by Kin S. Law
Was that a smirk on his face? Impossible to tell. But Hargreaves knew the psychology. He was trying to guilt her out of her rote by-the-book response to see the case in a different light. Maple Cross was before they’d met, but Hargreaves had been livid the first time he brought it up. He had gone out of his way to find out everything about Hargreaves. Maple Cross was not something one spoke of simply to be crass.
Arturo traced a finger delicately between the pins on the wall, imaginary lines sketching the form of shadowed plots. Hargreaves found it remarkable he could read her, a distinguished graduate of the Academy trained in criminology. How old was he? Twenty-two? Eighteen?
“Those people were locked right upstairs. I passed beneath where they were bound,” Hargreaves said matter-of-factly. “I’m a homicide investigator, Arturo. I can read murderous intent from across the deck of an airship. This subterfuge, following the money across countries, it’s not in my comfort zone.”
“You’re giving up?”
“I just don’t understand why the queen gave me the job,” she said, the first sign of fatigue creeping across her brow.
“If she could, she probably would have given me the honor,” Arturo answered wryly. His gaze now traveled the writing desk, and the bluish sand embedded in the surface cracks.
“Like as not give you the excuse to raid Professor Blackwater’s laboratory.”
“Please, a criminal mastermind would hardly hide the maleficent fruits of his labors in a laboratory. Some secret room or such is in order. Haven’t you ever read a penny dreadful or seen a picture at the Odeon?”
“If it were you, how would you proceed?” the inspector asked, momentarily startling Adler. “I have no motive, a suspect that could be halfway to Devon by now, and a crime that is rapidly growing more public despite the Yard’s and the queen’s expectation of me.”
“I for one would question that expectation,” Arturo tossed back at her. “It seems like the queen was expecting something to happen. Why else would she assign a trusted homicide inspector, one of her best agents, and a personal friend nonetheless, to a position like yours? You have complete authority over any case involving unusual steamwork apparatus. You command a squadron of metal soldiers and genius-level subordinates. Best of all, you can operate with total impunity, because nobody wants your job.”
“What are you saying, Arturo?”
“I’m saying we should ask the queen why you are really the head of MD6. This bluish dust, here?” Arturo scattered some in the air, brushing it off the table in a fine blizzard. “I found it filtered through the boards underneath the Montmartre Express baggage car as well. It’s a very fine tracking agent, with an oxidation marker that changes very gradually—the color indicates the amount of time since it was applied. Anyone who touched the booty would have brought it with them, unnoticed. The thing is, only one agency in all of Europe uses it: MI6.”
“By Queen and Country. British Intelligence,” Hargreaves said with a mixture of awe and religious terror.
“Now do you think my Shock conspiracy is delusional?”
“This is very different from your boogeyman Shock. How long?”
“The color indicates the tracker was applied when the Montmartre stopped in Paris—I believe that is when possession of the cargo was given over to Intelligence. The Ottoman threat is looming just over the east, Inspector. What could British Intelligence be transporting that warranted such secrecy?”
“Whatever it is, they don’t have it anymore. Catching the thieves is out of the question—one lorry in a city stuffed with them, the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
“Based on the unique nature of the parts we found, we may assume some connection to American nationals. Let us ignore their motives for the nonce, and examine their possible strategy.” Arturo’s chin rested on his breast, his slender gloved digits pick-picking at the pinned cardstock on the wall as if it were a captured chess piece. “Transporting it back to America is out of the question, thanks to your preemptive measures. Not to mention the attacker we put in his place at Temple Mills. That is, if transporting it is their aim. They will most likely play their next move quite safe.”
“Barring any covert involvement, the mooring ports, Paddington, and the docks are all alerted to the presence of the missing item,” Hargreaves said, a thought even now occurring to her. “I expect Intelligence already has people covering those exits, ever since the train arrived.”
“A single pawn may creep amongst the knights and bishops, becoming a queen just in time for checkmate.”
