by Adam Millard
“So, what’s next?” Abigale asked, glancing impassively at the contents of Octavius’s workshop. She’d seen everything a thousand times before, but didn’t know what half of it did. One shelf was lined with clockwork insects and arachnids, some of them uncanny, but whether they were as useful as those scorpions she’d left behind, she had no clue.
“Next?” Octavius closed up the safe and replaced the painting. He walked across the room, lifted Abigale’s hand by the wrist, and dropped several coins into it. “Next, you go home, you get some sleep. You’re obviously tired. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have left three of my best devices behind, and at the hands of some armed maniac in a pair of baggy bloomers.”
Abigale frowned. “She had a gun. And I didn’t say anything about bloomers. I was lucky not to get my arse shot off.”
“All the more reason to go home and celebrate, preferably with a nap.” Octavius produced a clay pipe from his waistcoat pocket and set about filling it.
There was something acutely hypnotic about watching Octavius fill his pipe—almost spellbinding. It took everything Abigale had to break her gaze.
“Will you telephone me if anything should turn up?” Of course, something would turn up. It always did. Still, the idea that something might very well not turn up terrified her.
Octavius nodded once, lit his pipe, and blew a thin stream of smoke toward the roof. “Get some rest. You’re no good to anyone worn out.”
Abigale still couldn’t believe she was being dismissed. Any moment Octavius would erupt with laughter, perhaps rub her hair in a grandfatherly fashion before filling her in on the next heist.
When he didn’t, she felt obsolete. Superfluous. About as useful as a glass of water on Noah’s ark.
She turned, made for the door, hoping she wasn’t overreacting, and if she was, that it didn’t show as she solemnly walked the breadth of the room.
“Oh, the day after tomorrow,” Octavius said, pushing his tobacco pouch into his waistcoat pocket.
Abigale turned so fast that she almost lost her bearings. “Yes?”
“Big one. Three diamonds. Seven carats each. Bank of England, Threadneedle Street.” He sucked on his pipe, sent a wink toward Abigale, which seemed to have its intended effect. Turning, he headed back to his workshop, whistling a tuneless ditty as he went.
Abigale smiled. It turned into a yawn, proving that, she really did need at least for a few hours of rest. Besides, Mouse would be missing her something rotten. She left the workshop three coins heavier, and with the promise of bigger work to follow. Not bad for a night’s work.
*
Lighting a gas lamp at the door, as she always did, Abigale made her way into her quarters—a small, not-quite-dingy-not-exactly-a-palace kind of place on top of James Smith & Sons Hardware Store on Albany Street. It was a warm night, and Abigale looked forward to removing her corset and climbing beneath a set of cool sheets. Just the thought of it elicited another yawn. She made her way into the apartment proper, her lamp leading the way, and was unsurprised to find Mouse curled up on the edge of her bed, purring gently to himself.
Mouse was not, in fact, anything of the sort. He was a rather odd breed of cat, the likes of which Abigale had never seen before, nor since. He’d moved in pretty much at the same time she had, and once in, he was going nowhere. Abigale loved him too much. It was always nice to return home from work—and yes, if she forgot all about the criminal aspect of it and the fact that she hadn’t exactly earned it, it was still work—to a friendly face, and that night was no exception.
“Can see you’ve been keeping yourself busy,” she said, stepping around the bed and placing the gas lamp down on her dresser. Mouse didn’t flinch. Simply purred louder. Abigale was positive she felt the floorboards tremble. “Miss me?”
Mouse mewled. It was neither a yes or no, but it was good enough for Abigale.
Once she untied her corset, the world seemed a better place. She still hadn’t become accustomed Mouse watching her so intently while she undressed, but if she didn’t look at him directly, she found it didn’t matter as much. Besides, he was a cat, and cats didn’t go off and tell their cat friends about the size of its owner’s—
Just then, the telephone rang. After a moment of concentrated panic, Abigale composed herself and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Just making sure you went straight home,” Octavius said. “I know you better than you know yourself.”
