By Gaslight

by Steven Price

  Then one morning he was taken from the prison in fixed cuffs manufactured in Chicago before the war and he was loaded into a coach under armed guard. His shirt hung slack and befouled from his shoulder blades like a wet towel from a branch. He stared into a pool of brackish water in the yard and saw his hair standing on end and the huge whites of his eyes and the outsized yellow bandages on his hand. His neck looked too thin for his collar. There were two soldiers lashing heavy wooden crates onto the rear of the carriage but he was shoved inside without explanation and sat on the rear bench with a guard staring in at him through the open door. The guard was very young, younger even than Edward, he was bored, he was cold. Edward felt the carriage sway as each crate was loaded. He did not care about any of it. He shook his head and the blood moved inside his skull like water in a half-empty jug. He asked weakly where they were taking him.

  The young soldier grinned. To hell, he said.

  Please, Edward begged. Are we going north? Is it an exchange?

  But the guard only pulled at his peeling upper lip, leaned against the carriage door, shrugged.

  There were two horses which meant they were to travel at speed. But when the coach turned south outside Richmond and then west Edward felt his hopes fade. The sun slid across the sky, eased into the west ahead of them. They rode roughly onward into the setting sun over the washed-out roads and the red light drenched the carriage and lit their faces a violent red and he closed his eyes to see it.

  On the second day he thought they must be riding for Texas. That evening they stopped at dusk at a roadside inn at the edge of a high field and he could see the still shapes of cows grazing there and he looked at the sky and wondered if he would soon be dead. They would leave his body to be pulled apart by dogs in some distant pasture. The stars were already out and wheeled right down to the horizon. The two soldiers sat inside for a long time leaving Edward handcuffed to the carriage in his thin clothes and listening to what sounded like artillery in the distance. He did not try to escape. When they returned they brought some meat and bread wrapped in an oilcloth for him but he could not eat it and his guard shrugged and set it aside.

  Don’t eat then, his guard said. But there was something new in it, pity maybe.

  They rode into the night. A lantern had been lit on either side of the driver and cast a weak swaying light over their faces and Edward felt the eerie strangeness of that journey in his bones. It was river country, it was hill country, they crossed several bridges and went on in silence and there was an uneasiness in the young guard that made Edward wonder through his fever if they were nearing Union lines. He felt the coach dip, he felt it rise. He heard the clatter of hooves on hammered planks and then the slow rolling thunder of the coach wheels as they reached a larger bridge. He could hear the river under them. And all at once there was an enormous cracking sound and he felt a sudden jolt and he was thrown forward onto the floor. The guard across from him had braced himself with one hand on the roof and a boot kicked forward against the door and he was staring in sudden alarm out the window even as Edward felt the coach begin to slide.

  Captain Redd, the guard was hollering. Captain!

  Edward swore.

  The horses were screaming. And all at once the roof was rising to meet him and he felt the soldier’s elbow sharp in his spine and there was a long weightless moment and then one wall smashed with a bracing violence into the river. Something struck his face. Water poured through both windows in a black foam and engulfed them and he felt himself knocked powerfully backward and under and then he could not breathe.

  He spun, he kicked out hard. His hands were still cuffed before him and he pushed himself upward and gasped in a small crevice of air and he felt the water rising fast. The bandages on his left hand felt huge, heavy. He could see the soldier in the far corner gasping also and he felt the boy’s legs kick out and strike his ribs and he grunted and went under again. Then he had taken hold of the boy’s shoulder and was pushing him under and lifting himself into the air and he could feel the boy thrashing under him there. He had twisted his body up to fill the narrow slash of air and the young soldier struggled but could not get up. Then the soldier went still. Started to drift.

  The water was dark and very cold. The confusion of it was what he would remember. The feeling of weightlessness and the strange impossible uncertainty as to which direction was up. The weight of his boots and clothes was dragging him down and he kicked and writhed and struggled through the small window. His boot caught on the door and then somehow it gave way and he was out and kicking for the surface of the river. He surfaced in an explosion of breath with his hands over his head and his face streaming. There was blood in his eyes, in his mouth.

