The Shadow in the North

  It was getting on for 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 public house. 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 on the playbill had leapt 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 Ebullient 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 the acts on the first half of the bill had most of them declined already. It all lacked lustre.

  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 favourite up here, who'd never managed (or never wanted) to succeed in the south.

  Frederick sent his compliments 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 humour, her warm flirtatiousness, were the same as her sister's, 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 eyes 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 hospital, I'm afraid. She was attacked by two men yesterday. They knocked her unconscious."

  She nodded. She'd gone pale under her make-up.

  "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. I knew something had happened - it were the morning, weren't 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?"

  "I certainly will. I'll work tomorrow night, and then I'll come down and see her - I must do that. I don't care how far apart we were, a sister's a sister, for all that."

  She took the card and tucked it into her bag.

  "By the way," he said, "d'you know a chap called Alistair Mackinnon?"

  Her reaction was immediate.

  "Him!" she said with icy derision. "That little crawling wood-louse. Know him? I should say so. And if he was here now, I'd knock his block off. Mackinnon? Macslimey, if you ask me. Ugh! Is he mixed up in this as well?"

  "Yes. . . But I don't know how. He seems to arouse strong reactions, anyway. I've lost track of him. He ought to know about his mother."

  "His mother?"

  "Your sister. Mrs Budd."

  "What?"

  She stood up suddenly and faced him, her plump frame quivering with anger and astonishment.

  "His mother, did you say? You better explain yourself, my lad. You don't go saying things like that to me without a good explanation."

  Frederick was as taken back as she was. He ran his fingers through his hair before he found anything to say.

  "I'm extremely sorry," he said. "I was under the impression that he was your sister's son. He said so himself."

  "He said that? The little demon. Where is he now? My God, I've a mind to go and tear him limb from limb. How dare he! How dare he!"

  She sat down again, pale and trembling with anger. Frederick poured her some champagne.

  "Here," he said. "Drink this before the bubbles disappear. What is the connection between your sister and Mackinnon?"

  "Can't you tell?" she said bitterly.

  He shook his head.

  "Just like a man. They were lovers, of course. Lovers! And I -" She collapsed suddenly into tears. "And I was in love with him too. Like a fool."

  Frederick sat amazed. Jessie Saxon blew her nose, dabbed her eyes, sipped angrily at the champagne, coughed, choked and wailed aloud. Frederick put his arms around her; it seemed the only sensible thing to do. She leant against him and sobbed, while he stroked her hair and gazed around the shabby, narrow little dressing-room, with its cracked mirror and faded curtains; with the case of make-up on the dressing-table and the oil-lamp flaring smokily beside it. . . It might be a cosy place if you had someone to share it with; or an exciting place if you were starting on the stage. But it must be a terribly lonely place if you were Jessie Saxon. He held her close and kissed her gently on the forehead.

  When she'd recovered, she pushed him away softly and dabbed at her eyes again with little angry movements, before laughing a short, rueful laugh.

  "Forty-four years old, and sobbing like a girl. . . And we quarrelled over him. Can you imagine it? Oh, it's so humiliating now. . . Well, we're all fools when it comes to love. Wouldn't be human otherwise - we'd be machines, or horses, or something. I don't know. What were you asking, love?"

  "About Mackinnon in general. He's . . . a client of mine." He sat up; they were side by side on a hard little sofa. He leant across to pour her some more champagne. "He also claimed that Lord Wytham was his father. Is that a lie as well?"

  "Old Johnny Wytham?" She laughed more genuinely. "He's got a bloody cheek. Mind you - that could be true. He. . . Oh dear, I can't think straight yet."

  She looked at herself in the mirror, made a face, and patted her hair into shape. Frederick prompted her gently.

  "Lord Wytham?" he said.

  "Oh yes. You must think me a fool, carrying on like this. . . You really want to know about Alistair? Well, he lied to me often enough, but one thing he never altered: he was
the illegitimate son of a lord. So it could be true, for what it's worth."

  "And you knew Lord Wytham, did you?"

  "Used to in the old days. He used to run around with Nellie, but I'm certain she never had a child. Damn it, I'd know, wouldn't I? We were that close. . . He's a politician now, I'm told. Is he mixed up in this as well?"

  "Yes, but I'm damned if I know how. Nor does your sister."

