Horatio Lyle (3 page)

CHAPTER 1

The sun rose on the city, and the city rose with the sun.

And someone was shouting, ‘What do you
mean
, it wasn’t there?’

‘I mean the object was not in the vicinity.’

‘You have failed?’

‘We will find it. Investigations are already underway.’

‘Meanwhile, we’ll have lost precious time. They will be looking for it as well. By this time we could be in the streets, we could be drowning in the power and dragging this city out of the smoke and metal back into the clean, pure light rather than this black
abyss . . .
and
you . . .
’

‘I appreciate that, my lady.’

‘See that you do, my lord.’

 

And in the house of Lord and Lady Elwick, young Master Thomas woke in a large soft bed to the sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor outside. The door burst open and his governess rushed in and said from behind the bed curtains, before he’d even hauled himself up on his elbows, ‘Master says you’re to be downstairs immediately.’

‘What?’ he asked, swinging himself out of bed a little bit too fast for his groggy head. ‘Why does Father want me now?’

‘The whole house is mustering, Master Thomas. Everyone says it’s because of the bank. I’ve never seen the master so angry.’

‘The bank? Which bank?’

‘
The
bank, Master Thomas! Your parents are going down there immediately to check the vault. You must be up quickly, they’ll want to say goodbye!’

Thomas didn’t hesitate. No Elwick
ever
hesitated. He stood up and made for the giant mahogany wardrobe on the other side of his large room. ‘If they’re going,’ he said determinedly, ‘then I’m going too!’

His governess rolled her eyes when he wasn’t looking, but didn’t ask what a fifteen-year-old boy thought he could do. He ’d just say what he always did. ‘If I don’t try, I’ll never know.’

Which wasn’t an answer at all.

 

The sunlight spread from east to west and crawled through high windows and low windows alike, trickled across floors and ceilings, and brushed the eyes of the sleeping.

Tess Hatch woke, and was instantly alert.
I know it’s early in the morning, and I’m pretty sure the house must be asleep, so . . .

She tried to work out her moves, piece by piece. She was lying on her side, staring at a tall window through which faint sunlight crept, as if embarrassed to call itself morning.

She was in a bed. This caused her sudden alarm, and she sat up, feeling the unusual softness. A
bed
. Not just any bed, but a big bed, with sheets and blankets and
. . . feather pillows
and
. . .
She looked round the room. Miss Chaste must have been more of a fool than even
she
had suspected. She slipped, utterly silent, out of the bed.

The room wasn’t particularly big, the only features in it, apart from the bed, being the large window, a stool in one corner, a shelf laden with books, and a small desk with a mirror above it whose centre had an unlikely and slightly alarming, perfectly rounded scorch mark. Tess was wearing what she always wore - the only clothes she owned: a pair of worn trousers that were starting to give way at the knees and a shirt several sizes too large. Looking around, she saw her padded jacket with holes at the elbows, lying on the stool, neatly folded. She scampered across the room, snatched the jacket up, and for a second saw her face in the mirror above the desk. She hesitated. Her dark brown hair stuck out around her face in every direction, and her dirty pale face, long and knowing, stared back with a surprised expression, unused to seeing itself.

She crept to the door. It was unlocked, which was a surprise. She pushed it open and stepped out into the cold corridor beyond. Floorboards covered with a red carpet, a candle burnt down on a table, thin curtains open across the window at the end to let in more light. She padded in what she thought was perfect silence to the end of the corridor and pushed open a door that led to a flight of stairs. Slowly, she took them one at a time, testing each to avoid creaks. Halfway down, she became aware of a distant rumbling and speeded up, anxious to find the imagined loot and get out. She went past two landings and into the cold of the basement, where she crept along a corridor, listening for any sounds of life. She heard a fire burning behind a nearby plain white door to her right, hesitated, then pushed it open a little. There was a large stove, open to receive more wood, and a figure in shirt sleeves, black trousers and bare feet, bent over to toss on a log. Without looking up he said, ‘Good morning’ in a tone of polite disinterest.

