The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  “I hear you!” shouted a male voice, crackling with irritation.

  But stepping into the laboratory, I found it untenanted. Eerily, the years did not seem to have changed the room. A gas lamp on the wall hissed quietly, though it was not yet dark outside.

  “Hello?” I called.

  “Don’t touch!” The voice barked from a room beyond. “I’ll know if you steal!”

  “I... I’m sorry to disturb you,” I said.

  “Disturb! All day it’s the same!”

  A crash followed – a chair falling, I thought. Then words in a language I did not recognise, though so clearly swearing as to need no translation.

  “I’m trying to find someone,” I called. “I thought maybe...”

  “Thought you’d disturb Daskal!”

  “...maybe you’d be able to help?”

  A series of thuds followed, metal on wood, getting closer. Then the man – Daskal I assumed – limped through the entrance on the far side of the laboratory, wearing a scowl that matched his words. As he thumped towards me, I saw that his left leg was not a leg at all, but a jointed metal strut. Thin cables ran taut from the place where a foot should have been, passing around wheels at the knee joint, and disappearing up under his trouser leg, which he wore short on that side.

  “Stop gawping,” he said. “Come here and give me a hand.”

  He placed himself on a high stool, which could have been the very one I had perched on as a child. I stepped towards him and accepted the curved metal object which he held out. It seemed like a length of stiff spring with a socket on one end.

  He lifted the metal leg towards me. “Haven’t you seen a foot before?”

  I turned the object in my hand. The gas light reflected from its polished surfaces. Lining up the socket with a pin on the end of the leg, I slotted it home. Two clips snapped shut, gripping it in place. Daskal stood, stamped the metal spring down as if testing the fit of a new shoe. Then he strode back out of the laboratory the way he had entered, quiet and smooth as if all his limbs had been flesh and bone.

  “Don’t touch anything,” he shouted.

  When, after a moment, he hadn’t returned, I parked myself on the high stool. My feet rested flat on the planks of the floor, whereas years before they had dangled.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said, speaking as loud as my male voice would allow. “A young gentleman. An aristocrat, though perhaps not dressed as one. He came to Spitalfields looking for help in... in perfecting a process. A month ago or less.”

  Daskal stepped back into the room, carrying a wicker-encased demijohn, which he placed gently on one of the workbenches. “I trade chemicals not secrets,” he said, though with less bite than before.

  “My hope is to help him.”

  “Feh!”

  “For which I will be paid – that’s true. But it’ll be for his benefit as well.”

  “See this?” he said, patting the demijohn, which I now saw contained a clear liquid. “Would you drink from it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Even if I said it was water?”

  “You’d not carry water with such care.”

  He nodded, satisfied, as if I had proved his argument. “It’s vitriol. Would’ve burned through your throat before you’d swallowed. So you’re not a fool. And it saved your life. You say the man you’re looking for is an aristocrat?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not dressed as one? So he’s no fool either. He doesn’t want to be found. We’re not spies here. No one’s going to help you.”

  Daskal’s expression was set firm. It suggested no compromise.

  I stood. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “How did you know where to find me?” he asked, as I turned to go.

  “I didn’t. That is, I was looking for a scientist. Not you in particular.”

  “But there’s no sign on the door. How did you know what you’d find at the top of the stairs?”

  “I came here once. Years ago. There was a man with a long beard.”

  Daskal nodded. “Old man Bulmer. That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s made any sense.”

  “He gave me a glass marble,” I said.

  “That’s him.”

  An awkward silence followed, as if I had made some embarrassing confession. Then Daskal adjusted the lamp on the wall. The hissing of the gas stopped and the light went out.

  “We’ve had strangers all over us for days,” he said. “Watching. Asking questions.”

  “How many days?”

  “Three. Four. Did you know you were followed here?” He nodded at the window.

  I edged towards it until I could see the street outside. Dusk had fallen and there were fewer people than before. But one man stood leaning against the wall opposite, his arms folded across his chest, the glowing tip of a cigarette just visible. Though half his face was hidden below the brim of a dented bowler hat, I knew it was Yan the Dutchman, proud member of Harry Timpson’s troop.

  Daskal waved me through the back room to a second set of stairs, even narrower than the ones at the front. “I’ll not come down,” he said, patting the top of his metal leg.

  There being no light and no rail, I kept my hands on the two walls as I descended. Feeling blind, I found the handle of a rear door and let myself out into the cold. A passageway between high walls led me behind the buildings, then turned, bringing me back towards the street.

  The shadows at the end of the passageway were deep enough for my safety, though I could see Yan clearly enough. As I watched, he sucked the last life out of his cigarette and cast the dog end to the ground.

  Thinking back, it seemed likely that he was the person who had been staring at me in the moments before I stepped through Daskal’s doorway. He would not have recognised me through my disguise. But caught in my memories, I must have seemed out of place. And since Orville was his target, he would have been keeping special watch for a young man who did not fit in.

  Questioning the locals would not have yielded any clues – if Daskal was to be believed. Therefore, Timpson’s troop would have scattered through the streets, watching and waiting. Perhaps Orville was holed up in a room somewhere with his machine, gradually starving. He could not stay put forever.

