Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [184]
The Count de Ville was a railway enthusiast of great passion, who had from afar memorised his Bradshaw’s guide to time-tables and was merely seeing for the first time processes he had read of and imagined for many years. He probably knew more about trains than did Massingham, whose responsibilities were mostly in overseeing the book-keeping, and wound up delivering more lectures than he received.
‘What a world it shall be, when the globe is encircled round about by steel rails,’ enthused the Count. ‘Men and matériel shall be transported in darkness, in sealed carriages, while the world sleeps. Borders shall become meaningless, distances will be an irrelevance and a new civilisation rise to the sound of the train whistle.’
‘Ahem,’ said Massingham, ‘indeed.’
‘I came to this land by sea,’ de Ville said sadly. ‘I am irretrievably a creature of the past. But I shall conquer this new world, Mr Massingham. It is my dearest ambition to become a railwayman.’
There was something strange in his conviction.
The tour concluded, Massingham hoped to steer de Ville to the board-room, where several directors would be waiting, hiding behind genial offers of port and biscuits, ready to make casual suggestions as to possible business arrangements and privately determined not to let the Count escape without signing up for a substantial commitment. Massingham’s presence would not be required at the meeting, but if a contract were signed, his part in it would be remembered.
‘What is that building?’ de Ville asked, indicating a barn-like structure he had not been shown. It stood in a neglected corner of the works, beyond a pile of rejected, rusting rails.
‘Nothing important, Count,’ said Massingham. ‘It’s for tinkering, not real work.’
The word ‘tinkering’ appealed to de Ville.
‘It sounds most fascinating, Mr Massingham. I should be most interested to be allowed inside.’
There was the question of secrecy. It was unlikely that the Count was a spy from another company, but nevertheless it was not wise to let it be known what the firm was working on. Massingham chewed his moustache for a moment, unsure. Then he recalled that the only tinkerer in residence at the moment was George Foley, of the improbable contraption. There was no real harm in showing the Count that white elephant, though he feared a potential customer might conclude the firm was foolhardy indeed to throw away money on such an obvious non-starter and might take his business elsewhere.
‘We have been allowing space to an inventor,’ said Massingham. ‘I fear we have become a safe harbour for an arrant crackpot, but you might find some amusement at the bizarre results of his efforts.’
He led the Count through the double doors.
Several shots sounded, rattling the tin roof of the shed. Bursts of fire lit the gloom.
Immediately, Massingham was afraid that de Ville was the victim of an assassination plot. Everyone knew these Balkan nobs were pursued by anarchists eager to pot them with revolvers in revenge for injustices committed down through the centuries by barbarous ancestors.
A stench of sulphur stung his nostrils. Clouds of foul smoke were wafting up to the roof. There was a slosh and a hiss as a bucket of water was emptied on a small fire.
The reports had been not shots but small explosions. It was just Foley’s folly, again. Massingham was relieved, but then annoyed when he wiped his brow with his cuff to find his face coated with a gritty, oily discharge.
Through smoke and steam, he saw Foley and his familiar, the boy Gerald, fussing about a machine, faces and hands black as Zulus’, overalls ragged as tramps’. George Foley was a young man, whose undeniable technical skills were tragically allied to a butterfly mind that constantly alighted upon the most impractical and useless concepts.
‘My apologies, Count,’ said Massingham. ‘I am afraid that this is what