Was this one of the men who had delivered the infernal devices to Folkard’s lodgings, the devices which had seen his brother burned alive? At the thought, Nathanial found the knife pressing harder against the man’s throat, as if it had a will of its own, and a tiny drop of red appeared at its point.
“Stone…” Folkard said. Nathanial looked at him and saw concern bordering on alarm. He eased off slightly with the knife blade and took a breath. After all, he did not know if this group was even responsible for the fire, did he?
“We’ll have that door open,” Nathanial hissed in his ear, “and quietly. If you warn your friends, you’ll die first. Do you understand?” The man nodded, eyes bulging from their sockets.
6.
BEDFORD SWEPT ANNABELLE up in his arms and carried her across the twenty yards of open ground to the door of the furnace building. She protested at first but he cut her off. “We have to make good time without looking as if we are hurrying. As it is, we are simply two gentlemen and a lady in the park, and all in a playful mood.” He grinned at her and she smiled back. Her peg was still rather awkward, sticking up in the air and her dress and petticoat sliding down it a bit, but they made in across the open lawn without anyone in the distant crowd taking notice. Once inside he put her down and drew his revolver, and saw Cartwright do the same. Folkard was tying the false soldier to an iron water pipe and had already securely gagged him. Stone knelt by an unconscious and bound up man in a union suit, presumably the original owner of the uniform
“He’s alive,” Stone said softly looking up, “but they hit him very hard. He has concussion at least, and perhaps a fracture. There’s nothing we can do for him now, however, except let him rest and hope Dumba arrives with the authorities and a doctor.”
The interior of the building was filthy with coal dust and for all its size was cramped, nearly filled with the boiler, firebox, and large engine which powered the winch. Flames flickered orange and yellow through the tempered glass slits in the firebox door and a shovel rose like a headstone from the pile of coal nearby. “Where is the regular crew?” Bedford asked softly.
“Here,” Cartwright said from beside the winch engine, looking into the shadows. Bedford joined him and followed his gaze: two men in dirty overalls and leather gloves, skin pale white under the coal dust, blood dark, almost black, and clotting around their throats and on their chests. “This will be enough to hang all of them. Why not do the same with the soldier?” Cartwright asked.
“Couldn’t afford to get blood on the uniform.” Beyond the winch motor Bedford saw the wrought iron spiral staircase winding up to the winch tower. A pile of worm shoes lay beside it. They would have gunpowder up there, be working with it, making the bomb. Someone had worked with it before, that much was clear, and had them working in their stockings or bare feet to avoid a hobnail striking a spark on the iron steps or floor above. He turned back to the others. Stone had risen to his feet and Folkard, finished tying up the false guard, drew his small pistol.
“Right then,” Bedford said. “Shoes off, everyone. We cannot afford a spark if there is powder about.” He sat down and began unlacing his own boots and the others followed suit except for Annabelle.
“I’m afraid I will require assistance with this shoe,” she said.
“My pleasure, Miss Somerset,” Cartwright said immediately, his own shoes already off.
“The stairs are narrow,” George continued in a low voice, “one person at a time. Captain Folkard and I have the most experience with this sort of business so we’ll go first, my revolver followed by his derringer. Then Cartwright with his Austrian revolver, then Stone, and then Annabelle. There’s a good railing to each side so I think you can manage, my dear, but Stone I’ll thank you to assist her.”
“That will not be necessary,” she said. “Do not delay on my account.”
“Very well. Everyone go slowly, choose your steps carefully, and try not to make noise. Going barefoot will help. They are almost certainly armed, and will be desperate to avoid capture which means execution for them, so surprise is essential.”
They moved to the stairway and when Folkard made to go first Bedford held up his revolver, pointing to the captain’s smaller two-shot pistol. Folkard frowned in thought for a moment and then nodded reluctantly. Bedford took the lead, left hand on the railing and right holding the revolver at the ready.
The building and tower were both new, within the last five years, and so the staircase was sturdy and firmly attached to the central supporting shaft. That was good. It took their weight without shifting or groaning the way an older structure might have.
The ceiling, which would be the floor of the upper room, was about thirty feet above the ground. As Bedford neared it he paused and glanced back down to see how the others fared. They were well closed up, even Annabelle, and as he watched he saw her brace her artificial leg on the stair, take hold of the railing with both hands, and lift her good foot up two steps, then pull and push herself up, carefully plant her peg, and repeat the process. She again carried Colonel Wyndham’s cane, her right hand holding it at mid-shaft so she could manage it and the railing at the same time. Her face bore an expression of concentration but nothing more, as if she climbed a spiral staircase armed only with a sword cane to face desperate assassins every day of her life. Folkard’s earlier question came back to him and he smiled to himself, but then he shook his head. Within seconds all their lives would be at risk and he could afford no distractions until they were clear of this peril.
He climbed the last few steps before the break in the floor and then carefully raised his head and scanned the room. The stairs rose into a semi-enclosed alcove which rested deep in the shadows, so he felt reasonably secure observing the assassins. The circular domed cupola, like a gun turret but much taller, was lit by a few electric lights but mostly by sunlight flooding in a series of horizontal slits around its circumference, about seven or eight feet from the ground. Eight massive angular steel girders formed the framework of the cupola, rising and coming together high overhead, the upper works lost in shadows.
