Ether & Elephants (8 page)

All the same initials. Nell’s head spun. “Do we know if the same vicar performed the ceremonies?”

Wink snorted. “Not from here. The thing is, the special licenses have only just been added to our engine databases. England has a long history and a lot of records. It will be years before they’re all available to search by machine, even though we do have typewriting clerks working on it all over the country.”

Nell’s fingers shook, so she clenched them in her lap. “And the birth records?”

“Not yet. The machine is searching. There are dozens of parishes close enough to Cambridge that he needn’t have been christened in the same one where the marriage was held—assuming he
was
christened, or his birth at least recorded by a doctor or midwife. I’m looking for a Charles, any last name, born within a year to either side of Charlie’s estimated birthday. There are a lot, so we’ll have to sort through those results by hand. I’m thinking we can narrow it down to mothers with the initials P. and B.”

“Can I help?”

The two women swirled to see Roger standing in the doorway. How had he snuck up on them without Nell hearing? And how much had he heard?

“I feel rather superfluous, since the men all left without me this morning. Even Sir Fergus appears to have gone along on the search.”

Neither woman wanted to mention that Melody’s father was still an active Knight, despite being in his fifties. Instead, Wink beamed. “As soon as the machine prints out the list, you certainly can. A good analytical mind shouldn’t be wasted. I was wishing our brother Piers was here to pitch in.” She turned to Nell. “I’ll start looking for the marriage records for those four licenses. I’d like to see if the same vicar was involved.”

Nell smiled weakly as Roger took a seat at Melody’s workbench and tucked a pencil behind his ear. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that while we’re out looking for a lost boy, two others should turn up missing? Although I don’t see how they could possibly be connected.” His brow furrowed.

“Coincidences do happen,” Wink said, her fingers moving on the keys. “After all, you turned up here on the very day the house is full of useful people.”

Nell snorted. “Yes, but I did know about the party, plus Tom and I both knew that Melody and Victor could at least contact headquarters and the rest of you. I don’t think I trust this other coincidence. Papa is working on something in London that also involves missing children. He wondered if Charlie’s disappearance could be related.” That much, Roger already knew. She wasn’t giving away Order secrets.

“And isn’t it a coincidence that so many members of your family and the MacKays apparently work for the same branch of the Home Office?” Roger lifted a brow behind his spectacles.

“Not exactly,” Nell said. “They tend to recruit from within. Later, I’ll have Papa give you the full explanation. For now, just trust us, if you can.”

He smiled softly. “For you, darling, anything.” He accepted the printout Wink handed over and took his pencil from behind his ear. “Now, what am I looking for?”

So far, Roger had seemed perfectly at ease with her family and friends. She drew in a deep breath. Would he be so interested once he knew all the dirty secrets? She hoped so. That ordinary life depended upon it.

Chapter Four

Tom and the others started their search at the local boys’ favorite fishing hole. At Wink’s insistence, they’d brought along her clockwork mastiff, George, who had an unmatched ability to follow a scent. They’d also collected Melody and Victor’s pair of MacKay-bred Scottish deerhounds, just in case George somehow managed to miss something, and because the dogs enjoyed a walk. The boys’ mothers had each provided a piece of clothing so all three dogs could take the scent.

“There was definitely a struggle,” Victor noted, getting off his horse to inspect the torn-up terrain. Chunks of turf had been scuffed up and one nearby shrub was broken, as if someone had recently fallen into it. Other searchers had left dozens of tracks, making it difficult to determine much more. “Barnaby was right. The boys didn’t go without a fight. Unless they beat the hell out of each other and both drowned, I’m pretty sure someone took them.”

Tom squatted beside the stream, finding isolated footprints. “Small feet, bare, one set wider than the other.” He laid a hand over the prints and murmured a spell. To his immense relief, the spell didn’t slam into him like an avalanche, as it had in the headmistress’s office. Instead, he was simply able to sense the surface emotions of the boys who’d left the tracks. “So young. Happy and carefree.”

Then he moved to the scuffed terrain and tried the spell again. The emotion was more intense here, but didn’t soak into his being. “Anger, fear, determination and someone just doing a job. Look for man-sized prints leading away from the village, outside the scuffed area. Probably at least two, to subdue and haul off both boys.”

