by Viola Carr
Above the stage hung a vast glass sphere with a central electrode, suspended from a bulky metal scaffold. Eliza waved at Byron Starling, who was measuring aether levels, dark hair tied back and mismatched spectacles shining. He smiled, with a rueful glance at Remy beside her. She smiled back. At least he had a sense of humor.
In the wings, an older man with soft gray hair read from an instrument panel, scribbling figures in a notebook. And behind the table, fiddling with the testing wires . . .
“That’s Seymour Locke,” whispered Eliza with satisfaction. His flyaway blond curls were oiled down severely, which only emphasized his pale, pointed face. He looked like a cartoon mourner, with his bleak untidy suit and reddened eyes. “The murdered girl’s unlucky fiancé. Reeve arrested him, but . . . oh, she’s about to start!”
“Typically, aether electricity is inefficient,” Professor Crane began, in her broad Edinburgh accent. “Energy is wasted via noise, and the incomplete reaction leaves the black smoke and residue you’re all familiar with. This engine is designed to eliminate that wastage by de-phlogisticating the aether with close to perfect efficiency. Eighty-nine percent,” she added with emphasis, “the best we’ve yet achieved.”
Not a few people applauded, including Locke. Even the railway man Paxton looked impressed.
“A captive audience,” whispered Remy in Eliza’s ear. “She’s quite the celebrity.”
“Science is popular,” she whispered back. “The public have a growing appetite for new gadgets, as well as for learning the science that drives them. The revolution is on its way, Captain. Doesn’t bode well for the Philosopher’s rule.”
Remy shrugged, unconcerned. “Believe me, the Empire could do a lot worse.”
Part of her longed to bite back her words. Remy had his reasons for keeping his Royal Society commission. He knew their “rules” were mercurial, corrupt, and self-serving. He’d defied them for years, hiding his arcane curse behind his investigator’s iron badge.
She shifted awkwardly in her seat. Was Remy working right now? Surveying this new invention for the Royal, reporting back to Sir Isaac? Scoping it out on the Foreign Secretary’s behalf for the war effort?
Or merely spending a pleasant afternoon with her?
“With current technology, our hovering devices must be constantly recharged, or tethered to a ground-based generator,” continued Professor Crane, tightening one last connection with her spanner. “This unit is small and light enough to be self-contained. And the efficient de-phlogistication means cleaner operation, with minimal noxious fumes, fewer health problems for workers, and increased productivity. Everyone wins.” She unveiled an unnecessarily large red button on the machine’s side. “Ladies and gentlemen, please do not look directly at the coil. Mr. Locke, in your own time.”
Locke tugged down his own dark lenses, flicked a series of switches and levers, and stepped back. “Ready, Professor.”
With a flourish, Crane hit the button.
A high-pitched magnetic whine emerged, barely audible at first, then growing. The glowing coil juddered, brightening until it hurt the eyes. The stormy taste of aether thickened. It was hard to breathe. The air shimmered and sparkled, the field energizing, and the suspended electrode began to crackle and hum with lightning forks of power.
Crrackk! The glass globe exploded, a rain of glittering shards.
Livid blue current hurtled back down the wires. Boom! The engine exploded, flash and fire like thunder, knocking Crane and the gray-haired man flat and staggering Locke back against his instruments in a cloud of smoke.
Hipp squealed and disappeared under Eliza’s chair. Mr. Paxton jumped up, clutching his hat and shouting “Fire! Everyone out!” People screamed, running in all directions, trampling the seats and each other in their haste to escape. The princess’s entourage leapt into action, forming a tight circle. “Make way! Make way!” Efficiently, they whisked Victoria out the side door into the street.
Dismayed, Eliza pulled off her dark glasses, fighting in the jostle to see what was happening. “Oh, dear. I don’t think it was intended to blow up . . . Whatever are you doing?”
“That wasn’t an explosion.” Remy jumped onto his chair, bright eyes sweeping the gallery above. “That was a gunshot. There, stop that fellow!”
A dark shape darted along the shadowy gallery. Remy leapt for the railing, dragged himself over, and sprinted off in pursuit.
Eliza fought her way towards the glass-littered stage. Why on earth would someone shoot at Crane’s demonstration? A protester from outside, trying to PRESERVE OUR AETHER? The crowd cleared rapidly, leaving her and the scientists alone. “Is everyone all right?” she called. “Can I help?”
