Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  She did not respond.

  “You know these creatures? What’s wrong with them?”

  “I know that all need food alike. Our kitchens provide. There are many such of late. They’ve nowhere else to go. Thus they find their way to Upper Wharf Street.”

  “He was naked.”

  “We give them shirts and trousers and coats, donated through the generosity of those more fortunate. But some won’t abide cloth against the skin. Or don’t know what it’s for and rip it off. You saw one such creature.”

  We had passed many doors already, each banded with metal. Some were padlocked, the hasps bolted directly into brick. Whatever had been warehoused here must have been seen as valuable. Or dangerous. We reached a corner and set off along another stretch.

  Though I did want to see my friend, if just for the familiarity of her face, it was Mrs Raike who I hoped would have the power to help me. Julia had mentioned the woman’s influence, her access to lawyers and money. My own research had revealed a connection to the Minister of Patents, one of the most powerful men in the Republic. And my suspicions went further.

  “Are you taking me to Julia Swain?”

  “I can’t discuss our members.”

  “She’s my friend. My pupil.”

  No answer.

  “Then am I to see Mrs Raike?”

  “She isn’t here.”

  The woman stopped walking so abruptly that I had passed her before realising and had to backtrack. She slid open a concertinaed metal gate and ushered me into a small chamber, panelled with wood. Two ropes ran taut between a hole in the ceiling and one in the floor. It was some kind of elevator. She slid the gate closed, placed gun and lantern by her feet and then began hauling down on one of the ropes. We began to rise to the sound of creaking pulleys.

  I could not count the floors we passed, but guessed we had reached the top of the building by the time she took back the lantern and led us outside. This floor was less sparsely furnished. As we walked, the lantern reflected from the glass covers of paintings hanging on the walls. The air smelled different. On the ground floor corridor, carbolic soap had failed to cover the stale smells of boiled bones and cabbage. Here I detected wood polish and something fainter – a musky scent.

  The woman stopped in front of a door.

  “What’s your name,” I asked.

  “My name isn’t important.”

  She didn’t follow me into the room but closed the door behind me. I took in my new surroundings – a study it seemed. Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling. A set of library steps on wheels had been parked to one side. Leather arm chairs were arranged around a hearth in which no fire burned. Such light as there was came from two wall-mounted gas lamps.

  It was with a start that I realised I was not alone.

  “Come here,” said a woman, who had been sitting stock still in one of the chairs.

  Leaving my suitcase by the door, I took the chair opposite her. “Thank you.”

  “It’s not that new arrivals are unwelcome,” she said. “But the time of night... I’m sure you understand.”

  Her hair had not been brushed. I guessed the tea gown she wore to have been pulled on hurriedly over nightwear.

  “I gave my name at the door,” I said. “But I don’t know yours.”

  “Here, I’m known as Housemistress,” she said. “You may call me Ma’am if it sits more easily.”

  “The tradesmen and professionals you deal with call you this?”

  “They do.”

  Unsettled, I let the question of names lie. “I need to see Julia Swain. I believe she’s here.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “Then may I ask where she is?”

  “We don’t discuss–...”

  “...your members’ business. That’s what the other woman told me.”

  “And yet you ask again.”

  “I’m her friend. And her teacher. I feel responsible.”

  “Girls come to serve here for many reasons,” the housemistress said. “Not all want it known. To have worked – even in a charitable cause – can damage their prospects of making a good match. You’re a Royalist, I believe. It may be hard to understand.”

  “Being born in the Kingdom doesn’t make me a Royalist.”

  “I’ve read that south of the border women pride themselves in money-getting.”

  The tone of her voice made me want to deny it, though it was true enough. I took a breath and looked for some clue to strengthen my position. The woman’s hands were folded on her lap. The way they lay would have hidden a wedding ring had she been wearing one. I felt as if I was trying to pry open an oyster with my fingernails.

  “Mrs Raike asked for my help,” I said. “And my brother’s. We were invited.”

  “Circumstances change.”

  “Then the case of the ice farmers has been resolved?”

  “It has not.”

  “Mrs Raike was insistent that I come with Julia.”

  “But now you are sought by the law,” the housemistress said. “On the run, isn’t that the common term? Did you think the news would not have reached us?”

  “I... wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

  “I can give you a choice,” she said. “A bed for the night and in the morning we hand you over to the constabulary. Or you may leave now – if you wish to take your chances on the streets.”

  “You’d be so cold as to do that?”

  “What choice have you left us? Do you have any idea the number of our enemies – men and women too – who wish to see us brought low? They’d seize on any scandal to harm us. Didn’t you think of the trouble you’d bring by coming to our door?”

  “I’d be taken back to the internment camp.”

  “Very likely.”

  A game of guesses and long odds had brought me here. On the turn of a wild eight, all the agonies of my escape could come to nothing. But I had no other card to play.

