The Phantom of the Marshes

by Elizabeth O'Connell

  This line of thought was cut short as we arrived at the factory. Despite Andrew’s death, work continued—smoke stacks spewing black soot into the air, the smells and sounds of the factory surrounding us as we stood at the gate, and underneath, driving it all, the thrumming, iron-smelling, fiery feel of industrial magic. I closed my eyes, reaching out once more for my father’s spell—but as always, though I felt the distinct presence of the aether-spirit, no trace of my father’s magic.

  “State your business,” said a gruff voice, pulling me from my thoughts, and I opened my eyes to see a stout watchman standing at the gate. He had a mustache bristling out from his red face, and he glared at Hal as if daring him to try the gate.

  “Henry Bishop to see Mr. Alec Wright,” Hal said, apparently unperturbed by the man’s abrasive manner. “It is regarding the family of his employer.”

  The watchman snorted. “I don’t see as family business ought to be discussed at the factory. Is Mr. Wright expecting you?”

  “No,” Hal said. “But it is imperative that I speak with him.”

  “I’ll let him decide that,” the watchman said. He called over a boy, perhaps my age, and gave him sharp directions to send somebody somewhere, to fetch someone else, and thereby to convey the message that Mr. Wright had visitors. Having finished his directions, and having sent off the very befuddled boy to do his bidding, he turned back to Hal. “Now you just wait here, and we’ll see what the word is from Mr. Wright.”

  We dutifully set ourselves to wait upon word. I tried looking for the spell once more, but succeeded only in giving myself a headache. I glanced over at Hal, who leaned against the gate with his hands in his pockets, sending up billowing clouds of smoke from his pipe.

  “What are we doing here?” I said, keeping my voice low. I rubbed at my forehead. “What do you expect to accomplish?”

  He gave me a puzzled frown. “We spoke about this yesterday. I mean to inquire of Mr. Wright regarding his magical training.”

  “I know that,” I said, irritably. “But what makes you think he will be forthcoming now when he wasn’t before? And even if he is—what does that tell us?”

  “Now we are armed with the knowledge that Mr. Bonham has provided to us,” he said, still frowning. “I expect Mr. Wright will have some explanation for his dissimulation—but I also expect that explanation to be in the same vein.”

  “Then we won’t have learned anything,” I said, looking back out over the factory yard through the gate. “We’ll be in the same place we were to start with.”

  “On the contrary—we will learn a great deal,” Hal said. “First by Mr. Wright’s reaction upon being confronted with the truth—and then by how he chooses to explain it. That should be obvious to you.”

  I kept my gaze fixed on the yard, and the people milling about in it, occasionally giving the two of us furtive, suspicious glances. The headache was building, the thrumming feel of the industrial magic now a throbbing pain behind my left eye. I rubbed my eye, and tried to loosen my focus on the magic that surrounded the place.

  “What’s troubling you?” Hal said, after a moment. “You knew we were coming here today—why question it now?”

  I did not answer immediately; I closed my eyes, letting the feeling of the magic slip away from me, and took a deep breath, waiting for the headache to ease. When it had reduced itself to a dull ache, I turned back to him.

  “Aren’t you worried at all about what Mr. Bonham told us?” I said. “He was—it seemed quite serious.”

  “Mr. Bonham has many qualities desirable in a solicitor—chief among them a flair for dramatics,” Hal said dismissively. “I don’t doubt that there is danger in pursuing this line—but there has been danger before, and that has not been an obstacle. Why should it stay me now?”

  The alien gaze that had looked out at me briefly from Mr. Bonham’s familiar face flashed across my mind, and I felt a shiver across the back of my neck. I did not believe that Hal had seen the look on Mr. Bonham’s face, as I had, or he would not be so cavalier.

  “No,” I said. “This is different—I am sure of that. Mr. Bonham—I have noted his flair for dramatics, as you call it, before. But this—no, he was serious.”

  He frowned at me, a curious expression in his eye. “But what makes you think so?”

