With the fresh, morning air clearing her head, Maddie clung to Cat and wondered how Knott would summarize the night’s adventure. Surely he’d not admit to being kidnapped instead of Emmeline. What about:
A further daring attempt was made on the young lady outside the doors of her own home. This too was thwarted in part by this reporter, with the able assistance of a troop of orphans devoted to the Steamlord’s daughter, who had long made their care her personal concern.
THE SCOOTER STOPPED in the alley behind Mrs. Darling’s boarding house. Before she was completely off the contraption, Emmeline hurtled out the back door. She ran straight to Maddie and flung her arms around her. Startled, Maddie hugged her back. Then, as Emmeline and the children dragged her toward the house, Mrs. Darling came out in a flurry of skirts and hugged her too.
“Praise be, you are safe. Come inside this instant, all of you. Breakfast is waiting.” She hustled the children around the kitchen table, saying over her shoulder, “Miss Gatsby, dear, take Maddie upstairs to change out of those clothes. I’ll have her breakfast in the dining room directly.”
Maddie followed, dazed by the warmth of her welcome. Hugs were rare. Mother’s family favoured cool formality and Father had given up on affectionate demonstrations when she outgrew childhood. His parents, while they still lived, had been huggers, kissers, cuddlers, both reading regularly to the young Main-Bearings, all tumbled together in a huge armchair that, as far as Maddie knew, still occupied the library carpet below the largest light-pipe. To be hugged so fervently, though, was a new experience.
Emmeline, throwing open the door to her old room, turned and hugged her again. “Oh, Maddie,” she said with an uncharacteristic sniffle. “I’d never have forgiven myself if you had been harmed in my place.” She drew back, blinking fiercely, and slung her battered brown case onto the bed. “But you’re safe now, that’s the main thing. I brought a dress along in case we found you fast enough to keep it quiet. Here, give me that coat.”
Maddie suffered herself to be tugged out of the velvet jacket, and stepped out of the breeches without assistance. As she was unbuttoning the ruffled shirt, she asked, “How did you get here? How did you know to send help?”
“Yes, I’d better tell you all that up here, where the children can’t overhear.” Emmeline shook out the garments and folded them while she talked. “When you had not returned by one-fifteen, I opened the back door to peer out, and what should be lying right there but my buckle shoe! I guessed at once you had been captured by the kidnappers, and thought certain that your friend, Mr. O’Reilly, must be hot on your trail. But you neither came back nor sent word, and by the first rays of dawn I could not wait longer. I roused Bryson and told him to bring me here instantly, and to say, if asked, that he had driven us both to the orphanage to help there for the day.
“When I arrived here, Mr. O’Reilly was just setting out. He said something about a delayed distress signal that I didn’t quite follow, but with only himself and Hiram to hunt, he feared the trail was already lost. I volunteered Cat’s crew but without Emmy’s clothing for the visit I had to send him to fetch them. What a good thing they all saw him with you yesterday at the Statue of Liberty. The whole bunch went uptown with Bryson, the scooter stowed in the cargo hold. What he is imagining I dare not think, but it was vital to get them into the right area quickly. And they found you almost immediately, so it’s worth whatever lies I must tell him to explain.” She stowed the last black-and-white stocking. “Where did they take you? Someplace horrid, I’m sure. Did they question you? Did they discover you were not me?”
Maddie glanced up from the buttons on her navy blue shirtwaist. “They didn’t question me, just left me to sleep off the chloroform. They didn’t even remove the dark bag they’d thrown over my head. I think they must have been waiting for their boss, whoever that is. As for where they took me, I woke up in the cellar of your new house, right across the alley from where they snatched me.”
Emmeline’s eyes narrowed. “They dared hide you in our own house?”
“I’m still puzzling that out.” Maddie turned to the mirror and started combing out her hair. She smoothed the plain brown locks over her bronze streak, watching her reflection lest Emmeline take note. But her friend was staring into space, biting her lip, probably examining the same premise Maddie had been unable to escape: only someone with a key to the new mansion could have taken her there. The kidnappers’ boss was someone either working at the new mansion or with ready access to the keys kept at the old mansion. “It appears we’re not safe in your house either.”
