Scotland Hard (Book 2 in the Tom & Laura Series) (31 page)

41.
      
Magic & Master-Spies

Madam Hulot picked up the cane that was both her symbol of authority and instigator of painful justice. She admired herself in the mirror before setting out for the day.

As always, she was wearing black, black in mourning for her dead husband, Francois, who had brought her to this heaven country where men wore skirts and went to protestant churches to worship their false God. Her husband had showed her the extreme discourtesy of dying by slipping on autumn leaves in the city of
Stirling
and breaking his neck. This meant that she was required to work for a living, something she had never expected to have to do.

She was well aware that the girls under her charge had nicknamed her the Black Widow, though they never dared to say it to her face. The adults in the castle picked it up from the girls and its use was now well spread. It did not bother her overmuch, but it did give her motivation to swing the cane a little harder whenever she was punishing the evil little creatures.

Madam Hulot believed that young girls needed to be punished severely and regularly. It was the way her father had raised her. He often told her as he was beating her, that women were corrupting of men in their wanton ways and desires and that only regular punishment could keep them on the straight and narrow path that God ordained for them.

She left her room and started the descent through the castle to her schoolroom. She smiled grimly as she slapped the cane hard enough into her palm to sting. She only taught the children in the morning today and she intended to make it memorable.

The afternoon was reserved for the ungodly experiments that Lord McBride’s investigators insisted on carrying out on the children. Madam Hulot believed the experiments blasphemed the word of God, but her main complaint against them was that they did not cause the children any pain.

“The Black Widow was certainly in a bad mood this morning and no mistake,” Edith Trenchard said as she rubbed her burning bottom. “Let us give thanks to the Good Lord that this afternoon will be spent with the Laird’s mad scientist.”

“She hit me just for calling her Madam Hulot,” Lucy complained, “And that is her name, after all.”

“She’s a witch, a bitch witch,”
Alice
said suddenly and the others giggled at the appropriateness of the alliteration.

Gwendolyn was about to say something when her hand brushed against the wall of the room and it became filled with ghosts. Men fought each other with massive swords and shouted insults in accents so thick that Gwendolyn had no idea what they were saying. The ghosts all looked the same to her and she wondered how they knew who was friend or foe

A man screamed in agony as a dirk stuck into his eye only an inch from her face. Blood and clear liquid squirted at her though none landed. Gwendolyn stood frozen in shock until
Alice
pulled her hand away from the wall and the visions vanished as swiftly as they arrived.

“Aint you girls got any sense?”
Alice
berated her other friends. “All you ‘as to do is stop ‘er touching whatever is givin’ ‘er the ‘eebie-jeebies and it’ll go right away.”

“Thank you,” Gwendolyn said gratefully, “There was a horrible fight in this room a long time ago. Men were wantonly killing each other.”

“We never thought to help,” Edith said, sounding ashamed. “It never occurred to us.” The truth was that neither Edith nor Lucy wanted to touch Gwendolyn when she was having a vision, because the thought of what she might be seeing scared them.

“Where are you takin’ us anyway?”
Alice
asked the others as they hurried along. They had been walking away from the schoolroom for some time.

“Here,” Edith said triumphantly as she smartly rapped on a door in front of her.

“Enter,” a deep male voice said. Edith opened the door to wave the others through, making a mocking bow to them.

The room was large, being about twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. Its floor was cluttered with small tables.
Card tables
Alice
thought,
each with a pair of chairs.

The man who had spoken sat at one of the tables and he stood up as they entered.

“I see that we have a new young lady joining the team today,” he said offering his hand out to
Alice
. “My name is Dr Thomas and your job is to try your best at all the tests I set.”

“Glyn is trying to prove that there is only one kind of magic gift and that being a Spellbinder or a Precog is just an aspect of the same thing,” Edith told Alice loftily.

“That’s quite enough disrespect out of you, Edith,” Dr Thomas said without rancor. “But your description of the premise is correct.”

