The Mysterious Lady Law (10 page)

“Who are you?” Julia called out, matching the masked figure’s glances toward the gun.

No response.

Julia suddenly remembered a memory she’d lost to the trauma of over a week ago—the silhouette of a figure dressed all in black, peering in through her kitchen window. She spied her attacker’s black gloves, the flat cap lying on the floor. Had this woman witnessed Georgy’s murder? No, had this woman
murdered
Georgy?

She recalled what it had felt like sitting helpless on the kitchen floor with her sister’s crumpled body: the crunching radio static, the dwindling kernel of hope that it was all a horrid nightmare, the bloodied blond hair petrified into straw, the smothering cold. Her fists tightened. Another cavalcade of gunfire ripped her every muscle taut, curled her into a bitter fury.

She screamed, “
Biiitch!”

She hurled herself at her attacker, tore at the eyes in the mask. The woman squealed and kneed Julia in the stomach. A blunt tack of pain. Incensed, Julia yanked the woolen hat off, then scratched at the pale face beneath.

“
Julia, Julia!”
pleaded the woman. “It’s me. It’s Harriet! No more…please.”

Julia let go for a moment, only for a moment. Harriet Law’s porcelain beauty was long gone. In its place, a flush, dishevelled, even more striking-looking woman glared up, eyes half-cool, half-aflame in the dim amber light. She backed away with careful steps.

Then she bolted. Toward the light in the back. To where she’d emerged from? Julia swivelled, midchase and retrieved the steam-pistol instead. This was Lady Law’s lair. No use running into a trap unarmed. She kicked her pesky shoes off. Also no use in giving away her position with every step. A huge, ugly clock watched her down the corridor, past a broom cupboard to the left and a gloomy, moonlit drawing room on the right. Wood to carpet to a soft, Persian rug—the floor buzzed, crackled underfoot as though it were electrically charged. Every step tickled the soles of her feet.

More gunfire upstairs kicked her into a jog. She noticed the door to the basement had several bolts and padlocks but stood wide open. What the hell did Lady Law want to hide so badly?

Julia gripped the brass gun with both hands and slinked down the cold stone stairs. Gone was the buzz underfoot. A heavy, sooty odour pinched at her sinuses. The stone floor at the bottom gave way to a slick, black rubber mat. Brass legs appeared next—grooved, spidery limbs, six of them, supporting a copper-coloured sphere in the centre of the basement. The sphere smouldered and seemed to emit the noxious fumes. It nearly reached the ceiling.

Julia stopped to scan the room for signs of Lady Law. Might she be hiding on either side of the opening? More than likely—the devious bitch! No sound except the hissing of steam from valves at the joints between legs and sphere.
Okay, left or right?
Julia held her breath and dashed out. The edge of a swinging blade missed her right arm by inches. She sprinted on hurdling a brass limb before she reached the far end of the room. She spun round and aimed the pistol. Lady Law, in hot pursuit, stopped in her tracks.

“Drop it or you die,” Julia threatened. “
Now.
”

Panting, Harriet Law lowered her parasol sword. A swathe of blond hair stuck to her glistening face.

“Back up…to that chair in the corner…slowly,” ordered Julia. “Any quick moves and the answer will be quickest.” Harriet Law complied, sinking glacially into the old, torn leather armchair.

“All right, this will have to be brief,” Julia declared. “Who are you? What is this bastard thing hissing behind me?”

“An electricity generator. I had it installed the other day.”

“I ask again, what is it?” Julia took a step closer, pointed the pistol at her captive’s breast. “And
don’t you dare lie to me.
”

“All right, all right. It’s a machine for reading thought patterns. I can tell what anyone in London is thinking at any moment. Look, the fumes rising from the sphere are from electrochemical reactions turning thought waves into complex binary code.”

Intrigued, Julia cocked her head. “And what has that got to do with Georgy?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Julia squeezed the trigger, blasted a hole in a glass bottle above Harriet Law’s head. The shards rained into her blond hair. “One more time, I’m warning you.” She aimed again, lower this time. “The truth or a bullet.”

Harriet Law bowed, shook the glass from her hair, and then answered, “Georgina let that idiot Josh Cavendish in while I was down here, shortly after the Westminster ceremony. He saw my machine. I couldn’t let him escape. The sap would have told every newspaper in London, just to make a name for himself. Never mind that I was helping rid the country of dangerous criminals.”

“So you use that thing to read criminals’ minds?”

“Yes.”

Julia pondered the case for a moment—the fake map, Horace Holly and the easy way he’d duped Lady Law. “So you tie up all your loose ends by using that machine? Read their thoughts? You already know what everyone has done before you interview them?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Then why didn’t you know Holly’s map was a fake?”

