All bullet-catchers are alike. Therefore take yourself to be your yardstick and never trust another with the secret of your illusion.
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
We rode through the night. The driver, more afraid of me than I had realised, missed three of the scheduled stops. We changed horses once and kept up a good speed, our path more or less direct.
“What did you do out there?” Orville asked me when he saw the driver’s haste.
“A little threat,” I said. “And I sent a message ahead to the Duchess, your sister. I hope she’ll be waiting for us when we arrive.”
But when the coach put us out on the roadside, we found ourselves alone. The sound of wheels and hooves receded into nothing in the pre-dawn. Before us rose a magnificent iron gate, emblazoned with the Bletchley arms. High stone walls stretched away into the distance on either side. I shivered.
The dark cloud of self-loathing that had hung so heavily over Orville during the journey seemed to have lifted. With the box under his arm, he pointed to one of the iron gateposts.
“This is what I spoke of.”
I lowered my head to look through the hole that his machine had cut. Everything was as he had described.
“Couldn’t your machine be used as a weapon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We know this because of an accident.”
The image of a hand flashed into my mind – a small hole punched through between the thumb and first finger. A sword wound, I had thought. “Fabulo?”
“The same. He had his hand in the way when a powerful beam fired. There was no blood. The wound was perfectly cauterised. And no pain, he said, though it itched afterwards. Any musket ball would do fifty times the damage.”
I stroked a finger over the ironwork. Despite Orville’s assurance, I felt certain of the machine’s capacity to destroy.
The gate swung open, smooth and silent. The dark forms of three great monkey-puzzle trees stood to one side of the long drive. Lying directly ahead, the hall seemed to be more a castle than a stately home. The self-confident affluence of the aristocrats still shocked me. I wondered again at Orville’s dream. If gold were suddenly worth no more than lead, would the meek at last inherit? In my meetings with the Duchess, I had felt a surprising kinship. Did I want to see her brought low?
“They must have woken your sister when my message came.”
“First we go to the workshop,” he said. “There’s something there I need.”
Cutting across the wet grass, he began to lead the way towards a cluster of low buildings at the rear of the hall.
“Our agreement–”
“I’ll honour it. But once my sister’s seen me, she’ll likely have us thrown off the grounds. This’ll take only a few moments.”
“This obsession has warped your judgement,” I said.
“She won’t hide her true colours when I’m in front of her. You’ll see.”
We were both whispering now, for the buildings loomed close.
The workshop towards which we were picking our way must originally have been built as a set of stables. I could see where doors had been bricked. Chimneys had been added also, lending it the appearance of a small factory.
“I hid two large bottles in the fireplace,” Orville explained as we approached the door. “That’s all that’s left of the reagents. The Patent Office won’t have found them. They had no reason to search.”
We slowed as we approached, stopping a couple of paces short. A large padlock hung from a hasp on the door. A bill had been pasted at face height.
THIS BUILDING IS SEALED
BY ORDER OF THE INTERNATIONAL PATENT OFFICE
“I’ll break it,” said Orville.
“Too noisy. You’ll bring the men-at-arms. Why not use that?” I pointed to the box he carried. “Your machine can turn the metal of the lock into air.”
A smile broke out on his face. “You should have been an inventor.”
I watched as he opened the box on the doorstep and began turning the handle. When the light appeared he angled the mirror so that the beam touched the lock. “This is to get our aim,” he whispered. “Then we turn the dial up full and set it off again.”
But when he reached out to shift the lock a fraction to one side, the hasp from which it hung fell free of the door.
“It’s been forced,” I said.
He pushed and the door shifted.
I hissed a warning but he was already moving. “It’ll take only seconds.”
As the door opened, I darted my hand to the mirror, shifting it so the beam of light did not enter the darkened room. Then I ducked to the side.
Though I was braced for action and fully expected it, the sound and flash of the gunshot made me flinch. A woman screamed within. Then someone must have lit a gas lamp, for a steady yellowish light spilled out of the door, casting a rectangle on the uneven grass next to me.
“Let her go!” That was Orville’s voice, fearful, outraged.
“Where’s the machine?” Timpson this time.
“First release her!”