“Don’t care if your premises are bad or good, ‘cause where you live don’t make magic all the same,”
Alice
said aggressively. She did not shake Dr Thomas’s hand, putting her hands behind her back in a gesture of defiance.

“Premise is a supposition, an idea of how things might work. Not a building,” Dr Thomas explained patiently. “And you girls can stop giggling right now or I shall go and fetch the Black Widow to sort you out. Being uneducated is not a crime, nor is it something to be ashamed of, especially when you have had no choice.”

Silence descended on the room like a dark cloud, as Dr Thomas had made good on his threat to call on Madame Hulot a few weeks before, to extremely painful effect.

“Good, that is much better,” Dr Thomas said with satisfaction. “I let you girls get away with far too much as it is. Today we are going to investigate a form of precognition, but not in the way you usually experience it, Lucy. I have set out some playing card face down on these tables. Each of you will sit at a table with your hands kept at your sides. I want you to stare at the cards in front of you and imagine what picture there might be on the other side of it.

When I come and sit with you, I will touch a card and you will tell me what you think that it is, Queen of Hearts or whatever. I will look at it to check, but I will not tell you whether you are right or wrong. I will then touch the next card and we will repeat the exercise until I have touched all the cards at your table.”

“That don’t make sense,”
Alice
complained. “Why don’t you turn them over so we can see if we get it right?”

“An intelligent question,” Dr Thomas replied. “However, I am not searching for ordinary precognition. The Laird promised me a boy who can see five seconds into the future, though sadly he has yet to arrive. Such a boy would always get the answer right provided I turned over the card so he could see it within the five seconds.

I am in truth testing your perceptions of the world around you. I believe that all the magically talented see the world in greater detail than the rest of us, that Telepaths, Farsee’s, Precogs and all the rest are seeing the world more clearly, but that their ability to see the world expresses itself in different ways.”

“’ow’s a ‘ealer see the world better then?”
Alice
asked in disgust.

“Healers see the illness in a person,” Dr Thomas said, warming up on his favorite subject. “You can all change the world you see to some extent. Healers can make people’s bodies get better by removing the malaise they see.”

“I see horrible things from the past,” Gwendolyn broke in. “I can’t change anything I see at all.”

“You can change the present and the future by telling us about the things that you saw,” Dr Thomas offered. “People like Spellbinders are super-changers of the present. On the other hand, they reveal nothing of the past or the future. I believe that all the magical talents are balanced.”

“So you are smarter than that
Newton
bloke then?”
Alice
asked sarcastically. “’im what created Military Magic an’ all?”

“That wasn’t
Newton
,
Alice
,” Dr Thomas said patiently, “Military Magic was created by Lord Magus in 1810. What
Newton
did much earlier was create a solid mathematical basis for the magic talents that we see, but he only met a few magically talented people who had no real understanding of the gifts they possessed. He never saw the anomalous gifts, like those you girls possess.”

“Should we get on with it?” Gwendolyn suggested as she was getting bored. Dr Thomas had been over this subject many times before.

“Indeed, we should. Thank you for reminding me of that, Gwen. Would you girls take a seat at a table, any table you like? I shall start the session with
Alice
here, as she is the new girl.”

The train pulled to a halt at Glen Russell and James Saunders stood up and stretched his arms up in the air. He was not tall enough to reach the ceiling, though if either of his companions had tried the same exercise they would have banged their hands on the top of the carriage.

“What’s the plan, guv’nor?” Mick asked, looking out at the glass and iron building suspiciously.

“I shall seek an audience with Lord McBride in my capacity as a senior officer of MM3. He will be unable to refuse such a reasonable request. Once I have him in a private setting, I shall reveal my position as part of the Brotherhood and explain that he has to eliminate the MM3 agents on Young and Carter’s trail. I am sure that we will be able to reach some equitable arrangement to find and dispose of these troublesome children for him.”

