Alden woke up the next morning feeling rather driven. Whoever was truly behind the deaths of Dr. Rawleigh and Professor Abney was still out there, still a threat. It was all well and good to set up networks of informants or whatever ‘spymaster’ nonsense Lucille kept telling him he was doing, but there was still a lead for Alden to investigate on his own, and it was high time he got around to it. In fact, he was rather tempted to just storm off and deal with it at once, but that would be needlessly risky. Preparation was key for a caper such as this. Heading downstairs, he was soon caught up in Tiffany’s morning greeting, and his zeal was briefly tempered as he gently returned her hug. The way she smiled at him as she stepped back filled him with a strange sort of calm satisfaction. But now was hardly the time to get distracted by sentiment, so he decided it was high time to start his preparations. “If you think you can free up some time this afternoon, I require your assistance.” “Of course, Alden. I’ll try to finish up today’s work as quickly as possible. Do you need assistance with some tinctury or research?” “Ah, that reminds me!” Alden took the small vial he had received from the prince from his pocket and handed it to Tiffany. “I was asked to identify this substance. I think it’s some sort colourless plant extract mixed with a preservative solution containing ammonia. Feel free to take a crack at it if you have some time to spare. Otherwise, put it away safely in one of the locked drawers in the back room. But that’s a separate matter. The favour I was asking relates to your keen understanding of fashion rather than your skill as a tincturer.” “Again? Perhaps I’ve missed my true calling as a fashion consultant.” “Certainly not! Your brilliance in the field of tinctury…” Tiffany actually put a finger up to his lips to shush him. “I was joking, Alden. I’d be happy to help you. For now, let me go be ‘brilliant’ in the workroom so I can get done in time to aid you with your fashion woes.” As Tiffany grinned and headed off towards the workroom, Alden realized Miss Oxley was standing in a doorway with a teasing smirk on her lips. “Not a word, Miss Oxley. You have work to do.” Alden’s next stop for the day was at Karl’s Mechanism Repair. The tinny little tune that played as he stepped through the door was irritatingly off tempo, and Alden could only assume whatever music box arrangement was responsible for it had gotten damaged or worn down. He tapped his foot impatiently as the tune ground to a torturous halt and Karl made his noisy way across the disastrously messy workshop floor. When the man finally reached the door, Alden spoke before Karl got even get a greeting out. “I have a job for you. And I’ll pay well if you can deliver quickly.” “I certainly wouldn’t say no to being well paid. What do you need, Alden?” “I’m embarking on a somewhat skulduggerous errand, and I need whatever small, easily concealed tools you can think of for sneaking and general poking around.” “What, like lock picks?” “I have all the lock picks I could possibly need, not that I know what do with them. Never learned the trick of it. Come on, Karl, you were a rascal. I’m sure you can think of something useful.” Karl hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose a small pry bar might come in handy. Maybe some screwdrivers for differently sized screws and some nail pulling pliers, in case you need to take something apart or break something open. Oh, how about an adjustable scope?” “A what now?” “It’s an arrangement of metal tubes, lenses and mirrors with bends that can be twisted around and sections that can be extended. Good for seeing around corners or through cracks and things. I use them to look around the interior of machinery and such.” “Whatever you think might help. But it all needs to be easy to conceal in regular clothing.” “Hmmm… I don’t think I have any adjustable scopes quite so small, but I could probably put something together…” Alden reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of ten-pound coins. “I’ll need it all by tomorrow morning.” Karl was briefly taken aback by the coinage, but then nodded. “I’ll make sure it’s ready in time.” “Thank you, Karl. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The next stop was at The Globe, where Alden let himself in at entrance nine. Nobody so much as raised an eyebrow as he entered into the sprawling backstage area. Then again, there had to be people coming and going here all the time, and it wasn’t as though there was much anything worth stealing. When he knocked on the door to the detail cosmetics room, he heard hushed voices from within, followed by the rustling of cloth. Before long, a pair of young men in hastily donned clothing opened the door and slipped past Alden, their faces flushed and shining with sweat. Feeling a little awkward, Alden entered the room and found Timothy in the process of putting his working clothes back on. Also he showed signs of recent exertion, and several of the decorations worked into his elaborate hair arrangement were clearly askew. “I do apologize if I interrupted something.” Alden remarked. “Oh, Alden, darling! Don’t you worry about a thing. We were just about done as it was, and those two tend to drift off to sleep afterwards in either case, so it’s just as well that you gave them a bit of a startle.” “In that case I