The Black Crow Conspiracy (8 page)

Ahead of her, the passage seemed to be coming to an end and the faint outline of a door was just visible in the darkness. Penny stumbled slightly as she hurried towards this, praying that this way out hadn’t been similarly locked. As she reached for the handle, she stood there for a moment, her ear pressed to the door to try to ascertain what was on the other side. There was only silence.

Opening the door carefully, Penelope peered through the gap. She could see silent rows of figures hanging in the darkness, and for a second she drew back in fear. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, a relieved smile crept over her lips as Penny realised her mistake. The dark shapes she
could see were not people, but uniforms draped over clothes hangers. She stepped forward, brushing her way past the first row of coats to see another door directly ahead.

Penelope’s smile broadened to a grin. This was a plot twist that even Montgomery Flinch would dismiss as far-fetched: a secret passage that led to what looked like a wardrobe. Reaching out, she cautiously pushed at this second door, the wardrobe slowly opening to reveal an empty room.

With a prudent glance around her, Penny stepped out into the well-lit room. A large window overlooked the Duke of York’s statue and steps, and on the white-panelled walls several paintings were hung: military scenes showing cavalry charges, naval engagements and distinguished portraits of high-ranking officers, the style of their uniforms strangely unfamiliar.

Penny glanced back into the wardrobe to inspect the clothes that were hanging there. In the first row, she could see more than a dozen dark-blue jackets, their brass buttons emblazoned with crowns and anchors revealing which branch of the military they belonged to, but it was the garments hanging on the second row that caused Penelope to catch her breath. At first glance, they were almost nondescript: bulky black greatcoats, their collars swathed
with long, dark scarves. It was when she had seen them last that made her pulse race with fear. These were the clothes worn by the radiant boys.

Reaching into the wardrobe again, she checked through the pockets of the greatcoats, frantically searching for clues. All of these seemed empty, but buried deep in the inside pocket of the second last, she found what looked like a screwed-up magazine. Opening this out, her eyes sparkled with triumph as she saw the front cover of
The Penny Dreadful,
its cover line proclaiming the return of Montgomery Flinch with his tale of
The Thief Who Wasn’t There.
She knew now that she was on the right trail.

Pocketing the magazine, Penelope carefully closed the wardrobe door, her eyes darting around the room to search for further clues. If this was where the radiant boys disguised themselves, then Professor Röntgen’s laboratory had to be close by. Facing the window, a single door led out of the room. She walked towards this, a renewed sense of purpose in her step.

Penny opened the door to reveal a reception hall even grander than the one that had greeted her on her entrance to the Society. Its panelled walls were hung with gilt-framed portraits, whilst a grand marble staircase spiralled up towards a vaulted ceiling, gold and crystal chandeliers suspended from it like a constellation of stars.
Puzzled, Penelope wandered through the hall, gazing upwards as she tried to work out exactly where she was.

“
Kannich ihnen helfen, madame?
”

Penelope turned at the sound of the voice, a moustachioed man in a smart tweed suit stepping out to greet her from an adjoining room. She stared back at him nonplussed, her mind scrabbling to translate his words.

“Can I help you, madam?” the man repeated, his English impeccable.

Penelope frowned in confusion.

“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully, slowly shaking her head. “I’m not quite sure where I am.”

A frown creased the man’s forehead, mirroring Penelope’s own. He gestured impatiently at the largest portrait hanging on the wall between them. There, the figure of a man dressed in a military uniform gazed down at them both with an arrogant stare. Penelope recognised him at once, his image instantly familiar from the newspaper pages: Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany.

“This is the Imperial German Embassy,” the man replied brusquely. “What exactly is your business here?”

XIII

“And what did you say then?” Alfie asked eagerly, resting his chin on his hands as he waited for Penelope to continue her story.

Behind her desk at
The Penny Dreadful,
Penny brushed a stray lock of her hair from her eyes; the hair piled high upon her head was slowly descending under the heat of the day.

“I told him I had been waiting for my uncle by the statue of the Duke of York, but that I had suddenly felt somewhat overcome by the sun. How I had wandered into the embassy in search of a place to recover myself. After he fetched me a reviving glass of water, I bid him good day and then made a hasty exit.”

