Silhouette (6 page)

At the corner of the street, a man and woman watched the approach of the stylised bird. The man
wore a dark overcoat and carried a silver-topped ebony cane. The woman was wrapped in a long, red cloak. The hood was drawn up over her head, but the pale sunshine illuminated her delicate features as she looked up at the bird. As it drew nearer, she held out her arm, the scarlet material hanging down from it like a shimmering waterfall of blood.

The paper bird alighted on the outstretched arm. Its wings continued to beat for a few moments.

‘Welcome, my little friend,’ Silhouette murmured. ‘And what have you come to tell us?’

The bird’s wings stilled. For a moment it remained upright on the red material. Then it toppled over and lay on its side. Inert. Just a piece of paper.

‘May I?’ Milton asked, holding out his hand.

Silhouette lifted the bird from her arm with her other hand. She slowly unfolded the wings, then the body, smoothing the creature out into a single sheet of paper which she glanced at, and then handed to Milton with a smile.

One side of the paper, the side that had been folded away from view, was covered with handwriting. Neat, feminine, but regular.

Milton nodded and smiled as he read through the text. ‘Well done, Silhouette.’

‘Enlightening?’ she asked.

‘Oh, very enlightening.’

‘I told you there was something odd about those two. Odd and dangerous.’

‘Your instincts as ever were correct. Affinity had similar anxieties. Well, now we know.’ He glanced down at the paper in his hand. ‘This Doctor is no more a Victorian gentleman than I am.’ He screwed the paper into a ball suddenly and threw it away. ‘We must deal with him, and with his friends.’

‘But what brought them to the Carnival?’ Silhouette wondered.

‘ “A man is dead,” the Doctor said,’ Milton told her. ‘That must be Hapworth.’

‘Do they know what he saw?’

‘No, or they wouldn’t be investigating the Carnival. They wouldn’t need to. They would already know about you.’

‘Then they are stumbling about in the dark,’ Silhouette told him.

‘Yes. But the danger is that they will stumble into something significant. I want them dealt with, Silhouette. Talk to Affinity. Sort it out. Quickly.’

They walked slowly back along the street. On the pavement behind them, a crumpled ball of paper lay in the snow. It trembled, perhaps in a breeze, damp soaking slowly through it. Dark ink smudged and smeared, and dripped into the white snow. Like blood from a wound.

The light was fading quickly. Clara could see the gas lamps coming on along the Embankment. Pale luminescence crept slowly along and casting a glow as far as the Frost Fair. Here lights were coming on as well, reflected back off the snow on the ground and the ice on the river to give the whole area an eerie, unreal quality.

‘I thought they had lamp-lighters to go round putting the lights on,’ she said.

‘Not any more,’ the Doctor told her. ‘In the early days of gas lamps that’s how it worked, but by now they’re almost all automatically controlled. They’re a
clever lot, the Victorians. Invented all sorts of things, including powered flight.’

‘No,’ Clara told him. She knew this one. ‘That was the Wright Brothers. The first powered flight was at Kittyhawk in America.’

‘They had good publicists,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Everyone remembers the Wright Brothers. But that was the first powered flight
outdoors
.’

‘Outdoors?’

‘The Victorians had powered flight long before that, but indoors. Inside big warehouses. It was a sort of gimmick. A spectacle. An amusement. They didn’t regard it as being especially useful.’

‘So they let the Wright Brothers take the credit?’

‘It’s not the British way to boast, or to steal other people’s thunder. They invented the computer during the Second World War and didn’t bother to tell anyone about it for decades. I bet the kids in your class are all only too happy to let someone else take the credit when they do well at something. The same way that I’m always happy for you to take the credit for our achievements.’

She could see from the way his mouth twitched that he was joking, and punched his shoulder lightly. ‘We should find Jenny. If she’s still here.’

‘She is.’ The Doctor pointed to the slight, dark-haired young woman walking towards them.

*

With the afternoon turning to evening and the temperature dropping, Jenny suggested they all return to Paternoster Row for supper and the benefit of a warm fire. Clara was more than happy to agree. The cold was eating through the soles of her boots and she wasn’t sure she had much feeling left in the tips of her fingers.

