Monday,
24 April 1876
(Morning)
We have been unable to rouse Mr O'Grady this morning. This is not
in itself surprising, given the ingestion of Faerie food. More
salient to my mind is the fact that he has grown perceptibly taller,
and I suspect also heavier, overnight. I can only speculate, but
perhaps he has been subjected to some sort of transformative
treatment.
Mrs Salmalin and I each received a note from Mr Willoughby, summoning
us to the Foreign Office, so we plan to travel there together in Mrs
Salmalin's clockwork cart.
(Late evening)
This has been a busy but unproductive day. I feel acutely our
lack of information and understanding of the situation. We are
constrained to react to our foes' actions, unable to form a preventive
strategy, always a step behind.
Upon arriving at the Foreign Office, Mrs Salmalin and I separated to
our respective appointments. I admit to some excitement at being
summoned in my own right, when usually my reports are passed upward
through Lord Cowperthwaite along with all the others.
Mrs Salmalin and I parted, and I was ushered in to see Sir Anthony
himself (I have not seen him privately in years). Sir Anthony
prefaced our discussion by mentioning that the Foreign Office is
presently orchestrating negotiations with the Chinese to open formal
diplomatic relations. This is a particularly sought-after relationship
with a very prickly entity.
He asked me about a particular correspondent from my past, a diplomat
and an orchid fancier named Augustus Raymond Margary. This person
had been happy to take a posting in Shanghai, where he had better
access to specimens than if he worked somewhere in Europe or
elsewhere.
I was able to recall some of the last correspondence I had received
from him. He wrote that he had been given an assignment that
would take him to Burma to meet a Colonel Brown--this excited him as he
hoped to acquire a particularly rare variety of Vanda coerulea while
there. Unfortunately, Mr Margary was murdered on his way back
from Burma, and Colonel Brown seems to have vanished.
The subsequent investigation was part of what prompted the opening of
negotiations with China.
Sir Anthony asked me about persons Mr Margary might have mentioned in
his letters. He was particularly looking for any mention of our
nemesis Sir Philip. I reported that Mr Margary had never
mentioned Sir Philip by name, but on one occasion had described a
person who could certainly have been Sir Philip--alas, not very
specific, but perhaps useful to someone with a more complete picture.
I left shortly thereafter, leaving a message for Mrs Salmalin that I
would stop by the Metropolitan Station and make my way home from there.
I was on my way in that direction when I heard police whistles, and who
should go rushing past but my own Mr Frazer and Turgenov.
Naturally I followed, but at a somewhat more sedate pace (for I could
never hope to keep up with my husband at a sprint, and it would be
unseemly to be seen pursuing a man down the street). When I
reached the scene of interest, I was rather alarmed to hear the words
of the crowd that Atlas O'Flaherty had been killed.
I instantly sent for Mrs Cuthbert, (through the agency of Mr Frazer's
father) and for Mrs Salmalin (appropriating a very young constable with
a bicycle for the purpose). Mr O'Flaherty certainly looked dead,
but he has done that before, and it has never yet been permanent. I
assisted with questioning the witnesses.
As always, there was great divergence in the accounts. The
preponderance of evidence, particularly the testimony of the barman of
the Tipperary public house, indicates that Mr O'Flaherty had come in
and joined another man, identified by the barman as a Mr Shaw.
They spoke for under five minutes, Mr O'Flaherty looking somewhat
aggravated, but not dangerously so. Mr Shaw left the table.
Immediately a man rose from another table, where he had been sitting
with a few others, and sat down at Mr O'Flaherty's table. This
man was not known to the barman or the other regulars. He
was distinguishable by a large scar on his right cheek. He
spoke with an American accent. He wore a heavy coat which
concealed his build somewhat, but even so, several descriptions closely
matched that of our Irish Separatist bomber, Robert McDaniels.
Some of the witnesses confirmed his identity from the police sketch of
McDaniels carried by Mr Frazer.
