“If you kill me here, you’ll be discovered. Bertie knows you’re coming here with me.”
“That evidence will do nicely. I went to bed. You insisted on snooping round the electrics. Your ‘accidental’ death will be a sadness to everyone.”
“Molly knows.”
“Thanks for your concern.” He grinned. “You read my diary, you little snoop. I saw you. I could see it in your face. What do you know?”
“You set up the blasts,” I said. “You paid them. Instructed them. Provided explosives.”
He sat back, tickled to hear his achievements itemised. “Nobody would believe that.”
“Hard to prove, I admit. But Mersey Jacques has identified you. And we’ll catch Jacques the First—”
He burst out laughing. “Who?”
“All these fools you’ve named Jacques the Painter. Mersey Jacques, who blew up the Florence Veigh. Jacques the First, who was eyeing up Parliament.”
“I don’t remember.” He shrugged. “I’ve paid a lot of vagabonds and idiots.”
“The bloody idiot who’s hiding in your Shepherd’s Refuge, if that makes it clearer.” However befuddled I was, I had to hold back from saying more. Lodestar was plotting with Jacques, and that would be his downfall. He did not know that Jeffcoat was back from his jaunt and ready to pounce.
“Is he?” He clapped his hands. “Is he! Fantastical.”
“Why fantastical? You put him there.”
“The only person I can think of who might have brought him there—oh dear, oh dear.” He put his hand to his mouth, in mock horror. He was play-acting, and enjoying it. “Oh, little Molly. This doesn’t look good for your friend.”
“Molly?” My throat burned. “Why Molly?”
“Faithless bint. She must have an agent of the Frenchies all along. Picture it: the detective sergeant is found electrocuted, sniffing around dangerous equipment.” A wave of nausea shook me, as he let that sink in. “Meanwhile, his come-hither accomplice, who has all the while been spying on Roxbury’s secrets, crucial to the nation’s safety, is found consorting in the hills with a French activist. Was she the mastermind of it all? These waves of terror sweeping the nation?” He clapped his hands. “Why, yes. She comes from London. Contacts in criminal circles. Inveigled her way into the country’s most important company.” He came close and ogled me manically, his nose in my face. “Unfortunately, she dies. I haven’t decided how.”
“Be quiet.”
“A traitress, as well as a harlot—”
“Shut your filthy mouth.”
* * *
Poison in the brandy. He has poisoned my body, addled my wits.
He was dragging my chair back upright. My cheek stung; I barely recalled the blow. The pain in my stomach was worse, anyway. He was speaking matter-of-factly. “I don’t see your objection to the charge of harlotry. From a tuppenny brothel off the Ratcliffe Highway, to my bed.”
I spat at him.
This slap did not knock me over, but it balanced out the pain in my cheeks. I cried out, which gave momentary relief from the sickness in my guts.
“Behold, how gallantly he defends his little harlot.” His eyes gleamed. “You’re right. I did know about the Frenchman in the hut. I’ve informed the authorities.”
“You—informed on him?”
“Responsible citizen, I am.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside me, looking outwards. “Yes, I heard this rumour. Frenchy on the loose. Of course, I told Scotland Yard at once. Asked for Jeffcoat specially.”
“How—how do you mean, you asked for Jeffcoat?”
“Ripon and I have an understanding. What with my important standing in this important firm.” He was enjoying this tremendously, pulling the rug from under my feet. “I’ve told Ripon all the way, I trust your intentions, but that Jeffcoat, he’s less convincing. I mean, are you confident of his loyalty? He’s interviewed all those French activists; maybe they have turned his head? After all, he was always undermining the forts, wasn’t he? Let’s test his loyalty, I told Ripon. Send him under cover, pretend he’s gone abroad, say. Then send him after this Frenchman. If he catches him, he proves himself. If he lets him go free—”
“He won’t.” He was playing with my head. If he had sway over Ripon, who could I trust?
“Then again, he may come to grief in the quicksands behind the Shepherd’s Refuge. Killed in the line of duty, alas, and evidence emerges of his dealings with these activists.”
“There is no evidence.”
