Authors: Arthur Slade
“Who? More French agents? Or are other agents involved? The Germans? The Clockwork Guild?”
“Let’s hope it’s the Germans. I don’t fancy tangling with the Guild again. Now shut it and keep your mind on the task, Modo.”
“Well, you don’t need to get peevish!”
“Just concentrate! That’s what Mr. Socrates would tell you. We don’t have much time.”
“Well then, what are we looking for?” He opened the closet. Three suits, a pair of boots, a raincoat.
“I don’t know. A hint of what he may have discovered. If anything.”
Modo checked the suit pockets. A bill from R. H. Macy & Co. Was that important? He picked up a pair of boots, knocking on the soles to see if there was a concealed compartment. Mr. Socrates had a knife hidden in his shoe. Could these be the boots Wyle was wearing when he died? Modo set them down.
Octavia tapped the top of a dresser. “Aha!” She had pulled a drawer out and was feeling behind it. “There’s a hollow space here.” She removed a square box and opened it to find several papers and a few notes, which Modo tucked inside the pocket of his jacket.
They heard a sharp cough. Modo slipped to the door and peeked out, but there was no one in the stairwell. Someone must be downstairs, in the entrance. When he turned back, he saw papers on the table that he hadn’t noticed before.
“Were these always here?” he asked.
“We must be going blind!”
One was a drawing of a fish; another showed fancy handwriting that Modo thought might be a woman’s. It said
VSVYWBT KEUW 6035236
. The third piece of paper had
Grand poisson 6035236
scribbled in a large, quick hand. Several other words had been crossed out as though someone had been trying to solve a puzzle.
“It looks like a cipher,” Octavia said.
“I bet this page is Wyle’s handwriting. And the code has already been partially solved. Big fish—that’s nothing that we didn’t already know. What do the numbers represent?”
“It must be another code.”
Modo heard footsteps on the hardwood in the hall. “Quick!” Octavia said, and Modo was able to tuck the papers into his jacket before the caretaker returned.
“Your coffee,” he said. “You must forgive me, I didn’t express my condolences.”
“We are in debt to you,” Octavia said sweetly. “You are being so very kind.” She and Modo sipped their coffee. Modo had never understood the attraction of this bitter drink over tea, but he thanked Mr. Trottier anyway.
“Is there lodging nearby?” Octavia asked. “We must rest and … and tell my family the news.”
“Yes. The Mercer Hotel is a few blocks from here.”
After receiving directions, they bid the man goodbye. Modo grabbed their luggage and they went down the creaking stairs. They needed to send a telegram to Mr. Socrates with all the information they had found so far.
Modo grimaced, testing the suppleness of his face. His
muscles weren’t tired—he was in control of his transformation. It had been three hours since he’d shifted into the Knight form. He’d have just another few hours before he’d have to slip his mask back on.
“Open the door for me, husband,” Octavia said when they reached the outside door.
“But my hands are full,” he answered.
“I am a lady and you will open the door.”
Modo rolled his eyes and balanced the portmanteaus so that he could twist the knob, letting a bit of a cold breeze through. “Let us go, then, my delicate wife,” he said. “We have much work to do.”
I
n an apartment across the street from Lafayette Place a young man sat looking out the window, playing with a roll of gauze, occasionally wheezing out a cough. He’d been keeping an eye on the building for weeks. On this particular afternoon he was contemplating calling his masters to suggest they move him on to more interesting work, when a young couple carrying luggage stopped outside Lafayette. They were clearly visitors. As soon as they entered the building, the man dropped the gauze. There was no time to prepare a disguise or dress properly. He would go as he was, despite the cold.
He ran over and crept up the stairs. They were inside Wyle’s apartment! He heard a male voice say, “I can make coffee. Would that do?” and watched as the caretaker emerged and climbed the stairs to his third-story apartment. The young man stealthily took the remaining stairs
and positioned himself next to the door. He stilled his breathing, and listened. He overheard the conversation between the two strangers and discovered that their names were Modo and Octavia. It was soon obvious they were agents, but their English accents meant nothing. They could be working for anyone. They mentioned a Mr. Socrates. Another code name? He would take things into his own hands and trick these two into decoding the numbers for him.
