DEAR NED,
I write to you at Mother’s dictation as her hands are quite bad today. Father thanks you very much for the splendid lap-rug from London. The French liniment has helped my hands (Mother’s) very nicely thow more in the knees than the hands. We all miss you much in Lewes thow we know you are busy on yr great affairs of the Royal Society! We read aloud each of yr American adventures as they are written by Mr. Disraeli in Family Museum. Agatha asks will you please please get her Mr. Disraeli’s autograph as her favorite novel is his “Tancred”! But our great news is that our dear Brian is back from Bombay, safely with us this very day June 17! And he has brought with him our dear brother-to-be Lt. Jerry Rawlings, also of the Sussex Artillery, who asked our Madeline to wait for him and of course she did. Now they are to be married, and Mother wants you to know particularly that it will NOT be in a Church but a civil seremony with the J.R Mr. Witherspoon in Lewes City Hall. Will you attend June 29 as Father gives away almost his last bride — I did not want to write that but Mother made me.
All our Love,
RUTH MALLORY (Miss)
So — Little Madeline, with her man at last. Poor creature, four years was a long engagement, more worrisome still when betrothed to a soldier in a tropical pest-hole like India. She had taken his ring at eighteen, and was now all of twenty-two. A long engagement was a cruel thing to ask of a young and lively girl, and Mallory had seen, in his last visit, that the ordeal had sharpened Madeline’s tongue and temper, and made her almost a trial to the household. Soon there would be no one left at home to look after the old folks but little Ruthie. And when Ruth married — well, he would consider that matter in due time. Mallory rubbed his sweating beard. Madeline had had life harder than Ernestina, or Agatha, or Dorothy. She should have something fine for herself, Mallory resolved. A wedding-gift that would prove that she had put an end to her unhappy time. Mallory took the letter-basket to his room, piled the mail on the floor beside his overflowing bureau, and left the Palace, dropping the basket at the desk on his way out. A group of Quakers, men and women, stood on the pavement outside the Palace. They were droning another of their intolerable sermonizing ditties, something about a “railway to Heaven,” by the sound of it. The song did not seem to have much to do with Evolution, or blasphemy, or fossils; but perhaps the sheer monotony of their bootless protests had exhausted even the Quakers. He hurried past them, ignoring their proffered pamphlets. It was hot, uncommon hot, beastly hot. There was not a ray of sun, but the air was mortally still and the high cloudy sky had a leaden, glowering look, as if it wanted to rain but had forgotten the trick of it. Mallory walked down Gloucester Road to the corner of Cromwell. There was a fine new equestrian statue of Cromwell at the intersection; Cromwell was a great favorite of the Rads. And there were ‘buses too, six an hour, but they were all crammed to the gunwales. No one wanted to walk in weather like this. Mallory tried the Gloucester Road underground, by the corner of Ashburn Mews. As he prepared to descend the stairs a thin crowd came up at a half-run, fleeing a reek of such virulence that it stopped him in his tracks. Londoners were used to odd smells from their under-grounds, but this stench was clearly of another order entirely. Compared to the sullen heat of the streets, the air was chill, but it had a deathly scent, like something gone rotten in a sealed glass jar. Mallory went to the ticket-office; it was closed, with a sign up saying WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. No mention of the actual nature of the problem. Mallory turned. There were horse-drawn cabs at Bailey’s Hotel, across Courtfield Road. He prepared to cross the street, but then noticed a cab waiting quite near him at the curb, apparently idle. Signaling the driver, he went to the door. There was a passenger still inside the cab. Mallory waited politely for the man to debark. Instead, the stranger, seeming to resent Mallory’s gaze, pressed a kerchief to his face and half-sunk below the level of the window. He began coughing. Perhaps the man was ill, or had just come up from the underground and not yet caught his breath. Annoyed, Mallory crossed the street and engaged a cab at Bailey’s. “Piccadilly,” he ordered. The driver clicked to his sweating nag and they rolled east up Cromwell Road. Once under-way, with a faint breeze at the window, the heat became less oppressive and Mallory’s spirits rose. Cromwell