The Alchemy of Murder (51 page)

The trapeze girl is posted as our guard. She’s only a few feet away from us, leaning back against a sewer wall, with her rifle in hand ready to use. I don’t doubt that she would hesitate to kill us.

Oscar indicates the stack of crates. “Bombs of deadly microbes?”

She answers proudly—taunting us. “An army of deadly little animals in a fine dust. When the crates are dropped over the city, a small nitro charge will blow them open and scatter the dust. The whole city will be destroyed.”

“And you along with it,” I say. “The wind will carry it up to the people in the balloon’s basket.”

“We are willing to give our lives for the cause. Besides, we’ll have masks to protect us.”

In a corner on the other side of the tunnel are rifles leaning against the wall. Next to the weapons is an open box holding three balls, looking much like small cannonballs.

“Nitro hand bombs,” Oscar says quietly. “What they killed the czar with. No doubt for use against the police if they show up. An anarchist friend showed me one when I was researching my play about Vera.”

I shake my head in amazement at the audacity of the plan. “Their plan is unimaginably sick and brutal.”

“Madness knows no bounds,” he says.

“Be quiet, both of you.”

I frown at her. “You serve revolutionary ideals in a strange manner. Your leader is a mentally deranged killer who enjoys mutilating women. Your scheme will kill tens of thousands of innocent children, women, and helpless elderly. Are you so callous that the death of so many innocents will not damn your soul and haunt you in hell?”

Not even the bat of an eye from this woman. Her face reveals no anger, concern, or amusement. Her complete reticence in the face of this most heinous scheme is evidence that behind her pretty face is a snarling she-devil.

Oscar takes a step, slowly stretching his big body.

“Stand still!” she snaps to him.

“Mademoiselle, I don’t care for your tone of voice.”

She stands tall, with the rifle point-blank at his large midsection. “Stop moving or I’ll kill you.”

“Oscar, stand still.” I grab his arm.

He pushes my hand away. “Do you realize that the rifle being pointed at me is of an extremely powerful caliber? At this range, the bullet would easily go through me and ricochet. What would it hit?” He takes a step toward her.

“Move any closer and I’ll shoot!”

“Oscar, stop!”

“What’s going on down there?” Perun calls down.

The woman yells to Perun, “He’s—
put that down!
”

Oscar has picked up a wood crate. He looks at her with a puzzled expression. “All right, I’ll drop it.”

“
No!
”

I decide this is a good time to distract her. “When that dust is spilled over the city, small babies, little boys and girls, their mothers and fathers, grandparents, will all die horribly. You’re not just destroying a city or a government. You’re going to
kill
the very people you claim you want to help.”

Oscar shakes his head. “Don’t bother, dear girl, your pleas are falling into a bottomless pit. Besides, our four-legged brother,
Rattus norvegicus
, will soon take care of the problem.”

“Rattus what?” I ask.

“Perhaps you know the gentleman by his more common name of ‘sewer rat.’ That big ugly fellow over there who is about to bite off our friend’s nose.”

“
Aaak!
”

The scream erupts from me. A huge, brown, ugly rat is on a ledge a foot from the girl’s head. She turns her head and comes face-to-face with the rat. She recoils back from it, stumbling. Oscar’s foot sweeps out and trips her. She slams against the wall and the gun goes off. A bullet zings pass me and ricochetes off the sewer wall.

Perun leans through the opening. “Put down the container,” he tells Oscar.

“Never.”

He points a pistol at me. “The container won’t blow if dropped. It’s not armed. And this gun won’t ricochet like the rifle bullet. Put down the container or I’ll kill Nellie.”

He’s smart. He knows Oscar. Oscar sets down the container.

“Now get up here, the both of you.”

Oscar follows me up the ladder with the girl bringing up the rear. We’re surrounded by a wall of canvas that’s been put up to keep the loading of the balloon’s basket concealed. Crates are stacked next to the balloon basket waiting to be loaded. One of the support cables that holds the basket to the balloon has broken loose. Both Malliot, who’s in the basket, and the trapeze brother standing on a barrel next to the balloon, are working on the cable.

Perun puts a folded coat in front of his pistol and once again points it at me. I stare at it curiously, realizing that he’s planning to muffle the sound of the shot that will kill me.

“Tsk, tsk, don’t get impetuous, old man.” Oscar grins at Perun. “I must tell you that the balance of power has shifted.”

Perun gasps. Oscar has a nitro bomb in his hand. He tosses it a foot into the air and catches it. “Something I picked up during the scuffle.”

Perun shouts,
“Stop!
Put … it … down. On the ground. If you do, I’ll let you go.”

Oscar tosses the bomb again and catches it. “Sorry, old man, but I can’t do that. A gentleman doesn’t walk away from confrontation with evil.”

“Give it to me!”

“Why don’t you give it to him, Oscar,” I pipe in. “Drop it at his feet like they did to the czar.”

“You two are crazy!” Malliot yells from the basket.

68

Jules

Jules joins Morant and his men before the barge’s bulkhead door—a door booby-trapped with a nitro bomb. Not anticipating the police attack would come from below the waterline, the door was set to explode when opened from the other side. A signal is sent to stop police on the street from attacking. If this door was booby-trapped, others would be, too.

“I’ve written many times about such devices in the hands of madmen,” Jules tells Morant. “I know how to disarm it.”

An officer follows his instructions to remove the wire that would trip the bomb when the door is opened.

“We’ll have to move slowly through the barge,” Morant says. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to disarm the bombs before one trips.”

