by Tim Pratt
“Like that old story about how you can see the last thing a murder victim witnessed by looking at the reflection in her eye?”
“A bit. A bit. But more scientific. There were… strange apparatuses, and a jar of fluid, and delicate wires attached to an organ still warm from life, and when all was said and done… a voice emerged from a horn, and told me the name of the murderer.”
Ellie frowned. “It was a hoax, surely? Like the mechanical Turk? Perhaps this scientist bears some grudge against the person named, and set up an elaborate ruse to fool you?”
“The possibility has crossed my mind, Miss Skyler. And yet… the details the voice gave were compelling and personal. And in this age of wonders, where men can be transformed into women, where fires can burn eternally, where strange lights flicker in the sky and bizarre creatures are glimpsed in the waters of the Thames, who can say what might be impossible?”
Ellie tsked. “The existence of one unlikely thing does not necessitate belief in all unlikely things. But… it is probably best to proceed with an open mind. I have heard stories of people who seemed to be dead, who were later restored to life—bodies pulled out of icy lakes and laid out on the slab, only to sit up with a gasp once they warmed up. Perhaps a fresh corpse could be made to speak. I could not say.”
“It’s certainly worth investigating the voice’s claims, and I intend to do so, and swiftly. I have asked Mr. Value’s scientist not to divulge the name of the accused to his employer until I have had the opportunity to investigate. I did not accuse the scientist of deceit, of course, but simply expressed caution. Even if it was the poor woman’s voice, she might have been mistaken in her identification, after all. The scientist agreed, but I have no idea whether or not I can trust him to keep silent. He may have sent word to Value already, and if so, the accused may not survive the night.”
Ellie shuddered. “Value is truly so savage?”
“He would call his actions pragmatism, not savagery, but they amount to the same thing. I will endeavor to see the killer brought to proper justice if he is guilty—not to Value’s justice. The reason I am here, drinking, instead of out there, looking for the man, is because I have no way of finding him. Normally I would reach out to my police contacts to help me locate someone, but I can’t do so in this case—even my closest friend in the police, Inspector Whistler, would ask too many questions. One of the advantages of working with a criminal like Value is access to a network of criminal information—but I can’t ask him, either, without risking the death of the subject of my investigation, before I can satisfy myself regarding his guilt or innocence. I am at something of a loss as to how to proceed. I find a few drinks and a bit of conversation can help stimulate my mind. So here we are.”
Ellie smiled, itchy mustache and all. “You do have one other resource at your disposal, Lord Pembroke. The power of the press. We are adept at locating people.”
He grunted, leaning back in the chair. “You’re also adept at spreading secrets.”
“Lord Pembroke, I will only print this man’s name if we determine that he is a murderer.”
“We, now, is it?”
Ellie merely shrugged.
Lord Pembroke sighed. “All right. The purported killer’s name is Thaddeus Worth.”
Ellie blinked at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, why? You look as if you’ve swallowed a ghost.” He scowled down at his drink. “Seen a ghost, I mean. Or perhaps swallowed a fly. I—”
“I know him,” Ellie interrupted. “I interviewed Thaddeus Worth for an article. His wife was transformed by the Constantine Affliction, and subsequently disappeared, about three years ago. Hers was the first transformation ever reported, in fact, though she was never examined by a doctor, as she fled soon after her change. Her husband was dismissed as a madman at first, raving about how his wife had become a man and abandoned him. The authorities assumed he meant she’d taken up cross-dressing, or become enamored of another woman, or some other such behavior. It was only when others began to sicken with fever and awake after three days with altered bodies that the authorities understood Mr. Worth was speaking literally, and credibly. Imagine how terrified Mrs. Worth must have been? To suffer the pain, the delirium, and awake to find herself changed, with no understanding of what had happened…”
“It’s no wonder she fled,” Lord Pembroke said.
