Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [61]
‘Welcome to futurity,’ he said, holding open the door for Kate.
She saw what he meant. ‘Oh, how wonderful.’
An angry little American in a rumpled white suit and a straw hat from the last decade was holding the mouth- and ear-pieces of the apparatus, and yelling at an unseen editor.
‘I’m telling you,’ he shouted, loud enough to render the miracle of modern science superfluous, ‘I’ve a dozen witnesses who swear the Silver Knife is a were-wolf.’
The man at the other end shouted, giving the exasperated reporter a chance to draw breath. ‘Anthony,’ he said, ‘this is news. We work for a newspaper, we are supposed to print news!’
The reporter wrestled with the device, shutting off the call, and passed it on to the next man, a startled new-born, in the queue for the device.
‘Over to you, LeQueux,’ the American said. ‘Better luck with your runaway steam-driven automaton theory.’
LeQueux, whom Beauregard had read in the Globe, rattled the telephone, and began whispering to the operator.
A small group of urchins played marbles in a corner, while Diarmid Reed held court by an open fire. He sucked on a pipe as he lectured a circle of Grub Street toilers.
‘A story is like a woman, lads,’ he said, ‘you can chase her and catch her, but you can’t make her stay longer than she wants to. Sometimes, you come down to a kipper breakfast and she’s upped stakes.’
Beauregard coughed to attract Reed’s attention lest he embarrass himself before his niece. Reed looked up, and grinned.
‘Katie,’ he said, without a speck of regret for his indecent metaphor. ‘Come in and have some tea. And Beauregard, isn’t it? Where did you find my benighted niece? Not in some house hereabouts, I hope. Her poor mother always said she’d be the ruin of the family.’
‘Uncle, this is important.’
He looked benignly sceptical. ‘Just as your women’s suffrage story was important?’
‘Uncle, whether or not you agree with my views on that question, you must concede that a mass expression of them, involving many of the greatest and wisest in the land, is news. Especially when the Prime Minister responds by sending in the Carpathians.’
‘Tell ’em girl,’ said the man in the straw hat.
Kate gave Beauregard her umbrella and unbuckled her document case. She laid a paper on the table, between teacups and ashtrays.
‘This came in yesterday. Remember, you had me opening letters as a punishment.’
Reed was examining the paper closely. It was covered in a spidery red hand.
‘You have brought this straight to me?’
‘I’ve been looking for you all night.’
‘There’s a good little vampire,’ said a stripe-shirted new-born newsman with waxed moustache points.
‘Shut up, D’Onston,’ Reed said. ‘My niece drinks printers’ ink, not blood. She’s got news in her veins just where you’ve got warm water.’
‘What is it?’ LeQueux asked, breaking his telephone connection to catch up with the development.
Reed ignored the question. He found a penny in his waistcoat pocket and summoned one of the urchins.
‘Ned, go to the police station and find someone above the rank of sergeant. You know what that means.’
The sharp-eyed child made a face that suggested he knew all about the varieties and habits of policemen.
‘Tell them the Central News Agency has received a letter, purporting to be from Silver Knife. Just those words, exactly.’
‘Pr’porten?’
‘Purporting.’
The barefoot Mercury snatched the tossed penny out of the air and dashed off.
‘I tell you,’ he began, ‘kids like Ned will inherit the earth. The twentieth century will be beyond our imagining.’
No one wanted to listen to social theories. Everyone wanted a look at the letter.
‘Careful,’ Beauregard said. ‘That is evidence, I believe.’
‘Well said. Now, back off boys, and give me some room.’
Reed held the letter carefully, rereading it.