  “There’ll be an extradition case,” I said.

  “We’re not responsible for your misdemeanours.”

  “I’ll be called to answer for my movements.”

  “And the court will learn that we behaved impeccably. You’re in deep folly if you hope to blackmail us with innuendo.”

  “It’d be consequence not blackmail,.” I said. “Under cross-examination, they’d make me say why I came.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Which was to ask why your leader goes under the name Mrs Raike when no such person exists.”

  I released the words, still not knowing if they were true. The housemistress neither blinked nor flinched. Her expression was one of a tourist to the asylum – sadness and pity.

  “I think you’d better go,” she said.

  “It’s a disguise–...”

  “Enough!” The housemistress pointed to the door, her cheeks colouring with anger.

  I stood, feeling as if an iron collar was tightening around my neck. But as I turned to go, a hollow click sounded and a door-sized section of the bookcase swung out. Framed in the new opening stood the aged figure of Mrs Raike.

  Chapter 15

  The vexed question of woman’s suffrage has ever been the cause of discord. But when put to the test, the electorate have found no enthusiasm.

  From Revolution

  Unlike the housemistress, Mrs Raike showed no signs of hurried dressing. Her immaculate plaits were wound and held up under a cream house cap. Her dress and shawl were the same bombazine that I had seen in every photograph. I would have called them widow’s weeds – though if she was in mourning the period must have been indecently long.

  I followed her through the opening into a smaller chamber, insufficiently lit. A single oil lamp rested on a table carved in the Chinese style. I could make out comfortable chairs and lace antimacassars. The fire in the grate crackled reluctantly, suggesting a fresh shovel of coal on the embers of the previous evening.

  Mrs Raike pulled the bookcase door closed and we were alone. From
this side it was wood panelled.

  “They told me you weren’t here,” I said.

  “You are excessively determined, Miss Barnabus. Persistence is a virtue only in moderation.”

  At the rally in the park, there had been noise and distance between us. But I was now close enough to hear every subtle layer of her voice. There was nothing false about it. And though the neck of her dress was high, it would not have concealed the Adam’s apple of a man. My theory had been dashed.

  “May I sit?” I asked, trying to process the flood of new information.

  She nodded. I chose the chair nearest the fire and watched as she lowered herself into the other one, moving as if her limbs were dry sticks.

  “I overheard some of your conversation with the housemistress,” she said.

  “Overheard?” I glanced at the wood panelling, unable to see a spy hole but certain it would be there – behind one of the hanging pictures perhaps. A secret room is not built without the means to look out unobserved.

  “You spoke loudly,” she said. “I found myself listening. Forgive me, but you seemed to be saying that I don’t exist.”

  Her tone of voice mocked me. For a moment I forgot the opening of the speech I had prepared.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “I... was brought up in a travelling show.”

  “How singular.”

  “My father made me disappear. On stage.”

  Her eyes were boring into me. “A charming story. Though perhaps less than ideal as an upbringing. We run orphanages, did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And we feed the destitute, for which we’re criticised. We rescue women who have fallen. Girls younger even than you were when you came to the Republic.”

  It seemed I wasn’t the only one to have rehearsed a speech. And her words were having an effect.

  “Do you know how I disappeared on stage?” I asked, trying to get back on track but no longer comfortable with the place I was driving towards.

  “Would you have those girls sent back to their bawdy houses?” she asked.

  “No. Of course. But–...”

  “Can you imagine what they suffer?”

  “But–...”

  “Then why are you attacking me?”

  I took in a deep breath and asked again, with more force: “Do you know how I disappeared on stage?”

  No answer.

  “I didn’t. I was still there. In full view. But disguised. That was my art – appearing to be someone else. I recognise the same art in you.”

  Her hands gripped the arms of the chair. “Stop!”

  But I pressed on. “You are in disguise. There is no Mrs Raike.”

  Seconds ticked past. Then her rigid shoulders dropped and I knew a barrier had been crossed.

  She stood. As she stepped across to the table, her movements were already changing from a brittle shuffling to the smooth-limbed gait of a woman in her prime. I watched her adjust the lamp, letting out more wick. The flame grew and the room brightened.

  “I don’t want to harm you,” I said.

  “Then why have you done this?”

  “We can help each other.”

  “Indeed?”

  Her voice was smoother than before. It still had an edge, though its nature seemed different, more dangerous perhaps. It came to me that the only people to have seen me enter the building were some poor insane creatures on the street and the two women from within the organisation who conducted me to this secret room.

  She sat back in the chair. “Tell me – who do you think I am?”

  “The first time I saw you, I figured you for a man in disguise,” I said.

  “Ridiculous!”

  “I’m sorry. It was from a distance. You were speaking in Abbey Park.”

  Recollection flickered across her face. “You asked a question.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “And now what do you think?”

