The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel

by Philippa Ballantine

  With a cheery wave to the Angel’s security crew, Eliza reached up for the release. With a hard kthunk audible even with the rush of air around them, the aeroflyer dropped, but only a few feet before Eliza pulled back on the yoke, then made adjustments accordingly to how she handled the steering, how open the throttle was, and exactly how to manage the disruption of air currents. They banked dangerously close towards the gondola, only to level out. The passengers of both first and second class were obvious, pressing their faces against the observation windows to get a glimpse at this wild and unexpected display of derring-do. Eliza could still make out, in the deep violet of night, the smart white hats and blazers of the bridge crew. She gave a proper salute to the captain before banking away from the Angel and shooting ahead into the grand void.

  Her fingertips now felt in the dark for what her eyes had caught a glimpse of, and there at the top of the dashboard Eliza found the solitary switch. It flipped up, and from behind the various gauges a soft light rose, illuminating the cockpit enough for her to plot their heading in the simplest, most base manner.

  East. They needed to head east.

  “Are you all right up there?” Wellington asked.

  “As well as we will ever be,” she returned, glancing over her shoulder. Now the only thing piercing through the absolute darkness were the Angel’s running lights, a considerable distance behind them. “If we follow an easterly course, we should hit . . . something.”

  She was expecting to hear that droll in his voice when things were at their worst, but instead he came back with “Indeed. Even if we reach Ireland, ’twill serve as a story for the ages.”

  “You seem resigned to whatever Fate has in store, Welly. Not sure if I like this.”

  “For what it is worth, darling,” he said quite frankly, “the past two days have been sheer bliss. If we die on this madcap escape, I will be happy to perish with you.”

  Eliza let out a laugh. “I really don’t want to die.”

  “Neither do I, so please focus on flying this bloody thing and returning us to terra firma with all speed, safely.”

  Her eyes went back to the instruments. She had plenty of altitude. Her course was steady. All that she needed was the pressure to remain constant, for the tailwind to continue, and to last through the night and into the morning. Finding solid ground was going to be the real trick.

  Aside from landing safely, of course.

  INTERLUDE

  Wherein the Hand of Her Majesty Is Felt

  Gertrude “Galloping Gertie” Courtney was used to people trying to kill her. She was used to knowing their names, in many situations. She was not used to the assassins being her own colleagues.

  The Webley-Maxim Mark I—or, as she and her mates back at the Dark Continent referred to it, “The Brass Knuckles”—cracked open under her grasp. Cradling the open weapon in her left arm, she slipped free the three empty casings there, replacing them with fresh ones. Gertie then checked the magazine and noted that she had at least half a clip. So, in all—five bullets, three high-velocity shells.

  She bit her bottom lip as she jerked the weapon shut and hefted it with her right arm. It was a roll of the bones if she had enough ammunition on hand to see another sunrise over African skies.

  As she crouched in the dark alleyway, her heart racing, her breath coming out in short white clouds before her, Gertie knew whatever she did, she could not flee to one of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences safe houses here, either in the city or country. They would assuredly know the network. Even minus the signet ring she had thrown away earlier, the Department was still able to track her. That was their speciality, their forte. Pubs preferred. Favourite locations for dead drops. Even her frequented tea shops. The Department seemed to be able to track her scent, as if Old Man Quartermain himself had passed down the skill to them.

  The back alleys of the East End were a labyrinth, though, and perhaps she could lose her pursuers in its shadows. Even with little changes over the years, Gertie still knew her way through these streets. She would have preferred to be back in Africa, back in what her countrymen and women referred to as the bush but she now called home.

  Gertie adjusted her left arm, feeling the hot, sticky blood pooling in her gloves. It was fortunate she was right-handed, but her attacker managed to get in a lucky strike with the blade. For the first few city blocks, she was running through her mind which likely toxins anointed that blade. It had been a deep cut, meaning whatever poison employed could be swift, but then it dawned on Gertie that the Department wouldn’t have made her termination so public. That was not their sworn duty. When she caught a whiff of her own blood and saw the few drops that managed to stand out even in the filth-strewn streets of London, she understood exactly what they were planning.

