The Policeman of Secrets

Chapter 14 Part 1

Chapter Fourteen

The cellar beneath Bellman’s clock shop was clean and dry, and Balthazar deemed it safe enough to be a temporary refuge for the remaining members of the Workshop of Light.

They had been forced to abandon the all-too-recognizable airship. Mother Cog had found it easily enough, moored over the air station at Edith Gardens. A brief search, and a few coins scattered among the locals, revealed that its crew of three—part of the silk merchant Matthieu’s fleet out of Calais—would habitually spend the night busying themselves with the whores that plied their trade along Bethnal Green Road.

Stealing it was straightforward once the crew left their posts, and the small but adequate vessel provided comfortable transport all the way to Bedlam for her, Bellman, and Penelope. With no cargo, only a pilot was required, and Mother Cog found all her skills returning as soon as she put a hand on the control levers. But the return journey was awful, with Lily bleeding badly and drifting in and out of consciousness and Claymore constantly complaining that they should have helped Solomon.

It was only when they reached their planned destination at a corner of the City Gardens, and Bellman slid down the mooring cable to see Balthazar and Ferdinando waiting with smiles on their faces and a sheaf of documents in hand, that the tension eased a fraction.

However, the smiles were wiped away as Claymore lowered a bloodstained Lily to the ground, and Solomon failed to emerge.

Balthazar took one brief look at the returning group, joined by a dazed Lady Protheroe, and said: “I see your journey was as dangerous as ours. How is Lily, and where is Solomon?”

“I am down, but not finished yet,” murmured Lily. “Solomon, on the other hand... We don’t know where he is.”

As Penelope descended, she looked for some sign of her husband, but Balthazar or Ferdinando did not respond to her gaze. She feared the worst but decided that any news, as terrible as it might be, could wait until they were in friendlier surroundings.

Having shut down the engines, Mother Cog climbed down the cable, leaving the airship drifting. The professor said sadly, “He stayed behind to give us a chance to get away. There was gunfire, and then... I cannot believe she would kill him.” He did not have to explain who “she” was. “He knows too much for them to just let him die.”

“Time to go,” said Mother Cog. “There is no air station round here, so our landing might have caused a stir. Too many people watching.”

“Quite, quite,” said Balthazar. Despite his concerns for Lily and Solomon, and his simmering anger at Parnell’s betrayal, he kept a calm, authoritative tone as he said: “I think Bellman has been careful enough to keep his new shop from the Arcanum’s prying eyes. We will rest there.”

“Rest?” said Lily. “We must rescue Solomon!”

“No, we must stay alive,” responded Balthazar harshly. “If he is no more, we will die useless deaths searching for a corpse. If he is alive, he is presumably somewhere very secure, deep in the bowels of a building that is probably beyond us given the condition we are in.”

An exhausted Lily was silent, but her eyes flashed with disagreement.

Balthazar went on, resolute. “I have come to learn something of Solomon, and if he is still breathing, I know escape will not be impossible for him. When roused, he is quite the daredevil. I doubt he will be prisoner for long.

“We will hear all Lady Protheroe has to say, then Ferdinando and I will tell of Colonel Wolf, the fleet of ships he is building that will sail underwater, and how we swam the width of the Thames like well-dressed fish.”