The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books)

“Bloody sabotage! That’s what’s happened!” Rheese appeared behind Lassiter. His face was flushed, and a distinct odour of brandy was now incorporated with those of cigars and pomade.

“Perhaps I could take a look, sir?” Gairden said. Mattie was still beside him, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes darting from one man to the other.

“You have any knowledge of machines, Inspector?”

“No, sir, but I’ve dealt with a saboteur or two, in my time.”

“Hah. You’d best come in, then.”

“What, exactly, happened?” Gairden asked, walking among the machines.

“Nothing, that’s the thing of it, sir,” Lassiter said.

“It’s not nothing if the damn machines stop!” Rheese said. “Do you know how much this is going to cost me?”

“What I mean, sir,” Lassiter said, with a deference tinged with weariness, “is that we can’t find a reason. We can’t find a slipped gear or a thrown cog, not a thing that would account for it. And even if there was, for one set, it wouldn’t affect the rest. All the machines have stopped.”

“When did this happen?” Gairden said.

Lassiter glanced up at the great clock on the wall. “About forty minutes ago, sir. Just on six.”

“And was anything happening at the time?”

“No, sir. I was just talking to Mr Rheese about what we should do for Jamie’s funeral.”

“There are arrangements for that kind of thing, aren’t there?” Rheese said. “Wouldn’t you fellows sort that out?”

“We can do, sir,” Gairden said, “if, as you say, he had no one else to do the thing decently.”

Rheese nodded, and turned away.

Gairden prowled among the silent machines. There was nothing here; nothing but mechanism, waiting with donkey patience to move again. Cautiously, he ran his fingers over rivets and pistons. There was a suggestion of warmth in the metal; the room itself was still warm with the motion now stilled. Yet why, with donkey stubbornness, had it stopped? He could see nothing, feel nothing, that suggested the fury or the calculated disruption of the saboteur. The great levers stood poised above his head like guns at the salute.

“Nothing,” he said, returning to the others.

“It’s Jamie,” Mattie Drewrey said stubbornly. “He’s trying to tell us who murdered him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, girl!” Rheese said; but he glanced about him uneasily.

“He’s not going the clearest way about it, then,” said Gairden.

Even as he spoke there was a great hissing sigh, and a creak, and a rumbling, and the levers began to move.

“Well!” Lassiter said. “There’s a turn-up. Shall I get the workers started, Mr Rheese?”

Rheese was staring at the machines with a kind of glum fury. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Get them working while they can. Who knows when everything will stop again?”

“When you’re done, Mr Lassiter,” Gairden said, “I’d like a word, if you please.”

“Of course, sir.”

The wall clock, which, unlike the machines, had kept going, chimed the hour. Gairden looked at it, and frowned.

Lassiter came to the wages office as before. He looked tired, the deep lines either side of his mouth pulling it down. Gairden realized that the man was younger than he had first thought – it was those lines that made him look more than his age, and a sort of weary watchfulness.

“Now, Mr Lassiter,” Gairden said. “I was going through old reports today, and I found something that troubled me.”

“Sir?”

“Yes. You used to be one of the Children of Lud.”

Lassiter sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I did, sir, yes.”

“You were arrested for vandalism. Attacking a steam loom.”

“I was.”

“And now you’re a foreman in a leading manufactory. Explain this to me, if you please.”

“What’s to explain, sir? I was young. I lived in the country; I knew a lot of folks being put out of work by the machines; there was a deal of excitement about it all, a deal of revolutionary talk. Then I got myself in that bit of trouble. My mother bailed me out, it took most of her savings, then she sat me down and, oh, did she ever give me a talking to.” His mouth tilted upwards, briefly, at the memory. “She said she was never wasting good money on such foolishness again, so I’d better sort myself out. I had a good think. I realized the world was changing, Inspector. If I wanted to be any good in it, I needed to swim with the tide, not against it. I couldn’t stop the machines, but if I worked, I could learn about them. And where I am now, I can do a bit of good; work on safety improvements, do my best to get the workers treated decently. The world’s changed. You can’t go backwards, sir.”

“That seems a very solid turnaround, Mr Lassiter.”

“It was make my way or starve, sir, I decided to make my way the best I could.”

“You’re very concerned for the safety of your workers.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Did you resent Mr Wishart’s distraction? You were waiting for safety devices to be finished, and he was working on some project of his own.”

“It was no good getting impatient with Jamie, Inspector. He’d just give you that smile and show you some wonderful new thing he was working on. He was like a boy, really. And you’d have about given up, and then he’d come running in with whatever you’d asked for, often better than you’d asked for, and barely stop to show you how it worked before he’d be off to do something else.” Lassiter looked down at his hands. “I’m good with machines, I’ve learned to be, but I had nothing on Jamie. He had a kind of passion in him. He talked about his devices in such a way . . . as though they were real before he’d even made them, as though they were just waiting for him to find the right way . . .” Lassiter blinked. “Did you …”

“What is it?”

“I thought I heard something. There it is again.”

Now he was listening, Gairden could just make it out, the faintest silvery shimmer of sound, winding through the thudding rhythm of the machines.

“That’s what I heard, sir, that night,” Lassiter whispered. “Like that, only stronger, with more of a beat to it.”

It was barely a sigh, Gairden thought, among the brutal clangour of the machines, not so much music as music’s shadow. A voice without strength or words, yet so sad, so terribly mournful. Barely had he heard it before it faded.

Now there was only the blunt endless thudding of the steam hammers audible. Lassiter was staring into the distance, like a man who had caught a glimpse of a sorrowful memory. Gairden cleared his throat. “Was Jamie working on something like an instrument?” he said. “Mr Rheese mentioned a mechanical orchestra.”

Lassiter blinked, and came back to himself. “Oh, there were a dozen and one things, sir, but recently he’d been keeping whatever it was to himself. He’d promised to show me when he was finished. He said it would be the most wonderful thing. It always was, of course.” Lassiter rubbed his forehead.

“Mattie Drewrey thought she saw someone up there – someone dancing with Mr Wishart.”

“She did? Well, no one passed me sir, as I said, but it’s a rambling place. I suppose there could have been someone up there. It doesn’t sound like Mr Wishart, though. He wasn’t one for that sort of thing, hanging about stage doors and such. He worked a great deal. Slept up there as often as not. Don’t know when he’d have had time to meet young ladies.”

“No. Oh, one last thing . . . what are those marks on your hands?”

“Oh, dyes, varnishes, such like. They fade, sink into the skin, you know, but there’s always the next thing, and you’re covered again.”

“Thank you, Mr Lassiter.”

Gairden went back up to the workshop. There was still a stain on the floor; a fine layer of the glittering dust