shan’t apologize. I will, however, ask you for your assistance. I am fully prepared to pay you well for it.” “Preparing another wonderful little performance, are you?” “Quite so. Tomorrow morning, I will need to become a wealthy young man out on an illicit adventure to a seedy opium den.” “My! What an exciting role! Don’t you worry, Alden, my schedule is open until an hour before the lunch performance tomorrow, so if you come visit me in the morning I’ll have you looking every bit the young buck.” “I’ll be sure to do so. Do you perhaps have any useful hints on how to properly embody the role?” “I certainly do! A wealthy young man out for mischief would be all bravado at the front, with a frisson of nervous excitement concealed beneath. Speak fast, and boldly, but cast the occasional worried glance. A nervous twitch or two might not be out of place. Perhaps a bit of defensiveness if you ever find yourself questioned.” “Sounds a lot simpler than my previous role, I must say.” “Well, the young aren’t hindered by physical condition the way the elderly are. In fact, if anything young men tend to act as though they are indestructible. With bodies hale and hardy, they rarely deal with pain, and when they do it doesn’t last. So they often move with a certain irrepressible energy.” “I see… Perhaps a pain reliever mixed with a mild stimulant…” “Now, that will be a pound for the acting consultation and two for applying your cosmetics tomorrow. A man’s got to make a living, after all.” Alden pressed five pounds into Timothy’s hand. “I’ll be expecting your best work tomorrow.” When Alden got back to the tinctury, Tiffany was still hard at work. But that was fine, because Alden had some tasks of his own. First of all, he mixed together a simple concoction of a pain reliever and a stimulant, taking care that neither component was one that interacted poorly with opium. After all, while he didn’t intend to ingest any significant quantities of opium, some level of exposure was unavoidable. Next, he prepared a few sticks of incense, basing their construction around the sticks used in many Asiatic religious ceremonies, but using a mix of the crude opium he had found among Li Tao’s effects and a few other complementary aromatics for the scent coating. Hopefully, burning this incense should properly fill a room with the scent of smoked opium while keeping the concentration of actual opium smoke in the air as low as possible. By the time he was finished, Tiffany was just nearing the end of her tasks for the day, and Alden decided to give her a hand with the last bit of the work. When everything was properly cleaned and put away, Tiffany shot him a curious look. “So, what sort of clothing are you lacking this time?” “I find myself in need of the type of clothing that would be worn by a young rake. The type of wealthy lad who purposely wears his clothing in a messy, dishevelled fashion to affect an attitude of confident carelessness.” Tiffany gave Alden a long, searching look. “This is related to your private employment, I assume? The private employment that has you examining poisons and meeting with royalty.” “Well, of course it is.” “You’re planning to do something dangerous, aren’t you?” Alden hesitated for a few beats, but finally decided to be honest. “Potentially quite hazardous, yes.” “What if I asked you not to?” Alden winced, but he did not waver. “I’m afraid I have to do it nevertheless.” Tiffany sighed and gave Alden a hug. “I’ll help you, but you have to promise to be careful.” “I promise.” By the time Alden and Tiffany parted ways, it was already well into the afternoon. But Alden had one last stop to make before heading back home. And so he carefully put his purchases away in his leather bag, made sure his appearance was as neat and tidy as he could make it and set off to the Albright townhouse. The Albright townhouse was a fine old building of the style that was popular around the time that having a London townhouse started becoming the norm for English nobility, some two hundred years ago. As was the style at the time, the building lacked a bell-pull and instead had a large, ornate lion’s head doorknocker on the front door. Alden slammed the metal ring down a couple of times, the sharp sound echoing through the relatively quiet streets of Westminster’s old nobles’ district. It wasn’t long before the door was opened by a well-dressed man who looked maybe ten years Alden’s junior. His mode of dress was sporty and modern with a lightweight cream-coloured jacket and trousers along with a shirt clearly designed to be easy to move in, quite out of place for a district such as this. His brown hair was cut fairly short and gently swept back and his face looked so smooth Alden suspected he barely grew any facial hair at all. “Yes, how may I help you?” The man asked, his voice light and curious. “The name’s Alden Stowe. I’m looking for Alice Corker.” “Really? What business do you have with our Alice?” Something about the way the man said the word ‘our’ caught Alden’s attention, and he mulled over what he’d learned yesterday as he considered the man standing before him… “Excuse me, am I by any chance addressing Viscount Albright of Angleford?” “That would be me, yes.” “My apologies, my lord. I wasn’t expecting a viscount to answer the door. Or to be quite so young, to be honest.” “I was right near the door when you knocked. No sense