The Apollonian Case Files

by Mark A. Latham

  Jim nodded.

  ‘Good. Watch out for that one. I hear she’s a wily little minx, eh?’ He winked at Jim lasciviously, barked his silly little laugh, and stepped into his office. ‘Happy hunting, Denny.’ He closed the door, leaving Denny to wonder, as always, just how much Cherleten knew, and how he knew it.

  FIVE

  Monday, 2nd October 1893

  CHELSEA VESTRY WHARF

  ‘Seems mighty audacious of them, don’t you think?’ Marie Furnival said, looking about the busy wharf, which rang to the sound of industry even at the crack of dawn. ‘There are people working round the clock. Smuggling anything here would be difficult. And for a bunch of Chinamen, too… hardly inconspicuous.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Jim stared absently at the line of labourers coming in and out of the nearby warehouse, toiling under the watchful eye of police officers.

  ‘I said, it’s not the kind of place you’d expect to find Otherside smugglers.’

  The annoyance in her tone pulled Jim from his woolgathering. ‘You’re right, but we have our orders. We start here and see where it leads.’

  ‘You doubt the intelligence, too, don’t you?’ Her eyes brightened.

  ‘I’m keeping an open mind.’ Jim worked the stiffness from his hand. He did not want to encourage the rebellious Miss Furnival by confessing his doubts. The Nightwatch had not been unanimous in their predictions, and there was nothing here at the wharf that reflected Elsbet’s cryptic warning.

  The lines lead to the dark. Monsters wait in the dark. They wait in the house of the dead.

  A police sergeant approached, red in the face from lugging crates about all morning. Jim was impressed that the sergeant had got his hands dirty with his men, rather than delegate the work. It wasn’t the kind of thing Jim would have done. Maybe Jim needed to take the lead more often, before he put more lives in danger. He knew it wouldn’t have helped Beresford, but he felt the dagger-pang of guilt all the same. He tried to push such thoughts aside.

  ‘Sergeant Craddock, what news?’

  ‘Nothing here, sir; we’ve turned the place upside down.’

  ‘No cellar… tunnels… that sort of thing?’ Jim asked.

  Craddock frowned. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right, we’d better speak to the foreman again.’

  ‘Already have, begging your pardon, sir. He says if any other consignments have come in without his inspection, then they can only have been taken to the train sheds. There was some activity around No. 2 yesterday, but we’ll need to speak to the gasworks men for access.’

  ‘Yes. Oh, and, Sergeant? Good work. Very good work. Send one of your boys off to find a gasworks man, then. Maybe we’ll strike it lucky over there.’

  The policeman beamed at the compliment, doffed his hat, and hurried off.

  ‘If the tong are working the river, as they always have,’ Marie said, ‘then surely this would be the most likely place to find the cargo. They’d be hard pressed to smuggle anything on a train here.’

  ‘It depends. All of these warehouses are owned by different companies, some by private individuals. It would be deuced difficult to account for every crate coming and going between the railway yard and the barges. Look there – the rail tracks accommodate both passengers and freight, and they go on right across the city. Plenty of means to smuggle goods a bit at a time, if you have the right man in your pocket to turn a blind eye.’

  ‘By that token the goods could just as easily be taken across the city in any cab or wagon,’ Marie argued.

  Jim sighed. ‘The battle against the Othersiders is never-ending, for that very reason. But our orders are to start here.’ He was repeating himself, but he saw no point in being defeatist. An agent went where he was sent, and did as he was bid. Jim was thankful when he heard a shout from over by the train sheds, and saw Craddock beckoning him. ‘Come on, it looks like we’ve found our gasworks man.’

  * * *

  ‘Be careful with that –’ Jim started, but too late.

  The constables broke open the crate, splintering the sides and sending its contents spilling out of the freight wagon and onto the low concrete platform. Most of the phials were cushioned by the bundles of red silk that flowed out like the intestines of a stricken animal. Some rolled across the wagon floor. Others smashed, forming puddles of strange-smelling brown liquid all about them. Jim wiped his hand across his face.

