The Constantine Affliction (25 page)

Whistler stared at him, and, true to his name, let out a long, low whistle. “Pimm. That’s quite a leap to make, based on a chance similarity of names.”

“And a similarity of timing,” Pimm said. “And of business interest. And of general personality. Madam Worth was a formidable woman in a world dominated by formidable men, yes? The type of woman who might see her transformation into a man not as a tragedy, or a terrible judgment from God, or a jape by the Devil—but as an
opportunity
?”

“It’s a colorful theory,” Whistler said. “And there’s a certain pleasing symmetry to the idea. But Value had
money
, enough to set up and stock those clockwork brothels, and those aren’t cheap. Madam Worth did well enough, I suppose, but she couldn’t have made that kind of money.”

“Perhaps she had investors,” Pimm mused. “And her husband was living suspiciously well, wasn’t he, for an out-of-work pimp? That suggests someone was paying for his lifestyle too, doesn’t it?”

“Even if Madam Worth did become Abel Value, I’m not sure it changes anything. There’s no law against having your sex changed by a
plague
, or changing your name, either. Value’s crimes aren’t any different if he began life as Madam Worth. It might change his status in the eyes of his fellow criminals, I suppose, if they found out he’d begun life as a woman, but legally speaking…”

“Oh, I know,” Pimm said thoughtfully. “Though as I understand it, the rulings that have come down say that the sex you were at birth
remains
your sex, legally speaking, even after a transformation. I suppose that means, since women aren’t sentenced to work the treadmill at Newgate Prison, Value might be spared
that
indignity if he is indeed Mabel Worth.”

“Deucedly peculiar law, I’ve always thought,” Whistler said. “The Affliction isn’t even grounds for divorce—which means if a husband is transformed, two women can be married, or two men, if the wife changes. Though legally speaking I suppose they’re still ‘man’ and ‘wife.’ No wonder so many change their names, run away, and try to pass.”

“It’s all down to inheritance laws,” Pimm said, shrugging. “If an eldest daughter transformed into a man, she might inherit over her brothers, and a son transformed into a daughter might lose his inheritance. The rich have a certain amount of influence when it comes to making the laws, and they are loath to suffer change or disruption.”

“All I inherited from my father was a pocketwatch,” Whistler said. “But I suppose in a family like yours, it matters.”

“I pray every day for the health of my elder brother,” Pimm said, “so that it
won’t
matter. Do I look like a Marquess to you?”

“No,” Whistler said. “You have entirely too strong a chin.”

Pimm rose. “Thanks for the information, old man. You’ve helped me satisfy my curiosity, at any rate. I suppose I might drop by Abel Value’s office—at least, the last one I know about—and let him know of his husband’s unfortunate demise.”

“Assuming Worth
is
Value’s late husband,” Whistler said. “And assuming Value didn’t actually order the man’s murder himself.”

“The wonderful thing about being an independent operator,” Pimm said, “is that I can go merrily on my way fueled solely by assumptions, without your need for tedious minutiae like proof and evidence.”

“And here I thought the wonderful thing about being independent was your freedom to be very nearly drunk by midday,” Whistler said.

Pimm winced, and turned the wince into a smile. He’d tried to speak very clearly, slowly, and soberly—but overly-precise diction could reveal a drunkard just as well as slurring. “I don’t know how you do it,” Pimm said. “The kind of work you and I do, entirely sober? The mind rebels.”

A Cage of One’s Own

T
he carriage pulled in through the oversized doors of a warehouse, which closed after them, and then Ellie and Winnie were herded into the interior gloom. The space was echoing and vast, with birds fluttering in the rafters, and great heaps of twisted ironwork piled up at seemingly random intervals on the hard floor, along with large objects covered by sheets. Gray light filtered in through windows high up close to the ceiling, and a single alchemical lamp of the tall free-standing variety cast a pool of light in the dimness. “This way,” Carrington said, prodding Ellie in the side with the tip of Winnie’s parasol, herding them toward the light. “Into the cage.”

Ellie drew up short, staring. The nearest pile of scrap metal resolved in her light-starved eyes into a great metal cage, of the sort seen at the zoological gardens at Regent’s Park, suitable for confining ferocious lions or tigers or leopards. “You mean to
cage
us?”

