Justin Richards - The Death Collector

Sir William snorted with apparent amusement. ‘You really think this mad scheme of yours will work then?’

The change in Lorimore was abrupt and frightening. His face paled, even in the dim light, and his eyes flared with anger. ‘Of course it will work. I have calculated everything down to the last detail. My foundries are already hard at work. You can’t stop me now. No one can stop me now. All I needed was Glick’s discovery. Now I have that — I have the power to create life. And I intend to exercise that power.’

Liz had no doubt that Lorimore believed he could do it. ‘How long?’ she asked, her voice shaking. ‘How long before this happens?’

‘Once Blade has put out the lightning conductors, and I have completed the circuitry. An hour perhaps.’

‘And what if there is no storm, no lightning?’

Lorimore smiled again, anticipating the moment. ‘Then we shall manage without. The battery will be sufficient, though it may take longer to build to a useful level. A sudden jolt of high power would be a far more effective and rapid way to reverse the process of fossilisation and infuse life into the egg.’

‘And then what?’ Sir William demanded. ‘Once you have a living egg, what will you do?’

Lorimore strode back to the workbench. ‘Why, let it hatch of course,’ he told them. ‘And use the creature that emerges. No need for the intricate, time-consuming surgical replacement then. With the techniques I have pioneered on our friend Albert Wilkes, I can adapt it, control it, be its god. And unlike Wilkes, it will not rot and decay. It will be alive — the first of a new race that will combine animal and mechanical. Dinosaur and steam power. The start of a new world.’

Liz turned slowly towards Sir William, conscious of the two men standing silently behind them. ‘He’s mad, isn’t he?’ she said.

Sir William’s answer was matter-of-fact, as if he was discussing some trivial matter of politics in his club. ‘Oh yes, my dear. Utterly mad. And very dangerous.’

They worked for what seemed like hours. George’s first thought had been to go to the police. But Eddie had persuaded him that this would not be the best course of action.

‘They’ll think we’re barmy’ he said. ‘They won’t believe a word of it. They might listen to Sir William, but he ain’t here.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ George admitted. After all, he himself scarcely believed the events of the last few days, and he knew them to be true. Setting their improbable story against the reputation of an establishment figure like Augustus Lorimore, and Eddie was right — the police would be no help.

Which meant they were on their own. ‘What can we do?’ George wondered out loud. He looked round the laboratory — the floor strewn with debris, the workbench lying on its side, the door a tangled, splintered mess. He did not think they wanted to be there when the first Museum staff began to arrive in a few hours.

‘We’ve got to rescue Liz and Sir William,’ Eddie told him.

‘That won’t be easy. And we also have to get back your stone.’

‘The dinosaur egg. And we have to stop Lorimore.’ Eddie was picking through some of the broken apparatus lying on the floor. ‘There must be something here that can help. Something we can use to fool Lorimore, or distract him or something.’

George could see nothing. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and sighed. Then he smiled, feeling the cold hard metal in his pocket. The glimmerings of a plan were beginning to shine deep inside his mind. ‘There may be something,’ he said. ‘Something we can adapt. But not here, come with me.’

‘Where are we going?’ Eddie wanted to know as he hurried after George down the passageway, and up the main stairs.

‘I’m going to show you where I work,’ George said. Blade had returned from deploying the lightning conductors and was now up a ladder, connecting cables to metal brackets set into the ceiling of the laboratory.

Sir William had earlier got to his feet, smiled affably at the man standing guard over him, and tried to stretch some life back into his tired limbs.

Lorimore glanced up from his intense work. ‘I do apologise for the delay,’ he said. ‘But everything must be exact, as I am sure you of all people will appreciate. By all means feel free to look round. I have some fascinating automata and specimens in my collection. You may go into the drawing room, but no further.’ He paused, before adding for the benefit of the two guards: ‘Miss Oldfield may go with him. If either of them touch anything or attempt to escape, kill them both.’

It was said in such a straightforward tone of voice that it took a moment for Liz to register what he had said. She swallowed, her throat dry with fear.

‘Shall we?’ Sir William suggested.

‘I suppose we might as well.’

They left Blade up his ladder, reaching for the glass roof and the metal sockets set into the supporting braces. Cables trailed down to the metal bowl on the workbench below.

‘We have to do something. Escape or anything,’ Liz whispered to Sir William once they were in the drawing room. The two guards with them could probably hear her, but she didn’t care. Without specific instructions she hoped they would do nothing.

But Sir William ignored her too. He was peering in fascination at one of the automata — a train that was fixed to a loop of track running under a mountain. ‘I imagine that once wound, the train runs round the track, and the mountain is somehow made to smoke in sympathy. Like a small volcano.’ He smiled at Liz. ‘It really is very clever and intricate.’

Liz sighed, not at all interested. ‘But what are we going to do?’

Sir William shrugged. ‘As things stand at the moment, my dear, I don’t think there is anything very much that we can do. Except wait.’

‘For what?’ she demanded in exasperation.

‘For help. Though I must confess I have no idea whether it will come, or if it does what form it will take.’

From out in the hallway came the sound of a bell ringing insistently. It seemed somehow out of place in the still of the house.

‘Who can that be at this hour?’ Lorimore’s voice demanded from the laboratory behind them. ‘It’s not yet six in the morning. Blade, see who it is.’

‘Sir.’

Blade barely glanced at them as he strode past on his way to answer the door.

‘Help?’ Liz suggested quietly. She hardly dared hope.

‘Who knows?’ Sir William whispered back.

They did not have to wait long to find out. Blade returned within a minute, carrying a wooden box the size of a small suitcase. Liz and Sir William exchanged glances and followed the man back into the laboratory, where he set the box down on the workbench in front of Lorimore.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know sir. The boy said he had strict instructions to deliver it here as soon as possible. That he had been told Mr Lorimore would want to see it straight away.’

‘Boy? What boy?’ Lorimore asked suspiciously.

‘Just a delivery boy. Barely more than an urchin by the look of him. He didn’t wait — in a hurry to get home.’

Lorimore considered this. ‘I wonder.’ He glanced at Liz and Sir William. ‘But what can they do?’ he murmured. His fingers tapped against the top of the workbench like the legs of a spider. ‘And we can do nothing either, not until the power builds to a precipitate level. So, open it, Blade,’ he ordered, nodding at the box. ‘But, be careful.’

Liz and Sir William watched curiously from the back of the room as Blade took out his knife and levered the lid off the wooden box. Nails squealed in protest as the lid tore free. Blade pushed his hand under it and ripped it away, dropping it to the floor. Frowning, he reached inside the box and carefully lifted out the contents.