Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  On the short journey, I pulled the curtain across the window and positioned the wig on my head. I had been wearing my hair up under my hat that morning. Julia helped me to pin the wig in similar fashion. I’d only just got my hat back in place when we drew up at our destination. The driver showed no sign of having noticed the change.

  Once Julia had bought us two tickets for Derby, we walked swiftly to the waiting room, which was conveniently empty, and positioned ourselves out of view of the window. I then removed my hat and let down the wig, knowing that I would not be able to go about without it afterwards. Nor would I be able to return to the hotel or any other place where I had been seen with dark hair.

  As for the spy – he would be following. But such a man would never make the mistake of putting his head around the waiting room door. He would observe from somewhere in the distance, anonymous, patient for our next move. Or perhaps, having asked at the ticket office and learned our destination, he would check the timetable and board our coach at its next stop.

  Thus, when he did reveal himself it shocked me to the core. We had been sitting perhaps five minutes when the splash of sunlight on the waiting room floor was interrupted by the shadow of a man, his image strangely foreshortened by the angle of the sun. Such was the distortion that I couldn’t say if he was stocky or slim. I watched the shadow move its hand and raise its bowler hat, as if in greeting. The gesture was unnaturally slow. Mocking, I thought. Then he tapped his fingertips on the glass, leaving no doubt that the message was intended for us.

  In a blink he was gone.

  “He knows we know,” said Julia.

  “Good,” I said managing a bright smile, though my stomach churned.

  At a quarter to one the Derby coach rolled to a stop outside. We could hear the rattle of wood and brass and the clop of hooves as the horse team was changed. The station master shouted instructions. Porters called to each other as they started unloading.

  The waiting room door swung open and a man in a bowler hat looked in. “Tickets for Derby?” Then he was gone. The door creaked closed on its spring. It could have been him. But so could half the men in Ashbourne.

  We stepped out onto the platform. Julia handed her case to one of the porters who hefted it up to a second man, perched on the high rack. When he reached for my case, I shook my head.

  I kissed Julia on the cheek. We held each other’s gaze for a moment. There was no need to put on an act. The anxiety we felt would pass for the significance of a parting. Then I turned my back and walked away, hoping we had been correct and it was Julia he would follow. Hoping also that she would be safe.

  I looked out of place sitting on a park bench with my suitcase next to me. But still more out of place was Tinker. An elegant couple taking the air startled as he dodged past them. Having kept to the shadow of the tree line like an insect afraid to be scorched by the sun, he arrived at my side, panting and conspicuous. Aware of disapproving looks, I dipped into my purse as if rummaging for small coins.

  “Hold out your hand,” I whispered. “No. The other way up – as if you’re begging.”

  He did as he was told, though I had the impression he would have preferred people to think he was stealing than asking for a handout.

  “Did you manage it?” I asked.

  “Course I did!”

  “Did he see you?”

  Tinker shook his head vigorously. “Soon as you’s off, he’s chasing on a pedal cycle. Found the back way in. Then I’m up the stairs to his room. Door’s left half open.”

  Tinker dipped inside his ragged shirt and extracted a handful of scrunched papers.

  “From the waist bin?” I asked.

  “Under the mattress.”

  From which I gathered that the scrunching had been all Tinker’s work. The boy was illiterate. Paper was just kindling to him. He would surely have ignored it but for my explicit instructions.

  “I’m going away now, Tinker,” I said, taking a golden Guinea from my purse and trying to place it on his palm. He snatched back his hand as if the metal had burned him.

  “Take it! Hide it in your shoe. You won’t be able to follow me.”

  “I can follow!”

  “Not any more. I want you in Derby. Go to Upper Wharf Street. You remember the place? You followed me there, I think. But go in the daytime.”

  “Better at night,” he said.

  “Didn’t you see the man who followed me there – snarling and drooling?”

  “Yeah. And more like him.”

  “Well then.”

  Tinker tilted his head like a confused puppy. “What d’you want with me in Derby?”

  “Mrs Raike’s Charitable Foundation feeds poor orphans. And there’s a school and–...”

  “Nah,” he said. “Best stay with you.”

  “It’s too dangerous. I can’t look after you.”

  He grinned then, as if I’d made a joke. I tried to grab his arm but he twisted and scampered away. When I looked down, I saw the gold coin still in my hand.

  It was a short walk to the Buxton Road, where I easily found the stables which were just as Julia had described them. The stable-master was a man who seemed more accustomed to using his mouth for chewing tobacco than speaking. He wore the peak of his flat cap low, making his emotions hard to read, but I felt comfortable enough in his presence. There were many of his type on the North Leicester Wharf.

  His wife offered the use of the parlour in their cottage. Such a small room should have had less china on display. I doubted any of it had been used. She brought me a pot of tea and a cup of more ordinary design.