“We don’t have the luxury of time, Orville. The gunshot will have woken the household. I’ll kill you both if need be. The box can’t be far. You have five seconds. Save her if you will, or the machine. One... two...”
I picked up the box with both hands. The mirror now directed the beam of light directly out in front of me, as if it were a line emerging from my chest.
“...three... four...”
I stepped around the door and into the workshop. Orville stood in front of me, frozen. To the left, backs against a workbench stacked high with machinery, stood Silvan, Fabulo and Harry Timpson. On a stool between them sat the Duchess of Bletchley, dressed in the clothes of a working woman. Her eyes flashed from Orville to me.
Silvan gripped a cocked pistol, the muzzle pointing at the Duchess’s chest.
“Stop!” My voice cried out into the silence.
In a blink, everyone was staring at me and at the box I carried. Timpson stepped forwards.
“I’ll drop it!”
He stopped dead.
The line of light vibrated in the air in front of me, betraying my heartbeat.
Timpson looked from me to Orville and then back, nodding slowly, his opalescent irises seeming almost to glow in the dim workshop. “Drop it then. I’ll mend it. Your time is up anyway.”
I knew Silvan was going to shoot the Duchess. I could sense the tightening of his grip on the pistol. Orville must have seen it too, for he leapt across the room, clearing the space in two great strides. I saw the knife flash in his hand. Then it was thrust into Silvan’s chest. The pistol clattered to the floor as Silvan fell.
A gunshot flashed, half deafening me. Orville looked down to his own chest, blinking rapidly. Then he dropped to his knees. From somewhere Timpson had pulled a second pistol.
For a fraction of a second the Duchess’s scream seemed to come from a long way off. Then all the sound rushed back at me.
I swung the box around, aiming the beam at Fabulo’s eyes. He recoiled and swiped the air, as if batting away invisible hornets. Timpson was coming for me now. His hands went to the smoked glass goggles hanging around his neck. But I shifted the beam before he could put them on. When the light touched his eye he screamed, and fell to the floor clutching his face.
“Enough!” the shout came from Fabulo, who squinted like a man looking into a stinging gale. “This is enough! Who will have this marvel now? A dead man?Or a prisoner? That will be every one of us if we wait. Miss Barnabus, you must run fastest. The Duke of Northampton knows you’re here. We sent a message.”
“I cannot see!” cried Timpson. “You’ve blinded me!”
Fabulo knelt by Silvan’s lifeless body and pressed his stubby fingers to the man’s neck.
The Duchess was on her knees next to Orville. She ripped open her brother’s coat to reveal a red bloom, like a poppy, spreading out across the white of his shirt. His eyes stared up at the ceiling.
She collapsed onto his chest, her body heaving with unvoiced sobs of pain.
Fabulo was trying to help Timpson to his feet, but the old man batted the dwarf away. “Get the machine, you idiot,” he hissed.
The beam of light had faded to nothing. I placed the box on the floor. Men were shouting in the distance, heavy feet closing at a run. “Duchess,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss. But I did as you asked. Protect me now.”
Still she could not speak, but clutched the dead body to herself and rocked it in an agony of sorrow.
Then the door crashed open. The men-at-arms poured in. Fabulo lifted his hands above his head. A gun jabbed me in the back and I did the same.
“Call them off,” I pleaded.
The Duchess looked at me through her tears. “I’m sorry,” she said.
In that moment I understood the riddle that had been in front of my face for so long. The brother who said his sister loved him not, who never wanted to see her again, and yet gave his life to save her from a gunshot. The way she held him, clutching his head now to her blood-stained breast. I was not looking at Orville’s sister. I was looking at his lover.
How simply I had been trapped. Too proud of my own detection, I hadn’t entertained the thought that the clues I’d followed might have been laid as an illusion. The watermarked notepaper, the aristocratic hand, the place of postage – all would have been simple to arrange.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, as the dreadful realisation took root in my heart.
“You are Elizabeth Barnabus,” said one of the men behind me. It was not a question. “You are fugitive from a contract of indentured servitude held by my master, the Duke of Northampton.” He gripped my shoulder and turned me to face him. The other men-at-arms bore the badge Bletchley, but he wore the oak tree and stars.
