The Affinity Bridge

by George Mann

  Veronica relented, glancing back at her sister one last time as Dr. Mason led her towards the door. Just as she was about to cross the threshold, however, she heard Amelia scream her name.

  "Veronica!"

  She looked back, startled. Amelia was trying to force herself up into a sitting position, facing her sister as the nurses struggled ineffectually to hold her down. Her eyes were still rolled back in their sockets, showing nothing but a disturbing sheen of milky-white, but Amelia seemed to be looking straight at her, as if she could actually see where Veronica was standing in the doorway.

  Shocked, she whispered her response. "Amelia?"

  The reply was a tortured rasp, as if dragged from somewhere within the depths of the girl's nightmare. "It's all in their heads, don't you see, Veronica? You must see!" She collapsed back into her spasms and, shaking his head, Dr. Mason took Veronica by the arm, leading her away from the terrible scene of her sister's distress and on towards the secure exit of the hospital.

  Outside, Veronica looked up at the asylum and used her handkerchief to wipe away the tears that were still stinging her eyes. The clock tower showed that it was fast approaching two in the afternoon, and she knew she'd be wise to head back to her rooms in case Newbury decided to call. She hated what was happening to her sister, back inside that terrible red brick building, locked inside a ward with no reasonable company, no decent clothes, no respect. She hated the fact that she couldn't do anything about it, either; that her parents had forbidden her from even discussing the issue with them, after she had railed so hard against their decision to place Amelia in the hands of these strangers in the first instance. Consequently, she hadn't had any contact with them for over two months, and neither had they been to visit her sister since her incarceration in September. She knew that, soon, she was going to have to write to them and insist that they pay a visit to the asylum to see their daughter. Amelia had enough to endure; it was unfair for her to have to suffer feelings of embarrassment, guilt and rejection too.

  Veronica regained her composure and made her way along the gravel path towards the exit to the railed compound and the street beyond. She passed the airing court on her left; a large, paved courtyard used to exercise the patients when the weather was clement enough for them to venture outside. She smiled. Next week, she would return to Wandsworth and take Amelia for a walk around this little yard, admiring the flowers and the birds like they had when Amelia was a young girl and Veronica would take her for morning walks along the country lanes by their parents' house. In the meantime, she would throw herself into the case with Newbury and spend some time deliberating on the meaning of Amelia's outburst. She could hear the words echoing around in her mind as she walked. "It's all in their heads, don't you see..."

  She had no idea what it meant, and whether it was simply the ramblings of a disturbed, frightened mind, or something far more pertinent to her immediate future.

  Only time, she supposed, would tell.

  —— Chapter Twelve ——

  The next day Veronica woke early and decided that, after breakfast, she would head straight to the office. She'd had no word from Newbury and she was anxious to find out if there had been any further developments in the case. He may have been able to solicit further information from Her Majesty during his visit to the palace, and she wanted to press him to speak with Sir Charles, to find out if Inspector Foulkes had managed to uncover anything further at the scene of the crash.

  Following her trip to the manufactory earlier that week, Veronica was still engaged with the notion that the vessel's automaton pilot may have crawled its way out of the wreckage, scrabbling away into the trees before anyone else arrived at the scene. It wasn't an outlandish idea; the automaton she had seen demonstrated had a hardy skeletal structure. She could see how the unit may have found itself confused, damaged but still functional, climbing out of the ruined cockpit before its more delicate components were consumed by the heat and the flames. Perhaps it had lain there inactive for some time before its preprogrammed systems engaged and it had been driven to move, not in an effort to escape the fire but simply because it was compelled to start the winding mechanism within its chest, as Villiers had described to them during the demonstration in his workshop. She would discuss these thoughts with Newbury at length when she arrived at the office.

