by Kin Law
Oh posh, I hear the tossers say, everyone knows Her Majesty’s secret government operates out of the Diogenes Club! If it were a secret, why should John Bull know of it at all? Long story short, when the neighborhood of Westminster disappeared overnight, I was the prime understudy to play Her Majesty’s catspaw.
As to how this pirate, this Marauder of Manchu, saw through my disguise, I am at a loss. Even Thatcher, shadow of shadows, could not discover me at a place of his choosing, though I was hidden in plain sight; it was one of the criteria of my involvement in the Queen’s affairs.
“What did you dress up as?” the Marauder interrupted, rather rudely, I might add. I halted in my telling of how I had arrived at my situation in Portsmouth to stare him down. I was unsuccessful. “To evade even Thatcher’s detection.”
“A nun,” I admitted reluctantly.
“Continue,” he said, stifling a giggle. The cad!
It was all the worse his tea was so good, and his brig so warm and cheerful.
A modest carpet covered up the worst of the planks. Thick blankets softened the hard cot, and a vanity screen had even been installed round the loo. Even the bars were clean and free of rust. I bit into a fingerprint cookie, paired with a delightful Assam, to stall for time.
“You understand, I am only telling you any of this on condition of our deal. You will honor the deal, Master Pirate?” I demanded of him, though I was hardly in any position of leverage. My old friends, a small derringer and my .22 Tranter, lay heavy with unused ammunition atop a table at the air pirate’s elbow. Any documentation of my real identity sat under the loose floorboards in my narrow room over the Jilted Merman.
“If it will engender your trust, my name is Albion Clemens. I know, sounds faker than my alias, right?”
“I didn’t realize pirates had proper names. You may put on any alias you like,” I managed. The name struck a chord, obviously- did my captor have something to do with the air pirate Samuel Clemens? Looking about, the ship did seem far too old and large for such a young man to master.
“Chosen names. They are the only ones that matter.”
“Fine,” I huffed, though the impropriety intrigued me to no end. What value had a name if it did not exist in Her Majesty’s record? By law, such a man could not own property in Britain, nor could he marry. A proper name ought be Christian.
“The nature of your mission?” Clemens, or Shaw, or whomever, pressed.
“Is a secret,” I replied, somewhat spitefully.
“Now now, Inspector, I know everything else. That was the deal, you tell me everything about yourself and I would make sure no retribution falls on you.”
“The details about the case are the business of the Queen and the Pax Brittania. It is not something about myself,” I said smugly. “I have completed my side of the bargain, to the letter of the agreement.”
“Why you smug little minx,” he said, amused. He tended to stroke his short black beard when he found good sport. No matter how roguish and charming the motion, it was still remarkably rude.
“I shan’t have you taking that tone with me, sir! I am a Christian woman!”
Even as we bantered, I could scarcely believe I had been subdued. I had had my derringer on the pirate, in his knackered little longboat floating away from the pier. He had raised his hands, slowly, as did the odd little ginger man who had been attacked by the Lewis brothers. Then, with almighty calmness, the pirate pointed up.
Before I knew it, a vast pink mass was settling on my shoulders, blinding me to the world.
Of course- the elephant balloon! I felt arms close around me, then something very like rope. I recall how I panicked, how I felt we were sure to die plummeting into the icy water below. I wondered if the little air trapped with me in the gassy canvas would lift me to the waves or abandon me bubbling to a wet grave. I also recall it stank to high heaven, like sticky fairy floss and old popcorn grease.
If I had bothered to recall my dirigible engineering courses at the Academy, I might have remembered these balloons came in several compartments- the pirate must have released one section to bind me, perhaps with a loose foot as he distracted me with his hands.
By the time I saw light again, I was in this cell- a rather nice, not very smelly cell, but obviously a brig nonetheless. The swell of travel, and the way the floors moved, told me as much- the Marauder had taken me to a much larger ship.
“If you go back on the deal, I can always treat you like an enemy captive. In the old days, seafaring pirates would do as they liked with a female captive,” Clemens was saying.
