The Difference Engine (22 page)

Perhaps the Coughing Gent was a confederate of the tout and his woman. A hired ruffian; a murderer, with a derringer in the pocket of that Albert coat. Or a vial of vitriol. The hair rose at the base of Mallory’s skull, anticipating the sudden impact of the assassin’s bullet, the wet burning splash of corrosion.

Mallory began to walk more quickly, the case banging painfully against his leg. Into Berkeley Square, where a small steam-crane, chugging gamely between a pair of splintered plane-trees, swung a great cast-iron ball into a crumbling Georgian facade. A crowd of spectators was enjoying the sight. He joined them behind the saw-horse barricade, amid the acrid smell of ancient plaster, and sensed a moment’s safety. He spied out the Coughing Gent with a sidelong glance. The fellow looked sinister enough, and anxious, having lost Mallory in the crowd for the time being. But he did not seem mad with hatred, or nerved to kill; he was glancing about among the legs of the spectators, hunting for Mallory’s clock-case.

Here was a chance to lose the rascal. Mallory made a swift break down the length of the Square, taking advantage of the cover of the trees. At the Square’s far end he turned down Charles Street, lined right and left with enormous eighteenth-century houses. Lordly homes, their ornate iron-work hung with modern coats-of-arms. Behind him a sumptuous gurney emerged from its carriage-house, giving Mallory the chance to stop, and turn, and study the street.

His gambit had failed. The Coughing Gent was mere yards behind, a bit winded perhaps and red-faced in the sullen heat, but not deceived. He was waiting for Mallory to move again, careful not to look at him. Instead, he gazed with apparent longing at the entrance of a public-house named I Am the Only Running Footman. It occurred to Mallory to double back and enter the Running Footman, where he might lose the Coughing Gent in the crowd. Or perhaps he could leap, at the last moment, onto a departing omnibus — if he could cram his precious case aboard.

But Mallory saw little real hope in these expedients. This fellow had the firm advantage of the terrain and all the sneaking tricks of the London criminal. Mallory felt like a lumbering Wyoming bison. He trudged ahead with the heavy clock. His hand ached; he was becoming weary . . .

At the foot of Queens Way, a dragline and two excavators were wreaking progressive havoc in the ruins of Shepherd Market. A hoarding surrounded the site, the boards cracked and knotholed by eager spectators. Kerchief-headed women and chaw-spitting costermongers, displaced from their customary sites, had set up a last-ditch rag-shop just outside the fence. Mallory walked down the line of ill-smelling oysters and limp vegetables. At the end of the hoarding, some accident of planning had left a narrow alleyway; dusty planks to one side, crumbled brick to the other. Rank weeds sprouted between piss-damp ancient cobbles. Mallory peered in as a bonneted crone arose from a squat, adjusting her skirts. She walked past him without a word. Mallory touched his hat.

Heaving the case above his head, he set it gently atop the wall of mossy brick. He shored it up securely with a chunk of decayed mortar, then placed his hat beside it.

He flattened his back against the wall of planks.

The Coughing Gent appeared. Mallory lunged for the man, and punched him in the pit of the belly with all his strength. “The man doubled over with a spit and a wheeze, and Mallory clouted him with a short left to the side of the jaw. The man’s hat flew off, and he tumbled to his knees.

Mallory grabbed the back of the villain’s Albert coat and flung him hard against the bricks. The man rebounded, sprawled headlong, and lay gasping, his whiskered face smeared with filth. Mallory snatched him up two-handed, by the throat and lapel. “Who are you!”

“Help,” the man croaked feebly, “murder!”

Mallory dragged the man three yards down the alley. “Don’t play the fool with me, you blackguard! Why are you following me? Who paid you? What’s your name?”

The man clawed desperately at Mallory’s wrist. “Let me go . . . ” His coat had flown open. Mallory glimpsed the brown leather of a shoulder-holster and reached at once for the weapon in it.

It was not a gun. It came out in his hand like a long oiled snake. A truncheon, with a braided leather handle and a thick black shaft of India-rubber, flattened at the end to a swollen tip like a shoehorn’s. It had a spring-steel whippiness, as if it were built around a coil of iron.

Mallory brandished the ugly device, which felt as if it could easily break bones. The Coughing Gent cowered before him. “Answer my questions!”