  ‘You god-damned idiot!’ Marie snapped, stepping carefully over the pools of etherium, shoving the policemen out of the way.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Jim said, keen to keep the coppers on side. ‘Sergeant Craddock, have your men retrieve as many of these bottles as you can. Gloves only – don’t get the stuff on your hands. Then I want this floor cleaned thoroughly. Trust me, you don’t want to leave a drop of it behind; it’s the very devil.’

  Craddock presented a worried expression, his thick auburn eyebrows meeting beneath a furrowed brow. He nodded dutifully. ‘Come on you lot, you heard the Captain. Dakin, go and find a mop and bucket. Jones, start picking these bottles up. Use the silk, wrap ’em up good and tight now.’

  Jim hopped from the wagon, and helped Marie down.

  She stepped close to Jim’s side, scowling. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘The marks on the side of the crate. They’re similar to the ones I found the other night. It could easily have been a coincidence… ah, hold on. Here’s that foreman.’

  Jim plucked a phial of etherium from the floor, and strode across the dimly lit aisle between the tracks, towards the tall man, who approached, flanked by two constables.

  ‘Mr Gedge, I presume?’ Jim asked.

  ‘That I am.’

  ‘Do you care to explain this?’ Jim held up the phial so that it gleamed in the light of the gaslamp suspended overhead.

  Gedge squinted. ‘I’m sure I have no idea what that is.’

  ‘It is a drug, sir. A very potent drug from foreign shores. It is so dangerous that possession of it carries a lengthy prison sentence. Smuggling and distribution of it… well, they say that hanging is considered too good for such immorality.’

  Mr Gedge wiped his clammy palms across the front of his long warehouse coat. ‘I don’t know what you are implying, sir, but I will brook no threats. As I said, I have no idea what that is, or where it came from.’

  ‘That part is simple – it came from a crate over there, amidst a pile of similar crates stored in one of your wagons. Tell me, is the gas company in the habit of shipping crates of Chinese silk to and from London?’

  ‘Silk? No… I… that is to say…’

  ‘Someone in the employ of the gasworks, Mr. Gedge, has obviously been making a bit of coin on the side, by indulging in some black-market work. And you are responsible for the men who work here, are you not? And for all of the trains that pass through this depot?’

  ‘This shed houses thirty wagons and six locomotives at any given time! I cannot inspect every one of them.’

  ‘Is that how your employers will see it, Mr Gedge? Do they not pay you to do just that?’

  Gedge loosened his collar with his index finger; his mouth tightened, already thin lips almost disappearing. ‘I… Look here, what would you have me do? I may have missed a few inspections, but it’s done now, isn’t it? I’ll extend every assistance I can.’

  ‘Good. I need to find out when those crates arrived – if you have no records, I am sure someone will remember when they first saw them. I also need a list of every man in your employ, and their current shift patterns.’ Jim held up a hand in anticipation of protest. ‘I know this will take some time and no small effort on your part, Mr Gedge, but bearing in mind that you are the chief suspect, it would serve you well to be especially diligent.’

  ‘Suspect…’ Gedge paled, his voice cracked. He nodded sheepishly.

  Jim, pleased with himself, glanced at Miss Furnival. Her face was, as ever, a blank slate, betraying nothing of her thoughts on the matter, approval or otherwise. He tried not to sigh. ‘Miss Fur
nival,’ he said instead. ‘Shall we continue our search while Mr. Gedge finds us the records we require?’

  ‘We’d better, before any more of these get smashed.’

  Jim smirked to himself at Miss Furnival’s cynicism, and followed her back towards the constables. Then she froze.

  Miss Furnival held up a hand to stay him. She tilted her head, listening intently for… what?

  A gunshot cracked, echoing around the vast shed, disturbing dozens of pigeons roosting in the roof space. Every policeman stopped what he was doing; boxes were dropped, shouts and cries rang out, a whistle blew. Miss Furnival dropped low to the ground and, seeming to pinpoint the direction of the shot, spun on her heels. Jim crouched down too, and followed her gaze.

  Mr Gedge held a hand to his neck. Dark blood pumped between pale fingers, staining the front of his long coat red. Sergeant Craddock was already heaving the foreman into cover, but Gedge’s prospects looked grim.

