Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  Joseph harrumphed and waited for the butler to pull out his chair. “Of course, my darling.”

  Arm in arm, they left the dining room.

  “Your parents are very nice.”

  Isabella smiled a bit. “They’re…unconventional.”

  “I suppose.” Maybe on this plane. Briar thought it might have been nice to have parents like Isabella’s; in that moment, she envied her fiercely. “Did you have a good night?”

  It was Isabella’s turn to wipe her mouth and wait for the butler to pull her chair away from the table. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

  “Very well.”

  There was a park not far from Isabella’s house. The day was yet cool, though with the sun shining and no clouds in the sky, it seemed likely that would change soon. The effects of the previous night’s rain lingered as a slight heaviness to the air. The damp seemed to permeate everything, though the grass was greening up nicely. Early spring flowers dotted the precise beds at the edge of the park’s patchy brown lawns. They had company, though not enough people were out for a stroll that they couldn’t speak without being overheard.

  Isabella nodded at an older couple strolling slowly along. When there was no one within earshot, she pulled a scrap of paper from her reticule.

  “Is this…?” Briar couldn’t finish the sentence for excitement. After the previous day’s defeat of her research skills, she had despaired of finding that dratted factory.

  “It is.” Isabella beamed at her. “I almost missed it, but there was a package of mail to be forwarded in the foyer. This is the address the mail is being forwarded to.”

  “You are positively brilliant!” It was a near thing, but Briar almost grabbed Isabella to give her a most undignified kiss upon the cheek. She restrained herself in time and instead settled for gripping her shoulder and pulling her in for a half embrace. Almost as soon as she swept her up, Briar remembered where they were and let Isabella go. This was no place to be so unseemly.

  “I could be brilliant more frequently if I were assured of that kind of response.” Isabella’s smile was as wide as Briar had ever seen, and her eyes fairly sparkled with excitement. The overall effect was enchanting. Briar’s heart sped up a tick in response.

  Is she flirting with me? That seemed unlikely. Isabella’s status would not permit her to dally with other women. More likely she was teasing Briar again. Yes, that seemed much more reasonable. Even with the rationalization, Briar couldn’t stop the color from rising in her cheeks. What was it about Isabella that had her blushing all over the place? No one outside her family was able to break her composure so easily or so frequently. Her mother and sisters did it with unspeakably crude statements, but Isabella did so simply with teasing and something that treaded dangerously close to familiarity.

  “I shall keep that in mind for the next time.” Briar meant it as a prim put-down, but even to her ears the response sounded flirtatious. “What I mean is that you need to be equally brilliant again to be assured of any reward.” That was worse. Her face was completely red now and the tips of her ears felt like they must be glowing. Was she flirting back? Surely not! Not that Isabella wasn’t attractive, she certainly was, but Briar had no time for that type of distraction.

  “Then I shall make sure to impress you upon a regular basis.”

  “What is our next step?” If she didn’t get the conversation back on track, Briar was either going to burst into mortified flames or lose her shroud. At this point, she thought the flames might be the preferable option.

  “You’re asking me?” Isabella sounded surprised. “You’re the one holding all the cards. This is your crusade.”

  “And yet you have the expertise. If this address is for the manufactory, how do we break in and retrieve our mysterious inventor’s grimoire?”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I do. You are in charge of this stage of the operation.”

  “And afterward? What happens once we have the grimoire?”

  Briar thought about it. Their original agreement had been Isabella’s aid in finding out what the problem was with the Mirabilia horseless carriages. Once Briar had the grimoire in her hands, she would be able to ascertain what that was. They would have no further reason to work together, a prospect that did not please her nearly as much as it ought to have. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “that our bargain will be concluded. I shall give you the photographs and the negative, and we shall trouble each other no more.”

  “Very well.” Isabella’s smile was gone. Briar couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen the girl look so serious. “Then I’ll look into the address and investigate the factory if that’s where it is. Once I am assured of the comings and goings, I will break in and steal the book you need. If it’s not at the factory, I’ll see what more I can find there.”

  “And I shall accompany you.”

  Isabella’s eyebrows climbed so high up her forehead that Briar wondered if they might keep going. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!”

  “Of course I shall. We don’t know what you might come up against in that factory. You may require my assistance.”

  “And what sort of experience do you have with second-storey work?” Isabella’s hissed question sounded like the start of a diatribe, but she cut it off when the crunch of shoes on gravel heralded a pair of women wandering toward them from the opposite direction. They smiled their way and Briar responded in kind. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can research in a book,” Isabella said when they were once again out of earshot. “You’ll get in the way. I can’t do what I need to if I also have to worry about you.”

  “I don’t doubt that you have much more experience in burglary than I do, but you have no experience with infernal forces like I do. You will need me.”

  “If I truly am in charge, like you said I was, then you’ll have to resign yourself to waiting for me to do my work.”

  An angry response on her tongue, Briar drew herself up to deliver it, then stopped. Isabella was right. Briar had told her she was in charge not even a moment earlier. She had to trust Isabella could handle it. So far, she’d been given no reason to assume Isabella wouldn’t be able to. And yet…

  “Very well, but I wish to be present for any of the preparatory work that you think would be appropriate.”