  I did not get to answer him, for at that moment the boy returned with word that Mr. Wright would see us in his office. The gruff watchman gave the boy instructions to escort us directly to said office, and not to dawdle about it. Hal’s attention was diverted from our conversation, and he followed the boy with long, determined strides. I followed behind, the uneasy feeling in my stomach growing as we walked. The headache still throbbed dully behind my eye, increasing in intensity as we walked into the interior of the factory, closer to the machines driven by the spells of industrial magic. By the time we reached the office building, it had built back up to the intense pounding pain that it had been before, and I wanted very badly to leave the factory and go back to the inn.

  The boy led us up a narrow set of stairs to the office that overlooked the factory floor, the same office in which we’d seen Simon’s corpse, and I felt a shivery sense of déjà vu as he pushed the door open, announcing our arrival. This time it was not a corpse that greeted us, but Alec Wright, looking pale and somewhat disheveled, with dark circles under his eyes, and a veritable mountain of paperwork on the desk before him.

  “Very good, Joe,” he said, glancing briefly at the boy. “You can go back to your work now.”

  The boy nodded, ducking out of the room and pulling the door closed behind him. Alec ran a hand over his weary face, and looked up at Hal with a wary expression in his eyes.

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Bishop?” he said. “I should have thought your part in this was done—after what happened to Andrew. You haven’t a client any longer, isn’t that correct?”

  Hal settled into a chair opposite the desk, taking down his pipe and filling it with tobacco. “But that is precisely why I must continue—Andrew was my client, and I failed to prevent his death. I must at least learn what has caused it. No, my part in this has only begun.”

  Alec sighed. “I suppose that’s so. I don’t mind telling you—I wish my part in it was finished. It’s been a ghastly business—both of Sir Hector’s sons gone, and no telling who did it to them, and the old man in no fit state to run anything. It’s all fallen to me. I can tell you I don’t get paid enough for this.”

  Hal’s lips quirked up in a half smile. He lit his pipe and tucked it between his teeth. “I suppose not. A secretary’s salary scarcely covers the running of an operation as large as this one. But then, you are well-equipped for the task in at least one respect.”

  Alec frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your training, of course,” Hal said, blowing out a puff of smoke. “In an operation such as this, it must be invaluable to have studied magic.”

  Alec’s frown deepened, and he looked away from Hal, sorting through the papers on the desk. “I told you, I haven’t any formal training in magic.”

  “You told me you hadn’t any training at all,” Hal said, leaning back in his chair and tenting his fingers beneath his chin. “Yet I have it on good authority that you have made quite a study of the subject.”

  Alec stopped rifling through his papers, staring down at them for a moment, before sighing and running a hand over his face.

  “I could ask who has told you that,” he said, sitting back wearily. “But I don’t suppose it would do any good. Yes, I have studied magic. But it . . . I have not been formally trained.”

  “But why should you hide the fact that you’ve studied it?” I said. “Surely it’s an invaluable skill in this business.”

  “Perhaps because of the way he went about studying the subject,” Hal said, regarding Alec shrewdly over his tented fingers. “Do I have the right of it?”

  “Well . . . yes, if you must know,” Alec said. He gave a glance to the c
losed door and lowered his voice. “It isn’t so easy to get into a school for it—nor to get an apprenticeship.”

  “Not a licit apprenticeship, at any rate,” Hal said coolly. “Tell me, under whom did you study?”

  Alec shook his head. “I never knew his name. Not his real name, at least. He provided me with—with books. He showed me a few spells. But I hadn’t the gift for it—couldn’t call down spirits with a circle. No sense of magic, you know.”

  “Hm.” Hal closed his eye. “You would scarcely be the first to have studied magic under such a teacher—as you say, it is not so easy to get into a school for it. There is more to it—else you would not hide it.”

  Alec looked down at the desk, drawing in a deep breath, and closed his eyes before he answered again.

