“What?” Holmes asked, his voice rising in protest.
“This does not concern you, Doctor,” van den Bosch said, head swivelling as if on a ball joint to face Holmes.
“Whatever you may think of what she’s done or whether or not she’s right about the bomber’s identity,” Holmes said, “she’s given you a description of the man who has been threatening you. Us. The man murdered Loaves, for God’s sake!”
“That will do, Doctor!”
“No, it will not! He’s also threatened another attack in a few days. The note said as much. If Miss Somerset is right, we can prevent this. We must prevent this, for the sake of the others.”
“She knows nothing. Don’t you think I know the name of the man who has been sending me these letters?”
“Then give me his name, so I can match it to the rolls here in my office!”
“Doctor, do you not have enough of a workload, or do you need something else to occupy you? After all, the men down in Hell need assistance with repairs to the outer hull. Can I have them prepare you an environment suit?”
Holmes paled. The threat was plain enough.
“You madman,” Nathanial hissed. “You unbelievable madman! Look around you! You’ve nothing but people trying to help you, and you make threats and tell lies!”
“I’ve just about had enough out of you, Stone. Shall I confine you to quarters as well?”
The question, of course, was rhetorical. Van den Bosch, Hague, and the others left then, and that was that.
3.
Nathanial exited sickbay and passed through Holmes’ quarters, knowing his friend was at work in his office, but not feeling like yet more talk. It seemed like all he did was talk. Talk to someone here, go to dinner and talk, and afterward, scamper off as fast as you can to get to the next round of talk before your place is taken. He wanted to do something.
Jasperse was seated outside, in his usual spot, carbine across his lap, a metal flask ill-concealed in the chest pocket of his coverall. He rose to his feet as smooth as a cat and fell in step with Nathanial walking back to his quarters.
“The kitchen boys and the lads down in the laundry are spooked,” Jasperse said as they entered the main corridor. Nathanial was so weary and detached, it felt like Jasperse was speaking to someone else. “Seems Professor Wren’s ghost has been hanging around the airlocks, dancing a madman’s jig.”
Nathanial did not reply. They walked on in silence until they came to the edge of British, and Nathanial stopped, turned, and faced the long corridor which led to Professor Wren’s old laboratory.
“Seems like a mad thing, a ghost sticking around on a heliograph station,” Jasperse continued. “A house yes, or the soggy moor, where the mists hang low. But nothing such as this, and not so far away from God and the bones of the Earth. It makes no sense to me.” The man took a sip from his flask and offered it to Nathanial, who declined. Finally the man muttered, anguish in his voice, “Poor Loaves. He was a good man. Didn’t deserve this.”
Nathanial stared down the hall. Two workers were there, mopping the floors, washing the walls. It took a moment for Nathanial to realise this was where Loaves had died. He’d given chase, or so van den Bosch’s story had gone, and Annabelle’s man had run down this corridor. Why flee down a corridor when you know there is no way out? The site of the murder was more than two-thirds the corridor’s length, which meant the man must have run all the way down, and then probably come back. What had he been hoping for, to escape through Wren’s lab? Surely, if he was a worker as van den Bosch suggested, he knew the story that everyone else knew, that the lab had been locked.
But what if it wasn’t, and what if the man knew he could escape that way and came back to make sure that Loaves couldn’t follow?
“Come with me, Jasperse.” Nathanial started down the hall toward the two men and the remnants of Loaves’ blood, still clinging to the walls and floor. “You men,” he said when he was near enough, “did you see the body before it was carted off?”
One of the men, a wizened fellow with the bearing of a vulture, looked up from his work. He pushed away a lock of stringy, greying hair and asked, “And who might you be?”
“Professor Nathanial Stone. I’m Professor Wren’s replacement.”
The vulture-man stared hard for a moment, then replied, “Yes, sir. We arrived with the others.”
“Did you see any boot prints in the blood pooled here when you arrived, or perhaps any tracks leading away from the scene of the crime?”
