The Difference Engine (18 page)

They were charwomen.

Following his map to a lift, he was ushered in by a uniformed attendant and carried to another level. The air, here, was dry and static, the corridors busier. There were more of the odd-looking policemen, admixed with serious-looking gentlemen of the capital: barristers perhaps, or attorneys, or the legislative agents of great capitalists, men whose business it was to acquire and retail knowledge of the attitudes and influence of the public. Political men, in short, who dealt entirely in the intangible. And though they presumably had their wives, their children, their brownstone homes, here they struck Mallory as vaguely ghost-like or ecclesiastical.

Some yards on. Mallory was forced to abruptly dodge a second wheeled messenger. He caught himself against a decorative cast-iron column. The metal scorched his hands. Despite its lavish ornamentation — lotus blossoms — the column was a smokestack. He could hear it emitting the muffled roar and mutter of a badly adjusted flue.

Consulting his map again, he entered a corridor lined left and right with offices. White-coated clerks ducked from door to door, dodging young messenger-boys rolling about with card-laden wheelbarrows. The gas-lights were brighter here, but they fluttered in a steady draft of wind. Mallory glanced over his shoulder. At the end of the hall stood a giant steel-framed ventilator-fan. It squealed faintly, on an oiled chain-drive, propelled by an unseen motor in the bowels of the pyramid.

Mallory began to feel rather dazed. Likely this had all been a grave mistake. Surely there were better ways to pursue the mystery of Derby Day, than hunting pimps with some bureaucratic crony of Oliphant’s. The very air of the place oppressed him, scorched and soapy and lifeless, the floors and walls polished and gleaming . . . He’d never before seen a place so utterly free of common dirt . . . These halls reminded him of something, another labyrinthine journey . . .

Lord Darwin.

Mallory and the great savant had been walking the leaf-shadowed hedgy lanes of Kent, Darwin poking at the moist black soil with his walking-stick. Darwin talking, on and on, in his endless, methodical, crushingly detailed way, of earthworms. Earthworms, always invisibly busy underfoot, so that even great sarsen-stones slowly sank into the loam. Darwin had measured the process, at Stonehenge, in an attempt to date the ancient monument.

Mallory tugged hard at his beard, his map forgotten in his hand. A vision came to him of earthworms churning in catastrophic frenzy, till the soil roiled and bubbled like a witches’ brew. In years, mere months perhaps, all the monuments of slower eons would sink shipwrecked to primeval bedrock . . .

“Sir? May I be of service?”

Mallory came to himself with a start. A white-coated clerk was confronting him, staring into his face with bespectacled suspicion. Mallory glared back, confused. For a divine moment he had poised on the brink of revelation, and now it was gone, as miserably inglorious as a failed sneeze.

Worse yet. Mallory now realized he had been muttering aloud again. About earthworms, presumably. Gruffly, he proffered his map. “Looking for Level 5, QC-50.”

“That would be Quantitative Criminology, sir. This is Deterrence Research.” The clerk pointed at a shingle hung above a nearby office door. Mallory nodded numbly.

“QC is just past Nonlinear Analysis, around the corner to your right,” the clerk said. Mallory moved on. He could feel the clerk’s skeptical eyes on his back.

The QC section was a honeycomb of tiny partitions, the neck-high walls riddled with asbestos-lined cubbyholes. Gloved and aproned clerks sat neatly at their slanted desks, examining and manipulating punch-cards with a variety of specialized clacker’s devices: shufflers, pin-mounts, isin-glass color-coders, jeweler’s loupes, oiled tissues, and delicate rubber-tipped forceps. Mallory watched the familiar work with a happy lurch of reassurance.

QC-50 was the office of the Bureau’s Undersecretary for Quantitative Criminology, whose name, Oliphant had said, was Wakefield.

Mr. Wakefield possessed no desk, or rather his desk had encompassed and devoured the entirety of his office, and Wakefield worked from within it. Writing-tables sprang from wall-slots on an ingenious system of hinges, then vanished again into an arcane system of specialized cabinetry. There were newspaper-racks, letter-clamps, vast embedded cardfiles, catalogues, code-books, clacker’s-guides, an elaborate multi-dialed clock, three telegraph-dials whose gilded needles ticked out the alphabet, and printers busily punching tape.

Wakefield himself was a pallid Scot with sandy, receding hair. His glance, if not positively evasive, was extremely mobile. A pronounced overbite dented his lower-lip.

