The Immorality Engine nahi-3

by George Mann

  Newbury searched the other man’s face, puzzled. “Are we not going inside?”

  “Round the back. I want to show you how he got in.”

  Newbury nodded and trailed after Bainbridge.

  ***

  The rear of the shop was as featureless and nondescript as the rest of the buildings in the long row, save for the two uniformed bobbies who were loitering outside, kicking their heels, deep in conversation. One of them was smoking a cigarette. He swiftly cast it away when he saw Bainbridge coming, but was unable to hide the riffles of smoke that still curled from his nostrils. He quickly adjusted his posture and stood to attention, wearing a guilty expression. His companion fought to contain a wide grin.

  “Hardly surreptitious, Peters,” Bainbridge said as he approached the pair, clearly attempting to hide a chuckle at the uniformed man’s expense.

  “No, sir, not surreptitious at all, sir.” The man looked utterly crestfallen.

  Bainbridge leaned in close to him, lowering his voice. “A little tip for you, Peters. If you’re going to have a sneaky smoke while on duty, try not to get caught.”

  The man, Peters, looked visibly relieved at Bainbridge’s leniency. Veronica thought he might even grab the chief inspector by the hand. “Yes, sir. Sound advice, sir. I’ll remember it well.”

  “See that you do, Constable.” Bainbridge patted the man firmly on the shoulder, then motioned the two of them aside with a wave of his cane. He pointed it at the rear door of the shop, which was down a short flight of stone steps and across a small yard. “So here we are, Newbury. Take a look at that. See if you can’t spot anything the rest of us might have missed.”

  Newbury nodded politely at the two bobbies then crossed the street, taking the steps two at a time, and dropped to his knees in the yard, examining the flagstones along the approach to the door. Veronica followed him at a reasonable distance, keen to see what was going on without disrupting his train of thought.

  From his pocket, Newbury withdrew a small magnifying lens, about the size of a penny piece. He held it up to his right eye, clutching it between his thumb and forefinger. From where Veronica was standing, it made his eye look suddenly enormous. She stifled a laugh.

  She sensed Bainbridge moving to stand beside her and looked over at him. He stood watching Newbury with interest. “Remarkable,” he said without the slightest hint of irony.

  Veronica grinned. Bainbridge was a traditionalist. He did things the old way. That wasn’t to say that he was outmoded-far from it-but simply that his thought processes had been worn into familiar grooves over many years of policing. In most instances, this read like a shorthand that could sometimes seem like arrogance to those who didn’t know him better: He would arrive at the scene of a burglary or murder and immediately suggest the means by which the crime had been committed. It was a kind of insight, Veronica mused, a way of seeing the world through the criminal’s eyes gleaned from years of experience and many hours spent cogitating on the motives of the men he sent to the gallows, prisons, or asylums. He could walk into nine out of ten crime scenes and immediately put his finger on the solution. It was the reason he had risen so swiftly through the ranks at Scotland Yard, and the reason he was such a trusted agent to the Queen. But sometimes, on those rare occasions when his intuition failed him, when he found himself flummoxed by circumstances outside his realm of experience, he called on Newbury.

  Newbury had a knack for turning things on their head, of being able to take any situation and see it in a different light. He offered a perspective that often seemed obvious with hindsight, but represented a logical leap that many people would find unimaginable. And that made him a truly remarkable detective. He was able to glean insight from the slightest fragment of a clue. And his experience reached beyond that of the traditional detective: Newbury was an anthropologist and an expert in the occult. His work for the Queen had tended to centre on this latter trait: Newbury was the man she called in when something unusual or otherworldly was suspected, or when all of her other agents were confounded.

  Veronica watched as he scrambled around the yard on his knees, ruining his fresh suit, bowing his head so low that his nose was nearly touching the ground. He continued in this manner for some time, moving from the foot of the steps right up to the shop door and then back again. Then, suddenly imbued with energy, he leapt to his feet, pocketed his magnifying glass, and ran over to the two bobbies, who were watching all of this with growing confusion.

