Both of the radicals blanched at the name, even the old man who was almost too far gone into the time frame. The one man they couldn’t scare. The one man who’d scared them.
“Who is this person?” Marx wanted to know.
“An American capitalist agent,” Sandoval told him. “ ’Is job is to make sure it stays theirs.”
“So vat vill you do? Shoot them and fade away?” Marx asked him calmly.
“No. We’re just all going out to that wagon. You, too, sir, Oi’m afraid. Everybody in front of me. Nobody needs to be ’urt in the least.”
“E’s gonna shoot up the suits!” Sandoval exclaimed, understanding it all. “Leave us ’ere all stuck good’n proper!”
He gestured with the revolver. “All roite, let’s get it over with. All of you, up and out. Oi don’t wanna shoot nobody, but Oi will if Oi hav’ta. Now—move! And no tricks! Just all noice and pleasant-loike.”
They stood up, and even Marx looked hesitant. Alone, Moosic guessed, he might have tried something, but with his family in the house this was no time to make a move.
They walked out into the hallway leading to the double door, and he followed, eyes on them. As he walked through the doorway into the hall, someone suddenly made a grab for him from the side. Powerful hands grabbed his arm, but so hard and sudden was the grab that the pistol discharged—once—then he was on the floor and Helene Demuth was on top of him. The pistol fired three more times before she got it away, screaming and banging his head against the floor. He was unconscious before the cop reached the porch.
OF ANGELS AND DEMONS
Medical science had progressed only a small amount from the Middle Ages by 1875. It was true that physicians were now true scientists and knew a great deal. The trouble was, they also couldn’t do very much more about it than their Aristotelian forebears could with their leeches and bad humors. All doctors really knew in 1875 was how futile all that old stuff was.
He was mostly in a coma—a strange dreamlike state that produced few dreams and mostly only a sense of floating, with occasional snatches of an unreal reality. The prison surgeons were not exactly in the forefront of medical skills and research, either, but they were competent and did what they could. He was aware, at times, of people flitting about and even discussing him, and once or twice it seemed like some people were asking him questions, but he could neither make out the questions nor form an answer.
When he finally did regain consciousness, he wished he hadn’t. The doctors and nurses were hard and cold and could do little except load him with morphia for the pain. They would answer no questions. Within a few hours of coming out of it, though, there appeared a young man in a neat business suit who asked many and would answer some.
“I am Inspector Skinner of Scotland Yard,” he told the patient, who listened through a drugged haze that still didn’t quite blot out the pain, “I think you should give some answers.”
“Uh—’ow long ’ave Oi been here?” he croaked.
“You’ve been in a coma almost seven days,” the inspector told him. “The old woman did a job on you, she did.”
Seven days. That would make this the twenty-seventh of September. He tried to think about why that was important, but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Now, then,” continued the detective, “I think it’s time for a statement of sorts.” He took out a fountain pen and a small notebook. “First of all, I’ve told you who I am. What’s your name?”
“Alfie,” he rasped. “Alfie Jenkins.”
“How old are you, Alfie?”
“Dunno. Never got to countin’.”
The inspector nodded. “Do you remember last Monday night?”
He thought back. Something… Some kind of shooting. “It’s all kinda dim.”
“You shot two people, Alfie. You broke into a man’s home and shot him and a guest of his. You remember that?”
Alfie nodded, getting a little handle on what had happened, although still somewhat confused as to why. “Didn’t mean to shoot nobody. The old hag grabbed me gun.”
He nodded. “Nevertheless, you broke into the house and you brought the gun. You understand that, don’t you?”
Alfie managed a nod. “Yes, sir. ’Ow are they—the two wot got shot, that is?”
“Dead, Alfie. Both dead.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind something screamed, My god! I just killed Karl Marx!
“The old peddler lingered on for a few days, but it was just too great a shock to his system.”
Things were coming back to him now, in little bits and pieces. “The old boy ’ad a daughter. Wot’s ’appened to ’er?”
“They say she fled screaming in panic. Got on the cart and went. We haven’t found her as yet, but we’re looking.”
He felt totally lost and alone. Worse, after all that, he might swing for murder or be sentenced to life in prison, which was as sure a death to somebody like him. Marx was dead, and at his hand. History had been changed. And the important one had gotten away and was now—where and when? At least it answered one big question, that of why Sandoval had brought the woman along. He needed somebody to wear the suit to get it back—for Marx.
As the intellectual part of him stirred in response to the questions, it found itself being pushed back, almost as if under attack. It took a supreme effort just to bring those thoughts up, and they were fading almost as they were made. The combined effect of the morphia and the additional seven days were having full effect. Not that it mattered, of course. He was in a prison hospital somewhere in London, with no real hope of ever getting out in time to reach the suit. He had mucked up everything with his failure to act coldly and decisively, and now the villain was free to roam again, while he faced a short and unhappy future as Alfie Jenkins.
“Wot—wot’ll ’appen to me now?” he asked plaintively, knowing the answer.
“Ordinarily, you would stand trial as an adult because of the seriousness of the offense, and you know what that result would be. There are mobs outside the prison demanding that they be allowed to save the Queen the expense. Doctor Marx, you know, was a famous and well-loved man.”
“Oi’d ’eard that, sir.”
“However, you may be lucky here. There is no liking for making a big trial with a roaring crowd that could become a circus or, worse, a scene for rioting and violence. You’re quite ill, Alfie. Did you know that?”
“Just a cough, sir.”
“It’s far more than that. You have a very bad lung disease. We can do little for it. Do you understand that?”
He managed a nod, feeling oddly better at the news. It beat hanging—maybe.
The inspector sighed, put away his pen and notebook, and looked down at him. “Just rest and relax, Alfie. You’ll not come to trial while gravely ill—we’ll see to that.”
After the inspector left, he thought it over as much as he was able to do so. They expected him to die here. It would be better for everybody if he did, in fact. Marx wanted revolutions, he remembered, and he was smart enough to see that Her Majesty’s government wanted none of that here, no symbol to rally everyone against.
With that thought, he drifted back into sleep.
“Wake up,” a woman’s hushed voice said from somewhere near. He felt hands gently shake him, and when he stirred and opened his eyes, he frowned, thinking the vision a dream.
She had a chubby, freckled face and hair cut very short, like they used to cut the boys’ hair at the orphan asylum. She was dressed entirely in some strange black body-garment that looked like dull leather but was soft, like cloth. Around her waist was a thick, black, belt-like contraption that seemed more like a misplaced horse collar, but had a bunch of red lights on it, both on top and around her middle. The tight-fitting garment emphasized her chubbiness, and was not very complimentary. A pair of goggles sat atop her head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.