“Plenty of them, once those fools started mucking around in it. Damned hard to clean, too, you mark me!”
“I mean before the men started, as you say, mucking about.”
The vulture-man and his co-worker exchanged looks, then shook their simultaneously.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Nathanial said, turned on his heel and returned to the main corridor.
4.
“What was that about, sir?” Jasperse asked when as they were crossing the basilica.
“No boot prints means the man did not murder Loaves and then flee through the blood. You’ve seen a man with his artery cut, yes?”
“Once or twice,” Jasperse said. “And you’re right. There’s a furious amount of blood, and all of a sudden, too. He would have left boot prints.” He peered hard at Nathanial, half-comprehending the logic. “What next, then?”
They repaired to Nathanial’s quarters, where Nathanial went immediately to the table next to his cot, sat down, and began digging through the blueprints. He found what he was looking for and showed it to the old soldier. He put a finger on Wren’s lab and traced a circle around the block of rooms which made up that section of British.
“There’s no way out of the lab except through that one door,” Nathanial said.
“But that would mean—ˮ
Nathanial smiled. “That means, unless I miss my guess, Annabelle’s mad bomber is still in Professor Wren’s laboratory, and as soon as those two workers are gone, he will flee. Chances are, after that, we’ll never see him again.”
“My God,” Jasperse said.
Nathanial nodded at Jasperse. “Your carbine is loaded?”
“Of course. Always.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The Aether Confession”
1.
Nathanial was almost delirious with exhaustion. He had not slept in nearly two days. Jasperse disappeared for a bit and returned from the galley bearing two earthenware cups of steaming hot tea, brewed so strong Nathanial winced with each sip. Still, with no sugar to cut the bitterness, it did its job of keeping him alert.
The workers finished cleaning the blood an hour later. They trundled away with their buckets and brushes, grumbling to themselves and stained to the elbows with soapy gore. Jasperse took up his carbine and followed Nathanial into the hall.
“Clean as a baby’s bottom,” Jasperse remarked as they passed through. “Mind your step, sir. The floor is still wet.”
Jasperse stood watch while Nathanial searched for the mechanism that would open the door. This would all be in vain if he found the door still locked. Part of Nathanial hoped it would be. Then, he could drift back to his quarters and sleep. It would be so nice, so easy, to give up, to fall asleep, and wake with the hope that all had magically righted itself while he slumbered.
The walls here were fixed with a granite façade. Carved into it was a scene Nathanial did not recognise. It was a gathering of men, well-dressed, arranged in a circle with a man in their centre, on his knees, his shirt open, revealing a naked chest. He was blindfolded. Before him stood another well-dressed figure, pressing the tip of a sword against the kneeling man’s breast. A number of symbols adorned the carving, none of which Nathanial knew, either. He felt each part, but found nothing resembling the mechanism. The façade ended a few inches from the floor, protruding slightly. He ran his fingers along the bottom here, and there he felt the catch.
“Ha!” he cri
ed a bit too loudly. The mechanism clacked, and the panel slid open, revealing a dark room.
Inside Jasperse found a palm plate which, when pressed, flooded the room with a normal amount of lighting. Both men took a few moments to let their eyes adjust, and then they began an examination of the room’s contents.
“Place seems smaller than I expected,” Jasperse said immediately.
One look around the room, and they knew Loaves’ killer was no longer here.
“How?” Nathanial asked.
“Maybe he did slip past after he gave Loaves the slice.”
“It just doesn’t seem possible.”
“Possible or not, it is what it is, sir. He’s not here, or he’s doing a magnificent job of hiding.” Jasperse picked through a pile of rubble. “Seems a waste to leave here without something to commemorate the occasion, though, eh?”
Nathanial sighed, disappointed. “I need something to use as leverage against Doctor van den Bosch when I next meet with him,” he said. “To convince him to let me fire the stabilisers, I need to suggest something else that so goes against the grain that he’s forced to choose the lesser of two evils.”
