by JM Bannon
Penfold took Dolly up a set of stairs to the midline of the ship where he felt more like he was in a large production brewery than a ship. As far as he could see were giant brass domes. “Detective, here you see thirty-two brass cells. Each is twenty-two feet in diameter, distributed on a horizontal iron superstructure. With separate cells, the loss of integrity on up to ten cells would not ground the ship.”
The two men walked along the midline gangways. Dozens of workers moved about on them, welding, riveting and sawing.
Now Dolly was feeling a little squeamish with the heights. He was the highest he had ever been, with only the rail of the midline walkways to stop him from falling hundreds of feet to his death. He could see the whole city, and more importantly, he could see the layout of the Baden works and the groupings of protesters clustered around the four gates.
“Commander, would it be possible for us to put some officers up here to watch those gates?” asked Dolly.
“That, Detective, is an interesting question. You see, I am here as the Air Service Liaison, a guest on the Lloyds property, while they build the ship. While they need to make me and my inspectors happy for us to accept the ship, this is their property, so you would need to ask the owners or do whatever you gents do through the court.”
This would be an excellent place to watch from, but he would have to have Commissioner Mayne pursue the matter. At the very least, he needed to get Sargeant Aekins up here for the bird’s eye view, and to assess how he saw the situation on the ground.
Penfold went back to his tour. “Now, armor runs from the top decks to the midline walkways. Then the lower armor runs from the bottom of the catwalk to the lower decks, creating a true ironclad airship. While upper and lower decks are traditional one-inch cold-rolled iron plate, the armor that spans the cells is Professor Honeysuckle’s iron webbing. Touch it, Detective.”
“It’s flexible, not rigid,” said Dolly.
“Exactly, Honeysuckle, an American inventor migrated to England by invitation of the guild, he has advanced a mechanical process to generate huge sheets of chain mail coated in hemp and vulcanized rubber to give added protection. Very light, and the flexibility dissipates impact,” Penfold added.
“Of course, the discovery of Luminiferous Quintessence, the lightest of the eldritch elements, changed airship design and eliminates the risk of explosion that came with using earthly elements like hydrogen, and that plant is our only source. I have been up here watching the Huns, and it’s clear as day to me that, just as I am spying on them, they are looking up at me.”
“There will be no ship with more or superior ordnance. Holding over two hundred guns and thirty-two tubes for drop bombs, she can outmaneuver smaller ships and outgun any airship, but without that gas, this is just a junk pile on stilts.” said the Commander. “Let me show you the wheelhouse and navigation.” Dolly followed the Commander through bulkheads, hallways stairwells and gangways, a complex maze to the destination of the bridge of the ship.
“So here is another first. This ship has the latest version of the Trigonometric Solution Register, a mechanical calculator that develops firing solutions for the gun batteries, and this is mechanically linked to the Astronomical and Solar Gyrosynchronous Navigator. Two amazing mechanist inventions that facilitate the navigation of the airship and automatic resolution of gun targeting,” explained Penfold.
Dolly looked about, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of all the gauges and registers that made up the bridge.
Penfold now began to paint a picture as they looked out the large forward-facing window of the bridge with Dolly standing behind the ship’s wheel. “Think about this, Detective Williamson. From a distance, her rifled top deck gun turrets hold steady on a target as the TrigSol adjusts the guns in synchrony with the rapid moves you make at this wheel. GyroNav and the gas compression flotation system allow you to outmaneuver, and the TrigSol to outgun, your enemies. After destroying an enemy air fleet, you then could rise high over a metropolis and annihilate the populace with drop bombs and mortars, while ground-based guns would never achieve the altitude she could obtain.” There was a perverse pride in the commander’s eyes as he painted the picture of the havoc the ship would wreak.
“Very impressive, Commander. I can see now the importance of your work, and the amazing job you’re all doing. While I will talk with my superiors about the protesting at the works across the road, might I suggest that you reach out to your superiors to see about a detachment of Royal Marines to be quartered here or at a bare minimum to come up here and provide a tactical assessment for you?” suggested Dolly.
“Good idea, man! You know I am no warrior. I came into this service as an engineer, but I do know a good plan and smart execution will win the day.”
Dolly thought how he would love to get shifts of constables up here with telescopes to watch the crowd for trouble.
* * *
2:00 PM, Gilchrist Manor
The steam coupe Sister Rose drove belonged to Weng Lo. It was the latest model fabricated by Swift Carriage Company, capable of a top speed of forty miles per hour. There were only a few places where you could let the carriage out at full throttle in the city, but there were many places on these country roads where Rose could let the red and electro-chrome speedster show its paces.
Rose needed Preston Gilchrist’s guidance and the poet rarely left his home. When he did it was to go to the asylum. Rose was one of the few people Preston enjoyed seeing or at least let in the mansion. The manor house also contained the largest library of arcana in England, maybe even in the world. It contained shelves of texts that had not been together since the grand library of Alexandria and many more composed since then by eastern and western scholars, dissecting ancient works or striking out into other fields of study. She could access the millions of pages written in hundreds of tongues, some not utilized in millennia. The library’s proprietor had dedicated his existence to exploring and interpreting what the tomes held.
