Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

still felt a stinging in her eyes, like an echo of the pain endured by the criminals outside.
    Criminals, hmph. They were children. How was it possible that so many children should be parentless and forced to make their own way in the world? It was one thing to be eighteen and possessed of an education. It was quite another to be ten ... or four ... and possessed of nothing at all.
    Master Willie, being closer to the ground and less affected by the remnants of the gas, found her a lamp on a hook. Then he towed her over to her trunk, which lay empty on its side next to a cold fireplace that appeared not to have been cleaned since the Queen of Empires had begun her glorious reign.
    “Ah. Here’s a start. Well done.” She righted the trunk and laid her embroidered waist inside. Then, holding the lamp high with one hand and her skirts with the other, she followed Willie carefully up a rickety stair—more of a ladder, really—that creaked alarmingly at their combined weight.
    As she collected her various bits of clothing—underthings, blouses, walking skirts, dresses, hats—she saw they had already been sorted into heaps with sundry like items that were not nearly as clean. “Willie, were these going to the ragmen in the morning?” He nodded, his eyes tearing a little at the last remnants of the gas. “It’s a lucky thing I acted quickly, then. If I had waited, I should never have seen my clothes again. You wouldn’t have observed a small traveling case containing a Bible, would you?”
    The little boy glanced to the rear of the apartment, where there was a single plank door. Everywhere else, it appeared the members of this gang were using the piles of rags and clothes as bedding until enough had accumulated to go to the ragman or the stall-keepers in Petticoat Lane. But someone rated the privacy and status of a door, and she had one guess as to who that might be.
    “Is that Snouts’s room?” Willie nodded. “Since he has given me carte blanche to recover my property, I shan’t feel too badly about invading his privacy, then.”
    Willie looked alarmed, and she suspected all the children were under threat of death if they, like Bluebeard’s wives, succumbed to the temptation to open the door.
    For all his status as leader, Snouts had not much more than his minions, she saw as she stepped cautiously inside. A pile of rags, a pipe, a cage containing rags, and a window with real glass in it was the extent of his worldly goods. The room stank of acid alcohol and offal. Primming her mouth in disgust, Claire rooted through the rag-pile until her hands touched a hard and rectangular shape.
    Her traveling case. She carried it over to the lamp and opened it to find only the Bible inside. The lock of hair still lay within, so that was another blessing. But what of the rest? She tipped up the false bottom and peered in, then felt the compartment with her fingers.
    Nothing. No notebooks, and certainly no jewelry.
    “Willie, have you seen any sign of a book and a notebook for writing in? They were in this case.” Again, he shook his head, looking worried. “Never mind. I shall have to conduct an interrogation, that’s all. Best to do that while the suspects are still somewhat incapacitated. Will you help me return these things to the trunk, please?”
    A muffled sound, like water bubbling in a pipe, came as though in reply. Willie’s eyes widened and she glanced in the direction of his gaze. “Is there something alive in there?”
    What she had mistaken for a heap of rags inside the cage moved and lifted its head. Two black eyes regarded her with suspicion, and the bubbling sound came again.
    “Good heavens. Is that a chicken?” Willie gripped the windowsill and stood on tiptoe to peer into the cage. “Snouts keeps a chicken in his room? Why on earth should he do that?” The little boy gestured with both hands and she understood. “Ah. An inexhaustible source of food. What a pity he doesn’t understand that one needs to care for one’s birds in order to expect something in return.” If she had been angry before, it was nothing to what she felt now. This poor creature, locked in the dark with nothing to eat, expected to produce food until—what? It died?
    “Come along, little bird.” She picked up the cage. “Willie, you are in charge of lighting us downstairs.”
    In a few moments she had repacked everything into her trunk, and closed the lid. She was not sure how she was going to move it, and she