The young man cursed Agent Wyle for dying so easily. He had intended to squeeze critical information out of him first. And now he had no idea what the numbers on the paper meant. He’d telegraphed his masters for guidance but had not yet received a reply. What was the point of having a telegraph if not to obtain instant answers? No one was giving him any direction!
And so, brazenly, he had stepped right into the apartment while their backs were turned and placed the papers on the table. He walked as though he had no weight. He retreated just as quietly, but couldn’t stop one cough from squeaking out. Damn his lungs. He hid in a doorway and listened as they found the papers and argued over their meaning. Fools! he thought. I’m playing you!
He waited around the back of the stairs as they clomped down them, and smirked as Modo opened the door for Octavia. They had no idea he was stalking them. It was almost too easy.
He approached the door to observe their direction; then, cursing the cold, he followed.
O
ctavia believed she was about to go stark raving mad. Or perhaps she would just get mad, at the very least. She picked at the crusts from her beef sandwich. For the past hour they had been sitting in O’Bryan’s Eatery, examining Agent Wyle’s papers. There was one note about losing the trail of Colette Brunet, and another about the Red Horse, a saloon that French sailors frequented; and finally there was the code:
Grand poisson 6035236
. The numbers were completely vexing!
Modo had the page in his thick hand and was staring at it as though his eyelids were glued open. She took a moment to examine him. There had been a subtle shift to his face; it seemed fleshier, somehow, and a rashlike redness had appeared on his forehead. She knew he had some unnatural way of manipulating his appearance. Was that what he was doing now?
He was the oddest, most exasperating man she had ever met. No, she corrected herself, he wasn’t a man. He was a boy who looked like a man. She was certain that he was younger than her own fifteen years.
“You’re breaking out in a rash, husband,” she said.
The panic on his face surprised her. He patted at his forehead, peeked at her through his fingers. “I’ll soon have to wear my mask again,” he said.
“What’s happening to you, then? Why can’t I see what you really look like?”
At this, his eyes narrowed.
“Let’s not discuss that,” he said, somewhat coldly. “You know I can’t show you. Now, come on, we must solve this code. Mr. Socrates will want to know the answer.”
“We’re going in circles,” she complained. “It’ll take greater minds than ours. We should contact our lord and master at once and wait for our orders. Use the wireless telegraph he gave you.”
“Not here in the open. Besides, I want to solve the puzzle first.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Modo,” she said.
“Fine. We’ll say that it’s your decision.”
“Of course it’s my decision. I
am
the senior agent.”
Modo let out a raspberry, loud enough that other patrons looked their way, and quite suddenly both of them began giggling. They continued to chuckle as they walked down the street to the Mercer Hotel.
“We have to be on our guard,” Modo said, still smiling. Octavia was impressed by how easily he carried both
portmanteaus. “If someone was trailing Agent Wyle, they may be watching us.”
“Oh, Modo,” she said lightheartedly, “Mr. Socrates has you boxing with shadows. We’re completely safe.” She wished she could believe her own words. After all, she didn’t know New York; she felt safer in London. At least there she knew good places to hide. Any one of the hundreds of people on the street here could be the enemy.
They checked into their room at the hotel, and once they’d unpacked, Modo withdrew the wireless telegraph from his pocket and opened it. At the top of the device was a small switch and three keys. “Now to get this to work,” he said.
“Do you want me to do it?”
“No. Mr. Socrates gave it to me for safekeeping.” His fingers hovered over the keys. “It uses electromagnetic induction to jump the signal to the nearest telegraph line.”
“Really? Ain’t you a longheaded professor! How do you get it going?”
“Oh, that’s easy!” Modo pressed a key and nothing happened. Then he tapped the side of the machine. “I believe a wire is loose.”
Octavia reached over and flicked a small switch. A light bumblebee-buzzing noise was followed by a hum.
“I was just about to do that!” Modo said. He slowly typed out a message. “There! It’s done.”
“How will he reply?”
“That’s the problem. This can’t receive messages. He’ll send a telegram to the hotel.”
“So we have to wait. We should go browsing books, then, my dear,” Octavia suggested.
