The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (34 page)

Brandon released the trigger, then flipped the switches on the dash which returned the headlamps to their proper place.

“Next time, Bruce,” Brandon spoke frankly, “read the accompanying field report. It can prove useful.”

The automobile launched into the creeping sunrise, Department agents scattering in their wake and lost in too much chaos to stop their escape. Brandon and Bruce were soon out in the streets of London, seen by no one other than the odd Blue Bottle or those who served an office during twilight hours. Even with their substantial lead, Bruce continued to watch for pursuit from hidden places now emerging in the early light of dawn; but the Department, it seemed, had counted on taking them at the warehouse. He didn’t allow himself to relax until they were outside of the grips of the city proper and in greener surroundings of simple country homes on the outskirts.

“I do hope Wellington remembered to top the boilers before leaving the Americas,” Brandon spoke as they followed the growing light of morning towards Yorkshire.

Bruce knew deep in his bones Books was the kind of bloke who saw to little details like that.

In Which a Colonial Pepperpot Keeps Her Enemies Closer

S
tepping through the doorway, with Sophia draped over one shoulder, Eliza was entirely unprepared for what she would find. Wellington and Sound went through first, and she followed on their heels, wondering not for the first time how she had managed to end up hauling the sleeping Italian; it was a little too enlightened of her male companions she thought. Eliza dropped the faintly snoring Sophia into a chaise longue, and looked around.

The office was not lavish by any means. In fact, it looked as if the office had been once a classroom large enough for a variety of lessons and subjects. When she saw the papers on the desk bearing the Ministry crest, she knew their connection had been a success. They were back at Whiterock.

Sound had already pulled his pocket watch out and, having located a nearby grandfather clock, was adjusting it accordingly. It was hard to imagine that they had lost so much time, and she shuddered to think what might have happened to her compatriots while they were away. Outside the many windows, rain was falling steadily, a usual summer event in
Yorkshire, so it made it hard to see the condition of the estate or to judge what season they had arrived at.

When she turned around, Sound was locking the doorway they had just stepped through. He then placed his chrono-model on a table, making himself—and the humour was not lost on her—right at home. She then noticed a desk that looked as if it had been occupied recently. Reports. Maps. Agendas for Research and Design and Mission Training. The gamble on the other side of the door had been a rousing success. They were not only back at Whiterock, but they had established a connection in Sound’s temporary office.

Checking her remaining stock of bullets, Eliza leaned up against the window searching the grounds for any sign of activity, be it Ministry agents on survival training or Department agents intending to catch them by surprise. She didn’t have much ammunition left after the firefight in the Archives, but hopefully it wouldn’t be needed. Peering through the crack between the doors, Eliza heard softly filtered music coming from down one of the darkened corridors. It seemed as if Whiterock was just waking up, but that hardly meant the estate was secure.

Eliza ground her teeth together in frustration. Just when she thought she could accept time travel as a feasible innovation, variables she could have never trained for surfaced. Between their departure and present time—whatever that was—Whiterock could have changed from haven to trap.

“Any idea what time it is?” she finally asked. “Or the date, for that matter.”

Sound flipped up the latches of the chrono-model’s case, and the silver case began to open on its own accord. With a satisfied glance over the clockwork device now unfolding across the table, he strode over to the desk and perused the papers there. “From the looks of things, business as usual. No unexpected turn of events.” His eyes flicked up to the end of the desk. “And a desk calendar. Oh, Cassandra, you are a dear.”

“Doctor Sound?” Eliza insisted.

“Oh, yes—the twenty-third of May, 1897,” he replied. “As close to that blackout I told you about as Event Control can manage.”

The floor felt as if it teetered underneath her. She suddenly had no idea where to look. Her world felt as if it were to spin out of control . . .

. . . but then a set of hands caught her as she felt her knees buckle from underneath her. Eliza was not one for fainting fits, but taking a breath was proving quite the challenge.

“Eliza?” Wellington said her name, and for a moment she didn’t answer. It had all been wonderful fiction inside Sound’s marvellous device, but he had actually done it. Somehow the sands of Mars had seemed more acceptable than this.

