Word of a fracture among the leading members of the Steam Makers’ Guild, known to most as the Steam Council, has spread throughout world markets. The arrest of Mrs. Jane Spicer, the owner of Spicer Industries, for the outrage committed on the Palace of Westminster has done nothing to calm this unrest. It might be said that trading at the London Stock Exchange would be in free fall, except that it is uncertain if any traders, or any place where those traders traditionally gather to do business, remain.
—The Bugle
In an unanticipated move, all roads leading to and from the metropolis have been blockaded by the Gold King’s forces. Food, of course, is an issue, but also the supply of coal, gas, and other fuels to and from the city. Likewise, the industrial plants providing steam heat, gas, and any form of electricity have been shut down voluntarily or by force. Since it has long been the policy of the Steam Council to prevent the construction of private means of generating power, or indeed the sale of materials necessary to do so, the withdrawal of all trade in fuels will be felt throughout the city. Rationing of existing supplies is already being implemented. It is believed that this move is designed to force the populace to surrender the whereabouts of the rebels. The advent of colder weather is sure to play a role in the outcome of this tactic.
—The Bugle
THE SOUND OF THE RAILS BENEATH THE UNDERGROUND train filled Bancroft’s brain, taking room he needed for more useful thoughts. He squirmed against the seats, wondering who else’s backside had been there. Riding on public conveyances—even first-class ones—was an indignity he did not lightly endure. However, right now it was a damned sight safer than wandering the streets.
Nevertheless, some of the routes had been damaged in the bombing. A tunnel had caved in with at least one train still in it. Bancroft had read the death toll, but just as quickly tried to forget it. The only way to survive politics or war was to never look back.
The man in the seat facing Bancroft sneezed, but fortunately the fellow was reading the newspaper. It spared Bancroft the sight, if not the sound, of snuffling and honking into a handkerchief. The article on the page facing Bancroft was about the recent cholera outbreak caused by a sudden spike in the cost of clean water. Epidemics didn’t belong in an empire with so many resources. It was a symptom of pure greed, and for that reason alone, the Steam Council had to go. He just wished they’d hurry up about it.
Everything was poised exactly as they needed it to be: Green and Scarlet were defeated or absorbed by other barons, Keating and King Coal were snarling at one another like curs, and Violet—well, no one much cared what Violet did when it came to armed combat. All they needed was Gold and Blue to polish each other off, and the rebels would sail in and win the day.
The question was who would make the next move. Keating had bombed Green on the eighth. Two days had passed since. Two days of anxiety, two days of speeches, two days of frantic preparation. And two days of searching for Jeremy with no success. Bancroft had long nurtured a grudge against Alice, but in these last days his enmity had withered. The poor girl was beside herself, and Bancroft found himself torn between searching for his grandson and doing his duty as a Baskerville. In the last few days, neither activity had met with much success.
Speculation about the delay had set the political hive buzzing. Bancroft had assumed Keating would make an immediate stab for Blue territory, but rumor had it that Tobias’s absence had caused problems. No one else understood Keating’s war machines the same way, and there had been unexpected delays pulling the Gold army together.
In Bancroft’s estimation, it was a textbook blunder. By dropping the bombs before he was absolutely ready to press his advantage, Keating had given the Blue King a gift-wrapped opportunity to marshal his own forces. That single mistake might just have cost Keating the war.
And it gave the rebels a chance, too. That meant Bancroft was in a race against time to find a source of coal. And that led him inexorably back to the East End warehouses to try his luck once more.
He exited the train and all but ran for the stairs to the surface. Trapped within the tunnel, the smoke and steam of the underground rail lines was choking. The overall effect was like smoking a cigar soaked in steaming piss.
Daylight made him squint as he emerged onto the street. He got his bearings and turned left, head down against a brisk wind off the water. It was a shabby neighborhood, with far more caps and coveralls than top coats and hats. He wanted to do his business and head home as soon as possible since there was a chance the trains could stop running at any time.
The street was crowded with newspaper boys, barrow-men, and idiots on soap boxes. Blue Boys swaggered in the streets, but always in groups of at least three.
“Get the Prattler! Latest edition!”
