Chapter Thirteen

“By Water, Air, and Fire”

1.

GEORGE BEDFORD LISTENED to the soft put-put-put of the steam launch’s engine, the slap of waves against the bow, and the muted sounds of London’s late night waterfront drifting across the choppy waters of the Thames. The vile smell of raw sewage and human waste rose from the river, London’s sewer. He looked to his two companions: Nathanial Stone sitting across from him and absorbed in his own dark thoughts, Captain Folkard holding the launch’s wheel steady with his knee as he checked the two bullets in his derringer for the fourth or fifth time. Folkard was not usually nervous before a fight, or perhaps he usually concealed it better, but their experiences on Luna had changed him. Bedford had not thought they had changed him so much as to leave him unmanned in the face of danger, but other men had been ruined by experiences less traumatic. Time would tell—and not much more time now.

“You’ll wear that out, Captain,” he said.

Folkard looked up at him and smiled crookedly as he snapped the derringer closed. “You’ve got your revolver, I know. What about you, Stone? Are you armed? These are rough fellows we’re come to call on.”

Nathanial looked at the captain for a moment through narrowed eyes. It was a new habit he’d acquired, this long appraising look before speaking. Folkard had told Bedford about the death of Stone’s brother in the fire, about how it had changed him. Well, there was nothing surprising in that, he supposed, but the nature of the change—that was a different matter. Bedford no longer knew what emotion lurked behind those long, silent stares, but he suspected something dark and violent, not at all like the man he had come to know this last year.

“I have a knife,” Nathanial answered at length.

Folkard shook his head. “You’d be better off with a firearm. A knife’s difficult for someone who’s inexperienced with it. It’s hard to actually plunge it home when the moment demands it. Everyone thinks they can, of course, until they actually face the prospect for the first time.”

Nathanial drew a knife from his pocket and examined it. It looked to be a boning knife and the long blade gleamed dully in the faint light. “I plunged a knife not unlike this into a man on Mars, a worm priest—felt it scrape between his ribs. I listened to him scream in pain and terror, and then I watched the blood bubble up from between his lips.” He looked up at Folkard. “I daresay I can do it again.”

Bedford shivered; he was not sure if it was from the cold and damp or from the lifelessness in Stone’s eyes when he gazed at the captain. He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and touched the reassuring metallic bulk of his own Enfield. “How much further, Captain?”

“My guttersnipe say he’s anchored just past this next dredging tower, bow and stern hooks out to keep from swinging with the tide. It’s a long, low-slung river barge painted green, but faded and peeling. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make out the colour in this light. There’s a cabin added amidships, so keep an eye out for that.”

“I wish your so-called guttersnipe had got this information to us sooner,” Nathanial said. “The ambassador arrives tomorrow and so far we are no closer to the plot than we were two days ago. God help us if this is another false lead.”

Folkard said nothing in reply. Stone was right. Time was quickly running out, and if they did not gain a clear lead from this encounter…well, he wasn’t sure what to try next. The launch carried them on past the massive steel girder tripod that supported the steam-powered river dredging pumps, parked for the night in the shallows. Folkard suddenly pulled the throttle back and the motor died, leaving the launch to carry forward under its own momentum and the river’s current. “There!” Folkard whispered harshly, “two points off the starboard bow, and showing a light.”

Bedford made it out fifty yards ahead, a swaying lantern casting the barge’s upper works into sharp relief, and he saw flickering movement, heard the creak of mooring lines and the scrape of wood gunwales on cloth bumpers. “Small boat alongside,” he whispered to Folkard who nodded. Bedford drew out his Enfield revolver and checked to see that the lanyard cord around his neck was secured to the ring on the pistol butt. He trembled with fear and excitement. It wouldn’t do to drop his pistol and have it sink to the bottom of the Thames.

Light flickered from beside the barge for a moment and then vanished—a firebox opened for another shovelful of coal. A few sparks burst from a smokestack and briefly illuminated a low steam launch similar to their own moored to the side of the barge. An engine came to life and the launch moved away, light flickering from its bow wave and stern wake.

“Follow it!” Stone hissed.

“It’s too fast for us and besides, it’s the Devil himself we’re after,” Folkard said. “He’ll still be on the barge.” He waited until the hand lantern disappeared from the deck of the large vessel and then gave the launch power, quickly closing the distance to the looming shape. Bedford made his way forward and found the end of the bow painter floating in the dirty bilge water. Folkard cut the engine again and the launch coasted for a second or two, coming up alongside the barge with a solid thunk.

With his revolver in his right hand and the end of the bow painter in his left, Bedford leaped up at the barge’s hull and managed to get both elbows over the gunwale, then a leg, before tumbling over onto the deck two feet below. As he searched for a cleat to secure the line to, the door to the cabin opened and light flooded out.

“Back again, Billy? You got engine trouble? Hey, who the bloody hell―?”