The county road to the mansion was long and straight. Rose opened her up whilst keeping an eye on the boiler temperature and the water level, along with the speedometer. The first two held steady as the last one climbed. She rolled along at thirty-two miles per hour.
As she reached the manor, she engaged the clutch, throttled the steam exhaust, and administered the brake, bringing the car to a moderate speed and making the corner into the drive. She suddenly threw the throttle and let off the clutch. Gears engaged, and the coupe shot down the gravel drive, spitting a wake of gravel. The trees that flanked the driveway whizzed by as the cool air rushed over the windscreen and through her hair. Going this fast, Rose had no occasion to contemplate anything but driving the car—freedom.
As she neared the residence and the parkway in front, the clutch was pushed to the floor, the steam throttle released, and she dampered the burners. Once stopped, she flung open the door and skipped out. The scene was sight to see. The raven-haired lass in brown calf-high boots and airmen pants standing next to the sleek two-seater. She wore a sapphire-hued and brown brocade waistcoat over a navy silk and baleen bustier. Rose pulled her wind goggles down around her neck, then tussled the road dust out of her hair.
A harried footman jogged to greet her, falling tardy of his duty of opening the coupe door for the driver.
“M’lady, do you have any bags?” he asked.
“Just the one. Could you also fill the bin with pulverized coal and keep an eye on her while the boiler cools? Thank you,” Her athletic strides took her across the parkway as she removed her driving gloves, tucking them in her belt.
The chief butler was at the front step. “Ms. Caldwell, it is a pleasure to have you back at Gilchrist. How long will you be staying?”
“Just today, William. Let me guess. Preston is in the library?” inquired Rose as she looked up at the large elderly man.
Willian Brentwood stepped sideways and signaled with his hand for Rose to enter. Once in the vestibule, she strolled past the stoic-
looking footman waiting at attention, with his white-gloved hands remaining at his sides. She glanced at him and guessed he might be new at the house and unfamiliar with her demeanor at Gilchrist manor. This was one of the few places where the landowner was perhaps be weirder than her.
Walking down the hall, past the drawing room and turning left to enter the library, Rose noted how spotless and desolate the chambers looked. Nothing out of place. When she reached the door, she twisted the handle, hoping it would be unlocked, but the door was latched. “Preston, it is Rose and we have work to do.” She turned and leaned her back against the door, waiting.
Brentwood was standing at attention. “He has been in there for over a week.”
“Have a hearty lunch prepared with some fresh orange juice and his laudanum. I will bring him back. Promise," She gave him a smile as she unbuttoned her tunic.
“Thank you, m’lady.” Brentwood turned to leave as the library door unlatched. He proceeded downstairs to the kitchen.
She turned and slowly opened the door to the library. It was dark. Preston had blacked out all the windows with draperies and sat naked on the oriental carpet with an oil lamp, books, and papers surrounding him.
“Doesn’t the wool of the rug make your bum itch?” Rose asked as she closed the door behind her, latching it. Rose looked around the chamber to get her bearings. She stepped closer into the aura of the oil lamp. Preston had the Tome of Daemonology, Jaharudin's Verses of Other Domains, and the Third Grimoire of Ashrok open along with undecipherable scrolls he was feverishly reading and cross-referencing from book to book. In the eyes of her beloved church, there were multiple acts of heresy and blasphemy occurring in front of her. She could not fathom how he could read so many languages, some being forgotten or other worldly.
“Preston, Preston,” she called.
No response.
“Azul Hassan,” Rose yelled.
Preston turned and peered at her. “Ah, how splendid to see you again, Sister,” answered Preston in English with a heavy Arabic accent.
“Azul, you need to take a rest. You are wearing out this body," said Rose.
Preston stared at his hands then noticed he was naked in the presence of a lady. “Sister, my sincerest apologies. My condition is improper.” He stood, covering his privates and made his way to an armchair, where he had dropped his dressing gown. Preston donned the robe then turned to greet Rose. “My dear Sister, you see how I get engrossed in my research.”
“I do, Azul. But I need Preston back to consult. Can you get him back here?” Rose now held Preston’s hands in hers, and looking down on them, they were covered in ink stains from writing and dust from the tomes.
“What is it? Maybe I can be of aid,” said Azul.
“You may. But I was expecting to talk to Preston.” It wouldn’t be quite as easy to bring him back. She decided she would have to work with what she had and continued to talk with Azul.
“Azul Hassan, I presume you are familiarized with the practices of the Necromancer?”
“I am well-versed. I have read the texts of the necronist and the classic and ancient, such as the scrolls of Osiris.”
“Have you seen this?” she pulled out an illustration she had drawn up from memory of the totem she saw at the Chilton town house.
Preston stared at the drawing. “Very curious.” He was lost in thought, looking at the sketch and shuffling towards his book case.
Rose looked to the sill of the door and saw Brentwood’s signal that he was ready and waiting outside: a simple sheet of writing paper under the transom. Rose walked to the exit and released the latch, peeking out. There stood the butler and two servants with trays. She opened the door. Brentwood hurried to get the first tray into her hands. She set it on the floor inside the office, then grabbed the second tray. Without saying a word, she spun around and used her backside to push the door closed. It shut loudly, and that startled Preston. “What are you up to?” challenged Azul with a belligerent tone laced with paranoia.