  “This is—I was only a boy when I learned from him,” he said quietly. “You must remember that.”

  “I shall consider it,” Hal said, without opening his eye. “But I must know what it is that you learned.”

  Alec kept his eyes fixed on the desk, a strange expression passing over his face—a look of fear, as though at something remembered.

  “He taught me that there was another way to do magic,” he said, his tone quiet and somber. “That you could—could give a part of yourself, to make a contract with something very powerful. There was—there was something I wanted very much. Enough to—to try it.”

  “And did you succeed?” Hal said, opening his eye at last and fixing Alec with a steely gaze. “Did you manage blood magic?”

  Alec shook his head. “I was—in the end, I was too frightened. The night we were meant to do the spell—I left him. I gathered my things and I left his home, in the middle of the night. I never spoke to him again.”

  “Well, there is nothing illegal about sacrificing yourself,” Hal said. “You needn’t be so ashamed of it—many would have been tempted.”

  “It wasn’t that—or not entirely,” Alec said, a shudder passing over his face. “It was what I wanted—and that I wanted it so badly. I—well, it could have ended very badly for me. We will leave it at that.”

  “Perhaps you wish to leave it there,” Hal said, blowing out another puff of smoke. “I am afraid I am not satisfied. What was it that you wanted so badly—to make a bloody sacrifice, and risk your future besides?”

  Alec shook his head vigorously. “Now that—that is a thing that neither you nor any man shall ever know. I have put it behind me—it is done. I will not speak of it.”

  He stood, gathering a sheaf of papers in his hands. “If you will excuse me—I do have work to get on with.”

  “I have only a few more questions,” Hal said. “This thing you will not speak of—has it anything to do with what my investigation? Be forewarned—if it has, I will learn of it, and I can make no promises regarding what I shall do with that information.”

  “No,” Alec said sharply. “No—it has nothing to do with this. What an absurd accusation. Now good day. I have work to finish.”

  “Did Sir Hector know?” I said. The fact that Alec Wright had learned of blood magic gave me a strange, uneasy feeling at the back of my mind—I had not expected it of him. “That you had studied magic—and what you studied?”

  Alec snapped his gaze over to me, as though startled to realize that I was still standing there. “Yes,” he said. “He knew. Perhaps he had the same sources you have. But it did not trouble him. Quite the opposite, in fact—he liked the nerve of it. I am afraid he found me rather a disappointment, after all.”

  “One final question, and we will trouble you no longer,” Hal said. He rose from his chair and went to stand at the office window, overlooking the floor of the factory. “What do you know of the aether-engines—and the spell that runs them?”

  “That—Sir Hector was working on something, with Simon,” Alec said. “There was—he met with someone. Simon, I mean. He said the man was a magician. I—well, I wasn’t part of it. I’m afraid I can’t answer you. I really must get on with my work.”

  Hal nodded. “Come along, Jem. We’ve learned all we can here.”

  Alec held the door open for us, and led us out as far as the factory floor. It was a silent walk down the stairs, and Alec beckoned the boy who had led us up to his office to lead us out of the factory. Having handed us off, he disappeared into the depths of the factory, looking quite glad to be rid of us. I watched him go with that same uneasy feeling in my stomach; it was clear that Alec was still hiding something, and I wondered how far Hal would go to find out what it was.

  For his part, Hal was silent as we walked through the yard. He did not glance at the workers who watched us furtively as he walked, nor did he look back at the office; he kept his eye fixed straight ahead, hands in his pockets and smoke curling up from his pipe. It was the same attitude in which he had approached the factory that morning, and I could not help but feel that he had left the meeting with Alec dissatisfied.

  The surly watchman greeted us at the gate, and like Alec he looked glad to be well shot of us. He shut the gate behind us with an audible clang, and I felt his sullen gaze follow us out onto the street. I waited until we were well out of earshot before I turned to Hal.

  “Well?” I said. “What do you make of it?”

  “Let us wait until we have returned to our inn,” he said, without slacking his pace. “We do not know who may be listening here.”

