The Janus Affair: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (40 page)

“Did your doctor tell you to sit up?” he chided. “I don’t recall giving you those orders.”

“The temper,” he panted softly, again and again. His eyes screwed shut. “The temper came over me again . . .”

“Breathe, my friend. Breathe,” the doctor replied, placing a hand gently on Sussex’s chest. “Conjure the images. As I taught you.”

Sussex nodded and attempted to settle into the pillow underneath his head. He recalled the Van Gogh-Brunel exhibition he had taken in two summers ago. With a flair for the dramatic which the engineer prided himself in indulging, Henry Marc Brunel had purchased several original Van Goghs, cut out specific shapes from the one-of-a-kinds, and created dioramas with mechanical movement. He had called it
automa-art
, while artists far and wide called it an effrontery to Van Gogh and his legacy. As for Sussex’s own opinion, it was quite the contrary. He dared not share this with anyone. Not even Ivy. Such a common thing, this automa-art; but in secret, he found it charming. So, he committed this one work—
Starry Night with Rolling Clouds and Rising Moon
—to memory, with its clockwork melody of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” softly tinkling in the background.

He would not let this temper of his bring all he had achieved to ruin.

“Peter,” came the voice of his physician, his friend, “don’t dwell. You must relax before we can talk about it. Find your solitude, and grant yourself the moment’s peace.”

Without protest, Sussex focused on the various shades of yellow rotating against one another, emulating star-shine, while Beethoven’s sonata played.

“Excellent, Peter.” His praise also lifted his spirits. “Now after I count to ten, I want you to slowly open your eyes, and then bring yourself up to a sitting position. You may be dizzy at first, but this will pass. Remember to breathe deeply. One . . . two . . . three . . . now begin to remove the sound from your solitude. Look upon it in silence.”

The Moonlight Sonata diminished. Softer. Softer. He wasn’t ready to leave this place.

He should have bought the piece. Society and artists alike be damned.

“Four . . . five . . . six . . . remove any colours you might see,” the doctor said gently. “Don’t worry. This place will be waiting for you whenever you wish to return.”

Yellows faded into white while the blue grew darker and darker, until finally the night was black. So it went with the various hues, their colours seeming to melt like snow under sunlight. Soon it would be a flat, barren vista before him.

“Seven . . . eight . . . dim the lights, Peter. Just for a moment. And then, see the world again. Properly.”

It was time to return. He knew that. The diorama slipped into darkness, inky black tendrils slipping around and between any open space. Soon, there would only be darkness.

“Nine . . . ten.”

Sussex slowly opened his eyes. His friend’s gaze was not judgemental or even condescending, but warm and assuring, much like the tiny, confident fire burning in the hearth.

“Welcome back, Peter,” the doctor said, extending a snifter to him.

As Sussex pulled himself up, the room felt as if it listed sharply for a moment; but it was only for a moment. He paused, waited for the room to become level once more, and then resumed his ascent.

“Good to be back,” Sussex sighed, taking the snifter. He had to get rid of this foul taste on his tongue.

“This must have been a bad one.”

“I couldn’t stop it.” He took a drink and gave start. The amber liquid scorched its way down his throat, but oddly enough it did remove the chill. Still, hardly what he expected. “What kind of brandy is this?”

“It’s unlike any brandy you’ll find,” the doctor said with a small chuckle. “It’s scotch.”

Sussex sneered. “Ah, yes, I forgot you were a scotch drinker.”

“A taste for a more refined palette.”

The Duke rolled his eyes at that. “Bugger off.”

“Such language from the private secretary of Her Majesty.” The young man clicked his tongue as he crossed over to the small collection of decanters. As he poured himself a drink, he continued with, “What will the higher minds of Her Majesty’s Council think?”

“You’re my physician,” Sussex growled. “I’m allowed.”

“Perhaps.” The doctor pushed his hair back. Sussex marvelled at how young his friend appeared. It defied logic that he was a mere lad of twenty-two years and yet brilliant in his practice beyond such years. “So, as your physician, why don’t you tell me about tonight?”

Sussex bowed his head. He was uncertain if it was the scotch or the fit that was making his head fuzzy. “I—” He took a deep breath. “I wanted to kill a man tonight.”

“Was this a professional acquaintance, or personal?”

He looked up from his drink. How much could he tell? “Both.”

