CHAPTER 3: HONOURED GUESTS
Fresh night air greeted Dirk as he slipped unseen onto the veranda. For all his bulk, he’d gotten good over the years at getting in and out of places unnoticed, making the most of distractions and darkened doorways. Plenty of villains had learned the hard way that Dirk Dynamo was more than just muscle for hire.
With a sense of relief, he strolled away from the light and chatter and meandered along the front of the house. He struck a match against the wall and lit a cigar, closing his eyes to relish the moment. He could hear the buzz of insects and the cry of a wounded beast in the jungle, but the only company close enough to impose its presence was the guests’ horses, most still in harness to their carriages, stamping their feet and snorting to each other on the drive.
The horses, like their owners, had a party laid on for them, with water troughs and feed bags all around. They chomped and slurped and sniffed at each other while the drivers smoked and played cards.
Still relishing the rich taste of tobacco, Dirk stepped off the veranda and down onto the gravel, approaching the nearest horse with an outstretched hand. Her nostrils fluttered and she nuzzled up against his palm, whiskers tickling his hand as she sought a sugar lump that wasn’t there.
“Sorry, ma’am.” Dirk patted her head and stroked the rough hair of her mane. “Maybe next time.”
After the bustle of the party, the horse was soothing company. The openness of an animal’s motives made a nice change from people’s schemes and subtleties, while the rise and fall of her warm flank beneath his hand brought back happy memories. He thought of the western plains at night, the same stars shining on them as looked down on him now. Nothing but a man and his mount, and a world of potential stretching to the horizon.
Dirk left his new friend and carried on around the side of the building, happily puffing away at his cigar. The shoes still pinched, but at least he could loosen his collar now and let the bow tie hang free. He started going over the things he’d been told about the governor’s art, repeating everything three times, fixing facts to memory.
The drive swept around to the back of the mansion’s main building. The pole star hung low over a wide dusty yard and beyond it a barn-like building connected to the residence by the servants’ quarters. The bottom floor looked to be stables, dark and empty. Above that, light crept through the cracks in two floors of shuttered windows, narrow beams stabbing across rough timber walls. Faint rumbling and clacking sounds drifted into the night.
Glancing up, Dirk noticed that there were no lit windows on this side of the house. In fact, barely any windows at all. And why were the stables empty while the horses were kept out on the drive? Curiosity pulled powerfully at him.
Dropping his cigar, he ground the butt beneath his heel. Habit took hold as he started taking soft steps, reducing the crunch of his feet on gravel. Sticking to the deep shadows of the house he sidled around the yard, past the noise and smells spilling from the kitchen doorway, along the wall of the servants’ quarters and up to a small door in the side of the barn.
He tried the latch but the door had been barred from the inside. The same with all the other doors of the barn, except those leading into the dead end of the stables. But a row of windows was open on the top floor, letting acrid smells and wafts of steam out into the night.
It seemed like someone wanted to hide what was going on here, and that just made him more curious.
Dirk glanced around. No-one was nearby. He took two sharp steps and sprang upwards, grasping the ledge of a window on the middle floor. Arms straining he hauled himself upwards, levering his elbows onto the narrow ledge. He shifted all his weight onto one arm, swaying pendulum-like, his feet scraping against the wall below. The other arm shot up, grabbing the top of the window frame. He swung up and, with a heave and a grunt, flung himself through the open gap of the window.
Dirk landed in a crouch and paused, gazing into the shadows that surrounded him. His eyes quickly adjusted to the deeper dark out of moonlight’s reach, revealing a large room, hollow as a warehouse, filled with the angular shadows of crates and strange machines. Voices filtered through from the floor above, backed by a rumble of machinery. The room smelt dusty, but it was a sharp dust that burned at the senses.
Curiosity was turning into suspicion. This all seemed very industrial, more like a factory than a governor’s mansion.
Hitching up the leg of his pants, Dirk pulled a sturdy knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle. It was a moment’s work to slide the blade beneath the lid of one of the crates and crack it open. Dipping his hand inside he scooped up a heap of powder and held it close to his face. Not all explosives smelled the same, but he’d got a good sense over the years for odours that went into them. He wasn’t going to try lighting a match around this stuff.
Replacing the lid, he hammered the nails back in with his knife. Then he put another, smaller crate on top and climbed up to peer through a hole in the floorboards above.