“Eels! Get your fresh eels! Good in a pie!”
“Long live Prince Edmond!” someone shouted from a window overhead.
It wasn’t the first time Bancroft had heard the cry. And while he kept his thoughts from his face, his heart surged with excitement. Who knew the young man was a prince? And he’d come to Duquesne’s to thank Bancroft personally for his help—and most wondrous of all, Bancroft had actually liked him!
Here at long last was a master worthy of all his energy and ambition and, more important, an excellent chance for rewards. If the prince needed coal, Bancroft was damned well going to get it, regardless of the cost.
And he had reached the row of warehouses that had been his destination. His first thought had been to investigate a small Dutch firm he had overlooked on his first round of inquiries, but a sign down the side street caught his eye. It had no words—or at least none in English. There were three Chinese characters and a serpent painted in black on red. Bancroft recognized the sign for the Mercantile Fellowship of the Black Dragons of the Hidden Sea.
Annoyance swept over him. The Black Dragons had coal but wouldn’t sell it. They’d sent him threatening notes and now they were lurking down side alleys when he was trying to do business. The worst part of it was that he didn’t actually know what they had against him. All he had were a lot of nasty guesses.
That should have been enough to make him back away, but today—when he was nursing a kernel of hope for his future—it wasn’t. A bell on the door chimed as he entered. The tiny space carried the faint, sweetish pungency of incense. There was a narrow counter and reams of posters tacked to the walls, all in Chinese, but no one was there.
“Hello?” Bancroft called out.
There was a rustling and the ratty silk curtain that made up the back wall swung aside. An elderly Chinese man appeared and bowed. “Pardon me, if you have waited long.” The words were delivered in accented but perfectly clear English.
“May I speak to the proprietor?” asked Bancroft.
“I am he.” The man bowed again. “Han Lo, at your service.”
“Are you the same Black Dragons that hold a larger warehouse at the docks?” Those were the men with whom Bancroft had dealt before.
“We are. I am but a more modest piece of the whole.”
Bancroft strolled up to the counter, doing his best to look relaxed. “Your friends weren’t able to help me, but perhaps you can.”
“Perhaps,” said the old man. “But I am sometimes obliged to ask more. Economies of scale, you understand.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Bancroft replied, feeling optimistic for the first time in a long while.
“Then by all means.” Han Lo held the curtain aside, inviting Bancroft into the back.
For the first time, Bancroft noticed the sleeves on the man’s jacket. They were wide, edged in a thick border of black silk, and covered with tiny black dragons stitched on a field of gold. The luxurious sheen of the cloth was at odds with the shabby office.
With a whisper of misgivings, Bancroft followed the man into the back rooms. He half expected a den of Oriental splendor, but the room was disappointingly ordinary. A central table was covered with ledgers, as if Bancroft had interrupted a bookkeeping session.
“Please, sit,” Han Lo said. “May I offer you refreshment?”
“No, thank you,” Bancroft replied. “I mean no discourtesy, but my time is short.”
“No doubt. Conflict makes men hasty.”
There was mild rebuke in the man’s tone, but Bancroft ignored it. “I need coal. Lots of it.”
“I am well aware of what you need, Lord Bancroft, and why.”
Halfway into his seat, Bancroft froze. “You know my name?”
“Yes,” the man said smoothly. “You have come to our attention in the past.”
Bancroft wanted to ask how, but that would have revealed his anxiety. As it was, his heart thumped so loudly his ears sang. He could see the face of the Chinese foreman he’d shot, his brains splattering the earth as his skull exploded. He wondered if Han Zuiweng had been any relation to Han Lo.
Bancroft settled into the chair with as much casual ease as he could muster. “Then you must know that my inquiries are serious.”
“We do.”
A lacquered door opened, revealing the figure of a pretty young girl about Poppy’s age. Bancroft glimpsed a stairway behind her—probably to living quarters above. She said something in an Oriental tongue and Han Lo replied. She bowed and disappeared, shutting the door behind her.
“My daughter asking if we wanted tea,” he said with a smile. “I told her we were content for now. Forgive the interruption.”
“Of course,” Bancroft replied smoothly.
