Horatio Lyle (23 page)

‘It was damaged.’

‘Damaged?’

‘Many centuries ago, it was taken by priests who feared the Tseiqin, and locked in an iron box. The Tseiqin attacked the priests to reclaim the Plate. In the course of the attack, blood was spilt on it. There was a thunderstorm. Lighting hit the metal box in which the blood-soaked Plate lay. It was unscathed, but when the Tseiqin tried to touch it, it burnt their hands. The lightning strike had done something to the Plate.’

Lyle rubbed the bridge of his nose, and muttered distantly, ‘Where was this?’

‘Tibet.’

‘Tibet?’

‘Yes.’

‘You heard of a man named Feng Darin?’

‘Are you referring to one of the spies the Chinese doubtlessly have trailing you with orders to recover the Plate regardless of cost to human life?’

‘Yes, that sounds about right.’

‘Then yes, I have heard of Feng Darin. It is pleasing to have a name to put to the face. I presume you appreciate how willing he will be to kill you, to achieve his ends.’

‘Yes, of course, I took that for granted. Why are the Tseiqin looking for the Plate now?’

‘They believe they can repair it.’

‘Why?’

‘Perhaps because now we have machines which can simulate the lightning strike that first damaged the Plate?’

Lyle shook his head. ‘This is immensely upsetting.’

‘For a scientist?’

‘Yes, for a scientist!’

‘Do you think it is plausible, though?’

‘People who have a fear of iron and magnets wanting to play around with something that got damaged in an iron box which itself was blasted with a huge, incredible electric charge like nothing we have the capacity to simulate? Well, I’ll grant it has a certain poetic symmetry about it.’

Lincoln looked at him almost sadly, and said in a low, precise voice that gave nothing away, ‘Mister Lyle, can you find the Plate?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If the Tseiqin find it, they will kill everything that has ever touched iron.’

‘I’m almost on the verge of believing you. If you knew the Plate was so valuable, why didn’t you destroy it?’

‘Destroy something of that value? No. Besides, fire, flood and a very large drop and very short stop have so far failed even to chip it.’

‘But being contained inside an iron box with a huge electric current running through it does damage it?’

‘Mister Lyle, can you find the Plate?’

‘I don’t know. What do you know about Lord Moncorvo?’

‘Moncorvo?’

‘Yes. He’s involved.’

‘I know of him. He has a good deal of influence at the House of Lords. A prominent statesman.’

‘I think he’s
. . .
’ Lyle seemed to flinch, and hastily said, ‘one of them.’

‘Tseiqin?’

‘
Don’t
push my credulity so far as to actually start talking about this in an easy, everyday voice, my lord.’

‘Special Constable Lyle,
can you find the Plate
?’

Outside, in the grey dull street, rain started to fall, thick fat droplets bouncing up between the cobbles and pooling in the dirty gutters, washing down the soot-encrusted walls. Lyle stared at Lincoln with a slowly growing expression of understanding, and Lincoln stared back at Lyle defiantly.

Lyle said, ‘If you knew the Tseiqin were after the Plate, why did you give it to the Elwick family to safeguard? Because you knew the Tseiqin would go after it? Because you wanted them to go after it? Why did you immediately come to me? Because you must have known the Tseiqin had tried to steal the Plate, that it was
them
. But you didn’t know about Moncorvo. Why? Because you didn’t know
who
the Tseiqin were, who the individuals were within your system, how deep they’d dug their claws into government, how many, how strong, how powerful, how ambitious - the strength of your enemy. You didn’t know about Moncorvo. You
wanted
someone to try and steal the Plate, so you could see who they were. You baited them, and hoped that I’d find out who they were. And now people are
dead
and I’ve nearly been killed, and the
children
have nearly been killed and have just seen things that I wouldn’t wish on a mad, opium-high, hashish-smoking, deranged axe murderer!’

Silence. Then, very quietly, ‘Once again, Mister Lyle, you have shown yourself to be a wise choice of detective.’

Silence.

‘Where is the Plate, Mister Lyle?’

Silence.

‘Mister Lyle?’

‘It’s in the hands of justice, Lord Lincoln.’

Silence.

‘I do not need to tell you more, Mister Lyle. You know enough. I know that you will do your duty. You may not believe what you are doing, but you are a rational man. You cannot explain away what you have seen by science, and therefore will take the only logical option available to you. I am sure I can count on your willing support.’

Silence.

‘Good day, Mister Lyle. I look forward to hearing from you soon.’

Lyle didn’t say a word as Lincoln turned and swept out.

CHAPTER 15

After lunch, the rain hammered down in dark sheets that poured angrily from the sky, as if in revenge for some forgotten sin. Tess sat by the fire, her feet up on a table, idly stroking Tate, who had learnt to recognize a soft touch when he saw one, and said, ‘I ain’t surprised. I thought it were magic all along.’

Upstairs, Thomas helped Milly wash out a dusty set of glass tubes and arrange them neatly on a table. ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to, dear?’ she asked.

Thomas thought about this. ‘No, ma’am. Not really.’

And by the light of a bright, burning lantern, Lyle leafed through page after page of an illustrated book entitled
Images in
London, Heart of Empire
, while on the table beside him the single vial of white blood from an alien heart lay waiting.

And as he worked, he thought,
The Tseiqin can’t touch the Plate any more - they had to hire Carwell and his brother, the arrogant fool. And Carwell wanted more. He gives the Plate to Bray, Bray hides it. The Tseiqin find Bray, and we find the Tseiqin. The Plate is still somewhere out there, wherever Bray hid it. In the hands of justice, he said. It’s in the hands of justice, but he wouldn’t have given it to the police, he was talking about a different justice entirely.

