The Shadow in the North (19 page)

They went into the library, a small room plainly

furnished with a table and half a dozen chairs and lined with shelves containing books on a variety of social and philosophical topics. Mr. Waterman was reading by the light of an oil lamp; he was a heavy, serious-looking man of fifty or so.

"Henry, let me introduce Mr. Garland, from London. He's a detective," said Mr. Paton.

Mr. Waterman stood up to shake hands, and for the second time Frederick went through his story, though this time he shortened it. Mr. Waterman listened attentively. When Frederick finished, he nodded as if he'd just solved a problem.

"Mr. Garland, you've made up my mind for me," he said. "I'm going to break a promise now, but I consider it was a promise they had no right to get. I'll tell you about the Steam Gun.

"It's a weapon on an entirely new principle—new mechanically, new strategically, new in every way. I'm a boilermaker myself; I know nothing about guns, but I can tell you that this one's a horrible thing. I've been working on a system of tubing to feed high-pressure steam into it—the most complicated bit of engineering you ever saw in your life, but lovely drawings, lovely design, really beautiftilly thought out. I never knew, Mr. Garland, that a piece of machinery could be beautifiil and wicked at the same time.

"It's mounted on an ordinary-looking railway carriage, specially reinforced and sprung. The boiler and firebox are at the back of it, fairly small—doesn't have

to pull the train along, after all—but very powerftil. We can reach four hundred pounds per square inch easy; I'd say there was another hundred in reserve. And she burns coke—smokeless, see. You'd never know she was alight.

"Now, you hear the word gun and you think of a long barrel sticking out, don't you? Well, it's not like that. The carriage looks like any ordinary freight carriage, apart from the holes. Tiny little holes—six thousand on each side. Thirty rows, two hundred in a row. And out of each hole come five bullets every second. . . . That's what the steam's for, you see. Can you imagine turning a handle for twelve thousand machine guns at once? It needs every one of those four hundred pounds of steam, Mr. Garland.

"And that's not the end of it. I'm not too familiar with the firing side—getting the steam along the pipes is my job—but from what I've heard, there's a kind of Jacquard mechanism they can bring into play to regulate the firing pattern. I'm sure you've seen the things— a series of cards with holes punched in 'em. They use 'em in weaving, to put patterns in the cloth. Well, with this mechanism the gunner can have one row firing at a time, then the next one down, then the next, and so on; or he can have all the columns firing in turn; or he can fire in blocks, or in short bursts from the whole gun— any way he pleases. Only it doesn't use punched cards, this regulator. It's the same principle, but it's done with electrical connections: lines drawn on a roll of waxed

paper using a dense kind of graphite. I tell you, Mr. \ Garland, the man who designed this is litde short of a| genius. It s the most stunning piece of machinery I ever^ saw in my life. ■

"And it's evil. Its monstrous. Can you imagine the effect on a body of men? Every cubic inch of air within,] oh, five hundred, a thousand yards, filled with a red-hotj bullet? Devastation isn't the word. You'd need something, from the Book of Revelations to describe it. ]

"So that's the Steam Gun. There's one already sent! abroad—I don't know where. There's a second nearly: ready now; another week or two, and it'll be ready toi test. ... So you see, Mr. Garland, why I'm not happy' about it. Sidney here thought harder about this business, than I did, and I wish I'd had the courage to say no, like^ him, at the start. The thought that my skill—and I'mj proud of my skill—that my craftsmanship's been per- \ verted into making something like this; the thought: that my own countrymen are busy helping it into the; world—I tell you, it makes me sick at the heart." i

He stopped and ran his hands through his short,; iron-gray hair before laying them flat on the table on ei-i ther side of his book. Sally'd like this man, Frederick! thought. ,

"Mr. Waterman, I'm extremely grateful. I've got a lotj of things clear now. But what about the management of I the firm? Do you know the name Bellmann?" \

"Bellmann?" Mr. Waterman shook his head. "Can't, say I've ever heard that name. But it's common knowi-

edge there's foreign money in the firm somewhere. Hes a foreigner, is he, this Mr. Bellmann?"

"Swedish. But there's a Russian connection to this as well."