The man ducked back inside the cabin and Bedford sprang after him, dropping the painter on the deck. He ducked through the hatchway, cracking his brow on the overhead; his feet slipped off the stair step, causing him to lose his footing and slide down the companionway to the cabin deck seven feet below. He landed on his bum, stars from the crack on his head clouding his vision. Across the cabin a man dug frantically in a locker. He turned back, a marlin spike in his hand. Through everything Bedford still had his Enfield revolver clenched in his right fist; he raised it and fired a shot into the wood beam above the fellow’s head.

Hands up!” he shouted.

His opponent immediately dropped the marlin spike and threw his hands up. “Don’t shoot again, you fool! You’ll blow us all to hell and gone!”

From outside Bedford heard a sharp cry of distress and then a loud splash.

2.

NATHANIAL VOMITTED AGAIN and Bedford patted him on the shoulder—although gingerly, as if trying to do so on a spot which bore no obvious trace of the scientist’s immersion in the Thames. Nathanial shrugged the hand away.

“You were supposed to tie the boat up,” he hissed, gagging, although this time nothing came out but a trickle of spit.

“He had other things to do,” Folkard said. The captain covered the gunpowder merchant with his derringer, despite the fellow’s insistence that a single shot might blow them all to kingdom come. “You should have kept your mouth closed, Professor. No telling what sort of poison you swallowed.”

Nathanial gagged again, trying to empty his stomach. He shuddered with the cold as well as in reaction to the violent nausea which had overcome him as soon as Folkard pulled him from the river. When Bedford had let go of the painter, Nathanial had his hands on the barge’s gunwale and his feet in the launch. The two had immediately separated and Nathanial struggled for ten or fifteen seconds, trying to hold the two together with his leg muscles, but despite all the exercise he had had in the past year, his muscles simply weren’t strong enough. He had plunged into the filth. It was hard to imagine this was the same river on which he and Josiah Hawksworth had boated only two or three years before. It had not been like this then.

Bedford turned away from him and took a step toward their prisoner. “So this is ‘Devil’ Devlin, London’s least reputable purveyor of gunpowder. He’s not as impressive in person as I had expected.”

“Hook it, crusher,” the man answered with a sneer.

“He thinks we are the police,” Bedford said to Folkard and then turned back to Devlin. “No, we are not. We will probably turn you over to the police when we are done with you, and they will be very grateful to know who supplied the powder used to kill the Austrian ambassador. That’s all they seem to care about these days.” Bedford saw this take effect; saw Devlin colour slightly and lick his lips.

“If you ain’t crushers, what are you after?”

“Billy Snide,” Folkard said.

“And don’t waste our time saying you don’t know what we’re talking about,” Bedford added. “That was him leaving as we pulled up. That’s why you called me Billy at first. You thought it was your friend coming back.”

“Billy Snide ain’t no friend o’ mine,” Devlin said and then spat on the floor for emphasis. When Folkard lifted his left hand as if to strike him, Devlin continued quickly; “Don’t mean he weren’t a customer.”

“What is your price for gunpowder, Mister Devlin?” Nathanial asked through chattering teeth. Bedford looked at him curiously, Folkard with irritation at this seemingly irrelevant question.

“Twelve pounds a hundredweight, and a premium for smaller quantities.”

“Twelve pounds? Damn me!” Bedford exclaimed. “You must be the most expensive powder merchant in London.”

“And the least inquisitive,” Folkard added. Devlin nodded.

“How much powder did you sell Mister Snide?” Nathanial asked.

Devlin opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. His eyes narrowed and he smiled ruefully. “Ah, that’s a very pretty trap you set for me, Mister Young Gentleman. You’ll know from what’s in me tuck, won’t you? All right, I sold him two six-pound kegs for two pounds even, and threw in a roll of quick fuse free of charge. And yes, he could get it in a store for half that, if they’d let him out the door without whistling up the crushers.”

“Is that more or less than he purchased the last time?” Nathanial asked.

Devlin looked from Bedford to Folkard, perhaps calculating his chances of escaping this encounter alive. Folkard held the derringer slightly higher and Devlin licked his lips again. “If I tell you everything I know, will you let me go?”

“We’re going to tell the authorities. We have no choice,” Folkard answered.

“Yes, I sees that I does, but that ain’t what I’m askin’. Tell them the story, give them the barge and all the powder in the hold, and they’ll be happy enough. One neck stretched, more or less, won’t make that much of a difference.”

Folkard and Bedford exchanged a look and hesitated.

“Yes, let the scoundrel go,” Nathanial said, “provided what he has to say is worth anything to us.”

“Oh it is, sir, that it is,” Devlin insisted, nodding vigorously for emphasis. After a moment Bedford nodded and then Folkard agreed as well.

“This was less powder as he bought last time, and I hear that was a mighty bomb he made to blow up one man. Now he’s making a smaller bomb to blow up half a dozen. Makes you wonder, don’t it? Made me wonder, and I asks him. He says, ‘Dev, the stupid bastard’s bringin’ his own bomb with him. This here’s just for the trigger.’ I don’t know what he meant by it, but he meant summat. You blokes keen enough to sort it out?”

