by Chris Paton
“My apologies,” Hari nodded at the young man as he hid behind the soapy skin of his partner. “Truly, it is not my custom to disturb people during their most private and,” he winked, “intimate pursuits. However,” Hari held out his arm as Shahin flapped through the steam cloud above the woman’s head to settle on his wrist. “There are times when even the best-laid plans are scuppered and, this would be one of those times. Now, I...”
“Excuse me,” the man peeped out from behind the woman as she drew mountains of bubbles to her chest in a poor attempt to hide her summits.
“Yes?” Hari cocked his head to one side and peered at the young man.
“Who are you?”
“I,” Hari filled his lungs and straightened his back, “am Hari Singh.” Hari’s right arm wobbled slightly under the weight of the hawk as he bowed once more.
“Hari Singh?” bubbles slid from the woman’s arm as she reached for the small brass bell on the steam-warped wooden table beside the copper tub. “I hope you can run better than you can hide, Hari Singh.” She rang the bell.
Hari turned as the handles of the double bathhouse doors twisted down toward the oak-timbered floor. Shahin stirred on Hari’s arm as two large men wearing the dark tartan suits associated with the more reputable roughs of London’s docklands entered the room.
“Lady Harte,” the taller of the two men addressed the ceiling before realising, steam or no steam, the brass veneer was polished like a mirror. His companion leaned against the door frame.
“Sullivan,” Lady Harte set the bell down on the table. “This man is a stowaway,” she waved a frothy hand in Hari’s direction. “Kindly remove both him and his bird from my sight. Permanently.”
“Pleasure, maam,” Sullivan let go of the door handle and flicked the back of his hand against his partner’s arm. “Window,” he nodded. The second man skirted around Hari, looked out of the open window onto the deck before shutting and locking it. “Now then, Saheb,” Sullivan gestured at the door. “Are you goin’ to come quiet like?”
Hari smoothed his hand along Shahin’s back. Preening the feathers with his fingertips, he turned away from the hawk to stare at Sullivan. “I admit it is not the done thing to be found skulking in the bathroom of a lady.”
“You’ve got that right, mate,” Sullivan nodded at the door.
“Truly,” Hari bowed his head. “However, I have spent a long time skulking on my journey to England, and now that we have arrived, I would dearly like to see as much of it as possible.”
“Sullivan,” Lady Harte slapped the side of the copper tub. “Get to it.”
“Right, maam,” Sullivan nodded at his companion. “Mason.”
Mason removed his tartan jacket and folded the cuffs of his sleeves above his wrists. Pulling a long, thin kitchen knife from his belt, he waved it in the air toward Hari.
“Gentlemen,” Hari opened his robes with his left hand and revealed the kukri blade hanging from his belt in its scabbard on the right side of his body.
“No time for all that,” Sullivan drew a doubled-barrelled snublock pistol from his pocket. Hari reached for the kukri with his left hand, closing his fingers around the handle as he launched Shahin.
Swooping from Hari’s arm toward Sullivan, Shahin elicited a shriek from Lady Harte as the hawk’s feathers parted the wet tangles of hair flopped on top of her head. Lady Harte’s partner grunted as she pressed her ample body upon his chest in an effort to escape the hawk.
Shahin flapped at Sullivan’s face as he batted the bird with one hand, aiming at Hari with the snublock in the other. Rushing in from the left, Mason floored Hari as the two men slid on the scum of soapy bubbles.
Lady Harte’s lover slipped out of the tub, his pale cheeks glowing with the heat of the bathwater, the soapy sheen upon the young man’s skin reflecting the sodium crystal lamplight as he slithered out of the single door at the opposite end of the bathroom.
Lady Harte shrieked once more as Hari pulled the kukri free of its scabbard and swung the bent blade at Mason only to hear it clang dully on the brass legs of the copper tub. The big man gripped Hari’s throat in a stranglehold as he squirmed his knees onto Hari’s thighs.
“Damn bird,” Sullivan aimed the snublock at Shahin and fired both barrels. The hawk flopped to the slippery oak floor and stalked out of the bathroom and into the corridor. Flapping her wings, Shahin keened as she dragged the smoking wingtips of her right wing onto the carpeted floor outside the bathroom.