He struck Mallory as very young for a man of his position, perhaps only forty. No doubt, like most accomplished clackers, Wakefield had grown up with the Engine trade. Babbage’s very first Engine, now an honored relic, was still less than thirty years old, but the swift progression of Enginery had swept a whole generation in its wake, like some mighty locomotive of the mind.

Mallory introduced himself. “I regret my tardiness, sir,” Mallory said. “I found myself a bit lost in your halls.”

This was no news to Wakefield. “May I offer you tea? We have a very fine sponge cake.”

Mallory shook his head, then opened his cigar-case with a flourish. “Smoke?”

Wakefield went pale. “No! No thank you. A fire hazard, strictly against regulations.”

Mallory put his case away, chagrined. “I see . . . But I don’t see any real harm in a fine cigar, do you?”

“Ashes!” Wakefield said firmly. “And pneumatic particles! They float through air, soil the cog-oil, defile the gearing. And to clean the Bureau’s Engines — well, I needn’t tell you that’s a Sisyphean task, Dr. Mallory.”

“Surely,” Mallory mumbled. He tried to change the subject. “As you must know, I am a paleontologist, but I have some small expertise in clacking. How many gear-yards do you spin here?”

“Yards? We measure our gearage in miles here. Dr. Mallory.”

” ‘Struth! That much power?”

“That much trouble, you might as easily say,” Wakefield said, with a modest flick of his white-gloved hand. “Heat builds up from spinning-friction, which expands the brass, which nicks the cog-teeth. Damp weather curdles the gear-oil — and in dry weather, a spinning Engine can even create a small Leyden-charge, which attracts all manner of dirt! Gears gum and jam, punch-cards adhere in the loaders . . . “Wakefield sighed. “We’ve found it pays well to take ‘every precaution in cleanliness, heat, and humidity. Even our tea-cake is baked specially for the Bureau, to reduce the risk of crumbs!”

Something about the phrase “the risk of crumbs” struck Mallory as comic, but Wakefield had such a sober look that it was clear no jest was intended. “Have you tried Colgate’s Vinegar-Cleanser?” Mallory asked. “They swear by it at Cambridge.”

“Ah yes,” Wakefield drawled, “the dear old Institute of Engine Analytics. I wish we had the leisurely pace of the academics! They pamper their brass at Cambridge, but here in public service, we must run and re-run the most grueling routines till we warp the decimal-levers.”

Mallory, having been recently to the Institute, was up-to-date and determined to show it. “Have you heard of the new Cambridge compilers? They distribute gear-wear much more evenly —”

Wakefield ignored him. “For Parliament and the police, the Bureau is simply a resource, you see. Always on demand, but kept on a tight lead for all of that. Funding, you see. They cannot fathom our requirements, sir! The old sad story, as I’m sure you know. Man of science yourself. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but the House of Commons can’t tell true clacking from a wind-up cooking-jack.”

Mallory tugged his beard. “It does seem a pity. Miles of gearing! When I imagine what might be accomplished with that, the prospect is breathtaking.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d catch your breath soon enough. Dr. Mallory,” Wakefield said. “In clacking, demand always expands to overmatch the capacity. It’s as if it were a law of Nature!”

“Perhaps it is a law,” Mallory said, “in some realm of Nature we’ve yet to comprehend . . . ”

Wakefield smiled politely and shot a glance at his clock. “A shame, when one’s higher aspirations are overwhelmed by daily practicalities. I don’t often have the chance to discuss Engine philosophy. Except with my soi-disant colleague, Mr. Oliphant, of course. Has he, perhaps, told you of his visionary schemes for our Engines?”

“Only quite briefly,” Mallory said. “It seemed to me his plans for, er, social studies, would demand more Engine-power than we have in Great Britain. To monitor every transaction in Piccadilly, and so forth. Struck me as a Utopian fancy, frankly.”

“In theory, sir,” Wakefield responded, “it is entirely possible. We naturally keep a brotherly eye on the telegram-traffic, credit-records, and such. The human element is our only true bottle-neck, you see, for only a trained analyst can turn raw Engine-data into workable knowledge. And the ambitious scale of that effort, when compared with the modest scale of the Bureau’s current funding for personnel —”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t care to add to the pressing burden of your duty,” Mallory broke in, “but Mr. Oliphant did indicate that you might help me to identify a criminal at large and his female accomplice. Having completed two of your request-forms in triplicate, I dispatched them in by special messenger . . . ”

“Last week, yes.” Wakefield nodded. “And we’ve done our best for you. We’re always happy to oblige gentlemen as peculiarly distinguished as Mr. Oliphant and yourself. An assault, and a threat of death against a prominent savant, is a serious matter, of course.” Wakefield plucked up a needle-sharp pencil and a gridded pad of paper. “But a rather commonplace business, to attract Mr. Oliphant’s specialized interests, isn’t it?”

