Justin Richards - The Death Collector

Lorimore had come round the workbench to see what it was, blocking Liz’s view. Whatever Blade was holding was obviously large and heavy. Lorimore swept the empty box off the workbench and gestured for Blade to set down the object.

‘No packing slip, sir,’ Blade said. ‘Nothing to say who sent it.’

‘There will no doubt be a letter in the first post this morning, Blade. But let us be cautious, just in case …’ Lorimore’s voice was hushed with awe, his suspicion diluted as he examined the object on the workbench. ‘Look at this. The workmanship, the skill that must have gone into it. Look!’

As he spoke, he stepped aside so that now Liz was afforded a clear view of the object on the table. She heard Sir William’s sharp intake of breath as he too saw it.

It was a model ship, exquisitely made from wood and metal and about a foot long. Without realising it, Liz had walked with Sir William across the laboratory and joined Lorimore and Blade as they stared down at the impressive craftsmanship.

‘Magnificent,’ Sir William said.

Lorimore looked up at him, with the trace of a smile. ‘Indeed.’ His eyes were shining with enthusiasm as he gently turned the ship round. ‘And see, here, on this side — it is a clock.’

There was, Liz could now see, a clock dial set into the side of the ship. It was showing the right time so far as she could tell — several minutes to six. She could see the intricately fashioned figures of the captain and his crew going about their business on deck and in the rigging — ticking through the everyday motions as the second hand clicked round. But this was not what surprised and interested her most. Her eyes were fixed on something else and she stared at it as hard as she could, willing Sir William to see what she could see.

Set into the deck was a silver plate where one might expect to see a hatchway down into the hold. The middle of the plate was indented, gently sloping inwards to form a shallow bowl. It was a plate she was sure she had seen before — in the hands of George Archer. But now, resting in the centre of the plate was a small wooden barrel — a powder keg. A tiny fuse was sticking out of one end of it, and a sailor stood beside it, his hands outstretched towards the fuse.

‘I have seen something like this before,’ she said quietly to Sir William, hoping that Lorimore would not pick up on her meaning.

Lorimore ignored her. But Sir William met Liz’s gaze. He was smiling, and nodding. ‘So have I, my dear,’ he replied in the ghost of a whisper, so quiet that only Liz could hear him. ‘So have I.’

Before he could explain further, Sir William gasped. Lorimore looked up at him sharply, but the gasp had become a cough, and Sir William whipped out a large handkerchief and blew his nose noisily.

Lorimore frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps we should leave our examination of this exquisite but unexpected gift until after we have completed our more pressing tasks.’ He tapped a long finger on his chin. ‘It may be from Lord Chesterton. He sent me Thierry’s monkey only last week …’ He shook his head. ‘No matter. Mr Blade.’

Blade nodded and returned to his work, connecting up the final cables. This done, he moved the ladder to the side of the room, out of the way of the trailing wires. Then he attached the other ends of the wires to a set of three heavy levers attached to the end of the workbench, close to the metal bowl.

But Liz barely noticed. She had glanced at where Sir William had been looking — at one of the enormous windows looking out on to the grounds of the house. Liz could see the fog pushing in against the glass, blurring the lawn beyond as the first light of dawn struggled to illuminate it. And, pressed up close to the window, looking in, were two faces. George Archer and Eddie Hopkins, watching Lorimore as he returned to his business, Blade as he completed his work, and Liz and Sir William as they stood next to the model ship on the workbench.

Liz looked quickly away again. She struggled to make no sound that might betray what she had seen. Lorimore glanced back at her as he worked, and smiled thinly. The slightest reaction from Liz could betray her friends.

But it was hard not to react, not to shout and point and try to warn them as a huge reptilian shape of metal and bone solidified out of the foggy air behind them. An angry roar split the calm of the morning, like an express train speeding past. Steam and oil sprayed across the window, blotting out Eddie and George as they turned in surprise and alarm.

‘Ah my friend,’ Lorimore said without turning. ‘Not long now. When the power builds and I throw these levers to channel it into the egg. To create life itself …’

The glass cleared, and Liz stared at the window, desperately trying to see what was happening outside. But there was only the grey of the fog, the snarl of the creature outside, and her own pale frightened face reflecting back at her.

Augustus Lorimore lifted the fossilised egg carefully, reverently, and carried it across to the metal bowl. The wires jutted out from the bowl like the legs of a silver spider. They spilled across the workbench, fed into junction boxes, looped round and over before going either to the tank-like battery at the end of the room or up towards the ceiling where they joined the metal brackets that were attached to the lightning conductors outside.

Liz could not help looking up, following the wires with her eyes. The first splashes of rain were streaking across the glass roof. A distant rumble, unmistakably thunder now, mingled with the noise of the creature outside. Splashes joined, droplets linked, and a tiny river of rainwater ran unevenly down the sloping glass. Liz watched it, trying not to think about what was happening outside in the murky first light of the day.

From behind her came another sound. Liz and Sir William turned towards it. The creature that had once been Albert Wilkes lurched in from the drawing room and stood at the back of the laboratory. The metal frame around him was like some medieval cage built to prevent the prisoner inside from even moving. Except that this cage moved with its prisoner. The dead eyes were a uniform milky white, watching Lorimore as he placed the stone dinosaur egg inside the metal bowl and stepped back, rubbing his thin hands together in delight.

‘Now we can begin,’ Lorimore proclaimed triumphantly and waved impatiently at Blade. ‘Start the battery, man. Make the final connections.’

Blade hurried to obey. Beside Liz, Sir William leaned forward slightly, checking the time on the dial set into the hull of the ship.

‘It’s almost six o’clock,’ he said.

Lorimore threw him a glance. ‘Noting the time for posterity, Sir William?’

‘If you think it is important,’ Sir William agreed. ‘Here, see for yourself.’ He stepped forward and gently turned the clock-ship so that the dial was facing across the workbench at Lorimore.

Lorimore gave a grunt of annoyance. ‘I have no time for trivialities,’ he declared. ‘Any moment now, I shall create life. And you trouble me with trinkets.’ He pushed forward the first of the three levers to which Blade had attached the wires. Immediately, the room throbbed with the increased power. Like a heartbeat.

‘Hardly a trinket, sir.’ There was an edge to Sir William’s voice. ‘Whatever insane experiment you are engaged upon, and I have no doubt whatsoever that it will fail, here in front of you, if you will only take the time to look at it, is as exquisite a piece of engineering as you will ever see. I thought you were an expert in such mechanisms. It seems I was misinformed.’ He turned angrily and pointed at the former Albert Wilkes, held rigid in his metal frame. ‘“What a piece of work is a man”,’ he quoted. ‘Not any more apparently. You have reduced Man himself to a simple mechanism, so why not spare the time for a mechanism infinitely more complex and intricate than you could ever hope to manufacture. Compared to whoever made this, you are a third rate hack, a butcher. Inept.’