The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man

  All of a sudden, he raised his head, bayed wildly, and set off at a terrific pace, almost yanking Spencer off his feet.

  “He's got it!” Swinburne enthused, racing after the pair.

  They ran out onto Gray's Inn Road, turned left, raced up to King's Cross Railway Station, then swerved left again onto the Euston Road.

  “He seems mighty sure of himself!” Spencer puffed as they galloped along.

  “That nose never fails!” Swinburne panted. “It saved my life last year. It's just a shame it's attached to the rest of the beast!”

  At the junction with Russell Square, they encountered two constables who were grappling with a mad-eyed individual dressed in a bloodstained butcher's apron.

  “What the devil do you think you're doing out and about at this time of night?” one of the policemen yelled at them.

  “Government business!” Swinburne declared.

  “Pull the other one, it's got bells on it!”

  “Aargh!” the butcher howled. “Look at the little one! The red-haired git! He's a bloody toff! Kill ‘im! Kill ‘im!”

  “Shut up,” the second policeman snapped. He grunted as the man's knee thudded into his stomach, and groaned to his companion: “Bash the blighter on the head, Bill!”

  The poet, philosopher, and basset hound ran past the brawling trio and kept going.

  Fidget led the two men onward until the bottom end of Regent's Park hove into view. The trail led past it and onto Marylebone Road. They had run about a mile so far.

  “I never thought I'd be thankful for a riot!” Swinburne gasped.

  “What do you mean, lad?”

  “Isn't it obvious? Whoever's got Richard couldn't find transport! They're on foot!”

  They hurried on for another mile. The road, one of the city's main highways, was empty of people but filled with rubble and wreckage. Fires still blazed and they found themselves plunging through clouds of black smoke. Many gas lamps had been vandalised, too, and lengths of the thoroughfare were pitch dark.

  “Whoops!” Spencer cried as Fidget made an unexpected left turn.

  “Bishop's Bridge Road,” Swinburne noted.

  Just ahead of them, the lights of Paddington Railway Station flared out from within an enormous cloud of white steam. Fidget plunged straight into it.

  The terminal was a scene of out-and-out chaos. A locomotive had derailed while entering the station, ploughing into one of the platforms. It was lying on its side with its boiler split open, vapour shooting out of the ripped metal.

  Policemen and station workers milled about, and the moment Swinburne and Spencer stepped into the building, a constable, whose features were dominated by a truly enormous mustache, pounced on them.

  “Stop right there! What are you two up to?” He looked at Swinburne curiously. “Hello hello. Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Hey up! I know! It was back when that brass man was left in Trafalgar Square! Constable Hoare is the name, sir. Samuel Hoare.”

  “Hello, Hoare. We're on official business! Have a squint at this.”

  Burton's assistant presented his credentials to the uniformed man, who examined them and raised his bushy eyebrows.

  Fidget whined and tugged desperately at his lead. Hoare shook his head.

  “This is too much for me,” he said. “I'll call my supervisor over, if you don't mind.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled into the cloud: “Commander! Commander!”

  Swinburne breathed a sigh of relief as the steam parted and Commander Krishnamurthy strode into view. He was wearing the new Flying Squad uniform of a long brown leather coat and a flat peaked officer's hat. A pair of flying goggles dangled around his neck.

  “What ho! What ho! What ho!” the poet cried happily. “Krishnamurthy, old horse! Why, I haven't seen you since the Battle of Old Ford! Aren't you sweltering in all that leather?”

  “Hallo, Swinburne, old chap!” Krishnamurthy exclaimed, with an unrestrained grin. He grabbed his friend's hand and shook it. “Yes I am! Regulations, a hex on ’em! What on earth are you doing here, and at this time of night? Wait a minute—” he looked at Spencer “—aren't you Herbert Spencer, the philosopher chap? My cousin—Shyamji Bhatti—is always talking about you. Singing your praises, in fact.”

  “That's very kind of him; he's a good fellow!” Spencer replied. “You look like him.”

  “Dashingly handsome, you mean? Thanks very much. So what's the story, Mr. Swinburne?”

  “Fidget's nose has led us here. We're tracking Richard. He's in trouble!”