  "I wouldn't bet on it," she said, and helped herself to another glass.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You'd probably find out if you went up and asked around in Carlisle," she said. "That's where I last saw her, and where we quarrelled. . . Last year. Only last year."

  "What was she doing there?"

  "Oh, this silly spiritualism lark. There was a circle, or a league, of the idiots in Carlisle, you see, and she was asked up there and I was playing nearby and that insect Mackinnon was playing a little town near Dumfries. I found out that Nellie was keeping him. Can you imagine! He hadn't perfected his art - his art, he calls it - and he kept breaking engagements. Well, theatre managers won't stand for that, and rightly. So he was on his uppers, and Nellie stepped in and. . . That's it, really. A little place called Netherbrigg - just over the border."

  "Is that anywhere near Wytham's estate?"

  "Yes, it's not far. But I hadn't seen him for years, and nor had Nellie. He married, you see, and stopped gadding about the music-halls. What was her name now. . . Lady Louisa Something. . . Big landowners. Graphite mines."

  "Graphite?" Frederick sat up.

  "Something like that. What is graphite?"

  "They make pencils with it. . ." And Steam Guns, he thought, but he didn't mention that. Instead, he let her talk as she liked; she was a garrulous soul, and was obviously glad of his company. He learnt little more of interest to his inquiry. But about her own life she was eloquent; funny and vivid and scandalous, and when he'd finished laughing he said, "Jessie, you ought to write your memoirs."

  "There's a thought," she said. "But would they print 'em?"

  They agreed about the unlikelihood of that, and parted fast friends. And before Frederick got into his cold bed at the Railway Hotel, he got out a map and looked for Dumfries and Carlisle and Thurlby, where the firing range was. Not far away, really. A morning's train ride, perhaps; and where was Wytham's estate? Not marked. Or was that it? And as for graphite. . . Lady Wytham's family. . . Bellmann. . . Poor old Nellie. Poor Jessie too. Both in love with Mackinnon. What the devil had he got to make all these women starry-eyed? Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary. But Sally hadn't taken to him. Sensible girl. Thurlby. . . Go there in the morning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SCOTS LAW

  Sally spent the rest of Thursday in her office, dealing with business, and first thing on Friday morning, she went to the Patent Library.

  It was in the Great Seal Patent Office, just off Chancery Lane; a large building like a museum, with a high glass roof and cast-iron galleries all the way round. Sally had been there before, in connection with a client who'd wanted to invest all his money in an invention for making a new kind of sardine-tin; she'd been able to show him that it wasn't as new as he'd thought, and persuade him to buy government stocks instead.

  She began her search by looking in the Alphabetical Index of Patentees for anything under the name of Hopkinson. She started with the volume for 1870, feeling that there was unlikely to be anything relevant earlier. She found nothing there, but in the 1871 volume there was listed a patent for steam engines under the name J. Hopkinson.

  Was that it, then? Surely she wouldn't find it as quickly as that? After all, Hopkinson wasn't an uncommon name, and there were patents dealing with steam engines on every page of the index, as she saw from glancing through it.

  She made a note and turned to the next volume. There was nothing in 1872, but in 1873 and 1874 J. or J.A. Hopkinson had registered two more patents for steam boilers. There was nothing else up to the present. Out of interest, she looked up Nordenfels, but found nothing.

  She went to the desk and filled out a slip requesting the Hopkinson specifications, and while she was waiting, looked up Garland in the alphabetical index for 1873. There he was: Garland, F.D.W., 1358, May 20, Photographic lens. She had made him patent it when she first began to look after the finances of the firm. It hadn't brought him in any money yet, but the patent would run for another nine years; there'd be time to get it into production, if she could find someone with an interest in manufacturing it. She found herself looking forward to it, to dealing with businessmen and managers and investors again. Something enterprising, something clean and open and honest after all this murk and cruelty! Fred could deal with the technical side that he was so good at, and she'd look after the finance, the planning, the marketing. . .

  But he might not want to. "Finish this case, and then we'll call it a day," he'd said. He meant their friendship, as well as anything deeper; his expression had told her that. Would he feel like taking up a new kind of partnership? She doubted it, somehow.

