K Jeter: Infernal Devices

"Pardon?"

"I'll send you some tickets, next time we play London." He swayed on the pivot of his cane, watching his uplifted hand paint an imaginary scene above our heads. "Bright lights, names all lit up in neon; you bring your girlfriend around to the box office, they'll give you the best seats in the house-"

"I'm not sure I follow…" His manner had become excited and effusive, and I didn't catch the meaning, possibly lewd, of some of his words. His companion laid her hand on his arm, which had some calming effect.

"Forget it," said Scape. "No problem."

Miss McThane brought her sly smile around to me again. "We've been touring abroad a great deal. It rubs off, you know? The way they talk, and stuff." In this, the longest speech she had directed to me, the same odd accent and diction appeared, that I had noticed in the gentleman's voice.

"Yeah, right," agreed Scape. "Those crazy Italians. Hah. Wild – really wild."

"How may I help you?" I said, hoping to move the conversation to a productive vein.

"Business – yeah." He swivelled his gaze around, searching among the clock faces, then back to me. "These, uh, automata I got – I take 'em around to places. And they do their bit. You follow me?"

I could see my politely reserved expression doubled in the blue lenses trained on me. "I believe so. You refer, I take it, to musical performances-"

"You got it, jack."

"And these mechanical devices that form your troupe – are they of your own creation?" I wished to draw him out, gently as possible, to find the actual extent of his knowledge of clockwork musicians.

"No – no." Scape shook his head. "I got 'em from what's his name…"

"Jackey Droze," supplied Miss McThane.

It took a moment for the words to spark anything in my memory. "You mean Jacquet-Droz," I said. The name of the eighteenth-century Swiss watchmaker, and the two sons that followed in their father's career (with more success than I had on a similar course), was familiar to me, as it had once been to all Europe. Indeed, Creff had informed me that my father had once travelled expressly to Lisbon in order to examine the devices christened by their maker Charles the Scribe, Henri the Draughtsman, and The Musician. The senior Dower's interest in, and efforts towards perfecting, the mechanical similitude of human action, presumably dated from that Portuguese visit.

"That's the guy," said Scape.

"You are, then, the current owner of the celebrated organ-playing figure?" I knew that the mechanical woman, reputed by some to have been modelled by Pierre Jacquet-Droz after his own wife, had changed hands many times after the watchmaker and his sons had toured with their creations before the Continent's crowned heads.

"Uh, no, actually-" An echo of my own wariness entered Scape's manner. "Some other ones that he made."

"Others?"

"Yeah. A, uh, trumpet player and a couple of… what's that other thing called… with the strings? – cello. That's it – two cello players."

"Extraordinary." I rubbed my chin, feigning the depth of my musing. "I never heard tell of any such musical devices crafted by Jacquet-Droz."

Scrape gave a diffident shrug. "Well, you see, he never showed 'em to anybody. They just sorta stayed in the family, you know? And then I bought 'em off the old guy's great-grandson."

"I see." Indeed I did; whatever suspicions I'd had of this extraordinary person's less than honest intent had been all but confirmed by his exposition. Jacquet-Droz's skill in clockwork had, by all reports that have come down to the modern day, been eclipsed only by his genius for showmanship and self-promotion. The notion that he would create a veritable orchestra of musicians and not put them on display with his other mechanical children was obviously farcical. This, in combination with the muddled recall of what instruments this supposed impresario's troupe played, marked him in my eye as a person whose every word would need to be examined for fraudulency.

"And in what connection, sir," I continued, "have you come to me? I must confess I know little of music, being merely" – I smiled, lifting my hands towards the ticking wares displayed on the walls – "a simple watchmaker."

Scape returned my smile, or at least half of it; only one side of his face twitched to reveal a few yellow teeth. He leaned over the head of his cane, bringing his face closer to mine. "Well, you see… I'd like to build the act up a little. You know? I mean a trumpet-player and a couple of cellos – it's getting kinda old. People wanna hear something different. Got me? Like, maybe, something that could… sing…"

"That would be a marvel." It was obvious that he wished me to hand up on a platter the fish his verbal hook dangled for. From the corner of my eye I caught a change of expression in Miss McThane's face and, glancing at her, saw her dark eyes narrowed in what might have been grudging respect as they gazed at me.

Scape persisted. "Or – play… the violin." His words jabbed at me, in the manner of someone forcing the wrong key into an unyielding lock.

"To have such a device, I would imagine, would place one in your profession at the pinnacle of success."

He turned away from me, the better to hide the exclamation of annoyance which he muttered under his breath; I caught only what seemed to be the syllable cog (perhaps a reference to my mechanical trade) and the word succour (a prayer for divine assistance?). I smiled to myself, pleased with my fending off his pointed inquiries.

"Look," he said, mastering his emotions with visible effort. "Your old man was a very clever guy – all right? Let's just say he got… interested in musical stuff. And maybe he, like, built himself a violin player. I mean, a clockwork figure that could play the violin." Behind the blue lenses, the hidden points of his gaze probed into my visage. "What would you know about something like that?"

There; it was out; plain as simple day. Through some means, some hidden current of rumour, this scalawag had heard of the affair at the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe and the Clerical Automata that my father had left in place, but never animated before his death. Though my attempt to set the elaborate array of devices into operation had met with disaster, this Scape – if that were his real name – had evidently conceived the notion that one or more of the automaton figures – perhaps the priest, or the choristers – could be altered to suit the purposes of performing in music-halls. To one of his coarse sensibilities, there would be perhaps no difference between a chorus'd evensong and a collection of jigs sawed out of a fiddle; if a clockwork figure had been invested with any musical talent, this fellow no doubt believed that it should be as capable of one performance as the other.

"I have no knowledge of such a device." This, in strict truth: while my father had certainly eclipsed Jacquet-Droz, by giving his Clerical Automata a fair approximation of human vocal powers through ingenious assemblages of rosined wheels rotating against a set of tuned strings, he had not, as far as I knew then, ever envisioned a clockwork violinist.

Scape's mouth set into a bloodless line; his hands throttled the shaft of his walking-stick, as through he were about to bring its length down upon my insolent head. I took a step backwards from the counter, fearing such violence, only to start about in surprise when a soft hand laid itself upon my arm.

"Mr Dower-" Scape's companion had, during our verbal jousting, stepped quietly beside me. Her gaze, half-shaded behind her sable lashes, and intimating smile held me speechless as she interposed herself between shopkeeper and soi-disant client. Her hand traced a feather's touch up to my shoulder. Somehow, it seemed that while she had been outside the field of my vision, the edge of her gown's bodice had crept lower, revealing an immodest aspect. My dazzled eyes could not avert themselves from her white throat or the uplifted forms below. A delicate vein swelled with her pulse from beneath a lace-fringed shadow, as though it were a stream trickling beneath fields of snow that gave off an unaccountable warmth. "You know," she said, as I watched, mesmerised, the words formed by the coral bow of her mouth, "you seem like a nice guy. A real nice guy."