第 20 页

"Anyway, the word is that North Star Castings is developing a new kind of gun. It's got some polite name, of course—it's called the Hopkinson Self-Regulating Device, or some such—but the name that gets whispered around here is the Steam Gun."

Frederick sat up and took out his pocketbook. He found the scrap of paper on which Jim had written down the words that Nellie Budd had spoken in her trance. He smoothed it out and handed it to Mr. Paton,

who reached for his glasses and tilted the paper to the lamplight to read it.

"It isn't Hopkinsony but they're not to know. . . . The Regulator. . . North Star!. . . a mist all full of fire — steamy and it's packed with death, packed in pipes — steampipes — under the North Star . . /' he read aloud. Then he put the paper down. "Well, if this isn't the strangest thing I ever heard. . . . Now, look, Mr. Garland, I don't know the first thing about guns, I'm glad to say. And as for this Hopkinson thing, well, I can't help you at all—but I can take you to a man who could. Whether he will or not I can't promise. But Henry Waterman's a decent sort of feller, and I know for a fact that he's not happy about what he's helping to make. He was one of those who thought hard before signing on. I think he's wishing now he hadn't done it. He's a Unitarian, Henry; a man of conscience, you might say."

Twenty minutes later Mr. Paton took Frederick into a plain-fronted house that bore a painted sign proclaiming it to be the Workingmen's Literary and Philosophical Institute.

"We've got a fine library here, Mr. Garland," he said. "We have a debate on the second Tuesday of every month and courses of lectures when we can raise a subscription for them. . . . Look, there's Henry Waterman now. Come along and I'll introduce you."

They went into the library, a small room plainly

furnished with a table and half a dozen chairs and lined with shelves containing books on a variety of social and philosophical topics. Mr. Waterman was reading by the light of an oil lamp; he was a heavy, serious-looking man of fifty or so.

"Henry, let me introduce Mr. Garland, from London. He's a detective," said Mr. Paton.

Mr. Waterman stood up to shake hands, and for the second time Frederick went through his story, though this time he shortened it. Mr. Waterman listened attentively. When Frederick finished, he nodded as if he'd just solved a problem.

"Mr. Garland, you've made up my mind for me," he said. "I'm going to break a promise now, but I consider it was a promise they had no right to get. I'll tell you about the Steam Gun.

"It's a weapon on an entirely new principle—new mechanically, new strategically, new in every way. I'm a boilermaker myself; I know nothing about guns, but I can tell you that this one's a horrible thing. I've been working on a system of tubing to feed high-pressure steam into it—the most complicated bit of engineering you ever saw in your life, but lovely drawings, lovely design, really beautiftilly thought out. I never knew, Mr. Garland, that a piece of machinery could be beautifiil and wicked at the same time.

"It's mounted on an ordinary-looking railway carriage, specially reinforced and sprung. The boiler and firebox are at the back of it, fairly small—doesn't have

to pull the train along, after all—but very powerftil. We can reach four hundred pounds per square inch easy; I'd say there was another hundred in reserve. And she burns coke—smokeless, see. You'd never know she was alight.

"Now, you hear the word gun and you think of a long barrel sticking out, don't you? Well, it's not like that. The carriage looks like any ordinary freight carriage, apart from the holes. Tiny little holes—six thousand on each side. Thirty rows, two hundred in a row. And out of each hole come five bullets every second. . . . That's what the steam's for, you see. Can you imagine turning a handle for twelve thousand machine guns at once? It needs every one of those four hundred pounds of steam, Mr. Garland.

"And that's not the end of it. I'm not too familiar with the firing side—getting the steam along the pipes is my job—but from what I've heard, there's a kind of Jacquard mechanism they can bring into play to regulate the firing pattern. I'm sure you've seen the things— a series of cards with holes punched in 'em. They use 'em in weaving, to put patterns in the cloth. Well, with this mechanism the gunner can have one row firing at a time, then the next one down, then the next, and so on; or he can have all the columns firing in turn; or he can fire in blocks, or in short bursts from the whole gun— any way he pleases. Only it doesn't use punched cards, this regulator. It's the same principle, but it's done with electrical connections: lines drawn on a roll of waxed

paper using a dense kind of graphite. I tell you, Mr. \ Garland, the man who designed this is litde short of a| genius. It s the most stunning piece of machinery I ever^ saw in my life. ■