“I have all the evidence I want. With you dead, and a proven turncoat, who will gainsay me?” He grabbed hold of my hair, and pulled. “And if you and Jeffcoat were wrong ’uns, your doubts over the Portsmouth Plan unravel.”
My head jerked forward, as he let go. “You don’t know about that plan.”
“Of course I do.” He looked delighted. “I wrote it.”
PLAY-ACTING [LAWLESS]
The rains redoubled on the slate roof above us. A filthy night. The Pump House doors lay open. Outside, the weir and the falls that drove the turbine. My stomach was in revolt, but worst were my curses for my own stupidity.
“Are you unwell, Sergeant?”
“Perfectly well.” I would not give him the satisfaction of describing my pains. He had poisoned me: my eyes were dry, while body shivering. Beside me in the cage, the Patagonian hare quivered as well. “Why have you brought the animal?”
“Would you like to see?” he said, enthused. He peered out, across the gorge, to the house.
The light glowed in the turret of the east wing. He checked his watch, which reminded me: Molly knows; Molly knows I am here.
“Time enough.” He nodded. “Good. Observe.”
He turned to the lever by the doorway, released the catch, and drew it downward. Creak, clunk. As the gears engaged the waterwheel, the turbine began, ever so slowly, to rotate and whirr. Lodestar gazed upon his preparations. He pulled on rubber galoshes, and thick leather gloves. Hampered by the gloves, he opened the battered old bureau.
He turned to me, holding two wires. They were attached to the banks of batteries, those strange glass cases, charged by the stream. The wires were wrapped in gutta-percha rubber, with copper ends exposed: the gloves were a precaution, but a wise one. Even with the gentle roll of the waterwheel, the turbine’s piston pumped relentlessly. I could envisage the electricity coursing down each wire, seeking only a conductor to join it to the other.
Lodestar’s eyes were bright with devilry. He came at me, plunging the wires at my head.
I jerked away. The chair rocked, tipped over, and I fell hard, cracking my head on the stone floor behind the cage. I couldn’t move, but I could see: in the dim light, right in front of my face, he thrust the wires against the hare’s flanks. Sparks flared. There was an unholy wail.
Spasms ran through it. It rattled wildly around the cage. The back legs kicked, jerked, burst their knots to thump against the cage, just six inches from my eyes. The stench of burnt hair filled the room, and burned flesh. I was transfixed by the black bloody scorch that materialised between the wires. I thought the beast was dead, then it trembled again, flinching away from its torturer, before settling in the corner of the cage, limp and dying. Another stench: at the last, it fouled itself.
Lodestar leaned over towards the stricken animal, inspecting it for signs of vitality. Satisfied, he took the wires back to the bureau, wiped them off, and set them carefully in place. He was never normally tentative—I registered this uncertainty, and tucked it aside, like a sovereign for a rainy day.
“Ugh.” Lodestar clicked his tongue at the stench, disgruntled. “More current, or charge, or—damn it—what does Molly call it? Potential difference.”
The Patagonian hare was dead. He tugged the cage outside. He watched the waterwheel’s slow insistent spin—chak-KE-ta chak-KE-ta—and threw the animal upon it. With an irregular thud, the wheel chopped it into the water.
He turned back inside and pulled a chair to the burea
u. Outside, I saw a shadow, rocking oddly. A hand appeared in the doorframe, and then a pair of eyes. For a moment, I thought I was saved; but it was the orang-utan. It saw us, and, judging by the mournful expression, it had watched the demise of its Patagonian friend.
Lodestar turned, sensing the presence, but the orang-utan was too quick, vanished away out of sight. At the bureau, Lodestar had opened up a telegraphic apparatus. Removing his gloves, he consulted a chart affixed to the inner panel. For upwards of a minute, he tapped laboriously at the machine, ignoring me where I lay.
The hare’s stench lingered. Nausea grabbed me, and I retched on to the grimy stone.
“That should do it.” He pushed the machine away. “I have signalled Molly to come and assist in our experiments. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
My heart leapt. Molly would not let me down. And yet— “To assist?”