Sullivan fumbled with the priming of the snublock pistol as Mason lifted the kitchen knife in his right hand, sighting the tip of the blade at a point between Hari’s eyes.
A surge of water from the copper tub distracted Mason as Lady Harte, hands gripping each side of the tub, pushed herself into a standing position.
“A towel,” Lady Harte slapped the side of the tub. “Sullivan, get me a towel.”
“Right, maam,” Sullivan slipped the empty snublock into his pocket and reached for a large red towel hanging from a chair pushed up against the brass taps.
“Another towel, Sullivan,” Lady Harte herded the folds of her belly inside the towel she wrapped around her middle.
“One minute, maam.” Holding one hand over his eyes, Sullivan peeped through his fingers as he made his way around the tub. “Mason?”
“I have him,” Mason grunted. “If the bugger would just let go of my wrist.”
“Truly,” Hari choked, “perhaps you should release me?”
“What’s that he’s sayin’, Mason?” Sullivan picked up a second towel crumpled on the floor. Holding the towel at arm’s length, he made his way back to Lady Harte.
“Wants us to let him go,” Mason grunted. “He’s got a good grip for a little fellow.”
“Knock him on the head, Mason,” Sullivan held the pudgy fingers of Lady Harte in his hand as he helped her out of the tub. “If you’ll wait in the other room, maam. Mason and I will see to this dirty little pervert, just like you ordered.”
“Make him suffer, Sullivan, and then give him to the authorities. That would amuse me more than his death, I’ll warrant.”
Hari rocked beneath Mason’s body. Working his knee out from under the big man’s thigh, Hari clanged the kukri against the tub. Mason glanced at the mystic’s blade just as Hari wormed his knee free and thrust his kneecap into the man’s groin. Caught off balance, Mason lurched forward, the tip of the kitchen knife nicking Hari’s cheek before Mason buried it into the oak floor. Hari twisted the kukri within his grip and slammed the pommel into the side of Mason’s head.
“Shoot him, Sullivan,” Lady Harte wobbled out of the bathroom.
“Changes her mind like the bleedin’ wind, she does,” Sullivan drew the snublock from his pocket and fiddled with the priming mechanism. He looked up as the flat, cold blade of Hari’s kukri tapped against the bottom of his jaw.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Hari stepped around Sullivan and pulled the snublock from his fingers. “Him, on the other hand,” Hari nodded at Mason writhing on the floor by the side of the tub. “I would gladly rid the world of him.”
“Well,” Sullivan shrugged. “I can’t say as I don’t blame you for wantin’ to. But his missus and the seven ankle-biters at home would miss him somethin’ terrible.”
“I am sure they would.” Hari let the tip of the kukri tickle Sullivan’s throat as he repositioned the bent blade to hover over the man’s heart. “Tell me, before I leave, who is the generously proportioned lady?”
“Lady Harte? You don’t know?”
“Would I be asking?”
“I suppose not,” Sullivan agreed. “Lady Harte runs the Isle of Dogs. Nothin’ and no one gets to do business without a visit from her Tartan Lads.”
“That would be you and your friend?” Hari gestured at Mason as the man struggled into a sitting position. “He seems to be taking a long time to recover.”
“Seven children,” Sullivan shrugged. “His wife has to love him for somethin’.�
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“Truly,” Hari flexed his fingers around the hilt of the Gurkha blade. “I will be taking my leave of you now. I trust we can agree to this sudden change in my fortunes?”
“We can.”
“And you will not follow me?”
“That will be up to the Lady Harte. She was right displeased at you spoilin’ her love-makin’. Although I dare say you did the little fella a service poppin’ out of that barrel when you did. He didn’t have much meat on his bones, the poor sap.”
“I dare say I did,” Hari chuckled. “Although, you did shoot Shahin.”
“Eh?”
“My hawk,” Hari raised his eyebrows. “The bird?”
“Oh, yes,” Sullivan nodded. “Precious was she?”
