Free The Revolutions by Felix Gilman Page B

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    “Sir—what happened tonight? Did you see it too?”
    “She uses an electric light, Mrs Bloom.”
    “Oh.”
    “Well, you didn’t think it was real, did you? Red light, and an accomplice outside to throw stones at the window; and imagination does the rest. Yes? Or am I wrong?”
    He whistled.
    A cab waited idly on the street corner. The driver and the horse both perked up their heads at Atwood’s whistle, and the cab came round at a slow trot.
    “For Miss Bradman,” he told the driver, counting out money. “Take her home—no, I insist—home, or wherever else she wants to go.”
    He made to help her up into the cab, and she stiffened. He smiled, held out his hands as if to show that they were empty, and turned and walked off.
    The driver watched Josephine with frank curiosity. His horse sniffed the air.
    The card bore a Mayfair address. Nothing else.

 
     
     
    THE
    THIRD
    DEGREE
    { Perdurabo }

 
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Notes on a mystery—begun April 3.
    Strictly forbidden, of course, this writing. God forbid that the secrets of Mr Gracewell’s business should fall into the wrong hands. But if I can manage not to leave my journal on an omnibus in a fit of exhaustion, I expect all will be well.
    —April 4
    Let us begin with Mr Irving. It is to his service that I have been assigned, in Room 13. Christian name unknown. Somewhat menacing aspect—tall, heavy-shouldered, quite bald. Shuffles, heavy-footed. Taciturn. Always there in the morning when the men arrive, and always there at night when we depart. The look of the new schoolmaster, of whom one isn’t quite sure, who might have Done Things when he was a soldier. He is the Master of Rooms 11, 12, and 13. A veteran of the old Engine—of which more later.
    His days are spent moving between the rooms of his domain, watching us as we work, as if he were invigilating an examination. From time to time he takes out his chalk and alters the instructions. He distributes the ledgers. He makes whispered reports on the telephone—the only time one sees him speak, presumably to Gracewell himself.
    Every room has its own telephone! Extravagant beyond all reason.
    —April 8
    When I began a week ago, fourteen of the room’s fifty desks were occupied. The other Rooms—there are at least fourteen, not counting all the little store-rooms and cupboards—appear equally half-empty. Or half-full. We are undermanned.
    By the middle of the week, our number had climbed to sixteen. Two of the new men brought news to us of Room 8, from which exotic location they had been transferred. “Same bloody thing, Shaw—different boss.” One quit; we are down to fifteen. Some of us were insurance clerks, or stockbroker’s clerks—young men of some education who labour under debts. Some are very poor; it is a miracle some of them can read or write at all; and yet we have writers of poetry, and painters, and we have would-be aesthetes who it seems to me do very little, but aspire to do it beautifully. We have all sorts; but all of us need money.
    And in the various rooms there are men of what must surely be representatives of all the races of Man, or at least all that can be found in London. The Work obliterates all distinctions among men. On my left in Room 13 sits Mr Vaz, who I believe hails from the Portuguese province of Goa; I cannot say with certainty, because even he claims not to know his birthplace. Born at sea, as in Stevenson—a sailor. If half of what he says is true, then he has seen a good percentage of the Earth; and though he is no older than me, he claims to have been ship’s steward, cook, navigator, good-luck mascot, fortune-teller, diver, and nurse, at various times and in various far-flung locations. He speaks very good English and he claims to speak half a dozen other languages more or less well. His moustache is long and thin; he is short and thin. Quick to make conversation and a quick hand at the Work, which he says reminds him of his days