The Chemickal Marriage

Chang stopped cold. Trooste slammed into his back and cursed as a satchel tumbled to the ground.

‘Leave it!’ Chang set off. ‘Hurry.’

‘I cannot leave it! O damn you – will you not wait?’

Chang ignored him, sure of what he’d just seen. He plucked a satchel from Trooste’s grasp and thrust it ahead, a battering ram to reach an alley that ran parallel to the rails.

Trooste gestured over his shoulder. ‘Is not the platform behind us?’

Chang pointed the walking stick. Trooste extended his bulging neck to look – why did such men so often opt for constrictive garments? At the end of the alley, in a gap between tar-shingled shacks, appeared a squat line of green – rushes along the trackside … and through them came another wink of orange.

At the final shack, Chang knelt to wait. A far-off wail. The train.

‘Who is the man in orange?’ asked Trooste. ‘A friend?’

‘No. If he sees us, he may attack. You should flee.’

‘Not you?’

Chang smiled. ‘Let us say we share an outstanding wager.’

The train wheezed into Crampton Place like a massive metal ox, overburdened but stoic. A bell sounded from the station house and the air erupted with the tumult of hundreds attempting to board. Chang counted twenty carriages in all – a long train, extended to answer the fleeing crowds – and watched as Jack Pfaff broke from his hiding place and ran straight for the brake van. Chang slapped Trooste’s arm and made for the nearest carriage, third from the rear. He vaulted the steps into the vestibule and brusquely pulled Trooste up. He whipped aside the curtain to the baggage compartment. ‘Stay here.’

Trooste peered past Chang down the corridor. ‘While you do what?’

‘No.’ Chang pushed Trooste into the compartment and whisked the curtain shut.

‘What if this wager of yours goes sour?’ protested Trooste. ‘Where am I?’

‘On a train to Harschmort, as you wanted. Don’t make any noise.’

At the corridor’s end he turned in time to see Trooste’s head duck from sight. Chang sighed – there was nothing to be done about it now – and stepped through.

At a flash of white he raised his stick, blocking a forearm reaching for his neck, and dodged the other way, into the arms of a second waiting man. A hard elbow and this second man’s grip gave way, and Chang chopped the walking stick into the first man’s face, knocking him back on his heels. The man overbalanced, his back to the open boarding staircase. Chang thrust the stick into Michel Gorine’s grasping hands, and retrieved him before he could topple out under the iron wheels. Behind Chang, Mr Cunsher exhaled painfully and rubbed his abdomen.

‘A pair of fools!’ Chang shouted over the noise of the wheels. Gorine jabbed his hand towards the rear of the train with the subtlety of a puppet show.

‘Jack Pfaff! I know!’ Chang waved them closer so as not to shout. ‘Have you followed him, or were you on the train already?’

‘From the Therm?,’ replied Cunsher. ‘He hasn’t seen us. No idea of his intentions.’

‘Have you seen Celeste?’ The question sparked an apprehensive look between the men. ‘Tell me.’

‘Beg pardon – the noise is impossible …’ Cunsher put his mouth to Chang’s ear and with characteristic efficiency related his progress since Chang had thrown the rock at Pfaff in the square: following Pfaff, eventually to the Therm?, Miss Temple’s freeing of Gorine, Cunsher’s intention to follow Pfaff, Miss Temple’s wilful disappearance.

‘We did not realize she was gone until it was too late, yet, with Pfaff likely to reunite with his patroness, he seemed actually the surest way to locate the young lady.’

‘Headstrong idiot,’ muttered Chang.

‘Never met a creature like her,’ agreed Gorine. ‘Barking.’

His smile of agreement wilted before Chang’s grim stare.

‘Resourceful young lady,’ observed Cunsher.

Gorine nodded with vigour, then – wanting to appear useful – craned his head to make sure no one was coming to disturb them, only to realize that Cunsher and Chang had each already positioned their bodies to watch the corridor without being seen. Gorine pulled back, chagrined. He smoothed the lank hair from his eyes. Chang said nothing to alleviate the man’s discomfort. How many times in the perfumed parlours of the Old Palace had Michel Gorine kept him at bay, sending Angelique off with another customer?

‘What do you know of Drusus Schoepfil?’ Chang asked.

‘Vandaariff’s nephew and heir,’ replied Cunsher, as if it were a common fact. ‘Apparently he questioned Miss Temple at the Therm? –’

‘Wait!’ Gorine cried. ‘In the Old Palace, Bronque always had another man with him – they used our tunnel to the Institute – we thought he was some minor royal.’

‘He’d be flattered to hear it,’ said Chang. ‘But it is with Drusus Schoepfil that Madelaine Kraft has sought protection.’

‘Impossible! They ransacked the Old Palace! Bronque nearly broke my jaw!’

‘She’s a pragmatic woman.’ Chang gripped Gorine’s arm. ‘What would she offer Schoepfil in return?’

‘Information about his uncle?’ ventured Cunsher.

Gorine shook his head. ‘Robert Vandaariff never went near the Old Palace.’

Not Vandaariff, Chang realized, yet how many times had Mrs Kraft hosted the Comte d’Orkancz? Those were the secrets to tempt Schoepfil … and perhaps to fuel her own revenge.

He took hold of a wall bracket and swung his body down the open stairs, face into the wind. Packington Station would not be far. Would Pfaff leave the train? Would the Contessa board it? He pulled himself inside. ‘In the next baggage compartment you will find Professor Trooste, late of the Royal Institute –’

‘Augustus Trooste!’ spat Gorine. ‘That shameless fat sponge –’

‘He was present at Mrs Kraft’s restoration, and may be able to help. Hide him. I will tackle Pfaff.’

‘Is that wise?’ asked Cunsher. ‘If we interrupt his plans –’

‘You mean if I kill him?’ Chang reached for the door. ‘I’ll find you as soon as I can.’

‘And if you don’t?’ asked Cunsher.

‘Acquit yourselves well,’ Chang replied. ‘It’s the end of the world, after all.’

He entered the rearmost carriage to find Jack Pfaff, in his orange coat and chequered trousers, slouched against the far door. Pfaff held up a finger for silence, and pointed to the line of compartments that lay between them. In spite of their earlier provocations Pfaff’s sharp face showed a smile, as if they were allies, or at least men who shared a common goal.

Chang began to walk, stick held ready. He glanced into the first compartment: six men of business, cases gripped across their laps. Pfaff ambled forward as well, hands empty. Chang reached the second compartment: women of differing ages and too many children. The youngest boy lay cradled across the lap of a dark-skinned maid, his legs wrapped with bandages.

Pfaff came nearer. The third compartment held at least ten people, women in the seats and men standing. The curtains on the fourth compartment door were drawn. Pfaff halted at its other side, perhaps ten feet away.

‘Joined the clergy, I see.’

‘Where is she, Jack?’

‘Which she do you mean?’ Pfaff nodded at the walking stick. ‘No room to swing. You’re hampered.’

‘Do you think?’ Chang took a sudden step forward. Pfaff just as quickly fell back, though his teasing smile remained.

‘Go in.’ Pfaff’s gaze darted past Chang, to the end of the corridor. ‘While there’s time.’

‘You coming in with me?’

‘I’ll wait. Following instructions.’

‘You always do, don’t you, Jack? Until you stop following them.’

Pfaff’s lips split in a childish grin. ‘Precisamente.’

Chang rapped the head of his walking stick against the fourth compartment door and entered. The occupants looked up, but Chang paid them no mind, stepping quickly from the doorway. He did not put it past Pfaff to have a