Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘They can’t all be sea-bishops across there,’ said Sadly. ‘They don’t have the bleeding numbers to impersonate everyone, says I.’

Dick cradled the heft of the Court’s heavy gas rifle. It was a queer-looking weapon, but it’d plough a furrow through anyone standing between him and the master of the board. ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s an execution warrant out on the both of us. If there’s dustmen inside the arch, they’ll cut our throats first and ask questions later. Won’t have time to separate intentions inside there.’

‘Well then, Mister Tull, some good men are likely to die for a misguided cause.’

Sadly’s rodent-like features were darting about and he looked like he was ready to sprint out to the cover of the nearest building, but Dick laid a hand on the Court agent’s shoulder. ‘We’re not going to run up to the front and shake scullery windows looking for a way in. If it’s an assault you’re after, we could’ve landed that aerostat of yours on the roof and kicked in a skylight.’

‘How then?’

‘I don’t know what trade-craft they taught you in the Court, but me, I was taught by good old Sergeant Childers back in the day. I’d say he was a grim old bugger, except I think I’ve turned into him.’ Dick led Sadly down the narrow passage and into a small square off the side. There was an oblong of grass bounded by seats on four sides, the kind of place clerks and clackers would come during their lunch to sit and stare at the prestigious volume of pigeon droppings painting the marble statues lining the path. ‘Always good for a lesson, was Childers, and a kicking if his education didn’t stick in the head of the young fools palmed off onto him to train.’ Dick approached a life-sized statue of a man clutching the pommel of a great sword with two mailed hands. He eased himself behind it enough to slip his fingers towards a shadow on the statue’s back, twisting his hand around an awkward angle to reach inside the hidden shelf — feeling for the cobweb-ridden rusting lever he had once been shown. ‘Lessons like never enter somewhere you haven’t located the back door.’ As Dick twisted the lever, the statue ground forward on its plinth, revealing a square well with a metal ladder riveted into the shaft. ‘And a back door can be a front door too, when you don’t want to be seen going in.’ Maybe I would have shown it to that young oaf William before I’d retired. Not that Billy-boy would’ve listened. He hadn’t thought there was much that Dick knew worth the passing on.

Climbing down into it, the shaft led to a narrow tunnel, a ceiling low enough they both had to stoop. Dim shafts of light emerged from vents intended for ventilation and there was a layer of dust thick enough to indicate the tunnel hadn’t been used in quite a time. Sergeant Childers had been right about this, but then the sod had been old school. It was a depressing thought to Dick, but now, so was he. As long as you didn’t count getting ahead in the board, there were quite a few tricks and skills he would be taking with him unpassed when he left. Plenty about doing the job right. Not that effectiveness counted for much among the quality that ran the civil service. Being in the appropriate place to take credit with the right accent was more important to preferment than anything so grubby as consistently getting results. That was what the proletariat was for. But if Dick lived through this, if he got this job right… they won’t be able to steal the credit for this result. Rooting out conspiracy within the board; nobs like Walsingham not just exposed as enemy agents, but revealed as abhuman. The state had awarded large discretionary pensions to fools for far less than Dick was attempting to do.

There was another vertical shaft at the end of the narrow corridor, a claustrophobic climb up into the bowels of Victory Arch, then a series of horizontal passages branching out which the two of them had to traverse crawling on all fours. Built into the floor at irregular intervals were little wooden flaps that could be lifted up, revealing small eyeholes giving onto the rooms below. When it came to tradecraft, you had to forget what you read in penny-dreadfuls and saw on the stage. No self-respecting spy would order a builder to construct a surveillance hole in a wall, much less behind the eyes of a strategically placed oil painting. Marks waiting in a room would get bored, would look around — and wandering eyes were quick to spot little flickers of movement on supposedly static surfaces. But a ceiling? Nobody looked up at ceilings; crane a neck for too long and all you were going to get for your trouble was a neck ache. And sounds, they carried up quite naturally — just ask anyone in the slum tenements of the rookeries about how noisy their neighbours were. Of course, sound carried down too, which is why the dusty passage Dick was squeezing through was lined with a stretch of cork across its floor and walls.

Dick was in the lead and he laid down his gentleman’s cane and indicated to Sadly that they should halt, taking the time to lift the wooden flap off a surveillance hole. It proved to be a good spot, right above a chandelier, the top of which had a hidden ring of mirrors around the crystals, giving angled views of the entire chamber below. There were glass cases containing old swords, armour and a variety of personal items that had belonged to prominent parliamentarians centuries ago. They were still above the public part of the arch, where the idle and curious could pay a penny or two to gawk at the faded glories of the monarchist’s defeat. He closed the flap. They continued on their way, ignoring the hatches in the passage’s roof that would lead up into concealed entrances inside the apartments. Dick had been here twice before, inside the arch, not its hidden passages. Both times when he was starting out in his career with the board, bearing official document pouches for the head to peruse and sign. From what Dick could see of the rooms through the surveillance holes, they hadn’t changed much in all those years. Burnt larch panelling, antiques on display, the occasional night watchman patrolling with a gas-fed lantern and a belted cutlass. The private apartments above were much the same, except the watchmen were board officers. Far too many of them for a normal night’s duty in this place; far too alert and well armed.

Dick lowered the wooden flap on the surveillance hole. ‘They really don’t want any bugger getting in to see the head.’

‘Then they’re due a disappointment, says I.’

‘Sergeant Childers told me the head’s private rooms have an escape hole. He’s up top, we have to climb another two storeys.’

‘Let’s be about it, then, eh, Mister Tull.’

It was slow, careful work. Dick hoped that Monoshaft would be able to squeeze though these passages on the way down. They had been built in an age before the old steamer had taken charge of the board’s resources. They reached the staff quarters below the head’s private apartments, and surveying the corridors, Dick spotted Corporal Cloake sitting at a table in the main corridor, a number of burly-looking men lounging about, some playing cards next to a pile of coins. Dick lifted his cane up and made to activate the sea-bishop detection mechanism, but Sadly tugged on the cane to stop him.

‘Don’t be wasting its charge,’ whispered Sadly. ‘That one’s got to be one of them. He was at Tock House when they came for us.’

‘You’re right, some of the guards too, probably.’ But not all of them, or I doubt if they’d be playing cribbage on the table.

Sadly pulled the gas gun slung across Dick’s back. ‘This’ll sort ’em out, either way. Come on.’

Dick was about to shut the surveillance flap when a figure walked down the corridor and the sergeant had to stifle his reaction. Jethro Daunt. It was one thing to know at the back of your mind that people like Cloake and Walsingham had been murdered and replaced by doppelgangers — Walsingham had never seemed particularly human to him in the first place. But to actually see one of the sea-bishops mimicking a man Dick knew was presently hundreds of miles away on the Isla Furia sent a waterfall of chills crawling down his spine.