  He saw no sign of the older captain. He rowed his elbows oar-like through the mud of the shore and hunched his hips and slithered and dragged and sawed himself gasping up onto the riverbank. Rolled onto his back his chest heaving and his boots still in the current.

  He could not have said how long he lay in that place. His wrists bound before him, his head thrown back, his white throat naked and soft. He was sick and he slept shivering and he dreamed the cottonwoods uprooted themselves and came down the riverbank and dipped their branches in his mouth and drank from him. He could hear the river on the stones and when he lifted his face he saw the wreckage of the carriage its wheels standing splintered in the foam, its doors staved in, and he saw the huge soaked mounds of the horses half submerged in the current and the waters pulling at their manes. Where should have stood a bridge stood now only pilings and sky. The sun slid behind the trees. The forest darkened and grew cold. He slept.

  He opened a feverish eye. Something was moving through the mud in the gloom.

  He closed his eye.

  At some point the river paled to a molten silver, dawn came on. Edward was shaking and very sick and when he raised his head he saw a bearded man in a patched coat come down to the river on the far bank and stare across at the wreckage of the Confederate coach and he made no sound when he vanished back into the trees.

  When he next lifted his head the man was nudging him in the ribs with the toe of one boot. Edward grunted in pain. The man left him and sat and pulled off his boots and trousers and he folded his ragged coat and shirt over a branch and he waded out into the river looking pink as a plucked chicken with a line of grime at his throat and wrists. He returned dragging from the river a low raft piled with rope and Confederate boxes and four boots and the two Enfield rifles all salvaged from the swamped coach and then the man was bending over him, turning out his pockets, and Edward was too weak to protest. He was a very big man bearded and thin like a starved ox. His collarbone stood stark and his shoulders sharp and his every rib was articulated in the sunlight. There was a savagery in his crooked nose and fierce thin lips and Edward thought for a long and terrible moment that he had been found by one of the Comanche but then the man kneeled and scooped Edward into his arms and he carried him through the cottonwoods and along a ravine and up into the hills.

  The man’s hands were gentle, his skin dry as snakeskin. He laid Edward frail and trembling upon a blanket, he offered him water. He took out a pouch from under his coat and poured several long iron keys onto the ground and selected one and unlocked Edward’s cuffs. These he pocketed carefully. He stripped Edward from his coat and trousers and he rolled him into the dry blanket and carried him nearer the fire. He said nothing. A day passed. Perhaps two.

  It was at dusk that Edward awoke at last and he found himself in a high encampment propped against the wall of a stockade and the man who had saved him was watching him from near the fire. They were alone. He seemed to be a tinker and his cart stood nearby with a canvas shell stretched across it and his varied tools laid out for the working of leather and metals and a starved horse stood some ways off regarding them with a single terrified eye.

  Ye ain’t dead then, the tinker said.

  His voice was hoarse from long disuse and he spoke with a strange bent ac
cent like an Englishman but not like an Englishman. Whatever he was he was no Southerner.

  Edward’s tongue felt huge, dry as a sponge in his mouth. He swallowed painfully.

  You got a name? the tinker said.

  When Edward still said nothing the tinker busied himself at the fire scraping a pan over the stones and something sizzled. Edward shut his eyes. Opened his eyes. The streaks on the man’s sleeves where he had cleaned his knife. The twin Enfields stacked against a log.

  Shaking his huge shaggy head. He squinted one eye as if to take the boy’s measure and there was something new in it, a kind of menace. I recognize that look, he said.

  Edward raised his slow head.

  Like a cat starin down a hole. Just what sort of man are you?

  Edward’s teeth were clenched, he was shaking with the fever. Firelight shone slick on the stones. Just what sort, he said, are you? Steeling himself for a fight.

  The huge tinker studied him then all at once he grinned. He had a tooth out in front.

  Edward balled up his fists.