Alfie let out a low whistle, unable to hide his amazement at the story she had told him.

“And you did all of this yesterday, while I was stuck at the printers pulping the July edition. The next time you go impersonating a distinguished scientist you’ll have to let me come along
too.” Alfie screwed up his features to create a threatening countenance. “I quite fancy the chance of playing the part of Dr Jekyll.”

Penelope smiled. “I think you are confusing Dr Jekyll with the character of Mr Hyde. Besides, these are purely fictional creations, unlike our Black Crow, it seems.” Reaching into her pocket she drew out the creased edition of the magazine she had found hidden in the greatcoat pocket. “It even appears that one of the radiant boys is an avid reader of
The Penny Dreadful
.”

Alfie scratched his head, his expression of affected menace quickly fading to be replaced by a look of pure puzzlement.

“I still don’t understand how you ended up in the Imperial German Embassy. Why take the trouble of hiding a secret passage inside a wardrobe when the two houses are just next door to each other?”

Penny narrowed her eyes at Alfie speaking out loud the very same question that she had asked herself.

“Because this is something that they wish to hide,” she replied. “The secret of the radiant boys. There is a connection between the embassy and the Society for the Advancement of Science, and I am sure Professor Röntgen is at the heart of it. He is of German extraction, after all.”

Alfie scowled. The newspapers were filled every day with stories of German duplicity; how
by strengthening his navy the Kaiser would soon threaten the might of the British Empire itself. The printer’s assistant had read
The Battle of Dorking
and other tales of invasion, these stories describing in lurid prose how the very shores of England would soon be overrun by German soldiers.

“This is a dangerous business,” he said, his words echoing Penny’s guardian’s own. “We need to alert the authorities.”

Penny slowly shook her head, trying to marshal the facts she had uncovered in her mind.

“I’ve already tried that,” she replied bitterly. “Inspector Drake just accused me of wasting his time. He thinks that I invented the story about the figures we saw sneaking into the palace in order to get Monty off the hook. He won’t believe a word that I say.”

“Well, we need to tell Mr Wigram at least. This is too large a mystery for you to solve alone.”

Penelope frowned. Her guardian had not long returned from New Scotland Yard, his latest efforts to win Monty’s release for the moment unsuccessful. With the strain of the long nights and even longer days showing on his features, Wigram had quickly left for the printers in order to negotiate a further delay to their overdue payment. The government ban on the publication of the magazine was a continuing drain on
The Penny Dreadful
’s finances.

“I don’t want to worry William with this, not yet. Besides, what can I really tell him? There are still more questions than answers.”

For a moment the two of them sat there in silence, both trying to unravel the mystery. Penny’s mind returned to the lecture room at the Society, remembering how Professor Röntgen’s gaze had gleamed with a missionary zeal.
These rays are a phenomenon of the ether,
he had said.
Soon we will be able to harness their power to transcend the physical laws that bind us…

Rising to her feet, Penelope plucked her parasol from where it was hanging on the coat stand.

“Where are you going?” Alfie asked, scrambling to his feet to follow her as Penny headed for the door.

“To find out more about Professor Röntgen’s mysterious rays,” she replied, glancing back over her shoulder. “I think it is time for a science lesson.”

“I am no longer your tutor, Miss Tredwell,” the man replied, peering intently at the contents of a bubbling test tube. “Your guardian, Mr Wigram, made that abundantly clear after that unfortunate incident when my demonstration of the combustible properties of calcium carbide ignited the curtains in your drawing room.”

He bent over his scientific equipment again, using a pair of iron tongs to carefully place the
test tube back in its ring stand, the Bunsen burner beneath emitting a hissing flame. His pale, pudgy face sweated with the act of concentration, peering intently through tinted spectacles to ensure the correct calibrations were made. He couldn’t be more than thirty at most, but with his rumpled tweed coat and prematurely thinning hair he seemed somehow much older. A fountain pen was sticking out of his top pocket, the black ink from its leaking nib staining the cloth.

“But you were the finest tutor I ever had, Professor Walker,” Penelope replied, resorting to flattery to try and wheedle from him the information she required. “It was only thanks to your quick thinking that you prevented the whole house from going up in flames. I could not imagine a more powerful demonstration of the destructive power of science.”

