Дэвид Нордли - How Beer Saved the World

The cab slowed. It would be time to pay the driver soon. Secret passageway—them words wouldn’t leave her mind alone. A clockwork beetle… a cholera epidemic. The tart had claimed anarchists had a secret way of making cholera spread. What could be more secret than invisible holes in the air?

Earlier, Eleanor had wanted important responsibilities. Now one had crawled her way. Something was wrong in more than the Master’s library. Even the Queen wasn’t safe. For the sake of Her Majesty and the Master, Eleanor must turn wrong into right.

Master Harte wasn’t waiting on the pavement in front of the inventors’ club when Eleanor arrived. Stern-faced temperance ladies was, clad in starched black dresses. Nary a one of the old shrews looked Eleanor’s age. The woman who had warned the Master wasn’t here, probably got found out. A shiver cut between Eleanor’s shoulder blades.

“Down with daemon beer,” the shrew ladies shouted to the beat of their leader’s drum. “‘Tis as evil as rum.”

In other words, down with whatever might seal up them holes in the air and keep good folks from disappearing. At least when clockwork beetles wasn’t around. Had Master Harte been targeted because he knew so much about science and inventions?

Eleanor pushed her way through the temperance throng. A matron with a beak nose and black eye moved in front of her and blocked her way to the front door.

“Go home,” the shrew said with a thick accent Eleanor couldn’t identify. “While you still can.”

Eleanor’s reply caught in her throat. This menacing matron couldn’t know about the automaton in Eleanor’s purse. Still, Eleanor clutched the drawstrings tighter.

“Go home yerself,” Eleanor said.

Eleanor dodged to one side. The shrew reached for her but missed. A forward lunge brought Eleanor to the club’s front door. It was locked. Her fist pounded against the wooden barrier.

“Master Jeremy Harte,” she cried. “Help!”

Two hands grabbed Eleanor’s shoulders from behind. She hurled herself at the door with all the might she could muster. The front door to the inventors’ club opened. Freed from her pursuer, she lunged into the dim entryway. Her toe stubbed against something firm. She flew in the direction of a gray-haired gentleman. She thrust her arms in front of her. Her body collided with his. The monocle popped out of his eye. Blimey.

“Excuse me, sir,” Eleanor said.

The front door slammed behind her. She turned. The doorman shoved a wide wooden bolt in place. He must have opened the door. At least the temperance shrew couldn’t get her now.

“Please direct me to Master Jeremy Harte,” Eleanor said to the doorman. “It’s urgent, it is.”

“This is most irregular,” a man said behind her.

Eleanor wheeled around. A clerk in a blue uniform dashed from behind the registration desk, then planted himself in front of her.

“Highly irregular,” the clerk added.

“Indeed it is,” Eleanor said to him. “Some rogues are trying to do the Master in.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait here,” the clerk said. “Women aren’t allowed beyond this point.”

This chap worried about some stuffy rule? She could bleeding well vanish any moment. The world could start to end. She needed to tell Master Harte what had happened to her today, at a bit of a distance, that is. She thrust her hand into her purse and pulled out the clockwork beetle.

“Beware the Nine.” Eleanor brandished the beetle like she held a dagger. “Let me by or I’ll make the likes of ye join Mr. Parker.” She’d better not be near a pint of beer.

Eleanor pushed her way by the clerk and ran down a dim corridor with a musty odor. Master Harte and the others could be in the gentlemen’s smoking room. Was that room on the main floor or one level above?

“Master Harte,” she shouted. The thud of footsteps behind her grew louder.

“Eleanor,” the Master’s voice called. “What on—”

Up ahead, he stood just outside the doorway to a side room. She raced toward him.

“Don’t step near me,” she said. “No time to explain.”

He motioned her into a large mahogany-paneled parlor. A cluster of gentlemen wearing tweed suits gave her disapproving glares. A silver-haired toff in black set his tall glass on the book table next to a high-backed leather chair. The rich amber color of the liquid—the foam on top. The glass contained beer. Would the nearness of the beetle trigger instant disappearance? What could she do to make sure she stayed in this world and the beetle didn’t?

“Move back,” Eleanor said, “the lot of ye.”

Several steps brought her to the book table. She dropped the beetle into the beer. She dove in the opposite direction, knocking a gentleman off balance. ‘Twas the fellow with the monocle again. This time he crashed into the seat of an overstuffed chair. Eleanor landed on top of him. He groaned.

The stink of bogwood and sulfur flashed out of nowhere, so strong her stomach retched. Eleanor belched. She’d blooming never hear the end of all this embarrassment. Not anyhow.

“Excuse me, sir,” she whispered, her chest still flopped against his. “So sorry.”

“By God,” the voice of Master Harte boomed. “It’s gone.”

“Extraordinary,” another man exclaimed.

Mumbles sped through the room. The men was saying it’s gone, wasn’t they? Not he’s gone or she’s gone. Eleanor sat up in the pudgy gentleman’s lap. Her hands touched her nose and shoulders, her upper arms, waist and knees. She seemed all here. Facing Master Harte’s back, she pulled herself to her feet. The Master and another gentleman blocked her view.

“What’s gone, sir?”

“The side table,” Master Harte said. He turned to face her, his brown eyes wide. “The table. The pint. And whatever you tossed into it.”

The men stepped aside. Four ruts in the blue-and-gold Oriental carpet marked where table limbs had pressed. The table wasn’t there, though. A deep breath of air filled her lungs. The odor of bogwood and sulfur had subsided. The window in the air must have closed. For now?

“Are you,” Master Harte said with an uneven voice, “all right, Eleanor?”

He took a few steps toward her, then stopped. He motioned for the other inventors to see to their colleague, the poor fellow still wedged in the overstuffed chair.

“I think I’m all right,” Eleanor said.

“What about other things?” Master Harte added.

No doubt that temperance shrew and houndstooth bloke still mucked about, up to no good. Was they anarchists, bruised from yesterday’s riot in Hyde Park? Did they want the cholera epidemic to spread beyond control? Regardless, they could cause a lot of mischief smashing beer kegs and setting loose an army of clockwork beetles. All sorts of important people who might oppose them would disappear.

A spell of dizziness came on. Eleanor clutched the side of a leather chair. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She glanced toward the floral wallpaper. Firmly anchored, it was. Not the slightest hint of peeling from the shock of what she planned to say next.

“I’d be most grateful, sir.” Eleanor smiled. “If someone would please fetch me a cuppa tea and a crumpet.” She curtsied, then sat down on the leather chair. “Before ye—you—get back to stopping the cholera, I’ve some knowledge about other things you’d best consider.”

The gaslights in the room flickered. Master Harte folded his arms against his chest. One of his eyelids twitched.

“I suppose you’d fancy both sugar and cream,” the Master said.

“And lemon curd for the crumpet,” Eleanor replied. “If you please, sir.”

Master Harte grinned, although something remained wrong in England—and still would after he filed their report with Scotland Yard. Beer could save the world or destroy it. To stay on the saving side, she and the Master had best tote a pint about, even to church.