  Krishnamurthy looked down at the basset hound. “Well, this isn't the end of the trail by the looks of it. Let him lead on, we'll see where he takes us. You can tell me all about it on the way. Stay with us, Constable Hoare!”

  “Yes, sir,” the mustachioed policeman answered.

  In the event, Fidget didn't take them very far at all. The trail ended at the edge of platform three.

  “They got on a train,” Krishnamurthy said. “So when do you think, Mr. Swinburne? It's just past half-two now and there've been no locomotives in or out of the station since rioters threw something onto the line and caused that one to derail a little over an hour ago.”

  “Richard had an appointment at ten o'clock,” Swinburne answered. “His—um—his—er—his message reached me around midnight. So I guess whatever train left here with him aboard did so during the hour before the crash.”

  Krishnamurthy turned to his subordinate. “Hoare, run and get a Bradshaw, would you? We'll look up the train times and destinations.”

  The constable hurried away and, while he was gone, Swinburne gave the commander a brief outline of the events leading up to Burton's plea for help.

  “So he got a message to you, did he? The resourceful so-and-so! What was it, a parakeet?”

  Swinburne cleared his throat. “Um. I heard a tapping at the window, yes.”

  “So what's all this séance malarkey about? What are the Rakes up to? I've been receiving preposterous reports from the West End. Some of my colleagues claim that dead Rakes are shuffling about in the Strand!”

  “It's true,” Spencer said.

  “As to what's going on,” Swinburne added, “hopefully Richard will be able to tell us, if we can snatch him out of their hands!”

  Hoare returned with a portly gentleman in tow.

  “I went one better than a Bradshaw and brought the stationmaster, sir.”

  “Ah, good show. Hello, Mr. Arkwright. I presume you know the station's timetable better than the back of your hand?”

  “I certainly do,” confessed the uniformed man. “I could sing it to you in my sleep, if I ever sleep again, which after this disaster I probably won't. Just look at the state of my station!”

  “No serenades are required, thank you, but perhaps you could tell us what trains left this platform prior to the crash, after, say, half-twelve?”

  “Just the one, sir, on account of it being the night timetable and us having a reduced service due to the public disorder.”

  “And that was?”

  “An offence against the king, if you ask me, sir.”

  “I meant the train, Mr. Arkwright. When did it leave and where was it bound?”

  “It was the twelve forty-five atmospheric service, sir, to Weymouth via Reading, stopping at Basingstoke, Winchester, Eastleigh, Southampton, Bournemouth, and Poole. Due in at—”

  “Winchester!” Swinburne interrupted. “That's where they've taken him, I'd bet my life on it.”

  “Yus,” Spencer agreed. “Then by carriage to Alresford and on to Tichborne House!”

  “Bloody hell!” the little poet cursed, flapping his arms wildly. “Our rotorchairs are somewhere between Clerkenwell and Scotland Yard by now! I say! Krishnamurthy, old bean, I don't suppose we could commandeer a couple of your police fliers?”

  The commander shook his head regretfully. “I'd say yes, of course, but they're all in the air, what with tonight's disturbances. We're monitoring the edge of the
riot zone as it expands outward. The bigger it gets, the closer we're pushed to our limit.”

  “If it's police business, you could requisition an atmospheric carriage,” the stationmaster said quietly.

  “Confound it! I suppose we'll have to make our way to Miss Mayson's place, though we can ill afford the delay, and I daresay she's sick of us making off with her swans—” Swinburne stopped and looked at Mr. Arkwright. “What was that?”

  “I said, if it's police business, you could requisition an atmospheric carriage. We've been moving them to the sidings since the crash, so there are plenty available. And there'll be no more trains on the line until daylight. If I wire ahead to the pump stations and signal boxes, you'll get a clear run. It's only sixty miles, and one carriage alone will do you a good fifty-five-miles-per-hour minimum.”

  “You can supply a driver?”

  “You won't need one, sir, which is just as well, since some of the beggars seem to have lost their heads and others have been taken ill. But no, it's all automated.”

  Krishnamurthy punched a fist into his palm. “I'm in on this!” he snapped.