For a second she thought about running, but then
. . .
He was cooking
breakfast.

Tess stepped carefully inside. The man straightened up, pushing the stove door shut, turned to her and grinned. She saw a pair of grey eyes and sandy hair, reddish in places. He looked terribly, terribly familiar, but she knew,
knew
that this couldn’t be, well,
him
, because that wasn’t what was in her plan, that wasn’t how it worked, not
her
plans, especially not with the bigwig who had paid, not if she was
. . .

Tess heard the cracking of eggs and the hissing of oil. She took in a row of neatly tidied desks, a low wooden kitchen table, and a dog bowl marked ‘Tate’ in large letters.

‘Sit down, lass, make yourself comfortable.’ His voice was unusual. If she ’d been back on the streets with her friends she would have said it belonged to a bigwig, except there was a familiar stop on the ‘d’s and the ‘t’s, something that was common in the slums of Shadwell and the rookeries of Soho.

She sat down cautiously. ‘Are you Miss Chaste’s butler?’

‘Me?’ He looked slightly alarmed. ‘Goodness, no.’

This was possibly a good thing. She drew herself up to her full, and less-than-impressive height. ‘Do you know who I am?’

He smiled brightly, and said in a conversational, light-hearted tone, flipping a slice of bacon, ‘Who are you?’

‘I am
. . .
’ her mind raced and her voice changed slightly, rising a little in pitch and slurring the vowels, ‘Lady Teresa of France. I am a guest of your mistress. She ’s given you instructions as to how I should be looked after an’ all?’

To her surprise, the man started grinning, as if in on some secret. He broke another egg into a frying pan. ‘Well, I hope you’re hungry.’

She folded her hands in her lap and tried to look ladylike, saying primly, ‘Tol
. . .
toler
. . .
yes.’

‘Tell me, Lady Teresa,’ he continued in the same jovial tone, pulling a couple of plates out of the cupboard, ‘do you always break into the houses of the people you’re going to visit?’

Tess hesitated. Then, ‘How dare you say that!’

He scraped the eggs off the bottom of the pan and tossed them onto her plate. To this he added a couple of slices of bread, two rashers of bacon, a glass of orange juice and a knob of butter, setting the whole lot in front of her on the low kitchen table. Pulling up a chair he sat down and stared thoughtfully across at her. Finally he said, ‘Your fainting was very good last night. Well, you fell
. . .
went the wrong way - gravity was clearly not the only force at work
-
but still, the sigh was very effective, the rolling of the eyes, the little theatrical gasp
.
Have you ever considered giving up a life of larceny for an age of acting?’

She hesitated only a fraction of a second. ‘I was all overcome, see?’

‘Miss Chaste was very insistent that you were brought into her house for good treatment and a decent meal. But it would have been wrong to let her be taken in by that trick.’

‘If you
—
’ she began.

He ignored her. ‘I was impressed, though. More than I’ve been in a long while by any thief.’ He held out his hand. ‘Horatio Lyle.’

She was off the seat and had her back to the wall in a second, terror buzzing in her skull.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Please don’t be like that. Have breakfast.’

Very, very carefully, never taking her eyes off him, she sat.

Lyle sighed. ‘I’ll keep this simple. I don’t like my home being broken into. But when you get a reputation for inventing things, people keep thinking, “Yes, I’ll have that”, and there ’s only so much you can do about it.’

‘You seem to have done summat, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Probably got too much time on your hands. In fact, if I can say
. . .
’

‘Thank you,’ he repeated. Tess was aware of Lyle ’s eyes upon her, thoughtful. Finally he said, ‘This is going to sound unusual.’

‘Is it unusual for things to sound unusual in your house, sir?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘That ’s incredible. Abject terror to insolence in less than thirty seconds. I have a proposition for you.’

She sprang back indignantly. ‘That’s horrid!’

‘Believe it or not,’ he pointed out mildly, ‘I’m offering you a chance not to go to prison.’