“I do not know for certain, but I always assumed Mr. Worth contracted the disease from a prostitute, but was himself only a passive carrier, transmitting the disease to his wife later, where it manifested in its active form.” Could Worth have been the man she saw barreling past her in the alleyway? “It could be him,” Ellie said. “I’m not certain, but the height was right, and the build. Worth wore a beard when I last spoke to him, and the killer was clean-shaven, but they both had pockmarked cheeks and foreheads.”
Lord Pembroke sat back, swirling his brandy, and gazing into his glass. “A man like that might hate prostitutes and blame them for his misfortunes, don’t you think? If not for some disease-carrying woman, his wife would never have transformed and abandoned him. A twisted chain of thought, but I can see how it might be compelling… Do you happen to recall Mr. Worth’s address?”
A Worthwhile Inquiry
“He lives in a respectable enough neighborhood,” Pimm said, peering out the window of the carriage he’d had his ex-valet Ransome summon for them. The streets here, some distance west of the Seven Dials, were lined with electric lamps, making the interior of the carriage bright enough for the passengers to see one another. They still had some distance to go, but at least the streets were relatively empty at this hour. Traffic in the area was atrocious earlier in the day; it was almost better to go on foot. “What is this Mr. Worth’s occupation? Is he a barrister? Or does he own a shop?”
“We never spoke about his profession,” Miss Skye said. “In truth, he seemed out of place in his own home, and I think he came from rather humble beginnings. I sense he came into his fortune only recently. Mostly we discussed how his wife’s transformation and subsequent disappearance had affected him, left him lost and unmoored. He seemed a bit vague, and he wasn’t particularly articulate. I assume he was drinking heavily, or taking laudanum. I was unable to use much of our conversation in my article, actually. The best stories are full of particulars, you see, specific details, and he seemed incapable of anything more than generalities.”
“He didn’t inveigh vociferously against the evils of prostitutes, then?”
“No,” Skye said. “But some men are hesitant to broach such subjects when speaking to a woman. I wish I’d obtained this particular disguise earlier in my career—it would have done me much good.”
“I don’t think your career has suffered. I read your article about the Constantine Affliction’s victims, actually. I thought it exceedingly well done.”
Pimm, for understandable reasons, had a certain interest in the Affliction. Freddy had enjoyed the article, too, though she’d lamented that her pretense of being a woman born was so complete that no one had tracked her down for an interview—“Not that they would have been able to print all the necessary profanities to convey my true feelings,” she’d concluded. Freddy had become more accustomed to her situation since then, however—if not quite embracing her new sex, than at least choosing to focus on the inherent interest and novelty of being in a female body. One of the benefits, she said, was how much easier it was to shock someone as a woman. Freddy had always enjoyed shocking people. The drawbacks were the abominable way women were treated as lesser beings. Freddy had grown to particularly admire those women who could circumvent or overcome the stultifying expectations of society, slipping past or leaping over barriers Pimm could not even perceive, let alone truly understand.
Women, he suspected, like Eleanor Skye.
“Thank you,” she said, and was she actually blushing? The woman was simply too fetching. Pimm decided he’d best disentangle himself from her before he became entirely smitten.
“Your high opinion is appreciated.”
“I suppose you’re something of an expert on the Affliction, aren’t you? How widespread do you think the disease is?”
“I have read estimates that say it has affected one in five thousand in this city,” Skye said, though from her tone, she did not believe it. “Some say the Affliction can lie in wait in the blood for months, perhaps even years, before becoming active, and there are some who carry it passively, never sickening themselves at all. Many may be infected without even realizing.”
