Mina Wentworth and the Invisible City by Meljean Brook Read Free Book Online Page B

anyway. In the New World, they had problems with phossy jaw. You’ve heard of that?”
    Mina shook her head.
    Newberry said, “I knew a match girl with most of her mouth gone. The phosphorus rots out their jawbones.”
    “That’s right. Go long enough, and it rots their brains, too. It doesn’t affect anyone infected with nanoagents, which is why you haven’t heard of it, Inspector Wentworth. So you’d think we’d have an advantage making spark lighters here instead of in Manhattan City, because the chemicals don’t rot their heads. God knows it’s why I came here six years ago; I couldn’t stand seeing another one go like that.”
    A bounder with a conscience—or a tendency to run from problems? “But you don’t have an advantage?”
    “No. In the past two or three years, a few of the matchmen in Manhattan City and Johannesland have started putting in automated machines. Now their prices are so low that even with the tariffs on the spark lighters coming in from the New World, I can’t compete. Half of my workers will soon be out of a job anyway, while I’m hoping to hang on.”
    “And you told Redditch this?”
    “I did, and he didn’t understand it. Why would he? There’s a man who has never worried about money, about paying his people. But there’s more than that. You had a look at the work floor?”
    “Yes.”
    “I make this the best place I can. I’ve got the fans going, the lights up. There’s still always someone losing a finger or an eye. There’s always the flare-ups from a spark. So I put the ones with prosthetics and metal hands on the cutters, the stampers. Urchins come to me, ask for little jobs, I put them to dipping match heads and selling them on the streets, but it’s still hardly enough to feed them. One girl about thirteen, fourteen, she came to me and asked when I had an opening for a cutter. I said she can’t work with the sheet metal, because I’ve had too many lose their hands. So she went and sold herself to some blacksmith and came back with steel hands. I didn’t have a place for her anymore—she sold herself, cut off her damn hands for nothing. But when I bring in those automated machines, it won’t matter if she’s got hands of flesh or metal. If I have a spot open, she can work either way.”
    If he had a spot open—but there would be fewer spots to have. “And you told Redditch this, too?”
    “I told him. But all that he heard was that some of my people would be out of a job. And since he obviously wasn’t going to listen to the rest, I left.”
    “What time?”
    “I don’t know. A half hour after I arrived, maybe.”
    Consistent with every other statement—and forty-five minutes before Redditch had been killed. “How did Redditch appear when you left?”
    “He was still trying to butter me up. I wasn’t having none of it.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s him, isn’t it? He’s the one who’s dead—and you’re wondering if I did it.”
    “Would you have?”
    “No.” He gave a tired laugh. “He was trying to write up some bill for Parliament, and I know better to fight aristocratic types and politicians, have them turn against me—especially the Iron Duke. Redditch said he had your husband’s support. So I left and hoped they’d all just forget about my little factory here.”
    Mina didn’t think Redditch had Rhys’s support, not to the extent the viscount hoped—but she wouldn’t say so now. Her husband was quite capable of making his views known, and he often did so very loudly.
    “Did you see anyone as you left?”
    “I was angry. I didn’t see much of anyone or anything until I was across the river.” He took a deep breath, his gaze unfocused as if retracing the route through his memory. “I suppose you mean someone waiting around Redditch’s home, someone who didn’t look like they should be there. No, I can’t recall.”
    “Did you see anything else that struck you as unusual?” When he shook his head, Mina asked, “Have