"Russian! Now there's a thing. You remember I mentioned the designer? Said he must be a genius? Well, his name's Hopkinson. That's what we've been told, though no one's seen him. On the drawings we're working from, it's abbreviated to HOP. But it looks odd—almost as though it had been four letters, and they'd scraped off the K And in one place—tucked away, not really visible—I saw this. Here, I'll write it for you." He borrowed Frederick's pencil and wrote:

HOPfl

"Now that last letter isn't a Ky it's a D, Are you familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet, Mr. Garland? I take an interest in languages, or I wouldn't have recognized it. And seeing that as a D made the other letters sort of change themselves in my mind. It's Russian, you see. In our script it'd be this." He wrote:

NORD

"Nordenfels!" said Frederick. "By heaven, Mr. Waterman, you've cracked it!"

"Nordenfels?" said Mr. Waterman.

"A Swedish engineer. Disappeared in Russia. Very

probably murdered. Well, I'm damned. . . . That s won- ! derfiil. And you say they're going to test the new gun in i a week or two?" \

"That's right. They've tested separate systems, such as \ the boiler, obviously, and the cartridge feed, and the i electrical generator, but it's nearly all together now, and ; then they'll take it up to Thurlby for testing. They test j big naval guns up there, on floating targets out at sea i sometimes. ^

"And that's about all I know, Mr. Garland. But now I \ reckon you can tell me something. What's your interest | in this? And what are you going to do about it?" \

Frederick nodded. "Fair questions. I'm a detective, '. Mr. Waterman, and I'm interested in the man behind { all this. Steam guns aren't illegal, as far as I know, but j I'm beginning to see what he's up to, and as soon as I i can pin something on him, I will. But I'll tell you what i I'd like to do with the gun, and that's blow it off the J foce of the earth."

"Hear, hear," said Mr. Paton.

"Well, I could show you—" began Mr. Waterman, but then the door opened and in came another man, carrying a couple of books.

"Oh, beg your pardon, Henry," he said. "Don't mind me, carry on. Evening, Sidney ..."

The other two were slightly thrown, but Frederick said, "And what other facilities does your institute provide, Mr. Waterman?"

"Ah—^yes, Mr. Garland. Well, it grew out of the Co-

operative Society, and the original nucleus was this very library. . . . Some of the books were donated by the Rochdale Corresponding Society. ..."

It was clear that the other man wasn't going to go. In fact, he joined in to tell the history of the place. Frederick soon became aware of two things: first, that they were all very proud of what they'd built up, and deserved to be; and second, that he was growing thirstier by the minute.

After declining an invitation to look over the rest of the building and inspect the accounts of the Cooperative Society (a pleasure he said he'd reserve for his next visit), he said good-bye to Henry Waterman and left— and found himself staring, for no good reason, at a playbill on the wall of the building opposite.

It was getting close to eight o'clock—dark, with a chilly wind and a spot or two of rain—and the gaslights flared in the changing gusts. Windows were lit up, and a warm glow came from the doorway of a nearby pub. Men trudging home from work, or women hurrying to their kitchens with a couple of herrings or a black pudding, made the street look alive, a place of vivid human activity; but something had caught Frederick's eye, and it wasn't this lame horse or that pretty girl or those two boys squabbling over a cap.

One of the names of the playbill had leaped out at him and then retreated coyly again. The Paramount Music Hall—this week—a list of performers: the Great Goldini and His Performing Doves—Mr. David

Fickling, the Lancashire Comedian—Professor Laar, Mesmerist Extraordinary—^Miss Jessie Saxon, the Ebul-hent Songstress—Mr. Graham Chainey, the Cheeky Chappie—

Jessie Saxon.

The old ambrotype—Nellie Budd s sister!

"What's up, Mr. Garland?" said Mr. Paton, seeing Frederick stop, blink, look harder, take off his hat and scratch his head, and finally clap his hat back on and snap his fingers.

"A longing for culture, Mr. Paton. Comes over me in irresistible waves. Care to join me? Where do they keep the Paramount Music Hall?"

Mr. Paton declined, and Frederick thanked him for his help and went alone. The Paramount Music Hall was a comfortable, friendly sort of establishment, though with a shabbiness about it that spoke of decline; and most of the acts on the first half of the bill had declined already. It all lacked luster.

Jessie Saxon occupied a spot in the middle of the second half, between a comedian and a juggler. Frederick felt a shiver of surprise when she came on, because she was so like her sister not only in looks but in manner: vulgar, warm, humorous, a little coarse. She knew how to manage the audience, and they enjoyed it; but there was nothing exciting about her act. A few sentimental songs and a joke or two—familiar stuff; no doubt she

was an old favorite up there, who'd never managed (or never wanted) to succeed in the south.