wasting the staff’s time when I can just open the door myself. And none of that ‘my lord’ nonsense either, I’ve no time for it. As for my age, my mother, that is to say the former Viscountess Albright, passed away together with her husband in a ballooning accident some ten years ago now.” “I see. My condolences.” The viscount carelessly waved away Alden’s concerns. “It’s quite all right. They died doing what they loved. Which rather made things awkward for the poor farmers who discovered the site of the accident.” Deciding he really didn’t wish to inquire any further, Alden tried to bring the conversation back on track. “About Alice Corker…” “Yes! Quite right! Who are you, and what do you want with Alice?” “I’m a… friend, of sorts, I suppose. More to the point, I run a tinctury on Ratcatcher street, and…” “Hold on a second… Alden Stowe, as in ‘Stowe’s Tinctures’?” “That’s… correct. How did you know?” “My wife swears by your number four scented recreational laudanum. She sends a man out to purchase a bottle every week.” “If she goes through a whole bottle of laudanum in a week, I do rather worry about her.” “Oh, she’s a terrible mess, but there’s not much I can do about it. She’s fulfilled her contractual obligations and more by providing me with three children, and now she’s enjoying something of an early retirement. And while I would honestly prefer if she didn’t enjoy it in quite so intoxicating a manner, I did promise not to interfere in her personal life when we got married.” Alden wasn’t entirely sure how to react to this unexpected look into the viscount’s personal life, so he once again made a spirited attempt at returning to the actual purpose of the conversation. “Again, about Alice…” “Oh, yes! Sorry. What did you say you wanted with her again?” “As of yet, I have not managed to get that far. I have in my employ a particularly brilliant young tincturer who specializes in tinctury that inhibits the androgenic processes of the body. And I felt that having access to such might help make sure that the issues your Alice is facing don’t get worse with time.” The viscount raised a curious eyebrow. “You certainly seem to know a lot about our Alice.” “Enough to know she’d do well to come over and chat with my Tiffany.” A look of realization blossomed on Viscount Albright’s face. “Ah, I see. Your…” He hesitated for a moment, as if weighing up two options, then settled for… “daughter?” “Something of the sort.” Alden allowed. “And she’s facing the same issues as our Alice?” “I am, of course, counting on your discretion in the matter.” “Certainly, I’d never go spreading something like that around without permission. Well, this certainly changes everything. Alice is out at the moment. My husband insisted they purchase matching nightgowns. Just one of his little whims, you see. But when she returns I will most certainly tell her to inquire after Tiffany at Stowe’s Tinctures.” “Much obliged. I wish you a good evening, Viscount Albright.” “Please, just call me Gareth. Any friend of Alice is a friend of mine.” “As you would have it, Gareth.” The following morning, Alden found himself strangely restless. He wasn’t sure what he would find at the Sunshine Club, but given Li Tao’s involvement, Em’s rather dire words and the scents he detected in the herb shop above it, he didn’t expect it to be pretty. It was entirely possible that he would find himself in quite a dire situation if his cover was blown. But despite that, he couldn’t bring himself to feel much in the way of trepidation. If anything, he was rather eager to get going and get this whole mess over with. Tiffany, on the other hand, was clearly more than trepidatious enough for the both of them. She rather clung to him as they greeted each other, and he could feel her hands shaking as he gently disentangled himself from her embrace. Fortunately, telling her that a girl might be coming by soon who had need of her unique field of knowledge distracted her enough to let Alden slip out the door before she could start asking him to reconsider the whole affair. Setting out, Alden made his way first to Karl’s shop to pick up whatever tools the man had put together, then to Timothy’s workroom to get dressed and get his cosmetic disguise applied. As before, the man’s work was nothing short of brilliant, and when Alden looked in the mirror he saw a youthful masculinity in his features that hadn’t been there even when Alden was in his prime. Timothy even helped Alden conceal the various implements he received from Karl within the folds of the elaborately messy clothing. Alden thanked the man for his efforts and set out on his peculiar mission. The effects of his transformation became obvious almost immediately. When Alden signalled a cab, the driver shot him openly suspicious looks, as if he fully expected Alden to make a mess of the cab somehow, and asked for a fare more than twice as high as Alden would expect to pay for a cab ride from The Globe to Whalebone Street. The driver also clearly noticed as Alden downed his concoction, and muttered some very uncomplimentary things about the youth of today. Having finally gotten as far as Whalebone Street, Alden tried to fully immerse himself in the bold brashness of youth. His gait turned sloppy and careless as he emulated the youths he had spied on his last visit to the area. Thankfully, the undercurrent of slight nervousness he had