A bolt of wet lightning blasted the back of Mallory’s head. His senses almost left him; he felt himself fall, but caught himself against the filthy cobblestones with arms as numb and heavy as legs of mutton. A second blow fell, but glancingly, across his shoulder. He rolled back and snarled — a thick, barking sound, a cry he had never heard from his own throat. He kicked out at his attacker, somehow caught the man’s shin. The man hopped back, cursing.

Mallory had lost the truncheon. He lurched up, scrambling, into a giddy crouch. The second man was portly and small. He wore a round derby hat, mashed down almost to his eyebrows. He stood over the outstretched legs of the Coughing Gent and made a menacing slash at Mallory with a sausage-like leather cosh.

Blood coursed down Mallory’s neck as a wave of nauseated dizziness struck. He felt he might faint at any moment, and animal instinct told him that if he fell now, he would surely be beaten to death.

He turned and fled the alley on wobbling legs. His head seemed to rattle and squeak, as if the sutures of his skull had ruptured. Red mist swirled like oil before his eyes.

He tottered a short way down the street, and rounded a corner, gasping. He propped himself against a wall, hands braced on his knees. A respectable man and woman passed him, and stared in vague distaste. With his nose running, his mouth clogged with nausea, he glared back at them, feebly defiant. He sensed somehow that if the bastards smelled his blood they would surely tear him down.

Time passed. More Londoners strolled past him, with looks of indifference, curiosity, faint disapproval, thinking him drunk or sick. Mallory peered through his tears at the building across the street, at the neatly enameled cast-iron sign on its corner.

Half-Moon Street. Half-Moon Street, where Oliphant lived.

Mallory felt in his pocket for his field-book. It was still there, the familiar touch of its sturdy leather binding like a blessing to him. With trembling fingers, he found Oliphant’s card.

Once he had reached the address, at the far end of Half-Moon Street, he was no longer weaving on his feet. The ugly giddiness in his skull had changed to a painful throbbing.

Oliphant lived in a Georgian mansion, divided for modern renters. The ground floor had an elaborate iron railing and a curtained bay-window commanding the peaceful vista of Green Park. It was altogether a pleasantly civilized place, entirely unsuitable for a man who was aching, stunned, and dripping blood. Mallory pounded fiercely with the elephant-headed knocker.

A man-servant opened the door. He looked Mallory up and down. “May I help you . . .? Oh, my word.” He turned, raised his voice to a shout. “Mr. Oliphant!”

Mallory tottered into the entrance hall, all elegant tile and waxed wainscoting. Oliphant appeared almost at once. In spite of the hour, he was formally dressed, with the smallest of bow-ties and a chrysanthemum boutonniere.

Oliphant seemed to grasp the situation with a single keen-eyed glance. “Bligh! Go at once to the kitchen; fetch brandy from cook. A basin of water. And some clean towels.”

Bligh, the man-servant, vanished. Oliphant stepped to the open door, glanced warily up and down the street, then shut and locked the door securely. Taking Mallory’s arm, he guided him into the parlor, where Mallory lowered himself wearily on a piano-bench.

“So you’ve been attacked,” Oliphant said. “Set upon from behind. A cowardly ambush, by the look of it.”

“How bad is it? I can’t see.”

“A blow from a blunt instrument. The skin is broken and you have a considerable bruise. It’s bled rather freely, but is clotting now.”

“Is it serious?”

“I’ve seen worse.” Oliphant’s tone was ironically cheerful. “But it’s quite spoilt that handsome jacket of yours. I’m afraid.”

“They stalked me all through Piccadilly,” Mallory said. “I didn’t see the second one, until it was too late.” He sat up suddenly. “Damn! My clock! A clock, a wedding gift. I left it in an alleyway by Shepherd Market. Those rascals will have stolen it!”

Bligh reappeared, with towels and basin. He was shorter and older than his master, clean-shaven and thick-necked, with bulging brown eyes. His hairy wrists were thick as a collier’s. He and Oliphant shared an air of easy respect, as though the man were a trusted family retainer. Oliphant dabbed a towel in the basin and stepped behind Mallory. “Be quite still, please.”

“My clock,” Mallory repeated.

Oliphant sighed. “Bligh, do you think you could see to this gentleman’s mislaid property? There’s a degree of danger, of course.”

“Yes, sir,” Bligh said stolidly. “And the guests, sir?”

Oliphant seemed to think it over, dabbing wetly at the back of Mallory’s skull. “Why don’t you take the guests with you, Bligh? I’m sure they’d enjoy the outing. Take them out the back way. Try not to create too much of a public spectacle.”

“What shall I tell them, sir?”

