William Gibson - The Difference Engine

"Some might say it was your patriotic duty. That you did it for the interests of England."

"I suppose so," Mallory said, shaking himself, "but it's a great relief to speak out on the matter, after so long a silence."

Fraser did not seem much impressed by the story. Mallory surmised it was an old and tiresome tale to Inspector Fraser of the Special Branch, or perhaps a mere fragment of larger and more shadowy misdoings. But Fraser did not pursue the matter of politics; he confined himself to the facts of crime. "Tell me about the first attack on your own person."

"That came at the Derby. I saw a veiled lady within a hired cab, treated dreadfully by a man and woman, whom I took to be criminals—the woman being one Florence Russell Bartlett, as I presume you know?"

"Yes. We are searching most vigorously for Mrs. Bartlett."

"I could not identify her male companion. But I may have overheard his name: 'Swing.' Or 'Captain Swing.' "

Fraser seemed a touch surprised. "Did you tell that fact to Mr. Oliphant?"

"No." Mallory, feeling himself on thin ice, said nothing more.

"Perhaps that's just as well," Fraser said, after a thoughtful pause. "Mr. Oliphant's a bit fanciful at times, and 'Captain Swing' is quite a famous name in conspiracy; a mythical personage, much like 'Ned Ludd,' or 'General Ludd.' The Swing bands were Luddites of the countryside, years ago. Arsonists mostly, rick-burners. But in the Time of Troubles, they grew savage, and killed a deal of the landed gentry, and burned down their fine mansions."

"Ah," said Mallory. "Do you think this fellow is a Luddite, then?"

"There are no more Luddites," Fraser said calmly. "They're as dead as your dinosaurs. I rather suspect some mischievous antiquary. We have this fellow's description, we have our methods—when we take him, we'll quiz him on his taste in false identities."

"Well, this fellow's certainly no rural laborer—he's some sort of Frenchified race-track dandy. When I defended the lady, he went for me with a stiletto! Nicked me in the leg. I suppose I'm lucky that the blade was not venomed."

"Perhaps it was," Fraser said. "Most poisons are far less potent than the public supposes… "

"Well, I knocked the rascal down, and drove them off from their victim. The tout swore twice that he would kill me. 'Destroy' me, was the word he used… Then I realized that the lady could be only Lady Ada Byron. She began to talk in a very strange manner—as if drugged, or frightened witless… She begged me to escort her to the Royal Enclosure, but as we approached the Royal Box, she escaped me by a trick—without so much as a word of thanks for my pains."

Mallory paused, fingering the contents of his pockets. "I suppose that's the gist of the matter, sir. Shortly after, I won a good deal of money, wagered on a steam-gurney built by a friend of mine. He gave me very useful information, and it changed me in a moment from a modest scholar to a man of means." Mallory tugged his beard. "Great as that change has been, it seemed much the lesser wonder at the time."

"I see." Fraser walked on silently. They approached Hyde Park Corner, where men stood on soap-boxes, haranguing the crowd and coughing. Fraser and Mallory fell silent as they walked among the clumped and skeptical listeners.

They crossed the frantic crackling bustle of Knightsbridge, Mallory waiting for Fraser to speak, but the policeman said nothing. At the tall iron gates of Green Park, Fraser turned and watched the street behind them for a long moment. "We can cut short through Whitehall," he said at last. "I know a back way."

Mallory nodded. He followed Fraser's lead.

At Buckingham Palace, the guard was changing. The Royal Family, as was their habit, were summering in Scotland, but the elite Brigade of Guards carried out the daily ritual in the Queen's absence. The Palace troops proudly marched in the very latest and most efficient British military gear, dun-colored Crimean battle-garb, scientifically spattered to deceive the enemy eye. The clever fabric had utterly confused the Russians, by all accounts. Behind the marchers, a team of artillery horses towed a large military calliope, its merry piping and rousing drones sounding strangely forlorn and eerie in the still, foul air.

Mallory had been waiting for Fraser to reach a conclusion. At last he could wait no longer. "Do you believe I met Ada Byron, Mr. Fraser?"

Fraser cleared his throat, and spat discreetly. "Yes, sir, I do. I don't much like the matter, but I don't see much to marvel at in it."

"You don't?"

"No, sir. I believe I see the root of it, clear enough. It is gambling-trouble. Lady Ada has a Modus."

"A Modus—what is that?"

"It is a legend in sporting circles, Dr. Mallory. A Modus is a gambling-system, a secret trick of mathematical Enginery, to defeat the odds-makers. Every thieving clacker wants a Modus, sir. It is their philosopher's stone, a way to conjure gold from empty air!"

"Can that be done? Is such an analysis possible?"

"If it is possible, sir, perhaps Lady Ada Byron could do it."

"The friend of Babbage," Mallory said. "Yes—I can believe it. Indeed I can!"

"Well, perhaps she has a Modus, perhaps she only thinks she does," Fraser said. "I'm no mathematician, but I know there's never been any betting-system that worked worth a damn. In any case, she's blundered into something nasty again." Fraser grunted in disgust. "She's pursued that clackers' phantom for years now, and rubbed shoulders with very ugly company—sharpers, low clackers, loan-makers, and worse. She's amassed gambling-debts, to the point of open scandal!"

Absently, Mallory hooked his thumbs within his money-belt. "Well! If Ada's truly found a Modus, she won't have debts much longer!"

Fraser offered Mallory a look of pity for such naivete. "A true Modus would destroy the institutions of the Turf! It would wreck the livelihood of all your sporting-gents… Ever seen a track-crowd mill-up about a welsher? That's the sort of stir a Modus would bring. Your Ada may be a great blue-stocking, but she hasn't any more common sense than a housefly!"

"She is a great savant, Mr. Fraser! A great genius. I have read her papers, and the superb mathematics…"

" 'Lady Ada Byron, Queen of Engines,' " Fraser said, in an utterly leaden tone that had more weariness than contempt. "A strong-minded woman! Much like her mother, eh? Wears green spectacles and writes learned books… She wants to upset the universe, and play at dice with the hemispheres. Women never know when to stop… "

Mallory smiled. "Are you a married man, Mr. Fraser?"

"Not I," Fraser said.

"Nor I, not yet. And Lady Ada never married. She was a bride of Science."

"Every woman needs a man to hold her reins," Fraser said. "It's God's plan for the relations of men and women."

Mallory scowled.

Fraser saw his look, and thought the matter over again. "It's Evolution's adaptation for the human species," he amended.

Mallory nodded slowly.

Fraser seemed markedly reluctant to meet Benjamin Disraeli, making some brief excuse about watching the streets for spies, but Mallory thought it far more likely that Fraser knew Disraeli's reputation, and did not trust the journalist's discretion. And small wonder.

Mallory had met many men-of-affairs in London, but "Dizzy" Disraeli was the Londoner's Londoner. Mallory did not much respect Disraeli, but he did find him amusing company. Disraeli knew, or pretended to know, all the backstage intrigues in the Commons, all the rows of publishers and learned societies, all the soirees and literary Tuesdays at Lady So-and-So's and Lady This-and-That's. He had a sly way of alluding to this knowledge that was almost magical.

Mallory happened to know that Disraeli had in fact been blackballed at three or four gentlemen's clubs, perhaps because, although a professed and respectable agnostic, Disraeli was of Jewish descent. But the man's modes and manners somehow left the invincible impression that any Londoner who did not know "Dizzy" was an imbecile, or moribund. It was like a mystic aura, a miasma that surrounded the fellow, and there were times when Mallory himself could not help but believe it.