He span to face me. “Oh, you are more interesting than I expected. Molly is such a willing experimenter. In so many ways.” He straightened his trousers.
“What did you say to—?”
“Quiet, you worm.” He lunged, as if to hit me, but instead grabbed me, tugging the chair upright again.
I struggled at the ropes, but they just became tighter.
The machine began buzzing. “Ah—she replies.” He sat back down and annotated the noises with ill grace. When it fell silent, he scratched at the paper, decoding, his face screwed up. “Ah. A short delay. But worth the wait in the end.” He clapped the desk brusquely shut, and turned to me. “Molly’s complicity must disappoint you, Sergeant?”
I looked at him. I was unwilling to give excuse for another blow by answering.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” He beamed, which was more discomfiting than his cruelty. “We have a little time. Molly is setting detonators. One in my office, just in case I have to destroy any evidence.”
“But the others. The others don’t know—”
“They’d better not know, or I’ll have to do for them all. On second thoughts, that might be the safest path anyway. The Frenchman has laid explosives beneath the house. They’ll do for your Miss Villiers and old Roxbury, just in case.”
My heart was thumping, impotent in the face of this evil, so long suspected, so gravely underestimated. “You wouldn’t risk the prince’s life.”
“Why not?” He clapped his hands. “I could save him, and become a national hero. If it should go wrong, well, you’ll be blamed. And we don’t want a French-lover running the country one day, do we?” He scratched his head. “Molly’s leaving a little gift for our friends in the house, just in case. It’s very cunning: I can set them off from here, if need be. The house is a fuel in waiting.” He observed me for a moment.
I must give no satisfaction. I could believe he would sacrifice the scientific quarter to hide his misdeeds. But to set alight Roxbury House, though, was unimaginable: Skirtle, Birtle, Roxbury, his wife, and my darling Ruth.
Lodestar could read this despair in my face, despite my efforts. He took immeasurable pleasure in my suffering. “Molly’s coming to release the sluice for me. Increases the power. I’ll give you a taste of the same medicine as the little rodent. Ten times stronger.”
FORGIVENESS [LAWLESS]
“It was clever,” I said, “that you did it for financial gain.” I watched him absorb the compliment. My fear galvanised me: I had nothing to lose, and that gave me a reckless freedom. The only game I could play now was to delay him; perhaps it was the wrong game, but it was late for tactics now. “Very clever, Lodestar. Three gains. The Hellfire Hounds make a killing on property after each outrage. They consequently buy your stock, grateful for your information—which they think you get from underworld contacts. They never guess you are orchestrating the outrages yourself.”
He revelled in this. “And the third?”
“Profits for Roxbury. Over and over. Britain builds your forts, for fear of its European neighbours. We buy your bricks, we order your guns. Tough life for the arms builders.”
“Is this the famed English irony?”
“Scottish. A grimmer sort of irony.”
He snorted. “Your case against me is weak.”
“Jacques will identify you. You can deny it, of course.”
“Go on. Teach me more of my defence. I won’t need it, after you’re dead.”
“You will, if I have told others.”
“Have you? Shame if you have. They are all here. I will kill them, if I have to. I can do it without leaving this Pump House.”
“You’re cocksure of your abilities.”
He laughed. “I’ve learned a few things.”
“Enlighten me.”
He checked the watch again, tapping his foot impatiently. “To get rich, one must exploit. Exploit weakness. Make people think they’re getting what they want. I make bankers rich; they’ve repaid me. I’ve made Roxbury rich; his reputation protects me. I’m tough, of course. That’s what people want from a manager. Your system is a hoot. The only people who get to the top are people who stop at nothing. Braggarts and blusterers. You let these people run reputable companies. You give them knighthoods. I’m not the worst. I haven’t even killed that many.”
I just waited for him to finish. Don’t enrage him. Flatter him. For now, flatter him.
He looked at me as if I were accusing him. “What’s so wrong with a little killing? You lot have done it for years.”
I pictured Ruth, that day in Clerkenwell, stepping out from the rubble, covered in dust, like a miracle. “We don’t kill. Not in Britain. Not in the heart of London.”
