The curious case of the Clockwork Man bas-2

by Mark Hodder

  “Certainly. Don't pummel him too hard.”

  “A verbal dressing-down, that's all, Captain!” Trounce smiled. He cracked his knuckles and vanished into the pawnbroker's.

  Sir Richard Francis Burton leaned on his cane and watched the traffic pass by. The traders’ vehicles were mostly horse-drawn. There weren't many who could afford a steam-horse. The men on the carts were tough and wiry individuals. Their shirtsleeves were rolled up to their elbows and Burton could see the knotted muscles of their forearms, the thickness of their bones, and the leathery quality of their skin. There wasn't an ounce of fat on any of them, nor was there even a hint of pretension-nary a whiff of self-consciousness. They were stripped down to the basics of existence. They toiled, they ate, they slept, they toiled again, and they never imagined anything different. He admired them, and, in a strange way, he envied them.

  A couple of minutes later, he heard a footstep behind him and turned.

  Detective Inspector Trounce had emerged from the shop.

  “He started blubbing like a baby before I'd said more than two words,” the policeman announced. “I expect he'll stay on the straight and narrow for a while. It's his second warning. He'll not get another. I'll have the bracelets on him. What say you we drop in at Brundleweed's? It's just around the corner.”

  “Good idea.”

  They set off.

  “Has there been no clue to the Choir Stones’ whereabouts?” Burton asked.

  “Not a whisper, unless Brundleweed's heard something through the grapevine since I last spoke to him. He maintains that he locked the genuine articles in the safe that evening. Yet we know that Isambard Kingdom Brunel removed fakes. So either Brundleweed is lying-which I find hard to believe; his reputation is absolutely spotless-or an extremely accomplished cracksman got there first and left no trace.”

  They passed back into Trafalgar Square, weaving through the crowds, and on into Charing Cross Road, heading toward Saint Martin's.

  “Do you have a suspect?”

  Trounce removed his bowler, slapped it, and placed it back on his head.

  “The obvious man would be-” he began, then interrupted himself: “By Jove! Look at that!”

  A bizarre vehicle had snaked into view from around the next corner and was thundering toward them at high speed. It was a millipede-an actual insect-grown to stupendous proportions by the Eugenicists. When it had reached the required size, they'd killed it and handed the carcass over to their Engineering colleagues, who'd sliced off the top half of its long, segmented, tubular body. They'd removed the innards until only the tough outer carapace remained, and into this they'd fitted steam-driven machinery via which the many legs could be operated. Platforms had been bolted across the top of each segment and upon them seats were affixed, over which canopies arched, echoing the shape of the missing top half of the body. A driver sat at the front of the vehicle in a chair carved from the shell of the head. He skillfully manipulated a set of long levers to control the astonishing machine.

  It was a new type of omnibus, and it was packed solid with passengers, with three people to every seat and a fair number standing and hanging on for dear life as it hurtled along. They cheered and hooted with delight as hansoms and growlers, carts and velocipedes, horses and pedestrians hurriedly moved to the side of the road, out of the oncoming vehicle's path. Dense clouds of steam boiled from pipes along its sides and, as it came alongside Burton and Trounce and careened into the narrow gap that opened up through the centre of the traffic, hot vapour rolled over the two men, obscuring the scene. Impassioned curses and profanities came from within the cloud; there was a crash, a scream, and the shuddery whinny of a panicked horse.

  “Damned freakish monstrosity!” Trounce yelled. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the moisture from his face.

  “That's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen!” Burton exclaimed. “I'd read that the Technologists were experimenting with insect shells but I had no idea they'd progressed so far!”

  “You regard that as progress?” Trounce objected. He waved his hat at the milieu that was slowly emerging from the thinning haze. “Look! It's utter bloody chaos! We can't have horses and steam-horses and penny-farthings and now steam-bloody-insects as well, all on the streets at the same time! People are going to get hurt!”

  “Humph!” Burton agreed. “We certainly seem to be entangled in a profusion of mismatched machineries.”

  “A profusion? Call it whatever you will, Captain Burton, but the fact of the matter is that if the dashed scientists don't slow down and plan ahead with something at least resembling foresight and responsibility, London is going to grind to a complete standstill, mark my words!”

  “I don't disagree. Come on. Let's move along. What was it you were saying? About the suspect?”

  “Suspect? Oh, Brundleweed. Yes. Well, the obvious safecracker to look at would be Marcus Dexter-there's no strongbox he can't open and he's as cunning as a fox-but he's operating in Cape Town at the moment, that's for certain. Cyril ‘the Fly’ Brady is locked up in Pentonville, and Tobias Fletcher is consumptive and out of action. There's no one else I know of who could have opened Brundleweed's safe without dynamite.”

