by Morris, Tee
Wellington finally met her gaze. “Thank you, Eliza.”
Her grip on his chin softened slightly and an uncertain smile hovered at the corners of her lips. “Quite all right, Wellington. I know how you men do fuss.” She turned him in his seat and clicked her tongue. “Oh, but did you get a delightful burn on the back of your neck. Hold still.”
The back of her fingers slowly worked the ointment into the nape of his neck, and the Archivist felt the heat return to his cheeks—hotter than ever.
Thankfully, Eliza slipped down off the desk and retreated back to her side of it. Her next comment took him completely off guard.
“You know, we really should name your mechanical monster here. Between us, it is developing quite the personality. I’ve always liked the name Lisa.”
Wellington was relieved to be back on ground he knew all too well—Eliza’s magpie-inclined mind. It did so like to hop about. It still didn’t answer the overwhelming question in his head. “All right, Eliza, out with it—you’ve been playing with the æthergates again, haven’t you?”
“Are you mad, Wellington? Or need I remind you of the last time I used them and appeared in the Sultan’s harem wearing only my pounamu pistols?”
Wellington gave a start. “I don’t remember that from your case report!”
Now it was Eliza’s turn to blink. “Oh, wait—I left that bit out. Saving it for my memoirs.” She relaxed in her chair and released a sigh that coalesced into a mist in front of her. “Yes. That was fun.”
“Miss Braun, what are you doing here? Before me?”
Her mouth twisted into a smirk as she shook her head at him. “Really, Welly, you think you are the only one who will walk that extra mile once a bee is in their bonnet? I, my dear colleague, am engaging in a bit of background research,” she said, motioning to the case files before her. “We have a few cases—I have found ten, so far—of missing ladies disappearing under the strangest of circumstances.”
“Missing ladies?” Wellington groaned. She was at it again. “Now just a moment—”
Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling as she held up a single finger. “Is this the ‘You promised not to do this following the Phoenix Society’ talk?”
He choked back his words and adjusted his spectacles. “Well, that seems most appropriate. You did promise to—”
Eliza raised one hand, “Actually I did no such thing, Wellington Thornhill Books. What I recall saying is that I would refrain from getting involved unless something took my fancy. Something about two women disappearing in a ball of light has done just that.”
They glared at each other for a long minute before Wellington glanced down at what she had on her desk. “Dare I ask, while I know I will regret what you will tell me, what you have found?”
“These ten cases I’ve discovered between 1892 and present day all report eyewitness accounts of women disappearing into a fantastic display of light. More to the point, these women were all connected, either financially or idealistically, to the building suffragist movement. Have a look,” she said, handing Wellington an open case file.
“Do I really want to?”
“You know you do,” cooed Eliza.
Wellington took the case file and immediately his eyes fell on the disappearance of Mildred Cady, treasurer of the Women’s Franchise League. “There was a strange crackling in our ears, and the smell of metal baking in a summer sun surrounded us. There was a flash of light, and she was gone. Those close to Mildred were covered in burns as one would find after an Egyptian holiday.” He glanced at the date of the report, then looked up across the desk. “This is from December 1895?”
“One of ten,” Eliza said.
His eye returned to the report and, with further perusal, he recognised the handwriting. More of the same was visible in other case files before Eliza. “You seem to be referencing open cases that have been passed along to us by their primary investigator—”
“Oh, I have some very strong thoughts concerning that,” Eliza said, nodding.
“I am sure you do, but I hope you recall another of the discussions we had.”
“The ‘Doctor Sound was clear as fine crystal that we are not to interfere’ talk?”
“The very one,” he blurted.
“Oh now, go on, Welly. Did we really interfere that much in Dominick’s case a few months ago? He was stuck on that business coming in from Cape Colony, and the Archives was politely providing additional research.”
“Yes, and let’s talk about that ‘additional research,’ shall we? Unsolved Case 18510421UKSL, where you picked up the trail of the Sword of the Lost Legion.”