“Just lunch. I am ravenous,” stated Rose.
“Very well,” reacted the alter ego of Preston.
Rose put the tray down on the desk and lifted the plate covers. Potato soup and roast beef sandwich with pickled beet. She took a bite of the sandwich then placed it on the plate. She was famished. Her situation left her without means, and that meant she did not get regular meals, let alone veggies and fresh baked bread.
Preston shifted the bookcase ladder and then ascended the ladder, bringing down several volumes. He sat at the desk and turned on the desk arc lamp. This was an excellent sign. Her friend didn't seem to acknowledge his arbitrary action of turning on the electricity in the room, more intent on examining the book he had in front of him than consideration for Azul's fear of modernity. Rose sauntered over to the second tray and picked it up. This tray had the laudanum bottle on it. She palmed the vial before picking up the tray and setting it on the other side of the large desk.
Preston flipped through the pages, reading in some language that Rose could not identify. She lifted the lid off the other tray and ate, watching Preston page through the text. Certain he was absorbed in research, she put a dropper full of laudanum in the orange juice, a healthy dose.
“Azul Hassan, when did you eat last?”
Preston looked up, befuddled, then smiled “I don’t recall."
“Here is some fresh juice.” She handed him the glass. He accepted it and set it down on the desk, absorbed with his inquiry.
“Here it is. The—the—the totem is…used in the Pwen Hanan by a hougan in a Voodoo ritual of soul capture.” He pointed in the book at an engraving of five different totems, one appearing very much like Rose’s sketch.
“Ooh, where did you see this? What you drew here?” said Preston, wide-eyed and in his heavy accent, pounding his finger on Rose’s drawing.
“In London. Along with a body stripped of life."
Preston picked up the orange juice and took a big gulp, followed by a thirst-quenching sigh. “Look right here, in Dr. Melbourne’s Journal of West Indies Pagan Practices and Incantations, he interviewed a Voodoo hougan priest that claimed to use such an apparatus to absorb the spirit out of an individual and trap it in a gourd." He looked up. “Imagine your soul sputtering around in a gourd. How crude is that?” Preston said in an English inflection.
Rose picked up her glass of juice and said, “To keeping our souls out of gourds.”
Preston clinked her glass and took another swig.
Rose followed suit. “What were you working on before I came in for your help?”
A befuddled Preston followed Rose’s gaze to the tomes on the floor. “Oh, that I need to get free from an Iz Hauwl labyrinth on the fourteenth astral plane. I am researching how to construct the labyrinth, hoping that it leads to me finding weaknesses in an existing one." Preston smiled at his own ingenuity.
Rose directed him back to her pressing matter, the object that killed Chilton. “I see. Does the book there tell you what the priest does with the soul?”
He looked back to Melbourne's Journal and read, “Soul witchery by a hougan can either enslave the target soul or imbue it unto another. You say you found this here in London?”
“I did. I was asked to consult on a case of a wealthy Englishman who was found dead. The body drained of all spiritual energy to the point the physical body withered and mummified,” said Rose, reading over Preston’s shoulder to see if she could pick anything up. For once it was a book written in English.
“Voodooism is interesting because it is influenced by Western religion, but the manipulation of the arcane is primal. Very primitive, a derivative of Azande witchcraft and like all witchcraft and shamanism, rudimentary in understanding the metaphysics, but powerful in manipulating the raw energy,” said Preston.
Rose sensed Preston’s intellect pushing through. “What could a witch doctor, or what did you call it a hou—”
“Hougan. It’s a Voodoo term for a high-level practitioner
. We can assume this person is proficient.”
“Can you figure out what they are doing with the souls?”
“That may be a stretch to determine the purpose. What I can say is your essence, your soul is your being beyond the me and I of the material world. It attaches to a mortal form until death. Some of us learn how to detach and return; that is projection. If you can tap into the soul of another, you can control the mortal form, transfer the spectral form, or convert the soul essence to the raw energy of the aether. There is a good description in the Hygromanteia, or The Magical Treatise of Solomon.” Preston spun in his swiveled chair and grabbed a book from the shelf immediately behind where he sat. “I keep a copy close at hand as it’s such a fine reference guide.” He set the book down and flipped through the pages then stopped as if he had lost his train of thought. Preston looked up from the book with a bewildered look.
“Rose, what are you doing here?”
“Preston?”
“Yes… Oh dear, have I been away again?”
Wednesday, the 9th of June
9:00 AM, Chilton House
Mr. Sims had wire-typed Dolly that items were missing from the vault.
Dolly returned to Chilton House with the local London sergeant. It was agreed that Dolly would take the lead on the inquiry.
Dolly found himself in the Board Room at Chilton House again, this time interviewing each of the partners.
At this moment, attending were Mr. Sims, and the partners Owens and Lester Chilton, Sir Francis’s eldest heir. It would be one of many interviews that day to gather statements and substantiate claims.