Abigale sighed and rolled her eyes simultaneously. The combination made her dizzy. “What did you think I was going to do? It’s a little late to start on the bank tonight.”
“Goodnight, Abigale,” he said.
A click suggested that, if Abigale continued the conversation, it would have only been with herself, and she hung up, too. It was nice that he thought enough of her to check she’d arrived home safely, without further adventure or misadventure, and only slightly creepy. Then again, he was the closest thing she had to family, and she to him. He was the crazy uncle that the rest of the family avoided; the eccentric old man whose contraptions were nothing more than a topic of ridicule around the dinner table; the second-uncle-twice-removed that occasionally—only very occasionally—accidentally blew something up. He was all of those things and more, and Abigale loved him for it.
She turned the gas lamp valve, casting the room into exquisite darkness. At the foot of the bed, Mouse continued to purr, as was his wont, and Abigale slipped between the sheets with all the grace and proficiency of a drunken sailor. The bed wasn’t the comfiest she had ever slept in, but it was hers, and her body moulded into it almost immediately.
It would be a while before she succumbed to a much-needed slumber. At least she thought it would, but there must have been something rhythmic about Mouse’s purr that sent her into a peaceful limbo between consciousness and oblivion. A minute later, she was freefalling, plunging headlong into a dream world where she could get shot at and survive even if the bullet hit its mark. A place where the treasures were priceless and ubiquitous, where nothing, nothing at all, could trouble her.
3
Detective John Wesley Alcorn was not impressed. In fact, he was so unimpressed that it took everything he had not to start screaming at the team of constables messing up his crime scene. A man as tall as he was wide, Alcorn could clear a room with an austere grunt. He hadn’t earned the nickname Brass Knuckles by diplomatically conversing with his suspects, or witnesses, or innocent bystanders, for that matter. Wearing a long, black frock coat, he was certainly the best-dressed in the room, but then again, the competition was scant. The second best dressed person in the room was Harriett Haversham, and she was wearing what appeared to be a pair of flowery curtains.
“Anyone who isn’t me, or Miss Haversham,” Alcorn said. “There’s a door at the front of this room. I expect you to use it.”
The constables, of whom there were seven, exchanged glances. None of them promptly moved, which was odd as Alcorn was almost certain he hadn’t stuttered. In the corner, Harriet Haversham continued to sob. It was, Alcorn thought, very distracting.
“One…two…three…” The count wasn’t subtle, but it had the desired effect. Half of Cloak Lane’s constabulary ambled toward the door, muttering inaudibly to one another. Alcorn was sure he heard the words “who”, “think”, and “is” and managed to fill in the gaps accordingly. He wasn’t liked, but then again, he wasn’t there to be liked. Still, it would have been nice to be respected.
“Close the door behind you,” Alcorn told the last constable, who turned and performed a sardonic salute. If Alcorn had been in the mood, he would have taken the insolent rozzer outside and schooled him in the ways of the boot, and Alcorn had inexplicably large boots. When the door shut, he turned to Harriett Haversham and forced a smile. It wasn’t convincing, but Alcorn didn’t care.
“I told you everything I know,” Harriett said, dabbing at her eyes with a wholly dry handkerchief. Alcorn had seen tears like hers before. She was
no more crying than he was dancing around on one leg.
“And I listened,” Alcorn said, taking a step closer. “According to you, there was a girl, no older than twenty, with,” he checked the notepad in his hand, “hair as red as a baboon’s derriere.”
“Thasright,” Harriett said, somehow condensing the two words into one. “Caught her red handed, so I did.”
Alcorn glanced around at the all but devastated shop. Shattered glass covered every spare inch of the floor, and splinters of dark wood jutted dangerously outwards, an accident waiting to happen.
“Yes, you caught her very well indeed,” he said. He crouched, picked up the broken exoskeleton of a clockwork something-or-other. It was difficult to tell what it had been, but there were many legs. Despite the damage, Alcorn knew whose handiwork it was. There was only one person capable of building such hellish contraptions.
