Camera Obscura Page 10

  He smiled, only a little. "You have been busy," he said.

  "Work," she said. "You know how it is."

  He nodded, without a smile now. There was something in him that she responded to, a similarity to herself. A professional, she thought. She said, "Shall we?" and the man said, "Follow me, please."

  It was the most polite kidnapping she had ever experienced. Walking in the midst of the black-clad men she had the surreal feeling she was going to a funeral. She hoped it was not her own.

  There were people everywhere in the street, most of them Asian, all assiduously looking away when they passed. For all purposes she and her little group were invisible. The smells of cooking engulfed her as before.

  She noticed they did not appear concerned about her gun. They led the way through narrow side-streets and she saw a building rising in the distance, a façade decorated with lizardine gargoyles, enormous chimneys rising above it, belching smoke and steam. She knew what it was.

  The Gobelin factory.

  They came to a door and it opened from inside. They went into the building. The corridor was long and brightly lit and smelled of cleaning material. They followed it for a while and came to an elevator. It opened and she was motioned inside. She went in and was followed by the leader and two of his men. The other remained outside. The leader pressed a button and the elevator ascended slowly.

  She knew about the factory. Viktor had worked there for a while, he had told her that once. It was once owned by the Gobelin family. Now she wasn't sure who owned it. They used to make garments there – one of the first places to use the Daguerre looms, machines that automated production… It had been a natural step for the factory to–

  The elevator doors opened. They all filed out. Another white, clean corridor. They walked down it and came to a door. The door opened onto an antechamber. There was a sofa and a small table and the leader said, "Would you like some tea?"

  "Do you have any coffee?"

  "Please," he said, looking pained. "It is not good for you."

  Apart from the two items of furniture the room was bare. The walls were very white. It was very clean. There was a set of doors at the back of the room. They were closed. She sat and waited and the leader waited with her, standing, while one of his men went and fetched a pot of tea. Then there were just the two of them there.

  She poured some tea into a small china cup and sipped it. "Jasmine?" she said. He nodded with seeming approval. "Very beneficial for both spirit and body," he said.

  She said, "Do you have a name?"

  "I am Colonel Xing of the Imperial Secret Service," he said.

  She said, "It's not secret if you tell me about it."

  For a moment she almost thought he would smile. It passed.

  "Do you not serve your Council in a similar capacity?" he said.

  "A lot of people seem to know a lot about me, all of a sudden…" she said.

  "You are an interesting woman," he said, and this time he did smile. "It is only natural…"

  She tilted her head, looking at him. "There are no secrets between the likes of us," he said.

  "Right."

  They smiled at each other.

  "What are we waiting for?" she said.

  He didn't answer that one. She sipped her tea. They waited.

  The doors opened at the back of the room almost without her noticing.

  It was impossible to miss the woman standing there, though.

  She was very old, and half her face was metal.

  "Milady de Winter?" she said. "I am Fei Linlin. Please, come inside."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Empress-Dowager's Emissary

  "Madame Linlin–"

  They were standing in a room overlooking the city. They were high up in the Gobelin factory. Below the streets of Chinatown snaked, covered in lights. Beyond was the Seine and the whole of the city. Just outside the window were two enormous gargoyles, lizard-shaped, split tongues out, reptilian mouths open as if to catch the rain.

  "I hope my men were not rude–"

  "Colonel Xing was very polite."

  "That is good."

  Madame Linlin lit a cigarette. It was inserted inside an ivorycoloured holder. She took a deep breath and exhaled smoke. She was very old and looked a little like a dragon. Her eyes were large and bright. One eye was set in a human, wrinkled face. The other was in a half-globe of smooth metal. Milady noted that, and wondered. The woman knew she was looking and didn't seem to mind.

  She was small, and now she went and sat behind a large desk, her back to the windows, and looked even smaller.

  And strangely powerful.

  She had the feel about her of a woman used to wielding

  power. Her eyes examined Milady and there was nothing personal about it: it was the way a merchant might study his wares, deciding how much they were worth and what best use to put them to. "Please, sit down."

  Milady remained standing. She looked out of the window at the city, returned her gaze back to the old woman.

  "Who are you?" she said.

  "I told you my name."

  Milady inched her head in reply and the woman smiled. "But you want to know, of course, what I am."

  "Yes."

  "I am the representative of the Empress-Dowager Cixi," the woman said, equally simply. "Of the Empire of Chung Kuo."

  "China."

  "Yes."

  "I thought–" She did not know much about that far-off, mysterious place. "I thought you had an emperor."

  "We do."

  "Ah."