Strax appeared briefly at dinner, telling them proudly that his own investigations were ongoing and that he expected to eliminate some suspects soon. By ‘eliminate’, Clara did not think he meant exonerate them from suspicion. For most of the evening, she and the Doctor sat with Vastra and Jenny in the drawing room, chatting over tea and later wine.

Inevitably, their discussions returned to the dead of Marlowe Hapworth and the day’s investigations.

‘He was definitely at the Carnival,’ Jenny said. ‘I found several people as swore they’d seen him. And he was especially interested, according to one geezer I spoke to, in the shadow puppet show. Went back afterwards to find the people as run it.’

‘Silhouette,’ the Doctor said. ‘We spoke to her too. It was an impressive show.’

‘You think Hapworth might have seen something he shouldn’t?’ Vastra asked.

‘Backstage at the Shadowplay,’ Clara added.

‘I think he saw, or overheard something,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Not necessarily to do with the Shadowplay.
Maybe he went back into the tent and found someone else there, or heard someone talking through the tent wall. Or …’ He lapsed into silence, staring into the fire.

‘What about the scene of the crime?’ Clara asked. ‘Any good clues there?’

‘Alas, no,’ Vastra admitted. ‘A dead body in a locked room. Simple, and quite impossible.’

‘What about the origami connection?’

‘The what?’ Jenny asked.

Clara gave them a brief account of how they had followed Milton to the empty house, and the origami bird they had found on the windowsill.

‘A connection,’ the Doctor said. ‘Possibly a significant one. But I still don’t see how it all fits together.’ He leapt to his feet. ‘I know what we need!’

‘What?’ Clara asked.

‘A good night’s sleep. Followed by a hearty breakfast. Then another day of investigating.’

‘But investigating what?’ Vastra said. ‘There is little more to be learned either from Hapworth’s study or from his manservant.’

‘The Carnival of Curiosities seems to be the focal point,’ the Doctor said. ‘Everyone goes there – Hapworth, Milton … But why? Who or what are they there to see?’

‘You reckon it’s worth going back again?’ Jenny asked.

‘I do.’ The Doctor was walking back and forth,
his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as he considered. ‘I think I’ll have another word with Miss Silhouette.’

‘You just fancy her,’ Clara said.

‘Is she very pretty?’ Vastra asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Clara said. ‘On a scale of one to ten she’s about a twelve.’

‘Really?’ Jenny asked the Doctor.

He seemed to be inspecting his fingernails. ‘What? Oh, I don’t know. Can’t say I really noticed.’

Clara woke late, and found that everyone else was already up and about. Strax had disappeared off to the East End to continue his own investigations. The Doctor and Vastra were chatting over tea and toasted crumpets. Jenny was busy somewhere in the house.

Vastra had apparently promised the police inspector in charge of the Hapworth investigation that she would apprise him of any progress. There was none, of course – and he probably wasn’t interested anyway. Anything that suggested Hapworth’s death was not suicide at all but an impossible murder within a locked room was likely to be met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. The Doctor, Jenny and Clara, meanwhile, set off for the Frost Fair.

Outside, it was just as cold but for the moment at least the snow had stopped falling. The skies would have been clear except that the London smog swathed the entire city in a blanket of grey. The Palace of Westminster loomed out of the smoky air as they
passed it, little more than a pencil-sketch outline. The muffled sound of Big Ben chimed the half-hour.

The Frost Fair was quieter, perhaps because of the smog or perhaps simply because it was earlier in the day.

‘I’ll see if I can grab a word with our friend Silhouette,’ the Doctor said as they headed towards the Carnival of Curiosities. ‘You find out if anyone knows anything about the mysterious Mr Milton.’

‘Why don’t we come with you?’ Clara asked.

‘I think she might be more forthcoming if it’s just me. You’ll only get in the way.’

‘Forthcoming about what?’ Jenny asked.

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Anything. What Hapworth was interested in. What he might have seen.’