“As a matter of fact,” Hari removed the tip of the kukri from Sullivan’s sternum, lifted the blade above the rough’s head and slammed the pommel into the top of his skull. Sullivan slumped to the floor. “Yes,” Hari sheathed the blade. “You could say that she was.”
In the corridor outside the bathroom, Hari bent to one knee as he retrieved a feather from the carpet. “No blood,” he mused. Slipping the feather into the damp folds of his turban he turned left and walked to the doors leading to the deck. Hari quickened his pace at the sound of heavy footsteps thumping along the corridor behind him.
“Oi, you there.”
Hari looked over his shoulder and waved at the London Docklands policeman fumbling his truncheon from his belt as he ran toward him. Hari pushed open the doors to the deck and rushed to the railing.
The starboard side of The Regal Giant was moored alongside the quay at the eastern entrance to the South Dock. Hari stared down at the black water several decks below him. The doors behind him banged open and the policeman huffed onto the deck.
“Step away from the railing,” the policeman tugged his tin whistle from his breast pocket and slipped it between his lips. “I can have a dozen men here in a jiffy, with just one toot of this.”
“I am sure you can, sir,” Hari turned to face the man. “And I don’t doubt they will be England’s finest.”
“You’ve got that right.”
Hari stared up at The Regal Giant’s huge smokestacks cooling in the night sky above him. “Of course,” Hari smiled at the sight of Shahin soaring in the warm updraft above the steamjammer. He looked at the policeman. “Everybody has heard of the long arm of the law and the men dangling on the other end of it.”
“You’re losing me a little, mate. Why don’t you just come over here and we can continue this lovely little chat down at the station.”
“I would love to. Truly, I would.”
“Now why do I sense a but about to dribble from your mouth?” the policeman took a sturdy step forward.
“Ah, yes,” Hari gripped the railing behind him with his right hand. “There is always a but, isn’t there?”
“I am beginning to lose my patience,” the policeman lurched forward blowing the shrill tin whistle as he raised the truncheon.
“As am I,” Hari leaped over the side of the ship. Falling less than two feet, he snagged his robes on the decorative iron pommel twisted about the railing.
“You were saying?” the policeman leered over the railing at Hari flapping his arms beneath him. The whistle slipped from his lips and hung from the chain around the man’s thick, hairy neck.
“Once again,” Hari sighed, “I find myself dangling from a height at the mercy of my adversary.” He lifted his hand. “Would you be so kind as to help me up?”
Chapter 1
The Royal Geographical Society
London, England
May, 1851
Luise Hanover adjusted her copper-coloured chiffon and leather pleated skirt, tugging the hems halfway up her mud-stained leather riding boots. The stairs leading to the double oak doors of 1 Kensington Gore, home of the learned Royal Geographical Society, were slick with rain and muddy red particles blown in on a desert wind from North Africa. Luise cleared the top step, released her skirt hems and tugged her dark green embroidered jacket firmly down to her hips. Wayward strands of wet strawberry-blonde hair plastered her cheeks and forehead. Luise swept them from her face and took a deep breath before grasping the handle of the left-hand door. She paused. Pearls of rain from the handle running onto her fingers, Luise turned to look at a tall, slack-jawed man staring at her from the street. He took a step forward only to jump back to the pavement as a carriage drawn by six horses thundered past. Luise searched the street in the wake of the carriage but could not see him. She pulled at the door and the thick oak sang open upon oiled hinges. Luise stepped inside.
Beyond the dwarf palm trees in chiselled-magma urns and the stained-glass windows, the foyer of the Royal Geographical Society was bare, but for the painter’s sheets covering the floorboards. With a deep breath of warm, dry air Luise ducked beneath the palm fronds and picked her way around pots of black paint to the reception desk. Placing her palms on the mahogany surface she smiled at the elderly concierge fiddling with his ear trumpet.
“Hello,” Luise waved at the man. “I have an appointment.”
“Yes?”
“An appointment?” Luise smiled again. “With Admiral Egmont.”
“Yes,” the concierge tipped the mouth of the trumpet toward Luise’s face.
“Admiral Egmont,” Luise held the lip of the trumpet between her finger and thumb. “He is expecting me.”