The doctor scoffed and shook his head. “Peter, I’m sure you meet a good amount of peo—”

“No, I mean, I wanted to kill a man. I saw myself picking up the figurine. I could taste his blood on my lips. And when he left . . .” He should not have been able to do what he did, but that didn’t change what had happened. By morning, Fenning would have made certain any and all evidence of the incident were gone. “I destroyed my gramophone.”

“An interesting transference there.”

The humour went without acknowledgement. “I threw it across the room.”

“I see.” Setting aside the drink cradled in his hands, Sussex’s physician lowered himself to one knee and checked each eye carefully. “How have you been sleeping?”

“Not well.”

The doctor’s youthful face hardened, and Sussex swore he watched it age ten years in that instant. “I need to know, so do not play elusive with me—have you been feeling a build towards tonight?”

Sussex swallowed hard. There had been the night the Maestro left him the summons. Then the evening in that madman’s company. “Yes,” he admitted. “I think it has been. A slow build, but a build nonetheless.”

“I was afraid of that,” his doctor said with a sigh.

“What do you mean?”

“You may be developing a tolerance to your medication.” The doctor stood up and turned back to the hearth, his own eyes staring into its flames. “I’m wondering if suppressing that temperament of yours is something akin to a dam, and once that dam begins to fail . . .”

“No, it
can’t
fail,” Sussex implored. “
I
can’t fail. Not when I have come this far . . .”

“No,” his friend said. “No you cannot, Peter. With everything we have accomplished together, I am not going to see you fall. Not now.” He polished off the drink and then went to his desk. From a smaller selection of books held by two small bookends, he pulled out a volume and flipped through its pages. He stopped, nodded, and then proceeded a few more pages. “The good news is your dosage is still within safe limits. There’s always a risk involved when changing a routine, of course, but I believe this is one worth taking.”

“Are you certain?” Sussex asked. He took another breath and said, “I know your treatments have been incredible. I sleep quite peacefully, a welcome change to be sure; but . . .”

“Yes, Peter?”

“But usually I can remember dreams. Or at least I am aware of dreaming. Since taking your prescription—”

“I did warn you that this could be a side effect to the treatment.”

Sussex nodded. “You did. You did.” He took another deep drink of the scotch. His options were few. Actually, they were all of one. “Are you certain the risks are worth taking?”

His friend closed the book with a soft
snap
. “I’m a physician, Peter. I have your best interests at heart.”

Sussex nodded. Yes, this would make things right. “Thank you, Henry. Thank you so much.”

He was so very lucky to have a doctor he could trust implicitly. Not everyone was so fortunate.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Where Our Dashing Archivist Finally Gets in the Last Word with Our Colonial Pepperpot

W
ellington gazed up the height of his analytical engine. It was more than just a tower of modern technology, but his own personal triumph. Even those arrogant
schlockworkers
in Research & Design could not fathom how he did it, nor could they replicate it. Not without his plans. Of course, Axelrod and Blackwell could have tried to dismantle it, deduced how he had solved the computation delay, managed the timing of the cogs, and kept in flawless order the various commands that did everything from play Mozart to file away artifacts from the field to make a fine pot of Assam. He wondered if it was coming down here and having to deal with him directly, that held those clankertons at bay.

He placed a hand on the outer pipes, feeling their slight warmth—again, another mystery he had solved in keeping the analytical engine at a precise temperature—and gave a long, hollow sigh. Should anything befall him over in the Americas, there would only be the redoubtable Miss Shillingworth to protect the engine.

Reaching down to the ring of keys, he slipped the smallest of them into a keyhole, releasing six latches with a single turn. The compact keyboard and tiny monitor slid free of the main housing, and with a slight groan he hefted the contraption onto his desk. While lacking a bit in the power of its mother engine, it would serve them well in the Americas. Perhaps as well as it had served him in interfacing with the ETS in order to track his reluctant partner on that fateful summer day.

He glanced back at where the keyboard and monitor had been hiding in plain view, and the gap did not appear as anything extraordinary. He grinned at his little touch of detail in that, and how his design was the reason this secondary keyboard had remained his little secret. Even with Eliza staring at him from the other side of the desk, Wellington didn’t worry about tipping his hand about this portable analytical engine of his. She might have noticed that the keyboard and monitor collapsed neatly not only in its hiding place, but onto itself, reducing the array to a mere twenty pounds.

Eliza might have observed quite a few details about what he was packing for their journey across the Atlantic, if she hadn’t been staring at him so intently.

“Eliza,” Wellington sighed, “shouldn’t you be arming yourself with the assistance of Axelrod and Blackwell? Or is this how you usually prepare for a mission abroad—by staring at your partner?”