‘You’re afraid we’ll cramp your style,’ Clara told him.

‘You will not cramp my style.’

‘Only because you don’t have any.’ Seeing his face darken, she quickly added: ‘Joke. Just joking. Really. Ha ha. Honestly, I think you’re incredibly stylish.’

His expression lightened slightly. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll see you later. And for your information, my style – my incredibly stylish style – is uncrampable.’ Then he turned and strode off towards the entry gate, brandishing a shiny penny. In moments the Doctor was swallowed up by the thick, grey air.

‘I hope he isn’t going to pay with a penny that has next year’s date on it,’ Clara said. ‘Again.’

‘This is going to be just like yesterday was,’ Jenny said. ‘Same questions, different description. So what’s this Milton bloke look like, then?’

Clara described him as best she could. ‘Well, he’s middle-aged, just about. Thin, not very tall. He’s got dark hair cut quite short and it’s thinning. No sign of grey yet, though.’

‘Probably dyes it,’ Jenny said.

‘Might well. He struck me as quite vain. He’s got a beard too. Like a goatee, but short, you know – close to the chin. He was wearing a dark overcoat. Oh, and he carries a black cane with a silver top.’

‘Proper gent, ain’t he?’

‘Proper something,’ Clara said. ‘You want to stick together today, or split up again?’

‘Probably best to split up. But not for too long. Meet you at the tea tent again when we’ve done the Frost Fair?’

‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll need a hot drink before too long. Then we can head over to the Carnival and see how the Doctor’s doing chatting up the shadow puppet lady.’

The smog was beginning to thin as the morning wore on. Even so, Clara could barely see from one stall in the fair to the next. She turned from asking a particularly
unhelpful woman selling knitted scarfs and shawls about Milton. A man was approaching Clara out of the smog. His face shimmered as she tried to focus on it, gradually materialising out of the grey cloud and she saw that it was Oswald, the young tutor.

‘Clara!’ He seemed delighted to see her. ‘I had no idea you would be here today.’

‘Nor did I,’ she told him. ‘But you’re just the person I wanted to see.’

‘I am?’

She threaded her arm through his and led him through the fair. ‘Your employer, Mr Milton.’

‘You met him yesterday.’

‘And very charming he was, too. So tell me about him.’

‘About Mr Milton?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, he’s not a rival for my affections or anything like that.’

‘Oh.’ Oswald considered this. ‘Good.’

‘So?’

‘So, he’s a rich man. Donates to the poor, or so I believe. Endows a trust, anyway. I’m not sure what else I can tell you. Why are you interested?’

Clara ignored the question. ‘So where’s he get his money? Rich family?’

‘No, he made it in industry, I believe. Manufacturing of some sort. I’m not really sure exactly what. I really don’t know him that well, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s all right. Not your fault.’

‘I wasn’t aware that acquaintanceship was anyone’s fault as such.’

‘No,’ Clara agreed. ‘Probably not.’

‘His main factory is in Alberneath Avenue, I do know that. I had to meet him there to be interviewed for the post of tutor, you see.’

‘So you saw what they make there?’

‘I saw a lot of machines. Oily and noisy, but much more than that I really couldn’t say.’

Clara considered. ‘Where’s Alberneath Avenue?’

‘Not that far from here, actually. Out towards the East End, but it doesn’t take long in a cab.’

‘Great,’ she decided. ‘You’d better take me there.’

‘What?’ He stopped walking and turned to look down into Clara’s face. ‘Now?’

She gave him her best smile. ‘Unless you have something better to do?’

‘Not better, as such. But I am supposed to be giving a lesson in a few minutes. I was taking a short cut through the Frost Fair. I suppose I could ask to postpone it,’ he said.

‘Would that be allowed?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever asked before. Look,’ Oswald suggested, ‘why don’t I put you in a cab to Alberneath Avenue, and then I’ll follow on as soon as I can. If I can postpone the lesson all well and good. If not, well Mr Milton
is probably there and could answer any questions you have. Then I can meet you as soon as my lesson finishes, in a little over an hour. How does that sound?’