There were five assassins, one holding a metal tube several inches in diameter and perhaps a foot long, another carefully pouring black powder scooped from an open keg into the tube, a third working at attaching a cap of some sort to a similar tube, the fourth standing on a slightly elevated metal platform and looking out an open vision slit, the last one standing in the centre of the room with hands on hips, another small keg of powder under his arm. The winch controls were close by the raised platform so that would be the station from which the gantry arm and tether cable was controlled.
He ducked back down and faced Folkard who had crept up the steps and wedged himself beside him. Bedford held up five fingers and Folkard nodded. He held them out for Cartwright to see and he nodded as well. Bedford’s heart pounded in his ears and he felt his hands tremble and his vision narrow. He took a breath to steady himself and then climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. He stood unnoticed in the shadows for the four or five seconds it took for Folkard to join him and then they strode out into the light, pistols raised. The man scooping powder saw them and his expression of alarm alerted the others with him who wheeled toward the stairs.
“Halt in the name of the Crown!” Bedford called and cocked his revolver, aiming it at the closest man, the one in the centre of the room. To his right Folkard did the same with his derringer and he felt Cartwright brush his left sleeve as he came even with him and held up Dumba’s revolver.
For a moment no one moved. Then the man with the powder scoop used it to toss powder high in the air toward them. The heavier grains came down at once, mostly on the man in the centre of the floor, but some dust remained in the air, clearly visible dancing in the shafts of sunlight. He threw another scoop and the man in the centre of the room, suddenly grinning in understanding, dipped his hand in the open powder keg in his own arm and tossed a handful into the air over Bedford and the others, to rain down
on their hair and settle in the folds of their clothing. Cartwright began coughing
“Now shoot, you smart bastards,” the man in the centre of the room sneered. “Shoot and you’ll send us all to our maker, including that pretty lady back there as killed me brother. I’d say drop the barkers, but you don’t want to do that. They make a spark when they hit the floor, we’re finished.”
So this was Billy Snide, Bedford thought. He was a head taller than any of the others and had a good, strong voice—both handy for a leader.
The man on the raised platform, until now a silent witness to drama below, pointed out his window. “There it is! It’s comin’ from the sou’-east, almost over Peckham New Town.”
“Finish these mugs,” Snide barked to his cohorts, “and quick about it. But don’t kill the red-head. Him we just take with us back to Willie. Kill the others quick, so’s we can set the rockets and then cut the lucky.”
The three men on the assembly line put aside their powder and rockets, drew knives from their belts, and hurried past Snide to get at the trio in front.
Bedford reversed his revolver to use it as a club. The man who had first thrown the powder came at him, made a slash at his eyes, and then went for his ribs. Bedford managed to block the stab with his forearm against the fellow’s wrist and swung his revolver at his assailant’s head. The man was quick, shrugged his shoulder up and ducked so the pistol struck only a glancing blow.
Around them the melee became general, men crowded together, shoulders jostling, throwing each other off balance. The man facing Bedford pulled back his knife to strike again when a long steel blade slid past Bedford’s side and sank into the man’s abdomen.
“Ohhh!” he said with an odd mixture of disappointment and dismay as he staggered back. He said it not as one mortally wounded, but as a man might upon opening a letter expecting a cheque and finding instead a substantial bill. He clapped a hand to his wounded belly and fell to the floor on his rump, then he leaned against a steel girder and held his bloody hand in front of his face as if still not quite believing such a thing had happened to him. Where was his cheque?
“Take this!” Annabelle shouted and waved the sword cane.
Bedford took it and thrust for Snide, but he jumped behind a support girder rising from the floor and drew his own knife. Bedford had the advantage of a longer blade and better training. Snide’s only advantage was the girder between them, at least at first. Bedford lunged at him, drove forward and lunged again, the tip of the blade ripping Snide’s vest but not drawing blood. Snide scampered back, his knife held ready. Bedford slashed at the villain’s face and then pushed forward and lunged again, trying to drive Snide back around into the main fight where he would not be as free to manoeuvre.
A heavy spanner flew through the air and smashed into Bedford’s forearm. Pain exploded up his arm. His hand went numb and the sword dropped from his paralysed fingers and clattered to the floor.
“Thanks, Tuck,” Snide said to the man on the elevated platform. “No more time to waste on this.” He came around the girder, knife raised in his hand to strike.
Bedford heard a loud pop and Snide collapsed against the girder, howling with pain. Bedford glanced down as saw blood coursing from his thigh, staining his trouser leg black. Another pop and another assailant went down. Then he heard a familiar voice from the shadows overhead.
“All of you put down your weapons. And this time it really is in the name of the Crown.”
7.