Despite the notion, he did not seem to take much note of my assets, still on display in a barmaid’s thin linen blouse. This one enjoyed the game, not the spoils, I realized suddenly.
“Who is the smug one now?” I quipped, getting naught in the way of impatience. Very annoying, this Albion Clemens. Instead of giving in to frustration, he leaned forward, sipping at his own cup of tea. It was an odd habit for an Oriental to have. He did it pinky out.
“Look here,” he said very carefully. “I know you followed us for a reason, not escaping a silly brawl or for our personal safety. Now, I gave you three pieces of information at the pub- who I was, what I had done, and who I was after. You didn’t call the Navy police or the constables, so I feel certain you’re not after me for the stolen lavender. On the money so far?”
I nodded; his induction was immaculate. The best thing I could do was give him nothing. Perhaps he would slip up.
“There are plenty of people after me, but as you came to stop my murder, and as there were other air pirates, hell, proper aeronauts in the pub, I don’t think you are running, or after a bounty, or want to turn me in.”
“Correct,” I begrudged, tiring of admitting defeat.
“So, I am to conclude the following,” he said, sitting up in a rather handsome pose. I hadn’t noticed before, but with his buccaneer coat off and his gun belt at a rakish angle, hung low by a long cutlass, the man was positively dashing.
Muscles bulged underneath well-starched linen, and those piercing black-brown eyes…
No! no, Hargreaves! The man is a scoundrel, a highwayman! I thought of the stinking pink elephant, bringing his voice into focus.
“Your target is this man!” Albion Clemens concluded, fishing out the photogram of the man so unlike himself as to draw unseemly suspicions. Clearly, the Oriental before me could have nothing to do with the white-haired American depicted there. Or most would have thought.
I sighed. There was no avoiding it, I supposed. I would have to tell the Bangkok Bandit something of the truth.
“All right,” I said. “The mission has little to do with me, but it has everything to do with you, and this Samuel Clemens.”
“I knew it. Take me to him!” Clemens demanded. The urgency in his voice betrayed his stoic Asiatic features for just a second- Albion cared for Samuel, as a friend, a comrade, perhaps…
“You were adopted,” I concluded aloud. The statement seemed to stun Albion, but only for a moment. “It was not a lie told at the Jilted Merman. This man is your adopted father.”
“In a manner of speaking. Someone who saves a Chinese man’s life might as well be a father to him,” he admitted freely.
“Chinese is it? It was Chinese or Japanese, I hadn’t decided.”
“The hair? I know, works to my advantage.”
“Oooh, I love the hair, very dashing.”
“Hey!” Albion protested now. “No stalling.”
“Nothing gets past you,” Drat!
“Where is Captain Sam?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, peering into his dark eyes with my blue ones. He seemed to be satisfied.
“What do you want with him?”
“That is the business of Her Majesty Victoria the Third, Queen of the United Kingdom, Empress of…”
“Yada yada yada,” Clemens interrupted again, frustratingly.
“Beg pardon?”
“It’s a Yankee
expression. From the Yiddish, I believe. It means I don’t want to hear the rest.”
“How rude!” It was British, actually, from ‘yatter-yatter.’ I was not about to tell him.
“How much an enormous waste of time! Either tell me what your business is, or I toss you in the longboat and leave you adrift in the Atlantic.”
“Is this where we are? Why, I thought we were on some civil pirate airship, not some centuries-old seafarer!” My jibe was as ineffective, as his threat. Something about the way he threatened threw me. I felt like he would not harm me, not if he did not need to. Gentle imprisonment spoke volumes. Maybe a gentle hand was called for?
“All right Master Pirate. I will concede to your persistence. What follows is all I shall tell you, and that shall be the end of it.”
“And what I will do with the information is my business,” he finished for me.
“Touche,” I agreed. Just what I expected.
“Out with it.”
“Your Captain Clemens consorts with a very dangerous crowd, Albion Clemens,” I breathed. I felt a great weight come off my shoulders. “I was extraordinarily surprised. You understand there is a million-quid bounty on his head? What were you doing telling me who you were? Did you not expect a slew of bounty hunters coming down upon you like a swarm of vultures?”
