The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books)

by Marie O'Regan

  He went to turn his coat, and felt in the pockets; a scrap of paper, and a tiny cog. The paper with the word Lalika on it. He frowned; he was sure he had left it on the table. How had it come to be in his pocket? He looked at it again, crumpled and torn where it had been caught in the drawer slide. Now he thought back, there hadn’t been any other papers in that drawer that seemed to have their corners missing.

  So whatever this had been part of, it was no longer there. Someone had taken it out, perhaps in a hurry, wrenching at it. Leaving behind this fragment. And now the fragment had come home with him, along with one tiny cog; tiny yet slightly too big to have been part of the broken watch. Everything else in the office was so neat, so carefully tidied away; a place for everything, and everything, except this little glittering snowflake of metal, in its place. Well, anyone could lose or discard something so tiny. And yet, there it had been, close to the body. Stained, in fact, with the young man’s blood. Gairden rubbed his thumb over it; brown flakes came away.

  “Stains . . .” he said. “I wonder what stains their hands. Dyes, perhaps. I must remember to ask Lassiter.”

  Perhaps Wishart had been working on something; a project of his own, Lassiter had said. Perhaps whoever came in had grabbed not only the papers, but Wishart’s latest mechanism.

  Possibly Rheese had been right about espionage; tomorrow, he would go to the patent office. And to the theatre, too; he felt a sting of pleasure at the thought. Maybe he would even buy a ticket; it was a long time since he had done such a thing.

  Wishart hadn’t done such things at all, according to Lassiter. Wishart had spent his life among machines, without family, seemingly without friends. Gairden looked out into the rainy night, and shook his head.

  The next day other things intervened: a kidnapping (that might, in fact, be a running-away), a suicide, and the thousand mundanities of the working day; by the time Gairden could have got to the patent office, it was shut. He did make time to have the broken watch looked at by a watchmaker of his acquaintance: Adelle Brigley, a cosy-looking woman of middle years. Her workshop, unlike Jamie Wishart’s, was an Aladdin’s cave of glittering confusion in which she never, to Gairden’s continuing astonishment, seemed to have the slightest trouble finding what she wanted. She poked at the ruined mechanism and held fragments up to the lamplight. “It was a nice piece. A Lockwood and Greene. Engraved inside the lid.”

  “Is the engraving visible?”

  “Some of it . . .” She screwed a jeweller’s glass into her eye and peered. “To Jamie . . . something . . . occ . . . probably occasion . . . and two numbers, a two and a one, I think. An ‘m’. Then two ‘e’s. I can’t make out the rest.”

  “A birthday gift,” Gairden said. “On the occasion of his twenty-first, I imagine.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “An expensive one?”

  “Depending on one’s means, Inspector. Not an extravagant purchase for a well-off man, but a tidy enough price.”

  “And is it all there?”

  She prodded. “The hands are missing, maybe some other pieces. It’d take a deal of mending.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Not at all. Will you take a cup with me, Inspector Gairden? You look chilled.”

  “No, thank you. More to do yet.”

  “You work yourself very hard,” said Adelle, shaking her head at him.

  He smiled, and paid her her usual honorarium, then made his way to the theatre nearest to the Rheese manufactory. It seemed a sensible place to start; murder often had a small circumference.

  Among smells of powder and greasepaint and dust and sweat-stained satin and weary feet, he questioned dancers and doormen. None had heard of Jamie Wishart, though plenty had heard of Rheese. None knew of anyone who might have visited the manufactory.

  Of course, the fact of someone dancing did not necessarily indicate a professional dancer; his own dead Esther, a postmistress, had loved to dance. When she could no longer dance herself, she liked to sit and watch, and encouraged him to dance with other women. I like to see you, she’d said. One in a million, Esther. Not a jealous bone in her.

