The Difference Engine

"These Bowery pantomimes…"

"Yes?" Oliphant leaned forward.

"There are factions within the Party…"

"Do go on."

"Anarchists disguising themselves as communists; feminists, all ma

"I see," Oliphant said, thinking of the reams of yellow fan-fold representing the confession of William Collins.

Again on foot, Oliphant made his roundabout way through Soho, to Compton Street, where he paused before the entrance of a public house known as the Blue Boar.

"A SPORTING-GENTLEMAN," he was informed by a large bill, "a Staunch Supporter of the destruction of these Vermin," would give "A GOLD REPEATER-WATCH TO BE KILLED FOR BY DOGS under 13 3/4 pounds weight." Below the smudged bill, a painted wooden placard advertised "Rats always on hand for the accommodation of Gentlemen to try their dogs."

He entered, and shortly was greeting Fraser in the rank smell of dogs, tobacco-smoke, and hot pe

The long bar was crowded with men of every grade of society, many with their animals under their arms. "There were bull-dogs, Skye terriers, small brown English terriers. The room was low-ceilinged and quite unadorned. About the walls were hung clusters of leather collars.

"You came by cab, sir?" Fraser inquired.

"On foot, from a previous appointment."

" 'Ere now," cried the barman, "don't block up the bar!" There was a general movement toward the parlor, where a young waiter now shouted, "Give your orders, gentlemen!" With Fraser at his side, Oliphant followed the crowd of sporting-men and their dogs. Above the parlor fireplace were glass-fronted cases displaying the stuffed heads of animals famous in their day. Oliphant noticed the head of a bullterrier, its glass eyes bulging hugely.

"Looks as though this one died of strangulation," Oliphant remarked, pointing the thing out to Fraser.

"They've spoilt her in the stuffing, sir," said the waiter, a fair-haired boy in a greasy striped apron. "Good as any in England, she was. I've seen her kill twenty at a go, though they killed her at the last. Your sewer-rats are dreadful for giving a dog canker, though we'd always rinse her mouth out well with peppermint and water."

"You're Sayers' boy," Fraser said. "We want a word with him."

"Why, I know you, sir! You were 'ere about that savantry gent—"

"Your old dad, Jem, and brisk about it," Fraser interjected, preventing the boy from a

" 'E's upstairs lighting the pit, sir," the boy said.

"Good chap," Oliphant said, giving the boy a shilling.

Oliphant and Fraser mounted a broad wooden staircase, which led to what had once been the drawing-room. Opening a door, Fraser led the way into the rat-killing apartment.

"Pit's not bloody open," bellowed a fat man with ginger side-whiskers. Oliphant saw that the pit consisted of a wooden circus, some six feet in diameter, fitted with a high rim at elbow-height. Above it branched the arms of an eight-mantle gas-light, brightly illuminating the white-painted floor of the little arena. Mr. Sayers, the Blue Boar's proprietor, in a bulging silk waistcoat, stood with a live rat in his left hand. "But it's you, Mr. Fraser. My apologies, sir!" Having caught the creature somehow by the throat, he deftly prized out its larger teeth with no more implement than his strong thumbnail. "Order for a dozen with their teeth drawed." He dropped the mutilated rat into a rusted wire cage with several others and turned to face his visitors. " 'Ow might we be of service, Mr. Fraser?"

Fraser took out an Engine-stippled morgue-portrait.

"Aye, 'e's your man," Sayers said, his brows rising. "Big chap, long in the leg. And a dead'un, by the look of 'im."

"You're quite positive?" Oliphant could smell the rats now. "This is Professor Rudwick's murderer?"

"Aye, sir. We gets all sorts 'ere, but none too many Argentine giants. I recall 'im quite plain."

Fraser had taken out his notebook and was writing in it.

"Argentine?" Oliphant asked.

" 'E spoke Spanish," Sayers said, "or so I took it to be. Now mind you, we none o' us saw 'im do the deed, but 'e was on the premises that night, so 'e was."

"Cap'an's here," Sayers' son called from the doorway.

" 'Ell! And I've not drawed the teeth of 'alf 'is rats!"

"Fraser," Oliphant said, "I fancy a warm gin. Let us retire to the bar and allow Mr. Sayers to complete arrangements for the evening's sport." He bent to examine a larger cage, this one of iron bands. It seemed to contain a solid mound of rats.

"Mind your fingers there," Sayers said. "For believe me, you get a bite and you'll not forget it. These 'ere are none o' the cleanest… "

In the parlor, a young officer, evidently the Captain, was threatening to leave the place if he were kept waiting any longer.

"I shouldn't drink that if I were you," Fraser said, looking at Oliphant's noggin of warm gin. "Almost certainly adulterated."

"Actually it's quite good," Oliphant said. "It has a very faint after-taste, rather like bitter wormwood."

"An intoxicant poison."

"Quite. The French use it in the preparation of herbals. What do you make of our good Captain here?" Oliphant gestured with his gin, indicating the man in question, who was pacing about in an agitated fashion, examining the paws of various animals as their owners presented them, all the while shouting that he should depart immediately if the pit weren't opened.

"Crimea," Fraser said.

The Captain bent to peer at the claws of a young terrier in the arms of a swarthy, rather portly man whose pomaded spit-curls protruded like wings from beneath his high-crowned derby.

"Velasco," Fraser said, as if to himself, something nastily akin to pleasure in his tone, and was instantly beside the fellow.

The Captain started, his handsome young face convulsed with a violent tic, and Oliphant's eye abruptly filled with all the red Crimea—whole cities aflame like bonfires, and shell-churned wastes of jellied filth sprouting white flowers that were men's hands. He shuddered with the intensity of the vision, then forgot it utterly.

"Do I know you, sir?" the Captain inquired of Fraser, with a brittle murderous jollity.

"Gentlemen!" Mr. Sayers cried from the stairs. Led by the Captain, the entire company, save only Oliphant, Fraser, the swarthy man, and a fourth man, made for the pit above. The fourth man, perched on the arm of a ragged brocade armchair, began to cough. Oliphant saw Eraser's grip tighten about his prey's upper arm.

"Shouldn't bloody ought to do that, Fraser," the man on the chair-arm said, unfolding his legs and standing. Oliphant noted a certain calculation evident in his tone. Like the swarthy man, he was newly and nattily kitted out, all in Oxford Street's latest, his coat of Engine-cut gabardine dyed a blue that verged on lavender. Oliphant saw that his lapel, like that of his companion, was decorated with a gleaming cloiso

" 'Bloody,' Mr. Tate?" Fraser said, a schoolmaster about to deliver a tongue-lashing or worse.

"Fair warning, Fraser," the swarthy man said, his dark eyes protruding. "We're about Parliamentary business!" The little brown terrier shivered in his arms.

"Are you, then?" Oliphant inquired mildly, "and what business has Parliament in a rat-pit?"

"Might ask the same of you, eh?" the taller man said insolently, then coughed. Fraser glared at him.

"Fraser," Oliphant said, "are these gentlemen the confidential agents you mentioned in regard to Dr. Mallory?"

"Tate and Velasco," Fraser said grimly.

"Mr. Tate," Oliphant said, stepping forward, "a pleasure, sir. I am Laurence Oliphant, journalist." Tate blinked, confused by Oliphant's cordiality. Fraser, rather reluctantly taking Oliphant's cue, released Velasco's arm. "Mr. Velasco." Oliphant smiled.