Frederick sent his compUments to her dressing room and asked if he might buy her a bottle of champagne— an invitation that was accepted at once. And when he appeared at the door, she blinked and started in astonishment.

"Well!" she said. "A young man! Me admirers these days are usually pushing sixty. Come in, love, sit yourself down and tell me all about yourself What am I going to call you? Are you a Johnny, or a Charlie, or what?"

It was amazing: she could have been the same woman—but shadowed; and her good humor, her warm flirtatiousness, were the same as her sisters, but strained. Her costumes were shabby and patched; clearly she was going through a bad time.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I came to see you really because of your sister. Nellie Budd."

Her tyts widened, and she gave a little gasp.

"What's happened?" she said. "Something's happened, hasn't it? I know it has, I know it. . ."

She sat down. Frederick sat, too, and said, "She's in the hospital, I'm afraid. She was attacked by two men yesterday; they knocked her unconscious."

She nodded. She'd gone pale under her makeup.

"I knew it," she said. "I felt it. We were like that—^we used to feel everything the other was feeling—and

yesterday I had the most horrible shock, I can't tell you, a sort of ghastly falling feeling, and I knew something had happened. It were the morning, werent it? About elevenish?"

"As far as I know, yes, it was," said Frederick. "Look, it was silly of me to order champagne. Would you rather have a brandy?"

"I'll drink champagne at anything short of a funeral," she said. "I don't suppose there's any likelihood ..."

"She's holding her own. She's in Guy's Hospital; they're looking after her well. She might have recovered consciousness by now."

"Look, who are you, anyway?" she said. "I don't mean to be rude, but are you a policeman, or what?"

Frederick opened the bottle and explained the background. When he spoke about Nellie Budd's trances, her sister nodded.

"I remember," she said. "I thought there was nothing in it when she took up this spiritualism line. I didn't hold with it—that was one of the reasons we drifted away from each other. We weren't that close recently. Whoever could have done that to her?"

"I think I know who they are, but I don't know why they did it. Look, here's my card. Will you let me know if anything occurs to you?"

"I certainly will. I'll work tomorrow night, and then I'll come down and see her—I must do that. I don't care how far apart we were, a sister's a sister, for all that."

She took the card and tucked it into her bag.

"By the way," he said, "d'you know a chap called Al-istair Mackinnon?"

Her reaction was immediate.

"Him!" she said with icy derision. "That little crawling wood louse. Know him? I should say so. And if he was here now, I'd knock his block off. Mackinnon? Macslimey, if you ask me. Ugh! Is he mixed up in this as well?"

"Yes . . . but I dont know how. He seems to arouse strong reactions, anyway. I've lost track of him. He ought to know about his mother."

"His mother?"

"Your sister. Mrs. Budd."

"Whatr

She stood up suddenly and faced him, her plump frame quivering with anger and astonishment.

"His mother, did you say? You better explain yourself, my lad. You don't go saying things like that to me without a good explanation."

Frederick was as taken aback as she was. He ran his fingers through his hair before he found anything to say.

"I'm extremely sorry," he said. "I was under the impression that he was your sister's son. He said so himself"

"He said that? The little demon. Where is he now? My God, I've a mind to go and tear him limb from limb. How dare he! How dare he!"

She sat down again, pale and trembling with anger. Frederick poured her some champagne.

"Here," he said. "Drink this before the bubbles disappear. What is the connection between your sister and Mackinnon?"

"Can't you tell?" she said bitterly.

He shook his head.

"Just like a man. They were lovers, of course. Lovers! And I—" She collapsed suddenly into tears. "And I was in love with him too. Like a fool."

Frederick sat, amazed. Jessie Saxon blew her nose, dabbed her eyes, sipped angrily at the champagne, coughed, choked, and wailed aloud. Frederick put his arms around her; it seemed the only sensible thing to do. She leaned against him and sobbed while he stroked her hair and gazed around the shabby, narrow little dressing room, with its cracked mirror and faded curtains, with the case of makeup on the dressing table and the oil lamp flaring smokily beside it. . . . It might be a cozy place if you had someone to share it with; or an exciting place if you were starting on the stage. But it must be a terribly lonely place if you were Jessie Saxon. He held her close and kissed her gently on the forehead.