“I’ve heard of the bounty. What I don’t know is who wants my Captain Sam, nor why. If I have to crack a few skulls to get the down-low, I will.”
There- the idioms again! What strange things to say, for a man of the east.
“Right,” I continued, aware of our sudden closeness to each other. We had both unconsciously leaned in to hear, separated only by the bars of the cell. I could feel his breath on my face, warm and scented with tea.
“All I can tell you is, your Captain Sam is connected to a laboratory explosion in Oxford. The building was destroyed by a contraption producing great heat and thunderous clamor. This weapon, we believe, was also used to steal the Houses of Parliament not too long ago.”
Clemens whistled.
“Captain Clemens is also connected to an item of import, though I am unsure how or if it relates,” I finished. This last I had garnered through sources at the Jilted Merman, many unreliable. The sky was practically abuzz with the news.
“Something of great value,” said the Thief of Tibet. My, the man had a lot of aliases.
“Indubitably. You can rest assured, the bounty was not offered by any of Her Majesty’s agencies, at least with her knowledge. I am the primary venue of investigation, and as such, I doubt the Queen is deploying any stratagem against my interests.”
“Save me the power play. What is the name of the item?” Clemens demanded.
“I believe you may have heard of it-”
“If I have, I wouldn’t need you-”
“-on a bit in the Jilted Merman-”
“-stalling, take me for a fool-”
“-have the nerve!”
“-that dress!”
“The Laputian Leviathan.”
“Ah,” Albion Clemens murmured, leaning back in his chair. “You’re barmy. The Leviathan is a myth.”
“Do I look like I’m mad? Would the Queen send-”
“An Inspector fresh from her first collar, into the breach with naught but two peashooters and a bit of British pluck? Someone who would is expected to be outlandish, by her chauvinistic colleagues? I believe so,” Clemens pointed out. “Nobody would miss her.”
“Why you scruffy, no-good highwayman! Let me out this instant!”
“Maybe when you learn to swear a little better,” he concluded, getting up to leave. “I think I’ll tap into my contacts a little, see if there’s any truth to your case. I’ll let you know what I find. Maybe someone is hiding something clever behind the Leviathan name. Could just be the item you’re looking for, but you’ve thought of that.”
“Harumph,” I said, spinning to leave first- only, of course, my cell was a bit impregnable at the moment.
“By the way,” Captain Albion called from the door, “Only the Yard teaches your gun forms. It works in the tightness of London’s streets, good for clearing corners, especially if you have a partner crouching under you. Most loners or pirates, they’ll stand with their side forward for a smaller target. It’s how I knew you were a copper.”
With a slam of the door, I was left to stew in my own self-pity, wondering how in the hell I managed to cock this mission up.
4.2: To Not Getting Hanged {Blair}
The air pirate emerged on deck approximately an hour after we docked the longboat with his airship.
My fingers itched to photogram the beautiful grand dam, voluptuous and streamlined, her bow hovering gently over the quiet Atlantic. No balloon flew above, but I wasn’t informed as to how this could be- perhaps a gas envelope inside the vessel?
I was, however, given her name: the Huckleberry, a name prairie-blown with the flavor of the West, entirely unbefitting this very Eastern fellow.
Captain Albion Clemens, for this was how he introduced himself as he collared the wriggling barmaid with her inefficient firearm, seemed none too worried about keeping an Inspector for Scotland Yard imprisoned within his ship. I had seen one other member of the crew, a large, middle-aged fellow with considerably more belly than verbosity. He hoisted the bundle of Inspector as easily as one might a sack of potatoes. Afterward, I had been left on deck while the Captain dealt with the Inspector. I did my best to look harmless.
“All right there, Master Blair?” Clemens said now, striding on deck in a cloud of buccaneer coat. Dark goggles now protected his eyes from the crisp Atlantic wind. With those on, he seemed much more the role of Captain. Clemens came to stand near me, peering at the starlight, though dawn lined the horizon silver. The light particularly picked out his waist, where hung a large, dinted cutlass.