Before they could delve further, boot steps thudded up the stairs. Obie’s thunderous knock had barely died before he slammed open the door. He grabbed Maddie in a hug so hard the breath left her in a squeaky gasp. Four hugs in one morning! Over his shoulder she saw Hiram, grinning ear to ear.
Obie set her down and pointed to the door. “Everyone out. I need to go over a few things with Maddie right away.”
Yes, like giving TD back to her at once. Maddie shooed Emmeline with her hand. “Pour me some coffee, would you?”
With the door closed again, Obie pulled TD from his pocket. “Here, you’d better shut him off. He’s still broadcasting his distress signal.”
Maddie took the sparrow into her cupped hands. His little eyelids were flicking shut and open again, three times a second. Behind them his black eyes were turning grey, a sure sign his power was wearing down. “Shut him off? I don’t know how.”
“Squeeze his feet, like you do when putting him on your hat.” Obie showed her. “It won’t work when I do it. He’s tuned to your skin. I bet you didn’t have a chance to look up during your mad escape, but every clockwork hawk in the city was circling that block, trying to figure out what was going on. Your kidnapping caused a six-hour stoppage of all Madame’s family’s business transmissions.”
“Oh, dear.” Maddie squeezed TD’s feet and watched his eyelids slow, then stop. She must have shut off the alarm unwittingly before, just by picking him up. Well, now she knew. “Madame will be furious. I’d better send an apology right away. That’s the third time TD’s sent a distress this week.”
“Give it a while until the backlog of transmissions gets cleared. Now, were you caught as you, or as Emmy Gat?”
“I’m sure it was Emmeline they were after. Right outside her back door, and they took me to a place only someone in her household could walk into without being questioned.”
His face was grimmer than she’d ever seen it. “And you won’t leave this job to protect yourself, will you?”
“Of course I won’t. Now more than ever, she needs me.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” He opened the bedroom door and they went down to the dining room. From beyond the kitchen door, the urchins were chattering happily. Mrs. Darling could be heard offering them eggs to follow their porridge. Maddie took a chair, gulped down the coffee Emmeline had heavily sweetened for her, and looked at her friends.
“That was an adventure I’d rather not repeat. Thank you, Emmeline, for sending them to find me so quickly. How did you know to come here?”
“I, well . . .” Emmeline stopped as the kitchen door swung open behind her, admitting Mrs. Darling with a tray of eggs, toast, bacon, and three kinds of jam.
“She came to me,” said Mrs. Darling, “knowing I could send out Hiram and his friend at once.”
Maddie looked from the older woman to the younger, making a connection that had long escaped her. “You already knew each other. It was you who told Emmeline about the young lady investigative reporter.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Darling. “I was her nursemaid when she was a wee thing, before I married. She comes around here whenever she’s in the district, and I give her the boys’ outgrown clothing for her orphans.”
“And food,” Emmeline added, with a smile for her old nurse. She stacked up the sticky bowls and spoons left behind when the Darling boys had rushed off to school. “You�
��re a far better cook than the one at the orphanage.”
“Good plain food is all any child needs.” Mrs. Darling finished unloading her tray and took the stacks of dishes Emmeline handed her. “I’d best get more toast on. They’re going through it like there’s none but this in the world.”
In their world, there wasn’t. Not for the first time, Maddie wondered how long such a precarious existence could continue before one of them got really sick, or badly injured, or snatched up by unscrupulous persons for unsavoury uses. She watched the door close behind the landlady.
“So where do we go from here?” Obie asked as she dipped a corner of toast into her egg yolk. “You say it’s not the countess who tried to snatch you, but I think she would do you harm if she could. I’m sure she blames Madame Taxus-Hemlock for being put off our old airship, and would readily use you to get her own back.”
