The Girl in the Steel Corset - By Kady Cross Page 0,68
Mr. MacFarlane,” he said, all charm and smiles. “In fact, we will take as little of your time as possible. Mr. White said you did not see your attacker. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Snuck up behind me, the bounder did, and coshed me brainbox but good. Woke up covered in me own blood.”
Griffin frowned at the man, who had no bandage, bruising or even swelling anywhere to be seen on his nearly bald skull. “You seem to have recovered remarkably well.”
MacFarlane shifted uncomfortably. “That’s just it, Your Grace. A little too remarkably. ’Tis the damndest thing, pardon my French.”
Still frowning, Griff asked, “Might I see where you were struck, sir?”
The Scotsman shrugged, obviously chalking this entire encounter up to aristocratic eccentricity, and turned so that Griffin had a good view of the side of his head. He could see the man’s scalp through the thinning, short expanse of orange hair.
The light in the room was good, and they were near a window. Griffin took a magnifying glass from his pocket and raised it so it hovered over MacFarlane’s large skull. There, just above the man’s slightly cauliflowered ear. “Were you a boxer, Mr. MacFarlane?”
“Aye, Your Grace. When I was a young man. Never made much of a career of it, and all I have to show for it is me bashed-up ear. You see what you’re lookin’ for? Just above there.”
Griffin did see it. A thin, pink line of newly healed skin just above that battered ear. It made his heart go cold. “I see it, yes.”
“Now you understand why I’ll be wearing a bandage when next I go to work.”
Yes, he did. Anyone who saw this would think MacFarlane was either abnormal, or that he hadn’t been injured at all. Griffin was surprised the man even showed him the spot.
“Were there any strange substances near the wound?” he asked, tucking the glass back into his pocket. “I realize it might have been difficult to tell with all the blood.”
MacFarlane looked at him, then at Jasper and back to Griff again, as though trying to decide how much to tell them. Griffin didn’t blame him, the man’s story was already damn near impossible to believe. “There was oil, Your Grace. Like the kind we use to keep the museum’s automatons moving smoothlike. I thought it would get into me head and make a mess of the wound, but it…it healed.”
Griff schooled his features as a slow panic rose within him. “And a good thing for you, too, sir. I think you are wise to wear the bandage, and I assure you that your secret is safe with me.” He smiled. “We’ve trespassed long enough on your hospitality. We’ll see ourselves out. Good day, Mr. MacFarlane. You may keep the card, and feel free to contact me if you remember anything else.”
Once they were safely outside, beneath darkening clouds that threatened rain, Jasper turned to Griffin. “That man’s wound healed just like the one I had that Miss Emily put her special salve on, the stuff your grandpa found.”
Griffin nodded, his mood grim as he swung his leg over the bulk of his velocycle. “The Machinist has Organites, and he’s figured out a way to use them.”
Chapter 14
Emily’s laboratory was like nothing Finley had ever seen before, or was likely to ever see again.
It was like some kind of macabre toy shop, or a mad inventor’s lair. All around her were parts of automatons, bits of gears and machinery. Tools lay scattered over the bench that ran the entire length of one wall. The air smelled of hot metal and oil mixed with various medicinal odors. On the far wall, beakers and burners waited to be used. High shelves held differently colored liquids stored in clear bottles, while bottles of rich cobalt blue and dark amber glass contained chemicals and concoctions sensitive to light. They looked very pretty set up there—like gems of different shapes and sizes.
In one corner sat a large, gun-metal-gray cat. It looked like engravings she had seen of exotic jungle felines, only made of metal. It was beautiful and slightly…wrong, all at the same time.
On a long table near the center of the room lay a slightly tarnished brass automaton with its front panel removed. It resembled one of those surgical engravings in the medical books Silas sold in his shop, but it was metal instead of human flesh—thankfully. The spindly machine Finley had wrecked at the circus sat on another table. Sam was right to