“Would you prefer being tied up with ropes and chains?” Carrington said. “I could be persuaded to go that route instead. My employer wishes a captive audience, but he left the specific method of that captivity up to me.”

“Tying them up might be best.” Crippen emerged from the shadows—he was the one who’d shut the door after them, Ellie surmised—and cracked his knuckles. “You can’t trust a woman, especially if she’s got a frying pan or a flower vase near to hand.”

“I will bow to your expertise in such matters.” Carrington didn’t bother to hide his sneer, obviously considering himself superior to Crippen. As if he wasn’t someone’s dog as well. “What say you, ladies?”

“The cage will do,” Winnie said, in the tone of one consenting to be sold a new settee for the parlor. “It seems roomy enough.” She strolled into the cage—the ceiling was just inches above the top of her head—and Ellie swallowed her trepidation and followed. Carrington swung the door shut and fitted an enormous iron key into the lock, turning it to produce a
clank
that seemed to ring in Ellie’s ears with a distressing finality. “See to the horses, would you?” he called to Crippen, who grumbled and then set about leading the animals and the carriage away.

Carrington dragged a wooden chair close to the cage, near the lamp, and sat down, beaming at the women inside. Ellie stood with her back against the bars in the far corner, while Winnie lounged close to the front, elbow resting on a crossbar, one ankle crossed over the other, managing to look entirely at ease. Carrington glanced around, watched Crippen lead the horses off into the darkness, and returned his gaze to his captives. “I’m so sorry I don’t have separate accommodations for the men and the women in your party,” he said. “I know it’s terribly uncivilized. You don’t mind, do you, Freddy?”

“You are a cad, sir,” Winnie said, in a tone that dripped with ice. She turned to Ellie. “I should tell you something, Ellie, if only to spoil Carrington’s cruel fun, though I’m not sure why he’s taken such an elemental dislike to me. It was only a glancing blow across the face with a parasol. I’m sure a man with a face as eminently slap-able as his has suffered worse. Ellie, I must confess—I was not born a woman. Until two years ago, I was a Frederick, not a Winifred.”

“Oh, boo,” Carrington said. “Spoilsport. I’d planned to draw that out a bit more, with many vicious remarks about your private parts. What will I do to pass the time now?”

Ellie blinked. “You… are a victim of the Constantine Affliction?”

“I’d never call myself a
victim
of anything,” Winnie said, “but, yes, I contracted the illness. I was not always… cautious in my choice of intimate friends, I’m afraid.”

Ellie had met people transformed by the Affliction before, but only in the course of researching her articles. She’d begun to think of Winnie as a friend, and to find out there was the mind and soul of a
man
in that body was a shock. She blurted out the first question that came to mind: “Does Pimm know?”

Winnie raised one elegant eyebrow. “Yes, of course. We’ve been best friends since we were boys. When I… changed… I knew my family would not be understanding about my new station in life. Far better for Freddy, who was always an unreliable chap, to take a long vacation in America without prior notice. Pimm offered to make an honest woman of me.”

“But—but do you—” Ellie blushed.

“Oh, heavens, no!” Winnie said, and actually shuddered. “I know some people who are transformed find their, ah, preference of partners changed as well, but I feel no attraction to men, which is in some ways deucedly inconvenient. And even if I
did
want to be intimate with a man—with
Pimm
? Never. It would be incest, practically. No, dear, we are roommates alone, our marriage a fiction, almost entirely for my benefit.”

“Then is Pimm… ah…”

“A mandrake?” Carrington said cheerfully. “An invert? A devotee of certain Greek philosophers? Yes, indeed, I’ve been curious about that myself—what
did
the two of you get up to together at school, Freddy, that made marriage seem such a natural progression in your relationship?”

Winnie ignored him, seemingly with ease. “No, dear,” she said gently. “Pimm quite likes women, when he can tear himself away from his work long enough to notice the fairer sex.”

“But to marry you… it means he can never marry anyone else…”

Winnie nodded. “That is, in fact, a source of great conflict between us. I refused his offer, initially, but Pimm has a strange conviction that he would make a terrible husband, and that our arrangement would spare some other woman the misery of his late nights working on cases—”

“Oh, please, the man’s a drunk by most accounts,” Carrington broke in. “Quite the detective when sober, of course, but how often is that? Though it’s jolly good of him to recognize his weakness and want to spare a woman the shame. Anyway, your marriage isn’t
legal
—you’re still a man, Freddy, in the eyes of the world.”