The older man nodded, then seemed to gather himself. “First I must ask, my lord, why you think that I will sell to you when others will not?”
“Since I have never understood their refusal, I cannot say.”
“Ah.” Han Lo considered. “Do you understand who the Black Dragons are?”
“You are merchants.”
“We are one of the mercantile arms of the kingdom underground. The Black Kingdom has not been consulted in this coming conflict and we are conscious that backing one or the other faction may impact our own position.”
This was the closest that Bancroft had ever come to real information about the Black Kingdom, and he leaned forward with curiosity. “I thought you had an understanding with the Blue Kingdom.”
“Only insofar as the Blue King stored some of his weaponry underground for a price. A considerable price. That does not prevent us from making a deal elsewhere if we so choose.”
“Then your reluctance to do business with me is based on the fact that I represent the rebels?”
There was a pause. “Yes.”
Then it wasn’t personal. Relief made Bancroft’s limbs feel rubbery. At the same time, ambassadorial instincts came awake. “Perhaps I can represent your interests to the prince.”
Han Lo smiled, steepling his fingers. Bancroft noticed the nails were long and coated in gold. “Perhaps you can. But we are already cautious. The rain of explosives has crushed some of our tunnels. Your dead fall into the waterways and foul our underground spaces. Worst of all, our king awakes.”
“He awakes?” Bancroft was lost.
“He has been asleep for a century. When he is awake, he grows hungry and the darkness stirs.”
“And what does that mean?” The conversation was sending a chill up Bancroft’s spine, although he desperately wanted to believe the old man was speaking in metaphors.
“Let me say simply that the Black Kingdom is the receptacle of all things the daylight world abhors. Centuries ago, before the Empire and before gunpowder came west, your king demanded that magic users cleanse the land of black sorcery. And so everything that dwelled in the dark—the revenants and beast-men, necromancers and shades—were banished beneath the earth by powerful spells.”
Bancroft gaped, unsure how to respond. He knew all too well that sorcery was real, but he’d never heard any of this before. “Are you telling me there are monsters imprisoned beneath the streets?”
“It is not so simple as that. Spells fade and the Black Kingdom wanes. Our king no longer desires to rule. It is custom more than force that keeps the dark gates closed.”
“And your king sleeps?”
“Just so. The kingdom is not so much ruled as maintained through the administration of men like myself. It is in everyone’s interest that we succeed.”
Bancroft had to ask. “And if you don’t succeed?”
“If the Black Kingdom fails, all those horrors would have no place to go but aboveground.” Han Lo gave a faint smile, but it wasn’t a happy one. “Trust me on this, Lord Bancroft. What is below the earth should stay there. It should not stir.”
Frustration heated Bancroft’s face. He wasn’t sure what to believe, and this tale of buried horrors and sleeping monarchs had no bearing on his very real problems in the here and now. He shoved Han Lo’s story aside. “Sell me the coal I require, and I will do my utmost to supply the kingdom with whatever it needs to remain in good health. And asleep, if necessary.”
Han Lo’s eyebrows quirked. “Do you give us your word on this?”
A thread of caution tugged in Bancroft’s gut. “If it is within my power to achieve, yes.”
“Then consider our bargain made.” Han Lo held out his hand. “And the scales will be balanced.”
Bancroft took it, feeling the papery dryness of the man’s skin. “I am not certain what scales you mean, but I’m glad we could do business.”
The old man rose to show Bancroft out. “Indeed, my lord, justice is the nature of the Black Kingdom. Unlike the other members of the Steam Council, the Black Kingdom is ancient and has its counterparts throughout the world. In my own language it is called the Kingdom of Ashes, in others the Kingdom of Alchemy. Though mortal, my family has served the underground for time immemorial.”
Mortal? Bancroft’s mind reeled as they passed through the curtain to the front of the shop. After their conversation, the tiny space seemed even more tawdry and cramped than before. Ashes? Alchemy? “Where does the alchemy come in?”
“The transformative nature of the underground journey. Some liken it to a rebirth, others to a chemical reaction. All is destroyed and reborn in harmony, assuming whatever state is necessary to achieve balance.”
“That is a very philosophical view.” The only thing Bancroft had ever heard was that those caught wandering in the underground vanished, never to be seen again—transformative, yes, but not necessarily harmonious.
