Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

From Revolution

  Having fulfilled my part of the bargain, I sat in the secret room behind the bookcase and delivered my report. The woman I had known as Mrs Raike sat opposite. Devoid of her disguise, she wore no wedding ring. Foxley believed the Minister of Patents had no niece. It had not made sense to me at me at the time. But now I understood she was unmarried. Her greatest secret had been her daughter. Her tragedy would be to grieve in secret also.

  Antonia had been in deep freeze for over a month. Like all the other victims in the ice dormitory, she might be woken but her mind would be gone. It was news worse than death. Yet, whenever I tried to soften my account, Antonia’s mother saw through the evasion and challenged me to be faithful. Thus I revealed the full horror of Erasmus Foxley’s lair. Certain episodes I was made to repeat in greater detail. Through all this she sat still and upright, as if made of porcelain.

  “I don’t think the owners of the ice factory were part of the plot,” I said. “But some of the workers may have been. You’ll need to call the constabulary.” I handed her the papers I’d taken from the frozen body. “This is evidence. You’ll need to move quickly, before they clean the place up.”

  When I’d finished my report, she thanked me. But a touch might have broken her.

  “What’ll you do?” I asked, meaning what would she do about Antonia.

  Instead of answering my intended question, she said: “I will talk to my brother – about the extradition treaty. He’ll do what he can.”

  I was taken by carriage to a magnificent house set in parkland beyond the sprawl of the city. The usual rules of Republican architecture did not apply, a footman told me, because it dated from before the Revolutionary War.

  I was led through a series of halls and state rooms to a study big enough to contain the wharf keeper’s cottage in its entirety and still have space to walk around the outside. A huge oil painting of Ned Ludd hung above the marble fireplace. The glass fronts on the book cabinets were closed and the only object on the desk was a carriage clock.

  Ten minutes ticked past before the Minister of Patents, Councillor Wallace Jones, entered the room. He looked so much like his sister that I found myself blinking to clear my vision. My eyes flicked involuntarily to his neck.

  “We meet at last,” he said. As he spoke, his Adam’s apple shuttled up and down.

  He gestured for me to sit.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ll be anxious to know the results of our efforts. I wish there was a simpler explanation to give. Please bear with me.

  “There are factions within the Council. Any proposed change in legislation, however innocuous, is pounced upon by one group or another. Each faction will try to add unrelated amendments to their own benefit. If you’ve never been in politics it’s hard to understand.”

  “I was brought up in a travelling show,” I said. “We called it horse trading.”

  “Quite so,” he said. “I shouldn’t have assumed. Then in your terms – one side would wish to buy your horse and the other side wouldn’t. Some enjoy giving the Kingdom a poke in the eye. They are champing to sign your amendment. Others moan about trade implications and would block it.”

  “You’re coming around to telling me you haven’t been able to help,.” I said.

  “Not quite. The long and the short of it is, they wouldn’t take the amendment. Not in the same bill. But a law banning the retrospective application of the extradition treaty will be waved through exactly one week later. It means you’ll need to remain in hiding for that week. Then – with the second law passed – you’ll be free to remain in the Republic for as long as you wish.”

  I remembered what his sister had implied about a lack of ability. “This was your idea?”

  “It was indeed mine. Or rather, my private secretary’s.”

  “The second law is certain?”

  “I have assurances cast in iron.”

  I stared into the fireplace. The legal manoeuvring he described was ingenious. It was a lawyer’s trick. By timing things just so, all the interned Kingdom exiles would be sent back across the border as soon as the first law was signed. By the time the amendment was passed a week later it would be too late for any of them to appeal. The Republic would be rid of them and the Kingdom would have reclaimed its criminals. All but one. How neat it was, I thought. How face-saving.

  I thought back to the internment camp. I flexed my ankle, remembering how the iron had cut into my flesh.

  “I have a friend among the exiles,” I said.

  “A friend?”

  “Her name is Tulip Slater. I’d like her saved also.”

  “This friend – what did she run from? What was her crime?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yet you wish her saved?”

  “By whatever means.”

  In the days that followed, my time was divided between the study, a bedroom with a huge four-poster and the formal gardens, which I took to walking in whenever the house grew oppressive.

  Servants brought food and every morning I found the newspapers had been laid out on the desk. In these I read about the end of Erasmus Foxley’s empire. Three doctors were arrested and charged with bodysnatching, as were five workers from the ice factory.

  The report of Foxley’s death did not emerge until the third day. He had been murdered like all the others, the papers said. At first, I wondered why they were suppressing the truth. But some shadows are not seemly to dispel. There could be no way back for those piteous ones frozen in the ice dormitory. Murder is an offence against the law and against the world. Yet I found myself hoping that someone would end the lives of those poor souls for mercy’s sake.

  On the sixth day, an entire page was devoted to funeral notices for the victims and I knew that it had been done. I began reading but couldn’t finish. Instead, I turned my gaze to the windows and watched the rain falling gently on the gardens. The rhododendron bushes were in full flower, branches bowed low under the weight of blossom.

