Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

A great cheer went up from constables as they scattered out of the horse's path.

Detective Inspector Trounce and Commander Krishnamurthy looked on in amazement as Algernon Swinburne lowered his lance and aimed its tip at the back of a Rake's head.

Charles Altamont Doyle pressed his dead fingers into Detective Inspector Honesty's neck.

“Squeeze!” he said. “Squeeze the life out of you and into me!”

A fairy pranced at the periphery of his consciousness.

“Recurrence comes!” it sang.

“No! Life comes!” Doyle whispered. “Start again. Get it right. Mend my mistakes.”

He felt something touch the back of his neck. From the perspective of his astral body, which drifted through the fog nearby, he could see that it was a long lance held by a small man on a big horse.

His head burst into flames.

“Now!” said the fairy.

The fire ate into his face and scalp, clawed hungrily into the bone and tissue beneath.

He rolled off the police officer and collapsed onto the ground, thrashing wildly as the flames gouged deeper and deeper into his dead flesh.

The lance touched him again, on the chest, and his entire body ignited.

He felt himself being consumed, found that he could struggle no more, lay still, and allowed the conflagration to suck him into oblivion.

Nearby, swirling through the fog, he watched and felt himself burn.

“No!” he thought. “What about all the things I still have to do?”

A powerful gust of air tore into him and ripped him apart.

Charles Altamont Doyle dispersed into the atmosphere and ceased to exist.

Trounce and Krishnamurthy saw the Rake erupt into flames and roll off Honesty. Their friend crawled weakly away from the blazing corpse.

They hurried forward and dragged him to safety.

Trounce looked up and noticed that four cylinders were slung over the mega-dray's haunches. From them, tubes ran up into the hilt of the lance.

“Inflammable gas,” he suggested.

“I would venture so,” Krishnamurthy replied. “Some sort of flame-throwing weapon. Detective Inspector, I don't know how to apologise. They got into my head. I couldn't control myself.”

“Accepted, lad. Say no more about it. Detective Inspector Honesty is injured-let's get him onto the back of that wagon.”

They helped their colleague to his feet and guided him toward the pantechnicon.

“Lily of the valley,” Honesty wheezed. “The flower of the poets.”

A Rake approached them, waving his rapier. His eyes had retreated far into their sockets and his skin was horribly loose, as if the flesh were sloughing off the bones beneath.

He attempted to address them, but his tongue and lips were too slack and only a horrible moan emerged.

“I'll get this,” Trounce said.

“Allow me,” came Swinburne's voice from above.

The lance touched the decaying, sword-wielding corpse, which combusted, fell to its knees, and toppled onto its face, burning fiercely.

“What ho, fellows!” Burton's assistant shouted enthusiastically.

“Hallo, Swinburne!” said Trounce. “Honesty is injured!”

“Oafish knuckle-dragger!” Pox squawked.

“Hoist the old fellow onto the wagon. Miss Mayson will keep him comfortable until we can get him to safety.”

Trounce and Krishnamurthy lifted their comrade and carried him to the pantechnicon.

“His throat,” said Trounce to Isabella Mayson, as they laid him on the flatbed.

“I think his fingers are broken, too,” Krishnamurthy noted.

The young woman nodded. “Don't worry, I'll make sure he's comfortable.”

Up on the horse, Swinburne whispered something to Pox and watched as the brightly plumaged bird launched itself from his shoulder and disappeared into the fog. He looked down at his friends and called: “In the absence of litter-crabs, what say you we clean up this street ourselves, hey, chaps?”

The two police officers brandished their truncheons.

“Ready when you are,” Trounce grunted.

H igh above the fog, glinting silver in the moonlight, an ornithopter flapped, circling the Strand at a distance of two miles. A long, irregular ribbon of white steam curved away behind it, marking its course through the sky.

It was controlled by the clockwork man of Trafalgar Square, and, in the saddle at his back, sat Sir Richard Francis Burton.

The flying machine soared northward over the Thames, banked to the left as the Cauldron slipped past beneath it, and headed east until it was over King's Cross.

A parakeet suddenly fluttered out of the cloud below and caught up with the machine. It landed on Burton's shoulder.

“Hello, Pox.”

“Lice-infested chump!” the bird whistled. Then: “Message from Algernon Fuddlewit Swinburne. The game has commenced. Message ends.”

Burton addressed his companion: “It's time. Take us down.”

His valet yanked at a lever, sending the ornithopter skewing through the air as it veered sharply to the south. He switched off the engine and the trail of steam ended abruptly. The machine's wings straightened, and it began to glide down toward the blanket of cloud.

“Here we go,” Burton muttered. He placed a hand on the brass man's shoulder. “Now we shake things up. This time, the police are the decoy and you are the main event!”

They sank through the chilly night air.

“Whatever might happen to me,” Burton said, “you must complete this mission. However, I have to tell you, I'm acting more on intuition than intellect. Many would think it madness to place so much faith in a dream and I might be completely wrong in my reading of the situation. Do you at least understand my reasoning?”

The brass man nodded his canister-shaped head.

Cloud enveloped them.

Burton sent Pox back to Swinburne.

He checked his harness. He was tightly strapped in.

“I hope your calculations are accurate,” he said.

Another lever was pulled. All along the back edges of the wings, wide but thin metal feathers emerged. The machine's nose rose and its silent, powerless descent slowed dramatically.

The king's agent was shaken by a thrill of fear. He could see nothing but thick vapour. For all he knew, they were seconds away from smashing into the ground.

He reached down and released four grappling hooks from the fuselage. They were attached to it by means of long, thin chains. He held two hooks in each hand and waited.

In front of him, a mechanical arm rose. At its end, three fingers and a thumb were extended.

The thumb curled in.

Four.

A finger folded.

Three.

Another.

Two.

The last.

One.

The roof of a large edifice rose up out of the miasma. With bone-jarring suddenness, the ornithopter thumped onto it and skidded across its surface, metal squealing, sparks showering outward.

Feeling as if he was being shaken half to death, Burton threw a grapple; then the second; then the third.

The right wing collided with a chimney stack, sending the machine slewing sideways as bricks exploded and bounced around it.

He flung the last grapple overboard, hung on tight, and called upon Allah.

The vehicle grated across the roof, hit the parapet, went straight through it, and plummeted over the edge.

There was a moment of weightless terror, a shriek of stressed metal, and a tremendous jolt that caused Burton's face to slap into the back of his valet's head.

He blacked out.

Disorientation.

Eyes coming back into focus.

The harness was digging into his chest. He sucked in a shuddering breath, shook his head to clear it, and looked to his left and right. The ornithopter was hanging against the side of the building, between the big, flat, white letters “A” and “R” of the sign, VENETIA ROYAL HOTEL. The machine's wings were buckled, and the left one had broken through a window.