The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (42 page)

“Have there been any developments?” Ada asked, managing to lower her voice. “I have not heard from Mr Babbage for two days. And how is Constable Duckett?”

“Mr Babbage has broken the third quadrant. ‘I have many masks. I am the Destroyer.’ Strong words. They are the Prankster’s, not mine.”

She noted he was using Robert’s name for the code-maker now. “Did Mr Babbage say anything else?”

Clark shook his head. Candlelight reflecting from his spectacles made his eyes seem to glitter. “Only that the solution to the final quadrant would take longer. As you know, it contains geometrical figures and a nonsense rhyme. Mr Babbage says there are no equivalences for these, so the key could be anything. Does he threaten to destroy Wanstead Abbey? What reason would he have for doing that?”

“I think of nothing else,” Ada said. “Some nights I hardly sleep, my mind cannot let this puzzle go.”

“I’m sorry to hear that your rest is disturbed. Perhaps we should talk no further.”

Ada shook her head. “It would make no difference. I want to know – I dearly want to meet the challenge the Prankster has set us. And when I look around a gathering like this I wonder, is he here? Could he be in this room right now?”

Clark was observing her closely. “Especially as he tells us he has many masks. Does this mean that he can mix with any part of society he chooses? I am beginning to think that he is no radical, he is not trying to change a political system, he is simply after notoriety.”

“As Mr Babbage says, he has set a challenge. Do you truly think he set fire to the Houses of Parliament? And what about the ‘collapsing houses’ he mentions?”

“We have no way of knowing on the former. As for the latter, these old buildings in poorer areas from times gone by are not looked after, and do collapse from time to time anyway.”

“I have tried to think where he means to strike next. Could it be an assassination attempt on the King? There have been several already.”

“My choice is the railways. Perhaps a bridge. I am confident it will be in London. I have every policeman and special agent on full alert – including Constable Duckett, yes.” He smiled. “That young man is out of hospital and taking some days off to recover, unpaid of course. But now, I think I’d better leave you, before tongues start to wag.” He stood up and bent over her hand.

Ada was suddenly aware of her mother’s close scrutiny from the group around the musician. She sighed inwardly. Her mother would not rest till she had tracked down every last detail of Clark’s family and background to find out if he was grand enough for her daughter. Her mother was suspicious enough of her already. She’d caught Ada scrutinising the Personals, looking of course for Babbage’s message to the Prankster. Now her mother had forbidden her to read the paper. “I shall be most annoyed if I find you are conducting correspondence with a young man through that column,” she had said, despite Ada’s protestations that she was exercising her code-breaking skills, as suggested by Mr Babbage.

So now it was a race to solve the fourth quadrant. She would put everything aside and think of nothing else.

*

Robert put his head down and literally pushed his way through the throng that was shoving and jostling its way between the carriages and carts that had come to a standstill at Charing Cross. There was a “lock” on. The numbers of wheeled traffic had built and built till no one could move, though this was not one of the most notorious places for it to happen – they were towards the City.

Carters and drivers yelled and shook their fists, horses snorted and struggled in vain in their harnesses and shafts. Robert battled his way through this tumult to the south side of the Strand, where he breathed easier and began to walk eastwards.

It was a crisp bright autumn morning with a chill in the air. Sunlight slanted on the advertising in shop windows, and on tin plates fastened to the walls above. A myriad of manufactories, shops and cafes shouted their wares at him. If Charing Cross was the centre of London, then the Strand was its beating heart. It was the new London, brash, confident, a centre for all the forms of commerce, industry and entrepreneurship. Even the pavements were lined with women and children selling flowers and fruit, from baskets on the ground.

After a while he turned to his right into an alley and began the descent down to another world, to an older London that still lined the river. He was in deep shade now – cast by the brick walls and timbers of tall buildings. The noise, colour and life were left behind. He was entering a world of scuttling shadows, of figures that hid in doorways, of glimpses of pale faces behind grimy windows hunched over soulless tasks. He pulled up the collar of the patched coat he wore, and pulled down the lip of his shapeless greasy cap. Both had been bought for a few pennies at a rag-pickers, the boots on his feet with worn heels and holes in the toes from Seven Dials.