  Slow down their kill.

  Follow the trail.

  Wait until she was far gone from the eyes of Her Majesty’s subjects.

  Her elbow shattered the windowpane beside her, granting easier access to the physician’s office. Gertie started counting silently to herself as she ransacked the examination room, stuffing bandages, alcohol, and—as luck would have it—cocaine into her coat pockets. About the time she had reached “fifty” in her counting, she heard movement upstairs.

  Time to leave.

  With a cursory glance outside, Gertie slipped back into the alleyway and continued her escape into the darkness. Her eyes darted left and right as she kept moving forwards, deeper into a city she had once been familiar with, but not a place where she felt as safe as she did in Africa. It was supposed to have been a quick stay in the London office. Three more days, and she would have been on the first airship back to Cape Colony. She had enjoyed the extended stay at headquarters, but was more than ready to return home.

  Tonight, it was her imperative to return to her corner of the Empire and disappear into the Serengeti.

  Gertie paused in an alcove just before what she could only assume from the commotion was a pub, its patrons still enjoying the night’s revels. She slowed her own breathing, straining to hear anything other than the bawdy lyrics of the drunkards and whores caterwauling from rented rooms above. She couldn’t completely trust the summation of her current hiding place, though, as she was feeling a bit foggy from the loss of blood.

  She slipped off her long coat and casual jacket underneath. Again with a quick look out from her hiding place, Gertie tugged and tore at her shirtsleeve, removing the blood-soaked fabric to look at the gash running down the length of her bicep. Even in the dim light of this alleyway, the wound looked as if it were a second mouth screaming in desperate need of a surgeon’s skill. Gertie quietly removed the alcohol’s cork with her teeth, took a deep breath, and bit hard into the bark tissue as she poured the solution over the cut. She then fished out the syringe and loaded it up with a healthy dose of cocaine. The right amount, she knew, would numb the pain and still keep her alert. Truly a wonder drug.

  Provided the dosage was just right.

  Once her wound was bandaged up, Gertie slipped back on the evening jacket. The night air on her face caressed her skin as would the fingertips of a lover. Details attempting to hide in the shadows, such as a couple enjoying a tryst in another alleyway, a poor sod unconscious and being picked clean by street urchins, and a priest seeming lost in a small book of scriptures, all now came into a hard focus. The dosage she had administered was spot-on, apparently. Using the remaining alcohol to clean her hands of the blood, she shoved her left hand into the pocket of her coat, and fixed her right’s grip on the Brass Knuckles. Gertie’s mind was already starting to clear as she slipped back into the dim light of East End.

  Still no sign of her pursuers. Hardly a reason to celebrate. “Galloping Gertie” Courtney was a Department matter now.

  Slinking through the back alleyways and sticking to shadows, she once again ran through her mind what few options remained. Safe h
ouses? Absolutely not. Contacts? There were a few still active she could call upon using aliases, but would the Department have accessed her previous cases already? Gertie lacked details as to exactly how much time elapsed between the Department’s orders and her own receipt of the Phantom Protocol alert. Best assumption: they were well aware of her previous cases, her aliases, and her contacts.

  Her known contacts. And that conclusion had brought her to this particular alleyway across from the Princess Alice.

  No movement from the windows above the pub, as far as she could see. Gertie looked down at the Brass Knuckles. The damn thing was too big for a proper holster so if she wanted to appear inconspicuous, she would have to risk going in unarmed.

  The clip ejected into her hand and disappeared into her right pocket with her spare ammunition. Setting the weapon aside, hidden between empty crates, Gertie suddenly felt as if she were naked against the elements. Only for a few moments, she assured herself. With another look at the Princess Alice, Gertie pulled her bowler hat down as far as it would fit over her head, shoved both hands into her pockets, and started a slow walk to the pub, adding a slight limp to her step for a final effect.