The witnesses said that suddenly, Mr O'Flaherty stood up and grabbed
the man by the lapel of his coat. At that, they both "lit up like
St Elmo's fire," and then Mr O'Flaherty collapsed, and the other man,
and possibly two or three others from his original table, ran
out. Several people at other nearby tables were also injured by
the discharge.
At this point, we realised that we might still be able to catch the
scarred man and perhaps his accomplices. Mrs Cuthbert had arrived
and affixed Mr O'Flaherty more firmly in his body, and others of our
partisans were preparing to take him back to Charles Street.
Sir Simon, Mr Frazer, and I set off to follow the trail of the scarred
American.
The physical trail became increasingly obscured, but we were still
having reasonable luck with witnesses who had seen the man pass
by. The trail we followed led us all along the river, until at
last it became apparent to us that our quarry had taken a boat and
rowed out into the river. We were able to follow for a
time, Mr Frazer inquiring of the various fishermen, stevedores and
bargemen we encountered along the way. We kept along the trail
until we reached Southwark.
Alas, after some time, even Mr Frazer had to concede that we had lost
our quarry.
At about this point, we were diverted onto another crisis. We
received word through the DFT that Lt Wooster and Mr Caine might be in
danger, but the nature of the hazard was not clear. They
were believed to be somewhat near our location, but their exact
whereabouts was uncertain.
We finally found them at the Serpentine Theatre. Well, I would expect
such a scene from Lt Wooster, but I had no idea that Mr Caine had such
a fine baritone, or that he could dance like that. The manager of
the theatre reported that these two men, entirely unknown to him, had
come in through the stage door, apologized for being late to rehearsal,
and had commenced this music-hall routine on the stage. We paused
for a few minutes, in case this were part of some
intelligence-gathering ruse, but it shortly became clear to me that
both of them had fallen victim to memory loss. They really
believed they were music-hall performers. Sir Simon and I
convinced them to come along quietly by telling them that Sir Simon was
their agent, and I his secretary, and that we had just gotten them a
wonderful booking.
When we returned with our charges to Charles Street, we discovered that
the memory loss was the result of a failed scrying on the lapel Mr
O'Flaherty had pulled off his opponent's coat. Several members of
our households had been affected--unfortunately including Mrs Cuthbert,
who would otherwise have been best able to reverse the effects.
Mrs Salmalin had been spared, but she had her hands quite full all
afternoon, particularly with Lady Cowperthwaite, who was rather
belligerent in her insistence that she be allowed to leave the house
and go "home."
The most heartbreaking manifestation of the problem was Lady
Cowperthwaite's inability to recognise her own children. Galen was
alarmed by this, but did not succumb to panic. He instead managed
to contact Mr Voach by putting a note in an empty milk bottle next to
the trade door. Mr Humphries was surprised by a mid-day delivery
of fresh cream and some scones for tea-time, and when the amnesiac
persons drank some, they were calmed and fell asleep. We have
been assured that they will wake tomorrow morning in full possession of
their faculties (or in Lt Wooster's case, his usual half-faculties).
Knowing the properties of Mr Voach's dairy products, we also fed some
to Mr O'Flaherty, hoping it will restore him to health more
quickly--especially as Mrs Cuthbert is presently unable to assist him.
Mr Frazer and Sir Simon and I also spoke with Lord Cowperthwaite about
the incident in the Tipperary pub, relaying the witnesses' descriptions
of the effect that felled Mr O'Flaherty and the coat worn by the
scarred Irishman. Lord Cowperthwaite had examined Mr O'Flaherty,
and also the lapel of the coat.
Our working hypothesis is that McDaniels (as it seems to be) has
contrived a coat, laced with conductive wire or chain, which protects
him from the discharge of aetheric pulse weaponry. Mr Frazer and
I both noticed a serpentine line in the dust accompanying his shoe
prints--the end of a wire or a chain extending from the coat to the
ground could cause such marks, and could serve to ground the aetheric
discharge away from the coat's wearer.
Now Lord Cowperthwaite and Miss Moriarty are working on a way to
recalibrate our aetheric pulse weapons to penetrate this sort of
protective coat. Lord Cuthbert had a simpler solution--shoot them
with bullets.
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