“And us?” Joe asked.

“You are my bodyguards and you will stay with me at all times. I don’t suspect we shall have any trouble, but it is well to take precautions.”

“Why is the train stopping?” Belinda asked as their train began to slow. Trelawney put down his copy of The Times and stared out at the landscape beyond the carriage window.

“Even this train needs to take on fresh water for the engine. I expect we are going to take on more supplies.”

“But we have hardly left
London
,” Belinda pointed out. “Even a conventional engine travels further than this before it needs to refuel.”

“Colney Hatch,” Trelawney read as they came to a halt alongside the platform. “Perhaps there is a signaling issue or another train on the line?”

The train stayed stationary for only a few seconds and then began to move again.

“There, just as I told you, Belinda, nothing for us to worry about.”

In the carriage at the back of the train, the guard raised his hands above his hands very slowly. Five men and one attractive woman pointed pistols at him. They clambered onboard before the train finished pulling to a halt, taking the unsuspecting guard by surprise.

“If you don’t cause any trouble, you vill survive,” the woman explained to the guard who visibly relaxed at this news. Then she shot him through the temple. He fell to the floor, staring up at her with reproaching sightless eyes.

“Oops, I suppose I lied,” she told his corpse. “Bruno, get into his uniform immediately. Hurry, before it gets blood on it.”

“Why did you shoot him, Annelise?” Bruno asked as he dragged the guard’s body away from the pool of blood by its head and started to strip it of its uniform.

“He vas annoying me by standink there looking so English. They think their empire is so superior.
England
vill be a much nicer country vithout
London
in it, don’t you think?” Annelise Shutlz asked, smiling at her underling.

“What are we going to do now? Go through the train killing everyone?” Bruno asked.

Annelise wagged a finger at Bruno in disapproval. “Let me do the thinking, Bruno. I am so much better at it than you.”

42.
      
Meanwhile

“Will Lord Palmerston cancel it?” Belinda asked unexpectedly.

Trelawney put down his copy of The Times and raised his eyebrows. Belinda Mann was usually taciturn to a fault and yet this was the second time in less than an hour that she had disturbed his concentration.

“Cancel what?”

“The State Opening of Parliament. I saw it mentioned in your newspaper and remembered that it takes place the day after tomorrow.”

“Well it always takes place at this time of the year, Belinda. You should know that.”

“But will Palmerston cancel it in the light of the threat from Lord McBride?” Belinda asked for the second time.

“He cannot,” Trelawney said with a weary sigh. “That would tell the world that the
British Empire
is under attack and there are always wolves at the door looking to harry us at the first sign of weakness. Besides that, it would alert Lord McBride that we are on to him.”

“But the Queen and the members of the Lords and Commons will be there,” Belinda protested. “It would be madness to let it go ahead.”

“I am sure Lord Palmerston will ensure that the heir to the throne will be far away from
London
during the opening. It is the best he can do under the circumstances. If Lord McBride is in attendance at the ceremony though, we can be certain they will be safe.”

Back in the rear coach, Bruno had put on the guard’s uniform. It was a size too small for him and his tummy bulged out alarmingly while the arms of the jacket were two inches too short.

“You are now the perfect copy of an English gentleman,” Annelise said with her eyes twinkling, “They are alvays bulging out of their clothes from over-eating.”

There was a knock at the door connecting to the next carriage. Everyone drew their pistols and cocked them.

“Well answer it, Bruno. I am expecting a guest.”

The other men hid behind packing crates. Annelise Shultz leaned back against a couple of stacked crates to steady herself from the motions of the train. She kept her pistol in her hand, though she pointed it at the floor.

Bruno opened the door and the rattle of wheels grew to a roar. A man muffled in a greatcoat staggered inside and shook in an effort to warm himself.

“I thought you were going to leave me out there forever,” he complained. He looked into the piercing blue eyes of Annelise and his eyes narrowed.

