Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“He's bleeding badly, sir.”

A fourth man spoke, his voice tremulous: “I'll be all right.”

Swinburne recognised the tones.

“We need you for the seance, Jankyn,” Kenealy said.

“Just bandage me up tightly,” came the response. “Bogle can run me to the Alresford doctor later. I'll be fine for the seance.”

“I should dig out the pellets, sir.”

“No, Bogle,” Kenealy snapped. “There's no time. We have to contact the mistress as soon as we can. She wants to check on Burton's condition. Waite, help me find a table and chairs. We'll carry them to the central chamber. We have to conduct the seance in the presence of our prisoners.”

Krishnamurthy turned to his companions and whispered, “Four of ’em, and one disabled. Come on!”

He and Constable Hoare dashed forward, with Swinburne, Herbert Spencer, and Fidget at their heels. They hurtled into the kitchen and all hell broke loose.

Swinburne caught a glimpse of Jankyn, shirtless and bloodied, lying on a table with Bogle standing beside him. Edward Kenealy and a Rake-the man named Waite-were near the pantries.

“Stop! Police!” Krishnamurthy bellowed.

“Don't move!” Hoare shouted.

“Damnation!” Kenealy barked, swinging around and raising his right arm.

Swinburne dived aside as a bolt of blue lightning crackled out of the lawyer's hand and whipped across the room to envelop the policemen's heads.

Krishnamurthy covered his eyes and collapsed to his knees.

Hoare, though, took the full brunt of the attack. His body snapped rigid and rose six inches from the ground, floating within a dancing, sizzling aura of blue energy. He shook wildly and let loose a high-pitched howl of pain. His face turned red, then blue, and blood spurted from his nose and eyes.

“Bleedin’ heck!” yelled Spencer, who'd fallen against a cupboard. “Stop it!”

Swinburne looked around, saw a frying pan, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd grabbed and thrown it.

The pan hit Kenealy's forehead with a tremendous clang. The lawyer staggered, tripped, and fell onto his back. The energy shooting from his hand left Hoare, fizzled across the ceiling, and vanished.

The constable dropped.

Waite leaped over to a work surface, seized a wooden chopping board, and launched it at Swinburne. The poet ducked. It spun past his head and smacked against the wall behind him.

Krishnamurthy moaned and fell forward onto his hands.

Bogle picked up a dinner plate and pitched it in Spencer's direction.

Fidget barked and ran out of the room.

Kitchen implements were suddenly flying back and forth; pans, crockery, and cutlery, crashing and smashing with a deafening racket.

Constable Hoare's truncheon rolled to Spencer's feet. The philosopher grabbed it and sent it spinning through the air. It hit Waite in the throat, and the Rake doubled over, choking.

Krishnamurthy crawled forward, moaning with the effort. He'd almost reached Kenealy when the lawyer rolled over, turned, and looked up. Blood was streaming down his face from a wound in his forehead. He jerked a hand toward the policeman. Blue flame grew around his fingers.

“None of that!” the Flying Squad man groaned, and whacked his truncheon down onto the hand.

Kenealy screamed as his finger bones crunched.

Krishnamurthy slumped forward and passed out.

“What's the meaning of this!” demanded a voice from the doorway. It was Mrs. Picklethorpe, resplendent in her nightgown and hair curlers. A pan, launched by Bogle, hit her square between the eyes. She toppled back against the corridor wall and slid to the floor.

Swinburne flung a full bottle of wine at Bogle and whooped with satisfaction as it bounced off the Jamaican's head and exploded against a cupboard behind him. The butler swayed and buckled, dropping onto Kenealy.

The lawyer pushed his uninjured hand out in Swinburne's direction.

“I'll kill you!” he snarled.

Spencer bounded across the room and sent a thick hardbound cookery book thudding down onto Kenealy's head, knocking him cold. The heavy volume fell open at the title page: Miss Mayson's Book of Household Management.