Byron Starling had flung his coat over the burning engine’s wreck to smother the flames. His lenses reflected rainbows. “Dr. Jekyll, what a dreadful shock. I trust you’re safe?”
“What happened? Was it a malfunction?”
“What a brilliant deduction.” A disheveled, dust-clogged Seymour Locke helped the professor to her feet.
Crane was a giant of a woman, towering over Eliza by a full foot, her skirts spattered with broken glass. Her hair had unraveled down her back, and a cut on her chin oozed. She batted Locke away. “That’s enough, Seymour.”
“You’re bleeding,” said Locke harshly. “Are you—”
“Perfectly.” Crane shook herself. “Don’t fuss.”
Eliza pulled a swab and alcohol from her bag. “Allow me. I’m a physician.”
Politely, Crane fended her off. “I’m quite well . . . I say, Ormonde, are you all right?”
The gray-haired fellow—the fourth scientist observed by Lady Redstoat?—had hit the stage’s edge hard, and lay still. Crane rushed to his side. Ormonde murmured, half-conscious, blood trickling from his scalp.
Eliza joined her, examining the wound. “Struck by debris,” she reported, pressing her swab over the gash. “Perhaps a minor concussion. Someone ought to take Mr. Ormonde home and watch him.”
Crane waved at a pair of hovering servants. “You,” she ordered, “find something to carry him on. Careful, mind.”
One darted off to search. “Hold here,” Eliza instructed the other, “it’ll stop the bleeding.” The man smiled condescendingly, and she sighed. “I’m a physician,” she repeated impatiently. “Do as you’re told.” She pushed his hand onto the swab and left him, with a twinge of anger. Why were people so stubborn? Did she not seem competent? Were her words somehow nonsense because she wore a skirt?
Locke was trying to dust off Crane’s clothes. The professor pushed him away. “Never mind that, laddie. Look at this mess! Months of work wasted! My calculations must be made all over again. Not to mention having to explain to . . .” She blew out her cheeks, an angry puff, but in her eyes lurked shadowy fear.
“How did this happen?” Locke stared at the wreckage, pushing his goggles up. A graze across his dusty cheek trickled scarlet. “I arranged it precisely. I checked a dozen times. Everything was perfect.”
“So you say.” Starling glared at him, still thumping out flames. “This configuration was your idea, Locke. Knew we should never have trusted you.”
“That’s not fair,” retorted Locke, flushing. “You’re the one who adjusted the coil. ‘Just like so,’ you said. ‘It’ll work better than yours,’ you said—”
“Enough, gentlemen.” Crane’s sharp eyes flashed. “Time is pressing! We must rebuild, repair, discover what caused the overload.”
“Here’s your cause, madam.” Remy appeared at Eliza’s side, a little out of breath. He hefted an old-fashioned gunpowder revolver. “A single bullet fired. I’m afraid the miscreant eluded me. Why might someone shoot at your engine, Professor?”
Crane studied him coolly from her statuesque height. At the sight of his polished weapons and iron badge, her lip curled. Singularly unimpressed. “Who are you, sir?”
“Captain Remy Lafayette, Royal Society.” He tossed off an elegant bow. “Have you met my colleague
, Dr. Eliza Jekyll, police physician extraordinaire? Perhaps we can help.”
Crane’s frosty stare didn’t melt. “I doubt it, if you’re in the habit of letting revolver-toting vandals escape so easily.”
“Madam, you skewer me.” Remy fired a double-barreled smile. “Perhaps Dr. Jekyll can help, then. I’ll just stand around looking dashing and dull-witted, shall I?”
“She’s the one I told you about,” put in Locke coldly. “From Antoinette’s yesterday. I don’t know who he is. Get rid of them, can’t you, and we can get on with—”
“Seymour, please. We must assist our dear friends any way we can.” The professor ignored Remy, offering her rubber-gloved hand to Eliza. “Ephronia Crane, Professor of Aether Physics at Trinity College. No relation to the late Henry Jekyll, I suppose?”
Eliza smiled faintly. Always the same question. “He was my father.”
