Penny Dreadful and the Machines

At Fortnum and Mason's Roxanne led Penny to a rear entrance where a liveried doorman tipped his hat to her and swung open the door.

"Miss Poule," he said, clearly deferential.

"Is the flag flying?" said Roxanne, a strange question to ask.

"Indeed," said doorman, "you may go right up."

Roxanne led Penny into the entrance and over to a gated lift. The lift boy opened the gate to allow Roxanne and Penny in, then responded to Roxanne's nod by pressing the top button. The lift rose slowly, Roxanne giving Penny a brief smile, whilst Penny remained all at sea. Her confusion only receded once Roxanne led her through a door, and a waiting secretary in an ante-room stood and stepped out from behind his table, opening a further door and ushering them through into a large office where, standing and waiting by a window that looked down on Piccadilly, was Commodore St George.

"Why ladies, a pleasure to see you," he began, before he saw the expression of concern on Roxanne's face. He invited them to sit before his large, scrupulously neat desk, one wall of his office a line of cabinets, the other a bookcase from floor to ceiling.

The events in the foyer of the Ritz were soon related, the Commodore listening more attentively than someone who overheard his usual stream of snorts and exhalations might expect -- he listened, in fact, like an officer receiving an important report from a junior.

"Your assessment of the men," said the Commodore to Roxanne.

"German. Ex-military or on some kind of secondment. From the sounds of their exclamations I would hazard that they are Brandenburgers. One probably from Stettin, the other perhaps from Charlottenburg."

The Commodore stood and went to his door, opening it.

"Billy, would you mind checking St Thomas's, Guys and Charing Cross hospitals for admissions, two Germans with breakages? Arm, leg, nose and, err, groin. If they have them, request a hold for 'observation.' Top priority," he instructed his secretary.

"Could somebody tell me what's going on?" said Penny, finally catching up a little with the world around her.

Roxanne and the Commodore shared a glance, and the Commodore went to the top drawer of the nearest cabinet, opening it and pulling out a bottle of brandy and some glasses. He poured a glass for Penny and himself, Roxanne refusing with the comment that she was on duty.

"Miss Dreadful," the Commodore began, leaning forward in an avuncular manner, "we have been aware for some time that there is some directing intelligence behind a series of attacks and conspiracies against our position in global affairs."

"Take von Lipschitz," said Roxanne, "that whole plot wasn't all him. There was someone sponsoring him."

"We have reason to believe that this particular individual bears a strong antipathy towards any he deems to have stymied his grands projets," said the Commodore, "which includes myself and Miss Burlington, naturally, and Roxanne here, and unfortunately, since the affair of Count von Lipschitz, you are now one of his targets."

"There have been a couple of attempts at kidnapping, and assassination," said Roxanne, "on myself and others. They didn't get far."

"So that man who shot the policeman on Victoria station...?" said Penny.

"Ribeiro? Yes, we believe he was after you," said the Commodore, and Penny took a large gulp of brandy.

"But who is this man who wants to destroy us?" said Penny, once the burn was past.

"That's the thing," said the Commodore, "we don't really know anything about him. Nobody will talk, he inspires such fear. The only detail we know for sure is that he's fanatical about his moustache, cares for it like a favoured son, waxes it constantly. So, we call him the Waxed Moustache."

"The Waxed Moustache," Penny mused, shadows forming in the corners of the sunny office, "what then, does he want?"

"If we knew who he was we might ask. But the man Ribeiro won't talk, even though he's facing the eight o'clock walk from the condemned cell," said the Commodore, "we even offered him commutation and protection."

"But what could be worse than the hangman?" said Penny.

"Death at the hands of the Waxed Moustache," said the Commodore, "one story is that on an expedition in Panama a guide misplaced his moustache wax so our fella had him thrown into a pool of piranha. Found the tin of wax later that day in a coat pocket, but he didn't care a jot, just threw another servant into the next piranha pool for not finding it sooner."

"And now he has his sights set on you," said Roxanne to Penny, "probably because he thinks you are less protected than we are."

"Well, I think Roxanne has disabused his cronies of that assumption," said the Commodore, "but there remains the question of how they knew you were in the Ritz. Who were you meeting?"