Silence. A lucid, piercing stare from the most famous woman in Britain.

“Aha! Caught in another lie. Well I told you what would happen. This is for Georgy.” Julia closed one eye and took careful aim. For added effect, she bunched one half of her face into a scowl, baring all her teeth.

“No, wait!”

“You’re too late. I’ll see you in
hell, Lady
—”

“No.
I’ll tell the truth. I promise I’ll explain it all. It’s a time machine, Julia. My fortune belongs to a
time machine.
No, don’t shoot. Please…”

“A time machine?”

“Yes! Think about it. For the love of God, think it through. How else could I know how everything happened, unless I’d travelled back in time and witnessed each and every crime as it occurred? You glimpsed me through your kitchen window after Georgina’s murder, did you not? The phantom apparition? The silhouette?”

“Yes.”

“Well there it is. There I was. I travel back to watch every crime—to
watch
, nothing more. I become a silent eyewitness, a recorder of clues and trails of evidence, which I then collate into watertight cases against the guilty. That’s how I caught Jack the Ripper. That’s how I’ve convicted hundreds of culprits in hundreds of cases. It’s all in the name of justice, I swear.”

Julia lowered her gun. “Where did you get a time machine?”

“Are you kidding? You don’t really think I was born in the nineteenth century, do you? For all my forensic skills and my talents for deduction, I couldn’t even hold a job as a policewoman in my own time.
They
never took me seriously. But here, I fight crime and they give me titles. They make me rich.”

“Your time?” An icy shiver clamped Julia’s spine.

“My dear obtuse woman, don’t you know I’m from the future?”

“What future? How far?”

“Mmm, further than you can count, you music hall
bitch.
” With a giddy shudder, Lady Law burst into convulsions of desperate hilarity that shook her entire slender frame.

Julia had heard enough…for now. She marched over, cracked the butt of her gun against the woman’s head and knocked her out cold. Then she lashed Lady Law’s hands behind her back with the black cord used for a belt on the woman’s dark ensemble. Finally, Julia tied her to the chair with lengths of cloth from one of the shelves.

“
This
is for Georgy.” She ran over to the copper sphere. Round the far side, its door gaped open. A brass panel of gears and levers and switches buzzed and crackled with that electric charge she’d experienced underfoot. The psammeticum energy Josh had discovered? Two whirling crystal globes seemed to constitute the hub of this…time machine. She obliterated them with a bullet apiece and then spat on the glittering smithereens.

Only then did she realise, with a sharp ache in her stomach, the opportunity she had just squandered. For with time travel at her fingertips—and history hers to revise—Georgy need not die, after all. She cocked her arm, ready to hurl the pistol into the cluttered shelves.

But Al was still in trouble! He needed her help. After several steadying breaths, she left the basement, hiked her skirt and flew upstairs two cold steps at a time.

“Run, Julia, run!” Blood and splinters covered Al’s right shoulder as he stumbled downstairs, holding his pistol limply at his side.

“What happened? Where’s Holly?” Ice washed through her veins at the sight of his injury—a bullet wound. “You’re hurt!”

“It’s not bad. A clean wound, straight through.” His pale, glistening face told a different story.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He didn’t argue. “It’s a stalemate up there. Holly has them pinned down across the landing. Their guns are rapid, but they can’t match the aim of his rifle. God willing, he’ll be able to hold them off until I can find help. Come on, let’s go.” Favouring his right side, he winced as Julia supported his left arm. He almost keeled over on the doormat.

“Can you make it to the carriage?” She thought of the quickest route to a hospital. Down Liverpool Street…turn left onto Maturin Avenue…past the old market square and through… “
Al.”

He collapsed on the front steps. Julia tried to soften his fall but his weight dragged her down with him. Her knee and hip bore the brunt of the impact. Untangling herself from beneath him, she felt no resistance or movement whatsoever from his heavy limbs.

Oh my God. He’s passed out.

She checked his wrist. No pulse. Was she even doing it correctly? How about his neck? She’d read about doctors trying that.

Christ, Georgy, where are you when I need you?

A quick exchange of gunfire upstairs made her jump. Lights were now visible all along Challenger Row with curtains parted and doors ajar, enough for frightened residents to peer into the street from the safety of their own homes. But not one person rushed out to help her.

“Someone call the police!” she yelled. “Tell them a constable’s been shot. And send for an ambulance.”

No response.
Please God, let someone have the sense…

She eyed their carriage at the top of the street. Much, much too far away. More shots erupted upstairs. They seemed to echo down the road, their acoustics gathering momentum.

No,
something was approaching. Clattering…metal…a lumbering junkyard on wheels…

A steam-powered
automobile
.