  Patrons wandered in and out of the pub but Gertie, instead of accepting the warm invitation of the Princess Alice, veered across its entrance to follow Wentworth. Pausing at the first alleyway to look either side, her head still hung low and shoulders hunched, she took stock of her corner of East End. Passersby, the very subjects she had kept safe from villains and adversaries well beyond any sort of imagination they could nurture, paid no mind to her, although gentlemen would glance nervously in her direction. Hopefully in her current outfit, she appeared no more than a short bruiser, hunched within her own garments to mimic the effects of a heady night. This disregard allowed Gertie the opportunity to slip into the alleyway without concern or notice. Sparing one more glance over her shoulder, breathing the easiest she had all night, she paused at the bricks opposite Princess Alice’s rear entrance.

  “Five inside,” Gertie whispered as she tapped on the lightest brick in the wall, progressing to the left. “Three down.”

  With a gentle push, the brick swivelled on a centre pivot point. She reached inside a second brick and swung it open. Inside the tiny compartment lay several small leather portfolios. She flipped through them to review legends—Donna Tenlen, Martha Rose, Clara Smithe—only she knew the full details behind. Inside each passport wallet was enough currency that could get her around the world undetected, and far from the reach of the Department and, if necessary, the Ministry.

  She reached further into the nook and gave a little gasp of delight that materialized briefly as fog, only to disappear in the night’s embrace. The British Bulldog, no enhancements or compressors, was a welcomed sight. A reliable sidearm, and far more practical than the Brass Knuckles or the Remington-Elliot ’81, it cracked open to reveal itself more than ready for a firefight. The bullets should have been just fine, judging from the pistol’s condition.

  Bulldog and ammunition in her right pocket. New identities and money in her interior pocket. She gave her left hand a slow flexing of the fingers, and felt only a slight pressure where the cut had been bandaged. She could move, but the wound would need stitches. Ideally now would be the time to test her seamstress skills, but she didn’t think her pursuers would allow her a moment to pause for sewing. The bricks ground softly against one another to return her hiding place once again into the seemingly featureless static brickwork of the alley. Armed with identities, currency, and a second gun, Gertie lacked only one other essential: an escape from London.

  Returning to Wentworth, the feigned limp once more adding character to her silent persona, Gertie shot quick glances to either side of her as she hobbled back to where she had stashed the Brass Knuckles. She was thankful, in this hour closing on midnight, that there were no signs of any Department agents. She knew them as true night dwellers, living for the dark and devious dealings that called for them to creep out of hiding to answer the Queen’s every nuisance. If the Crown found anything or anyone tiresome, she would call upon them and they would answer without question and act with efficiency. Their loyalty to Queen Victoria bordered on fanaticism. This was one reason Gertie found the Department detestable, a rather thankless job if there ever was one and hardly inspiring in her evaluation of the Empire.

  Now, after what she had witnessed at the Tower, her loathing of the Department had transformed itself into a cold fear. If she could just get out of the City, her chances of survival would triple. While cities like Paris and London worked tirelessly to create gas and electrical wonders to chase away the shadows of night, the Dark Continent never failed to enthrall her with the night sky. African skies were unparalleled. The nocturnal vistas stretched high and distant, the twinkling canvas decorated with a breathtaking brushstroke of a brilliant multitude of stars.

  Yes, Africa, Gertie pledged to herself. I will come home soon.

  She suddenly felt her heart picking up in its pace, the Bulldog weighing heavily in her coat pocket. Was that woman across the street staring at her?

  With her affected walk, her own cherub-like profile concealed by the lapels of her long peacoat, Gertie narrowed her eyes on the woman, neither her wide stride nor her limp faltering as she did. She paused to cough, turning in her direction as she did in order to steal a prolonged look at the woman standing as still as a millpond in the dead of winter. The lady was wearing a tweed jacket one would normally wear when bicycling or riding, and she was doing neither at the moment.