"Freddie!" said Penny, a sudden cold stealing over her heart, "erm, sorry, Professor Freddie Patterson, of the Robotic Mining Equipment Consortium."

"Oh, old 'Poker' Patterson's boy?" said the Commodore, "went to Dartmouth with his father. Cadets together on the training cruise. This boy of his was second eleven at Magdalen. Tricky left arm spin."

"You don't think Freddie...?" said Penny.

"No," said Roxanne thoughtfully, "I don't think so. I'm afraid I was curious, which is why I was at the Ritz. I saw him talking to you and no, I don't think that man wishes anything ill toward you. Nothing ill at all. I think mostly he's thinking about summoning up the courage to kiss you."

Penny blushed as the Commodore hid his smile behind his brandy glass. She remembered Freddie's expression as they bent over the paper, working on a purer kerosene distillation formula. No, not Freddie.

"The fact remains, they knew you were at the Ritz," said Roxanne, "and my guess is they have been following you. On seeing you there, their scout summoned the rest of the crew."

"You'll have to stay here," said the Commodore, "at least for tonight. We have an apartment here, where we keep important personages safe. It is at your disposal."

They were interrupted by the secretary, Billy, entering and bending down to murmur something in the Commodore's ear.

"Miss Poule," said the Commodore, "your recent antagonists are currently at St Thomas's Hospital. I believe your German is better than mine, so if you might, could you go and interview them, on the off-chance they feel inclined to talk? See if you can't encourage them to divulge the name of their employer."

"Perhaps Major Virtue could surveil Berkeley Square for any more of those beastly men," said Penny, and immediately there was another glance between Roxanne and the Commodore.

"Ah, yes, the Major," said the Commodore, "strangest thing, but he put in a request to be transferred back to Nyasaland. Said he wanted active service again. Couldn't be in London any more. Can't think what's got into him, but he couldn't be talked out of it. He left yesterday. Very low key. Vincit amor patriae, it seems."

"We'll need to keep you out of sight," said Roxanne to Penny, "at least until I get some intelligence out of our German friends at St Thomas's. And then maybe for longer."

"Well, I was thinking of taking a trip to Hertfordshire," said Penny, "something I heard at Robotic Mining yesterday has confused me."

"Anything we can help with?" said the Commodore.

"Oh, I doubt it," said Penny, "it's just that they've sold some machines to a retired Swedish general in Hertfordshire, of all places. There isn't a mine for a hundred miles, so I wondered if the general has found an interesting new use for the equipment. I thought I'd ask him, and tomorrow looks as good a day as any to be out of London."

"Retired Swedish general, you say?" said the Commodore, and he rose again and went to his bookcase, scanning the lower shelves until he found a slim, sky-blue volume. He picked it out, "Swedish Army List."

The Commodore spent a few minutes umming as he flicked through the pages, "ah, here we are, Henrik Arvidsson, Major-General, retired, currently residing at The Beeches, Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. Seems an ideal place to absent yourself to on the morrow."

* * *

Penny mused, as the train slowed to a halt amid the hissings and huffings of the engine, the steam collecting around it. Not seventy years before, her grandparents, had they the urge to visit the pretty little town of Kings Langley from London, would have required most of a day bouncing in a carriage on a bumpy road to complete the twenty-or-so miles she had now accomplished in just thirty minutes from central London. Her great-grandparents would have done so at the risk of highwaymen.

She needn't have made her excursion, though, for the word from the Commodore was that Roxanne had applied the threat of her singular skills to Penny's German assailants. They had, whilst not revealing their ultimate employer, wisely divulged the details of the rest of their nasty crew, who were being rounded up as she sat on her upholstered first-class seat. However, Penny was genuinely curious when it came to Freddie's inventions, and if she was serious about playing a role in the Robotic Mining Equipment Consortium, this was a good way to start. There was now merely the small matter of locating The Beeches.

The station master, however, was absorbed in directing the unloading a number of empty milk churns from the guard's compartment, and so Penny walked out into the lane beyond the ticket office. If she could find some small shop -- a haberdashery or tobacconists, she would surely get directions. Parked a little way along, and presumably waiting for the empty churns, was a farm cart with a labourer, a boy barely out of school, really, lounging against it. He smartened himself up and made a largely futile attempt to stand attentively at Penny's approach.

