Fiendish Schemes

by K. W. Jeter

  “No,” I confessed. “I don’t even know if such a device ever existed.”

  A great metallic clatter issued from deep within the Prime Minister’s form, the reverberations so strong as to cause a new storm of dust and debris to fall through the ruins about me. What few riven walls had been left still standing along the corridor behind her, now trembled with imminent collapse.

  “Great God, man—” Through the mounting noise, I heard Stonebrake’s appalled whisper at my ear. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “So, in actuality . . . ,” Mrs. Fletcher persisted in her enquiries, “there is no possible aid you can provide us, when it comes to locating the device?”

  “None whatsoever—”

  In retrospect, that was not the wisest answer I could have given.

  For a moment, it seemed as if the great engine embodying the Prime Minister would rear entirely free of the hastily laid tracks upon which her sharp-circumferenced wheels rested, so violent was the shock that visibly ran through her iron components. From the trembling boiler, rivets sprang like bullets, embedding themselves in the cell’s stone fragments. The escaping gouts of steam were now so enlarged in force and volume as to send flying the attendants scrambling to bring the construction back under control.

  “Down!” Stonebrake grasped my shoulders from behind, attempting to pull me to the floor. “Shield yourself—”

  It was too late. The last image entering my consciousness was that of Mrs. Fletcher, infuriated beyond even the abilities of her transmogrified frame to contain, howling like a Fury in my direction. Through the unleashed clouds of steam, their billows roiling like an ocean tide through the cell’s broken confines, I had a nightmarish glimpse of her face, eyes now fully widened, brow dark with murderous, all-encompassing rage.

  Then the explosion, scalding and churning the very air with its force—I felt myself bodily lifted, all earthly components obliterated. I shot into space, blinded to all thought and trajectory.

  PART FOUR

  THE AFTERLIFE AND BEYOND

  CHAPTER

  18

  Mr. Dower Is Saved,

  Then Lost Again

  I DREAMT.

  Which was a great comfort to me, given my most recent experiences.

  Shortly before awareness returned to my being, I had been engulfed in billows of steam, only marginally less scathing than the regard of that creature which reportedly had once been a woman, but her own vaulting ambition had transformed into a monster of force and brutality. All else had crumbled away, scoured by that great entity Steam which had been unleashed upon the world.

  But the place in which I found myself now—in the soothing compass of my dreaming—was rather more pleasant. Without opening my eyes, or imagining myself to do so, I knew that I was drifting in a boat, lying at full length inside it. One of my hands was draped over the side, so that my scalded hand was lapped by the cooling water. A freshening wind touched lightly upon my face, like a remembered kiss. On its soft current came the sour, invigorating scent of a great city somewhere in the distance, its inhabitants’ exudations mingling into a perfume both sweatily pungent and provocative.

  The boat slowly moved in its placid course, rocking me from side to side, evoking recall of tendernesses placed even further away in Time. Distance softened the tumult of a great roaring as well, sounding to my sleep-enmired ear as gentle as some orchestral amusement full of drums and trumpets. Perhaps the earnest musicians were busily engaged in their craft in a leafy park somewhere on the river’s bank. . . .

  I refrained from opening my eyes, fearful of the dispelling thereby of this unbidden idyll. To my slowing thoughts came just enough remembrance of all from which I had fled, to invoke my wish to avoid that other, less felicitous world a while longer.

  Alas, it was not to be.

  “Wake up there—” Someone else’s hand roughly prodded my shoulder where I lay. “I want no dead bodies, of gennulmun or others, in my p’session. You hear me? Oop and aboot, kindly!”

  Whether I wished them to or not, my eyes sprang open. I found myself gazing up into an unwashed, stubble-bearded visage, previously unknown to me. The features of the man, whoever he might be, were flickeringly lit orange and red, as though by the glow of a fire somewhere beyond.