ANNABELLE WATCHED MAJOR Gordon slide down an angled girder, emerging from the deep shadows high up around the zeppelin tether winch. As he did so she took stock of the party. She had tried to stay out of the way once she gave her sword to George. Fairfax, between his left fist and the heavy Austrian revolver in his right hand, had managed to bruise his opponent and drive him back to a step before a bullet—she presumed—penetrated the assassin’s shoulder and put him on the ground. Folkard had suffered what was clearly a painful wound in his left hand before Nathanial jumped forward with his own knife and kept that assailant at bay.
Gordon finished his slide down to the floor and Annabelle saw he carried a bulky rifle in his right hand. Once his feet were planted he had the two assassins still standing lay down their knives and drag the wounded men to one side, gesturing with the muzzle of the weapon. Then he held the rifle up for all to see.
“A Mannlicher―Girandoni Model 1877 Windbüchs, one of two we confiscated from the saboteurs. Assassins prize these compressed air guns for their silence, but their lack of powder flash can also be convenient on occasion.” When George took a step toward him Gordon turned and pointed the rifle at his chest. “Stand fast, Bedford. This is not quite done.”
“What are you doing here?” Nathanial asked.
“Professor Stone, I presume,” Gordon said with a nod of greeting. “Doing? Well…this,” he said and brandished the rifle. “A constable was sent to every suspected bomb site with orders, in the unlikely event there actually was a bomb, to arrest any and all people who had apparent knowledge of it—arrest them as arsonists and saboteurs and…something… The charges would be worked out later. I had a suspicion about this location, however, so I took the constable’s place.”
“You were up there the whole time with a rifle?” Folkard demanded, his face twisted and voice strained by the pain of his wound. “Why didn’t you arrest them as soon as they got here?”
“There were quite a few of them and they were armed,” Gordon answered. “I was hoping you might arrive and do all the dangerous work. I am not famous for my courage.”
“The card you sent me said CGM after your name,” Annabelle said. “I am told that means you hold the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. Isn’t that awarded for acts of courage?”
“Courage or foolishness, it’s a matter of some dispute, but in either case I am not anxious to repeat the experience,” he said.
“You said they sent only one man to each location?” Nathanial said. “Only one man?”
“Yes,” Gordon answered and flashed a broad smile. “Won’t they be surprised at my success?”
That was an interesting smile, Annabelle thought, and she wondered what it meant. Surely Gordon would not have violated his orders to come here, or at least not the letter of them. But was the spirit a different matter?
“Were the constables armed?” George asked quietly.
Gordon looked at him a moment before replying. “They had their whistles.”
“But…you can’t mean to arrest us,” Cartwright protested. “We are not the assassins.”
“Not for me to say, old man. Round everyone up and let the Lord Chancellor sort it all out, those were my orders. I am just a soldier doing his duty. Commander Bedford understands that.”
“I believe my understanding of the term differs greatly from yours,” George answered and Annabelle saw the two men trade another look, sizing each other up. She could see George’s back tense, as if gathering his strength for a pounce, and Gordon raised the barrel of the rifle slightly in clear warning.
“What do you intend?” Annabelle asked before the situation could deteriorate further.
“Intend, Miss Somerset? I intend to follow my orders to the letter.” With his left hand Gordon took a thin cigar from the breast pocket of his tunic, raised it to his nose and rolled it between his fingers, inhaled, and his eyes narrowed to slits in the anticipation of pleasure. “First, though, I am going to smoke this cheroot. I’ve earned it, I’d say. Not here, of course—too much loose powder about. It wouldn’t do to blow myself to blazes having come this far, would it? No. So I am going to leave and smoke this cheroot and when I am done I shall come back here and arrest everyone I find in the vicinity of this bomb.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Do you understand?”
George and Cartwright exchanged a bewildered look. Gordon turned to leave.
“Major Gordon,” Annabelle said, “I think I know why you sent Commander Bedford word of my whereabouts.” Gordon pause
d and tilted his head to the side a bit but did not turn back to face her. “Making the message appear to come from Mister Lincoln was an excellent touch and put us entirely off our guard. You brought him in to increase the pressure on me. You knew that seeing George, and then contemplating his ruin as well, would increase my likelihood of agreeing. Is that not so?”
Gordon turned back and smiled. “You do me a service, Miss Somerset. If that were all true, I’d be a very clever fellow indeed.”
“Keen is how Major Blount put it, as I recall,” Annabelle said. “Too keen for a fusilier officer.”
“There are cavalry mounts too keen for the good Major Blount,” Gordon replied.
“What I have a harder time understanding,” Annabelle continued, “is why you directed me to Mrs Collingwood’s lodgings. Of all the places in London, you sent me to a house populated by courageous and honourable people who would, because of their personal history, refuse any cooperation with an agency associated with you. It was as if you deliberately put me outside your power—and by extension the power of your superiors. I wonder how much of it was out of consideration for me and how much was payment of a decade-old debt. How much trade do you direct her way?”
Gordon’s smile had faded as she spoke and his expression became unreadable. “You must be mistaken, Miss Somerset,” he said when she was done. “That does not sound a bit like me. Do tie up Snide and his chaps securely, would you?”
And then he left.
Chapter Fourteen
“What Lies Beyond”
1.
series 02 01 Conspiracy of Silence Page 22