Obediently, the others got off their horses and looked. Connor held the boys’ clothing down so the deerhounds could get the scent, then gave the command to search before doing the same with George.

It didn’t take the dogs long. Within a moment, George started off along an overgrown trail leading inland, away from the small fishing village of Blackwell. The big gray dogs loped alongside him. They’d have taken the lead if they hadn’t been leashed. The men followed along, leading their horses.

The trail had obviously been used in the recent past. Years of undergrowth had been trampled to lay flat on the ground, while the encroaching shrubbery bore bent and broken twigs all along the route. After perhaps half a mile, the path opened up onto a rutted country lane.

“Damn,” Fergus muttered. “The dogs might be able to track an open wagon, but not a closed coach.”

The men studied the ground while the dogs sniffed it. “Something definitely sat here a while,” Connor said, pointing to deep ruts, the right width apart for a wagon.

Barnaby grunted. “Aye. It rained the night before the boys went missing, so the road would have been damp. That’s a boon to us.”

The dogs hesitated, except for George. He moved a few yards in the same direction the wagon tracks seemed to lead and barked, the sound rough and brassy.

“Search, George,” Tom commanded, and the bronze mastiff continued down the road at a steady pace, moving away from Blackwell, inland toward Dartmoor. Soon, the other dogs seemed to scent something in the air. The men mounted their horses and continued to follow.

“What’s down this way?” Fergus asked Victor. “Another town?”

“Not for some distance,” Victor said. “There’s an old tin mine, but that was played out and abandoned decades ago. They sold off all the equipment. I believe my father purchased one of the water pumps for Black Heath’s well.”

“Are any of the buildings still standing?” Tom asked. “A deserted mine might make a good headquarters for someone up to no good.”

“And some of those ancient mines had other chemicals along with the tin,” Connor added. “Perhaps something like arsenic, which our Alchemist might find useful.”

“I don’t know.” Victor looked around. “Haven’t been out this way since I was a boy. There was a building or two, I think.”

They crested a hill, the terrain sloping gradually up from the sea coast to the moor, but in a series of tors and valleys. The trees gave way to scrubbier vegetation. Ahead, a faint plume of smoke appeared from behind a rocky outcropping, perhaps a mile or so further up the gentle slope.

“Let’s leave the horses here,” Fergus said. “We’ll sneak up and see what’s about.”

“Five men?” Barnaby snorted. “Stand out like a parade on that ground. Cap’n, I’m requesting permission to do reconnaissance.” He saluted Victor.

“He’s right.” Victor stroked his moustache. “Tom, why don’t you and Barnaby take it from here?”

Connor shared a glance with his father. “All right. Don’t engage without us though. We don’t want to miss out on any fun.”

Tom handed his reins to Connor. Barnaby was older, probably closer in age to Fergus than to the others, but he was smaller and uncannily nimble. They’d worked together in the past when trouble had threatened Victor and Melody.

“I can do a little to make this easier.” Tom laid a hand on Barnaby’s shoulder and chanted. “I call this my ‘never mind’ spell. It isn’t much. We won’t be invisible or inaudible, but unless we do something to draw attention, folks will tend to overlook us.” It was a fairly complex casting, since it mucked with other people’s perceptions, but it was one Tom had particularly worked on. True invisibility was well out of the range of a Knight’s magick, with the possible exception of Lord Drood. Even the rest of the Order wasn’t sure what their high mage could or couldn’t manage.

Barnaby shot Tom a suspicious look, but didn’t argue. The retired sailor had been around the world long enough to know about magick, but like most sensible people, he preferred to stay clear of it. Then both men began to creep forward, one on either side of the road, using the occasional upthrust slab of granite and small shrubs as cover. At the top of the ridge, they paused to take in the landscape below.

