The Transference Engine (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

A
LOUD RAP ON the window beside the front door startled me out of sorting clean cutlery and counting serviettes. The wavy glass revealed a bulky gentleman pacing impatiently on the stoop an hour before official opening. Something about the set of the shoulders and slapping a riding crop across his hand shouted military. The shape of the hat looked familiar.

I unlatched the door, leaving the chain on. “Inspector Witherspoon, how can I help you?” I peered out, noting two uniformed men behind him. Caution stiffened my posture and set one of my large feet against the door panel to block any untoward push.

“Madame Magdala, I must speak to you immediately. A situation of utmost urgency has come to my attention.”

“And how does that concern me?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mickey slip from the kitchen, my stout walking stick in his hand. I usually only carried the device when I patrolled the city in my old woman disguise. As good a weapon as any sword or pistol in the right hands.

Frantically, I gestured for Mickey to hand me the stick. He slapped it into my hand and melted into the nearest shadow as if he'd never been there.

“Just open the dam . . . the door so we don't have to inform the entire neighborhood.” The inspector scanned right and left and behind him. His two soldiers—enlisted men by the lack of ornamentation on their uniforms—stood at parade rest, equally vigilant.

“Very well. A moment.” Slowly and making as much clumsy noise as I could, I released the chain and stood back, leaning heavily on the stick.

“Are you injured?” Inspector Witherspoon asked, pausing just inside the door.

“A trifle,” I dismissed his concern while keeping the stick close. I limped a bit as I moved back into the café. “Mickey, will you bring the inspector a cup of coffee? Or would you prefer tea, Inspector?”

“Nothing.” He stayed close behind me. Too close for politeness.

“Madame Magdala, if that is your real name . . .”

I whirled to face him, too fast for the injury I mimicked. But I managed to shift my grip on the stick to defend myself.

“No defense?” he asked with an ugly sneer on his lips.

I met him with silence.

“Madame Magdala, you have Gypsy friends.” An accusation more than a statement.

“We no longer live in medieval times when being Romany was illegal.”

“True. But they are not welcome or trusted anywhere.”

“Make your point, Inspector.”

“I could arrest you and hold you in Newgate for your association with criminal elements.”

“Many of the Rom walk a narrow path of acceptability on the edges of society,” I hedged rather than reveal my outrage. And fear. Newgate prison was not a place to take lightly. Even if innocent, people had disappeared into the depths of that dungeon of horrors and never returned. Or never returned to their right mind.

“Few of the Rom that I know openly commit crimes.” They might pilfer and steal small items. They might overcharge for repairing pots and tools. But they never hurt women, children, or horses, often proving better doctors for the latter than educated men.

“And yet they were camping near Norwynd Manor last week when the baron's fifteen-year-old daughter went missing. She is quite fair and I am told that Gypsies prize blondes.” He gazed pointedly at the heavy braids wound around my head, pale gold in color. When I reinvented myself to become the owner of the Book View Café, I had supported the rumor that I was the bastard daughter of a Gypsy king as well as the widow of a war hero. Neither true, but people believe what they want to believe when seeking explanations for things outside the ordinary.

“Another girl gone missing? This one of quality rather than a nameless street girl no one would miss or report missing. The culprit has changed patterns. I must investigate this.” I hastened toward the kitchen, needing to ask more detailed questions of Philippa.

“No so fast, Madame.”

I froze in place barely two paces away from him. “Yes, Inspector?” I asked with my back to him.

“You have no authority to investigate anything. I know you have an amazing ability to gather information, often faster and more complete than I can.” The inspector held up his hand to stall any protests I might make. “And who is to say the same person, or persons are responsible for Miss Abigail's disappearance as for your street urchins? I have heard nothing out of the ordinary of street girls going missing. They disappear every day. Their disappearance has nothing to do with Miss Abigail Norwynd.”

“They might. Three of my employees are among the missing. I believe your authority extends only as far as events that might disrupt the coronation.”

“Lord Norwynd is well respected in the royal household. Miss Abigail was scheduled to help carry Her Majesty's train.”

“The Rom have rules—religious beliefs—that prevent them from harming women, children, and horses. None of my acquaintances could possibly be involved.” In for a pence, in for a pound. “My
friends
are very respectful of women, virgins in particular. Whoever is behind these kidnappings has no respect for anyone.”

“I have only your word on that.”

“In many circles my word is respected. Especially at Lovelace House.”

“Do I need to remind you of Lady Lovelace's origins? Seducing virgins, including his own sister, was Lord Byron's specialty, if I remember correctly.”

“You do not need to remind me. I have spent the last fourteen years protecting Lady Ada from her father's reputation and his active perfidy.”

Inspector Witherspoon gasped. “He wouldn't . . .”

“There is nothing I believe Lord Byron would
not
do in his quest for immortality in a perfect body.”

“Are you saying that he lives, that his death in Greece fourteen years ago was a false report?”