Road, Thurloe Place, Brompton Road — in their vast rebuilding schemes, the Government had reserved these sections of Kensington and Brompton to a vast concourse of Museums and Royal Society Palaces. One by one they passed his window in their sober majesty of cupolas and colonnades: Physics, Economics, Chemistry . . . One might complain of some Radical innovations, Mallory mused, but there was no denying the sense and justice of fine headquarters for scholars engaged in the noblest work of mankind. Surely, in their aid to Science, the Palaces had repaid the lavish cost of their construction at least a dozen times. Up Knightsbridge and past Hyde Park Corner to the Napoleon Arch, a gift from Louis Napoleon to commemorate the Anglo-French Entente. “The great iron arch, with its lavish skeleton of struts and bolting, supported a large population of winged cupids and draperied ladies with torches. A handsome monument, Mallory thought, and in the latest taste. Its elegant solidity seemed to deny that there had ever been a trace of discord between Great Britain and her staunchest ally, Imperial France. Perhaps, thought Mallory wryly, the “misunderstandings” of the Napoleonic Wars could be blamed on the tyrant Wellington. Though London possessed no monuments to the Duke of Wellington, it sometimes seemed to Mallory that unspoken memories of the man still haunted the city, an unlaid ghost. Once, the great victor of Waterloo had been exalted here, as the very saviour of the British nation; Wellington had been ennobled, and had held the highest office in the land. But in modern England he was vilified as a swaggering brute, a second King John, the butcher of his own restless people. The Rads had never forgotten their hatred for their early and formidable enemy. A full generation had passed since Wellington’s death, but Prime Minister Byron still often spattered the Duke’s memory with the acid of his formidable eloquence. Mallory, though a loyal Radical Party man, was unconvinced by mere rhetorical abuse. He privately entertained his own opinion of the long-dead tyrant. On his first trip to London at the age of six, Mallory had once seen the Duke of Wellington — passing in his gilded carriage in the street, with a clopping, jingling escort of armed cavalry. And the boy Mallory had been vastly impressed — not simply by that famous hook-nosed face, high-collared and whiskered, groomed and stem and silent — but by his own father’s awe-struck mix of fear and pleasure at the Duke’s passage. Some faint tang of that childhood visit to London — in 1831, the first year of the Time of Troubles, the last of England’s old regime — still clung to Mallory whenever he saw the capital. Some few months later, in Lewes, his father had cheered wildly when news came of Wellington’s death in a bomb atrocity. But Mallory had secretly wept, stirred to bitter sorrow for a reason he could not now recall. His seasoned judgment saw the Duke of Wellington as the outmoded, ignorant victim of an upheaval beyond his comprehension; more Charles the First than King John. Wellington had foolishly championed the interests of declining and decadent Tory blue-bloods, a class destined to be swept from power by the rising middle-class and the savant meritocrats. But Wellington himself had been no blue-blood; he had once been plain Arthur Wellesley, of rather modest Irish origin. Further, it seemed to Mallory that as a soldier, Wellington had displayed a very praiseworthy mastery of his craft. It was only as a civil politician, and a reactionary Prime Minister, that Wellington had so thoroughly misjudged the revolutionary tenor of the coming age of industry and science. He had paid for that lack of vision with his honor, his power, and his very life. And the England that Wellington had known and misruled, the England of Mallory’s childhood, had slid through strikes, manifestos, and demonstrations, to riots, martial law, massacres, open class-warfare, and near-total anarchy. Only the Industrial Radical Party, with their boldly rational vision of a comprehensive new order, had saved England from the abyss. But even so, Mallory thought. Even so, there should be a monument somewhere . . . The cabriolet rolled up Piccadilly, passing Down Street, Whitehorse Street, Half-Moon Street. Mallory thumbed through his address-book, and found Laurence Oliphant’s carte-de-visite. Oliphant lived on Half-Moon Street. Mallory had half a mind to stop the cab and see if Oliphant were at home. If, unlike most posh courtiers, Oliphant perhaps rose before ten, he might have something like a bucket of ice in his household and perhaps a drop of