Chapter Thirteen

“A Deepening Gloom”

1.

“The laudanum has taken its effect. You should get some rest as well.”

Holmes laid a comforting hand on Nathanial’s shoulder. He was right, after all. There was little left to do except return to his quarters. It was an empty gesture, after all, to stolidly sit by Annabelle’s side until she woke, especially when he had other duties. A new stack of reports awaited him. He could review them before retiring. A strange report had crossed his desk, one he had not mentioned to Holmes and the others earlier. Something was siphoning power from the main generator, and he now had three men searching Heaven and Hell for answers. Perhaps one of them had found something, and he would have a breakthrough.

He needed a breakthrough, and soon.

Sickbay had eight beds, each with a curtained partition. Because she was a woman, Annabelle’s bed would remain partitioned constantly. Nathanial slipped between the curtains and looked around. At the end of the room was the man they had caught trying to steal a cutter the other day, still under sedation. Holmes did not think the man was going to recover, which presented a problem, as they could no longer afford to dose him with ether.

Nathanial was about to leave when he was reminded of the other body, the one at the other end of the room. My God, Holmes thought, it has been a difficult sixteen hours.

2.

They were on their second bottle of wine when word reached Holmes’ quarters about Annabelle. The doctor flew into action, with Nathanial, horrified, stumbling after him. Four men carried her in, using a bed sheet as a makeshift litter. Her elbow was dislocated, and was swollen and purple where subcutaneous bleeding had occurred. Her face was cut, and her left cheekbone was also purple and swollen where something had struck her. Her mouth bled where she had bitten through her lower lip, and the eye on the opposite side of the damaged cheekbone was black.

Holmes ordered everyone out while he saw to her examination. With a pair of shears he cut her dress from her body, and reported to Nathanial that she had also suffered bruised ribs and various scrapes and cuts along her torso and legs, none of which was serious. He tended to the cuts and scrapes with a salve, and the elbow he wrapped with a bandage and secured it with a sling. When questioned later, the men who had found her claimed she was lying at the bottom of the stairs leading down into the workers’ dormitory. It was assumed, then, that she had slipped.

However, when Holmes applied smelling salts and woke her, Annabelle told a much different story. She’d been following a man she had seen a few days earlier, a man she believed was Nathanial’s would-be murderer. The reasoning she gave for this was convoluted, no doubt from the delirium of pain, but Annabelle held a strong conviction she was correct.

This news disconcerted Holmes, and he gave Nathanial a grave look. Later, when they conferred outside sickbay, the doctor told Nathanial that if this were true, she was in grave danger. She had seen the bomber’s face, and the villain would surely want to silence her before she could say anything. A discreet word to Dolan saw guards posted outside both Holmes’ office and quarters, as sickbay could only be accessed through one or the other.

Nathanial, for one, believed her. Annabelle did not tend to employ a strict logic in her affairs, but her women’s intuition in these cases often proved true. And now, with the attack on her person, this had all but confirmed it. When Dolan arrived, Nathanial described Annabelle’s attacker. Dolan confessed he did not know anyone who matched that description himself, which was odd, given that he knew nearly everyone on the station. When Nathanial asked him to begin a search, Dolan could only shake his head.

“Doctor van den Bosch has to agree to let me allocate men to this, Stone. I’m terribly sorry, mate. If I happen on this man meself, I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life for hurting Miss Somerset, but for the rest, me hands are tied.”

If Nathanial believed Annabelle’s story, van den Bosch did not. He arrived with Hague and Salt in tow, and he was full of terrible bluster. He roared at Holmes and Annabelle alike, casting dire predictions about both persons’ futures aboard the station. When Nathanial tried to calm the administrator, van den Bosch whirled on him.

“And just what the hell are you doing here, Stone? Why aren’t you in your quarters, under guard, this very minute? You are supposed to be saving this place from destruction, or haven’t you heard?”

“My friend has been injured, and I have been charged with her care by Doctor Grant himself. What did you think I was going to do? Sit on my hands and wait for one of your lackeys to bring me a report, much like I do with this ridiculous station?”

“I expect you to do as you’ve been instructed. More lives than just that of your friend depend on your success.”

Nathanial refused to leave, even with Hague trying to insert his will upon the argument. Nathanial shoved the little man’s hand away when he tried to steer Nathanial from the room.

“Sir, you will unhand me!” Nathanial cried, and the flash of anger that darted across Hague’s eyes had been quite satisfying, both to Nathanial and the watching Holmes. No more attempts to remove him were made.