  Alone at last, I retrieved from my travelling case the papers that Tinker had stolen and laid them out on the floor in front of the fireplace. First were air and coach tickets. Some I noted used, others remained open. Taken together they described a journey – first class from Liverpool to Nottingham in early March, then from Nottingham to Derby where he stayed a week before catching the coach to Ashbourne. That final ticket was dated close to the day when Julia had taken the same trip. There was also an open airship ticket for a return to Liverpool, which seemed good for travel from any major terminus.

  I slipped the tickets into my purse and moved on to the next sheets – pages cut from the Nottingham Post. I flattened them out, searching for a mark that might indicate which articles he had been reading. There was nothing. I held the papers up to the window, looking for the pinpricks of a secret message. Again, nothing. Yet they must have significance – since the man had kept the pages hidden.

  The final two sheets were messages printed on notepaper. The same hand had written each, though with different pens. Fold marks suggested they might have been enclosed in envelopes. As for what they said – this I could not tell, for they were written in code.

  It was mid- afternoon before Julia arrived.

  “He was with me in the carriage!” she exclaimed as soon as we were alone. “I’m sure it was him. He wore a bowler.”

  “As do half the men of England.”

  “But he smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.” She pulled back her lips in imitation.

  Julia had led a sheltered life. I wondered if experience had yet equipped her to recognise lechery.

  “Were you alone with him in the carriage?”

  “Quite alone.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “He had no luggage.”

  I considered this. Lack of luggage was a stronger indication. We had given our spy no time to prepare for his journey. But I was not convinced that a man of such ability would show his face.

  “Did anyone join the coach at the first stop?”

  She nodded. “But they wore top hats. I stepped out the other door as they entered. To take some air, I said, as if coach sick. But then I whispered my request to the driver and passed him money for his trouble. It worked, - just as you said it would. He drove on without warning, leaving the men no chance to follow me. The next stop was Brailsford! They’ll be miles away by now.”

  I w
asn’t so confident of her identification. How difficult was it for a man to change his hat? Indeed, showing a bowler might have been the very reason he had allowed his shadow to fall on the waiting room floor. The permutations were endless. Double bluffs. Triple bluffs. Thinking about it made my mind feel tangled. However, I did believe we had now thrown him off our trail.

  “Did you meet anyone as you walked back into town?” I asked.

  “I came directly to you.”

  “Our spy will be heading this way by now. And your travelling case will be in Derby. If you don’t claim it within the month, they’ll auction it off to the highest bidder.”

  She grinned at that. The beige case had been a gift from her mother. Someone might pay well on a gamble that the contents were as pretty as the calfskin exterior. Their reward would be a stack of towels embroidered with the name of the Green Man and Black’s Head Hotel. A brown paper parcel containing Julia’s things had been waiting at the stables when I arrived.

  “Was it worth it?” she asked. “Did the boy do his job?”

  I fetched the papers and laid them out on the rug. She blanched when she saw the coach ticket from Derby to Ashbourne. Retrieving her own ticket, she laid the two side by side. The date and time of travel were identical.

  “Can you remember any of the passengers?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t really looking.”

  “And no one on the coach today seemed familiar?”

  Seeing her distress, I put the tickets to one side and laid out the coded messages. They were composed of letters and numbers arranged in groups. I cast my eye over the first line, reminding myself of the conclusion I had drawn.

  C 7 3. D 1 9. A 22 3. E 31 1. E 8 7.

  “I fear we've little chance of unscrambling it,” I said.

  She picked up the first sheet and scanned it. I had been using a pen and paper, scrawling notes in a vain attempt to work it out. Julia now took the pen and began making a tally of each letter and number used.

  “Properly speaking, unscrambling isn't the correct word,” she said, her tone sounding somewhat superior.

  “It couldn't be more scrambled if it were an egg!”

  “No,” she said, seeming to have missed my irritation. “The letters will have been substituted rather than mixed.”

  In my several years of intelligence gathering, I’d never studied codes. From afar the subject had seemed overly mathematical, which had perhaps put me off. And it had not previously impinged on my investigations.

  “Some letters are more commonly used in English than others,” Julia explained, as if to a child. “These are likely to come up more often in the message. I’m looking for patterns in what’s been written. It could be the individual letters and numbers or–...”

  “I don’t remember discussing codes with you,” I said.

  She blushed. “Oh... this wasn’t from our lessons.”

  I wondered at her words. And at why she hadn’t mentioned the subject to me before. She usually found it hard to contain her enthusiasms. But as I watched her work, I began to understand how the subject might resonate with her nature. The mathematical aspect of encryption had deterred me. But she would be attracted by it in equal measure. An uncompromising logic characterised her approach to life. Often it disadvantaged her but here it might work the other way.

  She frowned as she copied down number and letter combinations. The tip of her tongue projected from her mouth, curling up to touch her upper lip. She tapped her fingers against the pen. “What might he have been writing?” she asked.

  “That’s what you’re trying to find out, isn’t it?”

  “I mean, what words might he have needed to use?”

  “The? And? I?”

  “Longer words. With double letters.”

  “Nottingham?” I suggested.

  “That’s good.”

  “Surveillance.”