On hearing where Penny wanted to go, he gave the simple directions for the ten-minute walk as The Beeches was, effectively, just at the far end of the Watford Road, the main road that ran the length of the village.

"Sure you want to go there, miss?" he ventured, his tone dubious.

"Indeed," said Penny, "is there something untoward about the place?"

"Well," said that fount of local wisdom, "'tis a strange place, nowadays, since that foreign general took it on. Mr Partridge had it afore, but then he died of the drink and it was leased out, and the foreign chap moved in. My uncle says there's something odd about those people, saving of course that they're foreign anyways."

Penny began to inspect her walking boots as the general English rural antipathy to anyone from places further afield than the next village rose to the fore. The boy, seeing he was losing his audience, veered back to the point.

"So, they gets these carts going in and out at all hours. In the night, too. And there's crates and things going in and out on the carts, but always covered up. Nobody knows what's inside of 'em."

"Probably furniture," said Penny.

"Perhaps, miss, but why would anyone send their furniture off on a closed cart at three in the morning when only the owls are awake?"

It was a valid point, and Penny told the lad to go on.

"And then there's the servants," he said, "they bring in their gardener and cook from The Smoke, rather than give anyone from the village the situation. Pays for their train tickets and everything. One day Old Man Garret stops the cook and gives her the time of day, and she tells him she's been paid a bonus and given instructions that she's to have nuffin' to do with the locals. And with that she just offs with her nose in the air, here to the station and back to London, and never a word from her or the gardener since. So, none of us knows nuffin about what's going on in the big house, but it's fishy, and no error."

"What's your name?" said Penny, as she fished in her reticule and pulled out a shilling.

"Cox, miss," said the lad, with a half-salute to the brim of his cap, "Christopher Cox."

"Thank you, Christopher," said Penny, tipping the grateful boy the shilling, "I think you're going to be a credit to Kings Langley."

With that a thoughtful Penny began the walk up to the Watford Road, and along it to The Beeches. She wondered just what to do with this new information as, with a regal grace, she acknowledged the deferential nods and greetings from the various shopkeepers and passing natives. Added to the disclosures from Freddie Patterson -- and here Penny paused for a brief moment and thought of her Freddie -- things certainly indicated the possibility of nefarious plans and infernal goings-on. But...

What if it was merely just the uninformed prejudices of yokels with naught but gossip to while away the winter hours? An echoing fever-dream of, "we don't like folks around 'ere." Penny looked around at charming Kings Langley, with its centuries old rural style. In many ways it was so similar to Augergranzschuletannengrifvossuberschengen, the pretty little village in the valley next to the military officer training college above which was situated Frau Aufguss's Academy. The villagers there were outwardly deferential to the officer cadets as they escorted Frau Aufguss's young ladies into the countryside for summer picnics, two by two, and yet that one village accounted for more than half the sales of binoculars and telescopes in the entire Canton of Lucerne.

Before she was quite halfway along the Watford Road Penny's mind was made up. The bare fact was that, despite no legitimate need for mining equipment in Hertfordshire (hell, they were on clay up there!), someone, a military person no less, was buying up Robotic Mining Equipment Consortium machines as if they were Fabergé Eggs going cheap. Added to the intelligence of nightly comings and goings, it was clear that Penny had a duty to penetrate The Beeches and discover its secrets. It gave her a quite heady resolve, and something deeper too, if she were honest: a strengthening urge in her most private places that betokened an oncoming adventure. In short, the possibility of danger made her horny.

The sight of The Beeches, once she had passed the village by some hundreds of yards, both gave her pause and reinforced her impression of villainy afoot. The house was large and silent, set back from the road, and normal in the 'village squire's house' way. Yet it was surrounded by an unnecessarily high, white-washed wall, almost designed with the intention of keeping any secrets within, whilst access was by two huge, ornate iron gates. Beyond the gates Penny could see a very pretty garden laid out, stretching all the way to the brick and render walls of the house, but the garden flowers merely provided a counter-point to the brooding image of the building itself.

She paused briefly at the gates, the sense of infiltrating enemy territory heavy upon her, until she remembered that this was Hertfordshire, and well-bred young women who held ten percent of the shares of stock market companies had the perfect right to knock on their clients' doors and enquire whether the inhabitants were satisfied with their products. It was practically common law.

