The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Menace (2 page)

“
Nelly never spoke of anyone,” Miss Radcliffe admitted.
“Though I gained the impression that her mother never approved of
her stage ambitions. I believe there might have been words said at
one point, and that Nelly had nothing further to do with her
parents.”

“
What’s going on?” The loud voice cut through the quiet of the
theatre. A gentleman snatched his bowler hat from his head, and
strode down the aisle. From the finely waxed points of his
moustache, to the elegant ruff of sable fur along his coat collar,
his appearance screamed
money
.

“
Lord Rommell,” Mr Fotherham stepped forward. “I’m afraid
there’s been some terrible news.”

A blue blood
of the Echelon then. Garrett’s gut tightened. “Lord Rommell.” He
stepped forward and offered his hand. The man shook it with a firm
grip, his dark eyes raking over the group as Garrett introduced
himself, “I’m Detective Garrett Reed, of the Nighthawks.”

“
You’re somewhat underdressed, aren’t you?” Rommell’s gaze
slid over his attire.

“
I wasn’t expecting to be called out today.” Garrett snapped
his pocketbook shut. With his extraordinary blue blood senses, he
could smell a faint hint of blood about the man. No doubt, just his
lordship’s lunch, though it was quite unexpected to see a blue
blood out and about during the day’s harsh sunlight.

“
Lord Rommell is one of the theatre’s owners,” Mr Fotherham
interceded. “He often comes to peruse a rehearsal.”

“
What’s all this about, Fotherham?” Rommell’s dark brows drew
together as he tugged off his shiny, black leather gloves. “I
thought we were due for rehearsal? Not Nighthawks.”

“
It’s Miss Tate, my lord,” Miss Radcliffe said earnestly.
“She’s been missing all day, and there’s blood in her
room.”

Rommell froze.
“Nelly’s missing?”

Nelly
. Garrett slid a glance toward
Perry, whose brow twitched faintly.

“
Well, what are you standing around for?” Rommell snapped. “I
thought you Nighthawks were part bloodhound. Off you go! You bring
her back. She’s a valuable asset to this theatre.”

She
might be dead
. Garrett ground his teeth together. He was used to dealing
with the Echelon lords. “I was just about to recommend such a
thing,” he said. “Miss Radcliffe, would you care to escort us to
Nelly’s dressing room? Mr. and Mrs. Fotherham, no doubt we’d like
to speak with all the theatre staff shortly, if you could arrange
for that?” Still smiling, he shot Rommell a look. “That includes
you too, my lord.”

“
Me?” Rommell looked aghast.

“
You want her back as soon as possible, don’t you?” Garrett
asked, trapping the man.

Rommell’s jaw
worked, his eyes darting at the assembled witnesses. “Yes, yes. Of
course.”

“
So what do you think?”

Perry watched
as Garrett prowled the room.

Nelly Tate’s
dressing room was
significantly more opulent than expected.
A painted silk screen stood in the corner, with a red robe
discarded over the top of it and a good half dozen slippered heels
were scattered around the base of the wardrobe. A splash of blood
sprayed up the screen and Garrett examined it, particularly the
height and size of the spatter. His jaw locked tight - no doubt the
scent of the blood was rousing the darker, more predatory part of
his nature.

“
Not enough blood to be deadly,” he said, with a tight
swallow, “but she - or someone - was certainly struck a blow, most
likely to the head.”

Perry caught a
glimpse of herself in the enormous mirror in the corner as she
circled the room, a dark blot of shadow in the cocoon of
pink-wallpaper. She felt distinctly out of place here.

“
For a theatre starlet, she’s certainly earning more than Miss
Radcliffe.” Perry glanced through the items on the vanity;
expensive mother-of-pearl hairbrushes, a gleaming silver
clockwork-locking jewelery box with expensive pieces strewn
carelessly inside, powders, brushes, and a brooch that would cost
six month’s worth of Perry’s wage. The difference between Miss
Radcliffe and Nelly Tate’s attire was immediate.

