by KW Jeter
He brushed my trembling hands from his lapels. "Hardly," he said with lofty disdain. "The fact of the matter is that the device was left incomplete at your father's death. The great structure is there, set to hammer its destructive rhythm into the earth's core; but what has been lacking is the subtle regulatory device necessary to determine those pulsations and set the machinery into the appropriate motion. Lacking until now, that is."
Retreating from his words – for my heart had already plummeted, knowing what they would be – I came close to falling down the metal steps, retaining my balance only by my grip upon the rail.
"Yes," said Lord Bendray, smiling at me. "Now the great work can be completed. You have brought the Regulator to me."
I turned and fled, headlong down the metal steps, away from his quavering soft voice and benign smile, and into the maze of stone arches before me.
9
An Interrupted Recital
"The man's insane – we have to stop him! Before he destroys the world!"
Even through the blue lenses, Scape's pitying glance was clearly readable. He tilted a bottle of port, identical to that private stock from which Lord Bendray had served me, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Did he lay that tired old wheeze on you? What a jerk." He shook his head in disgust.
I was still out of breath owing to my panicked flight from Lord Bendray's subterranean laboratory, my hands bruised from collision with the stone arches. Guided only by desperation, I had blundered my way up into the Hall itself, and had at last found Scape in one of the upstairs rooms, sitting in his shirtsleeves on the corner of a bed. My brain was still awhirl with the quavering voice and its words. "Don't you understand?" I cried. "The cataclysm – everything, bits and pieces – like marching soldiers–"
Miss McThane wandered in from an adjoining bathroom, her arms bare as she rubbed her damp hair with a towel. "What's all the shouting about?"
Scape pointed his thumb at me. "Ol' Bendray just told Dower that he's planning on blowing up the world."
"Oh, that." She drifted back out of the room.
I grasped him by the shoulder. "But, we have to do something–"
He shook me off. "Simmer down, for Christ's sake. I can't believe you just now flashed on the fact that Bendray's crazy."
"But – the machine – underneath the Hall–"
"Cause he is nuts, you know. Completely round the bend. I could tell that the first time I ever laid eyes on the sucker. That's where all that stuff about blowing up the world comes from – right out of his little loosescrew skull."
I took a step backwards. "You mean… it's not true?"
"Shee-it." The bottle lifted to his mouth again. "He couldn't crack an egg with that pile of junk. Your old man was running a fraud on Bendray – one of several, actually. Did he give you that line about people from other planets zipping around in the sky? Yeah, well, I got my suspicions about where he got that one from, too. Him and the rest of his buddies in that dingbat Royal Anti-Society of theirs; if one of 'em wanted anything from a perpetual motion machine to a – whatever; pogo stick that worked on the ceiling, or some damn thing – your father would throw one together for 'em. Most of these old boys are so senile they wouldn't notice if any of it worked or not."
"Really…" I stood amazed. This was an aspect – or the imputation of it – to my father's character that I had never encountered before. "I can scarcely believe it."
"Come on, Dower. Two minutes ago, you were running around here, quacking that the whole world was gonna go bang. You gotta get hold of yourself, man."
My thoughts, that had been so agitated, began to settle into some form of order. 'Then the Regulator – the device that you had me bring with us from London…'
"No sweat," said Scape. "Granted, the old boy's been looking for it, but he's not gonna be able to turn on that giant cuckoo clock in the basement with it. I mean, after all; one of the reasons tried to swipe that gizmo out of your shop was because I knew Bendray wanted it. You really think I would've sold it to him if I thought he was gonna be able to blow up the world with it?"
"I suppose not," I mused. "Just a moment – how did you know that I had the device?"
"Jesus, Dower – what kind of business do you think I'm in? I'm supposed to find out about stuff like that. I got ways."
I nodded, undisturbed by this frank admission of criminality of his part. A great sense of relief had come over me; whatever mysteries still surrounded me, they were at least not compounded by the imminent annihilation of the earth.
"Maybe you better go lie down or something," advised Scape. "You look wiped." He stood up and guided me by the elbow to the doorway, from where he pointed out the room farther along the hallway that had been designated as mine. "Get some rest, man – Bendray's head butler told me there's a dinner party tonight; some of the old boy's Royal Anti-Society bunch are coming over."
"Who are they?" I had been mystified by the term when I had heard it before from Lord Bendray.
"Nobody." Scape gave me a push towards my room. "Just a buncha old geezers. Crackpots. Nothing to worry about." The door closed in my face before I could ask any more questions.
I found Creff laying out my clothes upon the bed. The dog Abel was curled asleep upon the pillow; his ears pricked up on my entrance, but he made no other motion. "Rum lot round here," grumbled Creff as he pulled more items from the trunk. "Never seen such queer coves, have I."
Weary, I sat down in a convenient chair. "You little know," I said, "how true you speak." I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.
I awoke some hours later, with the gas-mantles lit to dispel the evening gloom. Creff was prodding my shoulder. "There's people arriving soon, sir. For some sort of to-do."
