Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 24: June 1888.

Twenty-Four: June 1888.

Bekinscot fingered the dull black metal.

‘How the hell will this and Lillibet help you to best that fiend?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘It’s something… well, something that Verne fellow would write about. You can’t mean to say –‘

‘I do,’ Haining said simply ‘I have tested this equipment, and familiarised myself with it. I have also been training with an old chum who was a Boxing Blue when I was at Cambridge with him. Nice chap. Horace DeVere Stacpoole?’

‘Stacpoole the gambler? How do you know that you can trust –‘

Haining chuckled. ‘He knows nothing of why I wished to improve my physique. I suspect he believes it to be either to impress a lady, or to fight someone over a lady. You know only too well how his mind works…’

Bekinscot sighed and assented. Too many evening over the bridge or bezique table with the young Stacpoole had given him – only too well – an insight into that young man’s psychology. He could believe that it was only too easy for someone of Haining’s intelligence to hoodwink a man who had scraped a degree with the help of his people and their money, but had trouble remembering to breathe out.

‘So you’re safe in that respect, but how –‘

‘Did I test this equipment? It wasn’t easy, I can tell you. There are some advantages to having money, not least of which is being able to buy yourself an isolated country estate.’

‘So that’s why you bought Repton Hall,’ Bekinscot nodded. ‘I wondered why you would wish to bury yourself out there, unless of course it was for Lillibet.’

‘And bury her out there like that loathsome sod who left his wife at the mercy of the menagerie he had bought back from India and Africa? Lord no,’ Haining shook his head. ‘I could never do that. Even if I did wish it, then how would I move her? It was difficult enough to keep her under wraps thus far. No, the open spaces and isolation of Norfolk allowed me to try this skeleton in peace. It’s far easier to transport this by road and rail – in pieces – and keep its secrets safe than it would be to move my darling.’

While he was speaking. Haining divested himself of his topcoat and weskit, throwing them with a rough accuracy over the nearest workbench. His shoes and stockings followed suit. Finally, he loosened his collar, and now took the chest plate of the suits and moved it on its barely visible hinges, so that it swung out and allowed him to carefully climb into the legs. Once inside, with his arms sliding down so that the thin, wire-like web of metal now enmeshed his fingers, he swung the chest plate back into place, so that his torso was covered. It connected into place with a soft click.

‘Watch this – I confess I’m rather proud of this little trick,’ he grinned. Flexing the fingers of his left hand, he touched a small rubber pad in the palm of the metal webbing. A dull ‘whoopmf’ sounded at his back. ‘Engine now engaged, old chap,’ he murmured. ‘Self-starting boiler, using compressed coal and oil. Incredibly efficient, and it’ll need to be if he keeps me out for hours on his foetid little tail.’

‘Incredible,’ Bekinscot breathed. ‘Bloody weird, I have to say, but…’

‘Now, the face-piece,’ Haining said, casting around. ‘Ah – it’s over there,’ he said dramatically, indicating a shelf on the far wall.

‘Let me –‘ Bekinscot said, starting to move. He was stayed by Haining’s hand.

‘No. Allow me…’

Bekinscot let out a small cry of shock as, with a hiss of hydraulics, Haining crossed the room – a distance of several yards – without seeming to even move his feet. It was as though he flew over the flagged floor.

‘Now then, almost there,’ Haining said with a sly grin, revelling in his friend’s amazement.

Amazement that turned to a gasp of shock as Haining placed the mask upon his face.