The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  Steering by the arm, I guided my pretend husband across the roadway to the other side. “Gentle with the baby, dear,” I whispered as he pushed the front wheels of the perambulator up the kerbstone.

  Thus we arrived on Bell Lane opposite the place where Lara had intercepted me earlier. Knowing where to look, I spotted her without difficulty this time.

  Bending forwards and reaching into the perambulator, I made as if to adjust a blanket. When I straightened myself, Lara was already behind us and my knife was in my hand, half tucked into the sleeve of my coat. I counted twenty paces more, then steered Orville’s arm, bringing us back across the roadway. Tension had tightened his muscles so that they felt like bundles of cable under strain.

  “Which entrance?” I whispered.

  “A little further.”

  But every step brought us closer to the place where Silvan had been stationed. The blade of my knife rested against my hand. I moved my fingers across the edge, reminding myself of its sharpness.

  Then, behind us, Lara whistled. A single shrill blast.

  Orville started to quicken his pace, but I gripped him tighter and pulled back.

  Fifty yards ahead, Silvan stepped out into the middle of the pavement.

  “Which door?”

  “Just a little further.”

  Forty yards away, Silvan began to walk towards us.

  “This one.”

  “Slow,” I hissed, taking the handle of the perambulator and turning it towards the entrance. Orville went to the front and lifted the wheels over the step. We were inside a bare hallway. Doors with peeling paint lay to left and right. My heart sank as I saw the stairs that lay ahead.

  “You didn’t tell me they were so steep!”

  “I’ll take most of the weight,” he said.

  We began to climb, Orville ahead, bent low, me following, holding the handle of the perambulator at face height. The front wheels bumped on every step.

  I could see Orville’s fear, but it wasn’t until I reached the first corner that I saw Silvan standing in the doorway below. He stepped inside, but I was quickly around the turn and he was out of sight again.

  Another gaslight hissed on the first landing. We pushed on past it into the welcoming gloom of the stairs, which creaked ominously under our feet. The smell of damp pervaded.

  On the second landing there was no gas lamp. I gestured to Orville and we stopped, both poised, listening. I could hear the muffled sound of a man and woman arguing, perhaps in the rooms below. Quieter than that was the murmur of life in countless close-packed households – people talking, children playing, dishes being stacked. Outside in the far distance I could just hear a poorly tuned piano plonking out a sing-song tune.

  We held each other’s gaze. The stairs below us remained silent. If we abandoned the perambulator on this landing and Silvan were to find it, he would know for sure we were not what we had seemed to be. So we lifted it once more and set out, trying to be quieter on the final flight of stairs.

  On the third landing, we found ourselves standing under the angle of the roof. The only illumination came from a skylight above our heads, and that but a dim reflection of the city’s gaslights from the low clouds. Orville turned his key in the door and I pushed the perambulator into his small room. I caught the impression of an iron bed frame and small table in the darkness. Orville scrabbled about on hands and knees in the corner. Furniture scraped on the bare floorboards and he was standing again, a small square box in his hands.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  It seemed an unremarkable thing – a box barely big enough to contain a gentleman’s top hat. I reached out to touch it and saw him flinch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been hiding it for so long.”

  Then he held it towards me and I ran my fingers over the lid, feeling the ridges and lines of an inlaid pattern which I could not make out with my eyes.

  “Is it heavy?”

  “The perambulator will hold it easily.”

  “That may be a problem. Silvan isn’t a fool. If we try to leave the same way we came–”

  “But there isn’t another door!” Alarm had raised the pitch of his voice. “These tenements are built directly onto each other. Back to back.”

  “There is a way,” I said. “But you may not like it. Do you have any rope?”

  I unpacked my battered travelling case one final time and secreted about my person those small, tell-tale items that might have given away the truth of my double existence. Then, boosted by a high stool from Orville’s room, I reached my arms through the skylight window and braced them on the slates. “Push me,” I hissed. But having taken one look up and caught sight of my pantaloons and perhaps more besides, Orville turned his head away and would not come close again. I dangled for a moment, before finding the strength to haul myself out on the steep incline of the roof.

  He followed, climbing out easily enough. But when confronted with the drop he became distressed and clung tightly to the lip of the skylight. We had cut strips from his linen sheet to form a makeshift rope. This I now hauled, pulling the precious box up behind us.

  “I don’t have a good head for heights,” he said.

  “You tell me this now?”

  He closed his eyes and took in a shuddering breath.

  “Will you abandon your treasure?” I asked.

  “I will not!”

  “Then you must climb. At the ridge tiles it’ll be easier.”

  I made him go first, steadying his foot with my free hand as he inched upwards, his body pressed flat to the slope. When he reached the apex, I let go and lowered the skylight glass, following him up on hands and knees.

  Though sat astride the roof and thus having no risk of falling, Orville became yet more agitated by the vertiginous exposure.

  “There is nowhere to look,” he said.

  “You don’t have to look. There’s only one way you can crawl! I snatched a glance over his shoulder along the central ridge, taking in the chimney that stood like a wall some ten yards ahead, coal smoke rising from three of its pots.