  “Me too, if that's all right, sir,” Constable Hoare interjected.

  Swinburne slapped his hands together. “Then let's get this rescue party moving!”

  The atmospheric railway system was one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's inventions. Between its wide-gauge tracks ran a fifteen-inch-diameter pipe, its top cut through lengthwise by a slot which was sealed with a leather flap-valve. Beneath the train carriages, a thin shaft ran down through the slot and was affixed to a dumbbell-shaped piston, which fitted snugly inside the pipe. Every three miles, pump stations sucked air out in front of the trains and forced it back into the pipe behind. The pressure differential shot the carriages along the tracks at great speed.

  The run down to Winchester was fast and uneventful. They arrived at half-past four in the morning. The carriage drew to a halt and its passengers jumped down onto the station platform. The night guard greeted them.

  “The police special from London,” he said, unnecessarily. “Commander?”

  “Me,” Krishnamurthy answered. “Did passengers leave the previous train?”

  “Just a small group, sir. A black fellow brought a steam-horse and wagon to meet them. Some sort of medical case. They were escorting the patient.”

  “Richard!” Swinburne exclaimed. “And that must have been Bogle driving the wagon.”

  “I don't know what you intend now, gentlemen, but there won't be any cabs available at this time of morning.”

  “How far is it to Tichborne House, Mr. Swinburne?” Krishnamurthy asked.

  “Four miles or so. I should think we can leg it across country.”

  “Then let's do so!”

  By virtue of its famous cathedral, Winchester was a city, but in size it was little more than a small town, and it wasn't long before the four men and one dog were beyond its bounds.

  The land to the east was heavily farmed; a patchwork of wheat and cornfields separated by high hedgerows and well-trodden dirt paths; a rippled terrain of low hills and shallow valleys, with scarecrows darkly silhouetted against the starry sky.

  They traversed it silently.

  Swinburne was beside himself with anxiety, and his nervous energy infected the rest of the party, so that none of them felt the effects of their sleepless night. A grim mood overtook the group, and they walked with jaws set and fists clenched, expecting a battle and determined to win it.

  Finally, they reached the brow of a hill and looked down at the Tichborne estate just as a vague hint of orange smudged the eastern horizon.

  It occurred to Swinburne, when he looked at that first glimmering of dawn, that he was also looking in the direction of burning London, and he realised that whatever the enemy's plans were, they were coming to fruition now, and the one person who might be able to oppose them was either their prisoner—or dead.

  The party was descending at an angle into the shallow valley at the back of the manor house, drawing closer to the willow-lined lake, when Constable Hoare pointed and asked: “Is that a man?”

  It was.

  A dead man.

  For a dreadful moment, Swinburne thought it was Burton, but as they reached the body, which lay facedown beside a crooked tree, and turned it over, he recognised Guilfoyle the groundsman.

  “What happened to him?” Krishnamurthy gasped.

  All the capillaries beneath the skin of Guilfoyle's face had burst, and blood, still wet, had leaked from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. His lips were drawn back over his teeth and frozen in an appalling expression of agony.

  Herbert Spencer sighed. “Poor blighter. Nice chap, he was. Kept an eye on Miss Mayson's swans when I was a-stayin’ here afore. Saw to it that they had plenty to eat.”

  A double-barrelled shotgun lay beside the corpse. Krishnamurthy picked it up and examined it.

  “It's been fired. One barrel.”

  “No lights showing in the house, sir,” Hoare noted.

  “Oof!” Spencer grunted as Fidget yanked at his lead. “Looks like the dog has picked up the scent again!”

  “Allow him to show us the way, Mr. Spencer,” Krishnamurthy ordered. “And voices low, please, gentlemen!”

  Following behind the basset hound, they ran up the slope to the back of Tichborne House, crossed the patio, and entered cautiously through the open doors to the gunroom.

  The house was silent.

  Hoare touched his superior's arm and pointed to the floor. Krishna-murthy looked down and, in the dim light, saw black spots trailing across it. He bent and touched one, raised his finger to his nose, and whispered: “Blood. Someone's hurt.”

  “Not Richard, I hope!” Swinburne hissed.