been told was perfectly in character wasn’t something he needed to act out. Now that he was actually here, about to embark on his mission, that part of it came completely naturally. Knocking on the cellar door, Alden tried and mostly succeeded in affecting a brash, unconcerned air. Before long, the door was opened by an east-Asian gentleman, presumably Han, wearing a faded and stained silk getup. The man gave Alden a quick, cursory bow. “How can I assist?” He asked, clearly not looking to give anything away. Although honestly, Alden could already smell the opium smoke in the air. “I’m here to smoke. Private room, if you have it.” Alden replied simply. “Very well. One pipe, two pounds.” Two pounds was honestly a ridiculous asking price to smoke a single pipe of opium, even with a private room to smoke it in. Especially if the quality was anywhere near as bad as what Li Tao had carried. Still, Alden wasn’t surprised that a place like this would gouge young idiots like the character Alden was portraying for everything they were worth. Knowing that it would be a poor idea to seem like he was carrying a lot of money when going into a place like this, Alden made a show of looking disconsolately into the small coin pouch he’d prepared for the excursion. “Oh, that’s a little steep… But Terry keeps saying the third pipe is the best… Damn it all! Fine. Three pipes! I’ll take a cheap cab home.” Acting every bit like a young fool making a terrible decision, Alden fished out six pounds and deposited them into the waiting hands of the man. Three pipes should give him plenty of time before anyone came looking for him. The man took the coin and led Alden through the dark corridors of the cellar until he got to an unoccupied room. The room turned out to be dark and dingy and smelled of sweat, opium and cheap perfume. The only light was provided by a single gas lamp by the door, and the cloth covering the walls was worn and sooty. There was also a large bed and a comfortable-looking armchair, and unlike everything else they at least appeared fairly clean. Still, it was hardly what Alden would consider a pleasant locale. The attendant carefully prepared three pipes of opium and handed Alden a small paper matchbook that matched the one he’d found among Li Tao’s effects. Then, with another small bow, he left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Alden alone in the awful little room. The first thing Alden did was empty out all three pipes save for a tiny bit of opium near the bottom of the bowls, which he seared with the matches to make it seem like the pipes had been smoked. Next up, he pulled out the sticks of opium ‘incense’ he had prepared, setting them burning near the door. Sure, the thin opium haze would probably have a slight dulling effect on him in the long run, but it would make the room seem properly smoked in. After all, if the attendant came back for him and found that no smoking had taken place, it was sure to make him suspicious. With these measures in place, Alden pulled out a small ear trumpet that was hidden within a rumpled portion of the back of his shirt. Placing the device against the back wall, Alden listened carefully, but there was no notable noise to be heard. The two side walls yielded similar results, and listening at the door only got him occasional footsteps. After considering for a moment, Alden folded away a corner of the big, dirty rug that covered almost the entire floor. Listening with the ear trumpet pressed to the floorboards, he thought he heard extremely faint, muffled shouting… After pulling away the rug further to examine the floorboards, Alden carefully pulled out the nails from one of the boards that would usually be fully covered by the rug, using a chisel to get some leverage beneath the nail heads and pliers to pull them free. Then he carefully pried the entire floorboard loose with his pry bar and removed it fully. Beneath the floorboard he found masses of old cloth and straw. With a small sigh, he started pulling away the stuffing beneath the floorboards, and the more he removed, the clearer he could hear the shouting from below. It sounded similar to the language of Han, though it wasn’t quite the same, and it clearly belonged to a very angry man. And there was something else, too. A metallic clinking of some sort… The rattle of chains? Alden’s hand caught hold of a large sack stuffed with straw, and he actually had to remove another two floorboards to pull the cumbersome thing out. The far end of the sack carried some very familiar scents with it, noticeable even over the persistent stink of opium smoke. The scents of the ingredients that made up the ‘burning drug’. Looking once again into the big gap beneath the floorboards, he realized he saw a glint of light coming up from beneath. There was a small knothole in one of the boards, and whatever lay beneath was clearly better lit than this dingy little room. The knothole was in an awkward spot, right next to a support beam that was clearly part of the wall between this room and the next. Crawling into the space beneath the floor was out of the question. Getting his clothes fully covered in dirt and dust and old straw would be far too obvious. But with a lot of fiddling about with the adjustable scope he’d received from Karl, he just about managed to manoeuvre one end of the scope into the knothole and put the other end up