Professor Walker glanced up unimpressed, well used to Penelope’s wiles from the time he had acted as her personal tutor.

“And that is why I have been offered an assistant professorship here at the Royal College of Science. Although with the meagre wage they pay me, I doubt I will end up paying off the cost of those curtains before the year is out.”

Penelope’s face took on a sympathetic air.

“I am sure I could convince my guardian to waive this trifling bill,” she reassured him. “Perhaps if you would indulge me with this
enquiry, we could call this your final lesson and consider it payment in kind?”

Professor Walker narrowed his eyes, a calculating expression appearing behind his tinted spectacles.

“And perhaps some form of severance payment would be in order too?” he prompted. “To recompense me for the sudden nature of my dismissal.”

“I am sure this can be arranged,” Penny replied, holding the scientist’s gaze.

With a sigh, Professor Walker reached forward to turn the gas tap, the Bunsen burner’s flame dying away with a pallid glow.

“We have an agreement then, Penelope. Now, what exactly is it that you wish to know?”

With a glance towards Alfie, who was still peering at the bubbling test tube, Penelope tried to order her thoughts. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. How could a living man appear to walk through walls? What kind of chemical reaction could cause such a strange luminescence that a person’s skin would glow green? Could the atoms that made up the solid matter of the universe be seemingly transformed into air? But Penelope knew that such esoteric enquiries would find short shrift with the practically minded professor. Instead, she asked the question at the forefront of her mind.

“What do you know of Professor Röntgen and
his X-rays?”

The scientist raised an eyebrow, absent-mindedly batting Alfie’s hand away from the test tube as he commenced his explanation.

“The X-ray is an invisible form of radiant energy discovered by Professor Röntgen in 1895. He was experimenting with the transmission of electrical currents through a vacuum tube in his laboratory at the University of Würzburg, when he noticed a strange luminescence suddenly appear on a nearby screen. Investigating this phenomenon, he discovered that no matter what impediment he placed between the tube and the screen, the same shimmering image could be seen. These invisible rays – X-rays as he named them – could penetrate solid matter. Paper, wood, even metal. Only lead seemed to act as a block to their penetrative power.”

The scientist scratched at his whiskers, bemused by his former pupil’s pensive reaction.

“May I ask what the source of your interest in the X-ray is, Miss Tredwell? I was always under the impression that your preoccupations lay more with the arts than the sciences.”

“I believe the worlds of science and fiction may be more closely related than previously suspected,” she replied, absent-mindedly picking at a thread on her jacket as she mused on what she’d been told. “Have you not read the writings of H. G. Wells?”

“Bunkum and balderdash,” the scientist replied with a snort. “I read his tale of
The Invisible Man
when it was serialised in
Pearson’s Weekly
. The notion that a serious scientist would waste his time trying to render a man invisible was too risible for words.”

Beneath her dark eyebrows, Penelope’s gaze suddenly gleamed as inspiration struck. Professor Walker might find such a notion ridiculous, but what if a scientist of Professor Röntgen’s calibre believed that there was a way to transcend the laws of nature? What lengths would he go to in the pursuit of his experiments?

“And what exactly is Professor Röntgen working on now?” she asked. “You said that he discovered the existence of X-rays in 1895. That was seven years ago. Surely he has made further discoveries since then.”

Professor Walker shook his head.

“Röntgen’s researches are a mystery,” the scientist replied, carefully removing his spectacles and wiping them on his handkerchief. “He has not published a paper for nearly five years. At first he was recruited by the Kaiser to lead his scientific institute in Berlin, but then this year I heard that he had taken the chairmanship of the Society for the Advancement of Science right here in London. There have been rumours, of course, about his research. Some say that he is searching for more invisible rays as yet undiscovered
by man. I very much doubt he will have much success.”

With a dull pop, the contents of the test tube on the desk between them suddenly turned to a crimson shade. Professor Walker placed his spectacles back on to his nose.

“Now, if that answers your question, Penelope,” he said, glancing down at his apparatus, “I must return to my experiments here at the Royal College. I look forward to receiving the letter from your guardian with my final salary payment.”

“Thank you, professor,” Penny replied as the scientist lit the Bunsen burner again. “It has been most illuminating.”