“Tell them the truth, of course! Tell them that a friend of the household has been assaulted by foreign agents. But tell them they mustn’t kill anyone. And if they don’t find this clock of Dr. Mallory’s, they mustn’t think it a reflection on their abilities. Make a joke of it if you must, but don’t allow them to feel they’ve lost prestige.”

“I understand, sir,” Bligh said, and left.

“Sorry to impose,” Mallory muttered.

“Nonsense. It’s what we’re here for.” Oliphant offered Mallory two fingers of very good brandy, in a crystal tumbler.

With the brandy, the dry-throated shock oozed out of Mallory, leaving him in pain, but far less numb and harried. “You were right and I was wrong,” he declared. “They were stalking me like an animal! They were no common ruffians; they meant me harm. I’m sure of it.”

“Texians?”

“Londoners. A tall cove with side-whiskers, and a little fat one in a derby hat.”

“Hirelings.” Oliphant dabbled a towel in the basin. “You could do with a stitch or two, I think. Shall I summon a doctor? Or do you trust me to do it? I’ve done a bit of surgeon’s work, in rough country.”

“So have I,” Mallory said. “Pray go ahead if you think it necessary.”

He had another gulp of Oliphant’s brandy while the man fetched needle and thread. Then Mallory doffed his coat, clenched his jaw, and stared at the blue floral wallpaper while Oliphant deftly pierced the torn skin and sutured it. “Not a bad job,” Oliphant said, pleased. “Stay out of unwholesome effluvia and you’ll likely escape without a fever.”

“All London’s an effluvium today. This beastly weather . . . I don’t trust doctors, do you? They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Unlike diplomats, or Catastrophists?” Oliphant’s charming smile made it impossible for Mallory to take offense. Mallory picked his jacket from the piano-bench. Bloodstains matted its collar. “Now what? Shall I go to the police?”

“That’s your privilege, of course,” Oliphant said, “though I would trust to your patriotic discretion to leave certain matters unmentioned.”

“Certain matters such as Lady Ada Byron?”

Oliphant frowned. “To speculate wildly about the Prime Minister’s daughter would. I’m afraid, be a very severe indiscretion.”

“I see. And what about my gun-running for the Royal Society’s Commission on Free Trade, then? I make the unfounded assumption that the Commission’s scandals differ from Lady Ada’s.”

“Well,” said Oliphant. “Gratifying as it would be to me personally to see your Commission’s blunders publicly exposed, I fear that entire business must remain sub-rosa — in the interests of the British nation.”

“I see. What exactly is left to me to say to the police, then?”

Oliphant smiled thinly. “That you were struck on the head by an unnamed ruffian for unknown reasons.”

“This is ridiculous,” Mallory snapped. “Aren’t you Government mandarins good for anything? This isn’t some game of parlor charades, you know! I identified that female fiend who helped hold Lady Ada captive! Her name is —”

“Florence Bartlett,” Oliphant said. “And pray keep your voice down.”

“How did you — ?” Mallory stopped. “Your friend Mr. Wakefield, is it? I suppose he watched all my business at the Statistics Bureau, and dashed off at once to tell you everything.”

“It’s Wakefield’s business, however tedious, to watch the business of his own blessed Engines,” Oliphant said calmly. “I was expecting you to tell me, actually — now that you know that you were enticed by an authentic femme fatale. But you don’t seem eager to share your information, sir.”

Mallory grunted.

“This is no matter for the common police,” Oliphant said. “I told you earlier that you should have special protection. Now, I’m afraid I must insist.”

“Bloody hell,” Mallory muttered.

“I’ve the very man for this assignment. Inspector Ebenezer Fraser, of the Bow Street Special Branch. The very Special Branch, so you mustn’t say that too loudly; but you’ll find Inspector Fraser — or Mister Fraser, as he prefers to be called in public — to be most capable, most understanding, and very discreet. I know you’ll be safe in Fraser’s hands — and I cannot tell you what a relief that will be to me.”

A door shut in the back of the house. There were footsteps, scrapings and clinkings, strange voices. Then Bligh reappeared.

“My clock!” Mallory cried. “Thank heaven!”

“We found it atop a wall, with a bit of brick propping it up, rather hidden away,” Bligh said, setting down the case. “Scarcely a scratch on it. I surmise the ruffians cached it there, for later looting, sir.”

Oliphant nodded, with an arched eyebrow at Mallory. “Fine work, Bligh.”

“And then there was this, sir.” Bligh produced a trampled topper.