“Hide, eh?” Hargreaves meant to berate him, but suddenly the word struck a chord. “Right. That is exactly what I would do, if I were an American national. We don’t tell our constables and customs officers to look for the automata Driver and Priser, but for the transportation of the large cargo. We are perfectly aware their owners can abandon the heavy steel golems. Why can’t this cargo be abandoned as well? What if it is some advanced steamwork, or even a prototype weapon? These are no petty thieves; they are capable men with some intelligence, who may know what they are stealing even if we do not. They do not need the cargo itself; they merely need to know how to build it.”
“By Horatio, you are absolutely right!” Arturo cried with a smirk, as if he hadn’t thought of it first. “They must be hiding, squirreled away somewhere in London with some alchemist or engineer trying to pry open the box of secrets as we speak! That must be why they chose Sturlusson in the first place. The firm supplies every alchemist and engineer in the city.”
“And when they have those plans, they will leave their conspicuous equipment behind, spiriting the weapon away. How long will that take? If it is a blueprint, we will have no way of knowing who is carrying it, by train, ship, or air.”
“At all costs,” Arturo C. Adler said to Vanessa Hargreaves, his face flushed with the scent of the chase. “We must convince Her Majesty to tell us what was in that box.”
3
The Good Physician
“Do you know the story of John Snow and the Broad Street pump handle?” the Queen of England asked Vanessa Hargreaves.
“Yes, ma’am. Doctor Snow stopped a fatal outbreak of cholera, saving thousands of potential London victims,” Hargreaves answered from her perch atop a wrought-iron chair. Its Neo-Baroque curves dug into her lower back despite the lavishly printed cushions and swooping rests. Sprung and clocked fixtures within it were supposed to form perfectly to her back. A beautiful chair, undoubtedly, but it may as well have been an iron maiden.
Rather than Buckingham Palace or even Westminster, the heir to Hanover took her afternoon tea on a Soho rooftop, spears of sunshine blasting through facets of crystal glass the size of front doors. Waving fronds tinted the light green in places where the gifts of foreign dignitaries had been planted, including a majestic stand of bamboo, a small vanilla tree and Her Majesty’s ancestral favorite, a towering mangosteen in a blue china pot. Hargreaves glanced nervously at the door she had come through, where a brace of sharply suited gentlemen in tailcoats and wigs had been fuming with impatience. She wondered how long they had been waiting, and was quite sure the elder had been the Minister of the Interior.
A servant poured rich, amber Darjeeling from an enamel pot. Everything was the color of lapis lazuli, from the teapot to the checkered tile floor, even Her Majesty dressed in a tasteful spring riding suit. High, soft boots and trousers, Egyptian cotton, practical and understated. A turquoise brooch in the shape of roses set off the shades of blue. Every piece of Her Majesty’s wardrobe spoke late-twenties independent woman, of the dynamic type found in every level of England’s most affluent firms. A wide-brimmed, violently cerulean confection shielded the royal brow from the sunlight, and a faux bustle spilled from the royal derriere most fetchingly.
“Most of the residents felt Snow was doing them a disservice, that his germ theories were nothing but the ravings of a discredited physician,” Her Majesty continued, sipping and looking out onto the coal-stained Lo
ndon cityscape. “Without his groundbreaking research, we might not have the vaccinations or antigen ampoules Albion General uses every day. In many ways, the warnings I and members of Parliament are espousing daily are being treated like Doctor Snow’s earliest efforts: noble, correct, but unless we do something drastic, ultimately useless.”
“Your Majesty is referring to the Ottomans,” Vanessa said dutifully, pushing down urgent business in favor of Her Majesty’s good graces. Her stomach complained, twitching. “If the size of the force we discovered under Leyland is any indication, the emperor has poured the last of the empire’s coffers into Mordemere’s army of horrors. Parliament is unwise not to listen.”
“There is no need to humor me,” the queen said, “speak your mind.”
“Ma’am,” Hargreaves said, and chose her words carefully. “I think your efforts are admirable, but perhaps encouraging military action is unwise so soon after our brush with destruction.”
