Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy

by Kage Baker

  I SAY, LADIES!” HERBERTINH tilted her chair back and rested her feet on the fender. “Here’s a bit of news; Basmond Hall has collapsed.”

  “How awfully sad,” said Jane, looking up from the pianoforte.

  “Indeed,” said Miss Otley. “It was an historic site of great interest.”

  “It says here it fell in owing to the collapse of several hitherto unsuspected mine shafts beneath the property,” said Herbertina.

  “I don’t doubt it,” remarked Mrs. Corvey, with a shudder. “I’m surprised the place didn’t fall down with us in it.”

  “And soon, no doubt, shall be a moldering and moss-grown mound haunted by the spectres of unquiet Rawdons,” said Lady Beatrice, snipping a thread of scarlet embroidery floss. “Speaking of whom, has there been any word of poor dear Jumbey?”

  “Not officially,” said Mrs. Corvey. “There wouldn’t be, would there? But Mr. Felmouth has intimated that the present Lord Basmond is developing a number of useful items for Fabrication.”

  “Happily, I trust?”

  “As long as he gets his candy floss regular, yes.”

  “Jolly good!” Maude played a few experimental notes on her concertina. “Who’s for a song? Shall we have ‘Begone, Dull Care’, ladies?”

  OH!” CRIED ENDERLEY′S wife. “The pin has come off my brooch!”

  Enderley, lathering his face with soap, grunted and laid down the shaving brush. “Let’s see,” he said, turning from the washbasin. His wife held out her hand to display the brooch she had inherited from her mother. It was a heavy, old-fashioned thing of silver, set with a large oval stone. The stone looked to be dark red agate, swirled through with fern-like markings. Enderley didn’t much care for it, but he was mindful of his wife’s stricken expression as he said:

  “Easily fixed. We don’t need to take it to a jeweler; I can repair it at the laboratory.”

  “Can you?”

  “Of course. Dot of solder will do the job. Set it on the hall table and I’ll remember to take it with me.”

  ENDERLEY’S WIFE WAS under the impression he worked for the Patent Office, or some sort of branch of it, doing tests on things. She never asked what, exactly, because she was not of an inquiring disposition. She was content to know that Enderley’s weekly wage comfortably furnished their little terrace house in a nicer London suburb and kept all tradesmen’s bills current.

  When Enderley set forth each morning, beaver hat securely on head and umbrella tightly furled, he did not, in fact, go to the Patent Office nor to any branches it might have. He walked briskly in the general direction of Whitehall, turning in at Craig’s Court. He entered an unremarkable mansion of red brick housing one of the less-celebrated clubs in London, Redking’s.

  Once within its obscure halls, Enderley walked straight past the dining room and bar; passed without a glance the study, where Members dozed in deep chairs or scowled as they perused the Times. Enderley walked down a narrow flight of stairs and along a dimly-lit corridor to a pair of doors which, when opened, revealed merely a tiny windowless room within. Enderley stepped inside and closed the doors. Were anyone to open the doors again, assuming at least one minute and fifteen seconds precisely had passed, they would find Enderley nowhere in sight.

  This was because Enderley had ridden the Ascending Room down to one of the several storeys that lay concealed beneath Redking’s. On one of these subterranean floors, well lit and ventilated by arts currently unknown to the rest of the world, Enderley hung up his beaver hat, set his umbrella in a stand provided for that purpose, donned a white coat, and went to work.

  In one respect only were Mrs. Enderley’s assumptions correct: Enderley did conduct tests on things. Not, however, on new formulae for aniline dyes or lucifer matches, or improved mechanisms for cotton mills. Rather, Enderley’s work on any given day might involve devising new weatherproofing methods for airships, or adapting designs for submarine vessels. In this year of 1845 Jules Verne had as yet written nothing more significant than school compositions, and yet his muse was already alive beneath the pavement of London.

  This was because the hidden complex under Redking’s housed an ancient fraternity currently known, to those privileged few who knew of its existence, as the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society. The Society had gone by other names over the course of its lengthy career. Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. John Dee, and Leonardo da Vinci had all been members. So, it was rumored, had Archimedes and Heron of Alexandria. The Society’s goal was the improvement of the human condition through the secret use of technologia, until such time as humanity became advanced enough to be made aware of its benefits.