"Um… yes. Quite." I tasted my sour, dry mouth, and pushed myself up in the chair.
A vigorous application of soap and water brought me back to full consciousness. As I dressed, I felt an oddly familiar weight in the waistcoat pocket of the suit Creff had laid out. I drew out the Saint Monkfish crown and stood gazing at it for a moment.
How far had this mere bit of metal brought me, and yet no closer to answering the riddles it posed! That day on which the Brown Leather Man had given me the coin in payment seemed ever more from another time, another life. I had set out in blithe curiosity to ascertain this mysterious saint's identity, and to what end? The coin had bought me only the witnessing of two deaths – poor Fexton, and that dark-skinned progenitor of so many enigmas – and the threat of my own in the chill waters of the Thames. Those who promised to answer my queries, such as Lord Bendray, did so only by interjecting fresh conundrums.
There had to be an end to this. I re-pocketed the coin, resolving that if my demands for clarification were not met in the course of the evening, then I would strike out on my own for London, and have nothing more to do with these "queer coves", as Creff so aptly called them. An honest confession of my folly would be my shield against whatever spurious charges were being laid against me.
"Jesus H. Christ!" An out-of-breath Scape collided with me when I stepped out of my room. "Quick!" he said, and pulled me back into the doorway. "Now listen to me–"
I drew back from his flushed and panting face. "Whatever's the matter?"
He clutched my arm tighter. "I'm trying to tell ya, all right? Just listen, okay? I didn't know these people were gonna show up here tonight. So you gotta–"
"Who?" My resolve extended to refusing to be chivvied about by this excitable character. "What people?"
Scape brought himself under control, lowering his voice. "A guy named Wrath. Okay? Sir Charles Wrath, and his wife. They're the ones. I got told that Bendray had invited some of his Royal Anti-Society bunch over tonight, but nobody told me it was gonna be friggin' Wroth. So what you have to do–"
I peeled his hand fram my sleeve and dropped it. "I don't have to do anything," I said testily. "Unless I'm given a bloody good reason. What's so significant about this – Wroth, or whoever it is?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell ya, Dower." Scape's voice constricted to a hoarse whisper. "He's kind of… another client of mine. So to speak. You get what I mean?"
"You mean," I said coldly, "you engage in some sort of criminal activity on behalf of this gentleman."
"Well… yeah! Jeez!!" His words went up in pitch. "Give me the firing squad for trying to make a buck, you smug sonuvabitch!" He mastered himself again. "Look do me a favour, will ya? When you talk to the guy, just act natural. Okay? But don't–"
"Dower! There you are – come and meet my guests."
Scape was interrupted by Lord Bendray. The old man, returned to an apparent state of sobriety, came down the hallway and fastened on to my arm, by which he pulled me towards the stairs. "I'm sure you'll find them most interesting," he said. "Sir Charles has a keen interest in all things Scientific."
Beside me as we walked, Scape leaned close to my ear and whispered: "Just be cool, okay?"
As was often the case, I remained baffled by his puzzling syntax. I took it to be some sort of warning, but of what I had no idea.
I shortly found myself in a chandeliered banqueting room, under the inspection of a figure whose grey-haired age was belied by his upright military bearing. "I hope you'll excuse me," said Lord Bendray. "Small matters to attend to." He then scurried away.
Sir Charles leaned forward, peering at me even more intently. "Marvellous," he murmured to himself. "Really quite extraordinary." Surprisingly, he prodded at my chest with one finger. "Most lifelike. Do you speak?" he suddenly addressed me.
I was somewhat taken aback by this odd query. "Well, yes. Of course." Behind him, I saw Scape making a variety of surreptitious hand gestures to me; they puzzled me enough to keep me from saying anything more. Beyond this, I was disturbed by an odd familiarity to Sir Charles' voice; it seemed to me I had heard him speak some time before, but I could not imagine where.
"'Of course,'" repeated Sir Charles with a smile. "Very droll, that." He turned round to Scape, who hastily ceased his signalling. "My congratulations – you've produced it here in remarkably fine operating order."
Scape shrugged modestly. "Yeah, well… we try our best." Miss McThane, her hair in an upswept coif, had entered the room, and stood beside him, smiling graciously.
A woman, younger than Sir Charles, and of considerable beauty and startling décolletage, stepped from beside him for a closer look. "Yes," Mrs Wroth said huskily, reaching up to run a silk-gloved hand down the side of my face. "Very… lifelike." Her hand trembled as it smoothed the curve of my shoulder; her eyes, limpid cerulean, narrowed in the manner I had observed before in Miss McThane. J could not speak for the sudden congestion of my pulse in my throat; Sir Charles seemed oblivious to the evident nature of her interest in me.
"I congratulate your maker – or I would, if he were still alive." Sir Charles served himself and his wife from a tray of claret brought around by one of Bendray's staff. "Superb workmanship – simply superb. I look forward to tonight's performance."