  It was another five minutes before Yan hefted himself lazily off the wall. I watched as he brushed down his long coat and set off along the street.

  I could have chosen that moment to escape. But the thought never occurred to me. As soon as Yan turned the corner, I was out of my hiding place and running in pursuit. If I could find out which streets Timpson’s men patrolled, I would have narrowed my own search.

  At the end of Strype Street, I slowed to a walk and an imitation of casual relaxation. Turning the corner, I saw Yan striding out some thirty yards ahead. Too close. Slowing further, I let the distance increase. A sign on the house opposite read “Leyden Street”. I fixed the name in my memory. On the other side of the road, a scarf-wrapped figure hurried past. In the distance I could hear the rattle of carriage wheels. If only there were more people out and about, my task would have been easier.

  By the next junction, Yan’s lead had grown to fifty yards. As he turned left, I saw him nod towards a doorway – an acknowledgement of someone standing in the shadow. To turn back now would be to reveal myself. And if they recognised me, a blade would surely be slipped under my ribs. They would drag me into a side passage and leave me to bleed out, unseen.

  My pulse pounding in my ears, I turned left, following Yan.

  “Evening,” came a voice from the shadowed doorway.

  I touched the brim of my hat and walked on without breaking step. Surely he must have seen my limbs trembling. But there was no sound of following footsteps. Realising I had been holding my breath, I exhaled through clenched teeth. I glanced at the sign on the wall: Cobb Street. How wide had they thrown their net?

  A steamcar rumbled past, filling the air with noise and smoke. Fresh manure lay on the cobbles
here, as if a drover had only recently passed through the street with his herd.

  The next junction was with Bell Lane. Yan made no new gesture as he turned right. The colony of Jewish scientists had thinned to almost nothing. A row of food shops lay ahead – a haberdasher and a barber had the ground floor of a terrace of tenement buildings. Lamplight shone dimly in some of the upper storey windows.

  I turned the corner to follow. Too late, I saw Lara standing in the doorway directly ahead. She jumped in front of me, palm upturned.

  “Spare a copper, sir?”

  I side-stepped but she followed my movement. So I grabbed her shoulder and shoved her out of the way. Behind me she swore – too loud and deliberate to be a natural reaction. A warning, I thought, alerting another watcher who would be waiting ahead. The panic was rising in me again. The street too empty. If I ran, they would catch me. I could hear the din of an approaching carriage behind. The wheel rims clattering on the cobbles, getting louder.

  Down the road, Yan had turned to face me. A shadow shifted from the wall to join him. I knew it was Silvan even before I saw his face.

  I jinked into the road, stepping into the path of the carriage. The driver shouted a warning. I could hear the horses’ hooves sliding on the cobbles as he reined back. But I was across the road. I felt the whip of the air as the lead horse passed a few inches behind my shoulder. Then I was sprinting after it, using all the freedom of my male clothes. The horses had passed me and I was level with the carriage, accelerating as I ran, trying to keep it between me and my pursuers. Pelting down the road until my lungs were burning and the horses began to pull away.

  Still running, I snatched a look behind me. No one had followed. I slowed to a stop, gasping for breath, bracing my hands against my knees.

  Seconds passed before I realised that I was not alone on the street. A man in a battered hat had set off, walking away from me, away from Spitalfields. He wore a long coat, frayed at the hem. Afterwards, I realised it was his gentlemanly gait that marked him out. It was a subtle thing, only of note because it mismatched his clothing. I would have missed it had my senses not been tightly strung.

  I took a glance to check that the street behind us was still empty, then called out, “Excuse me, sir.”

  The man turned up his collar and quickened his pace.

  I sprang into a light-footed run, catching up before he realised what I was doing.

  “Leave me alone!”

  But I was in front of him already and had looked into his eyes before he managed to turn away. Clean-shaven cheeks emphasised every angle of a face that might have been carved from marble. In this low light I could not see the colour of his eyes, but knew them already to be sapphire blue. I’d never met the Duchess’s brother, but he could not be mistaken.

  “Please wait.”

  Such was my excitement that my words came out high-pitched, as nature had intended. I tensed for his reaction, but he did not break step.

  “Go away!”

  I opened my throat, bringing my voice down in pitch. “Please wait.”

  “Lay a hand on me and I’ll shout for help!”

  “Mr Orville!”

  That stopped him.

  “Your sister sent me,” I said.

  “My... sister?”

  “I’m to find you and bring you back to her.”

  A confused frown was creasing his forehead. “I have nothing for her.”

  “She loves you.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “And what is it to you anyway?”

  “She’s paying me.”

  “In advance, I hope. Because I’ll not go back.”

  “I think you’ve misjudged her.”

  “If she’s sent you here, it’ll be for some motivation of her own. I’d never have consented to live in the same house with her but for the Duke.”

  His words made no sense. I’d seen the look of love in the Duchess’s eyes when she spoke of him. And her desperation when she thought I had given up.

