by M L Dunn
“A bellhop can come and knock on your door if you prefer?”
“I really would like an alarm clock.”
“Very well. I’ll have one brought up to your room in a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Slang said. “Room 211.”
Chapter 32
Late that afternoon and into the early part of the evening, Mr. Darcy, along with his fellow tour bus patrons, visited the Transylvania Metropolitan Cemetery, made a brief stop at the Vamp’s Mill, where he had a small glass of vamp’s at the visitor center, and then was driven out into the Draculia region of the valley. Out there his group stopped at the gates of Dracula Manor and was allowed to walk around the grounds briefly before they returned to their bus and headed for The Depths to have dinner.
The group was told they would have one hour there before the bus would leave to take them to a spot along the Black River where they could view a majestic waterfall. From there they would return to the city.
After one hour, the tour guide called three times for her group to board the bus. Mr. Slang heard her all three times, but he did not re-board the bus. Instead he slipped out the back of The Depths and into the dark woods.
Well out into the woods he waited and watched and then one of the three detectives, the oldest one, stepped out back of the tavern looking for him. The detective discreetly looked around a few moments, but tossed his hat down on the ground when he realized he’d lost Mr. Darcy. It did not really matter though. He would meet up with them back at the Strigoi Hotel in a few hours.
Chapter 33
After about an hour inside The Rock Slide Tom decided Stone was not there. He got back in his car and headed back toward the city.
It was after 4 o’clock when he arrived at the inspectors’ offices. Red was on the phone in his office so he checked in with Miss Kensington. He told her the trip out to Harper’s Junction had been a waste of time. Red poked his head out of his office then and asked him to step in there.
“I didn’t turn up any sign of Stone out at Harper’s Junction,” Tom told him.
“Oh, too bad. I thought maybe we were onto something,” Red said. “Chief Rogers called a little while ago. Judge Hopkins rendered his verdict. Count Vasili is to be sent back to the U.R.R.K. to stand trial. We are to take him out there tomorrow morning to be put on the Dauntless.”
“Okay.”
“That’s not all. They want you and me to escort him all the way to the U.R.R.K. He’s our responsibility until we turn him over to the Administration there. One of us will have to sit with him on the zeppelin until the princess is returned.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Wish I was. That’s not all. Colonel Popov asked that we meet him before then out there with Krakov’s body. I guess his brother asked that his body be shipped back to the U.R.R.K. and Colonel Popov okayed it.”
“Krakov has a brother?”
“Apparently,” Red said. “Why don’t you head home and pack a bag. Show up here at eight tomorrow so we can deliver Krakov’s body out there.”
“All right,” Tom said. “Has Fixx called in?”
“Uh, no,” Red said. “I’ll send a constable around to your house if he calls in saying Stone showed up.”
“I guess I’ll head on home then.”
“You do that. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”
As Tom was headed toward his desk to get his hat and coat he heard the phone in Red’s office ring. At his desk he could see inside Red’s office and he watched Red pick up the phone, listen a moment, and then write something down.
As Tom went by his door on his way out the building, Red was putting his coat on, about to head out somewhere. Tom knew he was keeping something from him and he was determined to find out what.
He hurried to his car and pulled around the building just as Red was coming out the front, headed for his car parked on the street.
Red drove up Appian Way and turned at Queen Anne’s when he came to the round-about where the two streets intersected. He was headed east. He drove another three blocks and turned. Tom kept a few cars behind him. When Tom came around the corner, Red was stepping out his car. He started toward a small shop and Tom drove past slowly as Red opened the shop’s door and headed inside. He could see inside the shop through the window. The shop sold clocks and the like.
Tom saw Red flash the store owner his badge when he stepped out from the back of the store to greet him. Tom drove down the block and parked, watching the front of the store n his review mirror. A couple of minutes later Red came out holding an alarm clock. He looked it over on the sidewalk, as he stood rubbing his mustache.
He got back in his car then, drove a couple of blocks and pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store. Tom waited. A few minutes later Red came out with a small ice cream cone, but also a note pad. He threw the cone away before he got back in his car and drove down a side street and parked. Best Tom could tell, as he spied on him from a half block away, was that Red seemed to be writing a letter. He had the light inside his car on, because it was getting dark outside.
Red started his car then and things took an even more mysterious turn when he drove to the Shadows Hotel and parked out front. Tom waited down the block. He watched the bulbs on the neon hotel sign blinking like a bad bulb does as he tried to come up with a reason why Red would need to be there. All he could come up with was that Fixx lived there, but right then Fixx should have been out at The Wolf’s Fang.
Chapter 34
Mr. Slang figured he had come a mile through unfamiliar woods. The fact that wolves and even a bear or two was known to roam this neck of the valley concerned him, so he held his pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other as he walked. The fact that a few witches, some supposedly not of sound mind and not having been seen for years, were known to inhabit these dark woods, concerned him even more. He’d seen a sign warning visitors not to go hiking out in the woods this part of the valley. At least it was not a full moon. Many unfamiliar, frightening even sounds came to him as he walked through the dark forest, which was rapidly becoming dark as the last bit of sunlight withdrew. No one likes being out in the dark woods of Transylvania alone, especially at night, and that included Mr. Slang.
