord Henry Winthrop. He had no real notion of what Ashford could be up to, or why he should have executed Winthrop in such a horrendous manner. He needed to uncover the significance of the missing ushabti figure and the strange engravings he’d noticed during the party. He also needed a way of discovering where Ashford was hiding, and what his connection to Winthrop might be. Most of al , he needed time to think. And he knew a place where he could find it.

First, he would call on Veronica at the office, to explain how he had found himself detained, and to make arrangements to assist her the fol owing day. Then he would pay a visit to Johnny Chang’s.

Newbury emerged at the top of the stone staircase to find the light was already beginning to wane. It was windy and cold— so cold that his breath fogged before his face — but the warm haze of the opium high was enough to dispel the effects of the bracing weather. The street was busy, criss-crossed with people coming and going, shutting up their store fronts and retiring to their homes for the evening. Newbury checked his pocket watch. It was nearly half past five. He’d need to head directly to the White Friar’s if he wanted to keep his appointment with Charles.

Newbury blinked as a ground train rolled by, its large, iron wheels groaning beneath the considerable weight of the engine. Steam bil owed from a wheezing funnel. Carriages clattered along behind the huge machine, fil ed with passengers making their way home from any number of manufactories and offices, their faces dour after hours spent relentlessly pursuing an incalculably small wage. The driver looked cold and exhausted in his open-sided cab. Newbury shivered. He hadn’t been near one of the vehicles since his encounter with the man posing as “the glowing policeman” a few months earlier. He’d sustained serious injuries fist-fighting with the man on the roof of one of the trains, and now, any time he found himself in close proximity to one of them, he couldn’t help but recal the fate of the other man, his head cracked open on the cobbles after Newbury had caused him to tumble over the side. It was no more or less than the man had deserved

— Newbury knew that — but the look of horror on his face as he fell to his death was something that would stay with Newbury forever. Such, he supposed, was the life he had chosen to live.

Sighing, he pulled his coat a little tighter around his shoulders, and set out, hoping the crisp air would help to clear his head before dinner.

He had called for Veronica after leaving Winthrop’s house earlier that afternoon, but found she had already left for the day. A small, terse note printed in her immaculate handwriting had been waiting for him on his desk:

Sir Maurice,

I have taken leave to visit Amelia in your absence. I trust I shall see you in the office tomorrow morning so that we may continue with our investigations.

Miss Veronica Hobbes

It pained him to think that he had let her down. Moreover, it pained him to consider the missing girls and their plight. He knew, in his heart, that they were probably already dead, slung into the Thames like broken ragdolls or else dumped unceremoniously into hastily dug graves somewhere on the east side of the city. But he had a job to do, and presently Her Majesty considered it necessary for him to curtail the exploits of the rogue agent, William Ashford. It didn’t sit well with Newbury to consider that the life of a lord should take precedence over the lives of innumerable working-class women, but he also knew that he wasn’t yet in ful possession of the facts. He didn’t know what Ashford was looking for, nor what he was capable of. He might yet pose an even greater threat. And besides, it wasn’t just a matter of bringing him in for the death of Winthrop. It was a matter of stopping a traitor — a traitor who knew everything about the innermost workings of Her Majesty’s operations — from doing any more damage, at the very heart of the Empire itself, no less.

So, instead of chasing after his headstrong assistant, Newbury had retreated to the clandestine haven of Johnny Chang’s, where he had passed the afternoon in a heady opium dream, cogitating on all of the disparate threads of the case, searching the annals of his mind for a possible solution. A part of him could see the hypocrisy in that line of thinking, but he knew himself better than that. The drug had enabled him to relax, to recede into his own quiet world, where his instincts had come to the fore and he was able to seek a different perspective of the chaotic mess of leads and clues and mysteries that faced him. And, as a result, he had formulated a plan. He knew how he was going to deal with Ashford. He was going to lay a trap. All he needed was a little —

Newbury turned sharply at the sound of a scuffed heel from close behind him. He made a fist in his gloved hand, expecting someone to be upon him at any moment. His breath became shal ow, his heart hammering hard in his chest. He spun around on the spot, seeking out his assailant. But there was no one nearby. The street behind him was almost deserted, the bustle of earlier gone, as if the shopkeepers and passers-by had simply melted away into the shadows. Now, there were just a handful of people on the other side of the road, heading in the opposite direction.

Newbury glanced from side to side. The shadows of the terraced houses loomed large and uninviting, a few gas-lamps giving off an amber glow in the wan evening light. The wind whistled ominously through some nearby railings.

Perplexed, Newbury carried on walking. He had the sense of someone there, on the periphery of his vision, but each time he looked back over his shoulder he could see no evidence that he was being fol owed. He wondered if it were the opium, playing tricks with his mind, causing the shadows to come to bizarre, hal ucinatory life. Worse, he knew better than most that the shadows of London did contain creeping things that were better avoided; things that lurked in the darkness, preying on the ignorant and unwary; things from children’s nightmares, fashioned from both the flesh and the spirit, or more recently, from the steam-powered manufactories of men.

