“Sinister forces! Whatever are you going on about, Newbury?” said Bainbridge. Veronica could tell by the way he was tapping his foot on the tiles that he was growing steadily more impatient. He’d been standing there, just as she had, for the best part of an hour. Now, it seemed, he wanted answers.
For a moment, Veronica thought that Newbury was going to ignore the question, but then he folded his arms and smiled. “One of these corpses,” he said, “is a doppelganger. A copy.”
“A what?”
“A copy, Charles. It’s really quite remarkable. I don’t know how it was done. But the first corpse you found, this one-” He gestured towards the body on his right, the one that was beginning to putrefy. “-is not the original Edwin Sykes.”
Bainbridge glowered at the body, as if willing it to disappear, or else to sit up and reveal all its secrets. “I don’t understand, Newbury. A copy, you say?”
Newbury nodded. “I know it’s hard to take in, Charles, but this isn’t another case of familial secrets and long-lost twins. What we have here are two Edwin Sykeses.”
Bainbridge shook his head. He looked lost, as if he simply couldn’t comprehend what Newbury was telling him.
“But that’s impossible,” Veronica said, feeling as unsure about what she was hearing as Bainbridge looked. She covered her face with her handkerchief once again. The stench of the corpses was like rancid meat.
Newbury shrugged. “Who’s to say what’s possible and impossible in this world? I can only judge the evidence placed before me, what I see before my eyes. And the facts are that this-” He pointed to the eviscerated corpse they had pulled from the house on Cromer Street that morning. “-is the real Edwin Sykes. And this-” He pointed back at the other. “-is a duplicate.”
“How can you tell?” she replied, trying not to sound too skeptical.
“The forensic evidence speaks for itself,” he argued. “For a start, the facial structures, the sizes and shapes of the bodies-they’re in every way identical. Absolutely identical. But this Sykes’s skin has been lived in. There are laughter lines around the mouth, tiny creases and imperfections, scars. Whereas this one-” He crossed to the other slab. “-well, the skin is almost perfect. No scars, no sign that it’s ever been worn. I mean, look at the colour of it. It’s never even been exposed to the sun! It’s pale, soft, and new.”
“New? I’m having trouble following you, Newbury,” said Bainbridge.
“Then there are the hands,” Newbury pressed on, ignoring him. “Look here.” He grabbed the left wrist of the first body, showing them the hand he’d been examining earlier. He spread the fingers so they could see them. “Here. These hands are clean. Perfectly clean and unblemished.” He carefully lowered the hand, placing it gently on the chest of the corpse, and then ran around to the other slab. He was bursting with energy, filled with the ebullience of the hunt. “Now, look at this. Identical in almost every way, except here.”
Veronica gasped. “Calluses.”
“Very good, Miss Hobbes!” Newbury beamed at her. “And lots of them. Look at the ingrained filth, too. These hands have seen work, and recently.” Newbury looked at Bainbridge. “The evidence is compelling, Charles. I could list more: the teeth, the eyes… I’d wager if you sliced him open, the organs would tell a similar tale. I tell you: We’re dealing with more than one Edwin Sykes.”
Bainbridge was staring at him. “So you’re telling me there could be an army of them out there? Any number of Edwin Sykeses? He could have set that spider device on you last night at Miss Hobbes’s apartment?”
Newbury nodded slowly. “Once you accept the facts, Charles, anything is possible.”
“It’s unbelievable. Too outlandish, Newbury, even for you.” Bainbridge tapped his cane on the floor to hammer his point home. The sound echoed out around the tiled walls. “I’m more inclined to go along with what Miss Hobbes intimated back at the Yard, about there being other men involved…”
“Charles. Charles! The evidence is here before your eyes! Can’t you see it?” Veronica thought Newbury was about to start hopping from foot to foot with impatience.
“I don’t know what to believe.” Bainbridge gave a hearty sigh. “It’s a damn mess of an investigation. We can’t build a case on speculation alone. I mean, how the devil would Sykes even go about starting to copy himself?”
Newbury moved round the slab to stand before him. “ Think, Charles. The mechanical spiders. He didn’t build them himself! He must have a sponsor, someone with the wherewithal, with the right technology. Someone who trusted him to handle the spiders on their behalf. Edwin Sykes didn’t mastermind the operation.”
“But really, Newbury…”
“Charles, we’ve seen all sorts of bizarre things during our many cases together. Why is this any different?”
“Because we’re talking about something as fundamental as the ability to copy a living person!”
“That doesn’t make it any more outlandish than automata with human organs, or poltergeists, or any of the other bizarre things we’ve seen before.” Newbury gesticulated at Bainbridge, imploring him to understand.
“But who? And why?”
Newbury shrugged again. “I can think of any number of reasons. If you were a jewel thief with the ability to copy himself, what would you do?”
“Sit and grow fat on the accumulated wealth of my duplicates,” Bainbridge replied thoughtfully. “And pay my sponsor a hearty cut of the proceeds.”
“No.” Veronica shook her head. “No. We’re missing something. It’s not that simple. If Sykes could just create copies of himself that easily, why was he at Cromer Street? The corpse with the calluses-that body has been lived in. Why would he still be committing a crime himself when he could have one of his duplicates do it for him? If it were me, I wouldn’t risk capture.”
“And there’s more,” Newbury said. “We still haven’t explained why he was lying dead at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by the spoils of his trade. I find it highly unlikely that his mechanical beast would turn on him after all this time. Not unless someone else was controlling it.”
Bainbridge leaned heavily on his cane. “This is a dark and intricate web, Newbury. And we still haven’t worked out what, if anything, it has to do with Graves and the Bastion Society.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re involved, Charles, somehow. There’s a lot more to Enoch Graves than meets the eye.”
“Sir Charles?”
Veronica turned at the sound of a man’s urgent voice echoing down the passageway.
“Sir Charles?”
“Through here,” Bainbridge called in reply, with a dark scowl.
Veronica heard footsteps ringing on the tiles. Someone was running. Seconds later, a young man in a police constable’s uniform came hurtling out of the passageway and into the room, skidding to a halt on the slippery tiles. “Sir Charles!” he said, leaning against the wall as he attempted to catch his breath.
“Yes? What is it, man?”
“You’re needed, sir,” the constable said between gasping intakes of breath. “There’s been an intruder at the palace. Her Majesty sent for you.”
Veronica saw Bainbridge start in surprise. “An intruder at the palace?”
“Yes, sir. An attempt has been made on her life.”
Veronica and Newbury turned to stare at Bainbridge, waiting to hear his response.
“Have you got a carriage waiting?” Bainbridge asked, his voice low and serious.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m on my way.” Bainbridge turned to Newbury. He looked as white as a sheet. “You’ll have to finish things here, Newbury.”
Newbury narrowed his eyes. “Charles, do you need me there? I could come along-”
“No.” Bainbridge cut him off. “I’ll send for you if I need you. Finish up here, then get over to the Grayling Institute and talk to Fabian. We need to find out what that fool Graves is up to, and whether he has anything to do with this doppelganger business.”