“I am only a figurehead, Hargreaves. I am not a commander,” the queen said, the first wrinkle of a smile playing across her generous Hanover brow. She was nothing of the kind. Hargreaves knew Her Majesty had loyal agents posted at every level of government, moving the country with a gentle smile and a veiled dirk. As one of those weapons herself, Hargreaves knew Her Majesty as both the holy virgin and the wise witch.
As Her Majesty spoke, she toyed with the dark burgundy fruit at her place, held by a gilt china bowl much like an eggcup. The queen teased out the juicy white pips with a demitasse silver fork, taking her time in savoring the subtle tropic taste.
“Tactical action is beyond my sphere of influence. My contemporaries and I only wish to have some contingencies in place should Parliament decide to make fools of themselves. Should the Ottomans make some incursion west, a possibility that Lord Gerard refuses to see as dangerously real, Parliament shall move for an alliance with the other western powers. Prime Minister Falstaff sees it as an inevitability, and has prematurely christened it the New Western Alliance.”
“It will detract from funding the recovery,” Vanessa said. “At a time when the nation’s investments are being overbid and undercut by American venture capitalists.”
“We still have Britain’s steamcraft industry, those ghastly automata makers swelling the royal coffers,” the queen said, flirting with less than royal etiquette in her echo of Hargreaves’ words. “The Americans claim to possess their equal, but I have yet to see one tin finger.”
Hargreaves squirmed uncomfortably, sensing the topic of conversation being swept aside like the last of the Queen’s unfinished mangosteen. In a flurry of gloved service, her fruit was replaced with the fluffiest cassis scones Vanessa had ever seen.
“Your Majesty, there is an urgent matter regarding your assignment to me,” Hargreaves said, choosing a moment when the queen’s royal mouth was busy on a veiled bite of pastry, cream and jam. “You are familiar with the Montmartre Express incident?”
“Not for nothing are we called a police state by our detractors. I have the finest aerial Navy and the most disciplined law-keeping force in Europe to handle these matters, not to mention the best Scotland Yard has to offer.” Her eyes rested pointedly on Vanessa’s blond head.
Victoria III might have enchanted the entire Parliament into radical recovery measures, or charmed rooms full of diplomats into welcoming a tidal wave of goods into their homes labeled ‘Made in Britain,’ but Vanessa Hargreaves wasn’t fooled. She had been one of the queen’s secret confidants, and as close to a friend as someone in Her Majesty’s position could have, even before the Mordemere incident. After a full minute of polite staring, the Queen of England relented.
“Oh, all right. It’s not a bomb, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Her Majesty quipped, as if speculating on the color of a new frock. Vanessa’s stomach churned uncomfortably.
The queen’s words were chilling, but it was this quality that had brought Hargreaves to her attention. Her Majesty was remarkably old-fashioned, and her Victorian fascination with murder had brought her servants to Hargreaves’ door all those years ago. The difference between ordering a scone and ordering an execution was only a matter of pitch for the queen.
“What have they taken, Your Majesty?”
“You understand I did not wish for any word of it to escape. I have every confidence in you and Intelligence, Hargreaves, but I do understand the difference between a dagger and a sledgehammer.”
“Then why put me on the case?” Hargreaves said, all etiquette forgotten.
“I tire of Parliament,” the queen sighed. “You’ve no idea how much fiddling about goes on behind the tapestries. Before my subjects decide their queen has done quite enough meddling, I intend to force the issue. Sometimes your most delicate instrument is the one that will break down walls.”
Hargreaves had to snicker at her queen’s appraisal.
“Hargreaves, look here,” the queen said now, her hands briskly grabbing the teapot to the shocked look of her serving staff. One sugar, two, three went in and was macerated in a flash. Then, even more scandalously, she proceeded to do the same for Hargreaves. If anything, it showed every servant in the room was a trusted agent of the crown. Nothing would leave this room, not even gossip.
“The economy will take care of itself,” the queen went on. “If there’s one thing we Britons are known for, it’s our management of money. War, restoration, lending to other afflicted countries, I trust my subjects to muddle through somehow. If we become embroiled in a conflict, Parliament will have to pay more than sovereigns.”
“Is it so bad, ma’am?”