  “You stole from the Duke,” I said.

  He turned to look back up the road. We had put a good distance between ourselves and the place where Timpson’s men had been waiting.

  “The machine,” I prompted. “You stole it.”

  Orville’s back and shoulders had been upright and rigid as oak beams. Now they began to sag. “The Duke wanted rid of it. Didn’t it occur to you that my sister might want the machine for herself?”

  “No.”

  “She’s a passable actor when the need drives her.”

  “I believe you have her wrong.”

  He breathed the sigh of a defeated man. “We’ll never know one way or the other. The machine’s lost now. Or at least unreachable.”

  “How so?”

  “The landlord told me that strangers were snooping about asking questions. So I hid the machine and went out to look for myself. There was a certain dwarf from Timpson’s troop skulking at the corner of the road. He saw me but I ran. If I return now, they’ll follow and find my lodgings.”

  “But you hid the machine.”

  “Not well enough.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “This will be the third night. My money’s all but gone.”

  I examined his face again, now noticing the fatigue and the shadow lines under his eyes. “If I could help you reclaim your machine, would you at least come with me to see your sister?”

  “It’s impossible.”

  “Getting to the machine will be easy. Getting away with it may be harder. But I believe I can help you.”

  “To retrieve the machine...” he seemed to turn the thought in his mind. “Yes. For that, I’d suffer a meeting with my sister. Though it’d be a brief one.”

  “All I ask is that you see her. Then I’ll be paid. Afterwards you can go – if you still want to.”

  He nodded. “Very well.”

  “But to do this, I’ll need to tell you something. And you must promise to keep it secret.”

  He took my hand and we shook on the agreement.

  “You have small hands,” he said.

  I swallowed, tightening my throat so that my voice would return to its feminine pitch: “That’s what I need to explain.”

  Chapter 36

  Do not trouble yourself over what the audience can see. Only worry on what they will think they have seen when they walk from your pitch at the end of the show.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  The first five houses yielded nothing but confused expressions and scratched heads. At the sixth we were confronted by a man so muscled it seemed his head rested directly on his shoulders with no neck between. I asked my question and instead of a blank “no” he bit his lip and glanced anxiously back into the rooms behind.

  “We’ll pay double the price of a new one,” I said.

  Thus we walked away from that house and back towards Leyden Street, pushing a small perambulator before us.

  I’d been spending the Duchess’s money with reckless abandon. Little now remained. Soon there would be insufficient to cover a journey back to the Republic. Not that I was planning on returning. One way or another, I was in the Kingdom to stay.

  The revelation of my true gender had not surprised Mr Orville as much as I had expected. The equilibrium of his world being already deranged, one more strangeness added little to the confusion. Indeed, I think he had already begun to see through the disguise.

  I had reverted to my female persona now, and was wearing the green skirt and coat purchased from the used clothing shop in South Leicester. My hair was pinned up under the hat. It was not a disguise as such. If Yan or Silvan or any of them looked me in the face, they would know.

  Our hope lay in the dim light and in the confusion of context. Timpson’s troop were searching for Mr Orville, a clean-shaven young man. Perhaps they also kept an eye open for me, a single young woman. But walking together, pushing the perambulator in front of us we seemed for all the world a young mar
ried couple, not worth a closer look. That had been the plan. But making our way back from Bishopsgate Coach Station to the Jewish quarter, it was brought home to me how little Mr Orville understood about disguise and how short a time I had to teach him.

  He raised his hand to his chin again.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “Is the hair still in place?”

  “It’s glued. It’ll not shift until you pull it free. And then you’ll feel it ripping at your skin.”

  “They’ll know me.”

  “They won’t look closely enough. But you must walk more freely.”

  “My walking isn’t correct?”

  “You walk too stiffly upright, like an aristocrat. Let your shoulders roll.”

  He made an attempt.

  “Better,” I said. “But I’m supposed to be your wife. Let your arm touch me. And your hip.”

  “It doesn’t seem... right.”

  Wondering whether it was my virtue or his that he hesitated to sully, I slipped my hand around his arm and pulled him in closer. “Don’t lean away! You must enjoy the contact or others will think it strange.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “We’re only pretending,” I said, though partly for my own benefit. Through the coat, I could feel the pleasant firmness of his muscles. I hadn’t touched someone of the opposite sex with this manner of intimacy since I was a girl. Beneath clothes and soap every person’s skin has its own scent. My reaction to Orville’s had taken me aback.

  More must have been known of the science of fire in those few streets than anywhere else in the Empire. Yet the corporation had chosen to set the lamps there low, as if the inhabitants were less deserving of illumination.

  The wheels of the perambulator clicked over the paving stones as we walked.

  “Relax yourself,” I whispered. “You love me, remember.” I looked down into the place where a baby should have rested and favoured my battered travelling case with an affectionate smile.

  Yan was even more conspicuous now that the street was empty and the shops closed. He peered from the other side of the road, leaning forward as if about to set off to intercept us. Any closer and he would recognise me. I found myself tensing, ready to run. But after a moment he leaned back against the wall once more and I began to breathe again.