“I have no evidence one way or the other.” The coffin beneath the grave marker at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, could lie empty. We never opened it to study the skull. With the slowness of travel from Greece to England, the body would have been too much decayed for anyone to willingly check the coffin upon arrival.

“But you believe he lives.”

“I have no proof.” Except a few books of necromantic poetry published after his death. “And Lord Byron's life or death has little, that I can see, to connect him or his fanatical followers to an assassination attempt at the coronation.”

“I have to take your word on that. The Gypsies are still my prime suspects. Be just like them to try to throw the kingdom into chaos by assassinating our queen on her coronation day. Miss Abigail knows details of the procession and ritual that have not been made public. They will torture her for information about the best time and place . . .”

I gritted my teeth. “The
Rom
will not. But someone else might. Someone with a greater grievance and more resources.” My mind went back to the black balloon shooting green light and my discussion with Ish this morning. I would not think about Drew piloting that balloon, even just for practice. “Look to the skies, Inspector Witherspoon. Look for a midnight-black balloon with a matching wicker basket, not a cloud-gray one.”

“What do you know!” He grabbed my arm.

“Inspector?” I stared at his offending hand.

He separated from me but remained close enough to grab me again should he deem it necessary. “Madame Magdala, what do you know about black balloons with black wicker baskets?”

“Not enough. But I saw one hovering over London when I took a . . . pleasure trip with one of my Romany friends in his cloud-gray balloon.”

“Hovering? Balloons must ride the winds . . .”

“Unless they have the new ailerons that allow them to tack against the wind like a sailing ship.
Expensive
ailerons. I believe a Hussar regiment in the east is experimenting with them.” I didn't add that Jimmy Porto had designed and built his own.

“The deuce they are. How did you know? That information has not been made public.”

“I listen and observe all classes of society, as should you. There is more afoot than you want to believe. Now, if you will excuse me, I must prepare my business for the line of customers outside the door.” I curtsied in dismissal, barely deep enough for politeness.

The inspector nodded, bending his back in a perfunctory bow almost as polite as my own.

I threw the door open wide in welcome as he tipped his hat and stalked down the street in the direction of Piccadilly.

Piccadilly, with its avenging angel statue that frightened Toby so badly he sought refuge with the war hero Nelson in Trafalgar Square.

The black balloon had shot its green light in the direction of Trafalgar.

Somehow it was all connected. I just could not find the pattern yet.

Several of my street waifs reported in that day. All with the same story. Fear rode on the wind, driving all sensible people to walk the back streets only in groups or to hide indoors. The major thoroughfares seemed safe enough with the obvious patrols of Bow Street Runners, Horse Guards, and at least three other regiments. The military pretense of casual strolls through the city didn't fool many. The soldiers' eyes moved too warily, their posture remained too alert. Their hands hovered over weapons too readily. My customers reflected the same mood, cautious but determined to enjoy the rare festivities surrounding the upcoming grand ritual that defined Englishmen—the peaceful transition of power from one monarch to the next.

Since Henry VII, only once had we succumbed to civil war. But when the war was over and Charles I lost his head, we remained peaceful under Cromwell. And his son had transferred power willingly to Charles II. Even his brother James II had slunk away without a shot when he proved himself unworthy and we'd suppressed the Jacobite rebellion twice—well over three hundred years.

But someone wanted to disrupt this most sacred of traditions.

“Who?” I asked myself several times during the day when a pause in business allowed me to think.

Then the impoverished student returned Archbishop Howley's dissertation on the reform act.

“Excuse me, Madame Magdala, may I borrow that book?” another student asked within five minutes of the book's return.

His tailor seemed a little more expensive and more talented than the previous student's. But he, too, bore the unmistakable signs of attempted scholarship: ink-stained hands, a hopeless cravat, and stooped shoulders from too many hours spent peering at fine print in poor lighting.

“Do you have a professor requiring a thesis upon this subject?” I asked casually, trying to disguise a tremor in my hands and chin. A pattern had begun to form: a request for the book on the recent reform laws, an overheard conversation among footmen in an alley about those reforms, and now a second request for the book.

The young man blushed and stammered something that might have been a yes, but might also have said “For my own amusement.”

The lingering color in his cheeks and his furtive glances everywhere but into my own eyes, told me that neither statement was true.

“Feel free to peruse the book here in the café.” I smiled as sweetly as I could while sorting thoughts and information.

“But . . . but that other fellow . . .”

“My book, my rules. The topic has become too popular to let the book leave my library.”

His expression turned stone still, frozen in politeness while his eyes blazed in indignation. “Do you know who I am?”

“Doesn't matter.” I took the book off the counter.

“My father is Sir Winston Chemworth, second son of Earl . . .”

I kept my own firm gaze on his, not caring who paid his tailor.

“Very well. Where may I sit with it? I do not wish to be disturbed.”

I pointed to a back table where I could keep an eye on him. He'd not leave with the book without me or one of my employees seeing him.