Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“One moment, Constable!” Burton interrupted. “If you are all agreeable, I'd like the device set to accept commands from everyone present, and Mrs. Angell, too.”

“You're sure?” Trounce asked.

Burton nodded and pulled a cord that hung beside the fireplace. It rang a bell in the basement, summoning the housekeeper.

When she arrived, he told her about the new valet, and Bhatti went through the process again with her, with Trounce, and with Swinburne.

Mrs. Angell left the study, a bewildered expression on her face, while Bhatti joined the others around the fireplace and lit a pipe. He watched, smiling, as Burton moved over to the mechanism, looked it up and down, tapped its chest, and examined the little cogs that revolved in its head.

“Useful!” the king's agent muttered. “Very useful! Might I train it as a fencing partner?”

“Certainly!” Bhatti answered. “Though you'll probably find it too fast an opponent!”

Burton raised his eyebrows.

“Incidentally,” the constable added, “it'll need winding once a day, and, if I may suggest, you should name it. A name will make it easier to issue orders.”

“Ah, yes, I see what you mean.”

Burton stood in front of his new valet and addressed it: “Do you recognise my voice?”

The brass man saluted.

“Your name is-Admiral Lord Nelson!”

Another salute.

Burton's guests laughed.

“Bravo!” Swinburne cheered.

The king's agent turned to the policemen. “Thank you, Detective Inspector Trounce, Constable Bhatti-it's a magnificent gift! And now I propose that we bring the case of the clockwork man of Trafalgar Square to a close by giving my valet his first order.”

Trounce nodded encouragement.

“Admiral Nelson!” Sir Richard Francis Burton commanded. “Serve the drinks!”

The drinks were duly served.

Later that night, the king's agent found himself unable to sleep. A question was bothering him. He offered it to the darkness: “Whatever became of the genuine Choir Stones?”

I t was the first Monday of April, 1862. Five weeks after the death of Sir Charles Babbage.

A hiss, a clatter, and a sound like a large bung being pulled from a jar announced the arrival of a canister in the device on Sir Richard Francis Burton's desk.

Fidget raised his head from the hearthrug, barked, whimpered, then went back to sleep.

The maid, fifteen-year-old Elsie Carpenter, put down her broom, left the study, ran up the stairs, past the bedrooms, up the next staircase, and knocked on the library door.

Exotic music was coming from the room beyond.

“Come!” a voice called.

She entered and curtseyed.

Burton, wrapped in his jubbah -the loose robe he'd worn during his famed pilgrimage to Mecca-sat cross-legged on the floor amid a pile of books. He had a turban wound around his head and was smoking a hookah. The ends of his slippers curled to points.

He'd shaved off his forked beard some days ago and now sported long, exotic mustachios, which drooped to either side of his mouth. The new style made him appear younger and, in Elsie's opinion, rather more dashing.

There was another man in the library, squatting in a corner, who was a good deal less prepossessing than her master. Elderly, brown, and skinny, he wore a voluminous white and yellow striped robe and a tall fez. He was playing a nay -the long Arabian flute-the tones of which were hauntingly liquid and melodic.

Burton nodded at the man, who responded by laying down his instrument.

“Thank you, al-Masloub. Your talent shines ever more brightly as the years pass. Take what you need from the sideboard, and blessings be upon you.”

The old man stood, bowed, and murmured: “ Barak Allahu feekem. ”

He moved to a heavy piece of furniture to the right of the door and opened the small, intricately carved wooden box that stood upon it. From this he extracted a few coins, before silently slipping past Elsie and out of the room.

“What is it, Miss Elsie?” Burton asked.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, curtseying for a second time. “Sorry to dis-disperupt your music, but a message just arrived in the thingamajig.”

“Thank you. And you mean disrupt.”

“That's right, sir. Disperupt.”

The maid bobbed again, backed out of the room, ran down the stairs, retrieved her broom, and was out of the study before Burton got there. She descended to the basement and entered the kitchen.

“All swept clean as a whistle, ma'am,” she told Mrs. Angell.

“Did you dust the bookshelves?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And the mantelpiece?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And that big old African spear?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And did you polish the swords?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And beat the cushions?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And what about the doorknobs?”

“You can see your face in 'em, ma'am.”

“Good girl. Take a piece of fruitcake from the tin and have a rest. You've earned it.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

Elsie took her slice of cake, put it on a plate, and settled on a stool.

“By the way, ma'am, the musical shriek has left and the master's got a message in the thingamajig.”

“Sheik,” the housekeeper corrected. She sighed. “Oh dear. I'm convinced that contraption only ever delivers trouble!”

She turned to the clockwork man, who was standing at the table, peeling potatoes. “Attend Sir Richard, please, Lord Nelson.”

The valet laid down his knife and saluted, wiped his fingers on a cloth, and marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the study. He entered and moved to the bureau between the windows, standing motionless beside it, awaiting orders.

Burton was by the fireplace.

“Listen to this,” he said, absently. “It's from Palmerston.”

He read from the note in his hand:

Investigate the claimant to the Tichborne title.

The king's agent sighed. “I was hoping to avoid all that blessed nonsense!”

He looked up, saw his valet, and said: “Oh, it's you. Lay out my day suit, would you? I think I'll drop in on old Pouncer Trounce, see what he knows about the affair.”

Half an hour later, Burton stepped out of 14 Montagu Place and strolled in the direction of Whitehall. He'd not gone more than three paces when a voice hailed him: “What ho, Cap'n! Fit as a fiddle, I see!”

It was Mr. Grub, the street vendor, who supplied chestnuts from a Dutch oven in the winter, and whelks, winkles, and jellied eels from a barrow in the summer.

“Yes, Mr. Grub, I'm much improved, thank you. How's business?”

“Rotten!”

“Why so?”

“Dunno, Cap'n. I think it's me pitch.”

“But you always pitch your barrow here. If it's so bad, why not move?”

Grub pushed his cloth cap back from his brow. “Move? Phew! Dunno about that! I've been here for years, an’ me father afore me! Fancy a bag o’ whelks? They're fresh out o’ the Thames this morning!”

“No thank you, Mr. Grub. I'm on my way to Scotland Yard.”

Burton wondered how anything from the Thames could possibly be classified as “fresh.”

“Well, you ain't the only one what don't want nuffink.” Mr. Grub sighed. “Cheerio, Cap'n!”

“Good day, Mr. Grub!”

Burton tipped his hat at the vendor and continued on his way.

It was a fine spring day. The sky was blue and the air still. All across the city, thin pillars of smoke rose vertically, eventually dissipating at a high altitude. Rotorchairs left trails of steam between them, a white cross-hatching that made an irregular grid of the sky. Swans, too, swooped among the columns like insects flying through a forest.

The king's agent swung along at a steady pace, with the hustle and bustle of the streets churning around him. Hawkers hollered, prostitutes wheedled and mocked, ragamuffins yelled, traders laughed and argued and haggled, street performers sang and juggled and danced, pedestrians brandished their canes and parasols and doffed their hats and bobbed their bonnets, horses clip-clopped, velocipedes hissed and chugged, steam-horses growled and rumbled, carriages rattled, wheels crunched over cobbles, dogs barked. It was an absolute cacophony. It was London.