“Well, I blame her for getting me to carry those spiders on board. So much has happened these past few years, I’d forgotten about her being the one to hand me those roses.” Maddie gulped coffee, clearing the egg-and-toast from her mouth. “And yes, she is very curious about my possible connection to–” She paused, conscious of some gaps in Emmeline’s knowledge of her past. “My ex-employer, Madame Taxus-Hemlock. But how would she even know where I’m staying, or that I was the one wearing Emmy Gat’s mask for just the one night? Don’t forget, I took this job because Emmeline was already being followed, long before she met me.”
“I’d be happier if the Russian spy was under my eye,” said Obie, pushing the raspberry jam closer to her hand. “If she’d taken you last night, I wouldn’t know where to start looking. Do you have a clue where she’s staying right now?”
“Of course we do,” said Emmeline. “She gave us her card. For the benefit entertainment.”
Maddie groaned. “That’s today, isn’t it? I just want to go home, have a bath, and sleep for a week.”
“But Mother’s counting on it,” said Emmeline. “I didn’t realize how desperately lonely she was until she seized on the possibility of making new friends at this gathering. She won’t dare go alone. If you really think the countess might be after you, though, obviously it’s too dangerous for you. I’ll take Mother by myself.”
“No. I’ll go, like a proper social secretary, to help her meet people. If the countess really is after me, she may give herself away today. Obie, can you and Hiram be outside Emmeline’s house again by two this afternoon, to follow us over there?” Maddie grinned at him. “If we don’t come out afterward, you’ll know exactly where to start looking.”
Obie glared. “You’d walk straight into the dragon’s mouth, you would. When’d you come over all daft then?”
While he tried to talk Maddie out of going, Emmeline slipped out of the room. Busy defending herself, Maddie didn’t notice at first when Hiram left too. Eventually, though, she’d finished eating and Obie had—temporarily, she was sure—run out of arguments, and both the others were gone. She refilled her coffee cup, stacked up her dirty dishes, and took everything back to the kitchen. She still had to find a way to thank the urchins for their wondrous distraction and for the speedy ride to her friends.
The group all stopped talking as she entered. Cat stood, arms leaning on the table. “You okay then, Miss Mad?”
“I am very well, Miss Cat, thank you.” Maddie smiled at all the small, grubby faces. “Thank you all for a job very well done. What can I do to reward you?”
“No need.” Cat stared down at the table, adding gruffly, “We done it for Emmy Gat, and got a good feed into the bargain. You lot, time we went. Say your thanks.”
“Muffet and Dormie didn’t get any breakfast.” Maddie looked around the room. “Can I pack something up for them?”
“Left ’em at orphanage, we did,” said Rabbit.
Hare amplified. “Dormie’s cough’s bad, and he won’t stay in dat place widout one of us stays wid ’im. Muffet’s too little for trackin’ yet anyway.”
Too little they all were, for the life they had, but Maddie could think of nothing else to do for them just now. She watched them politely shake hands with Mrs. Darling on their way out the back door. When they were all gone, into the maze of alleys they knew so well, she turned to Mrs. Darling. “It breaks my heart to see them go off like that. Can’t we do something?”
“Our Emmy’s watching over them. She’ll get them sorted soon enough.” Mrs. Darling started clearing the table. “Don’t you have messages to send or such, before you’re off uptown to the big life again?”
The message to Madame. Maddie hurried upstairs, shut her bedroom door, and set TD on the dresser. As she was opening her mouth to speak to him, a firm tap-tap came at the window. A red-tailed hawk stared in. Poor TD’s eyes were so grey, his power so low, that he couldn’t move his wings fast enough to flutter that far. She carried him there instead, saying reassuringly, “Soon, little bird. As soon as we’re back in the bluebell bedroom, you’ll have a whole power pellet to charge you up again.”
When the hawk finished his delivery, he sat impassively, turning his cruel beak away while TD replayed the message in a tinny warble. Madame’s words came through, but lacking the vigour with which she had undoubtedly invested them at her end.
“My dear Maddie, what scrapes you do get into! Your own father staying in the same house? Have you spoken to him? Has he sent you off to that convent in Scotland? I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon enough on that score.”
The message had unquestionably been sent before the distress call went up, or Madame would be asking where the convent was, in order to retrieve Maddie.
