Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“Anyway, while I was having my cuts and bruises attended to by the Yard physician, William Trounce, Herbert Spencer, and Constable Bhatti all came limping in for the same treatment. We knew you'd get word to us, so after we'd been bandaged, soothed, patted on our heads, and sent on our merry way, we regrouped in Trounce's office, sat steaming by the fire, and waited. When the parakeet arrived and delivered your message, we gathered a force together and raced to Crouch End on velocipedes. You were unconscious inside the priory with the diamonds at your side. There was no sign of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”

“Did you find one of Babbage's devices? On a plinth?”

“Yes. Trounce took it in as evidence. The diamonds were returned to Brundleweed. He's not happy, though. It turns out that Brunel made off with a select few and left fakes in their place.”

“The black ones? Francois Garnier's Choir Stones?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I'll tell you later, Algy. But you're wrong. It wasn't Brunel who took the originals. I need to sleep now. I'll write up a full report when my strength is back. Oh, by the way, what became of Herbert Spencer?”

“He got a little reward from Scotland Yard for helping us out. Miss Mayson has given him an occasional job, too. He cleans out the parakeet cages at the automated animal academy.”

“He must have a thick skin!”

“He doesn't need one. Apparently the birds have taken a shine to him and barrage him with compliments!” Swinburne stood. “I'm staying in the spare bedroom. Just ring if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Burton replied sleepily as his friend departed.

He lay back with his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

Two weeks passed.

Burton worked on an expanded edition of his book The Lake Regions of Central Africa.

He slowly regained his strength. His long-suffering housekeeper, Mrs. Iris Angell, cooked him magnificent meals and despaired when he sent them back barely touched. His appetite had always been slight, but now-as she told him every single morning and every single evening-he needed sustenance.

She underestimated his iron constitution.

Little by little, the gaunt hollows beneath his scarred cheekbones filled out; the dark shadows around his eyes faded; his hands steadied.

Algernon Swinburne, now living back in his own apartment on Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, was a frequent visitor and observed with satisfaction the normal swarthiness returning to his friend's jaundiced countenance.

Burton eventually got around to writing a report detailing his confrontation with Sir Charles Babbage. He held nothing back.

Rolling the document, he placed it in a canister, which he slotted into an odd-looking copper and glass contraption on his desk. He dialed the number 222 and pressed a button. There came a gasp, a plume of steam, a rattle, and the canister shot away down a tube, en route to the prime minister's office.

He was just settling in his armchair and reaching for a cigar when there came a knock and Mrs. Angell entered.

“There's a Countess Sabina to see you, sir.”

“Is there, by James!? Send her up, please!”

“Should I chaperone?”

“There's no need, Mrs. Angell. The countess and I are acquainted.”

Moments later, a woman stepped into the study. She was tall and may once have possessed an angular beauty, but now looked careworn; her face was lined, her chestnut hair shot through with grey, her fingernails bitten and unpainted. Her eyes, though, were extraordinary-large, slightly slanted, and of the darkest brown.

She was London's foremost cheiromantist and prognosticator, and had given Burton much to think about during the Spring Heeled Jack case.

“Countess!” he exclaimed. “This is an unexpected pleasure! Please sit down. Can I get you anything?”

“Just water, please, Captain Burton,” she answered, in a musical, slightly accented voice.

He crossed to the bureau and poured her a glass while she sat and patted down her black crinoline skirt and straightened her bonnet.

“I'm sorry to intrude,” she said as he handed her the drink and sat opposite. “My goodness, you look ill!”

“Recovering, Countess, and I assure you, your visit is very welcome and no intrusion at all. Can I be of some service?”

“Yes-no-yes-I don't know-maybe the other way around. I-I have been having visions, Captain.”

“And they concern me in some way?”

She nodded and took a sip of water. “When you came to me last year,” she continued, “I saw that you had embarked upon a course never meant for you, yet one that would lead to greater contentment.”

“I remember. You said that for me the wrong path is the right path.”

“Yes. But in recent days, I have been increasingly aware of the alternative, Captain, by which I mean the original path. Not just yours, but that which we were all destined to tread until the stilt-man drove us from it.”

“Edward Oxford. He was a meddler with time.”

“With time,” she echoed, softly. Her eyes seemed to be focused on the far distance. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I had intended to talk to you first but it is overwhelming me. I cannot stop it. I have to-I have to-”

Burton lunged forward and caught the glass as it dropped from her loose fingers. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began to rock slightly in her chair. She started to speak in a voice that sounded weirdly different from her own, as if she was far away and talking to him through a length of pipe.

“I will speak. I will speak. It is all wrong. No one is as they should be. Nothing is as intended. The storm will break early and you shall witness the end of a great cycle and the horrifying birth pains of another; the past and the future locked together in a terrible conflict.”

A coldness gripped Burton.

“Beware, Captain, for a finger of the storm reaches back to touch you. There are layers upon layers, one deception concealing another-and that one but a veil over yet another. Do not believe what you see. The little ones are not as they appear. The puppeteer is herself a puppet and the sorcerer is not yet born. The dead shall believe themselves living.”

Her head fell back and a horribly tormented groan escaped her.

“No,” she whispered. “No. No. No. I can hear the song but it should not be sung! It should not be sung! The stilt-man broke the silence of the ages and the sorcerer hears; and the puppeteer hears; and the dead hear; and, oh, God help me-” her voice suddenly rose to a shriek “-I hear, too! I hear, too!”

She clapped her hands to her ears, arched her back, thrashed in her seat, and slumped into a dead faint.

“My God!” Burton gasped. He took her by the shoulders and straightened her; pushed his handkerchief into the glass of water and folded it over her brow; went to a drawer and retrieved a bottle of smelling salts. Moments later she was blinking and coughing.

He poured her a small brandy. “Here, take this.”

She gulped it, spluttered, breathed heavily, and slowly calmed.

“My apologies. Did I fall into a trance?”

“You did.”

“I suspected something of the sort might happen, though I hoped I might have more control over it. For two weeks I've felt the urge to see you, to transmit a message to you, but I did not know what it was, so I didn't come.”

Burton repeated what she had told him.

“Do you know what it means?” he asked.

“I never know. When I'm spellbound, I'm unaware of what I say, and it seldom makes sense to me afterward.”

Burton gazed at her thoughtfully. “Is there something else, Countess? Even though the message has been delivered, you seem uneasy.”

The prognosticator suddenly stood and paced back and forth, wringing her gloved hands.