When he came to a dirt road, his spirits soared. He checked his map and figured it was the road that would lead him to the mouth of the Tunnel Like Hell mine. He had only another mile to go. He walked along the edge of the woods, just in case a car should pass by.
Once he was in sight of the entrance to the mine, he watched the guard shack stationed on the road that led up to the mine. There was just the one guard it appeared.
Mr. Slang stepped out into the road and began walking toward there, making no effort at stealth. The guard, who was listening to a radio, did not become aware of him until he was nearly there and then he stepped out holding a lantern.
“Who’s there?” the guard shouted.
“My car has broken down,” Mr. Slang shouted back. “I saw your light here.”
“I can call for a tow truck,” the guard said as Mr. Slang neared him.
“Would you?”
“Just stay there,” the guard said.
“What?” Mr. Slang asked coming closer.
“Just stay there in the road,” the guard said, finally becoming suspicious.
“Is that a witch?” Mr. Slang asked pointing behind the guard and when the guard turned his head – Mr. Slang brought the small club out his pocket and knocked the man unconscious.
Now Mr. Slang was particularly adept at knocking men unconscious. Once, in a past lifetime, he had lined thirty prisoners up in a row and forced them to kneel. Then he went along behind them with a small club and promptly knocked each one of them silly.
He had a desire to learn how to knock men out cold without permanently injuring them, and he, long ago, had perfected this most useful of skills. Few men knew how to consistently, effectively knock men unconscious. He figured the guard would be out abo
ut an hour, which is about as long as you can knock someone out without causing permanent damage. That was all the time he needed.
After placing a coat under the guard’s head to make him comfortable, and a small blanket he found in the shack, over him to keep him warm, Mr. Slang took from the guard his keys and lantern. He walked up to the fence and looked at the pad lock and chain locking the gate and let himself in. He figured the mine would have been better served if there had been no one guarding it at all.
He walked up the gravel road and discovered the guard had not been given a key to the offices there. He promptly kicked the door in. Once inside, Mr. Slang began looking around. What he was searching for was easy enough to locate. A bright orange and black sign with skull and cross bones showed him the storage room where dynamite was kept. The steel door was locked though.
Mr. Slang expected this. He brought out his lock picks and went about unlocking the door and before much time had passed he was standing inside the storage room looking over the mine’s supply of dynamite and nitroglycerin, percussion caps, fuses and the like. He opened a box of dynamite and removed a considerable number of sticks. He then helped himself to a small supply of nitroglycerin and several percussion caps and fuses. He put it all in a sack he had brought with him and then he left.
He went back to the guard lying in the road, who was beginning to stir and knocked him on the head once again, not very violently, just hard enough to knock him out again. He clipped his keys back on him and placed the lantern next to him, just in case someone should drive up the road, and not seeing him, run over him.
Chapter 35
It was full on dark when Red came out of the Shadow’s Hotel. Sure enough he had Fixx with him. Tom couldn’t really see for sure it was Fixx, but he had Fixx’s same coat, hat and thin build. They jumped in Red’s car and drove toward the TCPD building. A half block from there, Red pulled over and Fixx stepped out of the car. Then Red drove to the front of the station, parked and went inside.
Tom turned on Mulberry and parked part way up the block. He stood on the car’s bumper so he would be able to see inside the front windows of the TCPD building. He saw Red approach the desk sergeant, say something to him and then both of them headed for further back into the station where constables sat at desks to file reports and the like. A moment later, Fixx came down the sidewalk and slipped into the building.
Tom watched him place a letter on the desk sergeant’s desk and then slip right back out without being seen.
A minute later Red and the desk sergeant returned, and Red headed upstairs. Tom watched the desk sergeant. He spotted the letter left on his desk, opened it and read it. He immediately yelled back into the offices behind him. A sergeant came out and read the letter. He ordered the desk sergeant onto the phone and then he sent a constable upstairs. It wasn’t long before Red came downstairs and acted like he had no idea what was written on the letter.
Almost immediately Red sent two constables out the building. Tom stood by his car and watched them walk a block down to the train station. He decided to enter the building then.
“We received a second ransom note,” Red told him as soon as he spotted him coming inside the station.
“What’d the note say?”
“Pandora wants some prohibited items brought here, nothing too wicked though, but she must have some potion in mind.”
“Are we going to deliver it to her?”
“That’s for Chief Rogers and King Havel to decide, but I sent a couple of constables down to Essex to bring the items back just in case. What’d you come back for?”
“Uh, forgot my house key actually.” Tom said. “It’s in my desk drawer.”
Tom headed upstairs like he was going to retrieve his key and then he left the TCPD building and headed for his car. He’d decided to go have a talk with the shop owner off of Queen Anne’s Way.
