The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

“Good evening Miss Byron. May I compliment you on your yellow outfit? A most striking and vivid combination. A beacon in this room.” He indicated the rest of the soirée in the candle-lit room. Small baize-topped card tables at one side were fully occupied. In the far corner a small group sat listening to the gentle tones of a guitar played by an Italian maestro. Still others, like her own coterie, sat gossiping together on chaise longues and low padded chairs in the French style. The cold buffet supper was over, the last of the desserts now spooned up and the plates and bowls cleared away by the servants.

Ada felt her spirits lift further, having previously resigned herself to an evening of pointless small-talk.

“May I?” He sat down, and the two younger men melted away.

“Have there been any developments?” Ada asked, managing to lower her voice. “I have not heard from Mr Babbage for two days. And how is Constable Duckett?”

“Mr Babbage has broken the third quadrant. ‘I have many masks. I am the Destroyer.’ Strong words. They are the Prankster’s, not mine.”

She noted he was using Robert’s name for the code-maker now. “Did Mr Babbage say anything else?”

Clark shook his head. Candlelight reflecting from his spectacles made his eyes seem to glitter. “Only that the solution to the final quadrant would take longer. As you know, it contains geometrical figures and a nonsense rhyme. Mr Babbage says there are no equivalences for these, so the key could be anything. Does he threaten to destroy Wanstead Abbey? What reason would he have for doing that?”

“I think of nothing else,” Ada said. “Some nights I hardly sleep, my mind cannot let this puzzle go.”

“I’m sorry to hear that your rest is disturbed. Perhaps we should talk no further.”

Ada shook her head. “It would make no difference. I want to know — I dearly want to meet the challenge the Prankster has set us. And when I look around a gathering like this I wonder, is he here? Could he be in this room right now?”

Clark was observing her closely. “Especially as he tells us he has many masks. Does this mean that he can mix with any part of society he chooses? I am beginning to think that he is no radical, he is not trying to change a political system, he is simply after notoriety.”

“As Mr Babbage says, he has set a challenge. Do you truly think he set fire to the Houses of Parliament? And what about the ‘collapsing houses’ he mentions?”

“We have no way of knowing on the former. As for the latter, these old buildings in poorer areas from times gone by are not looked after, and do collapse from time to time anyway.”

“I have tried to think where he means to strike next. Could it be an assassination attempt on the King? There have been several already.”

“My choice is the railways. Perhaps a bridge. I am confident it will be in London. I have every policeman and special agent on full alert — including Constable Duckett, yes.” He smiled. “That young man is out of hospital and taking some days off to recover, unpaid of course. But now, I think I’d better leave you, before tongues start to wag.” He stood up and bent over her hand.

Ada was suddenly aware of her mother’s close scrutiny from the group around the musician. She sighed inwardly. Her mother would not rest till she had tracked down every last detail of Clark’s family and background to find out if he was grand enough for her daughter. Her mother was suspicious enough of her already. She’d caught Ada scrutinising the Personals, looking of course for Babbage’s message to the Prankster. Now her mother had forbidden her to read the paper. “I shall be most annoyed if I find you are conducting correspondence with a young man through that column,” she had said, despite Ada’s protestations that she was exercising her code-breaking skills, as suggested by Mr Babbage.

So now it was a race to solve the fourth quadrant. She would put everything aside and think of nothing else.

* * *

Robert put his head down and literally pushed his way through the throng that was shoving and jostling its way between the carriages and carts that had come to a standstill at Charing Cross. There was a “lock” on. The numbers of wheeled traffic had built and built till no one could move, though this was not one of the most notorious places for it to happen — they were towards the City.

Carters and drivers yelled and shook their fists, horses snorted and struggled in vain in their harnesses and shafts. Robert battled his way through this tumult to the south side of the Strand, where he breathed easier and began to walk eastwards.