  It was generally agreed that some sort of world domination would be necessary before that day arrived, but at the present time the Society was content merely to gather power and pull strings attached to certain government officials. Enderley had been recruited at an early age, after demonstrating his brilliance by winning several prizes. The Society paid him a handsome wage and rewarded especially useful discoveries with generous bonuses, so Enderley was a contented member of the rank and file.

  On this particular day Enderley drew the broken brooch from his pocket and set it on his worktable, intending to mend it when he had a moment to spare. As his present project did not involve the use of a soldering iron (he was experimenting with synthetic compounds that showed promise in inducing profound sleep in dogs) the brooch sat forgotten for some hours, until a careless gesture on Enderley’s part knocked over a beaker of acetic acid. The acid flooded across several of Enderley’s notes and briefly submerged the brooch as well, before finding the edge of the worktable and spattering to the floor.

  Muttering to himself, Enderley grabbed a rag and stopped the flood. He pulled his notes free and, whilst waving them in the air, noticed the brooch. He grabbed for it, observing as he did so a peculiar fizzing reaction localized to the ferny inclusions in the red stone. A second later Enderley was lying unconscious and flat on his back where he had been thrown to the floor.

  His fellow chemists gathered around him in concern. Judson, who was presently working on a formula to prolong life, stooped to pick up the brooch Enderley had dropped and immediately fell as though poleaxed. Berwick, who was compounding a fuel that might enable steam engines to run without benefit of coal, picked up the brooch and was likewise knocked off his feet, stunned. So was Ponsonby, who had that very morning invented a substance that would enable photographs to be taken and developed in a fraction of the time required by Mssrs. Daguerre or Talbot.

  It was left to young Jones, the tea boy, to realize that the best way to pick up the brooch was to gingerly scoop it up between two pieces of pasteboard.

  “IT’S NOT AN agate,” said Greene, pushing the stone across his blotter with the end of a pen. Ludbridge leaned forward and peered at it. Greene customarily prided himself on showing as little emotion as possible during a briefing, and Ludbridge had long since learned that any briefing sessions invariably became contests of sangfroid.

  “My dear old chap, gemstones aren’t my field of study. I wouldn’t know an agate from a bit of red glass.”

  “As it happens, it is a bit of red glass,” Greene informed him. “To be precise, it’s a tektite.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Meteoric glass. Millennia ago, some monstrous fragment of star-stuff hurtled down and struck the Earth. Sand was melted and re-formed into glassy material, and spewed out across the landscape, to be subsequently buried in other antediluvian upheavals. There’s a strewnfield in the Near East with a considerable deposit. There’s another in Bavaria. The stuff from the German crater all ended up in Bohemia, and it’s called moldavite. This would appear to be a piece of moldavite, but for one thing.”

  “Mm. What’s that?”

  “Moldavite’s green.”

  “Well, then it’s something else, isn’t it?”

  Greene shook his head. “Ah, but what? Enderley’s asked his wife. The stone was set in a brooch she inherited from her
mother. Her mother came from Bohemia. Apparently there’s a very rare red variety. Bohemia has its own astrobleme—”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Where’s your Latin? Astrobleme, ‘star wound’. The impact site of a meteor. The Bohemian one seems to be near Budweis. We think that’s the source of the red tektites. We’ve had Research culling through their references; the red stone is difficult to find, hardly ever comes on the market, and the only written reference we can locate is by a 16th-century alchemist, who gave it the name blitzstein.”

  “Thunder stone? No, no… Lightning stone, wouldn’t that be?”

  “Yes. Which indicates that someone before Enderley discovered its useful properties.” Greene peered down at the stone. “Fortunately for us, no one else seems to have noticed that the red stone, when in contact with acetic acid, generates a powerful electrical charge.”

  “Useful, I assume?”

  “It could be. The chaps in Fabrication are beside themselves at the test results so far. Reliable battery power without jars and jars of stuff in heavy cases. Imagine your field gear powered by a tiny disc of this, in a sealed vial of acid. The electric candles, say. Or the thermal goggles.”

