The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter (32 page)

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 clatter 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.

“To increase the range of the beam, we tried setting the concentration of reagents higher. But when we did this, we discovered that the duration of the beam decreased. All the energy contained in the chemicals was thus concentrated into shorter and shorter times. At last we turned the dial full up and tried sending the beam clear across the estate, a distance of some three miles, to paint a spot of light on the gate at the head of the main drive.

“The duration of the beam was so brief, it deceived the eye into believing that nothing had happened. And its power... Until then I’d not believed that light could change the nature of metal. But in the place where the beam had touched the iron gatepost, we found a hole; pencil thin and perfectly smooth.”

“Then it had melted the iron?” I asked.

“If it had melted, there would be traces – droplets congealed on the gatepost like wax on a candlestick. The iron had gone. Completely. And in an instant. Iron had changed into air.”

The light from the machine had faded now. I could no longer see the beam and as I watched, the spot on the roof dimmed to nothing. I thought of all that light being concentrated into a second. A fraction of a second. The power of it would surely be intense. But to make iron disappear?

Orville opened a valve in the machine and I saw the spent liquid emptying from the reaction tube. I could hear it trickling but could not see where in the machine it went. Then he closed the lid and snapped the brass fasteners in place.

Wiping condensation from the window glass, I looked out to the courtyard and the stables beyond. We had been stationary ten minutes at least and I was nursing a growing impatience. The Sleepless Man must have reported back by now. Silvan would be setting off towards Bletchley at the greatest possible speed, or worse, he might try to intercept us on the way.

“A watched pot never boils,” said Orville.

I sat back and pulled my coat closer around me. “The man who helped you, was he called Zoran?” I asked.

“How did you know?”

“Putting small clues together for the most part,” I said. “I had some of it from Tinker also. Don’t be angry with him. He loves you like a father.”

“I didn’t want to leave him behind,” Orville said. “But this isn’t the journey for a boy. Is he safe?”

“Yes,” I said. “Last time I saw. He told me of an aged conjuror...” I held up my right hand with the two middle fingers down, as the boy had done. “My father used to tell me of the exploits of the Great Zoran. I knew about the accident. How does he make his living now? Surely no longer as a bullet catcher?”

Orville’s face lengthened. “He and his daughter have rooms at the post house next to the Hall. He helps to maintain the steamcars. She cleans and carries.”

“This saddens you?”

“I didn’t plan to abandon them. They deserved better.”

“I’m sure you were a good employer.”

He turned his face away, but not quickly enough to hide his pain. When he spoke again, his voice dripped with self-loathing. “Everything that happened was my fault,” he said. “Zoran had failed to make gold so I asked if there were others who might help. He knew how to contact Harry Timpson but wisely refused to do it. I pressed him, saying he should act – if not for his own sake then for his daughter’s. At last he relented. The letter went but we received no reply.

“I had no patience for waiting. I tried new experiments with the machine. By angling the mirror upwards, I sent the beam into the night sky. It seemed to disappear at a great height above the Hall. That was not enough for me. I tried again and again, consuming the reagents in an attempt to touch the heavens. Do you see the tragedy of Icarus in me?”

“Your strange light brought the Patent Office?” I asked, fitting his story into the jigsaw puzzle I had already assembled.