Bedford, Folkard, and Nathanial exchanged a look. Although they said nothing, Nathanial knew what this meant and so must the other two. The Austrian ambassador was arriving by zeppelin, its lifting cells filled with flammable hydrogen. Bringing his own bomb indeed.

3.

ANNABELLE BELIEVED DOCTOR Dumba looked considerably healthier today. The cold may have run its course, but she also suspected Dumba as a man who thrived on intrigue, and if it skirted the boundaries of legality, all the better. He had even nodded a cool greeting to Fairfax, and Fairfax had returned it, although neither of the old enemies spoke to the other.

They sat around Mrs Collingwood’s dining room table after the breakfast dishes had been cleared, and had to pull up three extra chairs for Nathanial, George, and Captain Folkard. Doctor Dumba sat at the head of the table in Mrs Collingwood’s chair and she had pulled the sliding doors shut behind her after serving tea. Dumba laid his gold watch on the table before him, a reminder of how little time they had left, and then heard what they had discovered on the previous night, and what they had concluded from it.

“Yes, you are quite correct in your assessment, gentlemen. Ambassador Hengelmüller arrives by zeppelin at the Hanover Square landing tower by Hyde Park in approximately two hours.” Dumba unrolled a street map of Central London and pointed to Hanover Square. “There will be an initial reception there, attended by the Prince of Wales and several government ministers. Then they will travel by steam carriage down Park Lane to Piccadilly, east to Trafalgar Square, then south on Charing Cross and Parliament Street to Westminster. The route is lined by two battalions of the foot guards for security and crowd control. At Westminster there will be another reception in the Old Palace Yard. The Lord Chancellor and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod will welcome him on behalf of the House of Lords. Lords Chillingham and Belvedere will be present there as well.”

“But Chillingham will not be at Hanover Square,” Nathanial said.

Dumba’s eyebrows went up slightly and he leaned back in his chair. “That is correct. Police preparations at the Old Palace yard have been very energetic, I understand, under the assumption any attack will take place there, once the party is joined by the senior members of the House of Lords. Elsewhere it has been less thorough.”

“How do you know all this?” Major Blount asked.

Dumba made a dismissive gesture. “I have my contacts, some even in the Metropolitan Police.”

Blount shifted in his seat and frowned. “Rather irregular that some foreigner could learn all this so easily,” he said, shaking his head. “No offense,” he added.

Dumba simply looked at him for a moment and then turned to George. “Commander Bedford, I agreed to bring your circle of confederates into our counsels because time is very short. The ambassador arrives momentarily. If this plot succeeds, Europe may be torn asunder. Alliances will break and nations may go to war, although which nations and where they will fight I cannot sort out, and that is itself frightening. But how will your country react to the death of the Prince of Wales and half the cabinet? I think it will change your domestic politics in ways unimaginable from where we sit, but I will tell you this: what sets Britain apart now is your sense of self-confidence and security in your own island. It is sometimes infuriating to those of us who live elsewhere, but it is a source of strength to you. This plot will shatter that, and you will not recover it for a generation, if ever. I cannot help but believe your politics will become bitter as a result, and even more strident than they are already. If you value your country, you must prevent this thing. You must.”

Was that true, Annabelle wondered? Could one explosion so change the course of history, or the spirit of a country? Perhaps.

“I think we all understand that, Doctor,” George answered as if echoing her thoughts.

“I hope so,” Dumba said. “Now, as to the attack, if we are to believe this informant of yours, it seems clear the attack will take place while the ambassador is still aboard the zeppelin or shortly after he disembarks. I think the latter is more likely. From what you told me of this Devlin’s remarks, it seems certain the plot is aimed at killing many rather than just the one, so it must be planned for when the ambassador is actually at Hanover Square along with the first welcoming party.”

“Yes,” Nathanial said. “If Snide shared his intention to murder a half-dozen men with Devlin, it says as much about his confidence as his intentions.” It was the first thing Nathanial had said since arriving and he had yet to meet Annabelle’s eyes.

Bedford had told her some of what had happened to Nathanial, how his brother had perished in a fire which had nearly taken his life and Folkard’s as well. That must account for some of his changed demeanour, but certainly not all of it. Why had he made no effort to contact her? She still could not understand that. Until a few weeks ago she had thought herself closer to him than any other person alive, almost like brother and sister, and she had little enough real family as it was. All of those feelings now seemed lost.

Was it because of her growing feelings for George? Did Nathanial entertain a secret romantic attachment toward her? She had a hard time believing it, and if so he had certainly kept it very well concealed. But if that was the explanation it made little difference. Jealousy was no reason to discard a friendship, unless the friendship had no great value to begin with.