“No, in my land. In the heart of Nyasaland.” He pointed at me. “You people killed my mother. You massacred my people. Not even for profit. Just to pass the time in the tropical heat. You tortured. You raped. Took our goods. Called it trading, when you were stealing. Gave us alcohol to enslave us, and told us to be grateful.” He clapped. “And you send Wilfred to China to make them buy your Indian opium. That is breathtaking arrogance! I’m nothing by comparison. You trot round the world, murdering and pillaging, stirring up wars, like hornets’ nests, so you can sell them guns. Peace costs: oh, such a cost. War, on the other hand—people die, oh yes, but nobody important. That’s how you think of it, no? And if anybody important dies, they’re a hero. A cause célèbre. It’s been a struggle to get myself to the right side of that line. I won’t mess it up now, or let you.”
CHARGES [LAWLESS]
I had travelled all this way with Lodestar, making him think I liked him, even loved. The cost was high. Flattering, always flattering. That was his one weakness, that I knew. He fancied himself untrickable, and that made him vulnerable; and he believed himself in the right.
“It’s the end,” I murmured.
“For you, yes. You will die. So sorry.” He shot me a pitying look. “Ha ha! I’m not sorry. I’m jubilant. I shall walk away to fame and riches. Best of all, I shall blame the whole thing upon you and your Jeffcoat. And Molly too if I need to. What a surprise they would have to hear she has been playing a double game; spying, yes, but all the while giving our explosives to terrorists.” He shook his head, imagining it. “Cruel to traduce her, this silly girl who dotes upon me.”
Silhouetted, Lodestar loomed over me, a spectre of doom.
Behind him, the lights of the east wing. My heart contracted to think of Roxbury and his Lady Elodie; it gave me a moment’s relief from my pains.
“Why, Lodestar. Don’t you want Roxbury as your father figure? It almost gives you a place in the English aristocracy.”
He stepped into the light, his face disarmingly courteous. “Roxbury is my champion. He suffers. I do all I can to give him relief. This has required money, you cannot imagine how much, to make his companies profitable. The only reliable way is the country in crisis.”
I drew deep upon my reserves of sympathy, trying to see his point of view: that he had done nothing wrong. “It has been hard for you.”
“Nobody enters upon a life of
deception without reason. To wake every day, knowing you must not slip; to speak even a word of your mother’s language would give you away. Most are easily persuaded, but there are doubters, watching for a slip. And a slip would endanger not just me, but the Hounds. Roxbury Industries. The security of the nation. Prison or deportation are nothing, beside the exposure of the Portsmouth Plan.”
“Which you invented.”
“The threat is real.”
“It’s false witness, Lodestar, deliberate lies. That is hard to forgive.”
“Forgiveness is laudable in your religion,” said Lodestar. “Yet so few of you practise it. You harp on about Christian values. Who spread the false witness? You. You spread it so eagerly! It’s become the gospel for this generation reared on passivism and distractions. Finally we have given them permission to hate.”
“Why?” I shook my head in wonder. “You’re such an able man. Why couldn’t you use your talents for good?”
He stared at me, neither indignant nor concerned by these accusations, and he smiled that brilliant smile. “But I have.”
DARK SPARK [LAWLESS]
Molly was whistling as she sauntered up the hill. I heard the tune long before we saw her emerge from the rain. Oh, how I’d longed for her to come. She would plead my cause. I’ve saved her in the past, and her friends. Could she yet save me?
“My beautiful assistant.” Lodestar made eyes at her, as she appeared.
She melted into him. She had not spared me a glance.
“More beautiful,” Lodestar said, “than Roxbury’s assistant.”
“Than Birtle?” She batted at his chest. “You know how to compliment a girl.”
They were lovers.
* * *
It was impossible to think anything else. I watched this display, horror crawling through my veins. Reading between the lines, eh, Ruth? She had seen Molly’s fancy for Lodestar, and she had tried to warn her off. All in vain. I had thought she was relying on me, whereas it was I needed her, and I felt heartsick, as well as sick in body.
I could see it now: I had wondered why she didn’t write more of Lodestar, and this was why. She loved him.
Lawless and the House of Electricity Page 35