Mrs Wroth took a sip of wine; the tip of her tongue caught a red drop at the corner of her mouth. Her elegant hands toyed with the stem of her glass as she gazed at me. "Yes," she said. "It should be… very moving." She looked round at Miss McThane; the two women exchanged venomous glances.
Scape strode over to me and grabbed me by the arm. "Needs some minor adjustments, however, folks." He smiled and gave a small wave with his free hand, as he tugged me away from the others. "Drink up… you know, kick back… we'll see you in a little bit." He forced his smile even wider. "Show time, right?" To me he whispered under his breath: "Come on. Don't blow it now."
"What is the meaning of all this nonsense?" I demanded as soon as Scape had pulled shut a door between us and those in the banqueting room. "What was he talking about – "superb workmanship" and all that–"
"Hey! I can explain." Scape made a pacifying gesture with the palms of his hands outward. "It's nothing to get worked up over – Sir Charles just happens to believe that you're… um… made out of clockwork. That's all."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Clockwork. You know – like machines. Like your father built. Sir Charles thinks you're a machine. Simple, huh?"
The absurdity of the explanation nettled me. "That may well be; however, I see no point in letting him go on suffering this misapprehension."
"Well…" Scape sucked his breath in through his teeth. "Actually, there is."
"If you expect me to help perpetrate some fraud upon this gentleman, for the benefit of your criminal enterprise–"
"Hey." He spread his hands farther apart. "It ain't just my ass on the line here, sucker. Sir Charles is a heavy dude in the Royal Anti-Society. They don't all take as kindly to somebody sailing in under false pretences as ol' Bendray did. I mean, they're a kick-ass bunch. They haven't lasted for a couple of hundred years by being all sweetness and light. They've had people snuffed for less."
"Snuffed…" I had a mental image of a candle flame being extinguished between a thumb and forefinger. "You mean, killed?"
"Way to go – you get the cigar."
"You told me they were a harmless bunch of old men!" Scape shrugged. "Harmless, shmarmless; you don't screw with them and you won't get harmed. All right? And if you do what I tell you to do, you'll be okay."
I glanced nervously over my shoulder, concerned that the others might have heard our rising voices through the door. "What do I have to do?" I whispered. The threat of violence had dissipated my earlier resolve.
"Piece of cake." Scape took an elongated leather case from a sideboard and laid it on the table in front of me. He snapped it open and withdrew a violin and bow, which he then held out to me. "All you gotta do is… play a little."
"Pardon?" I looked at the instrument in his hands. "You mean – play the violin?"
"What's it look like, a friggin' trumpet? Yeah, the violin. Go on, take it." He thrust it towards me.
I shrank back from it. "But why?"
He sighed with exaggerated patience. "Look. Sir Charles thinks… that you… are a device… created by your father. Called the Paganinicon–"
"The what–"
"Listen up, will ya? The Paganinicon. A clockwork violinist. Modelled after the big wha-hah virtuoso. You follow? You are a clockwork – what's it – automaton, right; and you can play the violin as good as the real Paganini. Or at least that's what we want Sir Charles to go on thinking. See? I told you it was simple."
"But–" I looked in bewilderment from his face to the instrument. "I've never heard Paganini play; I've never even held a violin in my life!"
"So? How hard can it be?" Scape thrust it into my hands. "Go on, take it."
I held it awkwardly, the bow somehow having got tangled with the strings. "This is impossible–"
"Not like that; the other way around. Don't drop it, for Christ's sake – that's a genuine Guarnerius, that Sir Charles sent over. Worth a lotta money someday; already is, probably."
"No; no, I can't do it." The violin felt incredibly light in my hands, as though it could float off into the air if I released it. The glowing wood trembled with my pulse. "They'll never believe it–"
My protests were interrupted by the door being pulled open by one of Lord Bendray's servants. I could see beyond him that the banqueting room was now empty, as he informed us that the other guests were awaiting us in the music room. "Is your boss there?" asked Scape.
"No, sir; he is in his laboratory, with orders not to be disturbed."
Scape breathed a sigh of relief, and I realised a further extent of his duplicity; neither Lord Bendray nor Sir Charles was aware of how he had represented me to the other. Thus his panicky state when he had discovered that Sir Charles was here at Bendray Hall; his intrigues depended upon the two men being kept apart, at least as long as their attentions were centred upon me.
"It won't work," I whispered to him as the servant led us down another of the Hall's great high-ceilinged corridors. "This is m
adness!"
His words came from the corner of his mouth, as the blue lenses of his spectacles stayed fixed ahead: "Just give it your best shot. What've you got to lose?"
From a small curtained alcove, I could see Sir Charles and Mrs Wroth seated some distance from a grand piano. The same butler as before served them from a tray held between them. When they had their sherry glasses in hand, the butler turned to Miss McThane, just behind them; his eyes widened a bit when she took the bottle off the tray and kept it. Her sullen, narrow-eyed gaze bored into the back of Mrs Wroth's neck as she drained her first glassful.
Scape prodded me forward. "Go on. Break a leg."
"What?" The neck of the violin slid in my sweating grip.