When she recovered, she pushed him away softly and dabbed at her eyes again with little angry movements, before laughing a short rueflil laugh.

"Forty-four years old, and sobbing like a girl. . . . And we quarreled over him. Can you imagine it? Oh,

it's so humiliating now. Well, were all fools when it comes to love. Wouldn't be human otherwise—^we'd be machines, or horses, or something. I don't know. What were you asking, love?"

"About Mackinnon in general. He's ... a client of mine." He sat up; they were side by side on a hard litde sofa. He leaned across to pour her some more champagne. "He also claimed that Lord Wytham was his father. Is that a lie as well?"

"Old Johnny Wytham?" She laughed more genuinely. "He's got a bloody cheek. Mind you—that could be true. He . . . oh, dear, I can't think straight yet."

She looked at herself in the mirror, made a face, and patted her hair into shape. Frederick prompted her gently.

"Lord Wytham?" he said.

"Oh, yts. You must think me a fool, carrying on like this. . . . You really want to know about Alistair? Well, he lied to me often enough, but one thing he never altered: he was the illegitimate son of a lord. So it could be true, for what it's worth."

"And you knew Lord Wytham, did you?"

"Used to in the old days. He used to run around with Nellie, but I'm certain she never had a child. Damn it, I'd know, wouldn't I? We were that close. . .. He's a politician now, I'm told. Is he mixed up in this as well?"

"Yes, but I'm damned if I know how. Nor does your sister."

\

"I wouldnt bet on it," she said, and helped herself to \ another glass. '

"I beg your pardon?" \

"You'd probably find out if you went up and asked J around in Carlisle," she said. "That's where I last saw , her and where we quarreled. . . . Last year. Only last ] year. ?

"What was she doing there?" \

"Oh, this silly spiritualism lark. There was a circle, or i a league, of the idiots in Carlisle, you see, and she was 1 asked up there and I was playing nearby and that insect I Mackinnon was playing a little town near Dumfries—I \ found out that Nellie was keeping him. Can you imag- \ ine! He hadn't perfected his art—his arty he calls it— ^ and he kept breaking engagements. Well, theater ■ managers won't stand for that, and rightly. So he was on i his uppers, and Nellie stepped in and. . . That's it, \ really. A little place called Netherbrigg—just over the : border."

"Isn't that where Wytham's estate is?"

"Yes, it is. But I hadn't seen him for years, and nor had Nellie. He married, you see, and stopped gadding about the music halls. What was her name now?. . . Lady Louisa Something. . . Big landowners. Graphite mines."

"Graphite?" Frederick sat up.

"Something like that. What is graphite?"

"They make pencils with it. . . ." And Steam Guns, he thought, but he didn't mention that. Instead he let

her talk as she Hked: she was a garrulous soul, and was obviously glad of his company. He learned little more of interest to his inquiry. But about her own life she was eloquent: funny and vivid and scandalous, and when he'd finished laughing, he said, "Jessie, you ought to write your memoirs."

"There's a thought," she said. "But would they print em?

They agreed about the unlikelihood of that and parted fast friends. And before Frederick got into his cold bed at the Railway Hotel, he got out a map and looked for Dumfries and Carlisle and Thurlby, where the firing range was. Not far away, really. A mornings train ride, perhaps; and where was Wytham's estate? Not marked. Or was that it? And as for graphite . . . Lady Wytham's family. . . Bellmann . . . Poor old Nellie. Poor Jessie, too. Both in love with Mackinnon. What the devil had he got to make all these women starry-eyed? Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary. But Sally hadn't taken to him. Sensible girl. Thurlby ... go there in the morning.

•1 1

i

15 '

GJcoIs cJLc

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Sally spent the rest of Thursday in her office, ; dealing with business; and first thing on Friday morn- \ ing, she went to the patent Ubrary. ^

It was in the Great Seal Patent Office, just oflP | Chancery Lane: a large building like a museum, with a j high glass roof and cast-iron galleries all the way < around. Sally had been there before, in conneaion with a client who'd wanted to invest all his money in an in- i vention for making a new kind of sardine tin; she'd i been able to show him that it wasn't as new as he'd ^ thought, and persuaded him to buy government stocks instead.

She began her search by looking in the alphabetical index of patentees for anything under the name of Hopkinson. She started with the volume for 1870, feeling that there was unlikely to be anything relevant earlier. She found nothing there, but in the 1871 volume there was listed a patent for steam engines under the name J. Hopkinson.

