The Janus Affair: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel

by Tee Morris

  “What happened?” Liam asked, looking back from where the shot had emanated.

  “I don’t know. I would say divine intervention,” Wellington said, staring at the dead woman, “but I don’t recall God ever smiting His enemy with a rifle.”

  “Not His style, sir,” the boy agreed.

  Wellington started and spun around, dropping his sword. “Serena?” he called, sliding down to one knee over the child.

  She had not moved from where she had landed. Her eyes were closed, and her sweet face was now starting to swell on one side. Wellington’s hands didn’t know where to touch first. Should he pick her up or should he send Liam for a doctor, or should they grab a hansom and make for the closest hospital?

  The girl was in his arms as he stood. “We have to get her to a surgeon.”

  “No, Mr. Books!” Liam snapped. “No doctors.”

  “Good Lord, Liam, look at her!”

  “Serena there is deathly afraid of doctors. Afraid if’n they treat her, the doctors will call the peelers. Send her off to the workhouse right smartish.”

  The piercing call of a constable’s whistle suddenly filled the air. He was across the street, and alone. The policeman was looking over the carnage as he blew his alarm, and then ran up the street. They had moments, if that.

  “Liam,” Wellington hissed, “we need help.”

  The boy’s hand tugged at Wellington as he pulled him through the parting crowd. “Take her to Miss Eliza’s. Alice will know what to do.” The boy’s head shot left and right, and on seeing the standing cab he reached into Wellington’s coat and pulled out the coin purse. “I’ll get word to Miss Eliza. Let Miss Alice start care of Serena.”

  “But—”

  “Just. Do. What I say, Mr. Books.”

  Wellington nodded. His instincts told him to trust Liam.

  He knew he was overpaying the driver, but Wellington held the man’s gaze for a moment longer than would be considered polite. The driver nodded, and then looked ahead, waiting for his fare’s command. Wellington tucked Serena next to him, his arm around her holding her close as a father would with a daughter. He was about to give the rap against the cab’s roof and deliver Eliza’s address to the driver when the low rumbling of a combustion engine caught his ears.

  Across the street, from the wide alley, a two-wheeled metallic monster emerged, its motor’s roar parting the crowd before it. Wellington’s eyes narrowed on the pale-skinned rider, a svelte, curvy creature she was, decked out in leather and a thick riding jacket, no doubt to stave the chill when she picked up speed. A long, slender case rested across her back. Her face was partially concealed by her riding goggles, but the resemblance was uncanny. Not to mention impossible.

  “Eliza?” he whispered.

  Then her head turned, revealing a long ponytail of raven-black hair. When she glanced back, their eyes met; and when she smiled at him, Wellington felt a chill in the deepest part of his stomach.

  It was most definitely not his colleague.

  Get to Eliza’s, Wellington’s mind screamed as he watched Sophia del Morte accelerate away on her lococycle. Thankfully, in a direction opposite to where he was headed. Right. Bloody. Now!

  Chapter Fourteen

  In Which Eliza Dares a Dance with Diamond Dottie

  They gathered in the nearest alleyway—though because this was Mayfair it was the tidiest one Eliza had ever seen. Still, the police around here were more plentiful than in the East End, so they had to be quick about their business.

  “Are you ready for this?” She eyed Christopher, Callum, and Colin sternly. Christopher, the eldest, she knew could handle himself. But the younger boys had never accompanied her on a break-in before—not that she laboured under any illusions that this would be their first.

  “Cor, mum.” Colin blinked up at her. “We’re as ready as a ladybird is for gin.”

  “You can trust us,” Callum said, a little more seriously.

  She took a breath. When dealing with the Seven she began to feel old—even worse, she realised she was perilously close to sounding like her mother. “It’s not that, lads. It’s the fact that we are breaking into the inner sanctum of the queen of the London underground. She commands a lot of ruffians, and if we get found out—”

  “We’ve caught it from Diamond Dottie’s gang before.” Christopher scuffed his foot on the ground and glared down at it. “Couple of weeks ago two of them put the screws to Jonathan and Jeremy. Reckoned they’d messed up a job on Regent’s Street.”