  ‘There.’ Miss Furnival had no sooner said it than she was up and running, boot-heels crunching on ballast, a .22 revolver already in hand.

  Jim ran with her. Shadows slid across the far wall; a heavy door slammed somewhere ahead.

  ‘Come on!’ Jim shouted, thankful when he saw several policemen following. The trilling of police whistles pierced the dusty air – neither use nor ornament, but somehow reassuring.

  Jim overtook Miss Furnival, rounding a coal wagon only to hear another shot. The bullet whistled past, so close he felt the rush of air beside his cheek. He cried out involuntarily, skidding across the ground, colliding with the wall before rolling onto his front, pistol aimed at where his attacker had been. The outer door slammed again; the crack of daylight vanished.

  Marie Furnival did not stop. ‘No time for lying around, Denny,’ she said as she passed.

  With a huff, Jim pushed himself to his feet, and rejoined the chase, now flanked by three sturdy-looking constables.

  When Jim and the policemen bundled out through the side-door into the biting cold morning, Miss Furnival was standing alert, panning across the loading yard with her pistol ready, one eye shut tight, the other scanning for movement.

  ‘Which way did they go?’ Jim asked. His breaths came sharp. It wasn’t the most brisk exercise he’d had recently, but his narrow brush with death had rattled him more than he cared to admit.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like they just vanished.’

  More policemen arrived, Craddock with them.

  ‘Sergeant, where is Mr Gedge?’ Jim asked.

  ‘I’ve sent for help, sir. It looks bad.’

  ‘Damn. Get your men to spread out across this yard. Keep to cover in case our gunmen are still about. Look for any signs of which way they went.’

  The policemen set about their business at once. Jim moved beside Miss Furnival, and they both crouched beside a tall stack of loading pallets.

  ‘We need to make haste,’ Jim said, ‘but we can’t risk getting caught out in the open.’

  ‘They’ve got rifles,’ Miss Furnival said matter-of-factly. ‘Martini-Henry I think.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘From the report,’ she said, as though it were obvious.

  ‘You sound like a cowboy, Miss Furnival,’ Jim said.

  ‘Cowboys don’t know their guns half so well, except for Winchesters, six-guns and such, on account of them never travelling far from the plains.’

  ‘Sir, over here!’ The shout came from Craddock.

  Jim and Marie joined Craddock at one of the yard gates.

  ‘Here, sir,’ he said. He stood over a constable, kneeling in the dirt beside a blood-splattered labourer, who groaned in agony. ‘This fellow saw our men making their getaway, and tried to stop them. Not got too much out of him, except that they was Chinamen, and they went that way.’ Craddock pointed along the northbound service track.

  ‘Following the rails?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Aye, sir. Under the bridge he said.’

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘I think so. Just a knock to the head. My men won’t be long with the ambulance.’

  ‘Then gather what men you can spare, Sergeant. We need some to stay behind with the wounded, and to protect that contraband. The rest are to come with us. We’ll catch these devils yet.’

  Craddock blew sharply on his whistle, and then ran back into the yard to signal his men. Jim started towards the tracks immediately, but checked his stride as Miss Furnival’s hand caught his arm.

  ‘These common gangsters have got the drop on you again,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Either the intelligence coming into the club is false, or you got an informant in your midst.’

  Jim thought on that. He could not say where the intelligence had come from, but he now had greater cause than ever to believe the Nightwatch was dangerously flawed. Sir Arthur himself said that the skeins of fate were open to interpretation – mayhap the poor souls beneath St Katharine Docks had come to different conclusions. Maybe the Othersiders couldn’t be trusted even while sleeping in confinement. Or, worse still, perhaps the Artist really had returned from the grave, and was interfering with their visions somehow.

  All of this went unsaid. Instead, Jim fired his best winning grin at Marie Furnival, and said, ‘Given that the enemy is in our sights, Miss Furnival, I’d say that the Order’s intelligence has led us right where we need to be.’

  Miss Furnival’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘You must see that the only place we’re being led is into a trap.’

  ‘Whatever is the matter, ma’am? Afraid?’

  She let go of Jim’s arm. ‘No. But if my suspicions are correct, we both will be before the day is done.’

