Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  I forced myself to look back to the performance. The entire right leg of Jeremiah Tuesday now looked like an illustration from a medical textbook. Dr Foxley was working to expose a great artery in the thigh.

  “Though the brain of a murderer is an organ perverted from its natural purpose, yet the geography of his circulatory system is much the same as any of us here. Indeed, we would find little difference in the arteries of a gorilla or a chimpanzee.”

  I had shifted back from the rail, out of the eye line of those around me. Now I sidestepped to the walkway and silently moved to the exit.

  As I ran back along the corridor, the door to the operating theatre closed on its springs with a dull thud. My footfalls echoed off the bare walls.

  Then the theatre door creaked open again. I had reached the stairs but there was no time for thought. More on instinct than through logic I continued three more paces and jinked through a side door, mercifully unlocked. Inching it closed behind me, I stood gulping air in the near darkness, trying to hear beyond the pulse booming in my ears.

  The crisp click of hard leather soles on stone approached along the corridor at a brisk walk. The door was still open a crack, for I had not dared risk the sound of the latch. Every muscle in my body tensed. Then the footsteps switched rhythm as my pursuer began climbing the stairs. The sound grew fainter until I could hear it no more.

  Time in the basement room passed slowly. The man who had followed me did not return but I dared not leave.

  It was not his sidelong glance at me that had given him away. Rather it was the fact that he had tried to hide it afterwards. In retrospect, my suspicions should have been raised by the way he had positioned himself next to me when the whole row had been empty. Also by the way he had engaged me in conversation, probing my level of experience, apparently giving me more information than he received but revealing nothing of himself.

  The man was an intelligence gatherer and no doubt could there be about it. I didn’t think he could know my real identity. Thus he wasn’t after the reward from the Duke of Northampton. Most likely he had been commissioned by the gentleman I had robbed of his ticket. But it was also possible that he was the man who had kept such skilful watch on Julia in Ashbourne.

  I had seen enough to understand that fortunes were being made. There had been at least fifty men in the room. Each had paid fifty guineas. This was one of many such demonstrations. The body of Mr Tuesday had been procured by legal means. I wondered if there might be private shows for select clients using bodies otherwise obtained.

  Two hours after I had fled, I heard the door to the operating theatre creak open and the audience begin to leave. On arrival they had spoken to each other in whispers. Now the only sound was their footfalls. I slipped in behind them, quickening my pace so that by the time we spilled out onto the pavement, I was hidden in the middle of the crowd.

  The sky was quite dark. Several carriages were already waiting and I saw that others were queued up down the road. Men touched their hats and nodded their farewells before climbing in and riding away. I scanned the road for a public carriage, but all were privately owned. At fifty guineas a ticket it could not have been otherwise.

  The queue of carriages continued to roll forwards, picking up the wealthy men one by one. The crowd thinned. Anything I did would draw attention – walking away, asking for a ride with one of the others, remaining where I was until they had all departed. If my pursuer was watching, he would have me.

  Making a snap decision I strode out of the crowd, passing four of the queuing carriages and opening the door of the fifth. I climbed up and in.

  “Sir?” the coachman called. “You’ve made a mistake.”

  “My apologies,” I said, then opened the opposite door and climbed out again. The line of carriages now hid me from the crowd and the hospital doors. I strode away, listening for anyone following. But the chinking of harness and the clack of horseshoes on stone was too loud. I glanced over my shoulder. A figure in a top hat stepped between two of the carriages. He was silhouetted against the lights from the hospital immediately behind him. For a second we both stood immobile. Then he started towards me at a run. I was off, sprinting away from him.

  Cursing myself for not mapping a getaway route, I grabbed the end of the railings and sling-shotted myself around a corner into the same narrow passageway in which I’d picked the pocket of the servant.

  I heard my pursuer pounding around the corner just before I reached the dogleg. I might pretend to run like a man, but I didn’t have a man’s speed. He was out of the dogleg well before I reached the end of the passage. I turned again, down a road too narrow for pavements. Overhead walkways linked factories on either side.

  I counted my footfalls until I heard him loud again. The gap was fifty yards and closing. The lifts in my boots made me taller, but didn’t help me to run. He would have me before the end of the street. So I jagged right into a courtyard, hoping for a doorway, finding only a metal fire escape. My feet clanged on the cast-iron, making it ring as I zigzagged towards the roof. He was just two flights below me. I could hear his breath rasping.

  At the top, I found a pitched roof flanked by a narrow walkway and low balustrade. I couldn’t outpace him along the flat, so began to scramble up the slates towards the apex. I’d escaped across rooftops before.

  A slate slid and crashed behind me. The man swore and I felt the first flutter of hope. I’d reached the ridge tiles and was standing with one foot on either side. The man was only a few paces behind and below me. But he was struggling. As I watched, his foot slid from under him and his knee dropped, cracking another slate.

  I began walking, arms stretched out for balance. My breath felt ragged in my throat but the distance between us had begun to grow. I’d found my first advantage. There was a chimney- breast ahead of me. I heard him sliding down the slates. Then he was running along the flat fringe of the roof, keeping pace with me.