Pimm shook his head. “Still, though, even confining ourselves to active cases, only one in five thousand, in a city of more than three million souls? That’s only six hundred cases. No, I’d say that’s far too low. Perhaps that many have been documented—counting those who died in the transition, and those who sought medical help in the first wave of transformations, before the disease was named and better understood, and people began trying to hide the changes. But how many men simply took new names, or disappeared, or were sent to live in the country by embarrassed relatives, or boarded ships to France, or bought suits like yours and tried to pass? And how many women transformed only to be murdered by their terrified husbands, or to murder their terrified husbands first? Or, to look at things in a rosier light, how many women who changed just went out into the streets and started new lives for themselves as men? The factories are always hiring, and they do not require references.”
“The Affliction began among the middle class—and the upper class, try as they might to deny it,” Skye said. “Which makes sense, if it originated among the more rarefied class of prostitutes, and was spread by the men to their wives. Men and women of property and stature would find it difficult to shed their old lives without detection, don’t you think?”
Pimm waved his hand. “Oh, no, it moved on swiftly from the upper classes, and among the poorer of the city, it is far easier to disappear and begin a new life. When the disease can lie dormant for so long, and be passed on by intimate contact, it’s simple to see how rapidly it could be transmitted. The first time an unknowingly-infected merchant cornered his shopgirl in the storeroom, and that woman went home to her husband unwilling to speak of her shame, and then he went out whoring, it would spread as swiftly as the French disease—” He stopped abruptly. “I apologize, Miss Skye. It’s that beastly mustache of yours. I forget I am talking to a lady. Forgive my indelicacy—”
“The only indelicate thing you said was that you could forget I was a woman,” Skye said, her expression impossible to read beneath that great bushy thing under her otherwise adorable nose. How had he ever thought her nose was too long? Though finding her attractive, given her current garb, was almost as disconcerting as finding Freddy beautiful. “I am a journalist, Lord Pembroke. I have interviewed all manner of men and women. I have, I assure you, heard far worse. But, yes, I suspect you’re right. I think the disease is far more prevalent than anyone realizes. And it’s not as if it’s been cured, or its progress even notably arrested. The clockwork courtesans provide a safe release for those men who can afford them, and in general I’m sure men are exerting tremendous force of will and avoiding temptation, but… the Affliction will continue to spread.”
“What percentage of the population would the Affliction need to infect to bring about the total breakdown of society, do you think?” Pimm mused. “Before it completely altered our sense of what makes men men, and women women? After all, if you can’t tell what sex anyone was born with, it becomes increasingly absurd to insist that women are inherently one thing, and men are inherently another. Do our personalities change when our sexes do? Do our minds?”
“Our minds are not wholly divorced from our bodies,” Miss Skye said. “Anyone who has ever had a loved one grow sick and suffer, and become dark and angry and sad, knows that—the body affects the mind.”
“Fine, then, say every individual is different, then,” Pimm said. “Drawing lines between men and women, when those lines refer to anything other than reproductive capability or, say, the average quantity of ear hair or upper-body strength, strikes me as absurd. A brilliant man who is transformed into a woman is still brilliant, and vice-versa.”
“I had no idea you held such radical opinions, Lord Pembroke. You don’t agree that the separation of the world into men’s spheres and women’s spheres is obviously right? That men, being stronger than women, should take the lead in society? Surely that’s only natural.”
“Cannibalism is natural, too. Infanticide. Murder. Living in trees, going naked, eating grubs. All very natural. While cooking fine meals, playing cricket, drinking brandy, and living in houses with roofs and fireplaces is obviously unnatural. Why privilege the natural? We can do so much better than that.”
Skye leaned forward, intensely interested now, and Pimm felt a chill at the thought she might quote him. His family would be apoplectic with him if they knew his true opinions. Damned brandy. It always loosened his tongue.
She asked, “Do you see the Constantine Affliction as a path to true equality for the sexes, Lord Pembroke?”
He was taken aback. “I think not. The high mortality rate rather mitigates against viewing the Affliction as an engine for positive social change, Miss Skye. But there are some who might view so many deaths as an acceptable loss, I suppose. Who don’t mind if revolutions spill a great deal of blood. For those, this disease might seem… tailor made.” That idea had just popped into Pimm’s head. Perhaps the medical miracle he’d witnessed earlier in the night had set his mind on this path. If a dead woman could be made to speak, then why not…. “Where do you think the Affliction originated?”