  “Very good.”

  But after twenty minutes, she pushed the papers away in irritation and began massaging her brow. I found myself smiling, though I knew it unworthy. When she looked up, I quickly replaced my expression with a frown of sympathy.

  Chapter 21

  Some weeds are pinched out before they grow. Others are uprooted. But the most pernicious of all must be harrowed from the soils of history.

  From Revolution

  There is nothing good to be said for sleeping in a barn. A pile of hay looks soft enough from a distance, but up close there is always a brittle point to poke into your skin. Julia had fallen asleep directly. But unfamiliar sounds kept me awake. At first it had been the scurrying of small creatures. Rats or mice, I supposed. They only went quiet when an owl flew in to perch on a high beam. I know it was an owl because of its screech, which repeated every few minutes thereafter.

  The stable master’s wife fussed over us as she served breakfast, apologising that the cottage was so small and that there were no spare beds. I gathered that it was not uncommon for travellers to stay. But they had never had ‘real ladies’ sleeping in the barn before. Sleep was too strong a word for it.

  Breakfast was thickly cut bacon, coarse bread and sweet tea. By the third cup, my mood had softened. And when the clop of horses entering the courtyard announced the arrival of our guides, I even managed to smile.

  “Exactly six days late,” Julia whispered, though she was smiling also.

  The older of the two guides introduced himself as Gideon. His hair was shockingly white against tanned skin. The other, a boy by comparison, was called Peter. He must have been twenty years older than us. Their clothes were simple, almost identical, except that Gideon had loops of coarse twine tied around his sleeves just above the elbow and around his legs just below the knee.

  “I’m Miss Swain and this is Miss Brooke,” said Julia. We had decided that Elizabeth was common enough for me to risk keeping, but that even in the wilds it would be foolhardy to use my real surname.

  “Happy to meet with you,” said Gideon in an accent that was unfamiliar to me.

  The men had dismounted and were standing with their hands clasped in front of them, as if they had been ordered to keep from fidgeting by the teacher of a Sunday school.

  “Well,” I said. “Had we better be going?”

  Nodding, Gideon stepped towards the stable block. But as I watched him go, I realised that Peter had remained standing and was looking at me. When I turned to face him again, he quickly looked away and hurried off in the direction of the privy.

  I watched him go then whispered to Julia: “Did you see him staring?”

  She stifled a giggle. “I think he admires you.”

  “If he recognised me...”

  “There’re no Postal Offices on the high moorland,” she said. “So no fugitive posters either.”

  At this point, Gideon returned leading our mounts. Julia touched my arm as if to say I needn’t worry then walked around the ponies in an imitation of one who knew fetlock from withers. The stable master placed a sheaf of legal documents and a pen in my hand. These I read as best I could. In short, they seemed to say that we were receiving beasts in good health and would be liable for their condition on their return. But the terminology was arcane so it was impossible to be certain.

  “We shouldn’t sign without first understanding,” Julia said, now back at my side.

  It didn’t seem the place to point out that, whatever the words meant, I would be committing fraud by signing under a false name. And by adding her own name in knowledge of my deception, she would be an accessory.

  “Were you to read it for a month, you’d still be none the wiser,” I said, putting the pen in her hand.

  She pouted as she scratched her signature next to mine.

  Some women maintain the side-saddle to be a wondrous invention. But to me, it is damning proof of the illogicality of our world. The right knee must be hooked over the upper pommel, while the left foot is supposedly supported by a single stirrup, which dangles unnaturally high on the horse’s flank. The sa
ddle feels too tall and the sitting position too far back so that the reins must be excessively long.

  The stable master had chosen our saddles. Julia seemed comfortable on hers. But mine was a few inches too small with the result that my posterior was extended over the far side of the horse in a manner that was possibly indecent and definitely uncomfortable.

  In such fashion we set out. Julia and I bumped along next to each other. Our guides rode far enough ahead that Peter may have thought we would not see the bottle he passed to Gideon. Suspicious, I kept close watch. But the drink passed from one to the other and it seemed each took equal share.

  After an hour of steady climbing, I looked back and was surprised to see how far we had come . The valley floor appeared flat between the jaws of the escarpment on either side. Red kites circled high above the ridge. I scanned the line of the track, searching for any sign that we might have been followed.

  “This is the life I’ve dreamed,” said Julia, breaking in on my thoughts.

  “Riding?”

  “The law,” she said. “The pursuit of justice. Our journey has confirmed me. These experiences may be commonplace to you, but the circle of my horizon has been spread so far in these last few days that I hardly think I’m the same person.”

  “Then I’m pleased for you. But this is new to me also. I never saw such hills in the Kingdom.”

  “You rode through the countryside though – as a child of the circus.”

  “Not on one of these,” I said, patting the saddle. “Back then, I rode as the men and boys did.”

  Julia blushed. “Isn’t that unnatural? For a woman, I mean.”

  “How so?”

  “Our bodies,” she whispered. “We may wish the opportunities of men, but we’re formed in a different way.”