Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“Ah. That'll be Damien Burke and Gregory Hare. They're his odd-job men.”

“ Odd is right. I've never seen odder. And speaking of oddities, how's young Swinburne?”

“He's working on a new batch of poems. And pursuing his hobby, of course.”

Trounce snorted. Both men knew that Swinburne's “hobby” involved frequent visits to brothels where he enjoyed being flogged by willing madams.

“He has strange tastes, that one,” the detective muttered. “Why anyone would enjoy being birched, I can't imagine. I suffered the rod once or twice at school, and didn't like it one little bit!”

“The more I learn about him,” Burton replied, “the more I believe Swinburne has a genuine physiological condition that causes him to feel pain as pleasure. He's a fascinating study!”

“And a thorough pervert. Though a damned courageous one, I'll give him that. Absolutely fearless! Here's Mr. Blue's shop. I'll do this alone, if you don't mind. Will you wait here?”

“Certainly. Don't pummel him too hard.”

“A verbal dressing-down, that's all, Captain!” Trounce smiled. He cracked his knuckles and vanished into the pawnbroker's.

Sir Richard Francis Burton leaned on his cane and watched the traffic pass by. The traders’ vehicles were mostly horse-drawn. There weren't many who could afford a steam-horse. The men on the carts were tough and wiry individuals. Their shirtsleeves were rolled up to their elbows and Burton could see the knotted muscles of their forearms, the thickness of their bones, and the leathery quality of their skin. There wasn't an ounce of fat on any of them, nor was there even a hint of pretension-nary a whiff of self-consciousness. They were stripped down to the basics of existence. They toiled, they ate, they slept, they toiled again, and they never imagined anything different. He admired them, and, in a strange way, he envied them.

A couple of minutes later, he heard a footstep behind him and turned.

Detective Inspector Trounce had emerged from the shop.

“He started blubbing like a baby before I'd said more than two words,” the policeman announced. “I expect he'll stay on the straight and narrow for a while. It's his second warning. He'll not get another. I'll have the bracelets on him. What say you we drop in at Brundleweed's? It's just around the corner.”

“Good idea.”

They set off.

“Has there been no clue to the Choir Stones’ whereabouts?” Burton asked.

“Not a whisper, unless Brundleweed's heard something through the grapevine since I last spoke to him. He maintains that he locked the genuine articles in the safe that evening. Yet we know that Isambard Kingdom Brunel removed fakes. So either Brundleweed is lying-which I find hard to believe; his reputation is absolutely spotless-or an extremely accomplished cracksman got there first and left no trace.”

They passed back into Trafalgar Square, weaving through the crowds, and on into Charing Cross Road, heading toward Saint Martin's.

“Do you have a suspect?”

Trounce removed his bowler, slapped it, and placed it back on his head.

“The obvious man would be-” he began, then interrupted himself: “By Jove! Look at that!”

A bizarre vehicle had snaked into view from around the next corner and was thundering toward them at high speed. It was a millipede-an actual insect-grown to stupendous proportions by the Eugenicists. When it had reached the required size, they'd killed it and handed the carcass over to their Engineering colleagues, who'd sliced off the top half of its long, segmented, tubular body. They'd removed the innards until only the tough outer carapace remained, and into this they'd fitted steam-driven machinery via which the many legs could be operated. Platforms had been bolted across the top of each segment and upon them seats were affixed, over which canopies arched, echoing the shape of the missing top half of the body. A driver sat at the front of the vehicle in a chair carved from the shell of the head. He skillfully manipulated a set of long levers to control the astonishing machine.

It was a new type of omnibus, and it was packed solid with passengers, with three people to every seat and a fair number standing and hanging on for dear life as it hurtled along. They cheered and hooted with delight as hansoms and growlers, carts and velocipedes, horses and pedestrians hurriedly moved to the side of the road, out of the oncoming vehicle's path. Dense clouds of steam boiled from pipes along its sides and, as it came alongside Burton and Trounce and careened into the narrow gap that opened up through the centre of the traffic, hot vapour rolled over the two men, obscuring the scene. Impassioned curses and profanities came from within the cloud; there was a crash, a scream, and the shuddery whinny of a panicked horse.

“Damned freakish monstrosity!” Trounce yelled. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the moisture from his face.

“That's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen!” Burton exclaimed. “I'd read that the Technologists were experimenting with insect shells but I had no idea they'd progressed so far!”

“You regard that as progress?” Trounce objected. He waved his hat at the milieu that was slowly emerging from the thinning haze. “Look! It's utter bloody chaos! We can't have horses and steam-horses and penny-farthings and now steam-bloody-insects as well, all on the streets at the same time! People are going to get hurt!”

“Humph!” Burton agreed. “We certainly seem to be entangled in a profusion of mismatched machineries.”

“A profusion? Call it whatever you will, Captain Burton, but the fact of the matter is that if the dashed scientists don't slow down and plan ahead with something at least resembling foresight and responsibility, London is going to grind to a complete standstill, mark my words!”

“I don't disagree. Come on. Let's move along. What was it you were saying? About the suspect?”

“Suspect? Oh, Brundleweed. Yes. Well, the obvious safecracker to look at would be Marcus Dexter-there's no strongbox he can't open and he's as cunning as a fox-but he's operating in Cape Town at the moment, that's for certain. Cyril ‘the Fly’ Brady is locked up in Pentonville, and Tobias Fletcher is consumptive and out of action. There's no one else I know of who could have opened Brundleweed's safe without dynamite.”

A one-legged beggar swung himself on crutches directly into Trounce's path. He pleaded in a throaty voice for a ha'penny: “Jest fr'a cuppa tea, me ol’ china.”

The detective glowered at him, told him to move along, but pressed a penny into his palm as he went.

“I'm almost inclined to run with the diamond merchant's theory,” he muttered.

“Brundleweed has a theory?”

“Of sorts. He believes a ghost took the diamonds.”

Burton stopped and stared at his companion in amazement.

“A ghost?”

“Yes. He's fooled himself into believing that he saw a phantom woman that night.”

“You don't believe him, surely?”

“No, of course not. He probably dozed off and dreamt it. Except-”

“What?”

“The friend of Francois Garnier; the one he gave two of the black diamonds to-”

“Jean Pelletier.”

“Yes. I contacted the Surete in Paris. They confirmed that he died from a heart attack.”

“So?”

“So he was found in his lodgings, the room was locked from the inside, and the windows were closed. Yet, for some reason, his face was frozen into an expression of sheer terror. The detective I spoke to actually used the words 'like he'd seen a ghost.’”

“Intriguing.”

“Hmm. Anyway, let's hear what Brundleweed has to say. C'mon, shake a leg.”

They arrived at the shop a few moments later and entered.