Annabelle’s story was dismissed out of hand.

“We employ rough sorts on this station, Miss Somerset,” van den Bosch said. “Doubtless the fellow saw you following him and wanted to know why. If he got rough with you, it’s what you deserve. After all, women have no business running about Peregrine unattended.”

Annabelle, despite being in a furious amount of pain, fought back. “He’s the bomber, I tell you. He threatened to torture me, rip me to pieces.”

“And that makes him nothing more than an angry man, made all the angrier by your harassment.”

Annabelle looked at Holmes and said; “Show him the letter.”

“And what letter would that be?” van den Bosch asked.

Holmes removed from his pocket a piece of paper, cream-colored, folded three times, and handed it to van den Bosch, who wadded the note in one massive hand and tossed it to the floor without reading it.

“You fool!” Annabelle cried. “It’s from him, addressed to you! You know that! I saw him slip one under your door the night he nearly killed Nathanial.”

“You saw nothing!” van den Bosch roared, and he lunged at Annabelle. Nathanial and Holmes both lurched forward, thinking the man was going to strike her, but he stopped inches from her, the brim of his great, green hat shadowing her face. Annabelle looked as though she wanted to recoil, but lying on the bed she had nowhere to go. “What you saw, Miss Somerset, was either a trickster or a harmless madman. I have been receiving such threats since this station was towed here from Earth, and so far, nothing has come of those threats.”

“He’s hardly harmless now,” Annabelle said. She held up her arm as proof.

“Well, you obviously excited him to violence. Any man is capable of murder, given the right circumstances.”

Annabelle sneered. “Oh, well, I suppose it’s all right, then, seeing as it was just this poor, delusional woman he hurt and threatened to murder.”

Van den Bosch stood. “I wish it were that simple, miss.” He nodded to Hague, who disappeared into the corridor outside, only to return a moment later, with six men carrying a new litter. A litter soaked in thick, blackening blood. “But unfortunately, you infected poor Edgar Loaves with your madness, and he paid a terrible price for it.”

“Oh my god,” Annabelle whispered.

Holmes inspected the body. His diagnosis was quick. “The poor man’s had the arteries in both legs cut,” he said. “He would have exsanguinated in seconds.”

“Yes,” van den Bosch said, eyes never leaving Annabelle. “You told Mister Loaves your wild theory and even gave him the man’s description. After he discovered you had been injured, Mister Loaves, in a well-placed desire to bring your attacker to justice, went looking for him. Unfortunately, he found him, cornered him, and the man fought back, only Loaves did not carry a weapon, did he? Oh, no. But your man did. Loaves was dead when the men found him, you know. They said the pool of blood in which he lay was three times as long and twice as wide as the man himself.”

Annabelle began to cry. It was a pitiful thing, and Holmes was aware then that he had never seen her do such a thing. Poor Loaves, he thought.

“I own you now, Miss Somerset,” van den Bosch said. “I own you, and you will make yourself useful. I can’t have you running around this station as you have been, dodging the good men who have been assigned to protect you. You’ll work with Mister Dolan. He has a task in the quartermaster that will no doubt keep you occupied a good many days. Assuming Mister Stone here finds the source of our stabiliser woes, you will complete your task. Afterwards, you will be confined to quarters at all times, taking both meals and baths there as well. You will receive no visitors, nor will you be allowed to visit anyone else. Orders will be cut at that point declaring that if you are seen outside your quarters at all, you are to be considered acting contrary to the interests of this station and put to death.”

“What?” Holmes asked, his voice rising in protest.

“This does not concern you, Doctor,” van den Bosch said, head swivelling as if on a ball joint to face Holmes.

“Whatever you may think of what she’s done or whether or not she’s right about the bomber’s identity,” Holmes said, “she’s given you a description of the man who has been threatening you. Us. The man murdered Loaves, for God’s sake!”

“That will do, Doctor!”

“No, it will not! He’s also threatened another attack in a few days. The note said as much. If Miss Somerset is right, we can prevent this. We must prevent this, for the sake of the others.”

“She knows nothing. Don’t you think I know the name of the man who has been sending me these letters?”

“Then give me his name, so I can match it to the rolls here in my office!”

“Doctor, do you not have enough of a workload, or do you need something else to occupy you? After all, the men down in Hell need assistance with repairs to the outer hull. Can I have them prepare you an environment suit?”

Holmes paled. The threat was plain enough.