“It is also a historical one. Chemistry, law, and the realms of spirit and dreams were once its area of influence. Now most regard the Black Kingdom as the dustbin of the world’s immortal community.”
Bancroft had listened to enough. He just wanted to leave. “With a new heir to the throne, your lot will no doubt improve,” he said heartily.
“Which throne would that be, Lord Bancroft?” Han Lo smiled. “There are more kingdoms than your daylight empires.”
For a moment, Bancroft was lost for words. “I’ll send a man around with instructions on quantity and distribution.”
“Good day, Lord Bancroft.” Han Lo bowed low and with a hint of mockery. “And good luck.”
Dartmoor, October 10, 1889
TAVERN AT THE EAST DART
4:35 p.m. Thursday
“I COULDN’T HELP but overhear that you fine gentlemen are staying at Baskerville Hall, where poor Sir Charles was frightened to death by a dog.” So said the barkeep of the public house by the East Dart River. He was a young, dark-haired fellow with a quick, sly smile.
“You must have read the account in the papers,” replied Watson, who in accordance with Holmes’s original plan was author of the report. As Holmes had said, there were stories about a savage dog roaming Dartmoor and there had been plenty of material to embellish. In particular, he was proud of the history he’d invented for the infamous Baskerville ancestors and their curse. With a little work—and perhaps a love interest for the heir?—it might even make a decent novel.
“I’ve seen the creature you speak of. Rumor has it that they made it in those laboratories and it got out from time to time.”
“Indeed?” Holmes replied as he began packing his pipe. “I have managed to remain happily innocent of all of Dartmoor’s canine peculiarities until now.”
Watson frowned, his stomach cold at the thought of what had gone on in those labs. Holmes had given him an account of their destruction—or at least a partial one—but he’d gone to look at the wreckage himself. There had been corpses there that would give him nightmares to his grave.
The afternoon shadows were growing long, making a stark contrast to the slanting autumn sun that streamed in the open door. And that brilliant passage of day into evening would be over soon.
Watson pushed his glass toward the barkeep. “Another, if you please.”
The young man gave him that quick smile. “Ah, Doctor, you must try the scrumpy. It just begs to be drunk, it does. We make it local.”
“Scrumpy?”
Holmes blew out a string of smoke circles. “Oh, yes, Watson, you must.”
“You as well, Mr. Holmes?” asked the barkeep.
“Oh, no,” said Holmes. “I’ve taken a fancy to this brown ale, but you, Doctor, go ahead.”
Watson lifted the fresh mug to his lips, and then wished he would die. “Faugh!” He spat and slammed down the mug, slopping some of the cloudy yellow substance over the side. An indescribable miasma assaulted his tongue that brought to mind the specimen library of his student days, the rows upon rows of jars filled with every permutation of tissue, tumor, bile, and excrescence pickled for his educational benefit in what looked and smelled like the vile putrescence in his mug. “What is in that?”
Holmes gave the mug a cool glance. “They tell me it has something to do with apples, but in my opinion the data is inconclusive.”
“Good God.” Watson wiped his mouth with his pocket handkerchief and gagged slightly. The barkeep had vanished, no doubt to indulge his hilarity in the back room.
Then the Schoolmaster walked in the door, wearing his usual green-tinted spectacles and long striped scarf. He carried a battered leather shoulder bag and a heavy walking stick. He spotted the barely touched mug and flashed a grin. “Been trying the local delicacies, Doctor?”
“For my sins.” He still felt odd talking to this young prince in hiding. For practical reasons, Prince Edmond insisted on being treated as the Schoolmaster, with no ceremony or titles, but it grated on someone who’d been trained since boyhood to revere the Throne.
Holmes, however, was on his feet, clearly impatient. “Do you return alone?”
“Yes,” the Schoolmaster replied. “Come into the back and I’ll tell you all.”
They followed him into the private room and he closed the door, standing against it. Watson thought, for a fleeting moment, just how young the Schoolmaster looked, but then he seemed to recover.
“My business in Bath went precisely as planned,” said the Schoolmaster.