After the door bomb is disarmed, Jules follows the officers through the barge as they disarm other bombs. When they reach the upper deck, they realize no one had been aboard.

Out on deck, Jules leans wearily against the railing, feeling old and tired … and disappointed. The anarchists knew they would come to the barge, just as Nellie had deduced. That meant they plan to launch their attack from another vantage point—but where? Not the Eiffel Tower, it’s presently surrounded by police. Even the elevator to the top has been disabled.

What did that mad Russian anarchist leader have in mind?

A carriage races around the corner and pulls to a stop beside the barge. It’s Lussac. The detective reports to Morant. “Nellie Bly, with the help of Oscar Wilde and Doctor Roth, has escaped.” He explains the Black Fever ruse.

“That makes no sense,” Jules says. “Roth would never get involved in such a scheme.” He stares at the two officers. “My God. What do we really know about the man?”

“He’s Pasteur’s assistant—”

Jules shakes his head. “A post acquired only recently. That doesn’t mean he can’t be an anarchist. We know that Dubois tampered with the samples. No doubt Roth did, also. And that death at the Institut, a young assistant named René. Was he really killed by the fever? Now Nellie’s been kidnapped.”

“No.” Lussac shakes. “She went willingly with Roth and Wilde. They’re probably helping her escape back to America.”

“Or Roth could be delivering Nellie to Perun.”

“That’s preposterous!” Morant interjects. “Perun is dead. You seem to forget, we have a corpse to prove it.”

“No, you don’t. The exploding building, the burned body, this barge, Nellie warned me it was all a ruse, and she was right. And I ignored her because I was too excited about using the submarine. We’re been tricked. Something else is being planned.”

Morant nodded. “You may be right.” He instructs Lussac, “Tell the Prefect that we must redouble our efforts to watch the roofs of all large buildings. These anarchists don’t have wings. If they can’t get to Eiffel’s Tower, or pour their concoction into the river, a tall building would be their most advantageous position.” He looks north, toward Montmartre. “The Butte’s an anarchist nest and it’s tall enough, but it would not serve them. They would need powerful winds to spread their contagion around the city.”

Jules follow his gaze to the Butte. “That’s it!”

“What?”

Jules point at the hill. “
The balloon!
The one the Italian circus aeronauts perform with. It’s up there.”

“What are you saying?”

“The balloonists are anarchists, part of Perun’s secret group.”

Morant shakes his head. “You’re not saying they’d use the balloon…”

“Of course they would. They’re experienced aeronauts. They would just wait until the wind blew in the right direction, then guide the balloon over the city and release the microbes. We have to get up there. Nellie and Oscar are there—if they are still alive.”

As they move into action, Jules stops. “We need to distract their attention, make them think their plan to kill us worked.”

Once again his unbridled imagination goes to work.

69

An explosion rumbles from the direction of the Seine.

Malliot yells in triumph. “We got them! The barge has gone up with them inside. The fools walked right into our trap.”

Jules.
They’ve killed him. I start for Perun. I don’t care if he is pointing a gun at me. Oscar grabs my arm and I struggle to break free.

“
He killed Jules!
”

Oscar keeps an iron grip on my arm. “Steady, girl. We have a city to save.”

He’s right, but if I had the bomb in my hand, I would have killed Perun with it.

“Your comrade is right,” I shout at Perun, “
we’re crazy!
Crazy enough to give our lives to stop animals like you from killing thousands of people. Do you understand that? You’re not going to win. You bastard! How do you like that?
We’re going to beat you!
”

I take an involuntary step back as Perun’s features twists and his body shakes. He’s like a wild animal that’s tasted the whip and now wants to leap and rip open my throat.

Oscar shows him the nitro bomb again. “One move and this entire place goes up.”

It’s a standoff—but for how long? They can’t move … but neither can we. The bomb would likely set off a chain reaction and scatter some microbic dust locally and kill people, but it’s unlikely to cause the catastrophic, city-killing effect these madmen have worked for years to achieve.

We look at each other, anarchists willing to die for their cause but who know if they rush us their long-laid plans may be destroyed. And two innocents, neither of whom know how to deal with violence, though of the two of us, Oscar has kept his head and taken the lead.

So, we stand—staring at each other as Malliot ignores us and again starts loading the balloon basket with microbe-bombs.

“They’re not going to do anything,” Malliot tells Perun. “They don’t want to die.” He jerks his head at Oscar. “You can step over and take that bomb from that British fool.”

Perun hesitates but my instinct is that he’s going to charge.

I look at Oscar. “Throw the bomb.” My voice quivers and my knees are melting but I say it again.

Oscar lifts the bomb higher. “Just because you’re willing to give your life for something doesn’t mean the cause is right. But sometimes it is.”

From the distance comes the sound of clanging bells.

We all freeze again.

Perun suddenly laughs. “They’re wasting their time. That barge is a burning inferno. No one will survive.”

“
No!
” Malliot yells. “It’s police wagons! They’re coming here!”

Two men who are helping load the crates bolt and scramble down the sewer opening.

“Traitors!” the male trapeze artist yells after them.

Perun barely glances at the fleeing men. His attention is back on Oscar, who is once again shaking the bomb.

“Doesn’t nitro explode just shaking it.” Oscar says.

It’s not a facetious question but that odd way Oscar has of making a statement. His voice is oddly calm.

The girl trapeze artist stares intently at Oscar with the burning eyes of a fanatic. Like Perun, she looks ready to leap.

Malliot is the only one taking action, unhooking the netting from the balloon basket as if we were not there … completely ignoring the bomb in Oscar’s hand.