  But the giant only held out a hand, huge and black as if seamed with coal. Easy now. If I were goin to kill you, you’d be dead already, he chuckled. Me name’s Fludd.

  Fludd.

  Aye. And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven. The tinker’s eyes were very dark and strange as he spoke. After a moment he added, softly, An every thing that is in the earth shall die.

  Edward glanced around at the encroaching darkness. How long you been alone up here? he asked.

  The man Fludd grinned and grinned.

  Long enough to find God, he said. An long enough to lose Him.

  It’s not courage if you’re not afraid, the Major would say. Cigar smoke like a strange incense in the fabric of his tent. His shirt sleeves rolled back, beard wild, the big pre-war map of the valley laid flat on the table before them. A man who doesn’t know fear is a man I don’t trust, he would say. But it’s what you do with the fear that matters.

  Or he would set his big hand on the boy’s hat and crush it down over his eyes as the cavalry rode out in clouds of red dust and say, A man can be read just like a book. You can flip through him and find the page you want.

  Edward, who had watched Allan Pinkerton and loved him. Who had studied the way the older man’s eyes in a crowded room were always moving into the corners, towards the swell of curtains or the opening of doors. Studied his ropy forearms and the bullish sinews in his neck and the way he would chomp down on a cigar through his bristling beard as if he would bite any hand that came near him. The Major was gruff and strict and quick to shout but he did not shout at Edward even the once and there was ever a gentleness in his eye when he looked at the boy. He said he himself lived without fear and that this was only possible because he was so often afraid. At sunset on that fateful night he had stood with Edward while the Porters crouched in the muck inspecting axle and harness and he had told Edward he wished he could go with him.

  He said: I will find a way to bring you back.

  One gnarled hand gripping the boy’s shoulder. The crease as his blue eyes hardened.

  You won’t have to, said the boy. I’ll bring them back, sir. Both of them.

  Look at you, the man said. You could be my own son, lad.

  The Eye That Never Sleeps

  *

  1885

  LONDON

  THIRTY-SIX

  No one noticed it was gone, sir. Not all weekend.

  Blackwell’s scuffed bowler was drawn firmly down to his eye line, his shoulders swaying with the growler.

  Not until Mr. Farquhar found the letter, that is, he added.

  Their driver rattled over some sort of obstruction and turned a sharp corner and Shore put out a strong red-knuckled hand and gripped the door. What letter? he said.

  The letter in Mr. Farquhar’s study, sir. It contains rather explicit instructions.

  The growler struck another loose stone and Shore glowered. Instructions?

  Blackwell sat with his fists clutched between his knees and his shoulders swaying side to side. The pale cloth of his trousers was streaked with soot from his fingers. He nodded uneasily and he said, Yes, sir. Instructions, sir.

  What kind of instructions?

  As to how the painting will be negotiated back, William interrupted impatiently. He blew out his cheeks and put a violent hand to the seat beside him as the growler swung around again and he turned to Blackwell and said, Do you have this letter now? Who’s been in contact with it?

  The inspector fumbled with his pockets and unbuttoned his greatcoat and reached into its lining and withdrew the crumpled envelope. Shore moved to take it but William reached past with his calfskin gloves still on and very carefully he pried the envelope open and poured the letter out onto the seat beside him. He was careful to touch only two of its corners as he unfolded it. The stationery was an expensive card stock with a London watermark and the writing was in the tall elegant hand of a man with skill and a desire to show it.

  Who’s handled this? he said. I mean besides Farquhar and yourself?

  Blackwell shook his head. I should think Mr. Farquhar’s wife, perhaps. Perhaps the constable who interviewed them.

  A sudden latticing of shadow and light as they passed under a railway arch and on. William peered down to the bottom of the page and turned it carefully and held it to the light and then he looked up.

  Well? said Shore. What does it say?