  At half past three in the afternoon with the chimes of the clock still ringing, the door opened and I turned, as ever hoping to see the Minister or his footman carrying news. But in walked the unmistakable figure of Yan Romero, solicitor, resplendent in green corduroy, with a waistcoat so purple that it put the flowers to shame. He lifted his top hat, placed his other hand on his rounded stomach and bowed.

  “I am at your service,” he said.

  “You!”

  “No other.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Your benefactor – aren’t you moving in lofty circles these days – he was searching for help in saving a woman, Tulip Slater, from imminent extradition. Thus, I am here. And humbly at your service.”

  I’d seen two faces of this lawyer – mercurial salesman and brutal opponent. Here was a third to add to the collection.

  “Humbly?” I asked.

  “Indubitably,” he said.

  “You’re being paid then?”

  “Handsomely.”

  “The newspapers haven’t mentioned the treaty. When is it due?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Then you should be at the internment camp!”

  “It’s not so easy. Yet it may be achieved. The principle is this – we lodge some spurious appeal against her extradition. It cannot win. But neither can it be ignored. Thus, they must hold a hearing. But in that time the second law will have been signed – and your friend still on this side of the border.”

  “Then do it!” I cried.

  “But our appeal – it must have grounds. Enough to force a judge to take consideration. We cannot say she was born in the Republic – there’s a birth certificate to prove otherwise. Thus we must claim some failure of process. If she was perhaps arrested without proper caution…”

  “I wasn’t there to see.”

  “Or if her treatment was degrading.”

  “We were chained.”

  “You were prisoners. Chains are part of the uniform, so to speak.”<
br />
  “At first they didn’t feed us.”

  “But they did eventually.”

  “And they gave us no light. They–…”

  “No light?” he cut in. “That will do. Indeed that’s perfect. With no light one cannot prepare a legal defence. There are precedents. But we need a witness. Could you testify to this effect?”

  “I can’t go to the camp,” I said. “They’d send me across the border with the rest of them.”

  “No, no, no,” he said with a trill. “For the same appeal can be lodged both ways. You each testify for the other.”

  I examined his face, animated now with anticipation. To win a case against the Republic – he would be the toast of the London lawyers for years to come.

  “What guarantee do I have?”

  “You have the law, Miss Barnabus. The law shall be your guarantee. Even the governments of our nations must bow down before it.”

  I had never before travelled by private airship. We took off from a mooring pole at the back of the mansion. The pilot shook our hands as we climbed aboard. Romero and I were the only passengers. The carriage was small, there being but four seats behind the pilot. The envelope above us was narrow. And though there was but one propeller, we accelerated more rapidly than I would have thought possible. Within minutes we had reached our flying altitude and the landscape was slipping past beneath us.

  Romero leaned back with his hands behind his head. He was in his element – riding high at the expense of the Republic, flying in luxury to take on a different arm of the same government. He had been commissioned to save Tulip. I trusted him that far and no further.

  I watched him exploring the walnut cabinets in front of his seat. One contained cut- glass decanters. He poured himself a brandy. His nostrils flared as he swirled the glass.

  “Republicans, eh?. Behind closed doors they’re no different from us.” Then he threw back his drink in one, his eyes fixed on mine as he swallowed. “You’re most loyal to your friend,” he said.

  “I’m in her debt.”

  “Honour among thieves?”

  “We’re not thieves.”

  “True,” he said. “You’re merely an absconder and she... do you even know her story?” He must have seen that I didn’t. “Ah – you should choose your friends with care, Elizabeth. Tulip Slater is notorious. She killed her own father, accusing him after the event of unbearable provocation and sundry abuses. But him not being alive to answer, it was she who would stand trial. Except that she ran. A court case awaits her. She would hang, no doubt, if it was put to the test. The public are hungry for every detail that would emerge.”

  The airship came down at the Anstey Terminus, drifting to a stop behind the main hangars in an area I’d not seen before. The minister must have sent a pigeon ahead because a steam car was waiting for us, luxurious as the airship had been. The interior walls and ceiling were upholstered in grey velvet.

  I was closing the door, but Romero put out a hand to stop me. A cadaverous man whose jacket was too short for his arms had been loitering close by. He ducked low as he climbed into the carriage. Once he had folded himself into his seat, Romero offered an introduction:

  “Elizabeth Barnabus. William Carlton.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’m to be witness,” said the man.

  “I thought that was my job.”

  “It’s complicated,” said Romero.

  With the door closed, the boom and hiss of the engine was suddenly quiet. I watched the countryside slipping past, remembering my escape along the same road. The place where I had lain hidden next to the hedge seemed quite different in daylight. I craned my neck to keep it in view after we passed.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve seen something interesting in this god-awful place?” Romero said.

  “How much money have you made since crossing the border?” I asked.

  “Five hundred and eighteen guineas.”

  The witness, William Carlton, squirmed with embarrassment. Whatever his role was to be, he was a Republican sure enough.