The view wasn’t great, but there was enough light for Dirk to make out pistons hammering back and forth. He glimpsed a barrel as someone rolled it across the hole and heard people talking in a language he didn’t know. With his hand against the boards, he could feel the machines shaking the floor.
There was a hell of a lot more going on in Hakon than just plantations and a shipwreck.
Taking care not to make much noise, Dirk climbed down and put the crates back where he’d found them. Splinters of light stabbed into the room from around a doorway at the far end. He crept forward and pressed his eye against the crack.
A short, round woman stood in a stairwell, lit by gas lamps that burned with a green corona. She wore a servant’s dress of plain brown cotton a shade lighter than her skin, her hair bundled in a yellow scarf. She tapped impatiently against the wall with fingers stained chalky white.
There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs and Cullen rose into view, ginger moustache twitching as he huffed and puffed.
“Sorry, Omalara, sorry,” he muttered, leaning forward to catch his breath. “Had trouble getting away. That McNair woman was following me all over the place. Can’t decide if she’s a charming conversationalist or just damned inquisitive.”
The woman folded her arms and fixed him with a stare.
“Omalara said no good would come of this,” she said. “But would you listen to her? No. You got to have your white man guests and your big party. Now the vats going wild with only Omalara and her daughter to fix them, ’cause you got her boys dressed up and serving drinks.”
“It is important that we keep up appearances.” Cullen’s expression was that of a naughty schoolboy, making excuses for talking in the back of class. “I know you don’t like it, but if something is wrong, if suspicions are roused, everything we’ve built could come tumbling down.”
“If something is wrong?” Her glare could have withered the strongest of men, and Cullen was no Hercules. “Like maybe you have a party like you never done before.”
“I’ve never had such prestigious guests at the mansion before. Blaze-Simms’s name alone is enough to open doors, and the Epiphany Club have a certain bohemian glamour among the adventurous sorts. Etiquette dictates...”
“Etiquette don’t dictate round here, boy. That English talk.”
“And this is an English colony. If word of what we are doing gets back to the Colonial Office then they’ll send soldiers to prove that the sharp way.”
Cullen stopped his rising voice, slapped a shocked hand over his mouth. Silence reigned for a long minute.
“You right,” Omalara said at last. “And it better to give your white men some distraction, so they don’t go poking where they shouldn’t. You keep them distracted, take them hunting, away from house and farms. Give me time to think.”
“Of course.” Cullen stooped and kissed the serving woman’s hand before retreating back down the stairs.
Omalara turned and, for a moment, her eyes seemed to pierce the door and fix on Dirk. He tens
ed, certain despite all evidence that he was found out. His body strained, ready to flee the intensity of her gaze.
Omalara stepped towards him, one hand stretched out. She grabbed the bannister and walked past, up the stairs to the right of the door. Footfalls padded up and away, leaving Dirk watching an empty stairwell, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
He found Blaze-Simms in the trophy room, beneath the glassy gaze of a dozen stuffed animals. A cluster of party-goers were crowded around, watching as he constructed a steam engine from an oil lamp, half a bottle of claret and a napkin.
“But what is its purpose?” Cullen’s oriental guest was peering at the starched, folded cloth spinning above the open neck of the bottle.
“To power factories.” Blaze-Simms waved his hands around excitedly. “By connecting such a turbine to a drive shaft, one can more efficiently transform the chemical energy of coal or wood into the kinetic energy required by modern industry.”
“You power your factories with napkins?” The guest looked even more confused.
“Gosh no, even the finest starch wouldn’t stop them flopping when enlarged to an efficient scale. One would use steel instead.”
With a flourish, Blaze-Simms set a differently folded napkin on top of the bottle, drawing applause as it spun faster and faster.
“Factories use this now, yes?” A French lilt inflected the question. A pale man in a yellow jacket peered up at Blaze-Simms whilst pointing at the improvised engine.
“The principles are the same, but a blade of this design would increase productivity by thirty to forty percent.” Blaze-Simms grabbed a bottle from a passing waiter, tipped its contents into the Frenchman’s glass and knocked the bottom out with a sharp tap on the table. “If I introduce an extra funnel, and a suitable source of smoke, you will be able to witness the critical difference in air flows...”
Oblivious to the broken glass now littering the table and the nervous looks of his audience, Blaze-Simms began rebuilding his device, constantly talking about its design. The Frenchman and Chinaman remained among the attentive crowd, while the former’s bodyguards and the latter’s wife stood quietly by, their faces the blank slates of the professionally patient. When the bodyguards looked around at all it was to watch Blaze-Simms’s antics, a hint of a sneer on their lips.