“And if he chooses to deny both of your evils? He’s prone to such things, you know.”
The remains of the lab were burned black along the floor and the walls. Broken rubble, some of it furniture, most of it scientific implements, lay strewn everywhere. Here was a room that had survived a terrible battle. There was no mistaking it.
“Jasperse, the story you told me the other day, about Dolan saving van den Bosch from the lab accident that killed Wren. Did he ever say what caused the accident?”
The older man stopped and scratched a muttonchop. “Not that I recall.”
“Could they have had an argument that escalated into violence?”
Jasperse nodded. “It’s possible, it is. Every worker on this station has a tale of seeing the two of them having a row.” He looked about with a sour cast to his face. “Certainly looks like the case here.”
“Indeed.”
“Will you use that as your leverage, then?”
“No. No, whatever the case may be, Doctor van den Bosch is still an eminent scientist and a well-respected member of the scientific community. I won’t stoop to blackmail, especially when I have no proof of wrongdoing.”
“You could question Dolan. He might tell you what you need to know.”
“I’d rather not. I don’t believe Dolan cares much for me, at any rate. I’d likely waste what precious time I have.”
“I can question him for you.”
Nathanial chuckled. “I don’t want him tortured, Jasperse, but thank you.”
“Torture him with a bloody whiskey bottle, I would. You’d have your answers right quick, and painless for all involved.”
Along the wall were the remains of some machine. This must be what Jasperse had described, Nathanial thought, the experiment Wren was performing concerning the luminiferous aether. It was a wreck, but Nathanial could imagine from its remains what a working model might look like.
“My God, Jasperse, Professor Wren was trying to harness the power of an aether vortex!”
“Sounds very dangerous.”
“Yes, I believe it was. The mishap must have occurred with this machine, though, for it looks like most of the destruction in this room emanated from it. I daresay you were right. The destruction wrought by even a small vortex could likely have caused Doctor van den Bosch’s injuries, no matter how unlikely that seems.”
“But why experiment with such a thing at all? I refer to my original concern on this matter, sir. Why develop such a lab at all when there’s so much to do, and lose, here?”
“I can’t tell you that, but I can say the applications of such a thing are limitless. Power. Lightning in a bottle. With a single vortex of decent size, you could give electricity to all of England. Steam power would cease to exist except in the most extreme cases.”
“Hard to imagine a world without it, sir, if you ask me.”
Nathanial examined the machine one last time. It was damaged beyond repair, and at any rate, it was no longer coupled to any power source. This was not the device that was drawing so much of the station’s power. A brilliant discovery, but this was hardly what was going to sway van den Bosch. He needed something else.
Jasperse found an open safe containing Wren’s papers. They went through them, yet found nothing of any real use. Most of it was just theories, things scribbled in haste. One curiosity existed, though. The notes were written by two different people. The handwriting, often changing abruptly in mid-sentence, occurred on nearly every page.
Strange, Nathanial thought. Someone else must have been working with Wren on this, but who? Was it van den Bosch himself? He peered at the handwriting. No, he had seen the man’s handwriting often enough, his lettering large, flowing, and elegant. Wren’s handwriting was blocked and precise, much as it had been on the station blueprints. These words here, these break-ins, were wild, scrawled, as if by some madman. Strange.
“What’s this?” Jasperse asked. From beneath a stack of the papers he removed a small book, exquisitely made, with a fine, soft leather binding, its pages a heavy cream-coloured vellum.
“It’s a journal of some sort,” Nathanial replied. “Wren’s journal, unless I miss my guess.”
Jasperse gave it over and went to look elsewhere. Nathanial sat on the floor and flipped through. He turned to the middle, chose an entry at random, and began reading. Again, here was Wren’s precise script, though with a touch of strong emotion not present in his notes.