  "Sometimes it is best to – how shall I put it," Madame Linlin said, "to help matters from behind the throne, as it were. An emperor, after all, is an important soul, a ruler with many tasks. He must be seen. He must be worshipped. He should not be burdened with–"

  "More practical matters?"

  "Exactly."

  When the woman smiled it was with only one half of her face. The metal side never moved at all.

  "What happened to you?"

  The woman shrugged, not taking offence. "I was injured in service," she said. "Our scientists are not without knowledge."

  "I did not know you had–"

  "And we try to keep it that way," Madame Linlin said, a little sharply. "Oh, the lizards tried to invade us, not once but twice. They were repelled. I suspect that, sooner or later, they will try again. The lizards and their humans, those English on their tiny island. Do they really think they can take us? No, my dear. We know much that we do not tell, and learned much beyond that. Just as we know how to deal with this great Republic of France, should your metal-minds ever think to make the same mistake."

  "You are being very forthright."

  "I am not a diplomat," Madame Linlin said, and again she smiled that half-smile. "We work behind the scenes, you and I, do we not?"

  Milady let it pass. "What is it you want?" she said.

  "Won't you sit down?"

  "No, thank you."

  "As you wish."

  She blew smoke into the air. Its smell was sweet, and a little cloying.

  "I want the same thing you want," she said. "I want the thing that was hidden inside a dead man's stomach."

  Milady glanced at her. Fei Linlin smiled back at her. The cigarette-holder was clamped between the teeth of her human half-face. "You know who he was?"

  "His real name was Captain James Wong Li," she said. "Also known as Iron Kick, also known as Yong Li, Li Fong, and half a dozen other aliases. Born in Hong Kong, which is a small island given to the lizards in concession –" her half of a face expressed disgust, but the expression quickly disappeared – "hence the English first name. A Tong member, a bandit, later captain in the Imperial Guard."

  "Everyone said he was such a nice man," Milady said, and Madame Linlin shrugged. When she did, there was the barely audible sound of gears.

  "I have no doubt he was. He was also ruthless when he needed to be, and very loyal, until–"

  "Yes?"

 
But Madame Linlin did not seem eager to pursue that line of conversation. "I am being very open with you," she said, "because I want you to understand what is at stake. Our goals are similar, or we wouldn't be talking. The missing object is dangerous. To Chung Kuo and to France."

  She thought about the killer in the alleyway, the inhuman face – thought about Henri's drawings, remembered Madame L'Espanaye's last words–

  "Door," the woman had said. The single word a whispered puff of air. "Door. K… key."

  She had said, "Where?"

  And the woman, dying, said: "Every… where."

  "What is this object?"

  No answer, and she said, throwing it to the older woman – "A key."

  Madame Linlin looked taken aback. "Yes…" she said.

  "Why was Yong Li here?" She thought about it for a moment. "Did you send him? You said he was a captain in your–"

  "No."

  There was a moment of silence, stretching between them. "No," Madame Linlin said at last. "He… Some time ago he changed his allegiance. He defected – to serve the Man on the Mekong."

  "Who?"

  "An enemy."

  They regarded each other. Milady waited. The strange old woman watched her too, her eyes uncertain. At last she said, "The man who sent him here."

  Interesting… And now Tom Thumb's mysterious contact in the East was gaining a little more of a shape. "Why was he sent here?"

  But she thought she already knew.

  She said, "Les Lézards."

  And Madame Linlin, stubbing out the remains of her cigarette, said, "Yes."

  TWENTY-SIX

  Fat Man and Lizard

  There had been a fat man at the Clockwork Room that night. That was what Henri had told her at the Speckled Band. A fat man standing with the lizardine ambassador. Very fat, with a prominent forehead, a prominent nose, and deep-set eyes that seemed to miss nothing – deep-set eyes that had fastened onto Yong Li as if they had been expecting just such a man.

  That the fat man was with a royal lizard was significant. Yet he did not seem to Henri to be an assistant, an aide-de-camp or a servant – he had the manner about him of a man not easily fazed, and when he turned to speak to the tall lizard beside him he did it with what Henri could only describe as an indulgent smile.

  The fat man had moved slowly and drunk little, and seemed to pass through the room attracting surprisingly little notice – "And my attention was on Yong Li, you understand, not on the fat man."

  "I understand."

  And now she remembered that Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, too, had noticed a fat man…

  "When I saw Yong Li going up the stairs to the private rooms, naturally I followed him," Henri said. "There was a room at the end of the corridor and the door was closing behind him and I went to it and knocked. A voice said, "Who is it?" and I said, "It's me, Henri, let me in."

