eSteampunk Vol. 01 No. 01 Page 2

  * * *

  An hour later, the bos’n approached Caulfield where he leant on the aft rail, staring back at the ship’s wake, marbled ruby from the setting sun ahead of the ship.

  “Asleep?” he asked.

  Caulfield nodded.

  “I dunno how you can work for that man,” said the bos’n, joining him at the rail. “ ‘Tis unnat’ral, shooting a man in cold blood like that.”

  Caulfield sighed. “He did not shoot at the man, just the boat. The oarsman merely happened to get in the way of the bullet.”

  “Same thing, though, innit?”

  “It amounts to the same indeed, Mr. Bos’n.”

  “There’s sharks in these waters,” continued the mariner.

  “And now that village has no sea-going boat to fish in,” added Caulfield.

  “And all for a bit o’ stone!”

  “Not just any stone, that is the largest rainbow sapphire known to Man,” said Caulfield.

  “Is it valu’ble?”

  “Priceless,” said Caulfield. “But this expedition is not about the stone’s value.”

  The bos’n turned to stare at the manservant but didn’t speak.

  “Mister Stent has an, er, appreciation of such gems beyond that of most men,” said Caulfield.

  “And that is worth a man’s life?”

  Caulfield also turned to face the stocky sailor.

  “To Alaric Stent, it is. And I’ll thank you to remember that it is Mister Stent who is paying for the services of this ship and your crew.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away, his face averted so the bos’n could not observe the frustration in his eyes.

  Back at the cabin, he entered quietly so his snoring master would not be awakened, and laid his own bedding out on the deck.

  * * *

  January, 1881

  London

  “Who is it, Caulfield?”

  “I’ll just find out, sir,” said the manservant, crossing the hall towards the front door, which he opened to find a thin man standing outside, his collar turned up and his hat brim pulled down as if to hide his narrow features.

  “Is Stent ‘ere?” asked the stranger.

  “Mister Stent is indisposed. Who may I say is calling?” asked Caulfield.

  In response, the caller laughed and shouted, “Tell ‘im I ‘ave news of a gem stone he ain’t never ‘eard of. ‘E’ll be a lot less indisposed when he ‘ears what I ‘ave to tell ‘im!”

  “I’m afraid I will have to have a name by which to announce you,” replied Caulfield. But he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him even as he spoke.

  “Let the man enter and state his business,” said Stent. His manservant stood to one side, sniffing audibly as the stranger’s dirty coat brushed against the clean front door.

  “I ‘ave ‘eard tell of a gem stone you’ve …” began the stranger.

  “Yes, yes. We heard that!” snapped Stent. “What makes you think I want to hear about this?”

  “You’re Stent, ain’t ya?” he asked. “The man wot went to Africa for that big blue stone?”

  “I am indeed Alaric Stent and yes, I did collect the Angel’s Sapphire from Africa,” he replied.

  “An’ you collect all sort of pretty stones like that?”

  Stent didn’t answer, but stepped down from the stair.

  “I ‘ave news of a stone for you,” continued the stranger.

  “And… ?” prompted Stent, now visibly impatient with the conversation.

  The thin-faced man turned to Caulfield. “And your man didn’t even want to announce me!”

  The manservant’s face twisted at the strong smell of ale on the man’s breath. When the stranger turned back to Stent, Caulfield raised an eyebrow at his master, but was ignored.

  “And what is this stone?” asked Stent, his voice dry as a desert.

  “It’s called the Chrystal Vee-talis,” he said. “It’s rarer than any blue stone an’ comes from much farther away than Africa.”

  “If you’re talking about the Crystal Cave in Xihuahua then I already have a man negotiating for one. They are large, it is true, but I believe them to be nothing more than common selenite in composition.”

  “The what? I don’t know about no cave in Chee-whatever,” said the stranger. “I’m talking about the Chrystal Veetalis wot was in the Great Exhibition.”

  Stent suddenly looked interested. “The Tibetan one? I’ve heard of it, of course. They claimed it had magical powers, didn’t they?”

  “So I ‘ear, sir. Them Tibetans say it give immortal life to ‘im ‘oo owns it.”

  “Poppycock, of course. I am constantly amazed by the legends primitive minds will believe,” said Stent. “But it went back to Tibet after the Exhibition and no-one’s been able to trace it since.”

  “That’s not true, sir. The chrystal stayed in London … an’ I know the name of the lady wot ‘as it.”

  “And what do you want for this information?” asked Stent.

  “Well, the ship’s bos’n said you’d pay ‘andsomely for me time.”

  “The bos’n? How do you know the bos’n?” asked Caulfield.

  The ferrety man turned back to him. “Let’s just say we met in passin’.”

  “In the dockside tavern, I expect,” said Caulfield.