  I set my hands against the dampish boards beneath and raised myself to a sitting position, discovering thereby that at least this important component of my dreaming was based in reality. For I was indeed in a boat, a slight enough craft to be adequately rowed by one person manning the oars behind my interlocutor.

  “Begging your pardon . . .” I shook my head, as if that motion would be enough to dispel the muddle clinging to its interior. “You’ll have to excuse my disorientation, my good man. I’ve been through . . . rather a lot lately.”

  “Ye might avow as much,” conceded the boatman sitting before me. “Getting fished out of the Thames is naught ye should make a reg’lar practice of.”

  “The Thames?” Bit by bit, further recollections assembled themselves in my thoughts. So abrupt had been my explosive transition from one mode of existence to another, I had scarcely been able to determine whether I was still alive and within London’s urban limits, or that the boat’s shadowily perceived crew were ferrying me across the Styx. “Indeed . . .” I ran my hands over my garments and found them to be as thoroughly sodden as the boatman’s description of my latest adventure would have predicted. “But how?”

  “How what, laddie?”

  “How did I get here?” A spark of irritation flared inside me. What else did he think I’d care to know?

  “Bluidy great blast flung ye here.” He gestured toward the boat’s gunwales, scarcely his arms’ length apart from each other. “Not here lit’rally, I mean, like ye were some fookin’ carp that’d flopped itself into our laps.” One work-gnarled hand pointed across the dark water. “Rather sev’ral yards away, to be exact.”

  “Made a right impressive splash, ye did.” The one at the oars spoke with eye-glittering enthusiasm. “Could’ve been a ver’table cannonball shot at us.” What I could discern of his gap-toothed smile faded a bit. “Pity it weren’t—that’d’ve been ever more int’resting.”

  “ ’F we hadn’t been about here and paddled over to where ye landed, ye’d have like as drowned. Seeing as how ye weren’t in full p’session of yer faculties, as it were.”

  “No . . . I don’t imagine I was.” My cogitation had reached that point where I could aid to some degree the reassembly of my memory. “I was in . . . a cell . . .”

  “Ye see?” The first boatman gave a nod to the one at the oars. “I told ye it was likely a desperate criminal.” He turned back to me. “There be a great plenty of you lot, bomb-throwing anarchists and such, around these days.”

  “Streets be full of ’em, what I hear.” The other added this observation as he dipped the oars into the river. “Can scarce get from Bowditch to the Isle of Dogs, for the sheer number o’ the breed.”

  “I’m actually not an anarchist. Bomb-throwing or otherwise—”

  “Of course ye’re not.” The boatman winked at me. “Nobody ever says they are. It’d be better proof in yer favor if ye said ye were.”

  I let that logic pass without comment. I was still attempting to evoke the recollection of precisely where I had been before landing in the river.

  A flaring light suddenly filled the sky, rendering the watery vista around me as brightly illuminated as though it had been mid-day. At the same time, the rumbling sound of a great explosion washed over the little boat.

  “Ah!” The oarsman expressed keen appreciation. “That were a nice ’un!”

  Looking over my shoulder, in the direction from which the deep report had emanated, I saw stately buildings in the distance, arrayed along the river’s edge. Churning flames leapt past towers and chaotic smokestacks, still belching forth smoke and steam.

  As soon as I recognized the Houses of Parliament, my memories flashed into place, restored by the
sight of the architectural wreckage. At once, I recalled the tightly confining cell, the appearance of first Stonebrake there, then the much more appalling arrival of Mrs. Fletcher. The sound of her furiously squalling voice battered about inside my skull, to the extent that it was a comfort to remember what little I could of the explosive event that had evidently precipitated my aerial launch into the Thames.

  “You see now, don’t you?”

  A voice, a different one, spoke behind me. A woman’s . . . softer and more familiar . . .

  I turned again and saw another figure in the boat, seated at the angle of the prow. Her face was hidden by the heavy shawl that she had wrapped about herself, to fend off the river’s chill.