  “Is that sufficient for you?” I asked.

  Romero didn’t catch the disgust in my voice.

  “No amount is enough. But I might yet earn some more. You have to look on the bright side, eh?”

  I felt myself tensing up as the car turned onto a narrow lane and I caught a first glimpse of green painted huts through the trees. Then we rolled into the clearing, just as I had done in the black Maria a lifetime ago.

  “Leave the talking to me,” said Romero.

  The constables wanted to put me in leg irons but Romero waved them away. Nevertheless they followed closely. The young constable was there – the one who had put the iron on my ankle and thus allowed me to escape. There was such hatred in his eyes that I found I couldn’t look at him.

  We were escorted to the same hut in which I had met John Farthing. Tulip was waiting there, a constable standing on each side of her. Her expression of bewilderment crumbled to dismay as she saw me.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said.

  Romero reached into his jacket pocket and produced a document. This he unfolded with a flourish. The thick paper crackled.

  “I am today lodging this appeal against the detention of Tulip Slater pending deportation on the grounds of ill treatment, namely the deprivation of the means of illumination and thus the means of preparing her legal defence. The full argument is laid out here...” He passed the paper to the senior constable. “In accordance with the relevant statutes, detailed therein, I demand a hearing before a judge. A sworn affidavit by Elizabeth Barnabus is presented as evidence in appendix A. She being here to sign as witness.”

  He then retrieved the papers and flattened them on the wooden wall of the hut. I took the fountain pen he offered and signed where he’d marked a cross.

  The senior constable’s face twisted into an expression of impotent fury. “She’s to be deported,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  “Alas, that will be impossible,” said Romero, with no attempt at sincerity.

  The senior constable clicked his fingers and pointed at me. “We’ll have this one then.”

  “Not so hasty,” said Romero, reaching inside his jacket once more and flourishing a second document. He unfolded the thick paper and read. “This is Elizabeth Barnabus, fugitive, scheduled for deportation tomorrow.”

  I saw his expression change as he spoke the words. He’d been smug before. Now he positively gloated. “I hereby present her into your custody as witnessed by the public notary William Carlton.”

  I’d feared betrayal but not been able to see how it might come.

  He flattened the papers on the wall as before. I watched the cadaverous man sign and date the document.

  “We appeal,” I said, already knowing it would not work. “There was no light for me either.”

  “You have case documents?” asked the senior constable, on whose face a smile was now beginning to grow.

  “Alas no,” said Romero. “That was never part of my commission. As ever, the devil hides in the detail. The Minister of Patents paid me to obtain the release of Tulip Slater. This I’ve done. He never mentioned your name.”

  “But you said–…”

  “You should have commissioned me from the start. I remember your words. A piano has been dropped from an airship and I was to tell you which way to jump. It was really very good. I may use it, myself. The piano has now landed. You’ll go back where you belong and I’ll receive my reward.”

  He wafted the papers to let the ink dry then began refolding them.

  No one had noticed as I dropped a hand into the pocket of my coat. But they heard the click as I pulled back the hammer. And they saw the pistol as I pressed it into the back of Romero’s head. He froze mid-movement.

  Three more pistols clicked. The constables took aim in my direction.

  “Don’t let her shoot me!” Romero cried.

  “Put down the gun, Miss Barnabus.”
/>   “I will shoot,” I said.

  “If you must,” said the senior constable, without regret. I’d chosen the wrong head to aim at.

  “No!” shrieked Romero.

  I didn’t see the moment when Tulip sprang. But I heard the thud as the body of one of the constables fell. Suddenly everyone was moving at once. There was Tulip, kneeling by the felled man, his blood spreading across the floor, a knife protruding from his thigh. She had his gun and was aiming at the senior constable. If someone pulled a trigger, all the guns would fire.

  “Run, Elizabeth!” she cried.

  For a moment I hesitated. She seemed to read my thoughts. “I was never going back. The knife was meant for me.”

  “You can still come with me!”

  “No. Let me do this thing. It’s what I want.”

  The last I saw, she was holding the gun in a double-handed grip and her face was serene. Then I’d closed the door and was marching back to the steam-car that had brought us. The driver jumped out when he saw me.

  “The others won’t be joining us,” I said.

  “Very good, Miss. Where to?”

  I did not hear the gunshot, though in my dreams afterwards I imagined it. The newspapers told part of the story only. I was not mentioned, it being too embarrassing to admit that I had escaped a second time. An officer was injured, they said. Tulip had stolen a butter knife and sharpened it on a stone. She stabbed him in the thigh and ran. Bleeding on the ground, he took aim and shot her as she tried to escape. His bullet caught her in the side of the head. It was an instant kill.

  But each time I pictured it, I saw Tulip raising the gun to her own head and pulling the trigger.

  The remaining prisoners were gone within a day. Taken to the border to be handed over to the men at arms on the other side. Clarence Hobb would be kept busy entertaining the crowds. For fugitives coming back the other way, hard labour was more likely. The Republic did not have the same taste for hanging.