Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

As they climbed the stairs to their rooms, Swinburne said: “Well, that's that. I'd say our job here is done.”

“You really think we just met the real Sir Roger?” Burton asked.

“Don't you?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Really? What on earth is there to be suspicious about?”

“Are you serious, Algy?”

“Yes.”

“You don't think it odd that Sir Roger was five foot eight at most, and very slim, whereas the Claimant is pushing seven foot tall and is probably the most obese individual I've ever set eyes on?”

“I suppose life in Australia can change a man, Richard. Anyway, there's no reason for us to stay, is there? Shall we return to London?”

“In due course.”

Thirty minutes later, as Burton was packing his portmanteau, Trounce knocked at his bedroom door, entered, and cried: “What the devil are you playing at? Why are you scarpering?”

“We're not. Algy and I are going to get rooms at the Dick Whittington Inn in Alresford,” the king's agent replied. “And you? How long do you expect to stay?”

Trounce blew out a breath. “Phew! What can I do? How does a man go about investigating ghosts? No, Captain, I'll return to the Yard this evening and we'll see what Commissioner Mayne has to say about the whole sorry business.”

“In that case, would you do me a favour and get a message to Herbert Spencer? I need him to let us back into the house and into the pantry. One way or another, we have to find our way through that secret door. I'm convinced the diamond is beyond it and I want to get to it before the ghost does. Tell him to meet Algy and me by the lake at three in the morning.”

Trounce shook Burton's hand. “Very well. Good luck, Captain.”

“The bloomin’ door is open, Boss!” Herbert Spencer whispered. “But it weren't me what opened it!”

He glanced around nervously. The mist was rolling down the slope again, creeping toward the lake, and he wasn't happy.

The giant swans, as yet unnoticed by Kenealy and his client, were sleeping on the mirror-smooth water, their heads resting on their backs, beaks tucked under their wings.

Spencer, Burton, and Swinburne were crouched under a crooked willow.

“Open?” Burton hissed.

“Yus. I checked it afore comin’ out, an’ blow me down with a feather if the back wall weren't sunk right into the floor!”

“And what was beyond it?”

“A tunnel.”

“Take us there, Herbert. We must hurry!”

Keeping their heads low, the three men ran up the slope to the back of Tichborne House. Despite the hour, lights were burning on the ground floor. They skirted the patio and followed Spencer around the corner to the left side of the building, where the door to a coal cellar stood open.

“We'll have to go down the chute, an’ I fear you'll get your togs a bit dirty, gents.”

“That's all right,” Swinburne whispered. “I'm an expert at this sort of thing.”

He was referring to the time he'd spent as an apprentice to Vincent Sneed, the master chimney sweep. The poet had been worked hard and maltreated by his vicious boss, but his experience had been instrumental in Burton's subsequent exposure and defeat of the cabal of scientists who'd been planning to use the British Empire as a subject for social experimentation.

Swinburne swung himself onto the coal chute and slid down into darkness. Burton and Spencer followed him.

They stood, brushed themselves down, and passed through a door into a passage, which they followed past storerooms until they found themselves back at the three pantries. The rightmost one was still empty, its contents stacked in the corridor.

“You go on back to bed, Herbert,” Burton said, keeping his voice low, his eyes fixed on the brick tunnel visible at the back of the small room. “If you don't mind, I'd like you to remain in the house for as long as possible. The Claimant and his lawyer don't know you came with us and will take you for a member of staff. That means you're perfectly placed to keep an eye on things. Any time something of interest occurs, make your way to the Alresford post office and send a message via parakeet to me at 14 Montagu Place.”

“Right you are, Boss!” replied the philosopher. “When you get back to the Smoke, will you tell Miss Mayson that her swans are hale and hearty? She worries about them so.”

“I will.”

“Good luck, gents!”

Herbert Spencer departed.

“Come on, Algy-let's see where this leads.”

The king's agent and his assistant passed through the pantry and entered the tunnel. It was about eight feet in height and the same in width. After a few paces, it angled to the right; then, a few steps beyond, back to the left.

Burton shuddered. He wasn't fond of enclosed spaces, but felt somewhat encouraged when they came to a flaming brand set in a bracket on the wall. By its light, he examined the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“All brick,” he whispered to his companion, “and not so very old. I'd put money on this having been constructed during Sir Henry's time. And look-it definitely runs out in the direction of the Crawls.”

They moved on until they reached a point where the tunnel's brickwork gave way to plain stone blocks.

“Granite,” Burton noted. “We're not under the house anymore. And look how this passage is level, though we know the surface above us slopes upward. It must cut straight through to a structure beneath Lady Mabella's wheat fields.”

“Brrr! Don't mention her! I don't want to see that blasted spook again!”

They crept forward. Burning brands were spaced regularly along the walls.

A few minutes later, they came to a junction and had to choose whether to turn left or right.

“We're probably below the bottom edge of the Crawls now,” Burton observed.

He examined the floor. There was no dust or debris, no footprints, nothing to suggest that anyone had passed.

“What do you think, Algy?”

“When Sir Alfred took us around the Crawls, we went counterclockwise. I say we follow suit, and go right.”

“Jolly good.”

They turned into the right-hand passage and proceeded cautiously along it, listening out for any movement ahead.

Swinburne placed a hand on the left wall, stopped, and pressed an ear against the stone.

“What is it?” Burton asked.

“The wall is warm and I can hear water gurgling on the other side of it.”

“An underground spring. A hot one, too. I thought so. It explains the mist. Let's keep moving.”

As they walked on, Burton measured their progress against his memory of the topography of the surface above. He knew they were following the bottom edge of the Crawls and predicted that the tunnel would turn left a few yards ahead.

It did.

“We're moving deeper underground now,” he observed.

Swinburne cast a sidelong glance at his friend. Burton's jaw was set hard and the muscles at its joint were flexing spasmodically. The famous explorer, who'd spent so many of his younger years traversing vast open spaces, was struggling to control his claustrophobia.

“Not so deep, really,” the poet said encouragingly. “The surface isn't far above.”

Burton nodded and moistened his lips with his tongue, peering into the shadows.

The sound of dripping water punctuated the silence, though they couldn't see any evidence of it. They kept moving until they came to an opening in the left wall.

“We're about halfway along the length of the fields,” the king's agent whispered. “This looks like it'll take us into the middle.”

They stepped into the opening and followed the passage. After a few paces, it suddenly angled leftward, taking them back in the direction of the house. They kept going, eventually reaching a right turn, and, a good few minutes after that, another.