Ilse then pulled a comb from her hair, which turned out to be a long, thin dagger. Sophy recovered her balance and thrust both of her knives toward the other woman’s eyes, only for the blades to be struck aside — with sparks — by a sweep of Ilse’s dagger.
Then, it was on… an expert knife-fight between fit fillies who whirled like dervishes and slashed at each other with well-matched precision and clinical malice. Their loose hair tossed as they hissed insults at each other in several languages. Both took minor cuts and sustained rents in their clothes, but avoided the other’s would-be killing thrusts.
Entertaining, I admit, but a distraction. I rapped on the worm’s metal hide with my revolver.
One of the plates of the Kallinikos slid aside, making an aperture in the carapace. An engineer — our old friend Berkins, in tailored overall and a peakless cap like a convict’s — was puzzled by the sudden commotion.
‘You can’t do that yurr,’ he said.
Lucas and Sabin had rolled away from the train, and stood up. They got busy with the big wheel which worked the points. Lucas struggled with the control. Sabin — whose walking stick was a disguised shotgun — kept us from interfering.
It wasn’t them I was bothered with, anyway. Though I saw what they were up to.
The Professor spotted him first.
‘Moran,’ he shouted. ‘Up there.’
On top of the train crouched a thin, spidery figure. He wore a black body-stocking and a tight-fitting hood with slit-holes for eyes. He must have been lying on the roof of the waiting room.
It was the double-fake Carnacki. Chief of the spy ring, it appeared.
I took a shot, which went true. It spanged against my target’s chest, and he was pushed backward but not knocked down. He was armoured, just like the worm. The gaunt, lithe fellow made sure I hadn’t another shot at him, stepping off the other side of the train and dropping behind it.
‘All aboard,’ I shouted, and barged past Berkins.
‘You’re not cleared for the Kallinikos,’ complained Colonel Moriarty. ‘You could be shot for treason!’
It wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried.
The Professor held his brother back. Which showed a faith in me I’d come to expect. At least the Professor understood what I was doing. Neither of us could have said why, though. Oh, we wanted to slap down the false-face fellow who thought he could pull off a coup under our noses, but it’s not as if we felt an obligation to preserve Her Majesty’s secrets for the Department of Bloody Supplies. I’ve lived long enough with my impulse to hare off into dicey situations where death and danger lurk to know I could no more moderate this tendency than a tiger could decide to be polka-dotted for a change.
Moriarty, however, was usually more calculating.
The spy master would get into the worm somehow, and I’d face him in its belly.
The interior of the Kallinikos was cramped, certainly not designed for comfort. Also, stifling and malodorous. Canvas straps hung everywhere. I couldn’t stand up straight without bumping my head on the ceiling. Gauges, batteries, dynamos and dials took up too much space. Charts and graphs were pinned to a draughtsman’s table. Electric light bulbs hung from a thick central wire, pulsing with inconsistent current.
I pushed Berkins off the train, with some pleasure. He fell on his fat arse.
There was a shot. Sabin, firing at the ground as Lucas finally wrenched the wheel. With the points thrown, the Kallinikos could roll onto the main line — off the branch it had been using in the trial manoeuvres. If the spy master took command, he could burn the whole county to cover his escape and plunder the machine’s secrets at his leisure.
All three Moriarty brothers crammed into the aperture like Siamese triplets, jostling to board the war train. The Professor established seniority with sharp elbows, and was inside the Kallinikos ahead of the Colonel and the Stationmaster. None of them needed to be on the worm, but no James could have borne it if another were on board and they were left behind. Brothers, eh?
In the present pickle, I’d have found Sophy the Knives more useful than the Moriarty boys, but she was still apache dancing with Ilse. There was a reason the Professor employed me to handle the rough stuff — it wasn’t that he couldn’t take care of himself when there was blood on the floor, but he saw the wisdom of delegating to experts. In battle, that meant me. Still, I could have done without worrying over an arithmetic tutor, a desk soldier and the family idiot.
‘Keep out of my bloody way,’ I told the brothers, ‘and I’ll find our bloody imposter.’
They showed identical, stricken faces. None cared to be told what to do. All chewed over any sleight with eventual retribution in mind. Scratch any of ’em, and there was Moriarty marrow underneath.
‘Carnacki the Ghost Finder,’ I shouted, ‘is there anybody there? Do I sense a presence in the aether?’
Our spy master had got into the Kallinikos, I’d no doubt. One of the plates hung loose, showing a sliver of the outside through the hide of the worm. The hole didn’t seem big enough for a grown man to squeeze through, but this customer had more than proved his slipperiness today.
I saw a shadow and fired. Something exploded. A cloud of sulphurous flame puffed, burning brighter than natural fire. A couple of canvas straps were incinerated. A wave of intense heat rolled at me. I nipped behind a bulkhead. If Greek Fire got on flesh, it would sizzle through to the bone. The puff burned out quickly, but left a residue of acrid fumes. They might be lethal, too. This contraption was as dangerous to the operators as the enemy.
‘This is a delicate system,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s not advisable to use firearms in here.’
Heaven forbid anyone should shoot a gun in a war machine!
The Colonel’s face and hands were soot-blackened. The Moriarty brothers were a music hall act. I supposed I could join in too. I’d lost my eyebrows to the flame.
Flares of light popped in my vision, even if I rubbed fists into my closed eyes.
Someone screamed further down the worm — inside one of its heads.
There was a lurch. The machine began to move.
VII
A whistle shrilled.
I found out what the canvas straps were for. The brothers Moriarty clung to the appendages, but still swung like human punching bags. I saw why the charts were pinned down and the equipment bolted to frames fixed to the interior walls.
‘Who is this man?’ the Colonel demanded. ‘The one who isn’t Carnacki.’
We all looked at Stationmaster Moriarty. He had issued the invitations.
‘He’s supposed to be Paul Finglemore, alias Colonel Clay, alias many others,’ Young James admitted. ‘The man who never wears the same face twice…’
The Professor pooh-poohed that. ‘But he’s not Finglemore, is he? This is an unknown, a shadow man, a ringer. He learned of your auction of secrets, James. Your net for spies, if you will. He saw a way to exploit it. A man who acts for himself.’
The Professor should know about that.
‘He’s a damned anarchist,’ the Colonel declared.
At present, I didn’t care who our shadow man was or what cause — if any — he espoused. I just thought it past time to stop him. He’d blacked all our faces. I was thirsty for a little evening up of the scores.
The Kallinikos picked up speed.
‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘who else is on board?’