“We are agreed, then, that the attack must take place at Hanover Square,” Doctor Dumba was saying. “Once the zeppelin is in position over the reviewing stand, an explosion will almost certainly bring it down on the assembled notables below. Some may escape, but many will certainly perish, as well as scores of bystanders. So how will Snide deliver his bomb to the zeppelin?”

“Once it crosses the channel, will the airship stop anywhere in England? Possibly for fuel?” Colonel Wyndham asked.

“No, it will come immediately to London and will not touch down until it reaches the Hyde Park tower—is actually not allowed to do so sooner. Your animal and produce quarantine rules are quite draconian.”

Annabelle looked around the table and saw brows furrowed in thought. Major Blount studied the street map as if the solution might be found there. Colonel Wyndham leaned forward and joined him, looking at the outlined blocks of buildings to the east.

“Do we know the direction from which the airship will approach?” Wyndham asked. “If its route will carry it over a particularly tall building, the saboteurs might throw the bomb from a roof, or even launch it using a sling, or perhaps a rocket.” George and Folkard both began shaking their heads before Wyndham finished speaking.

“There’s no fixed approach path because you never know in advance the wind direction or velocity,” Folkard said. “That determines your angle of approach to the tower. You always want to approach into the wind, never across it and certainly not with it at your stern.”

“Why not with it at your stern?” Annabelle asked.

George turned to her. “We don’t like doing it because a sudden gust of wind can push you into the tower before you can back engines. As it is, the tower extends its mooring shackle on a long arm and the airship approaches into the wind and connects to it with its nose coupling. The support arm drops away leaving the shackle connected by a steel cable to a steam winch in the docking tower. The airship then cuts its engines and the winch takes over, reeling it in.”

Annabelle looked around the table. “Well then, assuming the reviewing stand itself will be guarded and inspected, there is only one place the saboteurs can be.”

George and Folkard exchanged a look and nodded in agreement. “Quite right,” the captain said. “They will be in the docking tower. Doctor Dumba, can you turn this information over to the police?”

“Of course. Whether it can get to the correct person in time for them to act on it is a different matter.”

“Assuming their superiors want them to act on it,” Nathanial said and Dumba looked at him for a moment and then nodded.

“Well, do your best, Doctor, but I believe we must act as well,” Folkard said “Bedford, you and I will go. I’m sure Professor Stone will also want to accompany us.”

“Cartwright as well,” George said. “He keeps his head in a fight.” Annabelle smiled at that. She knew George did not care for Fairfax, which was hardly surprising given the difference in their temperaments and interests. But George was too used to commanding men of every different stripe to let personal antipathy cloud his judgment as to a person’s worth.

“I will of course be going as well,” Annabelle announced.

Folkard’s eyes grew wide and George shifted in his seat next to her. “But my dear, there will be stairs to climb.”

“And your arm to help me do so, or Fairfax’s if you are not so inclined.” Fairfax made a small bow from across the table. That last bit was unfair, she knew, but it ended the argument and they had no time for pointless disputes now. “Major, I will thank you again to guard my uncle and the ladies of the house in our absence. Colonel Wyndham, I wonder if Doctor Dumba’s powers of persuasion with the police might be augmented by the presence of a distinguished retired officer.”

“An excellent idea, my dear. I will be happy to accompany him.”

“Are you armed, Mister Cartwright?” Dumba asked, the first words he had directed at his former rival of the heart.

“I have my fists, Doctor Dumba, which have stood me in good enough stead so far.”

Dumba made an irritated face, drew a revolver from his pocket, and slid it across the table to Fairfax. “Use this, but try not to lose it. It is one of the first production numbers of the new model Rast und Gasser.”

Fairfax picked it up and hefted it. “The latest in Austro-Hungarian weapons technology?” he asked with a trace of sarcasm.

“Do not bait me, Cartwright.”

Fairfax coloured slightly but then nodded. “You are quite right. Thank you, Konstantin. I will see that this does our common cause some good.”

There was a knock at the door and everyone at the table turned to see it slide open and reveal her Uncle Cyrus standing in the archway, his face alert and composed.

“Uncle, are you all right?” Annabelle asked.

“Why yes,” he said, “as a matter of fact I am splendid. I remember everything which has transpired these last weeks and I want you to know my mind has cleared, quite suddenly. I suspect it is because the Heart has again begun communicating with me. I had no idea it was capable of communicating at this remove, but the evidence is incontrovertible. I think we had better contact the authorities—perhaps the Admiralty, although the Colonial Office might be better. Mister Chamberlain strikes me as a sensible sort.”

“Uncle Cyrus, I am delighted to hear that, happier than I think you can know. But it will have to wait. We are off to thwart an assassination attempt on half the British cabinet and the Prince of Wales, and have only a little more than an hour to do so.”

“Oh. Well you run along then and we’ll talk when you return. I have a great deal to tell you.”

If we return, she thought.

4.