“Like I told you,” Harriett said, giving up on the crying thing for the time being. It wasn’t working, anyway. “I was attacked by those three little coves. She let ‘em in, and they came at me like little bleedin’ demons.”
Alcorn straightened, placed the destroyed creature upon the only display cabinet in the room that hadn’t been shot out. “And you decided to start plugging them with bullets,” he said. He gestured to the wrecked shop—her livelihood. “And anything else that wasn’t moving, by the looks of it.”
If she was offended, she didn’t show it. “I’ve got a license for the gun,” she said. “All above board and whatnot. I’ve done nothing wrong here. Just trying to protect my business is all.”
Assessing the damage one last time, the irony was not lost on Alcorn. “Let me give you a better description of the girl,” he said. “The one I believe you saw tonight.” He took a few paces forward, glass crunching beneath his giant boots. It was a horrific sound, like a horse eating crackling. “I’d say she was around five-foot-four, very sprightly. If a good gust of wind got up outside, she’d probably have to push back against it to stay rooted.” He paused, considered, and then continued. “You were right about her hair. It is very red. I should imagine that, perched upon her head, was a tiny bowler. It’s there for decorative purposes only. Light brown. She was wearing a dark brown corset, pulled tight, tight enough to push her…well, let’s just say it was pulled nice and tight. Her trousers were tight, earthy, and even though she was wearing boots, she could back flip her way across the room with all the grace of a ballerina. A monovision eyeglass covered her right eye, and even though her face was partly concealed, you would be doing her a disservice if you didn’t think her beautiful.” He balled his hand into a fist and coughed into it. “So you tell me, Miss Haversham. Was that the lady you saw here tonight?”
Harriett grunted. “Well, she wasn’t too beautiful when she was dodging my bullets,” she said, “but, yes, that sounds like the tea leaf to me.” She lit a pipe, exhaled a plume of blue-grey smoke. “Sounds like you know who you’re looking for,” she said. “I expect I’ll have my jewellery back by the end of the week.”
Alcorn tried his best not to laugh. “Yes, well, I would suggest you don’t hold that rancid breath of yours.”
Harriett didn’t flinch at the obvious affront.
“The person responsible for this is not just some scallywag. She’s an expert in theft, lock picking, safe breaking, pickpocketing, and police evading.”
Why did it sound as if he was secretly impressed? Perhaps he was. Abigale Egars was his Moriarty. He’d been seeking her for three years, over fifty capers, and was no closer to catching her. That told him something and not just that he needed to try harder.
It told him she was one of the greatest—if not the best—thieves of the century.
Harriett Haversham shook her head. It wasn’t a pretty head when it was still, but when it was moving it looked like something that had crawled up from the depths of hell. “So that’s it, then?” she said, anxiously chewing the tip of her pipe. “Call yourself a copper. I’d have had more luck sending for the Porter Boys.”
Trevor and William Porter were two of the filthiest rogues in London, and already in Alcorn’s pocket. They were wanted in connection with so many crimes that Alcorn had an entire drawer dedicated to them. However, they were more useful to him out there in the city. They had also always been willing—with a little incentive, of course—to turn in a scoundrel, or at least jab a dirty finger in the direction Alcorn could find one. If the Porter Boys knew anything about Abigale Egars’ whereabouts, which he highly doubted, they would have imparted the information by now.
“This investigation is far from over, Miss Haversham,” he said, stepping toward the door. He could see the constables milling around outside like lost and confused puppies. “Let the coppers come back in here and gather the evidence. I’m going to get a head start.” With that, he opened the door and walked through it.
“Idiot,” Harriett muttered.
4
The dream took a very strange turn for the worse. One minute Abigale was running through a field, surrounded by beautiful nature and the distant sound of church bells. In the next, she was lying on a bed in some godforsaken place, being poked and prodded at by a man that clearly didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t that the change in tone of her reverie was so sudden, but that it was more vivid. She could almost smell the sweat on the man looming over her, could see each individual hair of his unkempt moustache, and the lip he kept biting as he went about whatever he was doing to her.