  “The girl, Mattie,” Gairden said, to Esther’s portrait that night, “had a soft spot for young Mr Wishart. Now, a bludgeoning . . . that’s not a woman’s murder, as a rule. But she’s a strong lass. And got a temper, too, you could see it. Enough of one to stove his head in, though? For love? Is that love, Esther?

  “And what about Lassiter? There’s something going on there; the way he pokered up. I think I shall be looking at some old reports tomorrow. And the watch . . . I’ve a thought about the watch, Esther. We shall see. That poor boy . . . what a lonely life, and a dreadful end. If he was dancing with someone, I hope he enjoyed it.”

  After another day of fruitless enquiries at theatres, and the reading of dusty crime reports in faded handwriting, and damp feet, and frustration, Gairden was wrapping his scarf about his throat prior to leaving the station, the rain having given way to fog thick and chilly as ectoplasm. There was a commotion at the door, and Mattie Drewrey, the curls that escaped her scarf dewed with droplets, her cheeks flushed, was waving at him over the head of the duty sergeant.

  “Miss Drewrey?”

  “Oh, Inspector, you’ve got to come! There’s been such things going on!”

  “Now, Miss Drewrey, why don’t you come into my office and tell me what you mean?”

  “I can’t, sir, it might have stopped by the time we got back – soon as I realized it was something out of the way, I ran straight out to tell you!”

  “To tell me what?”

  “It’s Jamie . . . Mr Wishart . . . He’s been making ever such a fuss.”

  Weariness retreating, Gairden followed Mattie Drewrey through the fog-drifted streets.

  The gates were open; the workers coming off shift milling and chattering with those coming on. Outside the entrance doors to the building, the crowd swirled, paused, like water caught in an eddy. Lassiter, the foreman, was standing by the doors; his voice carried clearly over the chatter. “Now, come on, just be patient, it’ll be sorted out. Those of you about to start your shift, you might as well come in and wait in the warm.”

  Gairden realized, finally, what was different; though until now it had seemed of a piece with the weather.

  It was quiet. The churn and rumble of a passing velocipede underlined the silence; the paving stones lay quiet beneath his feet. No wonder he could hear Lassiter so easily: the machines were not running.

  He excused himself and pushed through the crowd, conscious of eyes on him as he worked his way to the front. “Trouble, Mr Lassiter?”

  “Oh, Inspector.” Lassiter ran his hands through his hair. “Sorry, sir, I don’t know if anyone’ll be able to speak with you just at the moment, we’ve a bit of a problem.”

  “So I see. Can you tell me what exactly has happened?”

  “Bloody sabotage! That’s what’s happened!” Rheese appeared behind Lassiter. His face was flushed, and a distinct odour of brandy was now incorporated with those of cigars and pomade.

  “Perhaps I could take a look, sir?” Gairden said. Mattie was still beside him, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes darting from one man to the other.

  “You have any knowledge of machines, Inspector?”

  “No, sir, but I’ve dealt with a saboteur or two, in my time.”

  “Hah. You’d best come in, then.”

  “What, exactly, happened?” Gairden asked, walking among the machines.

  “Nothing, that’s the thing of it, sir,” Lassiter said.

  “It’s not nothing if the damn machines stop!” Rheese said. “Do you know how much this is going to cost me?”

  “What I mean, sir,” Lassiter said, with a deference tinged with weariness, “is that we can’t find a reason. We can’t find a slipped gear or a thrown cog, not a thing that would account for it. And even if there was, for one set, it wouldn’t affect the rest. All the machines have stopped.”
r />   “When did this happen?” Gairden said.

  Lassiter glanced up at the great clock on the wall. “About forty minutes ago, sir. Just on six.”

  “And was anything happening at the time?”

  “No, sir. I was just talking to Mr Rheese about what we should do for Jamie’s funeral.”

  “There are arrangements for that kind of thing, aren’t there?” Rheese said. “Wouldn’t you fellows sort that out?”

  “We can do, sir,” Gairden said, “if, as you say, he had no one else to do the thing decently.”