  Her capitulation deflated Isabella, who looked to have been preparing her own retort. “That sounds very reasonable,” she said stiffly. “But no more than that.”

  “I believe I can live with that.”

  “Very well then. The next step is to find a location where we can watch the factory. Once I’ve found that, I’ll let you know. You can come along while I engage in surveillance of the property. That will likely take a few days. Once I’m confident that I will be undisturbed when I go in, I’ll retrieve that grimoire.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The factory was in one of the many industrial areas that had sprung up on the southern side of the Thames. Isabella was glad she insisted Briar wear something more appropriate for the area. Tall stacks belched coal smoke all around them, and every surface was coated with a layer of dark grit. She had to grin at the way Briar tried in vain to keep from brushing against some of the more obviously blackened surfaces. Her fastidious ways did little to keep her tattered skirts clean.

  They stopped in front of a ramshackle rooming house across from the factory’s front entrance. It wasn’t yet dinner time, but a stream of men and women passed to and fro through the house’s doors. They were as shabby or worse than Briar and Isabella in their disguises as working women. Perhaps she’d miscalculated, Isabella thought. If anything, their clothing wasn’t shabby enough, though both of her hems were dotted with thin spots where the dye was worn completely away. But if they’d looked much more penniless, she’d worried they might be turned away as unable to pay. Apparently, she needn’t have been so concerned.

  A round woman in her middle years pinned them with a stare so sharp it was nearly aggressive wh
en they pushed their way past the heavy glass doors. She leaned on the massive desk that ran the length of the back wall.

  “And what d’we have here, then?”

  “We need to rent a room.” Isabella slouched against the desk as if exhausted. “What do ya got?” She was proud of her American accent, having been able to practice it with her mother. She doubted she would have sounded out of place in America, though the woman behind the desk seemed less impressed.

  “Rent is by the week and up front.” Without breaking her gaze on them, she leaned back to retrieve a packet of mail from the long row of cubbies behind her and passed it to a man waiting at the end of the counter. “I won’t have any of my tenants jumpin’ out on their bill.” She eyed Briar up and down. “I also don’t rent by the hour, so none of that in my place. This is a proper establishment, d’ye understand me? Rate’s five shillings a week.”

  “We get it.” Isabella gestured to Briar, who matched the landlady’s glare with one of her own. It was a close thing, but Briar might have met her match. Isabella didn’t think she could match the older woman’s hardness, though she gave it her best.

  Briar took care not to open her purse too far as she counted coins out onto the desk’s peeling surface. It was a prudent measure in a place like this, and Isabella approved, but she still wished Briar would be a little more casual.

  “Plus two against damages.”

  A muscle jumped in the corner of Briar’s jaw, but she counted out two more coins to match the five on the counter.

  “Names.” The woman opened the register and pulled out a battered fountain pen from somewhere beneath the counter.

  “Madge Tillman,” Isabella said. “And that’s Connie Brewster.”

  “Connie can’t speak for herself?”

  “’Fraid not.” Isabella leaned forward conspiratorially. “She’s dumb. Can’t speak a word.”

  The woman’s face made a very strange contortion, part pity, another part contempt, and something else Isabella couldn’t identify. “Welcome to the Padgett Arms,” she said loudly.

  Briar winced and rubbed her ear. She hadn’t been happy when Isabella had decreed she wouldn’t be able to talk, but her accent identified her as wellborn the second she opened her mouth. Her attempt at a Cockney accent had been terrible and her American impression worse. Besides, the facade of being mute made it less likely that she would treat someone to the rough side of her tongue and give them away.

  “She’s only mute,” Isabella said. “She hears just fine.”

  The landlady grunted. “I’m puttin’ you in two-twelve.”

  “Does that have a view of the street? Connie feels better when she can see the road.”

  With pursed lips, one eyebrow cocked sardonically, the woman looked up from where she laboriously filled out the register. Her letters were childlike, but legible. “And I suppose a view of the cobbles helps with her… affliction, then?” At Isabella’s nod she made a show of shaking her head. “Room three-thirteen then. It only has one bed.”

  “That’s fine. We made do with less on the way over.”

  The woman grunted in acknowledgment and looked back down at the book. She crossed out the first room number then slowly wrote out the other. Turning the register around, she gestured at the bottom of the entry. “Make your marks here.” She waited until they each made an X on the page before pushing a key across the desk. “I’m Mrs. Tattersall. Mr. Tattersall does the fixin’ up around here. If you need something, you come down here.”

  At their nod, she pointed to her right. “Stairs be there. Rent is due again in a week. Don’t you be goin’ anywhere, Mr. Hastie!”

  Isabella couldn’t help but jump when Mrs. Tattersall suddenly barked past them at a man who was halfway to the front doors. She felt less silly when she realized Briar had also started at the sudden noise.

  “Ye’re two weeks in arrears, you blighter.” Despite some considerable girth around her belly, Mrs. Tattersall bustled out from behind the counter in a flash. The poor man had almost made it out the door when she grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him back inside. “Oh no you don’t! I’ll be getting’ what’s comin’ to me, I will!”

