Chapter Fourteen
“Breaking and entering is a terrible idea,” Mabel said as the three women exited from the hansom cab that had pulled up two blocks from the duke’s warehouse.
The gas lamps were farther apart here than they were elsewhere.
There were large swaths of darkness between the buildings.
Only the street crossings and entrances were clearly lit, and they could cross those patches quickly. “We are going to get caught.”
“We won’t get caught,” Lillian replied. “I have a plan.”
Eleanor truly hoped that her friend had learned enough from those detective novels. Lillian certainly seemed confident.
“The doors will be locked,” Mabel said.
“I have lock-picking tools.”
“You do?”
Lillian cocked her head, as though questioning her own hearing. “Of course. And I have been practicing. It’s a useful skill for a detective to have.”
Mabel frowned. “Even when breaking into buildings means breaking the law at the same time?”
Lillian sniffed. “A good detective does what is necessary to solve the case.” She squared her shoulders and took the lead.
“You could call this ‘The Case of the Villainous Duke,’” Mabel said, skipping to catch up, her enthusiasm for the break-in growing.
Lillian linked their arms and continued forward. “Or ‘The Case of the Disastrous Machines.’”
“‘The Case of the Pernicious Progress.’”
Their lighthearted banter relieved some of the anxiety that had twisted through Eleanor’s insides, even if she could not muster the levity to take part in it herself.
The night had started with a simple statement as they’d traveled home after the thrashing—she wanted to face the thing that was about to ruin her, and not from across a stage.
She wanted to see it, close-up. She wanted to touch it.
She wanted to compare its feel to that of the sorts she knew so well.
If she could understand it better, she could fight it.
She hadn’t anticipated that Lillian would propose such drastic measures, but it shouldn’t have surprised her. All their careers were on the line.
“What if there are dogs?” Eleanor asked, taking long strides until she reached them.
“There were no dogs today,” Lillian said, “and I have cuts of beef in my bag.”
Mabel wrinkled her nose as she looked at the satchel Lillian carried. “Raw meat? It is at least wrapped, isn’t it?”
“Of course,” Lillian said. “And if the juices escape and the bag is ruined, it will be a perfectly acceptable sacrifice if it means finding a flaw in the machines.”
“What if the duke has hired someone to guard the Linotypes?” Mabel asked.
“Then we launch straight into our cover story,” Lillian replied, pausing as a cab drove past and then striding across the street.
“We left my purse behind and we need to retrieve it immediately. Though I highly doubt he has hired security. You can’t exactly steal one of those machines.
You would need four men and a wagon to move just one. ”
“We could destroy them,” Eleanor muttered, louder than intended. Both friends snapped their heads in her direction, wearing completely different expressions.
Lillian looked nonchalant. “I brought sand,” she admitted. “And matches, just in case.”
Mabel gnawed at her lip, eyes worried. “We aren’t truly considering that, though, are we?”
“Considering fire or vandalism?” Eleanor asked as she looked to the left for cars. Both options were tempting.
Mabel stopped and pulled Eleanor and Lillian to a halt with her. “Please don’t do anything drastic,” she said, gripping Eleanor’s arm. “This afternoon, you were as angry as I’ve ever seen you.”
Eleanor took a deep breath, held it for a moment until her heart rate slowed, and then released it. “I am not angry enough to set fire to a building. The Great Fire of New York started in a warehouse, and that set the Hudson River alight.”
“A river caught alight?” Mabel asked, her worry receding in the face of curiosity.
“Yes.” Eleanor was grateful for the comfort of knowledge in this deeply uncomfortable moment. “It was frozen and turpentine had leaked from a nearby factory. The gale caused flames to race across the ice.”
“That would have looked beautiful.” Mabel had a natural tendency toward wonder and could see the bright side even of a tragedy.
“It is not the only time. A company has been dumping gasoline into the Cuyahoga River for years. It caught alight three times.”
Lillian cocked her head, brows furrowed. “Did we typeset that article? I think I would have remembered burning water.”
The story had been fascinating to Eleanor when she first read it.
But given her current situation, the thought of it made her stomach churn.
“No. I read about it in the journals of an American poet. He wrote that the people of Cleveland aren’t even angry.
To them, the pollution in the river is a sign of progress.