  Veronica pulled back the curtains in her living room and looked out over the street. The sun was only just poking up over the clouds, but already the high street was bustling with people. Mechanical carriages trundled rudely along the road, puffing clouds of steam high into the air, their drivers shouting down at pedestrians to make way. She shook her head. She couldn't understand Newbury's obsession with progress. Of course, the automatons were marvellous inventions, but she couldn't help wondering what would happen to all of the people they would displace if they were ever properly applied to industrial work in the city. Besides, London was a city still finding its way out of the last century. In her eyes, before there could be any major scientific revolutions, there were other more pressing social inadequacies in need of resolving. For a country run by a woman, Britain was still a nation in awe of its men.

  Stepping away from the window, Veronica made her way to the small kitchen and put a flame to the grill. She'd take her toast and tea, and then, without further ado, she'd hail a cab to Bloomsbury and allow her head to be filled with the details of the case. That way, she thought, she might be able to forget the sight of her sister, her eyes shining white in the harsh light of the gas lamps, screaming Veronica's name as she was pinned to the floor by a coterie of nurses and reassured by the doctors that the only reason she was suffering so much was because she was entirely insane.

  The office door was locked when Veronica arrived at the museum. She fished around in her purse, searching out the key that she carried with her for the rare occasions when she was the first to arrive for the day. She turned the key hastily in the lock and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

  "Hello?"

  The place was deserted. In fact, glancing around, she was convinced that it hadn't been disturbed since she was last there herself, with Newbury and Miss Coulthard, almost two days before. She knew that Newbury had given Miss Coulthard leave to take as much time as she needed in the search for her missing brother. The fact that she was not here did not bode well for her success in locating his whereabouts. Sighing, she slipped her bag from her shoulder and placed it on the stand. She did the same with her coat and hat a moment later. Then, glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner, decided to press on for a while in the hope that Newbury would soon put in an appearance. If not, she would head over to his lodgings in Chelsea to see if she could find him there.

  She set about making herself a pot of tea, and decided to take some notes, trying to put all of her haphazard thoughts about the case into some sense of order. That way, when she did finally manage to catch up with Newbury, she'd be able to present her ideas in something of a more coherent form.

  An hour later it was past nine o'clock and there was still no word of Newbury. Veronica had filled two sheets of paper with copious notes on the case of The Lady Armitage, recounting not only her own thoughts on the matter but the chain of events that had led them to this point in the investigation. If she were asked to write a report on the case at a later date, the notes would prove an invaluable basis for the endeavour.

  Glancing up at the clock again, she decided that it was time she tried to find out what had happened to her employer. She hoped that he hadn't been called away to another crime scene during the night, at least without attempting to get a message to her first. Even though she didn't relish the idea of encountering more cadavers, she also didn't want to find herself suddenly left out of proceedings. It wasn't like Newbury to leave her in the dark, though. She'd only known him for a matter of weeks, but already they had formed a mutual respect for one another, and no matter how secretive some of his pursuits may be she knew that he wasn't in the busine
ss of shutting her out. She'd just have to track him down and find out what it was that had delayed him.

  Veronica gathered her things and scrawled a brief note, which she left on Newbury's desk, just in case they accidentally missed each other as she made her way over to Chelsea. She locked the office door behind her, climbed the stairs to the ground floor—where the exhibitions were already beginning to fill with the noisy hubbub of the public—and left through the main entrance in search of transport.

  Newbury's home was a delightful terraced house in a quiet suburban district of Chelsea. The entire street in which it sat appeared comfortably middle-class, residential and relatively unassuming. As she stepped down from the cab and paid the driver, Veronica tried to reconcile this fact with her knowledge of the man himself. Everything about the look of the house, at least from the outside, seemed to represent exactly the opposite of what she had taken to be Newbury's taste. The place looked decidedly old-fashioned; a traditional English home, with a small rose garden at the front of the property and a door painted in bright pillar-box red. An ornate, black railing ran around the edges of the garden and a short path led up to the door itself, terminating in a series of tall steps. A bay window looked out onto the street below, although the light was reflecting brightly on the glass panes, making it difficult for Veronica to see if there was anyone inside. She shook her head. For a man so obsessed with the benefits of progress, the house seemed a trifle understated and traditional. Still, she supposed it was good to challenge stereotypes.

