Chapter Seven

“A Tour”

1.

“Thank you for escorting me to my quarters, Mister Dolan.”

“Not at all, Miss Somerset. I feel I should make up for our first meeting.”

Dolan was charming enough, if a bit rough around the edges. He had a strong, kind face, even if he smiled far too much for her liking. Though she was reserving judgment for later, Annabelle felt here was a man with whom she could help pass the time on Peregrine. Nathanial, after all, would plunge himself into his work soon, and he would be unavailable to fill those hours of boredom. She needed some kind of distraction. Dolan, as security chief and a man with access to these mad bomber investigations, was just that man.

Branching from the basilica in the middle of Heaven were two wings, one called British, the other, Austrian. British contained Starward Observation, sickbay, administration, two laboratories, the Greenhouse One lift, the galley and the quarters for all the department heads. Annabelle and Nathanial had been installed in Austrian, where station operations, the lifts for Greenhouses Two and Three, the quartermaster and the remainder of the labs resided. Annabelle and Dolan had left Starward and were making for the basilica. As security chief, Dolan wanted to personally assure Loaves and Jasperse, who had been attached as guards to protect Annabelle and Nathanial’s quarters, were in place. Jasperse, he said, did not worry him; Loaves, on the other hand, had to be seen to.

“Dim-witted,” he said.

“That doesn’t inspire my confidence.”

“Oh, he’s a loyal fellow, and true. Once he’s had his orders explained to him, you’ll find no one more steadfast. But if you’ve got a complex task, Loaves is not your man. I just want him to know exactly what I expect.”

“Very well. Doctor van den Bosch doesn’t think too highly of your men, does he? What did he call them?”

“‘Cockney guttersnipes’. And no, I can’t imagine he does, but it’s not like him to ever honour a man for his good works. He only berates a person on his failures. He had nothing good at all to say about any of us, did he, only that he wanted me on the job personally where it came to finding the bomber, not one of the infamous cockneys on me staff. That’s about as close to a compliment as you’ll find falling from his tongue. You should bear that in mind, seeing as he dislikes women more than he does guttersnipes.”

“Really? I thought I had simply made a bad impression on him with all of my questions.”

Dolan favoured her with a wise look. “Spoke roughly with you, did he?”

“No, just dismissive, is all. I think I would have preferred evoking his ire.”

“Only because you haven’t seen it yet. Your friend Stone has, I’ll wager. Timid as a mouse, he is.”

“Well.” Annabelle let that trail off. She hadn’t approved of Dolan being so rough with Nathanial earlier, and would give the man no ammunition to damn her friend further.

“So I guess you’ll be working with him, then? Stone?”

“Actually, I’m not certain. I think I’m expected to sit patiently in my quarters and wait for the men to tell me what to do.” Her tone explained how she felt about that, and Dolan smiled yet again in response.

“Not your cuppa, then?”

“Reading dusty books Mister Hague brings me while there is a man out there, right now, planning how best to kill me and everyone else aboard this station? Perish the thought. That’s hardly fit for someone with my energies.”

“Are you a woman of action, then, miss?”

“I am, at that.”

Dolan knuckled his moustache. “And such modesty, too.”

“Modesty is not my strong suit, nor is subtlety. This, despite my mother’s best attempts to soften me into something more approaching a lady.”

Two workmen passed, struggling to walk, and seemingly carrying nothing until Annabelle realised it was a large pane of glass, so pristine it was nearly invisible.

“What is that about?” Dolan asked the men.

“Is goin’ into the big room on the end there,” one of the workmen said. His accent was one of those barely comprehensible British varieties that seemed to rely heavily on a listener’s skill with context rather than the speaker’s enunciation.

The second worker’s brows knitted, no doubt noticing Dolan’s reddened cheeks. “Are you drunk?”

“I am, at that,” Dolan said proudly.

“’Ow’d you come by it, then?”

“Privileges of rank.”

The men roared with laughter. “You’re about as high up as worm’s shite, Dolan,” the first worker said, and the men engaged in further rough camaraderie before remembering a lady was present. Following some mumbled apologies, the workers lit out with their burden.

“No telling what it’s for,” Dolan said when they were moving again. “This place is fat with extravagance.”

“I’ve noticed that’s a mainstay of your empire,” Annabelle replied.