  William looked at Blackwell a long moment. It says The Emma has been temporarily removed from the gallery, for the purposes of safekeeping. It says there have been rumours of criminal intent towards it, and in the interests of preserving a work of national interest, the interested parties have taken it upon themselves to protect it, et cetera. He cleared his throat, scanned ahead. The painting can be negotiated back for a fee covering the costs incurred. A representative will make contact with Mr. Farquhar—here William squinted, held the letter high in the light of the carriage window—in the next few days, et cetera. No charges are to be laid, as no criminal offence is intended. Police are not to be involved. It mentions you directly.

  It mentions me? Shore scowled. Give it over.

  You’re not wearing gloves.

  To hell with gloves. Give it to me.

  But William frowned and waited and after a long angry moment Shore drew on his heavy gloves. William handed the letter across.

  Shore was shaking his head. Please advise Mr. John Shore of Scotland Yard that his presence is not encouraged. Is this a joke?

  The growler lifted onto two wheels then rattled banging back down as it swung around a corner and William was thrown heavily against Blackwell. Where did you say this was found? he said, picking the inspector’s bowler from the floor.

  In Mr. Farquhar’s study, sir.

  At his residence.

  They could hear the driver cursing his horses.

  Indeed, sir. Blackwell was regarding William with interest. It seems it was propped against a lamp on his desk, sir. Where Mr. Farquhar keeps his private papers. One supposes it was left there on purpose, so that it wouldn’t be overlooked.

  It was found this morning?

  Yes sir.

  Nothing else missing? Shore glared. The keys to the gallery? Papers? Mrs. Farquhar’s diamonds, for god’s sake?

  No sir, nothing. Not according to Mr. Farquhar.

  William reached across and carefully took the letter from Shore and slid it into his inner pocket. The thief didn’t take the keys because he didn’t need to, he said calmly. This is no amateur.

  He bloody well is. Overlooks her diamonds but takes a painting? You can’t fence a picture like The Emma.

  He doesn’t need to fence it.

  If George Farquhar refuses to negotiate, the thief has nothing. A painting he can’t unload.

  William grimaced. But he won’t refuse. It’s still more profitable for Farqu
har to pay out than to lose the painting entirely.

  Just then the carriage struck another bulge in the stones of the roadway and set their teeth ajar and Shore cursed and reached through his window and rapped on the roof. The carriage drew tight in to the street’s edge. The chief inspector swung open the door and climbed swearing down.

  We’ll walk the rest of the way, he snapped at the driver. It’s not a bloody derby, man.

  William had come to the gallery at Shore’s invitation. Good Mr. Farquhar has suffered a misfortune, the chief inspector had said, and William thought at once of Foole prowling the upper rooms of Farquhar’s mansion. Edward Shade’s fingerprints lay carefully labelled and packaged on the writing desk at his hotel and there would soon be an Agency file on Shade and then a rogues’ gallery entry and then the man, Shade, Foole, some other, would be caught the next time he committed a crime. His father had hunted the thief for years and never come so close. Close, he thought, surprised by the unhappiness in the thought. Having traced and recorded the man ought to be enough.

  It was not. He thought of Charlotte Reckitt, pickled in that mortuary cabinet, he thought of Blackwell’s doubts as to her identity. He thought of powerful Ben Porter, collapsed in a rat-infested tenement, his ancient widow somewhere now on her way to California. He thought of his own father, mouldering in the black earth in Chicago. All of their parts in it were finished.

  There was a watery yellow fog in the air, burning his vision, and William rubbed the heels of his palms at his eyes as he walked. The cold of the morning crept in under his collar. It was an old macadamized street with the stones pulled sharply up over the years and with stone bollards set every few paces along the shopfronts to keep the carriages from molesting the passersby. Their footfalls were loud in the fog and William could hear Blackwell sniffling as they walked and in irritation he reached into his waistcoat for a handkerchief and handed it across. A dray clattered past in the fog ghostlike, blurred. They turned a corner and came out at Bond Street and there were silhouettes moving in the mists and Shore jogged across the Sunday traffic and William followed with his silk hat low on his head and Blackwell was behind them in the mist like a wraith.