It was after six when he arrived there and the shop was closed. He looked at the room above the shop and saw a light on there and figured the shop owner lived there. He banged on the door hard and just kept knocking. Finally a window slid open above him.
“We’re closed for the night,” the shop keeper said leaning out the window.
Tom showed him his badge. “I’m a police officer,” he said. “I need to talk to you for just a minute. Do you mind coming down?”
“I’ll be down,” the shop owner said sliding the window shut.
A minute later the door was unlocked and Tom was let in.
“You’re the second policeman to visit me today. Did you have some more questions?” the shop owner asked as he turned a light on.
“That’s right,” Tom said. “We have a couple more questions for you.”
“How can I help?”
Tom wasn’t quite sure how to begin, but then he asked, “I think you were showing Chief Inspector Meriwether some clocks earlier today?”
“That’s right,” the man said. “Would you like to see the one he bought?”
“I would.”
The shopkeeper, an older man with white hair and a white mustache led Tom through the store. There was a lot of ticking going on in there, from watches and several hall clocks for sale and some cuckoo clocks even. He led Tom to a shelf where some fine clocks encased in wood sat on a shelf. The kind of clock you might set on your fireplace mantle or a top a dresser. More like your dresser since it had a pair of bells on top. It served as an alarm clock in addition to being a fine-looking work of craftsmanship.
“This is the kind Inspector Meriwether bought,” the shop owner said picking one up and showing Tom it.
“This an alarm clock?”
“Can be,” the man said poking at the bells on top. “That’s what those bells are for. This is the same kind of clock I sold the man Inspector Meriwether was here asking about.”
“Oh? What man?”
“A Mr. Darcy. He’s visiting here and he wanted to buy something as a memento. Inspector Meriwether came in here asking about him.”
“Where was Mr. Darcy from?”
“He never said, but I get the feeling he was from someplace I’ve never been.”
“What makes you say that?”
“His watch.”
“His watch?”
“It was a most unusual watch. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. I asked to look at it. I noticed the maker’s name on the bottom. It said Kozloff. I notice those things of course – being a watchmaker myself and all. I know most of the other watchmakers here in Britannia. There is not a Kozloff that I know of.”
“He said his name was Darcy?”
“That’s right,” the man said as Tom handed him the clock back. The clock maker wiped Tom’s fingerprints off the clock before placing it back on the shelf. “I’ll have to get busy making more of these,” he said. “I like to have three on display and now I have just the one. Three is a good number.”
Tom looked at the shelf below, where there was a similar kind of clock, not as wide with a little smaller clock face and slightly smaller bells. He noticed there were only two for sale there, one lined up behind the other. The last spot on the shelf was empty. “Looks like you need to make another one of those too then,” Tom said pointing there.
The man looked there. “That’s odd,” he said before looking around like he hoped to spot the missing clock misplaced on a shelf close by. “There should be three there.”
“You must have sold one.”
“No,” he said. “Not for a week now and there was three there this morning.”
“You’re sure you didn’t sell one of them today?”
“Oh, I’m quite certain. I remember there was three there when I brought Mr. Darcy back here.”
“What about when Inspector Meriwether was here. Was there three of them then?”
The man thought for a moment. “I can’t say that I noticed. You don’t think Mr. Darcy would have taken it do you?”
“Maybe he did. You’re certain there should be three there?”
> “Oh yes,” the man said. “I always keep three of this kind there. If Mr. Darcy did take it, I hope it was because he admired it. He seemed excited to own the clock he did pay for. He handled it with much care. He talked with me for quite some time.”
“What about?”
“He mentioned he was in the mining business.”
“The mining business?”
“Yes, he asked if we had any mines in this part of the realm. So I of course told him we had the Tunnel Like Hell mine here.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked what that was,” the shopkeeper said. “I found that surprising since the Tunnel Like Hell mine is the biggest coal producer in all of Britannia.”
“What did he say then?”
“He asked if they use explosives out there.”
“He asked that?”
“Yes. Of course I told him they do.”
“What did this man look like?”
The shopkeeper tried to picture Mr. Darcy then. “Hard to say really,” he said. “Not too tall or short, not too heavy or thin either. Nothing too remarkable about him. He did have a mustache.”
“Did he say where he was staying?”
“No,” the clock maker said shaking his head.
“Did you tell Inspector Meriwether that Mr. Darcy mentioned he was in the mining business?”
“No, that didn’t come up.”
“Could you do me a favor? Would you mind calling the station and asking for Inspector Meriwether?” Tom asked as he began to write the number down for the shop owner.
“Okay.”
“Tell him you just noticed that one of your other alarm clocks is missing. That it must have been stolen just today, and you thought that you should mention it to him.”
“All right.”
“Don’t mention I was here though, okay?”
The shop owner looked at Tom a moment. “I guess you have your reason,” he said. “I don’t have a phone here in the shop. I’ll have to use the one on the corner.”