CAPTAIN FOLKARD PULLED his respirator mask off, the better to see. The air wasn’t all that bad this morning. The sun shone through a thin yellow haze, which a pleasant force three breeze from west nor’ west never allowed to gather into heavy clouds of soot. He peered through the branches of a park hedge as Bedford crawled forward beside him and pulled off his own mask.

“One guard,” Bedford observed. “A soldier. Is all well and proper here after all?”

The soldier stood at order arms in front of the door to the squat brick boiler and furnace room of the landing tower. The more slender tower itself, also brick, rose from the centre of the structure, ending in the iron copula and revolving mooring shackle. The support arm for the shackle was already extended and aligned with the wind direction. Beyond the building Folkard heard the murmur of the crowd assembling in Hanover Square for the arrival. Folkard turned his attention back to the soldier: white cork helmet, red tunic, blue trousers—the colours of the national flag repeated as a uniform.

“The foot guards are providing security today. That fellow has been in the service before, I’d say, but he’s no guardsman—he’s too short. And look at his trouser cuffs, all bunched up around his boots. Any colour sergeant in the guards would strangle a soldier before he let him out of barracks dressed like that. No, I’ll wager we’ll find the real owner of that uniform inside the furnace room, bound up or dead. This is the place, all right. I don’t expect we can convince Miss Somerset to go for help while we storm the place?”

“I’m afraid I sacrificed all of my credibility on that score by not informing her of our boating expedition last evening.”

“Are you going to marry that girl, Bedford?” Folkard asked. He’d been wondering that for some time now and this was as good a time as any to ask. Bedford couldn’t very well engage in a lengthy argument here and so he might get a simple answer. Instead Bedford only gave him an annoyed look. “Well, you’re a fool if you do, and a bigger one if you don’t.”

“Thank you, sir, for your assessment,” Bedford said dryly. “Now how are we to overcome this guard?”

“Can you tell if he was one of the toughs you fought in Whitechapel?” Folkard asked.

“Not through his respirator, no.”

“Right. Well, there’s too much chance he’ll know you or Cartwright by sight from that fracas, and of course their gang will recognise any peg-legged woman, by reputation if not by sight. I’m afraid that leaves it up to Stone and me. Don’t imagine he’ll fancy it, as he doesn’t seem to think much of me these days. Nothing for it, though.”

5.

NATHANIAL BRUSHED HIS hand past the pocket of his coat to feel the reassuring bulk of his knife, but as Captain Folkard had suggested, he did not put his hands in his pockets. Better to let the false guard see his hands, and that they were empty. Folkard’s hands were occupied with the street map Dumba had loaned them, raising it to look, then lowering it and looking around in bewilderment. Nathanial had to admit it was a convincing act.

“You know, that coat still smells frightful from your immersion last night,” Folkard said. They had already agreed to sustain a continuous banter between them and pay no attention to the guard until challenged.

“Yes, thanks to our mutual friend. I changed clothes but this is the only heavy coat I have. It’s still damp, too. I’ll probably catch my death,”

Folkard laughed for the benefit of the false guard, as if Nathanial had delivered a choice bon mot.

“’Alt, ’oo goes there?” the guard said, his words muffled through the respirator. He raised his rifle to the ready.

“Ah, a trooper. Splendid!” Folkard said, closing the distance to the man. “We seem a bit lost. Is this Wellington Place up ahead?”

“Move along,” he said and gestured with the muzzle of his rifle.

“Really, it’s a simple enough question. I mean, you must know where we are. We’re trying to find the Cavalry Barracks.”

“Move along, there’s a good gent,” he said with a hard edge to his voice

Folkard exchanged an outraged look with Nathanial and then glared at the soldier. “Such disrespect! Outrageous. Why, I’ll find your sergeant and have you up on charges! Where is he? Over there with those other men?”

Nathanial saw the man hesitate and shift uncomfortably, then pull his respirator down around his neck. “Awright then, calm down. No need for that. That there’s ’Anover square. Wellie’s Place is sout’, and the barracks just west o’ there.”

Folkard moved over beside him and held up the unrolled street map. “South? Show me here, could you? We seem all turned about. Where are we?”

The man let out a sigh of annoyance but looked at the map. As he lifted his finger to point he froze, feeling the point of Nathanial’s knife against his throat, having slid between the bunched straps of the respirator. Folkard kept the map held up so no casual onlooker from the distant crowd would see even a glint from Nathanial’s knife. They had no more interest in summoning the troops at the moment than the conspirator did. Alarming the villains inside might thwart the worst of the plot, but also might cause them to detonate the charge prematurely, and who knew how many innocent people below would be killed and injured?

Was this one of the men who had delivered the infernal devices to Folkard’s lodgings, the devices which had seen his brother burned alive? At the thought, Nathanial found the knife pressing harder against the man’s throat, as if it had a will of its own, and a tiny drop of red appeared at its point.

“Stone…” Folkard said. Nathanial looked at him and saw concern bordering on alarm. He eased off slightly with the knife blade and took a breath. After all, he did not know if this group was even responsible for the fire, did he?