  Rheese nodded, and turned away.

  Gairden prowled among the silent machines. There was nothing here; nothing but mechanism, waiting with donkey patience to move again. Cautiously, he ran his fingers over rivets and pistons. There was a suggestion of warmth in the metal; the room itself was still warm with the motion now stilled. Yet why, with donkey stubbornness, had it stopped? He could see nothing, feel nothing, that suggested the fury or the calculated disruption of the saboteur. The great levers stood poised above his head like guns at the salute.

  “Nothing,” he said, returning to the others.

  “It’s Jamie,” Mattie Drewrey said stubbornly. “He’s trying to tell us who murdered him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, girl!” Rheese said; but he glanced about him uneasily.

  “He’s not going the clearest way about it, then,” said Gairden.

  Even as he spoke there was a great hissing sigh, and a creak, and a rumbling, and the levers began to move.

  “Well!” Lassiter said. “There’s a turn-up. Shall I get the workers started, Mr Rheese?”

  Rheese was staring at the machines with a kind of glum fury. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Get them working while they can. Who knows when everything will stop again?”

  “When you’re done, Mr Lassiter,” Gairden said, “I’d like a word, if you please.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The wall clock, which, unlike the machines, had kept going, chimed the hour. Gairden looked at it, and frowned.

  Lassiter came to the wages office as before. He looked tired, the deep lines either side of his mouth pulling it down. Gairden realized that the man was younger than he had first thought – it was those lines that made him look more than his age, and a sort of weary watchfulness.

  “Now, Mr Lassiter,” Gairden said. “I was going through old reports today, and I found something that troubled me.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes. You used to be one of the Children of Lud.”

  Lassiter sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I did, sir, yes.”

  “You were arrested for vandalism. Attacking a steam loom.”

  “I was.”

  “And now you’re a foreman in a leading manufactory. Explain this to me, if you please.”

  “What’s to explain, sir? I was young. I lived in the country; I knew a lot of folks being put out of work by the machines; there was a deal of excitement about it all, a deal of revolutionary talk. Then I got myself in that bit of trouble. My mother bailed me out, it took most of her savings, then she sat me down and, oh, did she ever give me a talking to.” His mouth tilted upwards, briefly, at the memory. “She said she was never wasting good money on such foolishness again, so I’d better sort myself out. I had a good think. I realized the world was changing, Inspector. If I wanted to be any good in it, I needed to swim with the tide, not against it. I couldn’t stop the machines, but if I worked, I could learn about them. And where I am now, I can do a bit of good; work on safety improvements, do my best to get the workers treated decently. The world’s changed. You can’t go backwards, sir.”

  “That seems a very solid turnaround, Mr Lassiter.”

  “It was make my way or starve, sir, I decided to make my way the best I could.”

  “You’re very concerned for the safety of your workers.”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Did you resent Mr Wishart’s distraction? You were waiting for safety devices to be finished, and he was working on some project of his own.”

  “It was no good getting impatient with Jamie, Inspector. He’d just give you that smile and show you some wonderful new thing he was working on. He was like a boy, really. And you’d have about given up, and then he’d come running in with whatever you’d asked for, often better than you’d asked for, and barely stop to show you how it worked before he’d be off to do something else.” Lassiter looked down at his hands. “I’m good with machines, I’ve learned to be, but I had nothing on Jamie. He had a kind of passion in him. He talked about his devices in such a way . . . as though they were real before he’d even made them, as though they were just waiting for him to find the right way . . .” Lassiter blinked. “Did you …”

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I heard something. There it is again.”

  Now he was listening, Gairden could just make it out, the faintest silvery shimmer of sound, winding through the thudding rhythm of the machines.

  “That’s what I heard, sir, that night,” Lassiter whispered. “Like that, only stronger, with more of a beat to it.”

  It was barely a sigh, Gairden thought, among the brutal clangour of the machines, not so much music as music’s shadow. A voice without strength or words, yet so sad, so terribly mournful. Barely had he heard it before it faded.