“Happenstance!” Eliza implored. “Dominick confessed over drinks he was a bit stonewalled on how the Spear of Yemaya was constantly eluding his associates back in the Dark Continent. I recalled an unsolved case where the Sword of the Lost Legion was also eluding agents back when.”
“And so you took it upon yourself to undertake the trail of the Lost Legion, did you?”
“Begin where Hadrian’s Wall once stood and work your way back to where the Celts made things nasty for our Roman Legionnaires, eh what?” Eliza leaned back in her chair, quite proud of herself. “And while my predecessor in Case 18510421UKSL indeed had close encounters with this sword, it simply wasn’t in the cards.” She gave a light laugh. “Or should I say, stars?”
“Eliza—” he warned, rising to his feet.
“And when I closed that case—”
“Thanks to some clever tale spinning from your partner.”
“And when I closed that case,” Eliza repeated, arching an eyebrow at him, “I left it on his desk.”
“In sight of everyone, including Doctor Sound who—if you failed to notice—doubled the frequency of his surprise visits to the Archives.”
“What you call interference, I call a fellow agent aiding another. After all,” she said, as her grin widened ever so slightly, “isn’t that our job?”
“And are you telling me, Miss Braun,” Wellington countered, “that this is your intention with Agent Bruce Campbell and his current fieldwork?”
The choked laugh that left Eliza caused him to start. “Hardly! I intend to take some investigative work of my own and present it to Doctor Sound straightaway.”
Wellington took a moment. He felt a chill slip under his skin, and he gripped the arms of his chair as he sat back down.
“I—” and he paused as he went to take a sip of his now cold tea. The cup rattled against its saucer as he considered Eliza’s strategy and his next words. “I beg your pardon, but I want to fully understand your intentions: Are you in fact questioning Campbell’s competency in the field?”
She opened several cases in front of her and motioned to them as she answered, “Yes. And the proof is here in all these unsolved cases of the Archives.
“1894. Key officers in the National Society for Women’s Suffrage started disappearing. Chapter presidents, secretaries, and influential members—disappearing. Not all at once, mind you, but their cases—pardon me, these ladies’ existences—have all ended here. In the Archives. All of them unsolved.”
Wellington looked at the collected cases. All of them bearing Campbell’s handwriting. “I fail to see what you are concluding from all this.”
“Don’t lie to me, Books. You can’t, for starters.”
Wellington straightened slightly on that. She only called him “Books” when her temper was beginning to slip. He found her calm unsettling as she placed three more case files in front of him. She knew he was not expected to read them. She was out to prove her point.
“After I caught a few winks, I came here straightaway and started from the end of the year, working back. These are ten files that I’ve found so far.”
“All in the Unsolved Cases archives?”
“All of them with Bruce’s signature. Five just in the past few months. He barely spent a week on them.”
“And the reason you were in the 1892 stacks?”
&nb
sp; “Now here’s where you will be so proud of me, Welly—”
“Overwhelm me with wonder, Miss Braun,” he interjected.
“When I came across this pattern, I cross-referenced them with solved cases in or around the same time period. I even stepped back to Campbell’s first year, just to see what kind of an agent he was when recruited. Regardless of what a git he is, Campbell is a cracking good investigator. Or was.”
Wellington shook his head, slumping back in his chair. His heart was already racing. “This is a most dangerous course you are plotting. You are challenging Bruce Campbell, an agent of the Ministry with an outstanding record—”
“Provided you are not taking into account his luck with Missing Person cases.”
“Eliza!” Wellington snapped. Dammit, she was not seeing what he saw, what he knew. “Perhaps you would rather not care to recognise the severity of your actions.”
“The facts speak for themselves!”
“They may very well do so, but what they mean could be lost in translation.” Wellington began closing the numerous files in front of him. “People disappear in the Empire all the time, never to be seen again. Some leave deliberately, some go abroad, and some simply move house and leave no forwarding address.”