“We’ll have that door open,” Nathanial hissed in his ear, “and quietly. If you warn your friends, you’ll die first. Do you understand?” The man nodded, eyes bulging from their sockets.

6.

BEDFORD SWEPT ANNABELLE up in his arms and carried her across the twenty yards of open ground to the door of the furnace building. She protested at first but he cut her off. “We have to make good time without looking as if we are hurrying. As it is, we are simply two gentlemen and a lady in the park, and all in a playful mood.” He grinned at her and she smiled back. Her peg was still rather awkward, sticking up in the air and her dress and petticoat sliding down it a bit, but they made in across the open lawn without anyone in the distant crowd taking notice. Once inside he put her down and drew his revolver, and saw Cartwright do the same. Folkard was tying the false soldier to an iron water pipe and had already securely gagged him. Stone knelt by an unconscious and bound up man in a union suit, presumably the original owner of the uniform

“He’s alive,” Stone said softly looking up, “but they hit him very hard. He has concussion at least, and perhaps a fracture. There’s nothing we can do for him now, however, except let him rest and hope Dumba arrives with the authorities and a doctor.”

The interior of the building was filthy with coal dust and for all its size was cramped, nearly filled with the boiler, firebox, and large engine which powered the winch. Flames flickered orange and yellow through the tempered glass slits in the firebox door and a shovel rose like a headstone from the pile of coal nearby. “Where is the regular crew?” Bedford asked softly.

“Here,” Cartwright said from beside the winch engine, looking into the shadows. Bedford joined him and followed his gaze: two men in dirty overalls and leather gloves, skin pale white under the coal dust, blood dark, almost black, and clotting around their throats and on their chests. “This will be enough to hang all of them. Why not do the same with the soldier?” Cartwright asked.

“Couldn’t afford to get blood on the uniform.” Beyond the winch motor Bedford saw the wrought iron spiral staircase winding up to the winch tower. A pile of worm shoes lay beside it. They would have gunpowder up there, be working with it, making the bomb. Someone had worked with it before, that much was clear, and had them working in their stockings or bare feet to avoid a hobnail striking a spark on the iron steps or floor above. He turned back to the others. Stone had risen to his feet and Folkard, finished tying up the false guard, drew his small pistol.

“Right then,” Bedford said. “Shoes off, everyone. We cannot afford a spark if there is powder about.” He sat down and began unlacing his own boots and the others followed suit except for Annabelle.

“I’m afraid I will require assistance with this shoe,” she said.

“My pleasure, Miss Somerset,” Cartwright said immediately, his own shoes already off.

“The stairs are narrow,” George continued in a low voice, “one person at a time. Captain Folkard and I have the most experience with this sort of business so we’ll go first, my revolver followed by his derringer. Then Cartwright with his Austrian revolver, then Stone, and then Annabelle. There’s a good railing to each side so I think you can manage, my dear, but Stone I’ll thank you to assist her.”

“That will not be necessary,” she said. “Do not delay on my account.”

“Very well. Everyone go slowly, choose your steps carefully, and try not to make noise. Going barefoot will help. They are almost certainly armed, and will be desperate to avoid capture which means execution for them, so surprise is essential.”

They moved to the stairway and when Folkard made to go first Bedford held up his revolver, pointing to the captain’s smaller two-shot pistol. Folkard frowned in thought for a moment and then nodded reluctantly. Bedford took the lead, left hand on the railing and right holding the revolver at the ready.

The building and tower were both new, within the last five years, and so the staircase was sturdy and firmly attached to the central supporting shaft. That was good. It took their weight without shifting or groaning the way an older structure might have.

The ceiling, which would be the floor of the upper room, was about thirty feet above the ground. As Bedford neared it he paused and glanced back down to see how the others fared. They were well closed up, even Annabelle, and as he watched he saw her brace her artificial leg on the stair, take hold of the railing with both hands, and lift her good foot up two steps, then pull and push herself up, carefully plant her peg, and repeat the process. She again carried Colonel Wyndham’s cane, her right hand holding it at mid-shaft so she could manage it and the railing at the same time. Her face bore an expression of concentration but nothing more, as if she climbed a spiral staircase armed only with a sword cane to face desperate assassins every day of her life. Folkard’s earlier question came back to him and he smiled to himself, but then he shook his head. Within seconds all their lives would be at risk and he could afford no distractions until they were clear of this peril.

He climbed the last few steps before the break in the floor and then carefully raised his head and scanned the room. The stairs rose into a semi-enclosed alcove which rested deep in the shadows, so he felt reasonably secure observing the assassins. The circular domed cupola, like a gun turret but much taller, was lit by a few electric lights but mostly by sunlight flooding in a series of horizontal slits around its circumference, about seven or eight feet from the ground. Eight massive angular steel girders formed the framework of the cupola, rising and coming together high overhead, the upper works lost in shadows.