  The woman spoke again: “That which you so narrowly escaped— you are fortunate to be alive, Mr. Dower!”

  The light from the most recent explosion began to fade, but there was still enough from the remaining fires, by which I could recognize her face when she cast back the shawl from her shoulders.

  “Evangeline—” Startled, I was able to but speak the single name.

  “Yes, of course.” Lord Fusible’s daughter gave me a welcoming smile. “Surely you did not believe that you had been absent from my thoughts?”

  BEING present in a woman’s thoughts at all, especially those of one as young and fair as this, was a relative novelty for me. On some other occasion, less stressful than that in which I currently found myself, that might have been the most flattering aspect of this renewed acquaintance with the young lady. Given the circumstances, though, what was even more welcome was her elucidation of all that had just happened to me.

  “Poor Mr. Dower! You’re soaked through!” She had changed places with the first boatman, the better to hold conversation with me. “You will catch your death, I’m sure.”

  “So far, I haven’t.” As with most men in the company of attractive women, I attempted as much of a valiant façade as I could muster. “Though not for lack of attempts on the parts of others.”

  “You’re quite correct about that; it’s shameful the way you’ve been treated. You must think this a hateful world, for it to be so cruel toward you. And all without cause!”

  “As a general rule, I do try to avoid provoking murderous assaults.”

  “Here, take this.” She wrapped her shawl about me, leaning close to snug its folds tight at my throat. “You need to stay warm.”

  “That’s quite all right. I’ll be fine, I assure you—”

  “I fear you do not understand—even now.” Her hand kept the shawl firmly in place. “You have more value to me than any of mere sentiment.”

  The young woman’s comment worried me a bit. The last person to obscurely speak of my value had been Stonebrake. Even though I was endeavouring, without great success, to refrain from thinking ill of the man—for surely the chances of his escaping the explosion at the Houses of Parliament, as I had, were slender—any words similar to his inveigling verbiage still struck me amiss. I would rather have been of less value to so many people, if such would have rendered me both freer and safer.

  “That is why,” continued Evangeline, “I stationed myself here upon the river, in the company of these loyal servants of my father.”

  “Don’t know as much about loyal, miss.” The one at the prow spoke up. “Seemed more of a lark, to be abs’lutely truthful. More enjoyable than mucking out the carriage house, as ’twere.”

  “There’s no need to minimize your usefulness. If you hadn’t come here with me, poor Mr. Dower here would be dead and drowned by now.”

  “Ye’re right— that would be a great pity and all. ’Pears a pleasant enow fellow. Not one of them bleedin’ Mission folk, is he, that ye’re allus rattling on about?”

  “Mission?” That sparked another remembrance inside me. I glanced over to Evangeline beside me. “Does he mean the Mission to the Cetaceans?”

  “He does,” said Evangeline. “Both these gentlemen are familiar—to a degree—with that organization, though of course they are not actual members of it.”

  “Not likely t’ever be, either.” The boatman’s scorn was evident. “Seem a right daft lot, ye ask me.”

  “Be that as it may.” Evangeline took as sternly chastening a tone as one so young could manage. “The Mission to the Cetaceans certainly proved their merit in this case.” She directed her attention back to me. “For it was through them that I was informed of this heinous plot against your person, Mr. Dower.”

  “Plot?” The boat rocked gently as we continued to drift along the night-dark river. “Against me? Why should anyone—”

  “Well,” the young lady allowed, “not so much against you specifically. You were but a prop, a necessary element in a larger scheme. The attempt was not directed upon your life, but that of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “That seems more reasonable.” I felt no need to further elaborate on my statement, as I felt sure that Evangeline was familiar with the horrifying nature of the other woman. “But who was it who wished to do her harm?”

  “Ye don’t know?” The boatman snorted in derision. “Why, that devious, scheming blaggard—yer friend Stonebrake!”