Dolan threw a look over his shoulder. “Not my empire, I can assure you. Unless you’re to mean that it’s built with blood and tears of men such as myself, and our bodies are its foundation.”

“My, but you have a touch of rebellion in you!”

Dolan shrugged. “Ah, it’s the wine speaking to you, just now. But yes. I suppose I do, to some extent. Spent a good deal of my youth abroad, doing odd jobs in your neck of the woods, in fact. Maybe I got me some of that rebellious fire while I visited.”

“You’ve lived in the States? Which part?”

“Both. Wherever the job took me. I didn’t like the Confederates so much. Lots of places with signs that read, ‘No Indians, no Irish’. Slept in more than me fair share of barns, there.”

2.

Before reaching the basilica, Dolan stopped and pointed down a hall to his left. At the end, in one of the only well-lit places Annabelle had seen thus far, was a fountain, sparkling in the bright light, partially tiled in turquoise. “Built that meself, when I first come came here,” he said. “Next to it is Professor Wren’s old laboratory. I was working the day of the accident. They keep the place locked up tight, these days. I wonder sometimes about it.”

“About what?”

Dolan shook his head. “I just wonder, is all.”

They crossed the basilica and soon found Nathanial’s quarters. There were no proper doors on Peregrine Station, or so Loaves had told them in their short walk to dinner earlier that evening. Professor Wren had not wanted the artistic flow to be interrupted for any reason, and had instead installed secret doors to every room. The trick in learning each door was in finding its locking mechanism, which was usually hidden somewhere in the artwork. In a cold shot of irony, a bas relief menagerie of grinning human skulls lined the wall. Dolan said it was Wren’s memory of the catacombs he had seen while in Paris. Annabelle suppressed a shudder to look at it. The skulls seemed to be mocking her. Dolan stuck fingers into the eye sockets of one, and the loud clacking noise could be heard as the door unlocked. The panel slid aside, and inside the room was one of Dolan’s men, sitting at a table, carbine across his lap. He nodded at them.

“Jasperse here will stand watch for Stone. You’ll be under guard until we find this bomber fellow. Jasperse, has Loaves been by recent?”

“He has,” said Jasperse. “Said he was off to grab a spot to eat from the galley, and that he would be along to Miss Somerset’s room as presently as could be expected.” Jasperse was a stocky man, solidly built, with greying chestnut hair and sea green eyes that seemed to stare into the netherworld. The man was as still and cold as stone.

“’Bout what we can expect, I guess,” Dolan replied.

“Yes, sir, but Loaves is all right.”

“As I was just telling Miss Somerset, here. Well, good evening to you, Jasperse.”

Dolan slid closed the panel, and they continued on their way.

3.

“So, about your man, Stone. Not much to him, is there?” Dolan asked when they were out of Jasperse’s earshot.

“Still waters run deep,” Annabelle replied.

Dolan shrugged. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I’m sure you can make a case for your own worthiness without having to tear down another man, Mister Dolan.”

Again came the smile that always seemed to last a second or two too long. “Of that, I’m sure. Known him long, have you?”

“Some eighteen months or so, but we’ve seen a good deal together since April. One gets the full measure of a fellow when bullets are whizzing past your head.”

“Never took him for a bullets whizzing by your head kind of fellow.”

“Not by choice, I can assure you. He’s come a long way, though. I’ll make an adventurer out of him yet.” She cut her eyes sideways and peered at Dolan. “What about you, Mister Dolan? Are you that kind of man? You must be, if you’ve taken on the job of finding this bomber so readily.”

“Oh, I do all right.”

“But you want the job, correct?”

“Of course! I mean, that is to say, I don’t fancy facing down any sort of danger, especially since I was brought up here to do the sweeping up and all. But really, you’ve seen the rest. Do any of them seem like candidates for clamping shackles on a madman?”

Annabelle stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Mister Dolan,” she said, “I would love it ever so much if you would let me assist you in your investigation.”

“I would if I could, but the good doctor would never hear of it.”

“He doesn’t have to know.”

“Oh, he’ll know. There’ll be little birds aplenty to tell on me, rest assured.” He pantomimed birds twittering about his head. The significance was clear.

A man like van den Bosch had spies on this station, reporting anything and everything. Moving about here would be more difficult than Annabelle had originally believed. Spies would not so easily warm to fluttering eyelashes or fawning compliments. She would have to be more subtle if she was going to have her way. Mother would approve.