“Meanwhile, you asked about the Steamlords. First, the Gatsby Gauge. Indeed it is unique in the West, and undoubtedly worth stiff negotiations to acquire licensing rights. Second, I have learned nothing to discredit Mr. Ulysses Cray Coggington. He’s young but considered highly competent at managing the wide array of enterprises he inherited. His mother and two sisters live with him, and they treat their servants and employees well.”
Emmeline would not be happy to hear that. She had decided to distrust Mr. Coggington and no facts would change her mind.
“Third, the German. He’s an honest businessman from a dull but respectable family. However, if his secretary is, as I have heard rumoured, one Herr Gehirn, the broth thickens. Gehirn is a very clever fellow indeed, and moreover is almost certainly spying on Herr Mittwoch-Uhrwerk for a different German firm entirely, one where his elder brother is a director of operations. I doubt he’d risk acting against your young lady in New York. If she were in Germany he could count on political string-pulling to smooth away any unpleasant accusations. In America he’d have no such protections. Be on your guard, but don’t ignore other, more obvious suspects.
“Fourth, you will be relieved, I am sure, to learn Lord Main-Bearing has never been implicated in underhanded dealings. He is considered a hard negotiator but an honest one, and his firm is known for fair trading.
“In light of TD’s two alarms, and in case of future threats, I’ve sent a command through the network that should redirect TD’s distress call to the local resources rather than relaying it all the way to me in Europe, where I must send it all the way back to rally assistance for you. Let me know how you are getting on, and if there’s any other information you require. Stay safe, Liebchen.”
The second message began immediately after the first signed off, with Madame’s words coming faster and higher despite TD’s little voice slowing down due to the power drain. “Maddie, my dear girl. I’m sure help is coming to you but I can’t get a message to young O’Reilly because the New York network is not responding. If you receive this message, hold on, do your best, and remember you have friends who will come for you as soon as they can. Please inform me as soon as you are safe.”
Maddie bent over TD, whose beady eyes were fading to a milky hue. Poor little bird. He was almost inert. Just one more message. “TD, listen: To Madame Taxus-Hemlock via Birdie. I am safe. TD’s al
most flat. More by Obie and TC. Love and thanks.”
The hawk had barely soared away when the bedroom door opened. The outlandish Emmy Gat hurried in. The mask clutched in one hand she tossed at the bed. Shutting the door, she flung herself after it, her stocking feet dangling off the edge.
“What a run!” she gasped.
Maddie rushed over to her. “What—where have you been? Going out in broad daylight dressed like that. Are you mad?”
“You’re Mad.” Emmeline giggled. “I’m Emmy Gat, who strangles folks with her silk cravat.” She rolled over and sat up. “Before you go sideways on me, I took Hiram along for protection. Not right into the stables, but near enough. The kids will be outside while we’re at the countess’s benefit, in case more than one party has to be followed. I took along some of the boys’ clothes from here, so they won’t look too out of place in a posh district. We ran like the dickens, hoping to get back here before you noticed we were gone. I had to hurdle a wagon someone pushed into my path. I’m sure people thought Hiram was chasing me because I’d lifted his wallet. What a lark!”
Maddie threw up her hands. “And Obie thinks I’m the daft one.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE RIDE UPTOWN was long and slow, and very safe from abductors. Mrs. Darling had arranged it, insisting that Hiram and Obie needed a nap just as much as the girls did, if they were to spend the afternoon, too, on surveillance. Thus Maddie and Emmeline, once more in her demure uptown gown, were tucked into the fold-down seats of a portable dye-mobile, nestled up warm amid the brass fittings of the giant dye vat. To reach them, a kidnapper would have to scramble over the dyer and the driver, both burly men with no nonsense about them. Their instructions from Mrs. Darling were clear: take the girls direct to the door of the Gatsby-Gauge mansion on Madison Avenue and see them right inside the house.
“No worries, lassies,” the driver assured them cheerfully as he swung his contraption out into the traffic. “We’ll get you home right enough.”
Maddie Hatter and the Gilded Guage Page 11