Newbury shuddered, and then laughed at himself for allowing his mind to run away with him. It was clear the opium was still influencing his thoughts, much more than he had anticipated. He was not used to partaking of the drug in such a way, to such an extent, and had underestimated its effects. He took a deep breath, trying to cleanse his lungs. Everything that was happening had a dream-like quality about it, as if he perceived the world through some sort of hazy filter. He relished the feeling, the loss of control, but he also knew how dangerous that could be for a man in his position. Absently, he hoped that Charles would not be able to discern his condition over dinner.

There was another sound from behind him, this time over his right shoulder. Cautiously, he carried on walking so as not to give away the fact he had noticed. This time he was sure it was no hallucination. He’d heard the sole of a boot scuffing against the road. On his left was the dark frontage of a furrier’s shop, the window display fil ed with shop dummies dressed in all manner of animal pelts, fashioned into coats, hats, scarves and more. Slowly, he approached the window, feigning interest. He studied his reflection in the glass. He looked pale and drawn, dark rings beneath his eyes. He put it out of mind. Newbury watched for a moment, looking for signs of the person who had been fol owing him. Sure enough, a moment later he caught a glimpse of something moving in the reflected scene of the street: a large, hulking shape, bigger than an average man, its face hidden beneath the cowl of an ominous hood. It was shrouded in a thick, black cloak. Newbury spun around, quickly, hoping to catch the creature off guard, but just as before, there was nothing to see. The street was deserted. He heard footsteps padding away, up ahead, in amongst the shadows. Whoever had been following him had clearly realised he was on to them, and wasn’t ready to make themselves known.

For a moment, Newbury considered giving chase, but he knew he wasn’t up to a fight, and besides, he had to be across town to meet Charles. But this new development altered things, altered the plans he’d been conceiving. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to go after William Ashford, after all.

Perhaps Ashford was coming after him.

He needed to clear his head.

Slowly, Newbury set off, heading in the same direction as the footsteps. He hoped that Ashford

— if it were, indeed, Ashford — was not lurking in the darkness up ahead, waiting to pounce on him as he made his unsteady way towards Piccadil y. He kept his hands free as he walked, ready to defend himself if the situation arose.

After a few hundred yards, however, Newbury allowed himself to relax. It seemed that the mysterious figure had bolted when Newbury had caught sight of him in the shop window. His fingers were growing numb in the biting cold, and although it wasn’t far to Piccadilly, he decided that he would hail a cab at the next available opportunity. Further ahead, the road opened out into a large set of crossroads, and the thoroughfare there, even from this distance, seemed busy with people and vehicles, He quickened his pace, knowing that he would be likely to able to employ a hansom at the junction.

A shadow passed overhead, and Newbury looked up to see the dark underbel y of an airship sweeping low over the city, a rope ladder trailing, forgotten, off the port side. He watched it drift lazily across the sky, the growl of its engines a gravelly counterpoint to the sharp, biting howl of the wind. He dropped his eyes to the road ahead and stopped, with a start.

The hooded figure was standing by the corner of the road, about a hundred feet away, regarding him steadily, its face hidden beneath the wide, shadowy cowl of its cloak. The black fabric trailed in the wind, billowing up around its legs. Beneath the hood, from somewhere within the pool of darkness that hid the person’s face, a small, round, bluish light flickered like blinking eye. It was a menacing sight, and caused Newbury to give an involuntary shudder. There was little else that Newbury , could discern from this distance, other than that the man —for ,given the figure’s size and bulk, it had to be a man — was wearing black leather boots and matching gloves. It had to be Ashford

Newbury broke into a run, charging towards the solitary figure, his head bowed against the driving wind. The man remained stationary, watching, silently, as Newbury dashed towards him.

Newbury had no idea what to expect, no notion of what he was letting himself in for. In his present state he knew he wouldn’t be able to put up much resistance if Ashford was angling for a fight, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to tackle the rogue agent and get the whole matter quickly resolved.

Gasping, he flung himself forward as if to grapple the hooded figure, only to see him side-step around the corner at the last moment. Newbury caught hold of the wall, stopping himself from pitching over. He heaved against the brickwork, pulling himself around the corner after Ashford as if to continue the chase, but, bizarrely, the other man was gone.

Newbury, dumbfounded, glanced from side to side, looking for the means by which Ashford had made his escape. There were no obvious al eyways or doorways he could have dashed into, no ladders or vehicles by which he could have effected his disappearance. Just a series of dreary shop-fronts and red-brick walls. He looked up. The sky was a leaden canopy overhead, but there was no sign of Ashford atop the nearby buildings, either. He hadn’t somehow managed to scale the wall.

The man had simply vanished.

Panting, slowed by the opiate in his veins, Newbury fell back against the wall, attempting to catch his breath. There was a foul stench in the air, a rancid, carrion tang that made him splutter in disgust. Bile rose in his throat. The smell was immediately familiar, and there was no mistaking it.