something to open the pores. The thought of boldly interrupting Oliphant’s day, and perhaps surprising him at some covert intrigue, was a pleasant one to Mallory. But first things first. Perhaps he would try Oliphant when his errand was done. Mallory stopped the cab at the entrance to the Burlington Arcade. The gigantic iron-framed ziggurat of Fortnum & Mason lurked across the street, amid an array of jewelers and exclusive shops. The cabbie severely overcharged him, but Mallory took no notice, being in an expansive mood. It seemed the cabbies were imposing on everyone. Some small distance down Piccadilly, another man had leapt from his cab and was arguing, in a vulgar fashion, with his driver. Mallory had found nothing to equal shopping in its gratifying demonstration of the power of his new-found wealth. He had won his money through an act of half-mad bravado, but the secret of its origin was safe with him. London’s credit-machines clicked for the vaporous profits of gambling as readily as they did for the widow’s mite. So what was it to be? This giant iron vase, with octagonal base, with eight open-work screens hanging before its fluted pedestal, giving a singular lightness and elegance to the entire object? This carved box-wood bracket with sculpted canopy, the intended mounting of a Venetian-glass thermometer? This ebony salt-cellar enriched with columns and elaborate sunken panels, accompanied by a silver salt-spoon rich with trefoils, oak-leaves, a spiral-girded stem, and the monogram of one’s choice? Within J. Walker & Co., a small but marvelously tasteful establishment amid the bay-windowed shops of the famed Arcade, Mallory discovered a gift that seemed to him perfectly apt. It was an eight-day clock which struck the quarters and hours on fine cathedral-tone bells. The timepiece, which also displayed the date, the day of the week, and the phases of the moon, was an outstanding piece of British precision craftsmanship, though naturally the elegant clock-stand would claim more admiration from the mechanically undiscerning. The stand, of the finest lacquered papier-mache inlaid with turquoise-blue glass, was surmounted by a group of large gilt figures. These represented a young and decidedly attractive Britannia, very lightly robed, admiring the progress made by Time and Science in the civilization and happiness of the people of Britain. This laudable theme was additionally illustrated by a series of seven graven scenes, revolving weekly on hidden gear-work within the clock’s base. The price was nothing less than fourteen guineas. It seemed that an item of this artistic rarity could not be denominated in simple pounds-shillings-and-pence. The crass pragmatic thought struck Mallory that the happy couple might be better served with a jingling handful of fourteen guineas. But the money would soon go, as money always did when one was young. A fine clock like this one might adorn one’s home for generations. Mallory bought the clock with cash, refusing the offer of credit, with a year to pay. The clerk, a supercilious elderly man, sweating into a starched Regency collar, demonstrated the system of cork chocks that secured the gear-work from the exigencies of travel. The clock was provided with a latched and handled case, lined with form-fitting cork under burgundy velvet. Mallory knew he could never wedge his prize into a crowded steam-bus. He would have to hire another cabriolet, and lash the clock-case to its roof. A bothersome proposition, London being haunted by the young thieves known as “dragsmen,” monkey-like rascals who leapt with saw-tooth dirks onto the roofs of passing carriages, to cut the leather straps securing luggage. By the time the cab pulled to a stop, the thieves would have scampered scot-free into the depths of some evil rookery, passing their swag from hand to hand until the private contents of the victim’s valise ended up in a dozen rag-and-bone shops. Mallory lugged his purchase through the far gate of the Burlington Arcade, where the constable on guard gave him a cheery salute. Outside, in Burlington Gardens, a young man in a dented hat and shabby, greasy coat, who had been sitting apparently much at his ease on the rim of a cement planter, rose suddenly to his feet. The shabby young man limped toward Mallory, his shoulders slumped in theatrical despair. He touched the brim of his hat, essayed a pathetic smile, and began to speak to Mallory, all in one breath. “I ask your pardon sir but if you would excuse the liberty of being so addressed in the public street by one who is almost reduced to rags though it has not always been so and by no