  They moved across the chamber and out into the hallway, tiptoed along it, and passed into the large ballroom.

  Fidget's nose, and the trail of blood, took them straight across the dance floor, out through another door, and along a passage toward the smoking room. Before they got there, the dog pulled them into an off-branching corridor.

  “I thought so,” Swinburne muttered. “There are stairs ahead that lead down to the servants’ quarters, the kitchen, and the entrance to the labyrinth.”

  “You think they have him under the Crawls, lad?” Spencer asked.

  “I think it likely.”

  Commander Krishnamurthy pulled his truncheon from his belt and nodded to Hoare to do the same.

  “Move behind us, please, gentlemen,” he said. The poet and philosopher obeyed.

  They crept on, reached the stairs, descended, and became aware of a low-pitched repetitive rumbling.

  “It's Mrs. Picklethorpe's bloomin’ snorin’!” Spencer whispered.

  A few steps later, voices came to them from the kitchen.

  “Shhh,” Swinburne breathed. “Listen!”

  “—knows the finances of the estate, so we need to keep the fool alive for the time being.”

  The poet recognised the brash tones at once. It was Edward Kenealy.

  “But can we make him cooperate?” came an unfamiliar voice. “He's a stubborn old sod.”

  “He'll crack as soon as we get him near the diamonds again, don't you worry. He's very susceptible. No resistance at all. How's the doctor, Bogle?”

  “He's bleeding badly, sir.”

  A fourth man spoke, his voice tremulous: “I'll be all right.”

  Swinburne recognised the tones.

  “We need you for the séance, Jankyn,” Kenealy said.

  “Just bandage me up tightly,” came the response. “Bogle can run me to the Alresford doctor later. I'll be fine for the séance.”

  “I should dig out the pellets, sir.”

  “No, Bogle,” Kenealy snapped. “There's no time. We have to contact the mistress as soon as we can. She wants to check on Burton's condition. Waite, help me find a table and chairs. We'll carry them to the central chamber. We have to conduct the séance in the presence of our prisoners.??
?

  Krishnamurthy turned to his companions and whispered, “Four of ’em, and one disabled. Come on!”

  He and Constable Hoare dashed forward, with Swinburne, Herbert Spencer, and Fidget at their heels. They hurtled into the kitchen and all hell broke loose.

  Swinburne caught a glimpse of Jankyn, shirtless and bloodied, lying on a table with Bogle standing beside him. Edward Kenealy and a Rake—the man named Waite—were near the pantries.

  “Stop! Police!” Krishnamurthy bellowed.

  “Don't move!” Hoare shouted.

  “Damnation!” Kenealy barked, swinging around and raising his right arm.

  Swinburne dived aside as a bolt of blue lightning crackled out of the lawyer's hand and whipped across the room to envelop the policemen's heads.

  Krishnamurthy covered his eyes and collapsed to his knees.

  Hoare, though, took the full brunt of the attack. His body snapped rigid and rose six inches from the ground, floating within a dancing, sizzling aura of blue energy. He shook wildly and let loose a high-pitched howl of pain. His face turned red, then blue, and blood spurted from his nose and eyes.

  “Bleedin’ heck!” yelled Spencer, who'd fallen against a cupboard. “Stop it!”

  Swinburne looked around, saw a frying pan, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd grabbed and thrown it.

  The pan hit Kenealy's forehead with a tremendous clang. The lawyer staggered, tripped, and fell onto his back. The energy shooting from his hand left Hoare, fizzled across the ceiling, and vanished.

  The constable dropped.

  Waite leaped over to a work surface, seized a wooden chopping board, and launched it at Swinburne. The poet ducked. It spun past his head and smacked against the wall behind him.

  Krishnamurthy moaned and fell forward onto his hands.

  Bogle picked up a dinner plate and pitched it in Spencer's direction.

  Fidget barked and ran out of the room.

  Kitchen implements were suddenly flying back and forth; pans, crockery, and cutlery, crashing and smashing with a deafening racket.

  Constable Hoare's truncheon rolled to Spencer's feet. The philosopher grabbed it and sent it spinning through the air. It hit Waite in the throat, and the Rake doubled over, choking.