“Freddy is gone,” Winnie said. “I am Winifred. Ask anyone.”

“What does anyone know? We know the truth, and there are ways to prove it, as I’m sure you well know. A hair of yours, a hair from your old life, a dash of magnetic fluid, a sympathetic link established—we can prove Freddy and Winifred are one and the same.” He shrugged. “Not that we’ll bother. We have no reason to want to ruin Pimm, really. I just thought Miss Skye should know to look upon you with suspicion, Freddy. You were a rake when you were a man, and I understand you frequent salons with a keen eye for any followers of Sappho—”

“I do not recall asking you to speak with our guests,” a voice said from the shadows.

Carrington flinched like a beaten dog at the sight of the onrushing boot. “I’m sorry, master.”

“Your pettiness exhausts me, Mr. Carrington,” the newcomer said, still in darkness, beyond the reach of the alchemical lamp’s light. “Forgive him, ladies. He grew up impoverished, and has a profound bitterness toward those who ate regular meals as children. His nature and upbringing conspire to give him a nasty tongue, especially when speaking to his betters. Apologize, Mr. Carrington.”

“You have my most profound apologies,” Carrington said, in a tone that Ellie would have sworn was sincere, had she not known better.

“Is that you, Sir Bertram?” Ellie called.

“Indeed it is.” He approached, a tall and well-attired man, holding a walking stick of some peculiar metal. He approached the bars, squinted, and then began to chuckle. “Oh, my,” he said. “It is a pleasure to meet you again, Miss Skyler. Or, should I say, Mr. Jenkins?”

“What, they were
both
born men?” Carrington said in bewilderment.

A Note from
the Underground

P
imm hurried up his front steps and through the door, hoping to find Freddy—and, dare he hope, Ellie?—inside, but the apartment was deserted. He sighed, and took the opportunity to refill the flask he’d emptied that morning. He was just putting the funnel away when a knock sounded at the door.

“Just a moment,” he called, walking to the door. He opened it to reveal a filthy street boy of nine or ten standing uncomfortably on the steps, shifting his weight back and forth as if on the point of dashing away. “Are you ’alliday?” he mumbled.

“I am.”

“Mr. Adams sent me with a message.” The boy’s eyes darted in all directions, as if expecting attack at any moment.

“Indeed? What message is that?”

“He said you’d give me a half-crown.” Now the boy looked at him, directly and defiantly.

“Make it a half-sovereign.” Pimm took a coin from his pocket and held it between his thumb and forefinger, out of the boy’s reach. “The message?”

The boy chewed his lower lip in thought—apparently a nervous habit, to judge by the state of said lip. Then he dipped his head in a nod. “He says come see him straightaway. He has news about somebody named Mr. O. I’m to show you the way in.”

“I think I know the way—” Pimm began.

The boy shook his head. “Not
this
way in, I don’t think.”

“That sounds ominous,” Pimm said. The boy didn’t answer, either because he didn’t understand the remark, or didn’t deem it worthy of comment. Pimm flipped the coin to him, and the boy snatched it from the air and made it disappear in an instant. “Lead on, my good man.”

“It’s a bastard of a walk,” the boy said. “Can you hire us a cab? I never rode in one before, but you look like you could afford it.”

***

The boy eventually led them to the same broken-down district Pimm had visited previously, but when Pimm suggested they approach the alleyway that led to Adams’s laboratory, the boy shook his head. “It’s all piled up with stones and rubbish,” he said. “Two big men knocked down some posts with sledgehammers and a whole wall fell down. It’s blocked up proper.”

“Why?” Pimm said.

The boy shrugged with the simple eloquence of one who does not know, and does not particularly care to know. Instead he took Pimm through a warren of leaning buildings and narrow alleys, and finally to a small courtyard in back of several forbidding buildings, close enough to walled Whitechapel to smell the whiff of greenish alchemical vapor escaping from the vents in the dome.

The boy picked up a long wooden pole from a pile of rubbish, slotted it into a metal grate on the ground, and heaved the grate free, revealing a hole that was approximately the same circumference as Pimm himself, with a wooden ladder leading down. “I’ll go first,” the boy said, and descended as Pimm watched him vanish into the gloom.