  “An’ what if it was? There’s no ‘arm in an ‘onest working man spending an ‘our in good company at the Mermaid Inn!” said the man in the dirty coat.

  “More than an hour,” murmured Caulfield.

  “I’ll give you two guineas for your trouble,” said Stent.

  “Five,” snapped the stranger.

  “Five guineas? I don’t believe your information is worth that much.”

  The stranger folded his arms, leaning back against the closed front door.

  “Caulfield, fetch me five pounds from my study,” said Stent.

  “Pounds, sir?” he asked.

  Stent just glared at his manservant, who went to fetch the money. He turned to the little man.

  “Her name?” he asked.

  “Money first,” muttered the dirty stranger.

  “Name first. And be grateful I don’t set the police on you for extortion!”

  Caulfield arrived with five crisp pound notes in his hand. He passed them to his master without comment and stood ready to open the front door. Stent held them up, fanned.

  “Her name?”

  “Carstairs. Philomena Carstairs,” said the ferret-faced man, snatching for the cash.

  “And where does she live?” asked Stent, holding the money close to his chest.

  “I dunno the address. It’s one of them streets near the Gardens — where the Exhibition was ‘eld.”

  “And what does she do, this Philomena Carstairs?” asked Stent.

  “She don’t do nuffin’,” he replied. “She’s a lady.”

  “So … Lady Philomena Carstairs. And she lives near Kew Gardens? Shouldn’t be too difficult to find her,” said Stent.

  He handed over the notes and smiled contemptuously. The thin-faced man dived through the door when the manservant re-opened it.

  “Caulfield? Tell Mr. Wolfenden we have a clean-up job for him at the Mermaid Inn,” said Stent as he climbed the stairs back to his study. “And then send him up to see me — we have a lady to find.”

  * * *

  “Lady Philomena Carstairs?” asked Stent, his most obsequious smile plastered to his face.

  “I am she,” allowed the tall figure in a dark green riding jacket and divided skirt.

  “Please forgive the intrusion, I am Alaric Stent. Could I have a brief word with your Ladyship?”

  “About… ?” she prompted
him.

  “I wish to discuss a business matter that may be of great advantage to both of us,” he replied.

  “I am sorry, Mr. … er … Stent. I am not interested in business matters. Good day to you, sir.” She made to step past him, but he blocked her path.

  “It is a simple matter of my purchasing something from you,” he said.

  “I am not in the habit of selling my possessions to men who accost me in the street,” she retorted.

  “I would be willing to pay a very large sum of money for it,” he persisted.

  “Really? And what might I have in my possession that you would be so interested in?”

  Seeing her hesitate, he pushed his advantage.

  “A trifling matter, your ladyship. I believe the Tibetan Chrystal Vitalis is in your ownership… ?”

  Her dark eyes flashed a warning he failed to respect.

  “The chrystal is not for sale!” she snapped.

  “Oh, come, your Ladyship. Everything is for sale … and I have considerable means at my disposal.”

  She drew herself to her full height and stepped closer, forcing him to back away in order to look her in the face.

  “I know you now, Mr. Stent,” she almost spat his name at him. “One of the Manchester Stent family, new money and no breeding. Hundreds of employees slaving around the clock in your godforsaken mill towns, where the smoke darkens the sun and children drop dead from exhaustion before they reach the age of ten. I would not sell the

  chrystal to you even if it were for sale.”

  She paused to take a breath and tapped him briskly on the chest with the handle of her umbrella.

  “The chrystal is not to be bought or sold, sir. And no person of any breeding would even offer you a glass of water were you dying of thirst like those poor slaves you call workers!”

  With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

  * * *

  Three days later, Wolfenden checked his pistol and slowly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, careful not to make a sound. His two men waited in the alleyway opposite, similarly still and silent. Footsteps sounded down the lamplit street to his left, the clicking of a woman’s heels as the wearer hurried home. He held his breath as she drew level with his hiding place and then rushed out, sweeping a blanket over her head and bustling her away into the alley.

  Before she had chance to catch her breath, they wrestled her to the ground and Wolfenden leant his arm against her throat.

  “Quiet!” he hissed, pushing his pistol against the blanket over her face. One man drew a length of rope around her, tying her arms to her sides and securing the blanket.

  She struggled, trying to draw breath against the dusty material, and Wolfenden bent his face to her ear.

  “Now listen,” he hissed. “There’s someone wants to speak with you. He’s told me to bring you in alive, but he didn’t say I couldn’t rough you up a little. So if you want to reach him in one piece, you’d better not scream. Got that?”

  The head in the blanket nodded, just once, and he stood up.

  A hackney cab drew up, another of Wolfenden’s men at the reins.

  “Get her in,” he said, and the other two men lifted her inside. The driver whipped the horse into motion.