Sidling out of the trophy room and into the main hall, Dirk let his body drift through the buzz of laughter and perfume while his mind lingered on what he had seen in the out-building. Seeing an upper class Englishman like Cullen acting subservient should have been a pleasure, especially with someone so embodying the down-trodden masses – woman, African, servant. Intellectually, Dirk knew he should have been pleased at the turn-around. But in his gut he felt a deep sense of unease at the contradiction between what he’d seen there and what was happening out here in the party. He was a guest in a house of lies, surrounded by deception and distraction. There was no way this would end well.
He watched the household servants as they wandered the hall. They were all native men, dressed in jackets and bow ties. They followed the rules a servant should, formal in manner, silent until questioned, polite in speech and style. They acted promptly on every request, even arriving with new drinks before guests themselves spotted that their glasses were empty. It was a book perfect rendition of good service.
But not life perfect. Dirk knew servants. He had been in and seen the role countless times. Real servants, worn into instinct over the years, held themselves differently. They stood straight like these men, but it was a straightness of formality, where this was pride. And a servant’s eyes, an honest servant’s eyes, did not dart around as these did. A servant used the corners of his vision, catching every movement without shifting his gaze, and held only those details required by his role. These servants were scouring the room, watching guests when they weren’t looking, soaking up the events around them. They knew not to catch a guest’s gaze, but they didn’t know not to gaze at all.
Unease growing inside him, Dirk edged away from the servants, trying to watch without being watched. Was it his imagination or were more eyes on him? More gazes swiftly shifting when he looked their way?
Someone grabbed at his elbow. He spun around, twisting his arm free and gripping his assailant’s wrist.
“Why, Mr Dynamo, I didn’t know you cared.” Isabelle smiled sweetly up at him. “But I’m afraid this hand is reserved for Mr McNair.”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Dirk released his grip. “You startled me, that’s all.”
“I quite understand. I must be a hideous sight, looming out of the darkness of a party.”
“I didn’t mean...”
“I’m teasing, Mr Dynamo. Are all Americans so literal-minded?”
“America’s a big place, ma’am. I wouldn’t care to speak for all my countrymen. But most folks I know back home are straight shooters, except for politicians and Pinkertons, and neither or them are trusted much.”
“You don’t dabble in politics yourself?”
“No, ma’am.” Dirk hesitated. He knew some folks considered this a sensitive subject, and that his own opinions weren’t exactly in line with those of the British upper class. “I read about it a bit, mostly your European thinkers like Mr Marx. But it’s no business for a man of spirit.”
“And being a Pinkerton is?” She smiled playfully.
“Well, that’s another matter. I’ve done my share of spying and prying, some of it on my nation’s dime, some not. But we all do things we ain’t proud of from time to time.”
“How very true.” Isabelle was solemn for a moment. Then she seemed to remember herself, glancing around with a smile. “Of course an Englishman takes pride in everything he does, and occasionally the things he doesn’t. When one defines civilisation, it is very easy to always be right.”
They strolled through the throng, her arm now linked through his as she nodded and smiled to the people they passed. Dirk guided her away from the servants and found himself once more heading towards the open front door.
One of the servants was walking parallel to them along the side of the room, dispensing drinks from his heavily laden tray, replacing them with empty glasses. His face was familiar, one of the men who’d fetched their bags from the dock.
“Apparently his name is Gu,” Isabelle said, leaning close to Dirk.
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, silly, Bekoe-Kumi did. She knows all about him.”
“Close, are they?” Dirk found himself amazed that Isabelle had got so much out of the Dahomey woman.
“I suppose that would be one way to put it. She worships him.”
Dirk raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Passionate girl,” he said.
“It’s in the nature of the ahosi.”
“Not like English women, eh?”
“I think that’s a little unfair. Most of us are as dedicated to our lord as the next nation of housewives, even if we only have the one god.”
“God?”
“Gu deals with war, apparently. But then, so must any god of Englishmen.”
Dirk turned to look in confusion at Isabelle. He’d clearly missed something, leaving him feeling like a fool. She gazed at the statue by the door, its swords moving up and down to the entertainment of the guests.
“This is Gu?” he asked, pointing at the figure.
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”
Dirk glanced once more at the servant he’d thought they were discussing, now disappearing towards the back of the room.