  Steadying myself with a hand on the chimney bricks, I turned to face him.

  “There’s nowhere to run,” he shouted. “You can’t stay up there all night.”

  “Follow me if you can,” I said, then stepped down the far side of the roof from him. Once out of sight I crabbed across to hide behind the brickwork of the chimney. Immediately he was clambering up the slates. I should have brought my pistol. But I’d been afraid of being searched on entering the hospital. I pulled out my fountain pen and unclipped the lid.

  Another slate crashed just beyond the ridge. I flattened myself to the bricks. I could hear his exertion as he hauled himself up over the top. Instead of standing where balance would have been easy, he hunkered low.

  I gripped the pen like a dagger and launched myself at his back. The impact knocked him off balance and we both began to slide. I wrapped my arm around his neck. We were picking up speed. He struggled, digging his heels into the roof. A slate cracked and his foot went half through bringing us to a sudden stop just short of the edge. He threw his shoulders forwards and I felt myself being lifted, almost thrown over him towards the balustrade. I held on tighter. Then his head lashed backwards and I slammed into the roof and lost grip of his neck. As he began to twist, I lunged, jabbing the pen into his spine.

  He froze.

  I looped my arm around his neck again and whispered. “I’ll stab you to the heart.”

  “You don’t have the balls,” he said.

  “Then try me!”

  “You couldn’t watch a dead man being cut. You won’t do it.”

  I pushed the pen nib hard enough to put ink under his skin. He would feel the prick of it. And the mark would stay with him till he died. “Unbuckle your belt,” I said.

  With him face down on the slates, I looped the belt around his wrists and pulled it tight, tying the loose end so it couldn’t work free. For good measure I slid his trousers down his legs so they bunched around his ankles. He’d be hobbled if he got to his feet. Pushing against his shoulder, I slid him off the slope of the roof so he f
ell face down in the narrow gap next to the balustrade.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked.

  “You don’t know already?”

  I pressed my knee between his shoulder blades and leant all my weight on it. He groaned.

  “Who?” I released the pressure so he could speak. At first I thought he was gasping for air. Then I realised he was laughing.

  “Idiot!” he said. “You pull a stunt like this and you don’t even know who you’ve crossed.”

  I pressed down again, knowing it would hurt. “Who?”

  “You – won’t – kill – me.” The words escaped from his mouth as the air was forced from him.

  He was right. Killing was not in my nature. Reaching under his neck, I fumbled the cravat free. It was fine silk. The light was too low to be sure of its colour. I threaded it around underneath his head as a blindfold and tied it tight. Then I heaved him onto his back and knelt on his chest.

  “That hurts,” he said.

  I unbuttoned his coat and pulled a heavy flick knife from the pocket. I’d never seen one so large. I pressed the catch and felt it judder in my hand as it snapped open. The blade was long and keen, designed to kill. I turned it in my hand but could find no patent mark. That made it a dangerous weapon to own. But for the time being it would serve better than my pretend dagger. I put away my pen.

  “You really are lost,” he said.

  “Then tell me who you work for.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  I frisked his jacket one handed and came away with a wallet and some small papers.

  “Then perhaps your pockets will talk.”

  I opened the wallet to find found three Republic pound notes. They were crisp, as if freshly issued. I folded them into my pocket and tossed the wallet to the side. I was earning more freely through robbery than I ever had as an intelligence gatherer.

  “Why did you follow me?” I asked.

  “You stole a valuable ticket. You think that goes unreported?”

  “You don’t work for the police.”

  His laugh had no warmth. I tried to ignore it as I began leafing through the papers from his pocket. Most were receipts. A couple were from restaurant meals. Three were cab fares. Two kinds of people keep such ephemera – the obsessive and those who wish to claim back money from an employer. Then I found a used coach ticket.

  Angling it to catch the light of the moon, which was almost full, I read: First Class. Ashbourne to Derby. The date stamp matched my departure from the Green Man and Black’s Head. The man under my knee was the spy who had been keeping watch on us.

  “You work for Dr Foxley,” I said.

  “Bravo.”

  I pulled the cravat from his eyes, making sure the knife blade was the first thing he saw. Though he had watched me go about as a woman, I didn’t think he would see through my disguise in the dark with the moon behind me. But I needed to be able to recognise him if our paths crossed again.

  I examined the lines and angles of his face.

  “I know who you are,” he said.

  “You’ve never seen me before.”

  “But now I do. I suppose you’ve been told this before – but you’re very like your sister. You are Edwin Barnabus, I presume?”

  “And you’re W. Keppler,” I said, fanning out the visiting cards I had taken from his pocket.”

  “How careless of me,” he said. At which point I realised the cards must be false.

  “The name will do for now.”

  “I have a message for your sister,” he said. “It’s about her friend.”

  I reacted without thinking, shifting the knife closer to his cheek. He flinched but when it didn’t touch him, the flicker of alarm was replaced by a slow smile.