  Hesitating for a moment, the thought flashed through her mind that she might have given the cab driver the incorrect address. She searched out her notebook and double-checked the number on the door. It was certainly the address Newbury had given her, written in her book in her own neat copperplate: 10 Cleveland Avenue, Chelsea. She shrugged to herself and approached the door, rapping the knocker briskly. Behind her, the cab rolled away down the road, its horse's hooves clattering noisily on the cobbles.

  She waited for someone to answer the door. There was no response. She knocked again, louder this time. After a few more moments had passed and there was still no answer, she stepped away from the door and tried peering through the window instead, cupping her hands around her face to help her see. The room beyond the window had been dressed as a dining room, containing a long, oval-shaped table, a small fireplace, a teak sideboard and a series of bookshelves lined with numerous, leather-bound tomes. The door to the room was shut, and there was no evidence that the furniture had been disturbed that morning. She turned away, trying to decide what to do. It was clear that Newbury wasn't at home, and she had no idea where he may have gone, other than the office. She could head back there in the hope that he would eventually put in an appearance, or else she could make her way back to Kensington and await his call. She chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. Then, just as she was about to take her leave, the door clicked open behind her and a rotund middle-aged woman, dressed in the black uniform of a housekeeper, appeared in the hallway, trying to catch her breath.

  "Oh, I'm sorry, miss. I was out in the back dealing with the linens." Veronica noticed that the woman's sleeves were rolled up and her hands were still dripping with water. She smiled.

  "I'm sorry to drag you away from your duties. You must be Mrs. Bradshaw? Sir Maurice has spoken very highly of you."

  The woman looked perplexed. "Indeed I am, miss. And how can I be of service?" She spoke with a warm Scottish lilt. Her grey hair was scraped back severely from her face, worn in a black net, and whilst she certainly cast an imposing figure, it was clear she was a person of warmth and integrity. Veronica could see why Newbury liked her.

  "My name is Miss Veronica Hobbes, Sir Maurice's new assistant. I was supposed to be meeting him at the museum this morning but he hasn't arrived, so I thought it best to call instead, to ensure everything was in order." She craned her neck to see past the housekeeper into the hallway beyond. It was gloomy inside, with deep burgundy wallpaper and dark wooden furnishings that added to the sense of the austere. There was no sign of Newbury, although she supposed he could have been elsewhere in the house, in the living room or working out of sight in his study.

  Mrs. Bradshaw glanced from side to side, looking along the street. She fixed her eyes on Veronica. "Miss Hobbes, the master told me to make you welcome if you ever had reason to call. I think you'd better come inside."

  Veronica frowned. The woman seemed strangely on edge, as if Veronica's presence in the house would somehow make her uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she mounted the steps to the door and made her way into the dark hallway beyond.

  Newbury's coat and hat were still hanging on the stand beside a small table and mirror. The post was lying unopened on the table. Veronica turned to Mrs. Bradshaw. "Is Sir Maurice at home?"

  "Yes, miss, although I'm not sure he is receiving visitors." She looked concerned, and it dawned on Veronica that something was not quite right. She decided to press the woman further for an explanation.

  "Is Sir Maurice unwell? I assure you, Mrs. Bradshaw, that I only have his best interests at heart, and that you can rely on me to treat the matter with the utmost sensitivity."

  Mrs. Bradshaw sighed. "Very well, miss. Let me take you to him now."

  Veronica placed her hat beside Newbury's on the stand and unbuttoned her coat as they walked. Mrs. Bradshaw led Veronica up the creaking flight of stairs at the end of the hallway, past a small landing which branched off into a sizeable bathroom, and then up to the first floor where a series of doors opened on to what Veronica assumed were the bedchambers.