“
It depends if all of this comes from her wage,” Garrett
disagreed, “or a lover. Blue blood lords frequently take an actress
as a mistress, especially if she were as beautiful and witty as
Miss Tate supposedly is.”

“
Something to enquire about,” Perry noted. There was a long
polished chestnut box almost hidden in the corner. “It seems
strange that Miss Radcliffe made no mention of a lover.” She’d
talked almost non-stop about Miss Tate on the way to her
rooms.

“
What have you found?” Garrett followed her toward the
box.

“
I’m not quite certain.” Perry knelt and examined the case.
“It’s locked.”

“
Allow me.”

Usually he
carried a lock-pick set with him, but his afternoon with Mrs. Scott
had obviously left him unprepared. Perry plucked one of the pins
from Miss Tate’s dresser and handed it to him.

Sometimes she
wondered if Garrett had ever been on the wrong side of the law. He
was very good at getting into places he wasn’t supposed to, or
unlocking doors that were latched.

The lid sprang
open, light gleaming back off the metal inside. Perry frowned,
“What in blazes?”

Garrett lifted
the item out, his hands cupping beneath the smooth curve of a metal
thigh and caressing the elegant calf. “It’s… a mechanical leg. A
woman’s leg.”

Of course he’d notice that
. Perry
knelt down, running her fingers over the creation. It seemed
designed to fit within a matching metal hip socket, and the patella
floated free. The work was exquisite, with all of the hydraulics
and pistons hidden inside smooth steel sheeting. Quite often, the
work on a mechanical limb was crude, with the spars bare to the
gaze. This obviously cost someone quite a lot of money.

“
No synthetic skin,” Garrett noted. He rolled it over,
revealing elegant brass flowers etched down the outside of the
thigh, like the embroidery on a stocking.

Perry tilted
the foot, noting the flex of it. The knee joint also moved in
response. “I’ve never seen the like.”

“
Not unusual. Most mechs don’t advertise their
disability.”

For good
reason. Most mechs were trapped in the walled enclaves the Echelon
owned, where they were forced to work off their ‘mech-debt’ to the
government in payment for their new limbs or clockwork organs.
Sometimes those debts took fifteen or twenty years to pay back.

“
Do you think it belongs to Miss Tate?” If it did, then how
the devil did the actress afford to pay for such a creation? The
sheer artistry of the limb dictated at least a twenty-year stint in
the enclaves.

“
Not certain.” Garrett traced his fingers over the joints,
searching for the numerical stamp that would indicate which enclave
and mech the limb had been registered to. “If it is Miss Tate’s,
then I doubt she would have mentioned it to anyone.”

The ruling
Echelon might have thought humans a lesser class than blue bloods,
but at least humans had some rights. A mech on the other hand, was
considered not completely human, with their mechanical
enhancements.

“
If it is Miss Tate’s, then I doubt she had a blue blood
lover,” Perry said. “She couldn’t have kept something like this
secret, and he’d have been disgusted.”

“
There’s no serial number.”

“
What? Every mechanical limb is required by law to be
registered.”

“
Unless it wasn’t created in the enclaves.”

“
But… the only other blacksmiths belong to the Echelon and
they’re kept under lock and key.” Only the Echelons blacksmiths
knew the secret to creating truly functional bio-mech limbs, where
flesh combined with steel, tendons fusing to hydraulic cables as if
they were one. And this limb, as fine as it was, had never been
fused with flesh. The hip socket gave it away.

Garrett
frowned. “The other question is: if this is Miss Tate’s, then why
is it here? And where is she? There doesn’t appear to be another
case, so we have to presume this is the only limb she owns.”

“
If it isn’t, then I think I ought to become an actress.” It
certainly seemed to pay better than a Nighthawk.

“
I’d like to see that,” Garrett drawled. “You on stage, trying
to feign emotion.”

It wasn’t as
if she hadn’t spent the past six years hiding everything. Perry
snorted under her breath. If only he knew just how good an actress
she truly was.

He smiled,
then surveyed the room. The smile died. “No sign of a struggle,
apart from the blood.”