Eliza looked betrayed. The opposite of his intentions, really; but he could read in her cold, hard gaze that she didn’t see that. Not at all.
“Books . . .”
“Eliza, please . . .”
“These women are not statistics to be simply cast aside.” Wellington wanted Eliza to be screaming at him, wanted her voice to be filling the spacious Archives with her fury. Her control terrified him. “That is exactly what Bruce did here; and for two years, ten ladies that we know of have remained nothing more than a bunch of hysterical women gone missing in the streets of London. These women were something far more important than notes in our files.” Eliza spread out the files. “Annette Pritchard. Glenda Rooney. Mildred Cady. Clara Gleeson. They were lives. Wives. Mothers. Sisters. Friends.”
“You have to look at this objectively—”
“How dare you!”
“Oh for God’s sake, woman, would you listen to me for once?”
The drone of the Ministry generators filled his ears, alongside the pounding of his own heartbeat. She was the one who was supposed to be losing her composure, not him; and there he was, on his feet, his fists trembling tight at his sides.
Well done, son, the voice whispered in his mind. The colonial needed a reminder.
His father’s ghost was not helping. Not one jot.
“This is not personal, Miss Braun.” But it was. Wellington did not wish her to fall any further; and while she did not see it, Eliza D. Braun’s feet were now close to the precipice. “You know I would never challenge your deductions. I trust your detective skills implicitly.”
Eliza gathered up the case files from Wellington’s side of the desk. “And yet?”
“You are about to accuse an active field agent of negligence. You are intending to march into Sound’s office with your own findings and question Campbell’s competency.”
“That is the idea.”
“Tell me, Eliza . . .” His heartbeat quickened as the words left him. “When was the last time Agent Campbell was reprimanded—let alone demoted—for his actions in the field?”
The cold stare he had earlier received was replaced by one of anger.
“And what would you know of Ministry protocol and politics?” she spat. “You have spent your career here, alone, in this bloody hole.”
A valiant effort. Wellington pressed on.
“I was an officer in the Queen’s Army. I watched many a peer and subordinate openly question another officer’s judgment based on patterns they thought they saw. Those Queen’s soldiers would find themselves reassigned to the front of the charge. They either died a hero’s death, or returned home to their sweetheart with the ability to embrace them with only one arm, if they were fortunate.”
“What happens upstairs is hardly akin to campaigns in Afghanistan or Burma.”
“Very well then. The direct approach. I am your superior, appointed by Doctor Sound himself, and you will heed my order: stand down, and let this matter go.”
She took a step back on that. He was surprised his own stance had not faltered.
“You are too close to this,” he continued, “and your judgement—the objective eye and opinion that is essential in crime investigation—has been compromised. And I will not have you jeopardising yourself or your fellow agents in the field. Therefore, you will cease all exploration into these missing persons. That is a direct order.”
Eliza gave a slight tug at her jacket. She was staring at the files as she asked, “Is that all?”
As if his stomach were responding to her voice, a low growl rumbled from him.
“No, in light of yesterday’s events and my own lack of sleep because of it, I forgot all about breakfast. Would you mind?” Wellington reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a few shillings. “A ham sandwich, please. Light on the mustard.”
The sharp rap of her heels against the stone floor caused his head to flick up. Eliza held her salute until Wellington made eye contact with her. Her arm lowered and then she gathered her coat and made her way to the hatch with no further word.
Naturally Eliza was angry. Ye gods, she must be furious with him right now. She was failing to see, though, what Wellington knew down to his soul was how close she was sailing to a guaranteed expulsion from the Ministry ranks. The Archives had been a reprimand, a demotion from the glamorous life of a field agent to a far more quiet one of logistics. When she had first arrived, Wellington did his own share of research on her. She achieved results. No one would question her abilities there; but after Agent Thorne’s demise, Eliza’s risks made her a growing liability. Then there was his daring rescue from the House of Usher’s Antarctic hideout. A single act that brought her here.