"And it's evil. Its monstrous. Can you imagine the effect on a body of men? Every cubic inch of air within,] oh, five hundred, a thousand yards, filled with a red-hotj bullet? Devastation isn't the word. You'd need something, from the Book of Revelations to describe it. ]

"So that's the Steam Gun. There's one already sent! abroad—I don't know where. There's a second nearly: ready now; another week or two, and it'll be ready toi test. ... So you see, Mr. Garland, why I'm not happy' about it. Sidney here thought harder about this business, than I did, and I wish I'd had the courage to say no, like^ him, at the start. The thought that my skill—and I'mj proud of my skill—that my craftsmanship's been per- \ verted into making something like this; the thought: that my own countrymen are busy helping it into the; world—I tell you, it makes me sick at the heart." i

He stopped and ran his hands through his short,; iron-gray hair before laying them flat on the table on ei-i ther side of his book. Sally'd like this man, Frederick! thought. ,

"Mr. Waterman, I'm extremely grateful. I've got a lotj of things clear now. But what about the management of I the firm? Do you know the name Bellmann?" \

"Bellmann?" Mr. Waterman shook his head. "Can't, say I've ever heard that name. But it's common knowi-

edge there's foreign money in the firm somewhere. Hes a foreigner, is he, this Mr. Bellmann?"

"Swedish. But there's a Russian connection to this as well."

"Russian! Now there's a thing. You remember I mentioned the designer? Said he must be a genius? Well, his name's Hopkinson. That's what we've been told, though no one's seen him. On the drawings we're working from, it's abbreviated to HOP. But it looks odd—almost as though it had been four letters, and they'd scraped off the K And in one place—tucked away, not really visible—I saw this. Here, I'll write it for you." He borrowed Frederick's pencil and wrote:

HOPfl

"Now that last letter isn't a Ky it's a D, Are you familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet, Mr. Garland? I take an interest in languages, or I wouldn't have recognized it. And seeing that as a D made the other letters sort of change themselves in my mind. It's Russian, you see. In our script it'd be this." He wrote:

NORD

"Nordenfels!" said Frederick. "By heaven, Mr. Waterman, you've cracked it!"

"Nordenfels?" said Mr. Waterman.

"A Swedish engineer. Disappeared in Russia. Very

probably murdered. Well, I'm damned. . . . That s won- ! derfiil. And you say they're going to test the new gun in i a week or two?" \

"That's right. They've tested separate systems, such as \ the boiler, obviously, and the cartridge feed, and the i electrical generator, but it's nearly all together now, and ; then they'll take it up to Thurlby for testing. They test j big naval guns up there, on floating targets out at sea i sometimes. ^

"And that's about all I know, Mr. Garland. But now I \ reckon you can tell me something. What's your interest | in this? And what are you going to do about it?" \

Frederick nodded. "Fair questions. I'm a detective, '. Mr. Waterman, and I'm interested in the man behind { all this. Steam guns aren't illegal, as far as I know, but j I'm beginning to see what he's up to, and as soon as I i can pin something on him, I will. But I'll tell you what i I'd like to do with the gun, and that's blow it off the J foce of the earth."

"Hear, hear," said Mr. Paton.

"Well, I could show you—" began Mr. Waterman, but then the door opened and in came another man, carrying a couple of books.

"Oh, beg your pardon, Henry," he said. "Don't mind me, carry on. Evening, Sidney ..."

The other two were slightly thrown, but Frederick said, "And what other facilities does your institute provide, Mr. Waterman?"

"Ah—^yes, Mr. Garland. Well, it grew out of the Co-

operative Society, and the original nucleus was this very library. . . . Some of the books were donated by the Rochdale Corresponding Society. ..."

It was clear that the other man wasn't going to go. In fact, he joined in to tell the history of the place. Frederick soon became aware of two things: first, that they were all very proud of what they'd built up, and deserved to be; and second, that he was growing thirstier by the minute.