There were five assassins, one holding a metal tube several inches in diameter and perhaps a foot long, another carefully pouring black powder scooped from an open keg into the tube, a third working at attaching a cap of some sort to a similar tube, the fourth standing on a slightly elevated metal platform and looking out an open vision slit, the last one standing in the centre of the room with hands on hips, another small keg of powder under his arm. The winch controls were close by the raised platform so that would be the station from which the gantry arm and tether cable was controlled.

He ducked back down and faced Folkard who had crept up the steps and wedged himself beside him. Bedford held up five fingers and Folkard nodded. He held them out for Cartwright to see and he nodded as well. Bedford’s heart pounded in his ears and he felt his hands tremble and his vision narrow. He took a breath to steady himself and then climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. He stood unnoticed in the shadows for the four or five seconds it took for Folkard to join him and then they strode out into the light, pistols raised. The man scooping powder saw them and his expression of alarm alerted the others with him who wheeled toward the stairs.

“Halt in the name of the Crown!” Bedford called and cocked his revolver, aiming it at the closest man, the one in the centre of the room. To his right Folkard did the same with his derringer and he felt Cartwright brush his left sleeve as he came even with him and held up Dumba’s revolver.

For a moment no one moved. Then the man with the powder scoop used it to toss powder high in the air toward them. The heavier grains came down at once, mostly on the man in the centre of the floor, but some dust remained in the air, clearly visible dancing in the shafts of sunlight. He threw another scoop and the man in the centre of the room, suddenly grinning in understanding, dipped his hand in the open powder keg in his own arm and tossed a handful into the air over Bedford and the others, to rain down on their hair and settle in the folds of their clothing. Cartwright began coughing

“Now shoot, you smart bastards,” the man in the centre of the room sneered. “Shoot and you’ll send us all to our maker, including that pretty lady back there as killed me brother. I’d say drop the barkers, but you don’t want to do that. They make a spark when they hit the floor, we’re finished.”

So this was Billy Snide, Bedford thought. He was a head taller than any of the others and had a good, strong voice—both handy for a leader.

The man on the raised platform, until now a silent witness to drama below, pointed out his window. “There it is! It’s comin’ from the sou’-east, almost over Peckham New Town.”

“Finish these mugs,” Snide barked to his cohorts, “and quick about it. But don’t kill the red-head. Him we just take with us back to Willie. Kill the others quick, so’s we can set the rockets and then cut the lucky.”

The three men on the assembly line put aside their powder and rockets, drew knives from their belts, and hurried past Snide to get at the trio in front.

Bedford reversed his revolver to use it as a club. The man who had first thrown the powder came at him, made a slash at his eyes, and then went for his ribs. Bedford managed to block the stab with his forearm against the fellow’s wrist and swung his revolver at his assailant’s head. The man was quick, shrugged his shoulder up and ducked so the pistol struck only a glancing blow.

Around them the melee became general, men crowded together, shoulders jostling, throwing each other off balance. The man facing Bedford pulled back his knife to strike again when a long steel blade slid past Bedford’s side and sank into the man’s abdomen.

“Ohhh!” he said with an odd mixture of disappointment and dismay as he staggered back. He said it not as one mortally wounded, but as a man might upon opening a letter expecting a cheque and finding instead a substantial bill. He clapped a hand to his wounded belly and fell to the floor on his rump, then he leaned against a steel girder and held his bloody hand in front of his face as if still not quite believing such a thing had happened to him. Where was his cheque?

“Take this!” Annabelle shouted and waved the sword cane.

Bedford took it and thrust for Snide, but he jumped behind a support girder rising from the floor and drew his own knife. Bedford had the advantage of a longer blade and better training. Snide’s only advantage was the girder between them, at least at first. Bedford lunged at him, drove forward and lunged again, the tip of the blade ripping Snide’s vest but not drawing blood. Snide scampered back, his knife held ready. Bedford slashed at the villain’s face and then pushed forward and lunged again, trying to drive Snide back around into the main fight where he would not be as free to manoeuvre.

A heavy spanner flew through the air and smashed into Bedford’s forearm. Pain exploded up his arm. His hand went numb and the sword dropped from his paralysed fingers and clattered to the floor.

“Thanks, Tuck,” Snide said to the man on the elevated platform. “No more time to waste on this.” He came around the girder, knife raised in his hand to strike.

Bedford heard a loud pop and Snide collapsed against the girder, howling with pain. Bedford glanced down as saw blood coursing from his thigh, staining his trouser leg black. Another pop and another assailant went down. Then he heard a familiar voice from the shadows overhead.

“All of you put down your weapons. And this time it really is in the name of the Crown.”

7.

ANNABELLE WATCHED MAJOR Gordon slide down an angled girder, emerging from the deep shadows high up around the zeppelin tether winch. As he did so she took stock of the party. She had tried to stay out of the way once she gave her sword to George. Fairfax, between his left fist and the heavy Austrian revolver in his right hand, had managed to bruise his opponent and drive him back to a step before a bullet—she presumed—penetrated the assassin’s shoulder and put him on the ground. Folkard had suffered what was clearly a painful wound in his left hand before Nathanial jumped forward with his own knife and kept that assailant at bay.