Was that it, then? Surely she wouldn't find it as

quickly as that? After all, Hopkinson wasn't an uncommon name, and there were patents dealing with steam engines on every page of the index, as she saw from glancing through it.

She made a note and turned to the next volume. There was nothing in 1872, but in 1873 and 1874 J. or J. A. Hopkinson had registered two more patents for steam boilers. There was nothing else up to the present. Out of interest she looked up Nordenfels but found nothing.

She went to the desk and filled out a slip requesting the Hopkinson specifications and, while she was waiting, looked up Garland in the alphabetical index for 1873. There he was: Garland, RDM, 1385, May 20, Photographic lens. She had made him patent it when she first began to look after the finances of the firm. It hadn't brought him in any money yet, but the patent would run for another nine years; there'd be time to get it into production, if she could find someone with an interest in manufacturing it. She found herself looking forward to it, to dealing with businessmen and managers and investors again. Something enterprising, something clean and open and honest after all this murk and cruelty! Fred could deal with the technical side that he was so good at, and she'd look after the finance, the planning, the marketing . . .

But he might not want to. Finish this case, and then well call it a go, he'd said. He meant their friendship as

well as anything deeper; his expression had told her that. Would he feel like taking up a new kind of partnership? She doubted it somehow.

She looked around at the men—lawyers' clerks most of them, she guessed, and one or two private inventors—busily leafing through bound volumes or scratching away with steel pens at the rows of library desks. She was the only woman in the building, and that had brought her some curious looks, but she was used to that. They were carefiil men, competent and steady and reliable, and she had no doubt of their ability and their usefulness—but Frederick outshone them like the sun. There was no comparison, any more than there was with that flimsy wraith Mackinnon. Fred was incomparable. She had no doubt now about how she felt: she loved him. She always would.

And he'd said she was unlikable . . .

"Miss Lockhart?" It was the man from the desk. "The specifications you requested are ready, miss."

She took the blue booklets and sat at a desk to read them. Each contained a set of folded drawings and a description of the invention. The first was headed:

LETTERS PATENT to John Addy Hopkinson of Huddersfield, in the County of York, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM BOILERS AND IN APPARATUS TO BE USED THEREWITH," sealed 5 June 1874, and dated 24 December 1873.

She began to read, but it was soon clear that this wasn't the machine Bellmann was making in the North Star works. Nor were the others: a new kind of moving grate for conveying fiiel to the firebox of a steam engine, a new design of boiler. . . Innocuous. This was the wrong Hopkinson.

She took the booklets back to the desk and asked, "Is there an index classified by subject? Suppose I wanted to look up all the patents concerned with firearms manufacture, for instance—how would I do that?"

"There is a subject index, yes, miss. But the printed index for those years is away at the binders. If you wanted to look something up you'd have to search through the written slips. Was there something in particular you were looking for?"

"Yes, there was, but..." Another thought occurred to her. "You keep foreign patents here, don't you?"

"Yes, indeed, miss."

"Russian ones?"

"Certainly. In the section over there, under the gallery."

"Is there a translation service, by any chance?"

"I'll see if Mr. Tolhausen is free. Could you wait a moment?"

He went into the office behind, and she thought through what she wanted to find out. If Nordenfels had patented an invention in Russia, there'd be a record of it here. But there was nothing to prevent anyone exploiting a foreign invention in Britain if there wasn't a

British patent for it; so even if Bellmann were doing that, he'd be breaking no law. On the other hand, if she could prove that Bellmann had stolen the idea ... \

"Mr. Tolhausen, Miss Lockhart."

The translator was a dignified gendeman in his forties who betrayed not the slightest surprise at finding a young woman making technical inquiries. She warmed to him at once and explained her quest. He listened courteously.

"We shall start with the alphabetical index," he said^ "Nordenfels . . . Arne Nordenfels. Here is a patent, dated 1872, for a safety valve for steam boilers. Another here in the same year for improvements in circulating high-pressure steam. In 1873 we have . . ."

He stopped. He was turning the page back and forth, firowning.

"There is a page missing," he said. "Look. It has been carefully cut out."

Sally felt her heart beating fast. "It's the page with

Nordenfels on it?"

I

Her eyes could make nothing of the unfamiliar script, but she could see the neatly trimmed edge where the leaf had been cut.