Doktor Glass by Thomas Brennan Page B

best protection in the empire, from what most agreed were the best soldiers, the best agents, the bestnetwork of informants. Still, even they could not give guarantees; everybody had an Achilles’ heel. Durham had to be caught.
    A scratching sound distracted Langton. He looked down and drew his legs up as a fat, glossy cockroach scurried from under the bed. It veered away from the kerosene pots and dashed across the threadbare rug, its legs silent until they rattled on bare floorboards again. The insect vanished under the chest of drawers.
    Langton got up and made for the door. Where you saw one of the creatures, you knew there were many more; they never traveled alone. Then, as he opened the door, he heard the snap of sprung metal slamming shut. He paused. It had sounded like a mantrap, not some penny arcade device.
    Slowly, carefully, he knelt down and looked under the chest of drawers. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a massive steel trap with the unlucky insect spiked and still wriggling. And behind that, a dark void in the wall. Langton shifted the heavy chest to one side and kicked the steel trap out of the way. At the foot of the wall, just above the skirting board, someone had peeled back the yellowing wallpaper and enlarged a hole in the plaster. The wooden square covering the hole lay on the floor beside the trap, probably dislodged by the curious insects.
    Pulling on his gloves, Langton used one of the lengths of wooden kindling from beside the fire to delve into the hole. Three more insects spilled out and lay wriggling on their backs. Langton grimaced, then dug a little deeper. The hole was bigger than he had first thought.
    A wad of paper tied with twine landed beside the insects. Langton saw ornate writing, watermarks, detailed etchings. He estimated at least two or three hundred pounds in bills of one, five, and ten. He knelt down and searched further. The kindling stick snagged on something; Langton moved back a little, then prized the object out. The cotton-wrapped bundle hit the floor with a metallic thud.
    Inside the bundle, a revolver, heavy and black, slick with oil. A Webley, the same model as the force-issue weapon lying in Langton’sbedside drawer. No doubt the same model that Durham had used to fire on McBride and Langton.
    There was something about the brass cartridges as they clattered across the floorboards. Langton took one to the grimy window and held it to the light. The head of the bullet bore two incisions at right angles, a cross-shaped cut that meant the fired round would mushroom on impact. A simple modification outlawed by the Geneva Convention but still in use.
    Although the Boer guerrillas and Irregulars were not the only soldiers to use dumdum bullets, Langton remembered clearly the last time he’d seen the ammunition’s horrific effects: Transvaal.

Six
    B EFORE HE LEFT the house in Gloucester Road, Langton and the constables checked the remainder of the room but found no more cubbyholes or compartments. The landlady, after ignoring the cockroaches and complaining about the hole in her wall (“And who’s going to pay for that, I’d like to know?”), told Langton little more than she’d told McBride: The two lodgers had caused no trouble apart from coming home late; they’d had no visitors but a lot of telegrams and post. No, she couldn’t remember the postmarks on the envelopes, and what did they take her for? A busybody?
    Langton stood on the pavement outside the house as McBride made his way through the gaggle of children that played out in the street despite the cold. The bundle of notes and the revolver lay locked in the hansom’s trunk. Langton waited until he and McBride had climbed into the cab before he said, “What did you find?”
    McBride flicked through his notebook. “Busy little bees, our two lodgers were. They sent at least one telegram every day, usually to thesame address. The GPO clerk showed me the ledger that him and the operators use to record