  * * *

  “Remove the blanket,” snapped Stent. Caulfield lifted the fabric away from their captive. She sat on the only chair in the centre of a windowless attic room, her wrists bound behind her. A washstand stood against one wall and a cot bed with a thin mattress under the gaslight opposite.

  Philomena shook her head to move her hair away from her face, dirtied by the dusty material.

  “Stent!” she said. Her voice dripped with the contempt of a lady for a man who would treat her so rudely.

  “Lady Carstairs,” he replied, with a mocking half-bow. “I’m so pleased you deigned to accept my invitation.”

  “Your thuggees did not give me much choice,” she replied. “Are you so unwelcome in polite society that you need to kidnap ladies in such a manner?”

  “Oh, tut,” he replied. “And I thought the upper classes were so well-mannered.”

  “If you would untie my hands, I would be most happy to demonstrate for you the proper response of a Lady who has been treated in so uncouth a fashion!”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he chided. “You don’t need your hands free to give me the answer to a simple question.”

  She struggled briefly with the rope that held her hands behind her back, then glared up at her captor.

  “I told you the first time we met,” she said evenly. “I will neither give nor sell you anything!”

  He walked slowly around her chair and stopped, facing her.

  “Ah, but you will. All I require from you is the location of the Chrystal Vitalis of Tibet. And for that I can give you back your liberty.”

  “I cannot give you the chrystal, no matter what threats you make against me,” she replied.

  “Then you will stay here until you change your mind,” he stated. “Caulfield, Lady Carstairs will be our guest for a few days. Please make sure she has everything she needs.”

  With that he stood, turned, and left, slamming the door behind him.

  Philomena looked up at Caulfield, where he stood, uncertain.

  “You are his manservant, I presume?”

  He nodded.

  “And he expects you to keep me here for days. Have you ever held anyone captive before?”

  Caulfield shook his head.

  “Have you ever accommodated a lady guest in this house?”

  Once again, the manservant indicated that he had not.

  “And he expects you to keep my hands tied? For days?”

  “Um,” said Caulfield.

  “How does he expect me to feed myself? Or do anything else?” she asked.

  Caulfield flushed. “I doubt he has thought of such matters,” he said.

  “Surely it would make more sense to just keep me locked in here — there is no exit except the door you came in by, is there? And you can keep that secured by means of its key.”

  Caulfield gathered his wits enough to answer properly this time.

  “This is not a prison, merely a maid’s attic. I am certain it will not suffice to prevent your escape.”

  Philomena sighed.

  “I give you my word that I will not try to escape if you will agree to leave my hands unbound whilst I am locked in here.”

  “I do not believe that Mister Stent will agree to that arrangement,” he said, hesitantly.

  “Which is because he is not a gentleman himself!” she snapped.

  Caulfield was momentarily taken aback, but then he looked thoughtful.

  “That may be, but would you agree to my tying your hands again when he is due to visit with you?”

  She glared at him, her dark eyes flashing green in the gas light.

  He continued. “In return, I give you my word that I would release you again; but he will never accept that you could be trusted.”

  “But you do?”

  Caulfield bowed. “I know a Lady when I meet one; I trust that you will honour your word once you have given it.”

  “You have not always been in the employ of Mister Stent, I presume?”

  “I was in service to the oldest son of the family whose house was taken over by Mister Stent’s father. The household staff were part of the deal and we were sold along with the roof over our heads,” he explained.

  “’Taken over’?” she asked.

  “The senior Mr. Stent took their home in payment when they could not repay the loan he’d made and their crops failed. It was a most unpleasant business.”

  Philomena thought for a moment, the
n looked him in the eye and said, “Before me.”

  “I’m sorry, my Lady?”

  “You may bind my hands, but they must be in front of me. I will not submit to their being bound behind me again.”

  He smiled and bowed deeply. “As my Lady wishes.”

  He stepped behind her and began to untie the rope that bound her wrists.

  “And how long will he keep me here?” she asked.

  “Until you give him the gem that he wants. He will never give up when he decides that he wants something.”

  “Then we have a problem, for I cannot part with the chrystal as long as I live.”

  * * *

  The following morning, Caulfield brought breakfast and tied her hands in front of her before leaving, explaining that his master would want to speak with her. As he had predicted, he returned not ten minutes later, opening the door and holding it open for Stent to enter. Philomena sat in the wooden chair facing the door, her hands in her lap.

  “Mister Stent,” she greeted him.

  He did not acknowledge the salutation, but came to stand over her.

  “Will you now tell me where you have hidden the Chrystal Vitalis?”

  She stood, unfolding herself gracefully and looking down at him, taller by a hand’s span.

  “I will tell you where the chrystal is, but the knowledge will not aid you. You cannot ever take it from me.”