  “Show me the soles of your left feet,” he said, the urgency in his voice enough to cause them to both turn around and do just as he said. Newbury ran a hand through his hair, bent low to examine the proffered shoes, and then proclaimed “Ha!” before bounding back over to stand before Bainbridge. Veronica was taken aback by this sudden alteration in his behaviour, but was gladdened by it; it was more energetic a display than she had seen from him for many, many months.

  “A man, Charles. He was here late last night, after the light rain. His stride was confident and purposeful, and his shoes were flat-soled size nines.” He eyed the chief inspector triumphantly. “What size shoes did the dead man wear? Sykes?”

  Bainbridge smiled. It was clear he was relieved by Newbury’s sudden outburst of enthusiasm. Vindicated, too, she suspected, since it had been his idea to involve Newbury in the case. Although Veronica knew there was more to it than a simple desire to help Newbury find a reason to drag himself away from the opium dens, she also believed he was utterly perplexed by the mystery and in need of his friend’s assistance.

  “Size nine,” Bainbridge conceded. There was a glint in his eye. “Take a look at the rear door, Newbury.”

  Newbury was like a bloodhound that had suddenly got hold of a scent. He turned and made a beeline for the door. Veronica followed him, curious to see what he would do next.

  The door itself was a heavy wooden affair, unmarked and unremarkable, and clearly designed to keep people out. It was at least an inch thick-she could see this because it was now standing ajar-and was lockable from the inside by virtue of a large dead lock and two thick iron bolts. It had been crafted from a dark hardwood, possibly mahogany.

  Newbury was on his knees again. Veronica crouched low to see what he was looking at. He was running his hand around the inside edge of a large circular hole in the door, admiring the smooth, clean edges of the cut. The hole was about the size of a dinner plate and had been punched clear through the door. Through it she could make out a grille of iron bars-another lockable barrier between the rear yard and the shop beyond.

  “Have you seen this, Charles?” Newbury beckoned the other man over without averting his gaze from the door. “Around the hole, here.” He traced his finger around the rim of the aperture. The door sported a series of eight smaller marks, nothing but faint indentations in the wood. They were evenly spaced around the outside of the larger, central hole.

  Veronica looked at Bainbridge, who was standing over them, grinning. “Yes, I’ve seen it, Newbury. Perplexing, isn’t it?”

  Newbury stood. “Perplexing, indeed!”

  Veronica sighed. “Can someone please explain what the devil it is you’re talking about?”

  Bainbridge laughed. “Yes, I’m sorry, my dear. Allow me to explain.” He leaned on his cane. “Edwin Sykes, whom we-until now-presumed to be responsible for a series of daring and elaborate burglaries all over the city, had a most ingenious method of entering a property.”

  “Go on,” Veronica urged him.

  “Well, he’d somehow managed to lay his hands on a mechanical device. We have only secondhand reports of what it looks like, but we’ve seen the results of its work.”

  “The holes in the door?” Veronica suggested.

  “Yes, but you’ll soon see there’s more to it than that.”

  “So what is this thing, this device?”

  Newbury stood, turning to smile at her. “It’s a spider,” he said.

  “A spider?”

  “Exactly that,” he contin
ued. “A large mechanical spider. See those eight small markings in the wood around the central hole? We believe that’s how it fixes itself into place while it burrows out the main entry point. It’s a dead giveaway. I’ve never seen anything else like it.”

  “But there’s a full-height metal grille behind that door. And what use is a hole like that? Are you saying that Sykes-or whoever was responsible-reached through that opening to pick the lock on the other side? And what about the dead bolts?” Veronica gave them both a dubious look.

  “No, Miss Hobbes, that’s the clever part.” Bainbridge tugged at one corner of his moustache. “As we understand it, the spider does the lion’s share of the work. It’s a sort of automaton device, with limited intelligence. Once it’s cut the entry hole, it crawls inside and picks the locks. As many of them as are necessary to clear a path. All Sykes had to do was stand back and wait for his miraculous toy to grant him access, then stroll right in to the treasure inside.”

  Veronica looked at the hole in the door with some admiration. “A remarkable device indeed.” She searched Bainbridge’s face. “Why did you never put Sykes away for his crimes?”