“You have disposed of the guard?” he asked looking around.

“Dead, stripped and packed in a corner,” Annelise replied. “Have you counted the number of men on board this train?”

“There are twenty three people, not counting the driver, his engineer, or me. Twenty two now that you have killed the guard.”

“And of Sir Ernest Trelawney and his infamously devious secretary, Belinda Mann?”

“I included them in the count. It was lucky I could telegraph you early enough for you to act. If my superior had asked someone else to organize the team we could have done nothing.”

“I placed an agent in the signal box at Colney Hatch because I foresaw this eventuality,” Annelise snapped. “The English are so predictable in their vays, though how they found out about McBride in the first place is something vee vill probably never know. Perhaps the young female Spellbinder is responsible; she has proved to be resourceful.”

“We are seven against twenty two now and we have the element of surprise,” Bruno said eagerly. “Let us kill them all and get off this devil train.”

“I don’t know ver they train them these days,” Annelise said in disgust. “There is an army waiting for these people in
Perth
, Bruno. If vee kill everyone on this train, do you think that vill stop the British Army attacking Glen Russell? It vill give them the proof they lack.”

Bruno particularly wanted to be off the train because it was heading towards Laura Young and their recent encounters had not gone his way.

“Then what shall we do?”

“Vee vill infiltrate this attack and act ver it has the greatest effect. You have arranged an MM1 team that vee can replace, Jenkins?” she asked the man who had entered the carriage.

Jenkins smirked back at her. “I thought you would never ask. I’ve put the team in the carriage in front of this one and they are two carriages away from any assistance. Will that do, Madam Shultz?”

“I like the vay you think, Jenkins. Vee should vurk vell together.”

When James Saunders stepped out onto the platform at Glen Russell, Ebb pushed
Cam
around the corner of the ticket office, shielding them from view.

“Ow! “
Cam
yelled as she fell into Daisy and Tricky.

“The man who just come off that train, he came to me house once,” Ebb explained. “He saw me the other time and chased us.”

It took the others a few seconds to work out that the ‘other time’ was a future that no longer existed.
Cam
and Daisy were slowly becoming acclimatized to Ebb’s peculiar world view in which possible futures slipped in and out of existence.

Daisy slid against the wall of the building and risked a quick glance onto the platform. What she saw confirmed her fears and far too many of her nightmares.

“We have to get away at once. The man Ebb saw is James Saunders.”

The four young people hurried around to the back of the building and hid between it and the curving wall of glass and cast iron that enclosed the station.

“We can’t stay here,”
Cam
said worriedly. “We stick out like a sore thumb in among all this glasswork.”

“Follow me,” Tricky said, thinking nothing of taking command. Daisy caught
Cam
’s gaze and nodded. Tricky led them behind the building and towards the far end of the station. A building formed part of the rear wall. He took them to a door that had ‘Official Use Only’ written on it. It was locked.

“Stand aside,”
Cam
ordered. “I’ve been trained by experts to pick locks.”

“An’ I can see right through ‘em,” Tricky said, managing to sound both proud and contemptuous in one go. He took a thick piece of wire from his pocket and picked the lock before
Cam
could think of a suitable reply. “Come on, ladies,” Tricky urged as he pulled open the door.

“That’s the second lock in a row where somebody has beaten you to it,” Daisy whispered to
Cam
as they entered the dark of the building. “I think you are losing your touch, Camilla.”

Cam
resisted the urge to snarl a response. They had returned to the station to check the timetable. Once they had stolen the explosive device, they would need a train to escape. The boys were restless from being cooped up in the cottage, so
Cam
decided to turn the trip to the railway station into a family outing.

Though the station was of the dead end kind, with the trains pulling out the same way they came in, there was a section of track that led through the wall and into the factory. The building they were in connected to the factory down a long partially enclosed corridor running alongside that track. The corridor was neither heated nor sealed, with windows open to the elements.