“Well, I'll be blowed!” Herbert muttered. He bent and retrieved the volume then sent it slapping into the side of Waite's head. The Rake collapsed, out for the count.

Jankyn sat up and moaned. He held both his hands flat against his left side. Blood leaked between his fingers.

“Bastards!” he said huskily.

“You're hardly in a position to insult us,” Swinburne observed. “I assume Guilfoyle shot you?”

Spencer knelt and helped the recovering Krishnamurthy to his feet.

“Yes,” Jankyn groaned. “He tried to take Burton from us. Kenealy killed him but the man's shotgun went off as he died. The only working gun on the whole bloody estate, and I have to get it!”

“What was that lightning Kenealy fired from his hand?”

“Get me to a hospital. I'm bleeding to death.”

“Answer my questions and I'll consider it,” the poet answered, and Spencer had never heard the little man sound so grim.

“It's etheric energy. Kenealy has a talent for channelling it, which the mistress has enhanced.”

“The mistress? Who's she?

“She's the leader of-Ah! It hurts! I need treatment, man!”

“The leader of the Rakes? I know. And she's a Russian. But what's her name?”

“I haven't the foggiest, I swear! Enough! Enough! Look at this blood! Help me, damn it!”

“Is Burton alive?” Swinburne demanded.

“Possibly. He's in the centre of the labyrinth.”

“How many are in there, guarding him?”

“None.”

“You're lying.”

“I'm not.”

“If that's the way you want to play it, fine. Physician, heal thyself, and if you bleed to death, I'll not mind one little bit, you damned blackguard.”

“All right! All right! There's just one man, I swear. His name is Smithers. He and Waite took Burton from a seance to Paddington Station. They were-” he groaned and whimpered, then continued in a whisper “-they were joined by Kenealy there and all rode a train to Winchester. Bogle met them at the station with a carriage, but just outside Alresford the steam-horse broke down. They had to continue on foot, dragging Burton between them. As they crossed the grounds, Guilfoyle interfered and paid the price. Please, get me to the doctor now. I don't want to die.”

Krishnamurthy, who was being supported by Herbert Spencer, swore vociferously. “Neither did Sam Hoare, but he's lying there dead, you swine!”

Jankyn fell onto his side on the table and said faintly: “It wasn't me. Kenealy killed him.”

“Gentlemen,” Krishnamurthy said hoarsely, “if you'd be so kind as to help me bind and gag these three rogues-“he indicated the unconscious Kenealy, Bogle, and Waite”-I'll then remain here and see what I can do for the cook. Maybe, if the mood takes me, I'll attend to Jankyn, too. On the other hand, I might just let him die like the diseased dog he is.”

“Will you be all right? You look done in,” Swinburne said.

The commander was, indeed, in a bad way. There was blood oozing from his eyes, nose, and ears, and he was trembling uncontrollably.

“I'm afraid I'm not much up to running through tunnels at present but I'll be fine. I'll rest here once these bounders are secured, then I'll rustle up the local constabulary to sort this mess out while you get your man back to London.”

It took a few minutes to tie the men's hands and feet, after which Swinburne and the vagrant philosopher entered the pantry containing the door to the labyrinth. Fidget looked into the kitchen, saw that the violence had ended, and scampered after them.

They stepped into the tunnel and took off along it, passing under the house, beneath the carriageway, and toward the Crawls. The passages were well lit and nothing occurred to hamper their progress through the folding-back-on-itself spiral until they were close to the central chamber, when Swinburne, who was barrelling along as fast as his short legs would allow, skidded around one of the turns and ran slap bang into the Rake, Smithers, who'd been walking in the other direction. The two men went down in a tangle and started to punch, kick, and wrestle frantically until Spencer caught up with them. The philosopher calmly bent, grasped a handful of Smithers's hair, lifted the man's head, and slammed it hard against the stone floor. The Rake's arms flopped down and he lay still.