Tuesday, September 6th, 1887:
H has been at me again. He wishes–no, demands–my involvement in this project of his. Again, I have attempted to deny him, but he knows too much. He spoke only a single name today, Le Boeuf, and I knew then that I had no more choice in the matter. He knows too much and will not hesitate to use even the dustiest ancient history to make me a target for scorn and ridicule by our peers. So I will do this thing for him. I’ll give him his Taj Mahal, and I hope that God sees fit to choke him with it.
Le Boeuf. Nathanial did not recognise the name, but van den Bosch’s use of it was clear. He had blackmailed Professor Wren into designing Peregrine Station. That was how he had coaxed the recluse out of his nice, country laboratory in Shropshire. Just as he was blackmailing Nathanial. He wondered if the others, the department heads like Fullbright, who Nathanial knew had a comfortable post with the Navy before arriving here, were in similar straits. Any of them might have sabotaged the stabilisers. He wondered; was he starting in the wrong place? Should he seek out wrongdoing first and find the culprit instead?
“Jasperse, was there ever an inquiry made concerning the stabilisers?”
The soldier was examining the remains of a bookshelf whose books were mostly burnt black. He looked up. “What sort of inquiries, sir?”
“Did Doctor van den Bosch ever rule out sabotage?”
“No. Never.”
“Then why were Dolan and the rest of you made security?”
“To protect the station against, uh…” Jasperse looked upward in thought, took two long, even breaths, and then said, “I’m not really sure.”
Exactly. What was it they were supposed to be protecting? Prior to Wren’s death, there had been no security force. What had happened in the intervening time that had precipitated the need for armed men protecting the station? Had van den Bosch learned of a threat, one he was not sharing with the others?
Nathanial looked down at the journal. He flipped to the final entry, went back a few pages, and began again.
Wednesday, April 3rd, 1889,
The last of the crates arrived by supply ship this morning. Le Boeuf was smuggled in with the shipment, along with his assistant, a rough fellow named Brennan. They are well-hidden now, and work on Torquilstone can begin now that we’re aboard Peregrine. I walk a razor blade now. H, believing the aether machine is mine, has readily agreed to allow its co
nstruction. Really, it is wholly of Le Boeuf’s design. Everything is.
This place. I walk its halls, imagining where every statue, every mural, even the fountain outside my laboratory, will someday sit. Peregrine is supposed to be the sum total of my genius, yet it is the product of another’s imagination. It strangles me to think of it, but I cannot allow H to ever believe otherwise. If he knew the truth, he would destroy me, just as I also know that when Torquilstone is complete, he’ll seek to steal it. Let him. I shall remove myself from the conflict and let him have his final confrontation with Le Boeuf, a cataclysm twenty years in the making.
Nathanial read through a few more, but they were mostly amorphous thoughts and of little interest. In frustration he turned to the final entry.
April 15, 1889,
H knows. When he questioned me today about the function of the aether machine, I could not adequately tell him. He has demanded I discontinue my experiments. His suspicions are high. He will dig further, and I cannot stop him. He will learn the whole truth, that Peregrine is not mine, that Torquilstone is a lie, that nothing has ever truly belonged to me. I will be discovered.
That is fine. Time to end this charade. He likes to meet with me every evening, berating me, asking penetrating questions for which there are no answers, and then berate me anew when I cannot answer them, as if he knows the truth and is merely toying with me. I shall tell him, then, before he learns it on his own. He’ll get no satisfaction from me. There will be no victory.
I would ride this station into the depths of Hell if I could.
Nathanial closed the book and pursed his lips.
Curious. What was Professor Wren admitting to? Was he really a charlatan, then, who had taken credit for another’s work? The name Le Boeuf continued to come up, again and again. Was he the secret genius behind Wren’s reputation? Such a thought was too fantastic to even consider, yet here was this stark admission, so powerfully delivered, that it left little room for scepticism. Here was Professor Wren, so tired of living a lie, that he had literally written the confession of his guilt.
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