  “But we is always careful to keep away from the Elephants—they give us a hard time about Serena and all.” Colin trailed off as Christopher shot him a filthy look. Naturally the marauding groups of women and those of the children clashed from time to time. Eliza was aware the Ministry Seven were part of a larger organised group of children, and they were natural enemies of Dottie’s Elephants. Often, the Elephants tried to lure away the girl children to their gang—and if that didn’t work they could use more unpleasant methods.

  Christopher, seeing the agent’s face go white, patted her on the arm, “It’s all right, mum. We would never let them have her.”

  Eliza’s throat was so tight that for a moment she was unable to reply. Instead she simply nodded.

  “And the twins are just topping,” Callum assured her, “with just a couple of scrapes and such to show for it.”

  Eliza winced.

  “So ya see”—Christopher’s fingers tightened on her sleeve—“we don’t mind a’tall doing a bit of pannie with you. Might even say that we’ve been looking forward to it.”

  After a long look at all the boys, Eliza nodded. “Very well then, lads, it’s a big house and we need to be quick about it.”

  “There’s only two maids.” Christopher grinned. “We did some poking around yesterday. Dottie might be all high and mighty, but she’s a skinflint when it comes to hiring help.”

  “Busy servants will be a real blessing this morning,” Eliza pulled off her fine morning gloves and replaced them with sturdier leather ones. “Now, as for the door—”

  “Chris has got that sorted,” Colin piped up.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Something special.” Christopher grinned and tapped the tin container he was carrying. “Mr. Books gave me a bit of a hand with it.”

  Something from Wellington? This was, indeed, something special. “Let me see.” Her fingers darted to the tin, but Christopher brushed them away with all the art of a master pick-pocket.

  “Not just yet—it has to be a surprise.”

  “I am not entirely sure I like the fact that you are colluding with Wellington,” she muttered. “But we’d best be getting on with it.”

  Cautiously, she led them through the alleyway and to the rear of the street. Here was where the tradesmen and the servants entered the house, through a basement doorway that led into a kitchen. Unable to use either door, there only remained the windows or French doors as points of entry. Yet as she looked up, she realised the builders of these houses were not without their cleverness. Each possible entrance on the exposed side of the townhouse was not only on the third story, but also had a large balcony on it, that in essence acted as a stout defence. The smooth surface of the stonework had no anchor point for a grappling hook, and there was no convenient drainage pipe to make use of.

  She looked down the street, but Callum whispered back to her, “No need to fret, mum. Jonathan and Eric are playing the crows today. Jeremy to Jonathan, then Johnny to Eric.”

  Christopher tugged her over, and all four of them crouched on the ground, backs against the wall of the house. Anyone in the early-morning mist would have the hardest time seeing them this low.

  “Time for my peace day resistance.” The eldest boy, who was usually a little more reserved than this, grinned. She didn’t have the heart to correct his pronunciation.

  Eliza watched bemused as he opened his tin and pulled out three objects. The first was a shiny grappling hook; the second appea
red to be a spiderlike automaton, and the third was a box with half a dozen tiny levers on it. The agent blinked in genuine surprise, “How did you—”

  “I didn’t much care for Mr. Books at first like, but he’s kind of grown on me.” He handed the spider creature to Eliza. She turned it over in her hand. It was quiescent now, its eight legs tucked in tight against its brass body. She was surprised at its relative lightness.

  “Wellington bought this?”

  “No, mum, he made it.”

  Her eyes shot back down to the device cradled in her hands. She knew from their night at the opera together he was a bit of a tinker; but unlike the auralscope he had revealed to her, this device had an elegance and sublety to it. This was a device tailored for fieldwork. Had he made this with her exploits in mind?