  I remembered Inspector Cross disappearing into crowd, and the habit he had of popping up unexpectedly at my elbow, and nodded. I followed Hal silently through the wet streets, and was glad when we reached the inn again. We took a table, the seats before the fireplace once more occupied by a dozing old man and his slumbering dog.

  Our stew and ale having been brought to us, Hal drew his chalk from his pocket and made a few swift marks on the table. The air shifted, and the familiar bubble of silence wrapped itself around us. I leaned forward, pushing the stew aside.

  “Well?” I repeated. “What do you think? That training—I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  “To have studied with an unlicensed magician is nothing out of the ordinary,” Hal said, refilling his pipe. “As Mr. Wright pointed out—it is not easy to gain a magical education. It is the matter of the training more than its manner which intrigues me.”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant,” I said. “It sounds like—well, like what you do. Bargaining with the Fair Folk.”

  “I believe that is indeed what he meant,” Hal said, lighting his pipe and tucking it back between his teeth. “What does that suggest to you?”

  I frowned, looking down at the table, and thought a moment. “I can’t tell,” I said, shaking my head. “I shouldn’t have thought there were many people who knew how to do that sort of thing.”

  “There aren’t,” he said, leaning back in his seat and closing his eye. “To my knowledge, there are only two—myself and one other.”

  For a moment, I stared down at the table, uncomprehending—but then the realization hit me like ice water. I jerked my head up and stared at him.

  “You can’t mean—you think the person Alec studied with is T.S.?” I said. “Then what . . .”

  “It is very likely, unless there is a third practitioner of this sort of whom I am unaware,” Hal said, unperturbed. “Which suggests certain possibilities in the case. Then there are the engines.”

  “Yes,” I said, looking back down at the table. At the thought of the engines, the headache that had dulled began throbbing once more, and I rubbed at my forehead. “Always the engines.”

  “Plainly it is an aether spell, but not Father’s work,” he continued. “Mr. Wright is evasive, and I doubt we should get much from Sir Hector in his state. But we must know about the engines.”

  “What do you suggest, then?” I said wearily. “We’ve no other avenue to try.”

  “Certainly we have,” he said, opening his eye and fixing me with a strange expression. “We can go to the factory and see the engines for ourselves.”

&
nbsp; I blinked at him. “But we’ve been to the factory. I doubt they would let us . . .”

  “That is why we shall have to do it when there is no one to stop us,” he said. “Finish your stew. We have a long night ahead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I was too stunned by Hal’s suggestion to offer any argument until after we had gone back up to our room. He had finished his own meal with unseemly haste, not seeming to notice that I had left mine untouched, and had gone up to the room taking the stairs two at a time. Now that we had come back, he was a veritable whirlwind of activity, gathering things from his coat pockets and about the room and putting them haphazardly into the case.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and watched him; the pounding in my head had now been joined by an uneasy feeling in my stomach that sat in it like a lump of lead. I could not think of the factory without thinking of Mr. Bonham’s face when he had told us to stay away from it, but I could not think how to broach the subject with Hal.

  “Do you think—is this really the best idea?” I said, after a moment. I glanced at the door, confirming that the spell Hal had laid upon it was still intact. “Perhaps—we might think about this before we do anything.”

  He shut the case with a click and turned to me. “I have thought about it. Extensively. We have tried every other avenue for information—this is where we are left.”

  I chewed at my lip, looking down at my feet. “We haven’t asked Sir Hector.”

  “No,” Hal said, after a moment’s pause. “No, that is true. We have not asked him. But—tell me, do you truly believe that anything he could say would be of any use?”

  I shrugged. “You said yourself—he may not truly be mad. Isn’t it worth a try?”

  “I fear that any question will be met with obfuscation,” he said. “No—the time has come to be direct. We must do this ourselves.”

  “But we would be breaking the law,” I said, pulling out the feeblest argument I had. “If we should be caught, what then?”