Scotland Hard (Book 2 in the Tom & Laura Series) (16 page)

17.
      
Engine

The sky was starting to lighten with dawn when the coach carrying Tom, Laura, and Alice pulled to a halt. Tom looked out of the window and saw they had stopped at a railway station bearing the name
Colney Hatch
written in big letters over the arch of its entrance.

The captives were hustled out of the coach and made to stand in a line in front of Lord McBride.

“Not a peep from out of your mind, young lassie,” Lord McBride warned
Alice
, “If you want to keep the hide on your back, that is. None here will believe you, mind. I am a highly respected man and you are nothing.”

Lord McBride looked about him with quiet satisfaction. There was a massive, streamlined locomotive connected to five coaches waiting on a spur line at the far end of the station.

“I’ve arranged for our young Spellbinder to inspect yon infernal device. It’s a military secret masquerading as an ordinary engine. They’re testing it on the
London
to
Edinburgh
line before taking it overseas.”

Lord McBride turned to Laura and his expression turned hard, “Jimmy here has orders to cut the lad’s hamstrings if you so much as blink without permission.”

“I’m sure I cannot imagine why you think that showing me a steam engine will serve any purpose,” Laura told the man, her voice exuding contempt.

“You pay close attention, lassie,” Lord McBride replied. “There’s magical constructions in yon device I want you to see and understand. Do ye ken?”

Laura nodded reluctantly.

They walked into the station without bothering with such minor matters as showing tickets. The Stationmaster was expecting the party and he bowed so low as Lord McBride by that he risked scraping his nose on the flagstones.

Four young lads wearing porters’ caps ran to the coach and stripped it of its many travelling cases. Lord McBride was not accustomed to travelling light. The cases were transferred to the second of a pair of coaches at the front of the train. Each of these coaches were painted in colors not connected with the railway and carried a family crest. Tom suspected that Sir M must be more than a knight of the realm.

Tom heard several of the porters use the phrase ‘my lord’ in McBride’s direction. Tom wondered who the man was. So many here seemed to know it that he knew he was bound to find out. Not that knowing his name would do Tom any good, but he was curious about it. Anything they found out about their captor might help them to escape.

Tom and Laura followed Lord McBride to the front of the train and the massive steam locomotive that pulled it. That steam was the force that turned the wheels was beyond doubt. It hissed from safety valves and water dripped from the joints of the pistons. Tom knew enough about the operation of such machines to recognize that it used the double stroke method pioneered by George Stevenson, but then all modern trains did.

What was strange about this particular locomotive was that though there was plenty of steam issuing from around it, there was no smoke coming from the funnel. Nor was there a tender behind the engine carrying fuel. Most trains ran on coal or coke, which was plentiful and cheap. A small number ran on wood, but those trains were only on the most remote branch lines where wood was cheaper.

The driver of the train touched his forelock and bowed his head as they approached.

“Welcome to the Pride of the Empire, Lord McBride,” he said. Tom smiled at being given the information he wanted, though the name meant nothing to him. If Lord McBride was unhappy at his name being used, he gave no sign of it.

There was only room for the driver, Lord McBride, Tom, and Laura in the cab. The guards remained behind on the platform. Engine cabs were normally open to the elements, but this one was sealed. It was essentially a small metal hut. Glass shielded the cab windows, which were slid down an inch or two to let in air.

It was cool inside the cab with no obvious fire to stoke. There were, however, an array of large wheels, dials and massive levers.

“What powers this thing?” Tom asked.

“Ay, what indeed?” Lord McBride intoned his voice carrying a touch of awe. He turned to the driver. “Can you explain the engine to the bonnie lassie? She’s a Grade 1 Spellbinder and will be joining the project to produce these monsters.”

The driver looked flustered and it took him a few moments to find his voice.

“The science involved is beyond my understanding, my Lord. As far as explaining how it works, I can only do my best. The engine is powered by a rare metal extracted using magic. The metal is encased in thin copper tubes.”

The driver paused for thought and breath.

“The copper tubes are always warm, my Lord, whatever the weather. When they are moved close to each other they get very hot. I don’t know why. We have levers and wheels that move tubes inbetween other tubes to vary the heat they produce. The tubes are inside an oil filled chamber and the oil takes their heat. Then there is a heat exchanger that heats the water, which generates the steam.”

“Can we see inside the chamber?” Tom asked. He was always impressed by large machinery.

The driver shook his head.

“The chamber is made of lead and sealed. When they invented this engine its operators died from being too near the metal and the lead keeps us safe.”

“This is astounding,” Tom blurted out. “Why is this not being boasted about in the newspapers?”

Lord McBride looked at Tom with scorn.