  Christopher tapped its domed body. “And he said he made a few modifications to it just for today’s caper.” The look on the young boy’s face was a pleasure to see. The Seven, along with the rest of London’s homeless waifs, had very few toys to call their own. That Wellington had given into Christopher’s care such an amazing, shiny, and new device was a wonder to the boy. He fairly glowed with delight and responsibility.

  “Did he now?” Eliza settled back. “I am entirely in your and Books’ capable hands, it seems.”

  Callum had under his coat a tightly wound coil of half-inch diameter densely-woven rope. It must have been tucked under his armpit this whole time. It always amazed her how the Seven could make rather large objects disappear into their clothing—a survival skill on the streets. Taking the curiously silky-looking rope, Christopher attached it to the grappling hook with a knot that would have done a sailor proud. Then taking the spider back from Eliza, he placed it on the ground next to the rope.

  “Now comes the magic,” he whispered, waving his hand in a dramatic fashion before the wide-eyed other boys. Then he slipped his goggles on and picked up the box of levers. Eliza guessed what was coming, but still she jumped, as did Colin and Callum, when the spider suddenly unfurled his legs, clamped the two front ones around the grappling hook, and set off for the wall. The rattle of its tiny steam engine was, thankfully, swallowed by the fog—yet still sounded unusually loud to Eliza. She was glad that Wellington was not present to witness her surprise.

  As it was, the two young boys jammed their fists into their mouths to keep from oohing and aahing like they were at a fair. Yet, she had to agree it was an amazing sight. The spider, with Christopher working the controls like a master, scuttled quickly up the wall, dragging the grappling hook with it, the rope trailing after like Rapunzel’s hair.

  Eliza, Colin, and Callum all waited with held breaths, while their companion worked his magic. Finally, he slipped the goggles off his face to perch them once more on the top of his head.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, “I had to get the little blighter to work the lock open. Took a bit longer than I thought, but it’s done. Your turn, Colin.”

  The youngest of the boys scampered over to the rope, and with the practiced touch of a professional, flicked it around his wrist and then into his grip. Then by virtue of twisting it around his leg, began to wriggle his way up it. He looked so fragile climbing up so high on something so thin—like a caterpillar on a trembling stalk.

  “Don’t worry, mum,” Callum squeezed her fingertips. “That there rope is made by Mr. Lowe. His work’s the best, and our Colin knows how to climb like one of them African monkeys. I saw one last week, down on Marylebone.”

  “Get off it,” Christopher growled to his younger companion, “Mum doesn’t want to ’ear about that.” The two boys glared at each other until Eliza thought she might have to separate them, but luckily at that moment Colin dropped another thicker rope down.

  The agent was quite relieved. Callum might have plenty of faith in Mr. Lowe’s work, but she was wearing her Ministry issue corset under her finery, and thus she weighed considerably more than any street urchin. Still, there was one way she had to lighten the load.

  Quickly she undid the buttons on her very proper skirt and dropped it to the ground. The boys blinked at her in alarm, until they realised that beneath she was wearing trousers. Eliza’s pistols were tucked into the small of her back and secured with specially designed holsters, while the legs were decorated with an array of pockets for the tooling she currently needed. Her fashion was something that they were very familiar with, but the make and cut of these trousers were highly unusual. The fabric looked sturdy, but it stretched and moved easily with Eliza’s form. Very easily.

  She happened to look over her shoulder and noted the two boys staring inappropriately at her backside. Yes, they were boys. Boys quickly growing up to manhood.

  “Now you two see why I don’t wear these around Agent Campbell,” she quipped, playfully tapping the curve of her rear. “These particular trousers I had made for me the last time I visited San Francisco. Quite innovative, those yanks at Levi Strauss.”

  The boys just nodded. Their eyes were no longer blinking.

  Eliza snapped her fingers, knocking them out of their stupor. “I’ll go first, lads,” she said, and now it was her turn to grin. “But I shall go up in style.” From one of her side pockets she produced a gadget of Axelrod’s, a sort of multi-tool for the operatives; and even though she wasn’t theoretically classified as a field agent at the moment, the clankerton had not seen fit to change the lock on the armoury door since they’d gone out for dinner last year. It was really his own fault, and this was how she could strap the long metallic box to her forearm with no real twinges of remorse.