  I followed behind him as he inched forwards. A fine rain now drifted in the air, making the slates more slippery than they would have been. My clothes began to feel heavy with moisture. Orville’s hand reached the base of the chimney and he stopped. Standing and climbing onto the top of the stack and across would have been the safest way to go. But judging by Orville’s reactions so far, I did not think he could cope with such exposure.

  “Hold this,” I said, handing him the end of the rope. Then taking the box under one arm, I lowered myself onto the slick incline. Had I slipped, I doubt the strip of cut linen would have helped me. But even with the flimsiness of the cord and Orville’s vertigo, I felt safer knowing he had hold of the other end.

  Spreading the fingers of my free hand for a better grip, I descended, then crabbed across to the other side of the chimney and was quickly back at the ridge line where I anchored myself. Orville seemed emboldened by the length of linen in his hand just as I had been. Soon he appeared around the masonry and was climbing back towards me. But as his free hand reached for safety, one foot slipped and he fell heavily, knocking a slate free. I lunged, grabbing the sleeve of his coat to steady him. But the slate was skittering away down the roof, accelerating as it went. It shot out from the edge.

  I clenched my teeth as it smashed in the street below. A second passed before the shouting began. Silvan’s voice to start with: “They’re on the roof!” Then a shrill whistle, Lara’s I thought. Other shouts followed in the distance. The pounding of running feet.

  I looked across the next stretch of roof, searching for a skylight, finding none. Orville’s coat sleeve was still in my grip. I stood, one foot on each side of the ridge and hauled him up after me. We wobbled together for a moment, then I started walking towards the next chimney, leading him by one hand, clutching the box to my chest with my free arm.

  I heard a clatte
r behind us. The skylight had opened. They had found the stool and must now be clambering out onto the roof themselves. I stepped down the slope and around the next chimney. Orville followed, not waiting for me to reach the other side.

  At first it seemed there would be no escape from this stretch of roof either, but as I hauled myself back to the top, I saw another skylight window directly below. I was already sliding down towards it before Orville had reached the ridge. Slipping on the wet slates, I threw out my free arm and grabbed the edge of the frame to stop me.

  Bracing my feet as best I could, and praying for luck just this once, I dug my fingers into the crack and heaved. The skylight lifted. In a second, Orville was with me. I gave him the box and climbed in through the opening, hanging for a moment before dropping onto the dark landing below. The box came next and then Orville.

  “They’re on the road,” he gasped. “We can’t go out.”

  “But don’t you see?” I said. “We’ve come down on the other side of the ridge. This house empties out at the back of the tenement. If we run...”

  He grabbed my hand and we were off down the treacherous stairs. I took them two at a time, praying they’d all be there, for there wasn’t light enough to see. Hoping also that the rickety rail would hold me if I slipped.

  Then we were out into the night once more, our feet sliding on wet flagstones. The poorly tuned piano that I’d heard in the distance was suddenly loud. I could smell stale beer and smoke. Bottles clinked. We scrambled over a low wall and dropped into the rear yard of a bustling pub.

  “Is it done?” he asked, catching his breath.

  “We’ll know in a moment.”

  Chapter 37

  A man may learn to lie on a bed of nails for the amazement of his audience and yet he will remain a fool until he knows what drives him.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  It felt as if I had been running all my life – across rivers and woodlands, roofs and alleyways. The rain had set in now. It slanted through the air, lit by the feeble gas lamps of Spitalfields, and bounced off the cobbles and paving stones over which we ran. Behind us, keeping easy pace, loped the Sleepless Man.

  He had been waiting outside the pub when we came through. With the two of us together, he could not attack. Nor could he run back to tell Silvan and the others where we were – for then he would lose sight of us and we could disappear into the labyrinth of London’s streets. So he followed like a jackal waiting for its prey to fall from exhaustion.

  “Your part... of the... deal,” I said to Orville between gasps.

  “I honour it,” he said, “But my money... it’s in my room.”

  “I’ve still some left.”

  By the time we reached the coach station our run had slowed and the Sleepless Man had closed the distance. When I turned to face him and brandished my knife he backed off a few paces, but always to draw closer again, keeping our nerves wound tight, wearing us down.

  The food stalls in the coach station had closed for the night but a few late travellers stood around the forecourt waiting for departure. I handed Orville the knife. He turned to keep our pursuer from rushing us as I knocked on the kiosk window. I would have bought tickets to some other place to throw him off our trail. But there was only enough in my purse to cover two singles to Bletchley.

  I did not notice the moment when the Sleepless Man slipped away. It must have been after we had boarded but before our carriage pulled out of the station.

  We were the only passengers. Packages and parcels filled the left half of the coach. Orville and I sat facing each other on the right with his precious machine wedged on the seat next to him. With each streetlamp we passed, light swept from me to him, causing the inlay on the box to shine for a second. It was silver, I thought. Precious stones glinted at the corners of the design. Whatever it contained had driven Orville and Timpson to take extraordinary risks.