They went back to Lafayette Place, dodging carriages as they crossed the street, and strode toward the Astor Library. Octavia wondered what it was that made New York so different; it wasn’t just the people. The air was clear and crisp. She was so used to fog and coal smoke; she found she actually missed them.
The library wasn’t the largest she had visited, but it seemed popular. Some gentlemen and ladies sat at tables, while others perused the shelves. Octavia led Modo to the top floor, to discover that no patrons were there.
“That’s the meeting room,” she said, motioning to a door.
“It’s the only room up here,” Modo said. “Scotland Yard, watch out!”
“Oh, still stinging from that one, are you? Well, if you’re not too upset, please pick the lock. I’ll keep an eye out.” Modo pulled a set of pins from his belt, and he and Octavia were soon in the room. It was sparse: a table, curtains on a window, and only a few books on the shelves.
“Well, this was a waste of time,” Octavia said. She paused to wonder if she was crossing the place where the Frenchman had fallen.
Then she heard a slight cough and a scuffling sound. She turned. “Are you sick?” she asked.
“It was you who coughed,” Modo said without looking up from a book.
“I don’t cough,” she said. “I expel air daintily.”
“Lucky you, then.” He threw up his hands. “I don’t
believe we’ll find anything here. It was all cleaned up weeks ago.”
His forehead glistened in the light coming through the window, and his skin was pink.
“You’re looking a little flushed, Modo. Is it the seasickness?”
Modo put his hand to his cheek and with a small gasp turned his back to her. He dug in his jacket pocket, then brought his hands to his face again. When he turned around he was wearing the net mask. He seemed slightly smaller and hunched over.
“What’s happening to you, Modo?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
“Yes, but I like to ask, husband dear. I’m an odd fish that way.”
He was especially hard to read when he was wearing a mask. She’d stared at the net thing for over a week and was sick of it.
They returned to their hotel room, ordered a roast chicken to be sent up, and ate quickly. Octavia remained at the table, tapping her fingers on a map of the world that had been intricately carved into the mahogany. She traced a line from London to New York. “The waiting will drive me off at the head,” she said. “Would you like to play a hand of snap?”
“I don’t play cards. Mr. Socrates didn’t feel that those games were necessary to my upbringing.”
“Oh, that old parsimonious codger! No one’s to have any fun in his Permanent Association. I sometimes believe that their real objective is to bore the world to tears.”
She was pleased to see Modo laugh. “Well, husband,
what am I to do with you? I’ll have to revert to children’s games. Let us give ‘I’m Thinking of Something’ a go.”
“How does that work?”
“We used to play it while we pounded laundry at the orphanage. We ask one another questions and try to guess what the other’s thinking. I’ll start. Ready?”
“Ah, sure.”
She decided that he was so staid, it was time to stagger him. “So, Modo, do you understand love?”
She nearly laughed at how he goggled. Even the net mask couldn’t hide his shock.
“Do I what?”
“Do you understand why we mortal vessels feel love? Or, more important, how does one such as yourself dupe others into believing you are the romantic prince of their dreams?”
He scratched at his shoulder. “What brought this on?”
“Mr. Socrates had me read Shakespeare and Dickens, especially
Great Expectations
. He wanted me to understand how humans want love.” She began to imitate Mr. Socrates, feeling pleased with her tone and accent. “The key to being a good agent is manipulating your targets into giving you information. Use flirting. Use words that imply love. All their emotions are tools that can be used against them.”
“That’s a horrible thing to do. Did Mr. Socrates really say that?”
“Oh, he said some such similar thing. Perhaps we female agents get different lessons. We are so much weaker than you men, so we have to rely on trickery. I’m curious, though—has anyone ever … loved you?”
“Of course.”
She tapped her finger on the table. “Who?”
“Uh. M-Mrs. Finchley.”
“The governess? She was paid by Mr. Socrates to raise you. So how can you be sure that she loved you?”
“You’re wrong about her!” he snapped.
I’m being cruel, she thought. Why? And yet, she couldn’t stop. He could be so innocent at times. He had to wake up to the reality of the world around him. “I’m only suggesting that one must examine one’s beliefs. Does Mr. Socrates love you?”