“You were welcome to come inside,” Clemens extended in friendship.
“Ah,” I said. My voice was steady, but my hands longed to document everything. I did not know quite how to ask a notorious pirate if I would be keelhauled for it.
What were the pirate conventions? Did they even have any? How would one be keelhauled through thin air?
For the matter, I did not know if I would be perfectly safe otherwise, nor how long such conditions would last. I would hate to attempt the swim back to England, invisible below a veil of mist. Would I even survive the fall?
“Do you need anything? Refreshment? Surely a Briton wouldn’t deny a spot of tea,” Clemens offered instead, extending a hand to a stair leading into the bowels of the dirigible. I nodded, having had enough of the chill deck.
“Am I to understand you are extending me the hospitality of your ship?” I asked. I did not know much, but I knew a Captain’s word was worth something even in the swashbuckling skies.
“Have you been talking to Inspector Hargreaves? She does have a low opinion of us. Rest assured I extend you the safety and hospitality of the Huckleberry.”
“Is that her name then?” I said nervously.
“I’m sorry, I should have invited you with me,” he said, looking like he had intended nothing of the sort. “You will see Vanessa Hargreaves is very well treated, if you care to look.”
“In your brig? I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.” We both laughed at this, and I was glad some of our earlier camaraderie remained. Shaw or Clemens, Captain’s vestments or no, this was very much the straight shooter from the pub I had met earlier.
While we spoke, Clemens led me through a rather narrow passage.
Though I had seen only very few dirigibles, the Huckleberry seemed tighter, more packed together, with shut wooden portals every few feet along the paneled walls.
The oddest things were the ceilings and floors; they were strung with piping, all along behind thin wire grilles, and some lines had been hung with the oddest objects. I attempted to follow one such copper tube, remarking a sackcloth doll, a paper windmill, and what seemed like a string of teeth, bef
ore Clemens led me to a larger door.
“Come, this is Auntie’s galley,” he said, showing me through to a wider room with curving, spacious bulkheads. At a glance, I knew where I must be- at the bow of the ship, in a long mess where benches had been nailed to the floor before some dining tables.
Tchotchkes and knickknacks covered every other surface, lit with generous gas lamps. On the whole, everything seemed slapdash and crowded, yet possessing of the odd quality of organization only known to the well-loved village sandwich shop.
“Did you get many photograms?” Clemens asked from a low counter. He disappeared behind it while I peered at a stack of yellowed recipes pinned to the wall with a snake-like dagger. Beside it, a feather boa curled round a bust of Shakespeare. Behind the counter, the pirate was doing something strange to a pair of large chrome pots. He seemed to be pouring a liquid quite a lot like tea through the air from one to another, with a lot of steaming and sloshing. The aroma was heavenly.
“Ah, not really,” I answered.
My photogrammer still sat in my pocket. I hadn’t taken off my coat, though the chamber seemed pleasantly humid and well heated, like a maiden aunt’s comfortable parlor. “I wasn’t sure it was proper.”
“Afraid I’d keelhaul you? Can’t be done. Best you’d do is hang, sort of… no ocean to drown in, or barnacles to break stuff like arms on.” There, one question grimly answered.
“The sentiment isn’t particularly comforting,” I managed without looking too pale. Certainly this man had nothing to fear from robbing me blind and casting my corpse overboard, to fall head-over-heels into an Atlantic filled with hungry sharks.
My one hope was the pirate yet wished to profit from completing my request. Just as I was figuring how many crew he had aboard, the likelihood of stealing a longboat and if I could learn to type and replace ink ribbons with my toes should I fail, Albion Clemens reappeared with two large mugs of absolutely divine, milky amber fluid.
“You have my solemn word, I will not harm you so long as you reside aboard my airship,” Clemens reminded me pleasantly. Of course, the compact of hospitality- like parley, there were rules cutthroats held more sacred than others.