  “Killers don’t wear gloves,” he said. “You’ve got to want to feel it going into their flesh. And the blood – it ruins leather.”

  I touched the flat of the blade to his neck. “What did you mean about my sister’s friend?”

  “I mean, I’m going to tell you something. We’ve been trying to reach her. You’ll be the perfect messenger boy. Her friend’s going to be taken to Derby tomorrow night. Interesting things will happen there. Painful things. If your sister wants to stop them, she’d better be at the gates of the Ice Factory at nine o’clock.”

  “Her friend’s long gone!” I hissed the words between my teeth.

  “Oh, I’m afraid you’re wrong. Her friend’s securely tied.”

  “No,” I said. Though I’d not heard from Julia since she left with Mrs Raike. “She’s out of your reach!”

  “She?” he laughed again. The sound made the hairs stand on the back of my neck. “Not that friend. Not the girl. It’s the urchin boy. She seems fond of him. You know how women are.”

  Chapter 32

  If man is possessed of free will, the future cannot be set. Thus the history of an empire may stand balanced, waiting for a breath of air to choose the direction of its fall.

  From Revolution

  Keppler did not thrash around or try to escape as I walked. He wouldn’t have wanted to give me that satisfaction. Nor would I have given him the satisfaction of knowing how desperate I was to get away. But I accelerated as soon as I was around the corner of the roof and out of his view. The thought of him following made me feel sick. I hurried back down the fire escape then ran from the building, pausing only to drop his knife down a drain.

  I arrived back at the guest house, desperate with fatigue. Seeing the downstairs windows dark, I risked the front entrance. No one saw me as I slipped through the hallway to my room.

  I closed the door behind me and heaved the chest of drawers in front of it. Then I stripped off my male disguise, unwound the binding and removed my chemise, which was damp with perspiration. I stood naked in the unlit room.

  The binding cloth and a corset had been familiar to me since I turned thirteen and my body began to change. With each I presented a different aspect to the world. And depending on that aspect, the world treated me differently. Neither role seemed more strange to me.

  Standing alone and unclothed, I was gripped by a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. At first I could not give it a name.

  I remembered the naked corpse and found myself wondering what had become of the dissected parts. They would be burned, I supposed, rather than buried. Either way, they would end up as dust. Given time, so would I and all the grand gentlemen who had watched the autopsy.

  In death, laid out and inert, they had named Jeremiah Tuesday as a member of the criminal classes. It had seemed strange to me at the time. But now I understood. They’d needed to make such show of classifying him precisely because he was naked – un-uniformed so to speak. Else, in death he would be level with them all.

  There I stood alone in a guesthouse room, un-uniformed also. I, who committed the taboo of mutability. I stepped between roles. I eluded class by being a traveller yet educated, a foreigner in exile. A chameleon. What would they say of me if I had not escaped across the rooftop, if my pursuer had clicked his knife and slipped it between my ribs? How would I have been defined in death?

  Here is a woman from the criminal class. A liar, trickster, conjuror, impersonator, a breaker of every social code. A gypsy. An anarchist. A cancer. An underminer of the foundations of the world.

  I had lost count of the rules I’d broken since fleeing from the Kingdom. Theft, robbery, breaking and entering, making threats to life, using forged documents.

  I looked down at my body, ran a hand from my breast over my waist to my hip. The outline was too curved for me to be mistaken for a man, yet not curved enough to fit the ideal of womanhood. The faint lines of muscle on my arms and stomach suggested a labourer, yet my hands were as smooth as a lawyer’s.

  I pulled back the bedcovers and lay down. Those few who knew of my adventures thought them a facet of my character. As if hiding came naturally and living as an imposter had no cost. Perhaps they fancied I would always be able to reach a little furthe
r or perform some magic trick to escape. They couldn’t see the narrowness of the tightrope I walked.

  The hollow feeling gripped me again. This time I knew its name was loneliness.

  Chapter 33

  There are but a few with the capacity and education to understand a system asso complex as revolution with its many principles, actors and workings. To the rest is given the capacity to believe.

  From Revolution

  The day of my meeting with John Farthing had arrived. According to our agreement, he would have searched the archive for mention of Dr. Erasmus Foxley. I made my way to Bridlesmith Gate. But instead of entering the tea shop he had nominated, I selected a similar establishment on the opposite side of the road.

  I told myself this contrary act was a precaution. From my table, I would have a good view of the street. If Farthing had had a change of heart and brought the constables, I would be able to watch as he led them into the wrong building. His chosen tea shop was austere, even by Republican standards. This one had tiered cake platters in the window display. I knew he would hate it.

  I had never asked where in America he came from. He had an expansive stride that suggested wide open spaces. It was so unlike the clipped movements of English gentlemen that I spotted him approaching from the end of the street. It seemed wrong to me that a man who walked without restraint could hold the law in such close affection.

  He had halved the distance to the tea shop when I realised he was not alone. Another man strode beside him, hurrying to keep up. He wore a longer coat than Farthing’s and a top hat instead of a Homburg, yet there was something about the two men that was indefinably alike.