  It seemed like a prudent time to make their getaway. Isabella grabbed the key and hustled Briar up the stairs. A small crowd started to gather as Mrs. Tattersall laid into a red-faced Mr. Hastie.

  Three stories was not so high up, but with the carpet bag, Isabella’s arm started to ache long before they made it to their room. The lock was old and the door somewhat warped. The key resisted turning for a moment until she hauled back on the door, then it clicked sullenly and the door swung inward.

  The promised bed was shoved against one wall. The metal frame was splotched with age, but seemed sturdy enough. There was no sign of sagging from the mattress. Isabella dropped her bag on the floor next to the door and turned about to take it all in. The room had been more than adequate at one time, but now the wallpaper was faded and torn in places. Water had peeled a long swath of it off and stained the plaster underneath it. There was no smell of mold in the room, so that had happened some time ago.

  They were lucky. The room afforded them not one, but two windows with a view of the factory across the street. The light of the setting sun barely penetrated dual layers of grime on the inside and outside of the window.

  “Don’t,” Isabella said when Briar moved to wipe the accumulated layers of dust and dirt. “It makes us harder to see from the outside. You’ll get used to it.”

  “If you say so.” Briar’s voice was doubtful. It really was difficult to see through the window. “Did you really have to make me a mute?”

  “I really did. It would be all over the hotel that a lady of quality had moved in if Tattersall had heard you. We’re trying to avoid attention.”

  “At least it doesn’t involve wearing orange gloves, this time.” Briar shivered. “I think I could stand avoiding that woman’s attention for all of eternity. She’s very…impressive.”

  Isabella smiled at Briar’s sally. “That she is.” Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember getting those gloves back from Briar. The parasol, yes, but not the gloves.

  “So what happens now?”

  “Now we watch.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” Isabella pulled the room’s only chair to the window and settled down.

  After casting about for a moment, Briar pulled at the bed. It moved across the floor with a thunderous scraping that both impressed Isabella and put her teeth on edge. The bed had to be quite weighty with its metal frame, yet Briar managed it quite well. A thumping from below summoned their attention and Briar quickly settled the bed in front of the window.

  At Isabella’s inquiring look, Briar shrugged. “We aren’t going to use it for sleeping, so it may as well be useful in other ways.”

  “Uh, yes.” A burst of heat through the pit of her stomach kept Isabella from forming a more cogent response. The thought of other ways she and Briar could use the bed were all she could think of as Briar settled herself on the mattress. She primly tucked the edges of her skirts along her legs to keep them from poking out. If Isabella told Briar it was fine to leave her ankles out, would Briar realize how much Isabella wanted to see the shape of her calves? How long before Briar got bored and left? Hopefully not too long. She turned to look out the window, though she saw nothing except the phantom shape of Briar’s leg. A troop of Her Majesty’s soldiers could have filled the street below and burst into a burlesque routine and Isabella wouldn’t have noticed.

  She wrestled her rampaging libido into check, though it threatened to break free at any moment. There was little activity outside the factory now, but the smokestacks disgorged black smoke. Someone was at work in there.

  On the bed, Briar glanced back and forth between the window and the notebook on her lap. She scratched down notes onto the pages, filling the paper quickly with her neat lettering. Eventually though, she noted only the occasional item.
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  “This is less exciting than I had imagined,” Briar offered a couple of hours later. She leaned her head on one hand, pen held loosely in the other.

  “Try doing this behind a bush in someone’s garden.”

  “That does sound a lot worse, yes. At least here we don’t have to worry if it rains.”

  “Rain is very inconvenient.” Isabella stretched, trying to work the kinks out of muscles that had been still for far too long. She rolled her head and was pleased to feel a pop in her neck.

  “Then why do it?” Briar asked.

  “Do what?” Isabella wasn’t following at all.

  “Why do you steal from others? Is it because your family is having financial difficulties?”

  “Financial difficulties.” Isabella spat out a laugh. It was harsh and humorless even to her ears. “That’s a gentle way of putting it. My family skirts the edge of financial ruin more often than not. It’s been this way for the past two years.”

  “Your father made some poorly considered investments, I suppose.”

  “My father had nothing to do with it. It was my brother. He’s in Germany now, studying to become an engineer or so he says. We paid off his debts once, but most letters he sends home contain requests for more money.” Isabella couldn’t stay still any longer. She paced the length of the small room and back. “He bankrupted the family once, and when my parents sent him to the Continent to keep him out of trouble, he’s continued to pile on the debts. Father doesn’t know. Wellington mails his requests straight to Mother.”

  “Your father doesn’t know about his continual requests? How is that even possible?”

  “Because Mother sends him money from what I can manage to purloin. Father doesn’t know how dire our financial straits are. Mother deposits most of what I make into the family accounts, which is how we keep the household afloat.”

  A warm hand around her wrist stopped Isabella’s pacing. She was almost running; only the fact that it was five paces from wall to wall kept her from breaking into a jog. Briar pulled her gently down to perch upon the edge of the mattress.