“War is nigh unavoidable. The Ottomans have been in a state of stagnation ever since dirigibles made their trade routes obsolete. You’ve seen what Mordemere’s creations can do, and you were the one who made the incursion into Leyland and saw the Ottoman Balaenopteron. In my back garden! The gall!”
The queen attacked an innocent biscuit that had been sitting on her saucer, devouring the sovereign-sized morsel in a scandalous four bites. Then, more calmly, she followed it up with a sip of tea.
“The army has had the devil’s time stocking automata in preparation for those monsters, and the Royal Navy lost one of the Knights in the last debacle. We’re spread thin as it is, and I’m in the middle of negotiations with the Nipponese so we can pull back our Pacific legions. If there’s any advantage to be had, I want Great Britain to have him.”
“Him, Your Majesty?” Hargreaves’ eyebrows shot through the glass roof.
The queen was not caught off-guard. Rather, she smiled a grim line that chilled Vanessa to the bone. Victoria III leaned back in her seat, eyes enrobed in shadow even in the scintillating sunroom.
“Three agents, Hargreaves. MI6 has never lost so many, not since its inception, not on one case. It’s the newfangled automata, my dear, so powerful, and used so deviously… it’s King George and the American minutemen all over again, shooting our officers in the rough.”
“Ma’am, what was stolen?”
“I imagine there is a mole in Intelligence, which makes your involvement all the more necessary. I regard you as a capable inspector, Hargreaves; you’ve earned that right. But don’t presume to overstep your bounds.”
“Your Majesty, I… I would never,” Vanessa stammered quickly.
The queen took another cup of tea, and as Hargreaves received hers, the serving man slipped her a thick sheaf of papers.
“The box was a coffin, Hargreaves. It contains the body of a colonial officer, the last remaining of many from Bombay. A Sergeant Victor Cook, who was beset by a disease twice as contagious as consumption and even more gruesome. He showed symptoms on the twenty-ninth of March this year, and died on the first of April. A cruel joke, that. Here is the file.”
Hargreaves picked up the beige folder and looked through it. The photograms were horrendous, even in sepia. She choked back her rising gorge.
“Sergeant Cook was a good soldier, and his was the only body we saved from the
Indian heat. We sealed the body in a hermetic coffin and had it routed through civilian channels to avoid suspicion, through a firm based out of Venice. Bonham’s agents were ambushed on the Parisian terminal, and I would be lying if I said it were not good fun watching the Frenchmen sweat. We worked with the Direction Intérieur putting his box on the train, barely able to contain the automata violence.”
“What good would it do even if I do find it? You mean to use this… this corpse-maker… against the Ottomans! For God’s sake, we have to find his remains. If the thieves open the container…!”
“Obviously that was not the situation we planned. Lord Howser has Intelligence in his back pocket, and God knows what those cloaks and daggers had in mind.” The Queen sighed, as if the whole mess could have been avoided by the simple expediency of tact. “Fortunately, within the military there are still forces loyal to their Queen, chief of whom are the Knights of the Round. My intention is for the naval forces to retain control of Sergeant Cook. At the least, I can insure this weapon is delivered into the midst of my enemies, instead of used in some grab for power. I will not stand idle while a trump card lies in my grasp, Hargreaves.”
The queen’s face was set in stone now. It was the face of a matriarch resigned to her choices. Deep down Hargreaves realized she might have made the same decision in her place, and thanked her stars the choice was not hers.
“This is wrong,” Hargreaves managed. “Christ, half their forces might be unmanned steamworks. Do you really think this will turn the tide in a war that might never come?”
“War is no phantom!” The queen nearly hissed the last word. “The spectre of war is very real, but the angel of fortune favors the prepared. Retrieve this ghastly package for me, Inspector, and do it quietly. You know as well as I what may happen if you do not. Will you be our Doctor Snow, or will you be the ignoble constable who stands in his way?”
Seeing the troubled look on Vanessa’s face, the queen extended one delicate hand to grasp hers. Hargreaves looked up, shocked by Her Majesty’s gentle, undecorated fingers.