Gordon finished his slide down to the floor and Annabelle saw he carried a bulky rifle in his right hand. Once his feet were planted he had the two assassins still standing lay down their knives and drag the wounded men to one side, gesturing with the muzzle of the weapon. Then he held the rifle up for all to see.

“A Mannlicher―Girandoni Model 1877 Windbüchs, one of two we confiscated from the saboteurs. Assassins prize these compressed air guns for their silence, but their lack of powder flash can also be convenient on occasion.” When George took a step toward him Gordon turned and pointed the rifle at his chest. “Stand fast, Bedford. This is not quite done.”

“What are you doing here?” Nathanial asked.

“Professor Stone, I presume,” Gordon said with a nod of greeting. “Doing? Well…this,” he said and brandished the rifle. “A constable was sent to every suspected bomb site with orders, in the unlikely event there actually was a bomb, to arrest any and all people who had apparent knowledge of it—arrest them as arsonists and saboteurs and…something… The charges would be worked out later. I had a suspicion about this location, however, so I took the constable’s place.”

“You were up there the whole time with a rifle?” Folkard demanded, his face twisted and voice strained by the pain of his wound. “Why didn’t you arrest them as soon as they got here?”

“There were quite a few of them and they were armed,” Gordon answered. “I was hoping you might arrive and do all the dangerous work. I am not famous for my courage.”

“The card you sent me said CGM after your name,” Annabelle said. “I am told that means you hold the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. Isn’t that awarded for acts of courage?”

“Courage or foolishness, it’s a matter of some dispute, but in either case I am not anxious to repeat the experience,” he said.

“You said they sent only one man to each location?” Nathanial said. “Only one man?”

“Yes,” Gordon answered and flashed a broad smile. “Won’t they be surprised at my success?”

That was an interesting smile, Annabelle thought, and she wondered what it meant. Surely Gordon would not have violated his orders to come here, or at least not the letter of them. But was the spirit a different matter?

“Were the constables armed?” George asked quietly.

Gordon looked at him a moment before replying. “They had their whistles.”

“But…you can’t mean to arrest us,” Cartwright protested. “We are not the assassins.”

“Not for me to say, old man. Round everyone up and let the Lord Chancellor sort it all out, those were my orders. I am just a soldier doing his duty. Commander Bedford understands that.”

“I believe my understanding of the term differs greatly from yours,” George answered and Annabelle saw the two men trade another look, sizing each other up. She could see George’s back tense, as if gathering his strength for a pounce, and Gordon raised the barrel of the rifle slightly in clear warning.

“What do you intend?” Annabelle asked before the situation could deteriorate further.

“Intend, Miss Somerset? I intend to follow my orders to the letter.” With his left hand Gordon took a thin cigar from the breast pocket of his tunic, raised it to his nose and rolled it between his fingers, inhaled, and his eyes narrowed to slits in the anticipation of pleasure. “First, though, I am going to smoke this cheroot. I’ve earned it, I’d say. Not here, of course—too much loose powder about. It wouldn’t do to blow myself to blazes having come this far, would it? No. So I am going to leave and smoke this cheroot and when I am done I shall come back here and arrest everyone I find in the vicinity of this bomb.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Do you understand?”

George and Cartwright exchanged a bewildered look. Gordon turned to leave.

“Major Gordon,” Annabelle said, “I think I know why you sent Commander Bedford word of my whereabouts.” Gordon paused and tilted his head to the side a bit but did not turn back to face her. “Making the message appear to come from Mister Lincoln was an excellent touch and put us entirely off our guard. You brought him in to increase the pressure on me. You knew that seeing George, and then contemplating his ruin as well, would increase my likelihood of agreeing. Is that not so?”

Gordon turned back and smiled. “You do me a service, Miss Somerset. If that were all true, I’d be a very clever fellow indeed.”

“Keen is how Major Blount put it, as I recall,” Annabelle said. “Too keen for a fusilier officer.”

“There are cavalry mounts too keen for the good Major Blount,” Gordon replied.

“What I have a harder time understanding,” Annabelle continued, “is why you directed me to Mrs Collingwood’s lodgings. Of all the places in London, you sent me to a house populated by courageous and honourable people who would, because of their personal history, refuse any cooperation with an agency associated with you. It was as if you deliberately put me outside your power—and by extension the power of your superiors. I wonder how much of it was out of consideration for me and how much was payment of a decade-old debt. How much trade do you direct her way?”

Gordon’s smile had faded as she spoke and his expression became unreadable. “You must be mistaken, Miss Somerset,” he said when she was done. “That does not sound a bit like me. Do tie up Snide and his chaps securely, would you?”

And then he left.