  “They’ll guess our destination,” he said.

  “But we’re a step ahead.”

  He shook his head. “How long can I exist like this, hunted from place to place?”

  I thought again about my own flight from the Kingdom. Here I was, running once more. Perhaps we weren’t so different.

  “I’m beyond the protection of the law,” he said.

  “Then give up the machine. Let Timpson take it. Or give it to the Patent Office. Isn’t life worth more than wealth?”

  “You think I did this for money!” He laughed. It was a cold sound. “What is money? Only a means to an end. If it can’t achieve what you desire, then it’s worthless.”

  “If your machine creates gold, there’s nothing you can’t have.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said.

  “Then why not give it up?”

  “Because I wish to change the world.”

  “By creating gold?”

  “By destroying it.”

  At first I thought I had misheard him – his words barely louder than the clatter of iron on cobbles as the outskirts of London whipped past the carriage window.

  “Are you joking, sir?”

  He leaned forwards. His eyes fixed on mine. “Gold is precious only because it’s rare. Make it as common as lead and it would have as little value. The poor sweat away their lives for the promise of a few coins. But when those coins are made worthless by this machine... then the poor man’s labour will be the only thing of value. The idle rich won’t be able to rest. The treasures they’ve stored up... they’ll be worthless.”

  “You are an anarchist?”

  “I’m sickened by a world in which class can be a barrier that even love can’t break. If that makes me an anarchist, so be it. You think my dear sister, buried in all her riches, could share my aim?”

  I had taken the Duchess’s brother to be many different things along this road. First he was simply a runaway aristocrat, then a foolish adventurer. When I saw his picture for the first time, his impossibly perfect features, I even felt the attraction a woman feels for a man. But it was only now that I saw his tragedy. He was kind and intelligent but had been hollowed out by his own high ideals. It was a kind of madness.

  “Destroy the machine,” I said. “Before it destroys you.”

  “For this, I’ve abandoned things I love more than life. I won’t give it up now.”

  The road became bumpy and the carriage began to sway more violently. I gripped the strap to steady myself and sensed that he pulled the box more closely to him.

  “Would you let me see it?” I asked.

  He hesitated before unclipping and lifting the lid. “You’ve earned a look,” he said. As the light of another streetlamp passed across us, I saw the contents of the box to be no more than a sculpture of laboratory glassware and mirrors. Three reagent bottles were held snug in pockets on one side. Across the centre lay a glass tube, mirrored at both ends. He pulled a small crank handle from another pocket and fitted it into the side of the box, giving the apparatus the appearance of a gramophone player.

  “How can this thing make gold?” I asked.

  He gazed fondly at the machine, as if it were a small child. “That I still don’t know. But if we’re still alone at the next stop, I’ll show you something marvellous.”

  The route of the night coach zigzagged up the country with scheduled stops in many small towns. Thus I did not have long to wait. Soon we rolled into the courtyard of an inn. The driver jumped down, calling to us that we had ample time to use the privy should we require it. Then he strode off in the direction of the stables.

  Orville unclipped and opened the box once more. He tapped the three flasks in turn. “Distilled water in this one. Active reagents in these.”

  I watched as he turned a dial between the bottles. “This alters the ratio of water to the other chemicals. I’m setting it low. A dilution of one to a thousand.”

  “What is the meaning of this process?” I asked.

  “The chemicals will mix in the central reaction tube. The papers we found with
the machine spoke of its capacity to change the essence of things. But all you see me doing now – this we discovered by trial and error.”

  As he spoke, he began to turn the handle in the side of the machine. I could hear the mechanism whirring within the box, the pitch and volume increasing as it turned faster. I was thinking of the similarity with Timpson’s lightning machine when, quite suddenly, Orville stopped. A smile had broken on his face.

  Then I saw it – a line of light the colour of garnet, straight as a ruler’s edge suspended in the air. It seemed to originate in the reaction tube, but was reflected up by an angled mirror, and came to rest on the carriage roof. I moved my hand through the line, expecting to feel the touch of it, for it appeared to be of substance. Yet there was nothing. Only a slight warming, as though a spot of sunlight had fallen on my skin in a darkened room.

  “I... I don’t understand.”

  Orville swivelled the mirror, sending the line lancing upwards at a different angle. “From the workshop we aimed the beam at the stable door,” he said. “That would be a distance of thirty yards or more. The spot of light it cast remained just as small as this. Then we became bold and aimed it at the wall of the mansion three furlongs away. The result was precisely the same. A dot of light no bigger than a child’s fingernail.

  “Who made this thing?” I asked. “And how can light change metal?”

  “Who made it, we don’t know. It was one of many curiosities in the collection. As to the changing of metal – it was mentioned in the papers as I’ve said. But I took that to be a fancy. Harry Timpson isn’t the only man to have made spurious claims of alchemy.

  “We saw the machine as an invention in want of a purpose. A curiosity. But having painted a spot of light over a distance of three furlongs, we realised it might be used as a kind of heliograph or Aldis lamp – flashing messages over very great distances in perfect security.