The moor sloped slightly downward for several hundred yards, before leveling off for about the same distance, followed by another, taller hill. The mine, sitting at the near edge of the valley floor, had once been an open pit, leaving a roughly circular depression, surrounded by spoil heaps and rubble. Later, someone had drilled actual mine shafts into the hill directly beneath the pit. The buildings, made of local stone, one small and one large, were fairly recent, perhaps fifty or sixty years old. The small one might be an office, and the larger one had freight doors suggesting some kind of storage facility, but whether for ore or equipment, Tom had no idea. Mining wasn’t something he’d ever studied. About fifty feet behind the smaller building was a privy, which looked to be recently repaired.

Barnaby pointed at the stone arch directly below them. Clangs and thumps emerged. Someone was actively mining inside. There were no visible guards, but they had no way of knowing how many men were in the buildings or inside the shaft.

Tom inhaled deeply. With a finger to his lips, he tipped his head downward, indicating he’d go first. Barnaby trained his pistol on the mine entrance. Slowly, cautiously, Tom crept down the scrub-covered hillside. A handful of ore cars were piled near the shaft entrance, so he slid behind those, taking his bearings. He couldn’t see or hear anyone moving outside the mine itself, which he counted as a positive sign.

A whip cracked somewhere in the darkness of the shaft. “Faster, ye little buggers.”

A child’s voice cried out. Another shouted, “What was that for? ’E didn’t do nuthin’.”

“That’s right. And doin’ nothing gets you the whip. Now, faster! We need both those carts filled before the boss gets back tonight.”

The wails of several boys filled the air. Tom gritted his teeth. He’d heard enough. He gestured for Barnaby to continue keeping watch, and slipped across the yard to the larger building.

A glance in the window showed nothing but bins of rock. A harder look made his stomach lurch. A row of shackles ran all across the far wall. This was probably where the children slept. The back door was unlocked and he went inside, fighting down the urge to vomit at the stench of unwashed human and the buckets, which likely acted as privies when the workers were chained up. A small loft had two pallets in it, indicating that at least two men slept in here with the boys and were probably out in the mine with them now. The rock in the carts was dark and heavy. He slipped a small chip into his pocket.

Back outside, he firmed his jaw and made his way around the back of the barn to the smaller building. This time, after checking the windows, he found the door locked. It was simple enough to pick, allowing him to creep inside the three-room structure. A small, unadorned bedroom with a single bed and a washstand gave no clue as to the inhabitant, other than the scent of fresh tobacco. Next to the bedroom, a stark kitchen boasted not much more than beans and dried beef, along with a large pot of porridge cooling on the wood-fired stove. A bedroll in the corner suggested the cook slept in here, but again, there was nothing to identify the man besides a spare pair of dungarees and other worn-out clothing.

The front half of the space was an office, with a single desk and two hard wooden chairs. Tom rifled through the papers on the desk. There was no company letterhead, no names of clients or the mine owners. All he could find were daily production figures and the number of workers, which was a dozen at present. Over the last week four had been brought in, one had been “removed,” and three had died, including one of the new ones. The ledger didn’t list names, so Tom had no way to tell if Charlie or the boys from the village had been here. A quick search of the desk drawers yielded only more of the same, along with orders for food, lamp oil and other supplies. No names, no information, just input and production.

All right. He’d dallied enough. It was time to inspect the mine shaft. There would be at least four adults, probably all armed.

At the entrance to the mine shaft, Tom dropped to his knees and rolled inside. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and he heard the workers even more clearly than before. A few yards in, the shaft split, and the sounds all came from the left-hand passage, which was more cleanly cut and less worn than the other. More voices became clear now, the men talking about women and drink, while boys and even girls wished for home or whimpered in pain. Another voice, louder and sharper, ordered everyone to work harder.

“Right, let’s move this load,” one of the adult voices grunted. A rumbling noise began, growing closer with each huff of the workers’ breath. “Don’t know why it had to be fucking lead. Couldn’t the boss want something nice and light? This shite weighs more than you do, Toby.”

“Sod off,” a deeper voice grunted. “And do your share of the pushin’, you little wanker.”

Tom ducked a few feet into the opposite tunnel as the rumbling neared. A mine cart appeared first, with two men pushing it. One big bruiser dwarfed another man, who looked to have the same wiry strength as Barnaby. Both of them were covered in black dust. Continuing to bicker, the mismatched pair trudged toward the mine entrance with their heavy load.