  “Your work divides opinion. You’ve enemies. Your disguise is to protect a reputation from scandal. I’d thought you were Wallace Jones, Minister of Patents. But now I know you’re a woman... I believe you’re his wife.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Then his sister.”

  She acknowledged the truth with an almost imperceptible nod.

  “So much makeup can’t be comfortable.”

  I watched as she took off the cap. Then she picked at her cheek and started peeling away the wrinkled skin, revealing a rosy glow beneath. She must have painted herself with some kind of rubber solution. In moments the false mole was removed. A woman of perhaps thirty- five years sat before me.

  “There was no perspiration,” I said. “The other women on stage looked set to faint but you weren’t even glowing. And the haste with which you left the stage. The mayor was still speaking. I think perhaps it could not have lasted longer.”

  I wondered what the price of this revelation would be. My gun had been taken. But there was a horn of black powder in the travelling case. I resisted the temptation to glance at it.

  “You are not only persistent, Miss Barnabus. Astute also. I wonder if your brother has these qualities in such measure.?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But what of your brother?”

  “If my work is loved by some it’s loathed by many. As a Councillor he may frame our laws, but he has voters to thank for his position. My supporters are overwhelmingly women. Thus they have no say in the elections.”

  “You mean he’d be voted out if the truth were known?”

  “It’s certain. And without the protection that his office allows, this whole enterprise would crumble. Thus I hide.”

  The more plainly she laid out her situation, the clearer it became that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave. The risk I posed to her was greater than anything I had to offer in exchange.

  “You hide in full view of the public eye,” I said.

  “And you hide doubly. The newspapers covered your recent adventure. None of it made sense until I imagined the story turned around with you as the private intelligence gatherer and your brother perhaps helping from the background.”

  I had made the mistake of projecting my own deception onto her – thinking she was a man in disguise. Now she pictured me with a brother less able.

  “We’re victims of our sex,” I said. “Both of us. We have minds to think but aren’t supposed to use them.”

  “And that means I should help you?”

  Her question had a mocking tone. I wondered if she would have the stomach to kill me, or if she intended to lock me away. There would be many secure rooms in a warehouse such as this.

  She stiffened as I got to my feet. “Help will come running if I shout,” she said.

  “I simply want to show you something.”

  Keeping eye contact, I reached down and unclipped the case. With my right hand, I flourished Julia’s letters, a distraction from the work of my left hand. One smooth movement and I was back in the chair, feeling the sharp angles of the powder horn hidden beneath my thigh.

  “Letters?” she asked.

  “From Julia Swain.”

  I needed enough smoke and confusion to make my escape. But even if I plunged the horn into the heart of the fire, it might take several seconds to detonate.

  “What have Miss Swain’s letters to do with me?” she asked.

  “They speak of the ice farmers.”

  The explosion would not kill. I would shout a warning. We could shield ourselves behind the chairs.

  “What of the ice farmers?”

  “I could still help you solve their case.”

  I inched my hand from my lap towards my side, ready to grab.

  “And in return, you wish me to hide you from the authorities?”

  My hand stopped. I had not expected her to take my feeble bargaining position seriously.

  “I don’t need help in hiding. But your brother is on the Council of Guardians. The treaty isn’t signed. He could�
�”...

  “He’s one minister among many. The treaty can’t be stopped.”

  “It could be... amended,” I said. “An amnesty for those who crossed the border before it came into force.”

  The fire popped and crackled as new flames broke through. We both jumped.

  “It wouldn’t be easy,” she said. “The law change is popular. Forgive me, but Kingdom exiles aren’t looked on kindly.”

  “But you’d try?”

  “In return you’d investigate the ice farmers?”

  The conversation had taken such an unexpected turn and so quickly that I was certain I had missed something important. “I... that is, yes. The investigation would take me further from the border. That would be a blessing.”

  “If you’ll do that – and no mention of your connection to me – I will ask my brother to try.”

  My hand inched away from the powder horn.

  That night we made the most insubstantial of bargains. I promised to not reveal her identity. She promised to ask her brother to attempt an amendment of the treaty. And all the while, I tried to understand why the little I had to offer was of value to her.

  Money was the only solid thing that passed between us – expenses for my journey. As she took it from the housemistress and signed for receipt in a ledger, I slipped the powder horn from under my thigh and back into the travelling case. She placed the purse in my hand, reminding me of the promises we had undertaken to honour. Later, I would check them for forgeries.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said, before leaving. Someone’s been watching me for the last two weeks – ever since Julia made contact with you. I’ve caught glimpses of him. Will you now call him off?”

  She shook her head. “I know of no such man. If you’re being followed, it is nothing to do with me.”

  Chapter 16

  There is no such thing as half a bluff.

  The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  Deceptions, like coaches, seldom singly come. Though I had uncovered Mrs Raike’s disguise, I could not trust her. There were surely more layers to be peeled back before I knew the whole truth of the woman.