fault of my own but through ill health in my family and many unmerited sufferings it would be a great obligation sir to know the time.” The time? Could this man somehow know that Mallory had just purchased a large clock? But the shabby man paid no attention to Mallory’s sudden confusion, for he continued on eagerly, in the same insinuating monotone. “Sir it is not begging that is my intention for I was brought up by the best of mothers and begging is not my trade I should not know how to follow such a trade if such were my shameful wish for I would sooner die of deprivation but sir I implore you in the name of charity to allow me the honor of acting as your porter to carry that case that burdens you for whatever price that your humanity may put upon my services –” The shabby man broke off short. He looked, wide-eyed, over Mallory’s shoulder, his mouth assuming a sudden tight-clamped, pinchy look, like a seamstress biting off a thread. The shabby man took three careful steps backward, slowly, keeping Mallory between himself and whatever it was that he saw. And then he turned directly on his flapping, newspaper-stuffed heels and walked swiftly away, without any limp, into the crowded sidewalks of Cork Street. Mallory turned at once and looked behind him. There was a tall, long-shanked, slender man behind him, with a button-nose and long side-whiskers, in a short Albert coat and plain trousers. Even as Mallory’s gaze caught him, the man raised a handkerchief to his face. He coughed, in a gentlemanly way, then he dabbed at his eyes a bit. Then he seemed, with a sudden theatrical start, to have recalled something he had forgotten. He turned away, and began to wander back toward the Burlington Arcade. He had not once looked straight at Mallory. Mallory himself took a sudden pretended interest in the clasps of his clock-case. He set his case down, bent, and looked at the bits of shiny brass with his mind racing and a chill in his spine. The rascal’s handkerchief trick had given him away. Mallory recognized him now as the man he had seen by the underground station in Kensington; the coughing gent, who would not give up his cab. What’s more, thought Mallory, his mind hot with insight, the coughing gent was also the rude man who’d argued with the cabbie about his fare, in Piccadilly. He had followed Mallory the whole distance from Kensington. He was trailing him. Mallory seized his clock-case in a fierce grip and began to walk quietly down Burlington Gardens. He turned right on Old Bond Street. His nerves were tingling now, with a stalker’s instinct. He had been a fool to turn and stare at first. Perhaps he had given himself away to his pursuer. Mallory did not turn and look again, but ambled along with his best pretense at leisure. He paused before a jeweler’s velvet racks of cameos and bracelets and evening tiaras for Her Ladyship, and watched the street behind him, in the iron-barred shining glass. He saw the Coughing Gent reappear almost at once. The man hung well back for the moment, careful to keep groups of London shoppers between himself and Mallory. The Coughing Gent was perhaps thirty-five, with a bit of grey in his side-whiskers, and a dark machine-stitched Albert coat that did not look like anything remarkable. His face was that of anyone in London, perhaps a little heavier, a little colder in the eyes, with a grimmer mouth beneath the button-nose. Mallory took another turn, left up Bruton Street, his clock-case growing more awkward by the step. The shops here lacked conveniently angled glass. He doffed his hat to a pretty woman, and pretended to glance back at her ankles. The Coughing Gent was still with him. 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. “It’s that rascal’s,” Mallory declared. The Coughing Gent’s crushed hat had been liberally soaked in a puddle of stale piss, though no one saw fit to mention this unspeakable fact. “Sorry to miss your own hat, sir,” Bligh said. “Likely stolen by some street-arab.” Oliphant, with the faintest wince of involuntary distaste, examined the mined topper, turning it over and inverting the lining. “No maker’s mark.” Mallory glanced at it. “Engine-made. From Moses & Son, I should say. About two years old.” “Well.” Oliphant blinked. “I presume that evidence rules out any foreigner. A London veteran, surely. A user of cheap macassar oil, but a man of enough cranial capacity to have a certain cunning. Put it in the rubbish, Bligh.” “Yes, sir.” Bligh left. Mallory patted the clock-case with deep satisfaction. “Your man Bligh has done me a great service. Do you think he would object to a gratuity?” “Most decidedly,” Oliphant