  The stranger’s stoic expression turned into a mirthless grin. Whether it was directed to her, Gertie couldn’t tell. Her parasol then opened and was placed gingerly on her right shoulder.

  Gertie didn’t bother to look behind her. She just ran, her escape now reduced to the final granules gathering in the top chamber of an hourglass, slipping faster now that she had been discovered. This was not going to be a simple egress from London any longer, not by any measure.

  The world around her disappeared on ducking into an alleyway, continuing down identical alleyway after identical alleyway. This shortcut burst out into another street. Gertie’s pace never slowed, which was why she stumbled on hearing the yell of the hansom driver, immediately followed by the scream of horses. She rolled away, feeling the spray of dirt and gravel as the horses’ hooves stomped angrily against the road, before scrambling back to her feet.

  In the brief glance she stole of the hansom driver, Gertie noticed him checking his pocket watch. He did so, but there was no fare in the cab. There were no fares to be seen anywhere around them. Even as the horses had stilled, the pocket watch remained open in his hand.

  She had to keep running, had to put as much distance between her and the Princess Alice. Her impact with the man and—from the smell of her—paramour, sent a hard shock to her injured shoulder. She heard the gentleman’s cane clatter to the ground, and was certain she landed on a top hat. Through the pain of the impact, Gertie managed to pull herself back on her feet, even under the prostitute swearing a true tempest of vulgarities that she would normally not leave unanswered, but she answered only to the “flight” instinct at present.

  Run, she thought quickly, run until you cannot anymore.

  Gertie had no idea how many alleyways or street corners she had put between herself and the pub before she came to an intersection and froze. The Amédée Bollée was much like the gentlemen still wandering at this hour through the quieting streets of London’s East End—a diamond in the rough. Gertie clambered into the cabin of the motorcar and pressed the starter. Its rapid click-click-click resembled that of a timepiece, or perhaps a time bomb counting down to the moment when everything would disappear in a singularity of fire and force. Instead, she heard the rush of flame and felt the engine shudder in front. Underneath the motorcar, wisps of pearlescent smoke rose around her, standing out in stark contrast to the night. Gertie released
the brake, fixed her grip on the steering wheel, and pushed the accelerator forwards.

  The loathing that had become fear was now daring to manifest itself as panic. Through the thick veil of the Amédée Bollée’s boiler steam, Gertie could see the woman in tweed appear in the street ahead of her, her parasol still open.

  She slammed the accelerator forwards into the car’s floorboard, but instead of launching forwards, chains leapt out of the dash to bind Gertie’s wrists to the motorcar’s steering wheel. The metal looked deceptively fragile; but the more Gertie struggled against them, the tighter the coils grew, digging deep into the agent’s flesh. The accelerator could go no further, but her motorcar did not budge. The engine merely thrummed smoothly in reply, its idle never changing even as she thrust the pedal forwards again and again.

  Then her eyes went to her left. Stepping into the light were the man and his paramour she had careened into during her mad flight from Wentworth Street. Both were wearing the same tweed jackets, just as the woman with the parasol. Her gaze jumped to the right where a hansom cab came to a halt on the other side of the street. The driver climbed down from his perch, revealing from underneath his black cloak a similar tweed pattern. Gertie didn’t know why she felt the need to do so—it seemed to be a futile, desperate act—but she gave another tug against her bindings while giving the accelerator another hard push. Neither made a difference, apart from drawing blood from her wrists.

  This intersection was miraculously deserted, the windows of the surrounding houses dark, and vacant, so there would be no other witnesses except Gertie’s Department companions.

  The woman who had dogged her heels collapsed her parasol before taking a few steps closer to the motorcar. Gertie could just make out in the fine curved handle three buttons, and it was an emerald one her gloved finger pressed.