“All. This. Time.”

Ah, this conversation—the one he had been dreading since their free fall. Here it was.

Wellington placed the key in a different hole and gave it three quick turns. There was a hiss and several pearlescent puffs as four palm-sized objects resembling perfectly smooth bricks slid free of the engine. Inside the case on his desk, he lowered a protective panel over the secured interface, and slid two of the four bricks into indentations that fit them perfectly.

“That shot was a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Even at my best, I don’t know if I could have made it.” Her voice was calm—though tinted with simmering rage.

The Archivist scoffed as he pushed the remaining memory cases back into the Archives’ engine. “As usual your attempt at humility is failing miserably.”

“We were plummeting to the Earth, Wellington!” she snapped, slapping her hands against the desk.

Eliza rose from her chair and got in close to him. She was angry; and as such, she would never bother about his particular physical boundaries. Wellington took in the scent of her perfume. He kept his knees steady and hoped she didn’t notice his jaw twitching slightly.

“Bruce, Maulik, Brandon—I’ll even wager Harry—none of them could have made that shot. Yet you did.” She had been holding on to this since their return to the Ministry, and there was no way she was letting him loose without an answer—that much was plain.

“Yes. Yes, Eliza. I did.” He placed a protective cover over the brains of his portable engine and secured the carrying case. Hefting it off his own desk, he was quite pleased at the balance and lightness of its thirty-five pounds.

“You. An archivist with
basic
field training.”

Wellington shuffled awkwardly past Eliza, crossing to the base of the Archives’ entrance where an open satchel awaited. He placed the packed analytical device beside it and peered inside the second bag. Not much left to pack from the Archives, apart from what waited back at his house.

Then there was the matter of his work-in-progress, but that was something he could complete while in the air. Tonight he’d been able to call in a favour from Brandon Hill, who owed him a few shillings from their bridge games together. His colleague was more than eager to pack and deliver the items that Wellington requested from his workshop.

In fact, that eagerness made him a tad nervous.

“As you may recall,” Wellington said, brushing his hands together, his eyes focusing on his desk, “from the odd conversation between independent investigations and cataloguing properly sanctioned cases of Ministry agents, I have prior experience with the military.”

He attempted to open the main drawer in order to retrieve his new journal. The drawer stopped on hitting Eliza’s rear. Still he gave it a slight tug, hoping the subtle gesture would politely nudge his partner out of the way.

Eliza’s hips shot back, her rear end slamming the drawer shut.

“Since when does the Queen’s Army train its soldiers to shoot like that?”

Go on,
his father whispered to him. Wellington closed his eyes, pushing back the migraine threatening him.
Tell her. Let’s see just how learned this colonial tart of yours is.

“Very well then,” Wellington sighed, sinking into his chair. He looked up at Eliza, a wave of exhaustion wrapping around him. “Eliza, my father was a right bastard. The worst of his kind.”

You ungrateful shit
, his father spat. His temple throbbed with a sudden jolt of pain, but Wellington merely swallowed back the bitterness in his mouth and continued.

“I—” He still couldn’t prove anything about what really happened. At least, he had not found anything yet. “I lost my mother when I was very young. My father preferred occasional companionship versus something more permanent. I was raised, for a time, by my butler and nanny; and then my father decided after his ‘mourning’ to take a more vested interest in my upbringing. He trained me for survival. At least that is how he referred to it. While boys my age were trained in sport and etiquette, I was trained in physical endurance, sharpshooting, and the regimental lifestyle. Hardly befitting a boy at eight years of age, but such was life in the Books manor.”

Eliza took her seat, staring at him as if he were a total stranger. Taking the opportunity, he opened the desk drawer, removed his new journal, and waved it lightly in his hand. “You never know when we might need this, yes?”

“Wellington,” she said softly, but insistently.

He cleared his throat, and continued. “When I served in the African campaigns, I found out just what my father had intended—he wanted me to be his gift to the Crown. I was to be the example of a new breed of soldier. I would take my childhood upbringing and train others in the same manner, only my discipline would be of a different manner.” He laughed dryly. “Ingenious, if you think about it. My father’s legacy would be a new generation of unstoppable killing machines and I would cement a place in proper society with my own contributions. Not that I would be completely comfortable in said proper society, as my skills in mixed company are tenuous at best.”

Eliza chuckled lightly at that. It was not meant as malicious or insensitive. He could see that in her eyes. It was lovely to make her laugh.