And Horatio Lyle thought:
I wonder if the Tseiqin are going to kill me after all? Murdered by a magical species that I don’t believe can actually exist, for a plate that I don’t honestly believe has any kind of special properties, by people who shout ‘Don’t look at the eyes’ and run around with brass knives and scream at the touch of magnetic metal. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

And Horatio Lyle thought:
Magnetism makes electricity, electricity makes magnetism - you can’t have one without the other.

Horatio Lyle looked down at the book open on the table in front of him, and frowned at a passage. He ran his finger along it, lips pursed, eyebrows knitted together. Then he looked at the picture of the statue next to it. And Horatio Lyle thought:
It’s in the hands of justice.

As the rain fell on the grimy streets of London and the factories belched and the iron cogs in the textile mills whirred and the iron wires in the Royal Institution hummed and the iron shovels dug down into the dirt and the iron pickaxes chipped away at the rock, Horatio Lyle started to smile.

 

‘Children, get your shoes on!’

‘Going, dear?’

‘Yes, Ma. Thank you for looking after us.’

‘Worked it out, have you, dear?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘So are you going to the old or the new?’

Lyle hesitated.

‘Give your ma a hug, dear. And look after those children. And that dog of yours. I don’t want to hear any bad report.’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘And pay Teresa her sovereign.’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘Have you got everything?’

‘I think so
. . .
’

‘Been to the privy?’

‘Ma
. . .
’

‘I have to ask, dear, it’s a mother’s prerogative. Have you got your dynamo?’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘And you’ve had enough to eat?’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘And you’ve got the spare bottle of magnesium sulphate?’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘Right. Well, then. Off you go, dear. Don’t do anything foolish. ’

‘No, Ma, I won’t. I promise.’

She patted Lyle on the shoulder. ‘Good lad.’ Then she turned a stern look on Tess. ‘I’m relying on you to make sure the lads don’t do anything foolish.’

Thomas, Tate and Lyle all contrived to look sheepish. Tess put on a very serious expression. ‘Yes, m’m. I’ll keep ’em in order, m’m, don’t you worry. But
. . .
m’m? If they don’t come back with all the bits in the usual places, you ain’t gonna blame me, are you?’

Milly examined Lyle and Thomas thoughtfully, then smiled a distinctly malign smile. ‘No, dear. Not at all.’

They went back via Lyle’s house, but Lyle didn’t let the children leave the hansom cab. Followed by Tate, he darted towards the house.

When he put the key into the lock, it jammed and he had to struggle with it. After a few seconds it clicked, and he opened the door, slipping inside with a little frown on his face. It was cold in the house, feeling unlived in after only a day. He looked slowly around, frowning at the floor and at each door handle he passed. He took more time than he’d first meant to, drifting quietly and slowly downstairs to the kitchen, listening to the sound of the floorboards under his feet. He stopped on one, and swivelled his weight this way and that, listening to the creak. He sighed very faintly under his breath and pulled out from his pocket the long, slim clay tube with the wires at the end. Holding this like a knife, he wandered carefully into the kitchen. The wardrobe door was half-open. He kicked it gently back and looked into the second half-open panel behind it. A man was lying there, one leg trapped firmly in a metal vice. He whimpered as Lyle approached and squatted very quietly down in front of him.

‘I dunno nothin’!’ he whined.

‘Of course you don’t,’ said Lyle politely. ‘Believe me, I know exactly how you feel in that sense. Who sent you? Was it Moncorvo?’

‘I dunno nothin’!’

‘Do you know what gangrene is?’ A flicker of doubt and fear passed across the man’s face. Lyle grinned. ‘See, that reaction was the reaction of a man who
does
know. I’m so glad to meet someone with an education at last. Do you know that when the books say
green
, they actually mean
green
?’

‘He was
. . .
a chink.’

‘Chinese?’

‘That’s right!’

‘Crooked top hat, red scarf, taste for ginger biscuits, singular bulge in his left coat pocket where he’s failed to hide the gun? That him?’

‘Eh
. . .
yes, that’s ’im!’

‘What’d he ask you to find?’

‘A plate, a stone plate!’

‘And bring it to him?’ Frantic nodding. Lyle sighed. ‘All right. I’ll send someone round to get you out, Mr
. . .
?’

‘Erm
. . .
Smith.’

‘Mr Smith. Well, I suppose I can’t complain. Thank you for your time, Mr Smith.’

 

Lyle slipped down into the basement, and by faint lamplight went round his shelves. He found a small bag of plain metal lumps and dragged them apart from each other with some difficulty, putting them carefully in separate pockets. Armed with the magnets, he also filled his pockets with a large handful of mixed test tubes, a few spheres of white, light glass, a spare box of matches and, after a little more consideration, a small handful of carefully capped needles in a brown paper bag. You never knew when you might need such things, he told himself. He filled Tate’s water bowl, put out a fresh plate of food, pointed an accusing finger, said ‘Stay’ and was ignored as Tate lay down in his basket and rolled over. Lyle sighed, made a small bag of ham sandwiches in the kitchen, wrapped them in brown paper and went out to find answers.

 

Early evening in London, and though the rain still fell over the heart of the city, out to the west the black clouds had retreated to allow radiant pink and orange sunshine to burn through in a narrow thread across the horizon. In the east the tiny peep of light on the horizon was of a blackened blue variety, promising a colder, deeper night. The hansom cab rattled through the streets slowly, trapped in traffic. At Smithfield, the cab stopped entirely. There was the sound of bleating. Tess lowered the window and peered out. ‘Sheep,’ she said in a disinterested voice.