Her shoulders hunched slowly and suspiciously. ‘What kind of chance?’

‘I was thinking about this after you fainted. That really was impressive, you do know that? I mean, the way you managed to fall at just the right angle to sustain minimum bruising. I wish I’d been less distracted
. . .
an almost perfect example of moments around a pivot. But then, I suppose, no one really considers the medical consequences of the centre of gravity in—’

‘You havin’ that bacon?’

‘What? Erm, no, I suppose not.’

‘Okay. Keep goin’.’

‘Erm
. . .
yes, what was I talking about?’

‘How you was not sendin’ me to prison.’

‘How I was
hypothetically
not sending you to prison.’

‘Oh. Like that.’

‘You don’t know what hypothetically means, do you?’

‘You havin’ that toast?’

‘What? Yes, I am!’

‘Oh.’ Tess pushed it back on to his plate with a guilty expression.

‘The truth is,’ continued Lyle, looking slightly flummoxed, ‘I could use an assistant.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Lass, I think you’re missing the point and
don’t even consider going for my egg, understand
?’

‘You sure? Only it ’ll get cold.’

‘I need to keep my belongings safe. I’m also running a series of experiments that could require the assistance of someone with a very dexterous touch. The problem is,’ said Lyle, warming to his theme, ‘that in order to measure resistivity in proportion to surface area and density - not together, obviously, because,’ he laughed, ‘that would just be absurd - but the problem
is
how small you have to get the wires for comparison and the delicate nature of the equipment
. . .
’

‘It really is gettin’ cold.’

‘And since you proved last night that you are very good at dealing with delicate things -
I can see you watching that egg
- I thought I wouldn’t send you to prison and make you for the rest of your life an embittered professional thief with a reputation and long-term grudge against the laws of society
. . .
’

‘That’s nice.’

‘
. . .
I’d make you my assistant for the week.’

The words settled over the table like a blanket. Tess sat, fork laden with bacon, and thought about it. ‘Uh
. . .
’

‘Lass, I could have turned you over last night. I could still.’

Tess broke into a strained, bright grin. She knew that, in situations like this, you didn’t think. You didn’t worry about what you were getting into, you didn’t agonize over possible repercussions, you just took the easiest way out that you were being offered. ‘You’ve made the right choice, sir. I’m the best in the business, I am.’

‘Good.’

‘An’ at the end of the week?’

‘You can go. And I’ll give you back your very fine collection of lock picks.’

Tess’s mouth dropped open. ‘You
pinched
my picks?’

‘I relocated them.’

A glower settled over Tess’s face. ‘You don’t try big words like that with me; I know what that means - it means you went an’ you pinched them!’

‘And you can have them back at the end of the week.’

‘That ain’t fair!’

‘It ain—it
isn’t
prison, lass.’

‘Fine.’

‘Good.
Fine.’

‘So,’ she said, brightening with the thought, ‘how much was you goin’ to pay, sir?’

He spluttered. ‘
Pay?
’

‘Well, seein’ as how my services are
so
skilled
. . .
’

‘I’m sorry, I think I must have misheard. I could have sworn I heard you ask
me
for money.’

‘At least I
asked
.’

‘How moral.’

‘I thought as how you might app
. . .
appre
. . .
might be all impressed an’ everythin’.’

‘I think you should probably stick with thieving rather than spiritual appeals to mankind’s better nature. Although I do have
one
question.’

Tess’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘Yes?’

‘What is it about my house that made you want to break in in the first place?’

She hesitated, then started to grin. ‘You’ll pay me if I tell you?’

Lyle rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t know why I try. All right.’

‘It were this gaffer what had a silly name.’

‘What silly name?’

‘Havelock.’

A sad smile spread across Lyle ’s face, opening his mouth to speak
. . .

And above, there was a knock at the door.

Naturally, Tess thought of large policemen and small prison cells. Then she chided herself for too much imagination, and told herself it was more likely to be the Palace than the police.