“After my service, I decided on a different path for myself, a path my father did not approve of. So here I am, in the Archives, applying the skills I had honed on my own. Without my father’s influence. I called upon many favours owed to my father’s name to bury my test scores and the odd military record or two. Here, I was out of the way. I was out of sight. And I preferred both to what my father intended.”

Wellington stopped. Eliza remained silent. She wanted to know more. He shook his head in disgust, snatching up his journal and tucking it in his coat pocket. He then reached over to Eliza’s side of the desk, glanced at the case summary provided by the Americans, and nodded.

“Right then,” he said, turning back to the analytical engine. His fingers quickly danced across the keys, and the machine awakened, sending puffs of steam in several directions as its wheels spun faster. On the monitor, lines began to slowly appear, forming what he recognised as a map of the Archives.

“No mistakes?” He didn’t look over at Eliza, even when she clicked her tongue. “Really, Mr. Wellington Books, after your speeches about trust and faith in your partner, and yet you live by a different set of standards.”

“I have to,” Wellington said, tracing a path on the screen from where he stood to a tiny
X
blinking somewhere in the 1857 shelves. “It was how I was raised, and the best way to protect you.”

“Protect me?!”

Perhaps Wellington should have thought that statement through before uttering it.

“Eliza, we have a four-day journey ahead of us, and our airship leaves promptly in a matter of hours, and I for one would not care to miss our quickest passage out of London, lest we spend a week at sea.” He gave his desk a final look, glanced at the map, and headed for 1857.

Eliza remained on his heels. “Please tell me: when did I represent myself as some sort of delicate flower in need of protection?” Wellington suddenly felt himself turned on his heels. Eliza had always been stronger than she looked. “Dammit, will you look at me when I talk to you? I have earned that much at least.”

Wellington stared at her a moment before replying. “I beg to disagree. You have earned my respect in what we have accomplished together, but if you believe yourself entitled on account of my deception, I believe you are mistaken. Gravely, I will add.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you on about?”

It was high time to reveal all. Both of them. “Eliza, I will ask this once and only once. Your answer will, in truth, guide me.” He took a deep breath, and adjusted his spectacles, fixing her with a stare. “Were you sent to rescue me in Antarctica?”

When she blinked, he had his answer. Her response, perhaps if it was said in another place at another time, might have made him laugh in its absurdity. “I was sent to retrieve you from the House of Usher.”

“We have only been partners for a year, but I do think you should not take me for a fool, nor should you mince words with me.”

“God damn you, Wellington!”

“He already did, when my mother was taken from me.” The hum of the generators seemed louder than ever. He broke the silence again. “Tell me truthfully—were you sent to rescue me?”

It was impossible to read Eliza’s eyes in the dim lighting, but her posture told him all he needed to know. She was shaking.

“No,” she finally ground out.

Wellington smiled. He didn’t expect to, but he was sincerely relieved. “A spare pair of goggles, and those were your only considerations for someone kidnapped from the Ministry?”

“You suspected?”

“Of course.” Wellington turned back to the terminal for the 1857 aisle and punched in the reference code he had earlier accessed on the engine’s screen. “I’m sure I could have confirmed my suspicions by accessing confidential Ministry records, but that would indeed be a most slippery slope.” A basket lowered from the darkness above, coming to a jerky stop beside them. “I would have rather got the answer from you instead.”

Eliza’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“It would have meant more. Granted, I would have preferred to discuss this under different circumstances, not as we plan for an unscheduled journey to the Americas.” He sighed, turning his attention to the evidence from the Ministry’s previous case. “So, you see, we all had our secrets to keep, didn’t we?”

He felt himself shoved away from the basket. Eliza was approaching some kind of boiling point.

“You have got some polished brass balls!”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You chose to keep your abilities a secret from me when we were investigating these forgotten cases throughout the year when at any time—”

“I am not in the Archives because I was ordered. I
volunteered
, because I did not want to put anyone at risk. Not the Ministry. Certainly, not you.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said punching him hard in the shoulder, “but it would have been jolly nice to have an ace up the sleeve like you!”

Wellington winced, rubbing the spot where she had hit him. Why did she always hit him there? “And then, once it became known in our clandestine circles of my abilities, how many would stop at nothing to recruit me into their ranks? How many would attempt to use you as a ways and means to do so?”

“That’s very sweet of you, but please, there’s no need to fret like a hen over her chicks. I am perfectly capable of protecting the Ministry and its secrets—even you.”