Mallory said nothing.

Wakefield looked grave. “You needn’t fear to speak frankly, sir. This isn’t the first time that Mr. Oliphant, or his superiors, have called on our resources. And, of course, as a sworn officer of the Crown, I can guarantee you the strictest confidentiality. Nothing you say will leave these walls.” He leaned forward. “So. What can you tell me, sir?”

Mallory thought hard and quickly. Whatever blunder Lady Ada had committed — whatever act of desperation or recklessness had led her into the clutches of the tout and his whore — he could not imagine it helped by the name “Ada Byron” going onto that gridded pad. And Oliphant, of course, would not approve.

So Mallory feigned a reluctant confession. “You have me at a disadvantage, Mr. Wakefield, for I don’t believe there’s much to the matter — nothing to truly earn me the privilege of your attention! As I said in my note to you, I encountered a drunken gambler at the Derby, and the rascal made a bit of a show with a knife. I thought little enough of it — but Mr. Oliphant suggested that I might be in genuine danger. He reminded me that one of my colleagues was murdered recently, in odd circumstances. And the case is still unresolved.”

“Professor Fenwick, the dinosaur savant?”

“Rudwick,” Mallory said. “You know the case?”

“Stabbed to death. In a ratting-den.” Wakefield tapped his teeth with the pencil’s rubber. “Made all the papers, threw quite a bad light on the savantry. One feels that Rudwick rather let the side down.”

Mallory nodded. “My sentiments exactly. But Mr. Oliphant seemed to feel that the incidents might be connected.”

“Gamblers, stalking and killing savants?” Wakefield said. “I see no motive, frankly. Unless perhaps, and do forgive the suggestion, a large gambling debt is involved. Were you and Rudwick close friends? Wagering companions, perhaps?”

“Not at all. I scarcely knew the man. And I owe no such debts, I assure you.”

“Mr. Oliphant does not believe in accident,” Wakefield said. He seemed to have been convinced by Mallory’s evasion, for he was clearly losing interest. “Of course, it is only prudent of you to identify the rascal. If that’s all you need of us. I’m sure we can be of service. I’ll have a staffer take you to the library, and the Engines. Once we’ve this assailant’s number, we’ll be on firmer ground.”

Wakefield flipped up a hinged rubber stopper and shouted into a speaking-tube. A young Cockney clerk appeared, in gloves and apron. “This is our Mr. Tobias,” Wakefield said. “He’s at your disposal.” The interview was over — Wakefield’s eyes were already glazing with the press of other business. He gave a mechanical bow. “Pleasure-to-have-met-you, sir. Please let me know if-we-can-be-of-any-further-service.”

“You’re most kind,” Mallory said.

The boy had shaven an inch of scalp at his hairline, elevating his forehead for a modishly intellectual look, but time had passed since the clerk’s last harboring, for he now had a prickly ridge of stubble across the front of his noggin. Mallory followed him out of the maze of cubicles into a hallway, noting his odd, rolling gait. The clerk’s shoe-heels were worn so badly that the nails showed, and his cheap cotton stockings had bagged at the ankles.

“Where are we going, Mr. Tobias?”

“Engines, sir. Downstairs.”

They paused at the lift, where an ingenious indicator showed that it was on another floor. Mallory reached into his trouser-pocket, past the jack-knife and the keys. He pulled out a golden guinea. “Here.”

“What’s this then?” Tobias asked, taking it.

“It is what we call a tip, my boy,” Mallory said, with forced joviality. ” ‘To Insure Promptness,’ you know.”

Tobias examined the coin as if he had never seen the profile of Albert before. He gave Mallory a sharp and sullen look from behind his spectacles.

The lift’s door opened. Tobias hid the coin in his apron. He and Mallory stepped aboard amid a small crowd, and the attendant ratcheted the cage down into the Bureau’s bowels.

Mallory followed Tobias out of the lift, past a rack of pneumatic mail-chutes, and through a pair of swinging doors, their edges lined with thick felt. They were alone again. Tobias stopped short. “You should know better than to offer gratuities to a public servant.”

“You look as if you could use it,” Mallory said.     “Ten days’ wage? Expect I could. Providin’ I find you right and fly.”