  The door had opened then, and the Asian man stood there, his face stricken. "You must go, now!" he said. Both his hands were on his belly, not patting it but – "Like he was holding it in, trying to stop it from bursting, you know?"

  He'd said, "Quick! You must go. You must not be seen."

  "But why? What are you doing?"

  "For your own sake, man! He's coming!"

  The door had slammed shut. Henri was left alone in the corridor – and as he looked from door to staircase he heard footsteps climbing, slowly but with an even step, up the stairs.

  "I don't mind telling you I was unsettled," he said. "But, you see, I know the Clockwork Room well."

  And so he opened one of the doors lining the corridor and stepped inside, shutting it behind him just as the footsteps had reached the top of the staircase and began coming down the corridor, towards that last room.

  "There was a woman in there – oh! I knew her very well. A very famous novelist. I had been to her salons several times. But she did not see me. No – she was inside one of the clockwork engines of that place, and it was working at her – I would have liked to have sketched it."

  "That's nice."

  "Yes, well… she did not see me. And so I was safe."

  He heard the footsteps coming closer. When they came to Henri's door they paused – "I don't mind telling you I was worried" – but finally moved on. Henri had opened the door then, just a crack. He saw the fat man disappear into the last room, the one holding Yong Li. The door had closed shut behind him.

  "I should have left then. But I needed to see."

  And so he left his hiding place, machine and novelist and all, and tiptoed to the last door, the unmarked one. "I peeked through the keyhole," he said. His eyes grew very large then, and his hands shook. His head sank back against the cushions. She was losing him, she knew then. "What did you see?" she said – demanded. But the little artist's eyes were no longer seeing, and the expression on his face was filled with both fear and longing. "I saw it," he said. "I saw it."

  His eyes closed, and his breath came softly, scented with the sweetness of opium. "What did you see?" She slapped him, but it made no difference.

  "I saw their world," he said, and he smiled, a small, child-like smile, and then he spoke no more. She tried, but could not rouse him, and at last she left him there, to dream his grey dreams.

  "We believe," Madame Linlin said, "that Captain Li was in Paris to meet secretly with a representative of the lizards' secret service." She grimaced, a disconcerting sight as one side of her face remained metal-smooth. "His name is Mycroft Holmes. His influence is far-reaching. He is very dangerous."

  Milady almost laughed. She had no doubt Madame Linlin was just as dangerous. And no doubt she occupied a similar position to this Mycroft's in her own country's service. She said, "Why did Yong Li – Captain Li – not meet them across the Channel?"

  "In the lizards' own domain?" Madame Linlin shook her head. "No. Paris was a sensible choice."

  It did, Milady had to admit, make sense. Yong Li's master had something to – to sell? To trade? – with the lizards. He had chosen the one place they could not move openly in. "What does he look like, this Mycroft Holmes?" she asked, waiting for the answer to confirm her own thoughts.

  "He is a very fat man," Madame Linlin said, with some distaste.

  "Ah."

  "You know of him?"

  "I think," she said, "that he had indeed met with Captain Li."

  "Yes. My people have not been as diligent as they should have. We have not been able to locate him in time."

  "Did you kill Yong Li?"

  The old woman smiled, then shook her head. "No. It would have made things simpler if we had. And you and I wouldn't be talking."

  "Do you know who did?"

  The smile disappeared. "No. We need to find out, and we need to retrieve the object. It must be destroyed."

  "I need to know what it is."

  The old woman shrugged. "It is a piece of something which should not exist," she said. "A legend, a folktale."

  "I am tasked with finding it," Milady said. "For my own people."

  "It must be destroyed."

  "That is not my decision."

  The woman shrugged. "We can make our own arrangements with the Council," she said. "It is the lizards we are most concerned with."

  "Are there others from… from Chung Kuo looking for this object?"

  The old woman looked at her sharply. And now she extracted another cigarette and fitted it into her holder. "You have encountered others?"

  "I am merely asking."

  For the first time real anger came into the old woman's eyes. "There are secret societies," she said. "They are little more than criminals. Bandits." She muttered something under her breath. "Colonel Xing!" she called, and in a second the man was there. She spoke to him in what Milady took for Chinese. The man nodded, his face expressionless. In a moment, Madame Linlin had switched to French. "Please escort Lady de Winter safely out of the building. We have concluded our little conversation."

  "Have we?" Milady said. The old woman smiled her half
smile, not mistaking the threat in Milady's voice. "Only for now, I'm sure," she said sweetly.

  "Only for now," Milady said, returning the smile.