“Miss Bairstow, are you all right?” Holly rushed out of the house and leapt the last few steps. He didn’t wait for her response, but felt Al’s neck instead. “He’s alive for now. But we’ve no time to waste. Quick, help me lift him. I’ll carry him on my shoulders.”

She bent low, using all her strength but Holly did most of the lifting.

Brrrrr!

Bullets ricocheted off the pavement, one snatched through her dress between her ankles. The shots came from behind, from the top of the street. Two half-dressed men sprinted toward her, brandishing guns she’d never seen before.

Holly made ready to drop Al and use his rifle.

“How about that?” Julia urged, pointing him to the automobile as it steered a slow one-hundred-and-eighty away from the gunfire. Before she’d finished, Holly was on his way. Despite the weight of a stocky man on his shoulder, he covered the distance in no time. The vehicle was an expensive two-seater. Upon seeing Holly’s rifle, the driver, a slick-haired man wearing goggles, leapt out and sprinted for the nearest house.

“You’ll have to drive,” Holly insisted as Julia climbed onto the rolling car. He turned the wheel for her, just enough to steer it into the centre of the road; then he ran, panting, round the other side. He tossed Al onto the passenger seat. “Go! Go as fast as you can,” he shouted after her. “Ease the lever forward and let it gather steam.”

Julia obeyed, and the moment the brass lever nodded past vertical, a burst of steam sizzled behind her. She barely made out Holly’s cry, “Make for the hospital on Bleeker Street.”

Without brakes—she didn’t know which lever to pull or push for that—the car accelerated over the cobblestone like a toolbox on wheels. The violent clattering blurred her vision, battered her behind and tickled her gums. Now even faster, the constant hiss was even louder. Her ears popped and a gentle, xylophonic ring quenched the noise for a moment. A horse and carriage swerved to one side, out of her way. She beeped the car’s horn, persuaded another automobile to clear a path near the bottom of Challenger Row. Seconds before the turn.

Oh God, please let there be no one turning up here.

She gripped the rickety wheel and readied her shoulders for a hellfire left turn. How fast was she going? Too fast. Al’s body jumped off the seat when the car’s wheel hit a pothole. Julia reached across, grabbed his limp outstretched hand.
Here we go. Whatever happens, make this turn.

No traffic that she could see.

A scorching force threw her forward against the wheel. Sour hot steam gushed up her nostrils. The automobile exploded, hurling her onto the brass bonnet and then onto the wet cobbles. There was no pain right away. Several feet to her right, Al lay crumpled in a heap. She crabbed toward him for all her worth, as though the hurtling vehicle would only flatten
her
if she shielded him in time. When she looked up, the car lay on its side, a mangle of shredded brass panels and filthy black innards wrecked upon a lamppost. A billowing cloud of white steam enveloped Challenger Row. She heard nothing but a muffled ring. Not even Al’s coughs when she crouched low over him and put her ear to his mouth.

Julia lay there instead and rested her head on his chest, unimaginably awake. Heat from the burning wreckage intensified on her bare calves. She slowly tucked her knees up to Al’s thighs and whispered the first words that came to her. “Don’t leave me. You love me.”

Four bare feet stopped at her side. Foul. Men’s feet. A small pair of black shoes joined them.

Too weak to move, Julia mouthed the words, “Help him,” but no sound emerged.

Two of the bare feet swivelled and appeared to overbalance. She flinched and began to shake when a large, half-naked man hit the ground behind the other two pairs of feet; blood leaked from a hole in his forehead; in his hand was a bizarre black gun with two grips. Something she’d never seen before.

From the future?

Julia stirred, and then summoned the effort to look up. Another half-naked man took a shot to the chest and collapsed like a rag doll. That left a slender woman, dressed all in black. She raised her hands aloft, and then knelt to the ground, head bowed. Through the heavy strands of hair, fierce hazel eyes watched Julia…waiting, hating.

Julia wanted to explode with joy when Horace Holly jogged into view. He stopped for a moment, kissed his rifle. Then he marched over and knocked the woman out cold with his rifle butt. After checking the corpses of the two men, he hurried over to Julia and spoke vital words she couldn’t hear. He seemed the gentlest man she’d ever met. Not ugly at all, but like a dear uncle she longed to spend more time with. He fetched the carriage in seconds—someone had driven it down the street. Holly lifted her inside, and then carefully placed Al next to her, cushioning Al’s head with his own folded-up jacket. Lastly, he lifted Lady Law, unconscious, onto the driver’s seat with him.

The carriage soon sped down Liverpool Street.

For a moment she imagined Georgy sitting there, on the seat opposite, about to regale her with the remarkable things she’d got up to today: those lively adventures, close scrapes and colourful people that only Georgy ever seemed to find.

The cobbles ended. Julia drifted away on a smooth, yielding road of dark and blinking amber.