  “Damned useful, then.” Ludbridge leaned back, tugging his beard thoughtfully. “Well, what’s the job, Greene?”

  “We want more of it. All of it, if we can get it.” Greene looked directly into Ludbridge’s eyes. “You’re to go there and see that we do.”

  “There being?”

  “Bohemia, where else?” Greene reached out to the globe that sat on the corner of his desk. He spun it briefly and stopped it with a tap of his finger. “Here. You’ll be issued maps, of course. You’ll have an interpreter and a legman with you.”

  “Mm. Funds?”

  “Parker will make the usual arrangements.”

  “I mean, are they to be rather more generous than customary? If I’m to buy large quantities of gemstones?”

  Greene looked opaque. He stroked his mustache. “Given what’s at stake, your allowance is likely to be generous, yes. You are aware, however, that the finance committee lauds every saved halfpenny. Should the opportunity present itself to practice a certain economy, we would, of course, prefer that you take it.”

  Ludbridge gave a short laugh, aware that such a display of emotion would cost him the match. It was some consolation to see Greene very nearly smirk.

  “To be sure! Which one of ’em’s a screwsman, the legman or the translator?”

  “The legman, naturally. Not our most stable operative, but we’ve taken steps.”

  “ ‘Not one of our most stable’…? Who is it?”

  “Chap named Hirsch. Talented, but on sufferance just at present.”

  “I see.”

  HIRSCH THE LEGMAN was nearly late for the boat train to Dover. Ludbridge and the translator—a small and self-effacing émigré named Ressel—watched as he came running through the crowds at the station. He hurried along the platform, spotted their carriage and pounded on the window, grinning. Ludbridge opened the door. Hirsch swung himself in, threw his solitary bag into the overhead rack and slammed the carriage door as the train began to move.

  “So!” He collapsed into his seat and grinned at them once more. “I have arrived.”

  “Just,” said Ludbridge.

  “Yes, well, I was having my teeth seen to.”

  “Were you?” Ludbridge drew out his watch and appeared to consult it.

  “Mr. Greene’s orders. Lest I should be distracted by the toothache when on the job.” Hirsch hooked a finger over his lip and displayed the new silver crown gleaming far back in his mouth.

  “Charming,” murmured Ressel.

  “I am a valuable employee after all, it seems,” said Hirsch, with a certain gloating tone.

  “Are you?” said Ludbridge. “That matter of the policeman in Whitechapel all a misunderstanding, then?”

  Hirsch reddened. He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. “Naturally you’ve read some sort of dossier on me, I suppose, since you’re the mission leader. Very well! Men make mistakes. And yet, here I am, aren’t I? And why is that, do you think?”

  “Because you were the best man for the job,” said Ludbridge.

  Hirsch smiled and laid a finger beside his nose. “Right you are! I track like a hound. And this dog knows a few other tricks, believe me. So all is forgiven and forgotten.”

  “I expect so,” said Ludbridge. “Well, gentlemen. Care for a game of cards?”

  RAILWAY SERVICE WAS dismal, where it existed at all, in France; rather better in Belgium; varied wildly across the Germanies, necessitating several connections made by horse-drawn coach. They had a long jolting ride from Bavaria to Bohemia before gliding into Budweis via horse-drawn rail car.

  “Now for some good beer!” cried Hirsch, as he jumped down and collected his bag. “My father used to cry when he remembered it. Wait until you taste it, Ludbridge! It will open your eyes to that flat warm stuff the English drink. Or perhaps your father was a lord, and didn’t drink beer?”

  “No; he was a laborer, as it happens. Liked his pint of ale.” Ludbridge hoisted out his bag as Ressel jumped down.

  They found a hotel for commercial travelers. With rooms secured, they had an excellent meal of pork and dumplings at a biergarten, washed down by beer that Ludbridge admitted, when pressed by Hirsch, was quite good.

  “And shall we see the sights first, and set off on our quest tomorrow?” cried Hirsch, whose mood had become more and more ebullient the farther east they had traveled. Insofar as he had borne cheerfully with all the inconvenience of the journey, Ludbridge and Ressel had been grateful, but they had begun to find his high spirits somewhat wearing.