  “Are you sure?” I was now completely mystified. “Why would he want to accomplish something such as that? I was of the conviction that he needed to ascertain from Mrs. Fletcher the exact location of a certain device created by my father.”

  “The Vox Universalis?” Evangeline nodded sagely. “Yes, I am sure he would have used that as a pretext to advance his lethal agenda. But that merely serves to demonstrate the cunning of the man. There’s a very good chance that every word Stonebrake spoke to you was a lie of one kind or another.”

  “I’d hardly dispute that. I’ve suspected as much, for some time now.”

  “Not so much,” said the boatman, “as to refrain from followin’ along with the bastard, willy-nilly-like.”

  The comments stiffened my spine. “Were you acquainted with the man?”

  “Me? Not bluidy likely!”

  “Then let me assure you—he was very persuasive.”

  The boatman exchanged glances, complete to raised eyebrows, with his companion at the oars, but said no more.

  “We needn’t worry about Mr. Stonebrake any longer.” Evangeline took command of the discussion once again. “Which will be a relief to those for whom he had been putatively working, but who had suspected him of duplicity for some time now. I speak, of course, of the leadership of the Mission to the Cetaceans, with whom I have been in contact.”

  “I doubt if your father would approve of that, if he were to find out. I had gained the impression that your betrothal to Captain Crowcroft was just about as much involvement with the business of walking lighthouses as he cared for you to have.”

  “That much you are correct about, Mr. Dower—but it was my concern for my fiancé that prompted my going behind my father’s back in such a manner. As such, I would entreat you with all my heart, should the occasion arise, not to reveal to him what I have done—and what I now wish to impart to you.”

  “You have my word upon that.” To make such an assurance to an attractive young woman was a small but genuine pleasure for me, as I assume it would be for most men. If we are not as noble in keeping such pledges as our courtly forebears were, it is merely an indication of our generally fallen state. “Pray continue with your revelations.”

  “Here is what you should know,” said Evangeline. “As I have indicated already, the leadership of the Mission had suspected for some time that Stonebrake had been playing some kind of double game, as I believe such is called by those given to devious activities. In this case, it was not so much initiated by Stonebrake himself— rather, he was following an agenda directed by other sinister and mysterious forces.”

  “Aye, she’s right about that, laddie.” The boatman could not refrain from commenting upon the exchange he overheard. “All of that tosh ’bout passing ye off as a dangerous sort, keen on ’quiring some ’laborate gadge
t needed for whatever deviltry ye and yer lot were up to—that was but a ruse to get ye face-to-face with that Fletcher woman. Or whate’er it might be, that she is these days. Or so ’twas ’splained to me.”

  “Exactly so.” Lord Fusible’s daughter leaned closer to me. “Take this as an indicator of the degree of hazard from which you have been so precipitously extracted. I am confident that such never would have been your intention, but you have unwittingly played a crucial part in what was an assassination attempt upon the Prime Minister. You were but the bait to lure the preternaturally suspicious Prime Minister from her fortified hiding place elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster, to those subterranean cells which Stonebrake’s associates had previously mined with explosives.”

  “You are, of course, correct—about me, that is.” I was surprised but not hugely startled by what Evangeline had just told me. Given what I had just experienced of the fearsome Mrs. Fletcher, I would have more likely imagined that attempts to assassinate her were initiated on virtually a daily basis. “Stonebrake said nothing to me of such a motive.”

  “Aye, them anarchists are a tight-mouthed lot.” The boatman spoke up again. “If ye were t’ask me, this here Stonebrake fellow might well have been ’un of that Walsall bunch—ye know all ’bout them, I ’magine.”

  “No . . . I can’t say as I do.”

  “Ye should. Quite a menace they are—leastways, the author’ties say so. Much given to setting off incendiary devices in public places— not quite sure why, ’less it’s for the sheer merriment of doing so.”

  “Don’t be so daft,” said the other manning the oars. “If ye’d but stir yerself as to read their man’festo, ye’d know why they do it.”