  Bainbridge sighed. “There was always too much doubt. A watertight alibi. No evidence. We all suspected he was guilty, but had no way of proving it. We tried laying traps to catch him, but he was always wise to them. We investigated his financial situation, but the paper trail appeared authentic. Even searched his property once, but found nothing incriminating whatsoever.”

  “So how did you know it was him?”

  “Oh, he was guilty. I’m sure of it. Intuition, whatever. He was our man.”

  Veronica smiled. She had come to trust Bainbridge’s instinct almost as if it were her own. “We’re all guilty of something, Sir Charles. Are you sure that Sykes was guilty of exactly what you’d pinned on him?”

  Bainbridge glanced uneasily at Newbury. “I was… I was certain of it. But now… Well, you’ve both seen the body in the morgue. And then this-” He gestured to the door. “-well, it throws everything out of the window. Wait until you see inside.”

  Newbury stepped forwards and grabbed the edge of the wooden door, swinging it open towards them and revealing the full extent of the metal grille inside. It was forged from heavy iron bars and filled the doorway completely, and it was also hanging open, the lock picked. “Well,” he said, still clearly riveted by the unfolding mystery, “After you.”

  Bainbridge stepped up and pushed the grille aside. “If you’ll forgive me, Miss Hobbes-in this instance, I should rather observe safety than etiquette.”

  Veronica strode forwards and bustled past him into the dark interior of the shop. “In that case, Sir Charles, I should absolutely go first.”

  Bainbridge raised an eyebrow at Newbury, who patted his friend on the arm as he followed her inside. “No point arguing when she’s made up her mind, old man.”

  “Less of the ‘old,’ you darn fool,” he said, with mock offense, but Veronica could hear the relief in his voice. They were working together again, just like old times.

  Veronica heard the grille clang shut behind them. Bainbridge’s voice was disembodied in the darkness. “Just a moment… Ah, there!” The dull glow of a lantern filled the room, casting everything in a warm orange glow. It took her eyes a minute to adjust after the harsh sunlight.

  “Open those shutters, will you, Charles? It’s awfully dark in here,” said Newbury.

  “Sorry, Newbury. We’ll have to make do with lantern light. The shutters are locked and the darn keys are missing,” replied Bainbridge gruffly.

  Veronica glanced around. The place seemed to be opulently furnished: polished glass display cases of various shapes and sizes made a maze of the layout, and large gilt-framed mirrors adorned the walls. A fine mahogany counter stood in one corner, out of the way, as if the owner was embarrassed to remind his customers that the establishment was, in fact, a shop, and that the items within were for sale. She wondered where the owner was. Probably down at the station filling out reams of paperwork.

  Her first impression was that nothing appeared to be out of order. Unlike many of the other crime scenes she’d attended in her time, the place seemed untouched. None of the glass cases had been shattered for easy access to the jewels, no paperwork was scattered over the floor, no safe hanging open on the far wall.

  Newbury had crossed to a low rectangular cabinet and was stooped over it, examining something on its surface. She went over to join him. The cabinet was entirely devoid of jewellery. All the display trays were still in situ, but there was not a precious stone or a gold band to be seen.

  “Look.” Newbury pointed to a spot on the surface of the cabinet. A large disc had been cut out of the glass, identical in size to the hole in the door. The removed panel had been neatly placed to one side, right beside the hole. The rest of the glass pane was entirely unblemished.

  Veronica gasped in awe.

  “Exactly,” said Newbury. “There are very few tools that could cut a hole like that through a glass case, especially so quickly.”

  Bainbridge strolled over and placed his lantern on the cabinet. “And the other cases are all the same. Whoever did this worked the entire place over in the space of a couple of hours last night.”

  Newbury frowned. “It had to be Sykes. No one else could have pulled this off. It bears every hallmark-”

  “But Sykes is dead. You saw his corpse this morning, with your own eyes! We must have gotten it wrong, Newbury. We must have had the wrong man all along.”