“That woman will pay the debt,” I said, though I knew already she could not.
“She?” laughed the others. “She’s a village girl! She mops the floor at the post house, or did before she went on the run. You thought her a princess?”
“She said–”
“She’s the bitch daughter of an old gypsy called Zoran.”
“Aye, and she’s wanted for thieving here at the hall.”
There it was. The whole illusion laid bare. Simple, like every good trick.The theft of a purse of gold – my advance.Theft of notepaper also, no doubt. One foot in the post house to intercept any letter or message I sent, stopping them before they reached the real Duchess.
Another man entered the workshop, an armful of chain and iron in his hands. “This do you?” he asked. Northampton’s man took it with a nod. He turned me again so that I was facing away from him. I felt the cold weight of iron as he snapped the collar in place. Roughly, he grabbed my right hand and manacled it to the collar. Then the left. I did not resist.
“That should hold her,” he said.
The laughter of the men mixed with the sound of more footsteps approaching along the path.
“Make way,” ordered a new voice.
The chains clanked as I turned to face the door.
“I am an agent of the Patent Office,” said John Farthing, holding up his warrant paper. “This workshop is under investigation. Who is authorised to be here?”
No one answered. One of Bletchley’s men took the paper and examined the stamp of office on the bottom before handing it back.
“The door was sealed,” said Farthing. “Who is responsible?”
“A crime was being committed,” said the man-at-arms. “The seal was already broken.”
“Indeed?”
“There was murder here.”
Farthing strode into the room, stepped around the bodies of Orville and Silvan, turned slowly and looked down on Harry Timpson, now kneeling on the floor. The impresario still held a hand over his eyes. “This man is wanted for questioning by the Patent Office,” he said, “in connection with various suspected infringements. Unfortunately I have no warrant here with me.”
He reached down, grasped Timpson’s free hand and pulled it up to smell the fingers. “He’s fired a gun. Perhaps you’ll need to question him. What’s your analysis of the murders?”
“One killed by gun, the other by knife,” said the man-at-arms.
“Then it seems you have your culprits. The knifeman killed this unhappy fellow and was then shot by the famous Harry Timpson.”
“What’s your name, madam?” Farthing asked.
“Florence May,” replied the fake Duchess, still kneeling on the floor.
“Her father was once a bullet-catcher,” said the man-at-arms. “Was helping Mr Orville – that’s this dead gentleman before you – helped him with these machines.”
“A bullet-catcher’s daughter in a workshop such as this? It seems more than a coincidence. Tell me how you came to be here, madam.”
Orville’s head was still cradled in her lap. She looked up, from face to face, eyes red and tears still streaming. “I fell in love.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, then turned to Fabulo. “You, sir. I’ve seen you before. You’re a long way from home.”
“Harry Timpson is the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders,” said the dwarf. “That’s always been my home.”
“Knife throwers and acrobats are of no interest to me. Go, if these guards will allow it.”
“I stay with Harry.”
At last, Farthing stepped across to me. “And this is Elizabeth Barnabus.”
“She’s the property of my master,” said Northampton’s man. “Indentured servitude in lieu of family debts. Fugitive in the Republic theselast fiveyears.”
“So she must have been... fifteen?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
“I’m sure the Duke will be anxious to exact his five missing years.”
Two of the men-at-arms sniggered.
“However,” Farthing continued, “For Elizabeth Barnabus there is a yet more daunting fate. I have here a warrant for her arrest. She’s wanted in connection with patent crime. She’ll be accompanying me.”
“But she belongs to the Duke.”
“Indeed you are correct. And once I’ve finished with her, if she is to be released, I’ll inform you of the place and time, in accordance with the relevant laws and treaties. But the Patent Office has precedence over the individual laws of any nation. I’d be grateful for the loan of the irons. You wouldn’t want her to escape any more than I would.”
Farthing accepted the key from Northampton’s man, then pointed to the machine, which lay on the floor where I had left it. “One of you take this to the carriage.”
Chains clanking, I followed Farthing towards the door. Behind me, the woman I had known as the Duchess of Bletchley called out.
“Elizabeth, I’m sorry.”