“Extracting the metal proved dangerous, laddie. And the Empire doesn’t want the world to know how many of its loyal subjects died extracting the fuel for so few of these locomotives,”

“Is it dangerous to be here?” Laura asked, taking a step back.

“Not behind the lead, lassie,” Lord McBride said and he moved closer to Laura. “Do ye ken how to extract a metal from a rock?”

“It’s easy in principle,” Laura said as she considered the problem. “A Spellbinder changes the rock into water which flows away to becomes rock again, leaving the metal behind as dust. The skill is to make the bind only affect the rock and not the metal. To do that the Spellbinder has to understand the difference between the elements.”

Lord McBride seemed happy with her answer.

“Ay well, I’ve got an even more difficult task than that for ye. But we won’t talk about it here.”

He turned to the driver.

“You’ve done a great service to the Empire.”

The driver burst into a smile at the compliment. “But ye ken that this must be kept as our little secret?” The driver nodded.

“I know this metal was extracted at your estate, Lord McBride. The Queen herself must be in your debt.”

“Aye, aye, well that’s as maybe,” Lord McBride said, sounding embarrassed by the compliment. “We must be off now and leave you to your work.”

As they got down from the cab, Tom asked Lord McBride the question that had been bothering him. “What are these engines to be used for?”

“They will be used for moving the army through
Africa
. Without the need for fuel beyond a supply of water, the army will be able to expand the empire even faster than before. Military Magic plans to put bigger ones on warships in the longer term. Without the need to carry coal, those ships can be armed with bigger weapons and larger crews.”

“I don’t see why you need a Class A,” Laura complained. “Surely a Grade 1 would be good enough? And since it turns out you are working for the government, why didn’t you just ask? Why did you kidnap us?”

“The government certainly wouldn’t want me doing what I plan, bonnie lassie. And ye will find out soon enough why only a Class A will do.”

James Saunders woke to a freezing house as his fires had gone out during the night. He staggered downstairs and lit the kitchen range. Properly stacked and kept starved of air, the range would normally stay alight for days, but then it had been days since he had the time to do any housekeeping.

Saunders did not employ servants on a full time basis. He did not trust anyone to work for him. Hired help from the village came in once a week to clean the house and wash his clothes. Even then, he kept them locked out of the study, except for once every month or so when he could supervise them at their work.

The milk in the cold store had gone sour but the bacon and eggs would do when the range was hot enough. He washed in ice-cold water and dressed while he waited.

Striding into his study, he saw at once that someone had searched it. Books were in disarray and dust on the polished surfaces disturbed. Ignoring the books, he went straight to the mantle and retrieved the vase. The only secrets of value were stored within it.

When he found the vase was empty, he swore and smashed it onto the floor, scattering pieces of china everywhere. A quick search of the room revealed that maps were also missing.

Saunders sat down in the most comfortable chair in the room and thought furiously. It seemed farfetched, but the only explanation he could come up with was that the young spies from Hobsgate had broken into his house in their search for the Spellbinder. Any other explanation would have resulted in his immediate arrest.

Why they would search his house in the first place defied logic. He had left no trail for them to follow, no clue that they might pick up. It was mystifying and most worrisome.

Saunders was a pragmatic man. After he had weighed up all his options, he returned to his kitchen and cooked a large breakfast. After eating, he found pen and paper and wrote down his thoughts in a logical order so he could reflect on them.

Certainties

They have the letter from S.

They have the letter that links me to the two dead children.

Their mission is to find and rescue C and S

They have discovered that I work for the B.

Probabilities

Trelawney will not believe them until MM1 find collaborative evidence

They have not reported me to T so they have worked this out

They will have arrived too late at S’s to rescue C and S, else I would have heard about it.

They will follow C and S. This may force them to split up. They would be most likely to follow S if they could only follow one of them.

Course of Action

Find an excuse to follow and kill these bastards

Saunders smiled as he looked at what he had written. It shouldn’t prove that difficult to kill three young and inexperienced spies before they could expose him. The difficult thing would be convincing Trelawney that following them was the most important thing he should do.

Saunders considered this particular problem for a few minutes until he came up with a workable excuse. He took a metal tool used to remove the rings from the kitchen hob for cleaning. Once he had lifted up a ring he dropped the piece of paper into the range and watched it burn to ash.

He was going to be busy and the task would be difficult, but he felt far from defeated.

18.
      
Pursuit

Lord McBride’s railway carriages had been decorated in the height of opulence. Fabric wall coverings coated in gold leaf provided insulation from the noise outside while making the inside of the carriages feel more like being in a rumbling tented palace than on a train.