  Veronica paused. "Is he resting in bed, Mrs. Bradshaw? I'm not sure that it would be entirely appropriate for me to see him in that way."

  Mrs. Bradshaw shook her head. "No, miss. He's in there." She indicated a panelled door at the end of the landing. "That's his private study. The master has been holed up inside since yesterday morning. He stepped out, and when he returned he went directly to this room and locked himself inside. I've been unable to get a word out of him since."

  Veronica looked puzzled. "Do you think he's unwell?"

  Mrs. Bradshaw shrugged. "I can't say, miss. It's unusual behaviour, certainly. Not that I'm a stranger to that, these last few years." She looked circumspect. "But I worry he hasn't eaten, or taken anything to drink. I've tried knocking but I've had no reply."

  "Do you have a key?"

  "No, miss. It's the one room in the house that Sir Maurice keeps to himself. He said if I were to ever go in there I would be immediately dismissed from his service. God knows what he's got in there, but I ain't about to try and find out."

  Veronica nodded. "I'm sure it's just a case of security, Mrs. Bradshaw." She put her hands on her hips. "Now, would you mind if I tried to solicit a response?"

  "Please go ahead, miss. It would put my mind at rest to know the master was well."

  Veronica approached the door. She put her ear to one of the panels, listening intently for any sound from within. Nothing. She pulled the red leather glove off her right hand, placing it carefully in her coat pocket, and rapped loudly on the door. "Sir Maurice? It's Veronica. Are you well?"

  She paused for a moment, waiting for a response. She glanced at Mrs. Bradshaw, who offered her a non-committal shrug. The moment stretched. She knocked again. "Sir Maurice? Are you home? I have some thoughts on the case I'd like to discuss with you today." Still nothing.

  Veronica frowned, addressing her next question to Mrs. Bradshaw. "You're sure he's in here? Could he have left during the night?"

  "No miss. His bed is undisturbed and his coat and hat are still on the stand downstairs."

  Veronica tried the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn't open.

  "He always keeps this door locked, miss, even when he's inside. If he asks for tea I leave it out here on the landing and he collects it at his leisure."

  Veronica smiled. "Mrs. Bradshaw. All this talk of tea is making me thirsty. I don't suppose you would be so kind as to put
the kettle on the stove for me?" She rubbed the back of her neck. "I'll continue to try to raise a response from Sir Maurice.

  I'll be sure to call if I have need of your assistance."

  Mrs. Bradshaw looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure, miss? Somehow it doesn't seem appropriate to leave you up here alone."

  "Please do not concern yourself with propriety, Mrs. Bradshaw. I am sure Sir Maurice would trust me enough not to idly wander through his private rooms. I assure you I will remain just here on the landing and attempt to find out what is preventing him from answering our calls. Once the tea is prepared we'll take stock of the situation and agree a course of action."

  "Very well, miss. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

  Veronica watched as Mrs. Bradshaw disappeared down the stairs, her long skirt swishing around her as she walked.

  She knocked on the door again. There was still no response from within. She glanced behind her, judging the length of the landing. There was plenty of room for a run-up. She slipped her other glove from her left hand, popped it in her pocket and wriggled out of her coat, draping it over the side of the banister. She adjusted her blouse. Then she walked to the other end of the landing and, with one last glance down the stairs to ensure that Mrs. Bradshaw was completely out of sight, took a run at the door, presenting her shoulder to the wooden panels. The door creaked in its frame, but didn't give way. She tried again, this time throwing all of her weight in front of her as she slammed into the door. It burst open with a loud splintering sound, banging against some unseen piece of furniture inside and kicking back at Veronica, who was struggling to maintain her balance. She caught the door as it came back at her and leaned on it heavily, her shoulder aching from the impact. She hoped that Mrs. Bradshaw hadn't heard the noise in the kitchen two floors below, that the sound of the kettle whistling on the stove had been enough to mask the racket. She'd know soon enough, if the housekeeper came running up the stairs to see what all the fuss was about.