She shrugged. “Some say it was brought to London from Constantinople, hence the name, though how it got started there is barely even a subject of speculation. I’ve heard some blame the smoke pouring out from the factories, or the alchemical refuse dumped into the river. That these substances are seeping into the drinking water, poisoning us, changing us. Some fish and frogs can change their sexes, and I’ve heard it suggested that the ability was somehow transferred to mankind—though as far as I know none of the Afflicted have ever changed back. Surviving the Affliction seems to grant one immunity to further ravages. And, of course, those more religious than myself either see the Affliction as a test from God, or a punishment.”
“I wonder if someone released it on purpose,” Pimm mused.
Skye looked shocked. “What on Earth do you mean?”
Pimm shrugged. “You were close to Whitechapel tonight. That was an experiment gone wrong. You’ve heard about—written about!—the slimy things in the Thames, which are also rumored to be the result of some scientific exploration gone awry. Don’t misunderstand me, I am a great proponent of scientific progress—how many lives has the germ theory saved? And our economy is prospering as never before thanks to our technological progress. Even the poor often have alchemical lights in their houses. But not every experiment is successful, or wise.”
“Are you suggesting someone might have created the Constantine Affliction? And released it deliberately?”
“I am merely passing the time in conversation with a lady of my acquaintance, in idle speculation,” Pimm said. The carriage lurched to a stop, and the driver rapped on the roof of the carriage. “Here we are,” Pimm said brightly. “Shall we wake up a potential murderer, Jenkins?”
“Do you have a strategy in mind?” Ellie asked. Lord Pembroke had told the carriage driver to wait, offering him enough money to make him agree without complaint, and now they stood on the doorstep where Ellie herself had stood alone, in rather different garb, several months earlier.
“No, but I have a belly full of brandy. I find that, combined with a certain amount of improvisation, is usually sufficient to carry the day.” Lord Pembroke rapped on the door with the head of his cane, steadily, loudly, and methodically, for more than a full minute.
Finally a hoarse voice shouted from within, and the door opened a crack, revealing the face of Thaddeus Wor
th, his hair sticking up in all directions.
He’d shaved since Ellie interviewed him, and she had no doubt he was the man who’d pushed past her in the alleyway earlier tonight.
“Mr. Worth?” Lord Pembroke said pleasantly, as if the hour were not past midnight, and this were a friendly social occasion.
“What the devil is the meaning of this? I was sleeping—”
“Were you?” Lord Pembroke said. “How wonderful. I wish I could be in bed. My name is Pembroke Halliday. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? I occasionally assist the police in their inquiries. I was invited to examine a crime scene tonight. A terrible thing, the murder of a young girl not far from the river.”
Worth paled, then appeared to take notice of Ellie for the first time. His eyes widened.
“This is my associate, Mr. Jenkins,” Lord Pembroke said. “May we have a few moments to speak to you?”
“The hour is late, and this is nothing to do with me.” Worth tried to push the door shut, but Lord Pembroke slipped the end of his cane into the crack.
“Ah, sir, you may have noticed, I asked politely. The police will not be so courteous. Still, I am happy to wait with you while my associate Jenkins goes to Scotland Yard to fetch someone. Or we can clear up matters ourselves.”
Quite a bluff, Ellie thought. If Worth was the murderer, as seemed likely, would he try to run, or stall for time? Ellie’s only experience with criminals was writing about their exploits. She’d never been face-to-face with one in the act of trying to avoid apprehension, not like this.
“I suppose you’d better come in, then,” Worth said, easing the door back open. “Though I still don’t know what help I can provide.” Another flicker of the eyes toward Ellie. Did he recognize her as the man he’d passed in the alley?