The carriages had been partitioned into several small ornate rooms. Paintings of semi-naked goddesses covered the ceilings. White robes and sheets draped cunningly maintaining decorum for the lower halves of their bodies. Tom found the paintings fascinating as they walked through the carriage and his eyes kept drifting upwards; only to be dragged sharply to eye level by Laura’s pointedly haughty sniffs.

Tom, Laura, and Alice were moved into one of the smaller rooms, which was arranged much more like a conventional railway compartment with two pairs of seats facing each other across a polished oak table. Jimmy, their guard, stayed with them while the other guards withdrew.

They had no sooner made themselves comfortable in their seats than the train set off, soon picking up speed and racing through the countryside.

“Dinna cause any fuss and we’ll be just fine,” Jimmy told them. From then on, he ignored them and began to read a copy of The Times.

“Did you enjoy looking at the engine?”
Alice
asked them a little sourly. She had been sitting in the carriage for over half an hour while they had gone off with Lord McBride and felt left out of things.

“It was most peculiar machine,” Laura admitted. “The engine turned out to be powered by a fuel that is some strange material that generates heat for no rational reason.”

“Our captors name is Lord McBride and apparently he is the source of these engines for the government,” Tom added.

Jimmy looked up from his newspaper at the mention of McBride’s name and glared at Tom for a few moments. Tom smiled sweetly back at him.

“How far away is
Scotland
anyway?”
Alice
asked. “I’ve heard that it is full of savage men who wear women’s skirts.”

“Kilts,” Jimmy said abruptly from behind his paper, “Nay skirts, men’s kilts.”

“You’ll notice that our prison guard had no objection to you using the word savage to describe him,” Laura pointed out primly. “People who practice slavery rarely do.”

Jimmy put down the paper and glared at them fiercely.

“Dinna move from here, do ye ken?” he said angrily. “I’ll be back in a wee while.”

He stood up and left the compartment.

“
Alice
, listen to me very carefully,” Tom said urgently. “I need to tell you this before he gets back. I want you to keep sending messages to Tricky, every half hour or so. Tell him we are captives of Lord McBride, on our way to
Scotland
and to his estate there. Just like you did on the coach.”

“Tricky won’t be able to hear me. He’s miles away by now, it’s pointless,”
Alice
said sulkily.

“You can’t know that for certain and all it will cost you is a minute’s concentration every half hour. Will you do it for me?” Tom implored.

“I suppose,”
Alice
said grumpily. She was secretly pleased that Tom wanted her to help, but she wasn’t going to let him know that.

They might have said more, but the man who had been guarding
Alice
earlier walked into the compartment and sat down. He picked up Jimmy’s paper and began to read it, ignoring the three captives.

“You never said how far away
Scotland
is,”
Alice
pointed out to Tom.

“We arrive in
Edinburgh
late this evening,” the guard said without looking up from his paper.

“It’s several hundred miles away,” Laura explained quickly to
Alice
, “In the north.”

The horse and cart carrying
Cam
and her increasingly large team arrived at Colney Hatch railway station a couple of hours after Lord McBride’s train departed.

“We would like to purchase three adult and two child fares to
Scotland
,”
Arnold
told the ticket collector. “Can you tell me when the next train will leave the station?”

“What part of
Scotland
? It’s a big place you know,” the ticket collector asked sarcastically.

“
Edinburgh
,”
Arnold
replied. He had no idea of where to go when it came down to it, but Edinburgh was the capital of Scotland and it was as good a place to start as any.

“You can’t leave that horse and cart there,” the ticket collector pointed out. He was a small wizened man with a long scruffy white beard and dirty brown teeth. He didn’t seem to be too interested in selling
Arnold
his tickets.

“I would happily sell them both to you for the price of the tickets,”
Arnold
offered.

I’ve seen better carts burning on bonfires,” the ticket collector said, clearly unimpressed by the offer. “I suspect the glue factory would turn their noses up at the horse, they have standards I hear.”

“Then let us talk to the Stationmaster,” Cam said from behind
Arnold
. “Perhaps he has a better nose for a bargain than a member of his staff.”

“No need for that, miss,” the Ticket Collector said hastily. “I have reconsidered your offer and I find it acceptable. I’ll just make out your tickets.” He set about stamping various pieces of paper before handing
Arnold
five tickets.

“And about the train?”
Arnold
asked.

“Platform one, arriving in ten minutes, Edinburgh Express. We had a special train set off from here a while ago for
Edinburgh
, sent for an important dignitary. But that’s gone, so you’ll have to catch the regular train.”

“The regular train will do just fine,”
Cam
said as they made their way into the station and onto platform one.

“I wonder if Tom and Laura were on that train,” Daisy mused. “I seem to remember a very well outfitted railway carriage in my dreams.”

“Don’t forget about
Alice
, or about how you were going to write to our mum and dad either,” Tricky whined from behind her. He was beginning to regret agreeing to go to
Scotland
with these three strange people.