No matter how much she struggled, movement was out of the question. It was obviously one of those dreams. She might as well just lie there and wait for it to pass, lest she wake up with a stiff neck and an unbearably sore spine. So, that’s what she did. She lay still, watching the man’s intense expression alter as he worked above her. He was doing something to her head, but apart from the odd glint of steel, the occasional glimpse of a thingamabob, she had no clue what was going on up there.
Strange, she thought, once again willing herself to wake. It wasn’t happening, not yet anyway. She relaxed again, focused on the face of the mystery sawbones. He looked familiar, but then he would, wouldn’t he? He was probably an amalgamation of several people she had met the previous day. The mind is often a wondrous thing, with the propensity to play tricks on a person at any given moment. The dream was a rather peculiar trick, and one that unsettled her, perhaps more than it should have.
She watched as the man threaded a needle, and with a cock of the head, went about stitching her up. She didn’t feel anything. It was, after all, just a dream, but there was a strange tugging sensation on the left side of her head, one that perplexed her. It was so authentic. She should feel each pull through of the thread, she should smell the subtle hint of some chemical, and all of a sudden, her scalp began to sting a little.
Wake.
Wake…
“Ms. Egars, I suggest you calm down for the remainder of this procedure,” a voice said.
It wasn’t the man standing over her that spoke. He was too busy concentrating on the job at hand. No, the voice was sonorous, coming from somewhere to her right, though she couldn’t move to face its source.
She managed to make a noise in her throat, but that’s all it was, a noise—and not a very nice one at that.
“It will all be over in a moment, and then we can talk,” said the bodiless voice.
For the briefest of moments, Abigale panicked. Willing herself awake, giving it everything she had—which usually worked—she told herself that she was still at home in bed, with Mouse curled up somewhere down by her feet.
“You’re going to have to give her more Laudanum,” the voice said. “She’s starting to get a little feisty.”
“As you wish, Sir,” the man with the thread said.
He must have placed the needle down, for he disappeared momentarily. Abigale never saw him return. All she saw was the orange tinge on the ceiling and the effects of a flickering flame nearby. Then there was darkness.
Sh
e expected to wake shortly after, and when she did, there was…
*
An office. The kind of place people usually found themselves in if they were in trouble or about to inherit a lot of money. Abigale doubted it was the latter. A large desk stood in front of her, one of the biggest she’d ever seen. A large golden globe was its centrepiece. From her position, she could make out a few of the continents, but none of the singular countries. The faint smell of something nutty drifted across her nostrils, and for a moment, she thought she might wretch. She swallowed it down with very little saliva and fixed her gaze on the shape behind the desk.
A man, or the shape of one, seemed to lean in. In his hand was a glass of something, perhaps the source of the strange nuttiness. Suddenly, the man cleared his throat. Abigale started, and it was then that she realised she couldn’t move.
Still dreaming?
She couldn’t tell. She was dressed, though, which was a relief. If it wasn’t a dream, clothes, she thought, would come in very handy indeed. Her head buzzed, and there was something strange going on with her limbs—Pins and needles?—which made her question whether she had been dreaming to begin with. Either way, she felt helpless.
“Glad you could join us,” the man said.
It was the voice she had heard earlier, the one without a tangible body. Not that she was faced with it, she didn’t like it one bit.
“Ms. Egars…can I call you Abigale?”
He didn’t wait for a reply, which was good. Abigale wasn’t certain she could speak yet.
“Abigale, my name is Mordecai Pick. I’m not sure whether you’ve heard of me, though a lot of people have.”
“I…I know you,” Abigale just about managed. Her mouth was dry, and her tongue stuck to her palate, rendering her words a muddle of clicks. “You…The Guild.” She knew what she wanted to say, but it wouldn’t come, not just yet.