As far as Sergeant Cummings was concerned, Robert was resting in his lodgings – he had enough savings left after what he sent home to his mother in Bristol to tide him over. Not even his good friend Will knew what he was doing.

A whiff from the Thames carried on a rising breeze caught his throat, and he coughed till he retched; and that made him clasp his side which still ached from the kicking he’d received. He still had flashes of pain in his head, too. This was one of the reasons that had made him decide to investigate by himself. He wanted to make the man who’d ordered his beating pay.

The other reason was the bloodless face, blue about the lips, of the body of a young man that he’d witnessed in the morgue yesterday afternoon. Will had been off-duty, so had come to meet him at Westminster Hospital and share a licensed cab home with him. As they’d waited at the kerbside, Will had said casually, “Remember you told me, when that paper was shoved on you, you thought the man was missing a little finger? A lad with a missing finger showed up on the morgue reports, fished up at the side of the Thames. Thought you’d like to know, seeing as how you went back to the White Hart on account of that business, and ended up here for your pains.”

Robert gripped his arm. “Can we go to the morgue now? I’d like to see him.”

“What, reckon you’re well enough to be looking at dead bodies? Will they let us in?”

“I’ll tell them the Sarge sent us and square it with him later.”

Will sighed. “Well, you’re his blue-eyed boy at the moment. Can’t say it’s much of a substitute for a quiet pint of ale, but, all right then!”

They’d talked themselves into the morgue, but Will decided to wait in the office, while Robert was taken through to view the body. When the cloth was pulled back he’d stared down into the face of a young man he recognized. Not from the night they’d broken up the political meeting, but from the White Hart. He’d been one of the group of men he’d struck up conversation with. A quiet, nervous lad who’d laughed in the right places but not said much. And now that elusive memory that had been knocked from his head when he fell, returned.

A newcomer had sidled up to the lad, face obscured by his felt hat so that all that could be seen were the brown stumps of his teeth and a chin disfigured by a deep scar. A few words were muttered, the young man had gone pale. He’d quickly downed his drink then got up and left.

Robert recalled now the name he’d managed to catch, through the hubbub of the public house: “Chapterhouse Stairs.” He knew these stairs, or steps, down to the riverbank, were situated between Temple and Puddle Dock.

“Where was the body found?” he’d asked, and was not surprised to be told, “Near Puddle Dock Stairs.”

He’d not said anything to Will beyond “Yes, I think that’s the lad. Tell the Sergeant for me will you? I think I need to go and lie down now.” Will had understood and gone for a drink on his own, while Robert had devised his plan and gone out to buy his disguise. And now here he was the next morning trudging through the maze of lanes that went beyond the Temple, heading towards Blackfriars and Chapterhouse Stairs.

At last he stepped on to the narrow wharf constructed of large blocks of stone, from which a flight of steps led down to the muddy shore below. A few wooden boats, one with a mast, were pulled up on the mud, and a few brave souls were picking through the smelly ooze to see what treasures the murky waters might have washed up. Anything that could be sold for a farthing or more was worth keeping.

Robert eyed the several derelict buildings that lined this small wharf. Wide wooden eaves jutted out over upper storeys, which in turn jutted out over the lower ones. There wasn’t a straight line to be seen; all the timbers, windows and bricks seemed to be at odds with one another. As he wandered slowly by, he glanced inside. One building appeared to be some kind of offices, with clerks scribbling over piles of dusty papers. Another, a sort of chandlery. The third seemed to be unoccupied.

Robert slouched on past. He’d find himself a hidden corner out of the wind and get himself comfortable. He had a couple of pies he’d bought from a passing pieman, and a stone bottle of ginger beer, as well as an old blanket rolled up in his pack. There were worse ways to pass a sunny day than watch all the craft going by on the river, and the mudlarks at work below.

*

Ada felt the warmth of the late October sunshine on her back as she strolled her favourite walk between the market gardens that ran down to the Thames. It was a circular walk from Fordhook to the river and back. Winter vegetables grew in ordered rows, and a few late butterflies and bees foraged in the hedges. Behind her she could hear her tutors Dr King and Miss Noel deep in discussion on a philosophical point.