“I could send a telegram to your parents,” Daisy suggested. “There’s always a telegraph office in a station.”

“We don’t have long,”
Arnold
pointed out. “What would you say to them?”

“Tricky and Ebb in safe hands. Do not worry.”
Cam
suggested with a grin.

“Our mum’s and dad’s don’t live at the same address,” Tricky pointed out sarcastically. “We ain’t brothers, you know.”

“Send two messages then,”
Cam
replied unabashed. “I take it you do know your addresses?”

“Course,” Tricky replied, but
Cam
noted that Ebb suddenly looked worried.

Daisy refused to step into the telegraph office until she had obtained all the details from Tricky and Ebb. This was fine for Tricky, but Ebb only knew his house number and street name. While the children might know they came from
London
, it was necessary to have a district as well to be able to send a message.

“Times getting on,”
Arnold
said anxiously and pointed to the railway clock above their heads. Their train was due into the station in one minute and would depart again in five.

“I’ll send Tricky’s telegram now and the one to Ebb’s family later,” Daisy said as she bolted into the telegraph office.

The train pulled in less than a minute later. Tricky, Ebb, and Cam climbed into an empty carriage while
Arnold
waited by the open door. There was no sign of Daisy.

“You’ll have to close that door,” A burly guard told
Arnold
a couple of minutes later. “The train’s due to depart.”

“We are waiting for a friend. She’s in the telegraph office and will be out in a few seconds.”

The guard was unimpressed, but he answered politely enough.

“I’m sorry, sir. We can’t hold up the railway just because your friend is late. It’s more than my jobs worth to delay the train. Now if you are going to get onboard. I suggest you do it now.”

Arnold
reluctantly boarded the train and the guard slammed the door shut behind him, before walking on towards the back of the train, checking that each door was closed.
Arnold
opened the window of his door and leaned out, putting his hand on the door’s handle so he could open it when Daisy got there.

“Come on, Daisy,” he muttered as a series of loud whistles sounded from the front and back of the train. The whole train shook as the engine took up the strain of the carriages and they started to pull away.

“There she is!” Cam shouted in
Arnold
’s ear.

Daisy ran along the platform towards them as the train pulled slowly out of the station.
Arnold
flipped open the door and reached out for her. The train started to gather speed as Daisy ran.

Daisy seemed to take wing as she ran faster than she had ever run before and clasped her hand onto
Arnold
’s.
Arnold
lifted her off the ground and into the carriage. A guard at the end of the platform slammed their carriage door shut as it went past and shouted something that sounded extremely rude at them

“Sorry about that,” Daisy said apologetically. “There was an old lady in front of me in the queue and she took absolutely ages.”

James Saunders strode into Ernest Trelawney’s inner sanctum, walking past Belinda Mann without giving her so much as a glance. Belinda stood up from her desk and trailed after him, keeping her distance, but nonetheless determined to find out what he wanted of Trelawney.

“Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but I have news of some importance,” Saunders told Trelawney. “I received this message this morning.”

Saunders threw a piece of paper across Trelawney’s desk and Trelawney picked it up. He saw that it was written in Saunders’ hand but he let that matter pass while he read the message. For Belinda’s benefit, he read the message out loud.

“Sir, we were given your name and address by Sir Ernest Trelawney for us to contact in an emergency. We are from Hobsgate and our names are Tompkins, Drew and Burns. Our mission was to rescue Thomas Carter and Laura Young.”

“We have discovered that Carter and Young are dead. However, we have tracked their killers to Crouch End and we continue to follow them. We will leave another message for you at the house of the local lord of the manor, one Bertram Smee.”

“Our contact will only pass on our message to you if you come alone. We have reason to believe that MM3 has been infiltrated by the enemy.”

“
How did you receive this message?” Trelawney asked. “I note this is written in your own hand.”

“This morning, sir, as I was breaking my fast a young lad knocked at the door and said he had a message for me. Said he was to be paid five shillings after he had recited it. I was of a mind to tell him to be on his way as five shillings is a lot of money, but then I remembered those young people you had sent from Hobsgate. Once I heard his message I made him repeat it and wrote it down before sending him on his way.” Saunders paused for breath and looked at Trelawney apologetically.

“I realize now that you had good reason to send them, sir and I withdraw the complaint I made last night. I will not be writing to the Secretary of War.”

“Thank you, James, though it will make little difference to my career, I fear.” Trelawney read the message a second time. “What course of action do you propose?”

“I must follow these three young agents alone, sir. It is what they have requested and I can always telegraph for extra personnel or call on help from the local constabulary should I need it. They are our best chance of catching whoever killed Carter and Young, sir.”