“Yes.” The trumpet rocked back and forth on the desktop as the concierge set it to one side and stood to open the leaves of the guest book.
“There,” Luise slid her finger down the page and tapped the square with her name stencilled inside it. “Luise Hanover. To see the Admiral.”
“Yes,” the concierge bent over the book and peered at the page with Luise’s name on it, his eyes but an inch from the paper. Luise rocked back and forth from her heels to her toes as she waited.
A tinkling of pots followed by a stream of naval curses echoed about the foyer walls as a large-bellied man, thin wisps of hair waving in the dry static air, clapped a huge palm on the dial of his piston-powered brass leg and charged across the floor toward Luise.
“Luise Hanover,” the man bellowed. “How long have you been here?”
“Admiral,” Luise stepped around the desk and into the pudgy embrace of Admiral Reginald Egmont, retired, the Admiral’s beard resting on top of Luise’s head.
“Montrose,” Egmont squeezed Luise once before setting her to one side, “sign her in, damn your eyes.” Stabbing his finger on the page, Egmont tugged a pencil from the concierge’s breast pocket and scribbled his initials alongside Luise’s name. “There,” he slapped the pencil upon the book and gave the man a hard stare. The concierge drifted back to his chair and ignored the Admiral.
“It’s all right, Admiral,” Luise tugged at the hem of her jacket.
Egmont tapped his knuckle on the desktop and frowned. “How are you, Luise?”
“I am fine, why?”
“Really? No bleeding of late?”
“Oh, Admiral,” Luise laughed. “You’re like an old nanny.”
“And you, young lady, take too many chances. One decent cut and...”
“It’s not that bad, Admiral.”
“Haemophilia is not to be taken lightly, Luise,” Egmont wagged a finger in the air. “Especially in women. A rare condition.”
“I am a rare woman,” Luise lifted her chin and looked Egmont in the eye.
“Well,” he smoothed his palm on the desktop. “If you say so?”
“I do.”
“Come on then,” Egmont twisted the dial on his brass leg, “It’s this way,” he took a step with his good leg and dragged the brass one behind him.
“Admiral,” Luise took a quick step alongside Egmont, bending on one knee to examine the gauge on the side of the Admiral’s leg. “When did you last have your leg serviced?”
“Serviced? What? This old yard arm?”
“Yes,” Luise
lifted her skirt and tugged a tiny screwdriver from a leather and lace garter below her knee. “This is an intricate piece of machinery. It needs constant attention and regular servicing.” Luise unscrewed the dial and lifted it off. “It is quite a feat to engineer something as small as this.” With the head of the screwdriver Luise worked the interior piston arms up and down several times before adding a drop of oil from the glass tube she carried in the pocket on the inside of her jacket. “There you go.” Luise screwed the dial back into place and slid the screwdriver into the loop of her garter.
“Amazing,” Egmont beamed down at Luise. He flexed his leg at the knee and offered her his arm. “Thing’s been bothering me for weeks. I’ve been like a crank ship, heeling too close to the wind.”
“I am sure,” Luise took the Admiral’s arm and walked with him across the foyer to the doors leading to the central offices. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“It’s about your brother,” Egmont stopped at the door.
“Jamie?”
“Yes,” opening the door, Egmont waited for Luise to walk past him. “It’s bad news, I am afraid. It seems we have lost him.”
“Lost? I don’t understand.”
“Yes, well,” Egmont let the door close behind them. Gesturing at the picture-lined corridor before them, he guided Luise past paintings of sea battles and ancient marketplaces, cities carved into massive walls of rock and airships tethered to mountaintops. “There is somebody I want you to meet, somebody who will be able to explain things much better than I can. It’s this way.”
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The hiss of steam bubbling from the globus headway tank piffed out between the hinges and edges of the metal panel secured to the chassis of the Wallendorf steamracer. Romney Wallendorf slid behind the outsized steering wheel and wrestled her thick red hair into a temporary ponytail as she tugged the goggles from her neck up and into position. Tugging at the cuffs of her thin leather gloves with her teeth, Romney grinned at the Wallendorf mechanic kicking at the tires.