The four began to shiver with cold as they trudged along the corridor to the factory. Another locked door blocked their access at the far end. Tricky opened it so quickly that it was just as if he had used a key.

Behind the door, they found a set of cast iron steps leading up to a gantry that ran the length of the building. They crouched below the level of the windows in the gantry to avoid being seen by the workers below. This put the girls on all fours, though Tricky and Ebb just kept their backs bent.

Sticking her head above the windowsill,
Cam
risked a peek at the activity below.

“There’s a brand new engine down there with four carriages attached,” she said in a whisper.

Tricky risked a look before the adults could tell him not to.

“Looks like its goin’ somewhere special,” he said. “It’s fancy painted an’ all.”

Daisy took a quick look, since everybody else seemed to be doing it.

“He’s right. Is there anything going on at the moment in the big wide-world?”

Cam
pulled out her almanac, a small book filled with all kinds of useful information. Useful that is, if you wanted to know when the tides were high in
Lowestoft
or the phases of the moon.

“There’s the State Opening of Parliament in two days time,” she told them hesitantly.

“McBride’s a Lord,” Daisy pointed out. “He probably plans to travel to
London
to attend it.”

“Good time to plant a bomb,” Tricky said in a matter of fact voice. “Me Dad took me once to see all the fancy gold coaches goin’ by. You could kill a lot of toffs with one big bomb.”

Cam
and Daisy stared at Tricky with a mixture of admiration and horror on their faces.

“Lord McBride couldn’t get his device together in time for it,”
Cam
said determinedly.

“He might, with Laura’s help,” Daisy pointed out.

Laura was working hard to avoid separating out the dantium in the reactor rod. Though using the same formulation of Latin words that Giles Summers had given her, her mental image while casting the bind, was of the copper flowing one way and leaving the mix of uranium and dantium intact.

After completing the bind, she remained seated at the workbench and made no move to see what might have happened to the rod. She was certain she had failed, just as she intended.

The sound of Giles and Gordon Kemp clapping their hands and stamping their feet in delight brought her out of her reverie with a jolt.

“That material must be one hundred percent pure,” Kemp was saying excitedly. “Look at the texture. You and Andrew, God rest his soul, never got it to look like that.”

“And it is enough to get the Laird off our backs,” Giles agreed.

“More than enough dantium to complete the second cannonball,” Kemp agreed. “Though why he is so obsessed with making those damned things is quite beyond me. I keep hoping he will take me into his confidence on the matter.”

“I sometimes think Hans Clerkes has cast some sort of spell on him,” Giles said and laughed. “I am so glad that I will not be spending tonight locked in here. Have you noticed that my hair is starting to grow back? My lack of eyebrows meant my image in the mirror never looked like me. The last thing I want to do is lose all that again to this cursed metal.”

Laura stood up in a daze and walked towards the two men. If they were pulling some kind of trick on her, it was a particularly effective one. They stepped aside as she approached the glass and she put both her hands on the sill, staring into the room beyond.

As soon as she saw the large amount of powdered metal gleaming on the muslin sheet, she knew that Giles and Gordon were telling the truth. Somehow, and completely by accident she had conjured the very substance she had been trying to avoid. Laura wanted to scream and stamp her feet in frustration.
Why did this have to happen now?

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Tom looking over her shoulder at the terrifying substance. He squeezed her shoulder gently.

“What is done is done,” he said without the slightest hint of reproach.

She turned and hugged him tight to her. To Giles and Gordon it looked as though she hugged Tom in triumph.

“No more work for us today,” Gordon said gleefully. “I’ll get the engineering team to come and take the metal away. They should have it formed into a cannonball before nightfall.”

“I have located some more tea,”
Arnold
told them from the door. He had been sent to the castle kitchens earlier when they discovered they were out of tea.

Arnold
looked at the two gleeful scientists and then to Laura holding onto to Tom as though the world had come to an end.

“Did I miss something important?”