said. Mallory felt the gaffe. He gritted his teeth. “What about these guests of yours? Might I be permitted to thank them?” Oliphant smiled with abandon. “Why not!” He led Mallory into the dining room. The mahogany legs had been detached from Oliphant’s dining-table, and the great polished surface now sat on its corners of carven gingerbread, mere inches above the floor. Five Asian men sat about it, in cross-legged alien dignity: five sober men in their stocking feet, wearing tailored evening-suits from Savile Row. All the men sported tall silk toppers, tugged low over their clippered heads. Their hair was very short and very dark. And a woman was with them as well, kneeling at the table’s foot. She had a look of mask-like composure and a silky black wealth of hair. She was wrapped in some voluminous native garb, bright with swallows and maple-leaves. “Doctor Edward Mallory san o goshokai shimasu,” Oliphant said. The men rose with peculiar grace; rocking back a bit, sliding one foot beneath them, and coming up quite suddenly to a supple-legged stance, as if they were ballet dancers. “These gentlemen are in the service of His Imperial Majesty the Mikado of Japan,” Oliphant said. “This is Mr. Matsuki Koan, Mr. Mori Arinori, Mr. Fusukawa Yukichi, Mr. Kanaye Nagasawa, Mr. Hisanobu Sameshima.” The men bowed from the hips, each in turn. Oliphant had made no attempt to introduce the woman; she sat with expressionless rigidity, as if secretly resenting the gaze of an Englishman. Mallory thought it wise not to mention the matter, or pay her much attention. Instead, he turned to Oliphant. “Japanese, are they? You speak the lingo, do you?” “A diplomatic smattering.” “Would you please thank them for so gallantly fetching my clock, then?” “We understand you. Dr. Marori,” said one of the Japanese. Mallory had immediately forgotten their impossible names, but thought that this one might be called Yukichi. “It is honor to us to assist British friend of Mr. Laurence Oliphant, to whom our sovereign has expressed obligation.” Mr. Yukichi bowed again. Mallory was utterly at sea. “Thank you for that courteous speech, sir. You’re a very well-spoken gentleman, I must say. I’m not a diplomat myself, but I do thank you sincerely. Very kind of all of you . . . ” The Japanese conferred among themselves. “We hope you are not badly hurt by barbaric assault on your British person by foreigners,” said Mr. Yukichi. “No,” Mallory said. “We did not see your enemy, nor any rude or violent person.” Mr. Yukichi’s tone was mild, but his glinting eyes left Mallory little doubt as to what Yukichi and his friends would have done had they met such a ruffian. As a group, the five Japanese had a refined, scholarly air; two were wearing rimless spectacles, and one had a ribboned monocle and dandyish yellow gloves. But they were all young and deft and sturdy, and their toppers were perched on their heads like Viking helmets. Oliphant’s long legs buckled suddenly beneath him, and he sat at the head of the table with a smile. Mallory sat too, his knee-caps popping loudly. The Japanese followed Oliphant’s lead, quickly tucking themselves into the same positions of arid dignity. The woman had not moved so much as an inch. “Under the circumstances,” Oliphant mused, “dreadful hot day, a tiring foray after enemies of the realm — a small libation is in order.” He lifted a brass bell from the table and rang it. “So, let’s get friendly, eh? Nani o onomi ni narimasa ka?” The Japanese conferred, their eyes widening, with happy nods and sharp grunts of approval. “Uisuki . . .” “Whiskey, an excellent choice,” said Oliphant. Bligh arrived momentarily, with a trolley of liquor bottles. “We’re low on ice, sir.” “What’s that, Bligh?” “Iceman wouldn’t sell cook but a bit. Price has trebled since last week!” “Well, ice wouldn’t fit into the doll’s bottle, anyway,” said Oliphant lightly, just as if that remark made sense. “Now, Dr. Mallory, pay close heed. Mr. Matsuki Koan, who happens to hail from the very advanced province of Satsuma, was just demonstrating to us one of the marvels of Japanese craft — who was the craftsman again, Mr. Matsuki?” “She is made by sons of Hosokawa family,” said Mr. Matsuki, bowing in place. “Our lord — Satsuma daimyo — is patron.” “I believe Mr. Matsuki will do the honors, Bligh,” said Oliphant. Bligh handed Mr. Matsuki a whiskey bottle; Mr. Matsuki began to decant it into an elegant ceramic jug, at the right hand of the Japanese woman. She made no response. Mallory began to wonder if she were ill, or paralyzed. Then Mr. Matsuki fitted the little jug into her right hand with a sharp wooden