“
Think they hit her from behind?”

“
Perhaps. Either way it indicates someone she
knows.”

“
How did they remove her then?” Perry glanced at the bloodied
screen. “Nobody claims to have seen anything unusual.”

“
The whole place is a warren,” Garrett replied. “I don’t think
I could have found my way here without Miss Radcliffe to guide us.
Perhaps it’s easy to slip about unseen?”

“
Let’s do a thorough search here then, just to be certain
there’s nothing we missed,” she said, turning back to the vanity
and the letters there. “Then we’ll see what else we can find in the
rest of the theatre.”

They spent the
next couple of hours thoroughly interviewing the actors and
actresses. Garrett took the lead. He was far more comfortable with
making an interrogation seem like a conversation, and he swiftly
put the suspects at ease, flashing quick smiles at the ladies.
Perry watched, with her arms folded over her chest and her eyelids
lowered sleepily. People’s expressions and the tone of their voice
were often far more telling than they thought, and if they were
hiding something she might be able to pick it up.

Her first
instinct of Miss Radcliffe made her back bristle. The pretty young
actress had a wealth of naturally curly, red-gold hair and she
blinked earnestly at Garrett as he questioned her. Garrett’s smiles
grew a little deeper, and Perry glanced away as she felt the mood
of the room shift. Miss Radcliffe’s anxious expression relaxed,
replaced by a slightly coy smile, and when he asked her if Miss
Tate had been ‘seeing someone’, she rested her hand on his
sleeve.

The woman was
beautiful. It shouldn’t have mattered. She was exactly the type of
waifish, pretty blonde that usually caught Garrett’s attention. And
it was clear it was caught.

“
I couldn’t say,” Miss Radcliffe said in response to his
question. “Nelly... well, I’ve not realized until now, but she was
the sort who always asked questions about you, rather than telling
you anything about
herself
.” A
pretty blush stained her creamy cheeks. “Some of the other
girls have... well, admirers, but not Nelly. Nor
myself.”

Garrett
glanced up from his notebook and the faintest of smiles curled over
his mouth as their eyes met.

Good grief.
Perry pushed away from the door. Garrett shot her a look, and she
made a circling motion with her finger, letting him know she was
going to have a look around.

What did it
matter if he was flirting with a witness? It wasn’t the first time
she’d seen him take an interest in a young, attractive woman. It
certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Perry prowled
her way across the stage, pushing the thought from her mind. She
spoke to several of the stagehands on her way, gaining a good
appreciation for Miss Tate. The results were conclusive.

‘
Kind-hearted.’

‘
Not like some of those
actresses
you get, who usually play
the starring roles...’’I couldn’t possibly fathom who would
actually
want
to
hurt
her.’

“
What did Miss Tate do after hours?” she asked the man who
managed the lighting. “Was she... walking out with
anyone?”

“
Couldn’t rightly guess.” His gaze slid away. “She kept to
herself a lot.” A frown, before he looked at her earnestly. “You
don’t think she’s in trouble, do you?”

“
Well, she did get them flowers, remember,
Ned?” One of the stagehands called. “On her
birthday.” He tipped his head to Perry. “I’d
almost suspect she had a beau, though she never mentioned one, but
she were awful excited about the flowers. Showed ‘em to everybody
and they was only peonies. Considering she gets sent roses all the
time from the patrons, you wouldn’t think they was much, would you?
Gets ‘em regular-like now.”

Perry jotted that down.
Interesting
. No doubt theatre rumor
had been all over that little titbit. “When were they delivered?
After a performance?”

“
Nope, during rehearsal. First time she’s ever stopped a
rehearsal.” The man shook his head. “Wanted to get ‘em straight in
a vase before they wilted.”

Very interesting.
Perry tapped the
pen against her notebook.

It looked like
Miss Tate had a beau.

And, she
thought, her eyes narrowing slightly, it hadn’t taken Garrett’s
rapport with people to work it out, which was a good thing,
considering his current distraction...