  “Don’t think it bears discussion at table, do you?” Stolidly Ludbridge helped himself to another slice of dumpling. Ressel glanced nervously over his shoulder.

  “In the hotel room, Hirsch,” he said in a low voice. “More, er, discreet, yes?”

  Hirsch’s eyes flashed with anger. He subsided, and consumed the rest of his meal in sullen silence.

  LUDBRIDGE AND RESSEL played cards until just before midnight, when Hirsch returned and flung his hat across the room at the hatrack. Missing it, he muttered under his breath as he retrieved it and hung it up.

  “And your progress?” Ludbridge folded his hand of cards.

  “The red is rare,” said Hirsch. “Very rare. Two of the jewelers laughed at me. So did a pawnbroker. This is not employment calculated to increase a man’s self-respect.”

  “Quite,” said Ludbridge. “Has anyone got it?”

  “One place had a signet ring, another place a woman’s pendant with a cameo.” Hirsch drew a chair from the group at the table and sat, straddling it front to back. “Priced higher than you wish to pay, perhaps? But you’ll see. What I did learn was that both pieces were made by the same man, and the red tektite river flows through him and him alone. Old family business of jewelers, and he is the current inheritor of the firm.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Konrad Bayer.” Hirsch felt about in his coat pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, which he handed to Ludbridge. “That is the address of the premises.”

  “Very good.” Ludbridge glanced at it and tucked it away in his waistcoat pocket. “Ressel, you and I will trot round there tomorrow and make a few innocent inquiries.”

  “Didn’t I do a good enough job?” cried Hirsch.

  “Of course you did! I’m giving you a day to rest, you damned fool. Chances are you’ll have surveillance watch tomorrow night. You’ll want all the sleep you can get,” said Ludbridge.

  THE SHOP BORE a sign reading BAYER & SOHN. Behind the display window panes were trays lined in faded velvet, bearing various examples of jewelry design in silverplate and paste. Ludbridge nodded at Ressel and they went in, causing a bell mounted over the door to ring as they did so. Ludbridge, smiling, drew off his hat and bowed to the ancient who rose from behind the counter.


  “Tell him I’m pleased to make his acquaintance, and ask him whether he’s Herr Bayer.”

  Ressel translated obediently. The old man shook his head mournfully and replied at length.

  “He says he is merely Herr Muller, but he has worked here for forty years and can undoubtedly serve us, as Herr Bayer has not yet come down this morning, and what would the Englishman wish to purchase?”

  “Very well; tell him… my wife had a certain brooch, of which she was quite fond, inherited from her Bohemian grandmother, and sadly the stone has gone missing from its setting. It was a particular red glass, not made but naturally occurring, and I have been informed that only here can I purchase a replacement.”

  Ludbridge watched as Ressel translated again. Even while Ressel was speaking, Herr Muller began to shake his head. He interrupted; Ressel pressed on; they exchanged several brief remarks. At last Ressel turned to Ludbridge.

  “He says it is true that Bayer & Son is the only dealer in the red, but they have not had any for a long time now and in fact may not get it in stock again. He suggests you look for it in shops that carry older jewelry, as it sometimes comes up for sale there. Or perhaps you would like to replace it with garnet or ruby.”

  “Damn. Ask him why they can’t get it.”

  Ressel translated the question. Herr Muller glanced upward once and replied.

  “He says he doesn’t know, it’s none of his business.”

  “Ask him where the red glass comes from.”

  The sound of someone descending a staircase came from the rear of the shop. Herr Muller glanced over his shoulder. He said something brief and emphatic.

  “He says he doesn’t know that either, he is only a clerk, and if you aren’t interested in buying rubies or garnets, you had better look elsewhere—”

  A man entered the shoproom from a rear door, pulling on a coat as he came. He was tall, reasonably youthful and good-looking, with stylishly curled hair and whiskers, but a certain wolfish and disheveled air. There were circles under his eyes. He looked sharply at Ludbridge and Ressel, and said something in an interrogatory tone to Herr Muller.