“You madman,” Nathanial hissed. “You unbelievable madman! Look around you! You’ve nothing but people trying to help you, and you make threats and tell lies!”

“I’ve just about had enough out of you, Stone. Shall I confine you to quarters as well?”

The question, of course, was rhetorical. Van den Bosch, Hague, and the others left then, and that was that.

3.

Nathanial exited sickbay and passed through Holmes’ quarters, knowing his friend was at work in his office, but not feeling like yet more talk. It seemed like all he did was talk. Talk to someone here, go to dinner and talk, and afterward, scamper off as fast as you can to get to the next round of talk before your place is taken. He wanted to do something.

Jasperse was seated outside, in his usual spot, carbine across his lap, a metal flask ill-concealed in the chest pocket of his coverall. He rose to his feet as smooth as a cat and fell in step with Nathanial walking back to his quarters.

“The kitchen boys and the lads down in the laundry are spooked,” Jasperse said as they entered the main corridor. Nathanial was so weary and detached, it felt like Jasperse was speaking to someone else. “Seems Professor Wren’s ghost has been hanging around the airlocks, dancing a madman’s jig.”

Nathanial did not reply. They walked on in silence until they came to the edge of British, and Nathanial stopped, turned, and faced the long corridor which led to Professor Wren’s old laboratory.

“Seems like a mad thing, a ghost sticking around on a heliograph station,” Jasperse continued. “A house yes, or the soggy moor, where the mists hang low. But nothing such as this, and not so far away from God and the bones of the Earth. It makes no sense to me.” The man took a sip from his flask and offered it to Nathanial, who declined. Finally the man muttered, anguish in his voice, “Poor Loaves. He was a good man. Didn’t deserve this.”

Nathanial stared down the hall. Two workers were there, mopping the floors, washing the walls. It took a moment for Nathanial to realise this was where Loaves had died. He’d given chase, or so van den Bosch’s story had gone, and Annabelle’s man had run down this corridor. Why flee down a corridor when you know there is no way out? The site of the murder was more than two-thirds the corridor’s length, which meant the man must have run all the way down, and then probably come back. What had he been hoping for, to escape through Wren’s lab? Surely, if he was a worker as van den Bosch suggested, he knew the story that everyone else knew, that the lab had been locked.

But what if it wasn’t, and what if the man knew he could escape that way and came back to make sure that Loaves couldn’t follow?

“Come with me, Jasperse.” Nathanial started down the hall toward the two men and the remnants of Loaves’ blood, still clinging to the walls and floor. “You men,” he said when he was near enough, “did you see the body before it was carted off?”

One of the men, a wizened fellow with the bearing of a vulture, looked up from his work. He pushed away a lock of stringy, greying hair and asked, “And who might you be?”

“Professor Nathanial Stone. I’m Professor Wren’s replacement.”

The vulture-man stared hard for a moment, then replied, “Yes, sir. We arrived with the others.”

“Did you see any boot prints in the blood pooled here when you arrived, or perhaps any tracks leading away from the scene of the crime?”

“Plenty of them, once those fools started mucking around in it. Damned hard to clean, too, you mark me!”

“I mean before the men started, as you say, mucking about.”

The vulture-man and his co-worker exchanged looks, then shook their simultaneously.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Nathanial said, turned on his heel and returned to the main corridor.

4.

“What was that about, sir?” Jasperse asked when as they were crossing the basilica.

“No boot prints means the man did not murder Loaves and then flee through the blood. You’ve seen a man with his artery cut, yes?”

“Once or twice,” Jasperse said. “And you’re right. There’s a furious amount of blood, and all of a sudden, too. He would have left boot prints.” He peered hard at Nathanial, half-comprehending the logic. “What next, then?”

They repaired to Nathanial’s quarters, where Nathanial went immediately to the table next to his cot, sat down, and began digging through the blueprints. He found what he was looking for and showed it to the old soldier. He put a finger on Wren’s lab and traced a circle around the block of rooms which made up that section of British.

“There’s no way out of the lab except through that one door,” Nathanial said.

“But that would mean—ˮ

Nathanial smiled. “That means, unless I miss my guess, Annabelle’s mad bomber is still in Professor Wren’s laboratory, and as soon as those two workers are gone, he will flee. Chances are, after that, we’ll never see him again.”

“My God,” Jasperse said.

Nathanial nodded at Jasperse. “Your carbine is loaded?”

“Of course. Always.”

“Let’s go, then.”