Here is the latest installment of the Steampunk novella "The Alchemist Files." To catch up on the beginning of this story, click here.
~~~
In the offices of Henton
Clode, Alistaire Templar was reading a telegram from the Ministry Main Offices
in London which was as follows: Description
of woman matches all available information on Bergamot STOP Advised to apprehend
suspect for questioning STOP Negotiate situations with caution STOP Do not
allow suspect to escape STOP Sending re-enforcements to Paris immediately STOP
Keep us apprised of all actions STOP.
Mr. Templar smiled. The famed assassin had walked into his office
and asked for his help. There was a
promotion in this for his if he was careful.
He took the address Sybil had given him from his desk and tucked it into
his pocket. For once he was the cat and
she was the mouse.
***
On the Rue de Capri, outside
a café, a man leaned against the lamppost.
He held a black Russian cigarette languidly between his leather gloved fingers,
drawing puffs and blowing them slowly out his nose. In his impeccable hat and long black coat,
the man resembled a thin Chinese dragon.
He tossed the cigarette into the street with a delicate flick of the
wrist. To the average Parisian, he was just
another bored gentleman with too much money and too much time. But to a trained observer, his posture, his
careless half-eyes-closed gaze, and the conscious ennui with which he smoothed
his waistcoat were all contrived.
Sybil was a trained observer because
she had done what he was doing countless times.
From the café, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t see half his face, but she
didn’t recognize the small ears or trimmed black beard. She was careful not to look at him directly
because she knew he was watching her. He
had been following her all day. She had
first noticed him at the patisserie that morning, sitting at a little table
outside drinking a Turkish coffee.
He had followed her at a distance, but whenever she turned her head all
the way, he seemed to disappear into the surroundings. He was good: definitely not a Ministry
man. He was too sophisticated and
careful to be a Ministry agent. Worried
at his presence, she had tried to lose him after the B&L offices, but he
had stuck with her all the way to this café.
And by now he had been standing against that lamppost for over an hour
waiting for her as if he had nothing more interesting to do. During all that time, he had never shown her
his whole face. He had never revealed
that he was watching her. He appeared to
be watching the carriages that passed on the street. He seemed completely content to lean against
the post for the rest of the day.
Sybil had finished two pots
of tea and a plate of petit fours while trying to think of a way to lose
him. She had used up all her usual
tricks. The only thing to do now was to
leave through the kitchen of the café.
If she did that, he would know she was on to him. But better that than to have him follow her
to London. She left a generous tip on
the table and slipped out through the back door.
She hurried through back
streets the rest of the way to the docks.
There was no sign of the man in black.
By the time she reached the docks she was out of breath. The airship manifests were posted on the
customs inspector’s office and she looked for a ship leaving within the
hour. One was leaving immediately, but
was bound for Dublin. There were no
larger ships leaving for London that day.
She entered the office.
“Sir, I was wondering if
there are any airships leaving for London today. It is very urgent. My grandmother is dying, you see, and I must
reach her before she passes!”
“Let me check.” The inspector was a thin old man with a thin
waxed mustache and large teeth. He
sniffed and smoothed his mustache as he poured over the departure
schedules. “Mmmmmm, none of the larger
ships… ah, here we are… cargo ship Bucephalus is leaving from number 17 in just
a few minutes. If you hury you could get
there.”
Bucephalus. Sybil knew that name. But it was too unlikely to be true… “What is
the captain’s name?”
“Seems it’s a lady captain,
name of Victoria Potsworth. Good solid
name, Potsworth.”
It was true. “Thank you,” she shouted as she ran out of
the office. “Thank you!” she hitched up
her skirts and sprinted towards dock 17.
This was more luck than she had ever hoped for. Sybil wasn’t a religious woman, but at that
moment she believed someone above must be looking out for her.
The airship was just casting
off as she reached the dock. The
turbines were roaring and the crew was pulling in the mooring ropes. Sybil shouted “Wait!” and kept running. At the edge of the dock she jumped – her feet
tread air for a moment – then she caught one of the ropes. “Pull me up!” she called. As the crew hoisted the rope, Paris floated
away below her, the low-lying clouds enveloping her skirts and covering the
city in a soft pink glow. For a moment
she was reminded of the sunsets in Marseilles, then a crewman grasped her hand
and pulled her over the deck railing.
“Captain,” he called, keeping
a firm hold on her wrist, “We’ve got a stowaway.”
“Hardly,” Sybil
retorted. “More like an uninvited guest,
or a late passenger, perhaps.”
~~~
Stay tuned for Part 6!
Ciao!
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