  It had taken her quite some time, and no few number of minor injuries, to work out what the gadget did. One thing she had mastered was the rope ascender. Turning the dial on the side popped out a sturdy loop of some kind of shiny metal. Placing that around the rope, she turned the dial the other direction, and locked it around the rope Colin had dropped. Then it was merely a matter of flicking the lever and she was being lifted along the rope by the arm.

  Truthfully, Eliza had never tested this in a proper situation—more with a five-inch piece of rope in her living room, and that just to work out the feeding mechanism. A full application of the contraption out in the field, though, yielded very different results. With Eliza’s full weight and several stories above her, the device chugged alarmingly, and Eliza contemplated that it would be ironic to have lived through all those gun battles, explosions, and assassination attempts merely to splatter on the ground in Mayfair.

  She felt her breath return as the balcony loomed into view out of the mist. Eliza flicked the lever off and grabbed hold of the stone lip. One jerk and she was standing next to the smiling Colin.

  “Excellent job.” She couldn’t help ruffling his hair, and he bore it very well, considering. The little spider creature sat on the railing of the balcony by the grapple, ticking away to itself. It had to be impossible but it did seem to radiate some kind of contentment. Surely Wellington had not made it with a personality?

  In a few moments the other two lads joined them. Christopher picked up the waiting spider, while Callum went to the French doors and examined the lock.

  “Looks cheap,” he commented over his shoulder, his hand already reaching under his jacket for tools.

  It was quiet Colin who stopped him. After running his eye over the inside and outside of the frame, he pushed back his cap and scratched his head. “There’s some kind of mechanism between the door and the wall. Smells like clockwork.”

  Eliza frowned at the strange comment, but Christopher merely nodded. “One more trick from Mr. Books then.” He put the goggles back on, and began to play with the levers again. Eliza knew that the boy could only have had a day or two at most to learn how to use the little device—yet he had mastered it with great aplomb.

  The spider rattled over to the door, raised itself up on its tiny claws, and then held out its front right leg. When the boy cranked a little knob on the side of the control box, a tiny clank sounded and along the o
utstretched claw slid a whirling bright blade.

  Within a short moment, the spider had cut a decent sized hole in the bottom pane, set down the circular piece it had made, and then hopped inside.

  Underneath his googles, Christopher beamed with success. He walked the spider around the corner and out of sight. “There’s the off lever,” he muttered, and then a tiny bell chimed and the sound of the door mechanism came. “Blimey, but I do owe Mr. Wellington a pint. This bit of clockwork is genius.”

  Pushing down his goggles, the boy pushed open the door and sketched a bow. “Won’t you please come in.” His accent suddenly sounded like it belonged in Mayfair.

  As she passed him, Eliza tipped an imaginary hat. “Why, thank you, sir.” His wicked grin gave her the distinct impression that Wellington was never going to get his device back, and she wondered what other trouble the boys could use it for. It really didn’t bear thinking about.

  Cautiously, all three of them entered the room. Christopher bent, scooped up Wellington’s spider, and gave it a little pat on the head like it was a puppy. This appeared to be a medium-sized guest room—but apparently Dorothy did not have many of those, because it smelt musty, and there was no fire even built under the mantel. Christopher gestured, and Colin ran to the door and eased it open. Nothing but silence was on the other side. The young boy slipped out, and they followed in his wake. The corridor was long and narrow, with a set of stairs at either end. The smaller set must have led up to the servants’ quarters under the eaves, but also down towards the kitchen area. However, the one at the other end was far grander and must be the one the mistress of the house used.

  Together, the three boys and Eliza checked the third floor, but found nothing except guest rooms and storage. One whole room was devoted to furs and fine clothes, and for a moment Eliza was stricken with fashion jealousy.