“I’m relieved to hear it,” said Holmes. “How can we assist you now?”
A variety of emotions flickered across the man’s face. “I’m about to begin an undertaking, for good or ill, that in some measure will figure in history. I would do so with as little doubt as it is humanly possible to achieve.”
“Doubt about your cause?” Watson asked, concerned.
“No.” The Schoolmaster gave a wry smile. “Not that. But there have been casualties I would lay to rest.”
“Ah,” said Holmes.
“Ah?” Watson was skilled at interpreting Holmesian monosyllables, but this one eluded him.
The Schoolmaster waved toward the table and chairs. “First, I must ask. Are you any closer to solving Sir Charles’s death?”
Watson sat down opposite the Schoolmaster, Holmes at the head of the table.
“Yes, at least in part,” Holmes replied. “As you know, there was every sign that his heart had failed due to an extreme fright.”
“Which the good doctor has attributed in his official account to a family curse in the form of a giant hound,” the Schoolmaster replied dryly. “How enormously Gothic.”
“In any event,” Holmes went on, “his death bore marked similarities to two others you have asked me to investigate.”
“Who were they?” Watson asked.
“A year ago we had two individuals in custody at Loch Ness, a Mr. Elias Jones and Mr. Bingham,” the Schoolmaster said. “They both perished before we were quite done extracting information from them.”
Watson blinked, speaking before he could stop himself. “You tortured them?”
The Schoolmaster frowned. “No. That was never our method of operation, but still two healthy men died unexpectedly. At the time we suspected there was a turncoat in our midst, but an exhaustive review of everyone’s quarters, whereabouts, history—none of it turned up a thing.”
“And their deaths were caused by a very particular substance,” Holmes replied. “They were poisoned in a manner that induced heart failure, but I would postulate that the noxious formula also possessed a psychoactive property, as both the prisoners and Sir Charles retained the marks of severe terror above and beyond what one normally sees stamped on the features of such victims.”
“Are you saying that Sir Charles died by the same hand as our prisoners?” The Schoolmaster fell back in his chair, his expression incredulous.
The detective’s face was serious. “I am saying that circumstances point to the fact that at the time of the prisoners’ deaths, someone was in our midst and pursuing his own agenda. Someone who did not desire the prisoners to reveal everything that they knew to us. And someone who then wished to determine what Sir Charles could tell. After all, Sir Charles had all your secrets.”
Dr. Watson followed this exchange carefully, trying to remember Holmes’s account of the bombing at Baker Street and all that followed. “Was there someone in particular who was in both places at the right time?”
“That would not be necessary,” said Holmes. “All that would be required would be someone able to pull the right strings.” Holmes turned to the Schoolmaster. “Do you recall accompanying me to the Blue King’s court when I was searching for my niece?”
“Of course.”
“At that time, King Coal suspected there was a traitor in his establishment. He wanted me to take that case, but circumstances changed and I never pursued it. However, the matter remained in my mind.”
“Are you saying that his turncoat and ours are the same?” asked Watson.
“At the time, I thought it odd that both Jones and Bingham were double agents, playing Blue and Gold off against one another. Even more strange that orders were issuing from the Blue court that were not authorized by King Coal. At first I suspected the hand of my brother, Mycroft, but there were some things that happened I believe he simply would not do. Most significantly, while he might question Sir Charles, he would never kill him.”
The Schoolmaster had that fixed expression so many got when trying to follow one of Holmes’s chains of logic. “So your suspicions lean to a member of the Blue Court?”
“Yes, and for two reasons. One is the nature of the poison used. Sir Charles and the others weren’t given a drug to keep them silent, it was to loosen their tongues.”
Both Watson and the Schoolmaster jerked to attention. “There are drugs that lower inhibitions in that fashion,” Watson said, “but they’re not always reliable.”
“And the most efficacious of those drugs are not available to the honest physician, but …” Holmes trailed off, waving a hand carelessly. “They are excellent for extracting information. The subject remembers nothing of the incident, and if the dosage is correct, they die. Perfect if someone wanted to empty the brains of our two turncoats, and then stop their hearts.”
“And Sir Charles?” Watson asked.