  Now there was only the blunt endless thudding of the steam hammers audible. Lassiter was staring into the distance, like a man who had caught a glimpse of a sorrowful memory. Gairden cleared his throat. “Was Jamie working on something like an instrument?” he said. “Mr Rheese mentioned a mechanical orchestra.”

  Lassiter blinked, and came back to himself. “Oh, there were a dozen and one things, sir, but recently he’d been keeping whatever it was to himself. He’d promised to show me when he was finished. He said it would be the most wonderful thing. It always was, of course.” Lassiter rubbed his forehead.

  “Mattie Drewrey thought she saw someone up there – someone dancing with Mr Wishart.”

  “She did? Well, no one passed me sir, as I said, but it’s a rambling place. I suppose there could have been someone up there. It doesn’t sound like Mr Wishart, though. He wasn’t one for that sort of thing, hanging about stage doors and such. He worked a great deal. Slept up there as often as not. Don’t know when he’d have had time to meet young ladies.”

  “No. Oh, one last thing . . . what are those marks on your hands?”

  “Oh, dyes, varnishes, such like. They fade, sink into the skin, you know, but there’s always the next thing, and you’re covered again.”

  “Thank you, Mr Lassiter.”

  Gairden went back up to the workshop. There was still a stain on the floor; a fine layer of the glittering dust that hung in the air of the manufactory was beginning to layer itself over everything, making the room with its closed secretive drawers, its miniature limbs and tools and eyes, look like some uncanny half-remembered dream.

  Gairden stood in the middle of the floor, avoiding the stain, turning slowly; letting his gaze travel.

  Something glittered; something seemed to fall through the air. He glanced up, thinking there was a leak in the roof, but the ceiling was unmarked. He looked down, and there, by the door, was another of those tiny cogwheels – this one of a silvery-blue metal. He moved, and picked it up.

  Out in the corridor another faint glittering fall, almost too fine to see; in the glow of the wall lamps it fell like a tiny burning star, landing outside the door of Rheese’s office.

  It was locked; he was sure it was locked, but under the touch of his fingers the lock snicked back and the door swung open.

  Gairden walked in. He would have some explaining to do if Rheese turned up. He stood with his head cocked, waiting, but it seemed that whatever had led him here had run out of steam.

  There were papers on the desk again. One quick glance, and he would be gone.

  Designs. Toys. A doll, a metal bird. Drawings in a swift, meticulous hand
; another hand, heavier with the pencil. Thick lines scored through notes. Half-legible scrawls in the margins. Nonsensical. How can this work?

  A brown, crinkled stain on the edge of the paper. Gairden sniffed. Brandy.

  And beneath the desk were a pair of shoes. Waiting for the bootboy to pick them up for cleaning? They looked very clean already. Polished to a gleam.

  Gairden glanced behind him, then picked up the shoes and turned them over.

  The soles were smooth, grimed with the dust of the factory floor. If they had trodden in blood, it was no longer there. But something glimmered where the sole met the shoe. Something small and bright. With the tip of his pencil, he levered it out from the seam.

  A tiny golden arrow, the weapon of a miniature Cupid. Gairden bounced it on his palm, put the shoe back where he had found it, and left.

  The patent office was a great, brown, shuffling, rustling wasp’s nest of a place; off the central hallway with its noble domed ceiling and tall imperious counters were dozens of tiny rooms, crammed and choked with paper. Inspector Gairden, after a number of increasingly wearisome enquiries, misdirections, and misunderstandings, found himself in one of these, confronted by a small, tweedy, harassed man with thinning hair and a sore-looking nose. “You wish to examine a patent?” The man rubbed his nose and sneezed. “Excuse me, sir. It’s the dust. Which one would you wish to see?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Inspector Gairden said. “I merely wish to be informed about any new patent applications. Should they arise.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, if you’ve the authority …”