  Newbury shook his head. “No. I can’t believe we’d be that off the mark. We’ve had him in our sights for months, if not longer. There has to be more to it!”

  Veronica watched the two men as they tried to fathom their next move. “Have you been to visit Sykes’s apartments, Sir Charles?”

  He nodded. “Yes, yesterday, before all of this happened, when we discovered he was dead.”

  “And…?”

  “And there was nothing out of sorts. Clean as a whistle. His housekeeper was still there, frantic that something might have happened to him. We found no evidence of any crimes, nothing that linked him to any of the previous burglaries. No sign of any mechanical spider, no hidden chambers on the premises.”

  Newbury shook his head in dismay. “Just like the last time you searched his rooms.”

  Veronica rapped her fingernails on the glass surface. “But we still have a mysterious death on our hands. And a burglary. Do we have any leads whatsoever?”

  “No! That’s what’s so damn infuriating. Nothing makes sense. It seems like too much of a coincidence for the death and the robbery not to be linked, but there’s no sign of any evidence, and no leads to show us where to even begin looking!” The frustration was evident in Bainbridge’s voice.

  “We do have one possible lead.” Newbury’s words were delivered quietly, contemplatively. “I admit it’s not much, but the address card you found on the body, Charles. What of the Bastion Society?”

  Bainbridge leaned forward so that his face was lit by the glow of the lantern. Veronica saw he was grinning. “Yes. By Jove, Newbury, yes! It’s not much, you’re right, but it’s something! Let’s pay them a visit this afternoon. What do you say?”

  Newbury reached for the lantern. “I’ve always wondered what that lot gets up to in that big house of theirs. I say we go poking around.”

  Veronica smiled. “Isn’t that, Sir Maurice, exactly what we do best?”

  He laughed, then scooped up the lantern and disappeared into the darkness near the door, leaving the others to find their way behind him.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Dr. Lucien Fabian hated rushing. And today, he felt nothing but rushed.

  He had arisen early, taken rounds with his patients, and then administered another battery of treatments to the Hobbes girl, all before lunch. Then Mr. Calverton had appeared with a note card from the palace, and all of a sudden he had to abandon his half-eaten beef Wellington and his ha
lf-drunk glass of merlot, get in his carriage, and head off at a phenomenal speed to see the Queen. He clutched the seat, fearful that the driver was going to lose control of the vehicle at any moment-or, perhaps worse, plough directly into the path of an oncoming ground train. They bounced over the cobbles, almost dislodging the glasses that perched precariously on the end of his nose. The engine was raging, and black smoke billowed around the carriage like a dark smear across the windows. He wondered if the driver could even see where they were going. The day had not exactly worked out as he’d anticipated.

  Then there was the Queen herself to contend with. What could she possibly want? What was more important than his work? The message had been clear-this was no medical emergency. The life-giving equipment he had cocooned her in was still in perfect working order, breathing on her behalf, pumping the blood around her veins, feeding her. So what was it? Why had he been so rudely torn away from the Grayling Institute? He hated the notion that he was permanently available for her every whim, on call like a lapdog. Was it like this for her other agents?

  Of course, Victoria refused to acknowledge his true standing at her Court. She acted as if he weren’t important in the least, like she could operate perfectly well without him. At first he’d wondered if this was a sign of her embarrassment, her way of disguising the fact that he was, perhaps, the man who now knew her most intimately of all, at least medically speaking. But he had come to alter this opinion, realising that she was simply a heartless witch.

  He chuckled at his own joke, quite literal in this case. Victoria’s heart was now nothing but a series of brass cogs and elaborate timing mechanisms, ticking beneath her rib cage like a secret, buried clock. He had constructed it for her, and placed it in her chest with his own hands. That heart was, perhaps, the finest piece of work he had ever crafted. It was a shame he hadn’t given it to someone more deserving.

  Fabian sighed and stared out the carriage window. He supposed that her attitude towards him was to be expected. She was, after all, the ruler of the biggest empire in the world. She was bound to feel the need to assert her will. But it did nothing to alter his mood as they charged on towards Buckingham Palace for an interview that he neither needed nor desired.