” How backward thinking. How self-defeating.
The people of Cleveland should be rising up in protest.
Lillian appeared suitably affronted, but Mabel was appallingly unperturbed. “I can see their point, I suppose. Assuming that no one was hurt. If progress is giving them benefits that they wouldn’t otherwise have and the fire took nothing of import with it.”
Eleanor clenched her fists. “Progress can’t be at whatever cost, though,” she snapped.
Mabel’s step faltered and she pulled away. “I didn’t mean at any cost,” she said, eyes shining. “Just where it makes sense to help people.”
Progress was being driven by men who wanted to make money.
Helping people, doing the right thing, didn’t factor into their thinking, despite what the duke might claim.
Tycoons were creating entire industries with no consideration for the people they were displacing, or whose rivers they were polluting.
Eleanor worked her jaw, trying to loosen it enough to say something that would put Mabel at ease, but unable to do so.
The duke’s warehouse loomed in the not far distance. The building had been imposing during the day. It was downright spooky at night.
Eleanor planted her feet and shook herself. This blasted Linotype always made her skin crawl.
Lillian rested a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder, as one might do to a spooked horse. “We don’t need to do this if it’s going to upset you.”
“Or if it’s going to make you want to set it on fire.” Mabel gave her a small smile. A peace offering.
“I already want to set it on fire,” Eleanor mumbled. “But I won’t,” she added as they looked at her, alarmed. “I just want to see the Linotype in action without an audience watching to see how I’ll react. I want to get the full measure of it so that I know how to fight it.”
“Then let’s get started,” Lillian said. They walked the final length in silence, close to the buildings, with Mabel on the lookout for witnesses.
The nearer they came to the duke’s warehouse, the faster Eleanor’s heart thudded. As they finally stood in front of it, she felt like her ribs were about to break open.
Lillian rapped on the door. If the warehouse was guarded, they would get what they needed without breaking the law. She and Mabel would press the guard into helping them look for the missing purse, and Eleanor would get her moment to face the enemy.
There was no response.
“Break and enter it is, then,” Lillian whispered, with far too much joy.
Eleanor wanted to be sick. She prided herself on being accountable and this was so illegal that she could never admit to or apologize for it.
Not that the duke deserved an apology. He certainly hadn’t apologized for befriending her under false pretenses. What a disappointment he had been.
“Got it.” Lillian whooped, pulling Eleanor from her brooding. She put a shoulder to the door and pushed it open with a grunt.
With a racing heart, Eleanor scooted past. The plan was simple—her friends would stay by the door to keep watch and to distract anyone who arrived unexpectedly while Eleanor made her way to a Linotype in one of the obscured corners.
There were fewer lamps lit now than there had been earlier in the day. Eleanor tensed, as though waiting for the duke’s grim future to manifest into corporeal form and launch itself at her from the shadows.
In the background, she could hear Mabel prattle nervously. She had not hesitated before joining tonight’s scheme, even though it made her uneasy. Eleanor had good friends. Steadfast friends, the kind who would support her no matter how the future panned out. She searched for comfort in that.
Finally, she reached the opposite side of the room and did a quick turn into one of the rows.
The Linotype was truly monstrous—as tall as she was, and twice as wide.
The chutes that stretched from the top of the machine to the middle looked like dozens of sharp teeth.
Hesitantly, she sat on the stool in front of it, her heart catching as the Linotype loomed.
Freezing, she waited to see what it would do, if it would attack her.
Silly. Irrational. It’s an inanimate machine. It has no power to harm you.
But while it was all well and good to say that to herself, it didn’t feel true.
Not according to her gut. Not according to the hairs on her arms. Not according to her feet, which tapped incessantly as if trying to flee.
Oh, Eleanor… Her mother’s voice was eerie in this cavernous room.
How can you walk so confidently through those print rooms of yours, but be so fearful now?
She shook out her shoulders, trying to shake off the jimjams. She had only a few minutes to learn as much as she could about this thing that was set to replace her.
She studied the bank of keys. There were two sets of the alphabet—upper and lower case—arranged in four columns.
In the middle was a separate block of keys with all the non-letters one used—a full stop, a comma, an apostrophe, an exclamation point, alongside a row of numbers. Resting neatly on a lip was the manual.