  She looked around at the men - lawyers' clerks, most of them, she guessed, and one or two private inventors - busily leafing through bound volumes or scratching away with steel pens at the rows of library desks. She was the only woman in the building, and that had brought her some curious looks, but she was used to that. They were careful men, competent, steady and reliable, and she had no doubt of their ability and their usefulness - but Frederick outshone them like the sun. There was no comparison, any more than there was with that flimsy wraith Mackinnon. Fred was incomparable. She had no doubt now about how she felt: she loved him. She always would.

  And he'd said she was unlikeable. . .

  "Miss Lockhart?" It was the man from the desk. "The specifications you requested are ready, miss."

  She took the blue booklets and sat at a desk to read them. Each contained a set of folded drawings and a description of the invention. The first was headed:

  LETTERS PATENT to John Addy Hopkinson of Huddersfield, in the County of York, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM BOILERS AND IN APPARATUS TO BE USED THEREWITH", sealed the 5th June 1874, and dated the 24th December 1873.

  She began to read, but it was soon clear that this wasn't the machine Bellmann wasmaking in the North Star works. Nor were the others: a new kind of moving grate for conveying fuel to the firebox of a steam engine, a new design of boiler. . . Innocuous. This was the wrong Hopkinson.

  She took the booklets back to the desk, and asked, "Is there an index classified by subject? Suppose I wanted to look up all the patents concerned with firearms manufacture, for instance, how would I do that?"

  "There is a subject index, yes, miss. But the printed index for those years is away at the binder's. If you wanted to look something up you'd have to search through the written slips. Was there something in particular you were looking for?"

  "Yes, there was, but. . ." Another thought occurred to her. "You keep foreign patents here, don't you?"

  "Yes, indeed, miss."

  "Russian ones?"

  "Certainly. In the section over there, under the gallery."

  "Is there a translation service, by any chance?"

  "I'll see if Mr Tolhausen is free. Could you wait a moment?"

  He went into the office behind, and she thought through what she wanted to find out. If Nordenfels had patented an invention in Russia, there'd be a record of it here. But there was nothing to prevent anyone exploiting a foreign invention in Britain if there wasn't a British patent for it; so even if Bellmann were doing that, he'd be breaking no law. On the other hand, if she could prove that Bellmann had stolen the idea. . .

  "Mr Tolhausen, Miss Lockhart."

  The translator was a dignified gentleman in his forties who betrayed not the slightest surprise to find a young woman making technical inquiries. She warmed to him at once, and explained her quest. He listened courteously.

  "We shall start with the alphabetical index," he said. "Norden
fels. . . Arne Nordenfels. Here is a patent, dated 1872, for a safety-valve for steam boilers. Another here in the same year for improvements in circulating high-pressure steam. In 1873 we have. . ."

  He stopped. He was turning the page back and forth, frowning.

  "There is a page missing," he said. "Look. It has been carefully cut out."

  Sally felt her heart beating fast. "It's the page with Nordenfels on it?"

  Her eyes could make nothing of the unfamiliar script, but she could see the neatly trimmed edge where the leaf had been cut.

  "Could you look in the following year?" she said.

  He did so. Again there was a page missing at the place where Nordenfels would have appeared. Mr Tolhausen came as close as his dignity would allow him to being outraged.

  "I shall report this at once. I have never known such a breach of regulations. It is most distressing. . ."

  "Before you do, could you check the next couple of years for me? And the subject index?"

  He checked the subject index for each year under both steam engines and armaments, which took some time, since both subjects had long entries. Altogether they found seven patents for steam engines in the name of Nordenfels, but in the armaments section for 1872 and 1873 Mr Tolhausen found more pages missing.

  "Yes, they are the pages for Nordenfels," he said. "But the index is cross-referenced. One moment. . ."

  He turned back to the steam engines section, and nodded. "Aha," he said. "Here is a patent for the application of steam power to machine-guns. And here is one for a steam-powered gun to be mounted on a railway carriage. But the number of the patent is on the armaments page, which is missing. This is outrageous. I must apologize to you, Miss Lockhart, for the failure of supervision - clearly someone has managed to cut these pages out without being noticed - it is extremely annoying. I must thank you for bringing the matter to my attention. . ."

  Sally thanked him for his help, noted the dates and numbers of those patents there was a record of, and turned to go. Before she left a thought struck her, and she took out the alphabetical index of British patents again. If Bellmann were going to make any money from this thing, wouldn't the patent have to be registered in his name?

  And there it was. In the 1876 volume she found:

  Bellmann, A., 4524, Steam-powered Gun drawn on Railway Carriage.