Looking into Wellington’s hazel eyes gave her a focus point, and then the ground underfoot steadied. She took a breath, and Whiterock suddenly took on a strange, vivid clarity.

“Time travel,” she managed with a nervous giggle. “We have just returned from time travelling, did you know that?”

The archivist patted her hand. “Welcome to where I was back in Sound’s Event Control. It is quite incredible when you think about it, yes?”

Eliza wanted to laugh as, after having just taken in a sunset on Mars, everything seemed up for grabs. At that particular moment, Sophia del Morte stirred on the chaise longue.

Like everything that damned woman did, it attracted male attention. Wellington and Doctor Sound immediately went to where the assassin now propped herself up. With some satisfaction she saw Wellington draw a Remington-Elliot. Eliza heard the soft click of the safety, the high-pitched whine of its compressors priming, and it brought a smile to her lips.

Sophia looked around her, her gaze flickering over the details of the office. “How did I . . .” Eliza did take in some delight seeing the Italian at a complete loss. Sophia had no idea what she had slept through. “Where are we?”

“My home, signorina,” Wellington replied, his fingers splaying around the handle of his three-barrelled pistol.

Her eyes went to each corner of the room. Perhaps this was her habit—find any and all potential exits, look for any clear indicators as to geography and location.

When her eyes landed on Sound, kneeling in front of her, Sophia looked as if something came to her. Then her gaze darkened as she pointed at him. “You drugged me!” Considering her past, the accusation being delivered in such a tone was laughable.

“Forgive me, signorina,” the director said, opening his hands wide before her. “Precautions had to be taken.”

“We were trapped underwater,” she began, motioning around them. “How did we—”

“The Ministry has many contingency plans in place. Your presence in the midst of one, however, was not taken into account so we had to improvise.” Doctor Sound’s expression became somewhat sombre.
An amazing ability that Sound must have mastered through years of time travelling,
Eliza thought.
He should have sought a career on the stage.
“You suffered some rather unfortunate side effects, Miss del Morte, to the tranquiliser I administered. It is just after eight o’clock in the morning, on May twenty-third. 1897. You have lost nearly a year to slumber.”

“
Mio Dio!
May twenty-third?” Her eyes filled with tears, but any sobs were muffled by her hands. Blinking her eyes tightly, she covered her face for a moment and, on taking a deep breath, said, “You may be too late. The Maestro’s plan nears completion.”

“The Maestro’s plan?” asked Sound with such a chill in his voice it was hard to believe he even knew how to be jovial. “I suspected we would need to move against the Queen after discovering her secret, but you’re saying this Maestro persona has an agenda of his own?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” she answered.

“In a manner of speaking?” Eliza barked out a laugh. She knew Sophia del Morte to be as reliable as a poisonous snake, and Wellington’s discomfort in her presence only served as validation. Their history together had begun with her kidnapping him for the House of Usher, and progressed downhill from there. “Can we accept any words out of her mouth as anything other than a deception?”

“What is happening, it is not entirely the Maestro’s doing,” Sophia insisted, opening a small pouch at her side.

Eliza’s hand went for one of her pistols, but it was Wellington’s that pressed against the assassin’s head. In his eyes was none of his trademark affability. He was now the stone-cold killer his father had created here at Whiterock. “Very. Small. Moves.”

Sophia stared at Wellington, moving deliberately and
evenly, as if she were a clockwork figure. Her hand dug into the belt pouch and came out as a closed fist. Keeping her eyes on Wellington, she slowly opened her palm to show two small vials, one pale emerald, the other blue.

“What, pray tell, would these be?” Doctor Sound asked on taking them from her hand and holding each up to the light.

“A doctor named Jekyll has been feeding them to not only the Duke of Sussex, but also to your queen. This is what keeps them under the man’s sway.”

“Jekyll?” Wellington asked. “Eliza, isn’t that the name in the ledger?”

“Check there, Books,” the director said, motioning to the grand desk across the room. Wellington pushed aside several stacks of papers and files until finally finding the ledger. “As you can see, Miss Braun, I was planning to tend to this acquisition of yours upon my return.”

“Considering everything happening on that first night here, Director,” Eliza said, “I’m just thankful you hadn’t lost the bloody thing.”