  * * *

  ‘So now what?’

  Jim ignored Miss Furnival’s impatience, and the questioning gaze of the six policemen, and instead looked thoughtfully at their options. Ahead of them, the railway divided into two distinct lines. Passenger trains followed a downward slope, going down to a tunnel and thereafter joining the District Railway. The freight lines continued over-ground, northwards. Steep banks on either side of the freight line led up to rows of tenements and shops. The fences were difficult to climb, but not impossible for determined fugitives. Whichever way their quarry had fled, they would be hard to find.

  ‘Sergeant Craddock,’ Jim said. ‘The time, please.’

  Craddock checked his pocket-watch. ‘Seven o’clock, sir.’

  ‘The streets above us will be getting busy. I imagine the draymen have been about for over an hour already. There’s a market up there, is there not?’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Right, send one of your men that way. Climb the fence and start asking about. This is not an area of London where armed orientals would escape attention. If any trace of them is found, raise a hue and cry, send for help, and get word to us.’

  ‘Where shall we be, sir?’ Craddock asked, scratching at his thick red beard.

  ‘The way I see it, Sergeant, our suspects have either taken to the tunnel, or have followed the freight line. If the latter, we have little chance of finding them on foot. If they’ve taken the tunnel, however, we may yet come across their destination. So that is where we shall go.’

  Craddock slapped one of his men on the shoulder. ‘You heard the captain. Get over that fence, lad. If you need to send word to us, we’re following the line to West Brompton Station. Get some lads to delay the first train, just in case.’

  The policeman looked reluctant as he eyed up the steep incline, but he nodded to his sergeant and jogged off dutifully. Jim repressed a shudder at the mention of following lines, remembering Elsbet’s dire warning.

  ‘For what it’s worth, Captain Denny, I can’t fault your logic,’ Miss Furnival said.

  ‘High praise, Miss Furnival. Now, shall we get on?’

  Jim strode into the gloom, the crunch of ballast beneath his feet echoing through the tunnel. The stealthy approach would be difficult. Biting the bullet, he beckoned the others to follow. Jim had
checked the trains running to and from the dock before setting out – there should be another half an hour at least until the first was due, and the police would now try to delay them further. Causing delays in London always brought vociferous complaints upon the heads of the Metropolitan Police, and those constables on the front line would not relish being on the receiving end.

  He entered the shade of the tunnel, senses immediately assailed by the smell of mould, damp, and worse. A lukewarm breeze blew up from further down the tracks. The ‘cut-and-cover’ tunnel opened to the sky periodically, affording enough light to see by every few dozen yards, but not enough to spy potential threats or hiding places.

  ‘Lamps!’ Craddock shouted. Circles of yellowish light soon danced across the tracks as the policemen lit their hooded dark-lanterns.

  Marie quickened her stride to walk beside Jim. ‘No side-tunnels or service stairs,’ she mused. ‘If they came down here they’re stuck for at least the next half a mile. Unless they’re waiting around that bend yonder, in which case I guess we’ll be shot at soon enough.’

  Jim almost laughed. Miss Furnival’s pessimistic quips were becoming almost reassuring. ‘I’m sure you will “beat them to the draw”, Miss Furnival,’ he said.

  ‘We’d better hope so.’

  When they did reach the bend, there was no one to be seen. The air that wafted up the tunnel, however, was foul. The decline of the tracks had taken them beyond the open-roofed shaft, and into a pitch-dark stretch.

  ‘Sergeant Craddock, this is your beat,’ Jim said. ‘Where exactly are we?’

  ‘Mile or so from Brompton station,’ the sergeant said. ‘Must be fairly close to the Fulham Road.’

  Jim squinted into the gloom ahead, but the lanterns provided scant illumination. ‘Is there any access to this tunnel besides the station?’

  ‘No idea, sir. Never had cause to come down here. But there’s rumours, o’ course.’

  ‘What kind of rumours?’ Something about Craddock’s tone gave Jim the chills.

  ‘Brompton’s famed for two things, sir. Hospitals and graveyards. Some say there’s dead-tunnels hidden round here, from the sixties. Never seen evidence of them, but heard enough to wonder.’