“Ah. I attended his classes years ago. Clever man.” Crane sighed. “A police physician, you say? Poor Antoinette. I still can’t believe it.”
“My condolences. And I’m sorry about your engine, too. Is it badly ruined?”
Crane shook her head, morose. “Why would they shoot at us? Why?”
“Did any of you notice anyone in the gallery?”
Locke tossed his head impatiently. “We were concentrating on the equipment, not gazing at the sky.”
“Can you think of anyone who might wish to upset your demonstration?”
Still rummaging through wreckage, Starling snorted a laugh. Crane shot him a sidelong scowl. “I can’t imagine—”
“Everyone’s jealous.” Starling tossed aside a scorched capacitor in disgust. “At Cambridge, in London. They all want our invention for themselves.”
“Why?” asked Remy pleasantly. “What are its applications?”
Starling muttered something under his breath. But Crane shrugged coolly. “Household items, mostly. As I said, it’s more efficient. Which means quieter, and also cleaner, due to the reduced oxide by-products.”
“You mean the burned aether.” Remy gave another stubbornly charming smile. “I believe ‘de-phlogistication’ is the orthodox term. Not to quibble between friends.”
“Naturally.” Crane sent him a you-don’t-impress-me-idiot glare that made Eliza hide a laugh. She’d made the same mistake the day she’d met Captain Lafayette. Imagined him a fool and a show-off, that a man with such confidence and verve couldn’t possibly live up to it. How wrong she’d been.
“It makes any such machine ideal for indoor use,” the professor went on grudgingly. “The domestic applications are endless.”
“And lucrative. You’re a clever scientist, Professor Crane, I daresay far cleverer than I.” Suddenly, Remy’s bright blue gaze wasn’t so innocent. “Yet you honestly can’t think of anyone who might want to put a stop to such a project?”
Crane’s eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to answer.
“What a mess!” An old snowy-haired fellow rushed up to the ruined apparatus, wringing plump hands. His buff suit was creased, his once-white scarf stained yellow. “What a mess, what a frightful muddle! Can anything be salvaged?”
“Speak of the devil,” said Locke, with an unpleasant smile. “Clear off, Wyverne, there’s a good lunatic. This is physics, not extra-dimensional chemistry for crackpots. And Antoinette’s gone, didn’t you hear? No need to lurk about making puppy-dog eyes any longer. Starling’s doing quite enough of that.”
Mr. Wyverne—what an odd name—wiped his damp forehead with his scarf, and Eliza realized with a start that he wasn’t old. Barely thirty, in fact. His hair wasn’t white, but colorless, and his skin held the same translucent hue, as if afflicted with achromatosis. He blinked, nose twitching like a squirrel who’d lost his way—but his red-rimmed eyes glinted, cunning. “You do me grave injustice. Grave! I have skills, sir. Talents, sir! Professor, might I—?”
“No,” snapped Crane, dismissing him with a flick of skirts. “Mr. Starling’s right,” she admitted to Eliza and Remy. “Some of our colleagues resent our potential commercial success.”
“And our scientific acumen.” Starling shoved aside hapless Wyverne, who’d started poking at the burned fragments. “Money isn’t everything.”
“But science isn’t free, either,” said Eliza. “How are you funding this project? Isn’t it difficult to find sponsors for experimental work?”
A cold smile from Crane. “We manage.”
“Come, Professor, modesty doesn’t suit. The market for such a marvelous engine must be competitive.”
“No doubt there’d be interested parties. I hadn’t given it much thought.” Crane tried to feign carelessness, but her edgy gaze betrayed her.
“Interested in its failure, also? Investors in coal, for example, might lose a fortune if this technology became widely available. So might the railway men.”
“If you say so.”
“If we say so?” Remy cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “You still can’t think of anyone who might wish to sabotage your demonstration? I’m disappointed. Perhaps you’re not as clever as I thought.”
Crane sniffed, unmoved. Locke watched with a sardonic smile.
“Look here, sir,” cut in Wyverne, dropping a scrap of charred iron with an indignant clang, “you are far too direct with your insults. What’s your authority here? What’s your expertise?” He shook his stained scarf, threatening. “Clearly you’ve no understanding of finer scientific minds—”
“What the professor means to say,” interrupted Starling, again shoving Wyverne aside, “is that we’re not interested in making money. We’re scientists, not mercenaries. Have a care what you insinuate.”