“He already had a weak heart. I do not think he was meant to die, but the strain on him was too much. Either he suffered a recurrence of the psychoactive effects of the drug, or perhaps he did see something that frightened him, as the local rumors would have it. Either way, it was too much.”
“You said there were two reasons you believe the killer is the same,” the Schoolmaster prompted, his expression grim.
“The other is more oblique,” Holmes continued. “I think King Coal made the connection between Edmond Baskerville and the Schoolmaster long ago. One of his key advisors picked up the thread—I believe independently of his master—and deployed his own scoundrels to learn the truth of that and who knows what other secrets of the rebels, the Gold King, and anyone else. We are dealing with a villain intent on building his own empire.”
“A villain who then came after Sir Charles?”
“But only after Mycroft came here first. The Steam Council has been watching my brother for some time. When he visited Sir Charles recently, the unusual break from his routine was noted. And then the killer struck.”
The Schoolmaster’s face had gone pale. “Who? Whose hand did these things?”
“We may never know who delivered the poison to Jones and Bingham, but I am convinced they received their orders from the same gentleman who visited Sir Charles on the twenty-ninth of September. I questioned your housekeeper, Mrs. Barrymore, on the matter of your guardian’s visitors. Sir Charles had an unusually full schedule of late, but it seems he took the time for tea with a professor of Camelin University who was very interested in the local fauna. Butterflies, to be precise.”
The news sent Watson spinning. “Camelin University is where Evelina—”
“Indeed,” snapped Holmes. “And the notion that she has been resident near this individual turns my veins to ice.”
“Who is it?” demanded the Schoolmaster.
“His name is Moriarty, but he goes by the name of Juniper.”
“The Blue King’s man of business?” the Schoolmaster exclaimed.
Holmes’s lip curled into a snarl. “The more I learn about this individual, the more threads there seem to be to his web. We must have a care with this one, gentlemen. He is not the kind we take to trial, because for all the investigation I have done, there is not one scrap of hard evidence.” He slammed his hand on the table. “I can prove nothing.”
The Schoolmaster pulled off his green-tinted glasses. His blue eyes were icy. “I am tired of hearing that we cannot prove such crimes. I’ve heard it all my life as prince and princess died of dubious causes, and court officials wrung their hands and said there was never enough evidence to point to the Steam Council. Perhaps the law as it stands cannot prosecute these wretches, but soon I will be the law. We will catch this Moriarty, and then you can ask him whatever you please.”
They sat in silence a moment, the mood crackling with tension. Then the Schoolmaster stirred. “Well, if we are going to catch him, we have a war to win. And to do that, we must reach London, which is no longer an easy task. The southern armies are already starting north, but advance scouts report the roads are blocked by the Yellowbacks. They were handing out these pamphlets.”
He reached into his leather bag, withdrew a handful of leaflets and paper, and tossed them onto the table. Watson picked up the topmost handbill.
LOYAL ENGLISHMEN UNITE!
The citizens of London are under attack from the REBEL MENACE.
Traitors have rallied under the banner of the VILE PRETENDER hiding under the name of the Schoolmaster, also known as Edmond Baskerville. This man is to be shot on sight for VARIOUS AND HEINOUS CRIMES including the death of his own father, Sir Charles Baskerville, as well as theft, printing libelous documents, frequenting houses of ill repute, and passing forged pound notes as well as intimate and unspeakable acts.
All roads to and from London have been closed until this dangerous miscreant has been apprehended. If seen, contact the constabulary at once.
Watson threw it down in disgust. The fact that they were calling Edmond a pretender meant that somehow the secret of his birth had been discovered. “This is preposterous. They make you sound like Bonny Prince Charlie come to take back the throne.”
“But that’s it, you see, Dr. Watson. Most of it’s nonsense, but somehow the author of these pamphlets stumbled upon the secret of my birth. That’s been kept hidden for more than thirty years.”
“But is that not precisely what Moriarty would have gleaned from Sir Charles?” Holmes didn’t look up from his perusal of the newspaper that had been at the bottom of the Schoolmaster’s pile.
The Schoolmaster covered his face with his hand. “In some ways I thank God Sir Charles did not live to find out that he had broken his silence. That would have been a crueler kind of murder.”