The Fatal Engine by Harriet Smart

Author:Harriet Smart [Smart, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781907873515
Publisher: Anthemion
Published: 2018-12-18T22:00:00+00:00

~

Giles and Hammond took Walker back to the Northern Office, and installed him in one of the interview rooms. Left alone, he could be observed through the half-glazed door. He was pacing about, obviously in a state of some consternation.

“Wonder what he has to say,” said Hammond. “He looks like he’s constructing his tale to me, sir.”

“Let’s hope it’s flimsy enough to unpick. Where he fits into all this, I’m not quite sure. Of course, it may be another matter entirely he has on his conscience.”

At this point a constable came up with a message from the Infirmary. It was in Carswell’s hand and informed him that Sarah Roper had died half an hour previously.

“A wretched conclusion,” he said, handing the note to Hammond.

“Surely the sister will talk now,” said Hammond, having read it.

“She may well do, especially if I charge her.”

“If anyone can get her to admit it, it’s you, sir,” said Hammond.

“Perhaps we should tackle this fellow first, Hammond,” Giles said, meeting Walker’s gaze for a moment. He looked extremely anxious.

Giles slipped the bolt and went into the room, followed by Hammond.

“I can’t,” Walker began. “I can’t –”

“Sit down, Mr Walker,” said Giles. “Let us take this steadily, shall we?”

He obeyed, but only after a moment, and sat wringing his hands.

Giles sat down opposite and said, “There is something making you uneasy. It would be better to be out with it, I think.”

The young man looked at him now and said, after a long consideration, “Someone has asked me to do something.”

“What sort of thing?”

Walker hid his face in his hands.

“A bad thing,” he said. “And I said I would, but I can’t. The more I think about it, I can’t.”

“Because it will get you into trouble?”

“Because it will get me hanged, and then where will my granny be? She has no one but me, sir! He said he’d look out for her, but he has not done before, or at least not as he should have done, given – given all that happened before, given that my own Pa –”

“Yes, I know about your father, Mr Walker,” said Giles. “That his death was most likely an injustice.”

“You know about that?”

“I know a little,” Giles said. “I was hoping you might tell me more. You see, I think someone else was involved, someone who sent your father to pay for his own wrongdoing, and I wonder now if this person who has approached you is not the same man? Yes?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” muttered Walker.

“But this person knew your father?”

“Aye, I suppose he may have done,” Walker said.

“So what has he asked you to do?”

“Break machines,” he said.

“Where?”

“At that big place up Hansworth Lane.”

“Williamson and Collworth?”

“Aye.” He grimaced. “They have these huge machines that need only a girl to mind a dozen of them. There’ll be no work for men soon enough.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“It’s what everyone is saying.”

“And that breaking machines will help the working man?”

“Aye. It will show the factory masters that they cannot treat us like dirt.

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