His comment earned a snort from Locke. Eliza touched Starling’s arm. “Of course. We only wish to unravel what happened.”
“Fabulous technology, though.” Idly, Remy studied a blackened sliver of glass. “Could it be used for vehicles?”
Crane and Locke exchanged glances. Wyverne giggled. Starling cleared his throat. “That’s confidential,” he said.
Remy cut a sharp smile. “Not from me, it isn’t.”
Crane sighed. “Yes, we’re developing a prototype for an automobile.”
“Ships? Hovercraft? Service automata?”
“Certainly.” Her voice had softened strangely.
Remy flicked invisible dust from his sword hilt. “Skyships?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” snapped Locke, unable to contain himself any longer. “Go catch some real criminals, can’t you? It’s strictly orthodox, if that’s what you’re fishing for, even if you’re too stupid to understand the documentation. Have you any idea how many hours all your bloody paperwork soaks up? Why can’t you vultures leave us alone?”
“Ah, the bereaved lover.” Remy’s eyes lit with fresh interest. “So sorry for your loss, Mr. Locke.”
“No, you aren’t.” Insolently, Locke stared him down. “I imagine you’re glad. Another genius dying young, taking her ideas to the grave. Just what you parasites at the Royal want.”
“Oh.” Remy blinked, perplexed. “But wasn’t this engine Miss de Percy’s doctoral thesis? A matter of public record. So her ideas shan’t be buried, shall they? Unless there’s more, that is, which you haven’t documented.”
Locke didn’t flinch. He just grinned, flinty with challenge. Eager. And Remy grinned back.
Eliza rolled her eyes. “Gentlemen, please. All Captain Lafayette means to say is that the nature of your work is key to discovering Miss de Percy’s murderer and the identity of the saboteur, and whether the two events are linked. We must follow every lead.”
“Thank you,” said Crane briskly. “Do let us know if the police have any more questions—”
“Professor Crane?” Mr. Paxton approached, white whiskers gleaming, straight-backed despite his advanced years. Finely tailored suit, gold watch chain, diamond tie-pin. The North-Western Railway Company was evidently making him a fine living. “What a dreadful accident. I trust no one was badly h
urt?”
Crane acknowledged him coldly. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to view the full demonstration, sir. Perhaps if you had, you’d stop spreading lies about my engine being dangerous.”
“It did just blow up, madam,” said Paxton reasonably. “Fair comment, that’s all it is. When you’re tendering for Empire contracts, the public have a right to know.”
“Clear off, Paxton,” cut in Locke rudely. “Go back to your cave and set fire to some coal, or whatever it is you do when you’re not scarring the landscape with railway tracks and starving navvies to death. We don’t need your gloating here.”
Paxton reddened, and he bowed curtly and strode out.
Eliza exchanged glances with Remy, and hurried after Paxton into the street. “Mr. Paxton, sir! Wait!”
“Another time, madam, I’ve a meeting to attend.” At the roadside, Paxton waved for his carriage. Thankfully, the rain had eased, and bleak afternoon sunshine swept the damp pavement. Protesters still waved their placards uncertainly, unsure what had happened inside.
“What’s your opinion of the demonstration, sir? I’m a student of science, and—”
“Then you ought to know the aether is a precious, unstable resource.” Paxton pointed at the PRESERVE OUR AETHER sign. “Why waste it on dangerous, pointless machines? Curse it, where is that coachman?”
“Why develop a competitor to your railway, you mean, that might usurp your government contracts?”
He regarded her coldly. “You have me at a disadvantage, madam.”
“Dr. Eliza Jekyll, Metropolitan Police.” Smoothly she extended her hand. “I was wondering if you knew of anyone interested in having that demonstration fail.”
Stiffly, Paxton drew himself to his full height. “My railway technology is thoroughly tested and our safety record impeccable. We carry thousands of passengers and employ hundreds of men. What will happen to those families if their jobs disappear? Not to mention the new research—of which I’m sure you’re aware, being a woman of science—that shows alarming instabilities in the aether due to over-zealous exploitation without care for conservation. If Professor Crane’s reckless rabble imagine their engine”—disgust sharpened the word—“to be progress in the right direction, they can think again.”