Wellington opened the book to the two pages featuring notes on Peter Lawson, and schematics on the Maestro’s apparatus. Eliza caught Sophia flinching at the sight of Jekyll’s sketches.

“He must truly be a monster,” Eliza said to her, “to get a reaction like that from the likes of you.”

“At first I thought the Maestro was the one to be feared. I was mistaken.” Sophia slowly shook her head. “When I found Jekyll looming over that young boy, strapped to his table, I knew this particular madness was not for me. He had caught the child in his office.”

“Callum!” Eliza felt her skin run cold. “This Jekyll was the children’s mark. He was the doctor that took him!” Her eyes welled with angry, frustrated tears as she turned to Wellington.

“You know this child?” Sophia’s already pale skin grew paler. “I am sorry, signorina. I do not know exactly what Jekyll did to him, but I saw him administer the green liquid to this Callum of yours.”

Eliza sank down onto a chair opposite of everyone, any sort of earlier desire to deal out bodily harm to Sophia stolen in an instant. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She’d failed
the Seven. She had promised to get Callum back, and because of Sound’s time machine, they had lost approximately a year. What could this foul Doctor Jekyll have done to Callum in that time? What would he be now?

Wellington advanced on Sophia, his whole body rigid with fury as he grabbed the assassin by the arm. “You stood by while this child was experimented on?”

She wrenched herself free. “I wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Maestro and his men—”

“Agent Books, have a care,” Sound ordered gently. “Stand down.”

“I beg your pardon, Director?” he snapped.

“I said,” Sound repeated, his tenor never changing, making it all the more menacing, “have a care. Stand. Down.” He was flipping through Jekyll’s ledger. “When you find true evil, you must stand against it. Someone must or all will be lost.”

“Pardon my frankness, sir,” Wellington began, “but what are you on about?!”

“Think about all this. The manipulation of the Duke of Sussex. The Queen. That ledger.” Eliza felt detached from the conversation, but she knew she was talking somehow. It was the last side she would ever expect to take, but Sophia could not be maligned. At least, at this particular point. “Jekyll is a man of detail. He would notice those missing vials. He would know who took them. Sophia risked her life. For us.”

For a moment Eliza thought she might have observed guilt in the assassin’s eyes, but then it was gone. “Touching sentiment, but I think of my own safety first, as we all do.”

“Not all of us,” Eliza broke in.

A creak from behind the door snapped Eliza out of her melancholy. She slapped the Remington-Elliot out of Wellington’s hand and into her own, and crossed the room in wide, silent strides as she held the pistol out towards the office’s double doors.

She felt one of her pistols leave its holster, and Wellington flanked her. “Just wait. In case we are wrong.”

Eliza nodded and watched the door as Wellington crept up to it. Bracing himself against the wall, he stretched his hand out to the middle of the right door. He gave two knocks in close succession, a pause, two quick knocks again, another pause, and then one solid knock.

From the other side of the door, the pattern of knocks repeated.

“Ready, Welly?” she whispered.

Wellington rapped his knuckles against his own bulletproof corset. “Be prepared. Be vigilant.”

He opened the door, revealing a Lee-Metford-Tesla and two Rickies pointing back at them, but only for a moment.

“Books? Braun?” came the gravelly baritone of Lachlan King. The two hand cannons he brandished returned to their holders before he stretched his arms out wide. “Lovely to see you back, my friends.”

Even after their embrace ended, Wellington felt the need to shake Lachlan’s hand with great vigour. “It is a very great relief to be back, sir.”

The older man greeted Eliza with a flourish, a delighted laugh, and a friendly embrace for her as well. Ever the charmer. “Mavericks? You?” she asked, motioning to the combination pistol and hand cannon holstered at his side. “I always thought of you brandishing something more elegant.”

Lachlan tapped the lapels of his velvet coat. “How do you think I have lived this long in the Queen’s service?” he asked her with a rakish wink.

“Doctor Sound,” Cassandra Shillingworth said, resting the rifle over her shoulder. “Glad to have you back, sir.”

“Ah, Cassandra,” the director said, placing a light kiss on her cheek, “considering the looks of things, may I assume all is well here at the manor?”