click. He rose, and fetched a gilded crank-handle. He stuck the device into the small of her back and began to twist it, his face expressionless. A high-pitched coiling sound emerged from the woman’s innards. “She’s a dummy!” Mallory blurted. “More a marionette, actually,” Oliphant said. “The proper term is ‘automaton,’ I believe.” Mallory drew a breath. “I see! Like one of those Jacquot-Droz toys, or Vaucanson’s famous duck, eh?” He laughed. It was now obvious at a glance that the mask-like face, half-shrouded by the elegant black hair, was in fact carved and painted wood. “That blow must have addled my brains. Heaven, what a marvel.” “Every hair in her wig put in by hand,” Oliphant said. “She’s a royal gift, for Her Britannic Majesty. Though I imagine the Prince Consort, and especially young Alfred, might take quite a fancy to her as well.” The automaton began pouring drinks. There was a hinge within her robed elbow, and a second in her wrist; she poured whiskey with a gentle slither of cables and a muted wooden clicking. “She moves much like an Engine-guided Maudsley lathe,” Mallory noted. “Is that where they got the plans?” “No, she’s entirely native,” said Oliphant. Mr. Matsuki was passing little ceramic cups of whiskey down the table. “Not a bit of metal in her — all bamboo, and braided horsehair, and whalebone springs. The Japanese have known how to make such dolls for many years — karakuri, they call them.” Mallory sipped his whiskey. Scotch single-malt. He was already a bit squiffed from Oliphant’s brandy — now the sight of the doll made him feel as if he had blundered into a Christmas pantomine. “Does she walk?” he asked. “Play the flute perhaps? Or any of that business?” “No, she simply pours,” said Oliphant. “With either hand, though.” Mallory felt the eyes of the Japanese fixed on him. It was clear that the doll was no particular marvel to them. They wanted to know what he, a Briton, thought of her. They wanted to know if he was impressed. “She is very impressive,” he blurted. “Especially so, given the primitive nature of Asia!” “Japan is the Britain of Asia,” Oliphant said. “We know she is not much,” said Mr. Yukichi, his eyes glinting. “No, she’s a marvel, truly,” Mallory insisted. “Why, you could charge admission.” “We know she is not much, compared to your great British machines. It is as Mr. Oliphant says — we are your younger brothers in this world.” “We will learn,” said another Japanese, speaking for the first time. He was likely the one called Arinori. “We have great obligation to Britain! Britain opened our ports with the iron fleet. We have awaked, and learnt great lesson you have teached us. We have destroyed our Shogun and his backward bakufu. Mikado will lead us now, in great new progress age.” “We will be allies with you,” said Mr. Yukichi, nobly. “The Britain of Asia will bring civilization and enlightenment to all Asian peoples.” “That’s very laudable of you,” said Mallory. “It’s a bit of a hard slog, though, civilization, building an empire. Takes several centuries, you know . . . ” “We learn everything from you now,” said Mr. Arinori. His face was flushed; the whiskey and heat seemed to have kindled a fire in him. “We build great schools and navies, like you. In Choshu, we have an Engine! We will buy more Engines. We will build our own Engines!” Mallory chuckled. The queer little foreigners seemed so young, so idealistic — intelligent, and above all sincere. He felt quite sorry for them. “Well! It’s a fine dream, young sir, and does you credit! But it’s no simple matter. You see, we in Britain have devoted great effort to those Engines — you might well call that the central aim of our nation! Our savants have worked on Enginery for decades now. For you, in a few short years, to achieve what we have done . . .” “We will make whatever sacrifice is necessary,” said Mr. Yukichi, calmly. “There are other ways to improve the homeland of your race,” Mallory said. “But what you propose is simply impossible!” “We will make whatever sacrifice is necessary.” Mallory glanced at Oliphant, who sat with a fixed smile, watching the wind-up girl filling china cups. Perhaps the faint chill in the air was only Mallory’s imagination. Yet he felt he had blundered somehow. There was silence, broken only by the ticking automaton. Mallory got to his feet, his head pounding. “I appreciate your kindness, Mr. Oliphant. And the help of your guests, of course. But I can’t stay, you know. Very pleasant here, but press of business . . .” “You’re quite sure?” Oliphant asked cordially. “Yes.” Oliphant lifted his voice. “Bligh! Send cook’s boy to fetch Dr. Mallory a cab.”