She quickened her pace. Ahead lay the grove of willows that she loved, and beyond that the small wooden jetty where she could stand and watch the flowing water, see the boats plying by, and find a moment’s peace. Particularly, she wanted to forget her mother’s pronouncement on Mr Clark. She’d researched his background and found it severely wanting on his mother’s side, two generations back. “Barely more than a seamstress,” her mother had announced. “You’d better not be planning a secret alliance.” She’d watched Ada even more closely, and she was still forbidden reading
The Times
.

In her purse she carried her notes on the fourth and last quadrant of the secret cipher. She’d hardly slept the past two nights for trying to puzzle it out, not caring if her mother thought she was pining romantically. But to no avail. “10S, 15C, what is the rest of me?” Ten times S and fifteen times C? That was the correct mathematical notation. Then last night she’d wondered if it was proportions. Ten plus fifteen was twenty-five, so 75 of what, to make one hundred? It made no sense to her. As for those polyhedrons, she’d found herself idly redrawing them, separating out each individual shape, and turning them into a necklace. Could some of them represent jewels? Then, annoyed at her inability to penetrate the Prankster’s cipher, she’d put a big cross through it all.

Quickening her pace again, she glanced round. Good. They’d stopped, deep in argument. She lifted the willow fronds and hurried through the grove to the jetty. There she intended on tearing up the paper into a hundred tiny pieces and flinging it into the river. From henceforth she was going to renounce all codes and ciphers!

A small skiff was moored to the end of the jetty with one man sitting at the oars and another standing beside it on the jetty. She turned her back on them and was reaching for her purse when she felt a strong arm about her waist. “If you want to see your friend Babbage alive, you’ll come with me and quiet about it.”

In shock, heart thundering, she gasped for breath as the man on the jetty hurried her into the waiting skiff, and the oarsman – a big bearded fellow – pulled fast into the river, heading for a larger boat. The man who’d taken hold of her now draped a hooded cloak over her. “Keep silent,” he hissed. “Or Babbage don’t live to see another day.”

Ada heard herself whimper. She closed her eyes in terror. Could it be true? Was Charles’s life under threat? What had been done to him? The boat rocked wildly and she felt nauseous, putting a hand to her mouth, as she was quickly bundled on to the large boat.

“Lie down!” came the order, and she felt a foot placed on her back as she obeyed. Now she thought she could hear a faint cry of distress, like a marsh bird, from Miss Noel at finding her gone.

As the boat wallowed in the water and her stomach heaved, she kept her mind fixed on one thing. Charles is in danger. For some reason I am part of this – perhaps I can help him.

*

Robert jerked his eyes open. Dammit, he’d fallen asleep. What had awoken him, apart from the uncomfortable stone that was pressing into his back? Voices, he thought he’d heard voices. Stiffly, he forced himself to sit upright so that he could see over the weather-beaten boards behind which he’d found his pitch. A new boat was being pulled up on the mud, by a large man with a lot of woolly grey hair and a beard. Two other figures stood inside: a man and a woman in a rough woollen cloak.

Robert looked around. All the mudlarks had scattered and were determinedly looking the other way. They knew who these people were, Robert thought, and apparently they were people it was best one didn’t know anything about.

The man on the boat said something, but he couldn’t make out what, and then the bigger man lifted down the woman and they all went up the stairs and headed for the building he’d thought was unoccupied. The big man was glancing around, as if to make sure no one was watching them. Robert kept very still.

Then, as clearly as St Paul’s bell, he heard the woman say “Is he in here? Will I see him now?” For answer, she was escorted in, and the door closed behind them.

He frowned. It couldn’t be. He must be imagining it. Were his brains still scrambled? But that voice – it sounded like Miss Byron. What could she be doing here? He began to struggle to his feet. He had to find a way to get inside – or at least see inside – that dilapidated building.

*

“Are you telling me the truth, Mr Babbage? She has not come here to your house? And you know nothing of any romantic liaison?”