Wellington had initially thought it some sort of punishment on him for being captured. Now, less than a year later, the Archivist did not want her to leave. Perhaps he had grown accustomed to having a partner, or perhaps it was Eliza herself. She was hardly the kind of woman he associated himself with; but a part of him looked forward to Eliza’s company.
Or maybe after seven years of singular service to Her Majesty in the Archives, it took the colonial’s daily presence to show him how lonely he was.
Eliza mattered a great deal to him, even if she presently couldn’t see that. A demoted agent questioning the ethics of a commended Ministry operative—an agent that even Wellington could tell, from his isolated seat in the Archives, was as thick as clotted cream—would be her final act. The Ministry Director was hardly of the same mettle as his cavalry superiors, but he would have to maintain order amongst the ranks. There was also the possibility of the field agents’ fraternity turning on her.
Wellington pushed aside the archive inventory sheets and cast his spectacles on top of them. His eyes fixed instead on the empty space across from him. Was he truly looking after her best interests, or was he being selfish? For all those traits and quirks that Wellington weathered, he didn’t want to lose her.
The sudden fump from the catch-all underneath the chute caused him to start. Replacing his glasses, Wellington crossed over to the still-swaying basket that held this new folio from upstairs. He released its cover and pulled out from it a relatively thin case file.
He opened the folder and held his breath as he read what was written there. Wellington looked up at where the agents’ offices would be.
“You cocksure bastard,” he whispered aloud.
How Wellington hated it when she was right.
Chapter Four
Wherein Miss Braun Takes Some Air and Meets Someone Unexpected
How Eliza hated it when he was right.
The man was insufferable, but the rational part of her mind only echoed what Wellington Books had told her: this was a dangerous game she was t
hinking of playing.
She recalled a frank discussion Harry and she had shared regarding one agent, Timothy Cuthbert, head of the Jamaican office. The “whelp,” as Harry had referred to him, came from a family of wealth and influence, and that was how he’d landed a director’s job in what many considered paradise. The cases coming out of Jamaica, though, were usually dismissive and poorly handled, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of two agents. Agents that were friends of Harry. He had to remain silent, though, as questioning Cuthbert’s judgement would have opened a political maelstrom between offices and government officials.
Cuthbert, however, managed to bring about his own downfall when Doctor Sound made an unexpected visit to the outpost—and discovered Cuthbert managing a rum-running business between Jamaica and the Americas.
After Cuthbert’s ousting, Harry had told her, “Take care, Lizzie. Even when you have the facts in your favour, you may not be able to openly question another agent’s competency. It’s a silent code we all must adhere to. Eventually, secrets herald one’s downfall.”
When Eliza emerged into the front shop of the Ministry, most of the paper shufflers in their rows of desks ignored her as they did any agent who entered their domain. Those who had dared to peek up from their work immediately ducked their heads lower and looked even more studious than ever as she passed between them. No one wanted to get in the way of Eliza’s dark glare.
Out on the street it was chilly but beautiful. Damn it, she thought bitterly, I am taking the sodding long way. Let his stomach tie itself into knots for all I care.
“Eliza!”
The woman’s voice broke through her anger and stopped her in her tracks. Turning, she felt her tension abate, if not disappear completely, on seeing Agent Ihita Pujari running to catch up with her. The young Indian woman had only arrived in London the previous month, but already the New Zealand agent had grown very fond of her. They had a somewhat similar sense of humour—though Ihita’s was hidden beneath a layer of gentility. Her sleek black hair was tied in an elaborate braid, but, much as Eliza did, she wore men’s clothing—and wore it well. The effect was even more striking with Ihita’s dark skin and sparkling brown eyes. It was like putting a sleek jungle cat in tweed. It threw her beauty into stark contrast.