After declining an invitation to look over the rest of the building and inspect the accounts of the Cooperative Society (a pleasure he said he'd reserve for his next visit), he said good-bye to Henry Waterman and left— and found himself staring, for no good reason, at a playbill on the wall of the building opposite.

It was getting close to eight o'clock—dark, with a chilly wind and a spot or two of rain—and the gaslights flared in the changing gusts. Windows were lit up, and a warm glow came from the doorway of a nearby pub. Men trudging home from work, or women hurrying to their kitchens with a couple of herrings or a black pudding, made the street look alive, a place of vivid human activity; but something had caught Frederick's eye, and it wasn't this lame horse or that pretty girl or those two boys squabbling over a cap.

One of the names of the playbill had leaped out at him and then retreated coyly again. The Paramount Music Hall—this week—a list of performers: the Great Goldini and His Performing Doves—Mr. David

Fickling, the Lancashire Comedian—Professor Laar, Mesmerist Extraordinary—^Miss Jessie Saxon, the Ebul-hent Songstress—Mr. Graham Chainey, the Cheeky Chappie—

Jessie Saxon.

The old ambrotype—Nellie Budd s sister!

"What's up, Mr. Garland?" said Mr. Paton, seeing Frederick stop, blink, look harder, take off his hat and scratch his head, and finally clap his hat back on and snap his fingers.

"A longing for culture, Mr. Paton. Comes over me in irresistible waves. Care to join me? Where do they keep the Paramount Music Hall?"

Mr. Paton declined, and Frederick thanked him for his help and went alone. The Paramount Music Hall was a comfortable, friendly sort of establishment, though with a shabbiness about it that spoke of decline; and most of the acts on the first half of the bill had declined already. It all lacked luster.

Jessie Saxon occupied a spot in the middle of the second half, between a comedian and a juggler. Frederick felt a shiver of surprise when she came on, because she was so like her sister not only in looks but in manner: vulgar, warm, humorous, a little coarse. She knew how to manage the audience, and they enjoyed it; but there was nothing exciting about her act. A few sentimental songs and a joke or two—familiar stuff; no doubt she

was an old favorite up there, who'd never managed (or never wanted) to succeed in the south.

Frederick sent his compUments to her dressing room and asked if he might buy her a bottle of champagne— an invitation that was accepted at once. And when he appeared at the door, she blinked and started in astonishment.

"Well!" she said. "A young man! Me admirers these days are usually pushing sixty. Come in, love, sit yourself down and tell me all about yourself What am I going to call you? Are you a Johnny, or a Charlie, or what?"

It was amazing: she could have been the same woman—but shadowed; and her good humor, her warm flirtatiousness, were the same as her sisters, but strained. Her costumes were shabby and patched; clearly she was going through a bad time.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I came to see you really because of your sister. Nellie Budd."

Her tyts widened, and she gave a little gasp.

"What's happened?" she said. "Something's happened, hasn't it? I know it has, I know it. . ."

She sat down. Frederick sat, too, and said, "She's in the hospital, I'm afraid. She was attacked by two men yesterday; they knocked her unconscious."

She nodded. She'd gone pale under her makeup.

"I knew it," she said. "I felt it. We were like that—^we used to feel everything the other was feeling—and

yesterday I had the most horrible shock, I can't tell you, a sort of ghastly falling feeling, and I knew something had happened. It were the morning, werent it? About elevenish?"

"As far as I know, yes, it was," said Frederick. "Look, it was silly of me to order champagne. Would you rather have a brandy?"

"I'll drink champagne at anything short of a funeral," she said. "I don't suppose there's any likelihood ..."

"She's holding her own. She's in Guy's Hospital; they're looking after her well. She might have recovered consciousness by now."

"Look, who are you, anyway?" she said. "I don't mean to be rude, but are you a policeman, or what?"

Frederick opened the bottle and explained the background. When he spoke about Nellie Budd's trances, her sister nodded.

"I remember," she said. "I thought there was nothing in it when she took up this spiritualism line. I didn't hold with it—that was one of the reasons we drifted away from each other. We weren't that close recently. Whoever could have done that to her?"

"I think I know who they are, but I don't know why they did it. Look, here's my card. Will you let me know if anything occurs to you?"