“Seems not.” Dirk’s shoes creaked as he shifted uncomfortably on the spot. “You noticed anything odd about this place?”
“Apart from the servants?”
“You noticed too, huh?”
“Never under-estimate a woman, Mr Dynamo.” Isabelle frowned at him. “Especially not where the running of a household is concerned. Of course I noticed the servants, but there are other things too. The library is at the rear of the house, facing nor
th, meaning it gets less light than the guest rooms, which are all at the front. Hardly conducive to reading, or to sleep. Not that the library even has any windows to let in the light.”
“Could just be poor design.”
“I doubt it. Reginald’s father was an architect, he would notice details like that.” She looked thoughtfully around the room. “Shall we have a little wander, see what else we might see?”
They strolled back through the party, Isabelle drifting between conversations while Dirk stood awkwardly at her side, a knight in dress tails on the arm of a picture-book princess. Most of the guests were British, and she knew them all by reputation at least. Conversation flowed around her like a spring breeze, leaves of laughter dancing on the wind. She brought out the best in those around her – fascinating anecdotes, rapier wit, gems of obscure and intriguing knowledge.
“What do you want from life?” she asked during one of their brief moments without other company.
“The usual stuff.” Dirk shrugged sheepishly.
“And what’s the usual stuff?”
“To be better. To be smarter.”
“I’m really not sure that’s the usual stuff.” She laughed, and Dirk felt his face redden.
“What about you?” he asked, looking for a distraction.
“What do I want?” She seemed surprised by the question.
“Uhuh.”
“I want to decide my own fate.” Her voice had gone quiet, and she looked the closest he’d seen her to timid. “I don’t believe that’s too much to ask.”
“Damn straight.” Dirk nodded. “Where I come from, it’s every man’s right to do that.”
“Well. Quite.” She raised an eyebrow and looked up at him, searching his face. Whatever she was after, she didn’t seem to find it. Her usual tone returned, and she whisked him off once more into the crowds.
Even with Isabelle’s civilising touch, the party was entering its final phase, a long drawn-out death by denial. The older guests were growing red-faced and wobbly, fat merchants groping inappropriately for their long-suffering wives. The young had reached the drinking from bottles stage, casting aside the safest social convention in slender hopes of instigating a wild time. A tired and tipsy young woman was being whisked around the centre of the room by a dandy who danced to the music in his mind. And around the edges the other visitors stood uncertain, watching the English at their most uncharacteristically riotous.
“Don’t these folks ever give up?” Dirk stepped out of the waltzing couple’s path.
“Freeport doesn’t have much of a social scene,” Isabelle said. “They’re making hay while Cullen’s sun shines.”
“Freeport?” Dirk had heard the name mentioned, but that was as far as his knowledge went.
“The main town and harbour.” Isabelle smiled and nodded her head to a passer by. “It’s on the far side of the island from where we docked.”
“I wondered why we didn’t see more of these folks earlier.”
“It seemed wise to keep our boat away from the rest. It avoids people asking about Timothy’s diving devices or watching us trawling for treasure.”
Dirk nodded. “Makes sense. So now we’ve got a hint of the wreck, what’s our next move?”
“A quick one, if we can. First thing tomorrow lets-”
A sharp rapping came from behind them. Dirk turned to see Cullen standing on the stairs, knocking his walking stick against the banister.
“Your attention please!” he called to the crowd. A hush fell across the room, interspersed with drunken giggling. “It is my pleasure to announce a hunting party tomorrow, meeting here at ten for a jaunt into the jungle.”
Applause broke out, raucous and relieved. With something else to look forward to, the party could finally finish.
Cullen held up a hand for silence.
“It is my further pleasure to invite one of our honoured guests, a renowned master of tracking and trapping, to lead us in the chase. Mr Dynamo, would you be willing to lead the hunt?”
All eyes turned on Dirk. He looked to Isabelle, uncertain whether to accept. What would help them blend in best, saying yes or no? He didn’t want to draw attention if he didn’t have to.
She gave the faintest of nods.
“Sure thing, Mr Cullen.” Dirk grinned a predator’s grin. If he was going hunting he might as well enjoy it. “I’m always up for a little sport.”
He whispered to Isabelle as applause filled the hall. “First thing tomorrow, huh?”
She smiled up at him, a glint in her eyes. “What’s a day’s delay, compared with seeing a renowned master at work?”