against his eye. The image was a little distorted, proving that the lenses weren’t perfectly aligned. Then again, it had been a bit of a rush job. Besides, Alden didn’t need a perfect image to see what was happening beneath. Dozens of people, men, women and children, were chained up to large posts in a brightly lit room. Above each post was a device that reminded Alden of the phlogiston detector in Dr. Rawleigh’s lab. He couldn’t angle the scope to let him see into the corners of the room, so he honestly didn’t know how big the space was, but even just what he could see was quite large. He also found the source of the shouting. A heavyset man was struggling against his chains, screaming his head off in abject fury. Most of the other prisoners weren’t even looking at him, though Alden thought some of them might be crying. As he watched, smoke started rising from the struggling man, and before long a group of people dressed in what Alden was starting to recognize as Han garb rushed up to the man from outside Alden’s field of view. They didn’t do anything to help the man, though. They simply observed the man and the devices attached to his post as his skin began to smoulder. Feeling rather sick to his stomach, Alden watched as the man caught on fire, burning searingly bright as he slumped down dead in his chains. He was fully reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes, and the manacles that had held his hands and feet appeared partially melted. As the group that had gathered around the man started discussing amongst themselves in the Han language, Alden carefully pulled the scope out of the knothole and started methodically returning the various stuffing back into the space between the floorboards. Once it was all packed back in and he had cleaned the area as best as he could, he put the floorboards back and used the handle of a screwdriver to carefully tap the nails back into place. It wouldn’t stand up to careful inspection, of course, but since the boards were fully covered by the rug, it shouldn’t attract any attention. It was probably a good thing that the opium haze lent him a certain lethargy, Alden mused. Because right now he wanted nothing more than to kick the door down and storm that horrible room to free the prisoners. But that would be a stupid idea. He stood absolutely no chance on his own against so many opponents. And so, trusting the opiate lethargy to hold his fury in check, Alden instead started carefully cleaning the room of all remaining traces of untoward activity and stowing away all his equipment within his now even more rumpled garments. The knock on the door arrived mere minutes after Alden finished his work, and he kept a carefully neutral expression as the attendant led him back to the basement entrance. It was all he could do not to throttle the man, but he just about managed to play the part of an opium-addled fool. The moment he was out of sight of the building, he did what he could to neaten his clothing and hailed a cab. The cab took him right to the front door of the Baines residence, and thankfully the old woman who always answered the door sent him up to Lucille’s office without asking any questions. Although Lucille’s reaction to his entrance was a lot less phlegmatic. “Alden? What on Earth are you wearing? And you stink of opium!” Alden stormed over to the desk and planted his hands on its surface, leaning over the seated woman. “There’s a herb shop on Whalebone street, below which is an opium den called the Sunshine Club. Below that is a facility where dozens of people are held captive and dosed with the ‘burning drug’! They’re studying them, Lucille! They’re watching them BURN!” “That’s certainly grave news, Alden. If you could calm down and describe…” “To Tartarus with calming down! We need to gather anybody we can and break that place open! We can’t let them get away with this!” “And we won’t. But something like this requires planning and preparation. Rushing in without a plan is just going to get more people killed.” Alden slammed his fists against the desk. “There are CHILDREN there, Lucille!” Lucille leaned back in her seat, clearly startled. But then she got up and went over to Alden, reaching out to rub gentle circles into his back. “Are you doing all right, Alden? You don’t seem quite yourself.” Alden’s fury gradually calmed down from Lucille’s gentle efforts, and Alden let out a sigh as the really quite stunningly beautiful woman fussed over him. But as the fury receded, an unfamiliar sensation took its place. No, not unfamiliar, exactly. Rather, it was something he hadn’t felt in well over two decades. It had been so long since he last felt it that it took Alden several minutes to recognize the yearning heat of sexual desire. The moment he understood what was happening, Alden took a quick step away, his face growing pale. Lucille gave him a clearly worried look. “What’s wrong, Alden? You look like someone just walked over your grave.” “Contact whoever you have studying the burning drug. Tell them to send all the information they have to my shop immediately. And send a telegram to the nearest office addressed for immediate delivery to Tiffany at my tinctury. Tell her to prepare the workshop however she can. I’m going to have immediate need of her knowledge in suppressing androgenic processes as soon as I get back.” “What for?” “Developing an antidote.”