Penny pushed open one of the heavy gates, which swung inward with an unexpected ease and only the merest creak. That, however, was all that was needed to summon the first of her obstacles, for beside the gates, obscured by a vigorous growth of Gertrude Jekyll climbing roses, was a small shed or, as it transpired, a guard house. From this structure sprang two young men of most imposing demeanour, young Vikings the pair of them, uniformed in royal blue hussar attilas, with the frogging dark across their broad chests. Their jackets were complemented with tight breeches and riding boots, though their uniforms bore no regimental insignia.

The two guards, older than Penny by perhaps five years, alike in their powerful build and blond hair and only distinguishable by eye colour, one being blue-eyed, the other grey, blocked her further progress. She saw them exchange a glance, suggestive of victory in a raffle or somesuch, and made to pass them and attain the front door of the house. They, for their part, immediately moved in front of her and obstructed her clearly quite legitimate passage, though they maintained a respectful distance of three feet from her.

Words were spoken to her in, she presumed, Swedish. Her language studies had never included that estimable tongue, but despite this she could tell she was being instructed in an assertive, though not actually hostile way, that further encroachment into the grounds of The Beeches was verboten. This posed a problem.

"I wish to speak to the General," said Penny, clearly enunciating every word loudly, as all thoughtful English people do when wanting foreigners to understand what is being said. Her reply was more Swedish, and she was at a loss.

All this confirmed one thing in her mind -- if there were guards preventing her visiting the occupants, then that could only mean that the occupants had something to hide, or were themselves being hidden. Either way, it was her duty to Violetta Burlington and to the Commodore, indeed to England, to discover what was afoot beyond her Nordic antagonists. She was limited to one weapon only, though...

It was fortunate that the two men before her were so well-set-up, and uniformed to boot, for if it must be done, 'twas better it were done well. Relaxing, she gave them a gentle smile, and lowered her eyes, turning her smile into a pout. This was for England, but perhaps it was also a little for herself, and she took her bottom lip between her teeth. She reached for the button on her jacket, and with artful nonchalance, flicked it open.

The two guards, whom Penny had privately christened Thor (blue eyes) and Sven (grey), shared a second look, this time one of joyful disbelief as Penny reached, now her jacket was undone, for the first buttons of her shirtwaist. She looked at the men then lowered her eyes again as, one by one, the buttons came undone, almost as if by accident.

"Well," she smiled, offhanded, "I'm showing you mine. Aren't you going to show me yours?"

She was certain that they couldn't understand her words, but the lusty sons of Ragnar certainly grasped their import. Thor smiled the lazy smile of the cat that got the cream, then took a step forward and towered over Penny, a head taller. She breathed in heavily, his scent mingling with the roses and the honeysuckle, and she trembled softly as Sven moved around behind her.

Reaching up slowly Thor began to unbutton his Attila, his fingers deliberate, almost savage, and at that she felt Sven envelop her. He snaked one arm around her waist and pulled her into him, and with his free hand he reached for her chin, tilting her face up and leaving her neck exposed. He bent his head and planted his lips on the side of her neck, the intensity of the kiss weakening her, leaving her shaking. He reached up then, to her shoulders, and in one movement pulled her limp jacket and shirtwaist down her arms and off.

"Take me," she murmured, the bold northmen clearly determined to do just that.

Thor stepped forward, taking Penny to him with his arm around her now. She reached her hand inside his open jacket, feeling his hard muscles through his shirt, her fingers pressing against him as his lips found hers. They kissed deeply, his hands homing in on the buttons on her skirt, firmly unbuttoning them, one, two... three. Her skirt fell with a tiny twitch of her hips, landing in a heap around her feet.

At this moment, Sven clearly felt that indulging their urges in full view of the road beyond the gates might occasion comment from passers-by, and he said as much. Thor nodded and took Penny's hand, leading her the three steps to their guard house door. The room beyond was quite cheery, really, though basic. Penny was pleased to see a sturdy table, along with four strong chairs and a stove with a blackened coffee pot, some shelves, and on the rear wall a print of Degas' Ballet Class, of all things -- perhaps it was there to stimulate the ardour of these two men.