  A one-legged beggar swung himself on crutches directly into Trounce's path. He pleaded in a throaty voice for a ha'penny: “Jest fr'a cuppa tea, me ol’ china.”

  The detective glowered at him, told him to move along, but pressed a penny into his palm as he went.

  “I'm almost inclined to run with the diamond merchant's theory,” he muttered.

  “Brundleweed has a theory?”

  “Of sorts. He believes a ghost took the diamonds.”

  Burton stopped and stared at his companion in amazement.

  “A ghost?”

  “Yes. He's fooled himself into believing that he saw a phantom woman that night.”

  “You don't believe him, surely?”

  “No, of course not. He probably dozed off and dreamt it. Except-”

  “What?”

  “The friend of Francois Garnier; the one he gave two of the black diamonds to-”

  “Jean Pelletier.”

  “Yes. I contacted the Surete in Paris. They confirmed that he died from a heart attack.”

  “So?”

  “So he was found in his lodgings, the room was locked from the inside, and the windows were closed. Yet, for some reason, his face was frozen into an expression of sheer terror. The detective I spoke to actually used the words 'like he'd seen a ghost.’”

  “Intriguing.”

  “Hmm. Anyway, let's hear what Brundleweed has to say. C'mon, shake a leg.”

  They arrived at the shop a few moments later and entered.

  Edwin Brundleweed looked up from his counter, which was secured behind metal bars. He was a stooped, middle-aged gentleman, with a long brown pointed beard drooping from his narrow chin. His head was prematurely bald, his lips thin, and thick-lensed spectacles were perched on the bridge of his hooked nose.

  “Why, Detective Inspector! How very nice to see you! Is there news?”

  “I'm afraid not, Mr. Brundleweed. This is Captain Sir Richard Burton. He's the gentleman who discovered the robbery here.”

  “Then I'm very much in your debt, sir,” the dealer said to Burton. “If it weren't for you, the rest of the diamonds would have been lost too and I'd have been put out of business. Pray, come in, gentlemen.”

  Brundleweed moved to a door set in the bars at the side of the counter, unlocked it, and stepped back to allow his visitors through. He relocked it behind them.

  “I have a fresh pot of tea just brewed and a new tin of custard creams. Would you care to join me?”

  Burton and Trounce answered in the affirmative. A few minutes later, they were seated with their host around a table.

  “Mr. Brundleweed,” Burton said, “I'm puzzled. Why would the mystery person who replaced the Choir Stones with fakes take only those gems and not the others you had in you
r safe?”

  The king's agent knew from Babbage that the missing gems possessed special qualities but he wondered who else might be aware of the fact.

  “Good question!” came the reply. “I believe the culprit must be a specialist, a collector, a man who has interest in diamonds only for their history rather than for their financial worth. Do you know their background?”

  “Only that they were discovered after they started ‘singing’ in 1837, were recently taken from a temple in Cambodia by Lieutenant Francois Garnier, and there were originally seven of them, but he gave two away. Those two subsequently went missing after the death of their owner.”

  “That's correct. However, there's much more to the tale, and it's this that makes the remaining gems so eminently collectable. Black diamonds aren't the same as the white variety; they're not found in diamond fields, such as we have in South Africa and Canada. Current thinking posits that they fall from the sky as aerolites.”

  “Yes, I've come across that theory.”

  “According to an obscure occult manuscript-dating from the sixteenth century, if I remember rightly-which is quoted in Schuyler's De Mythen van Verloren Halfedelstenen, a large aerolite that fell in prehistoric times broke into three pieces. One piece landed in the West, another in Africa, and the third in the Far East. They are known as the Eyes of Naga.”

  “Three eyes?”

  “Yes. Three eyes. Peculiar, isn't it? I'm afraid I have no understanding of the Dutch language and wasn't able to read the Schuyler volume myself-my information came from a summary in Legendary Gemstones by Jerrold Wilson-but I believe the author goes on to recount two myths: a South American one which tells how the Amazon sprang into being when a large black diamond fell from the sky; and a Cambodian one about a lost continent in which a great river flowed from the spot where a black stone fell. He speculates that a similar story probably exists in the African interior concerning the source of the Nile.”

  “It does!” Burton exclaimed. “While I was in the central Lake Regions, in a town named Kazeh, I was told that the fabled Mountains of the Moon supposedly mark the outer rim of a crater where an aerolite fell, giving rise to that river.”

  “It can't be a coincidence, can it?” Brundleweed said. “I suppose the mythical shooting star really did fall. Anyway, the Choir Stones are supposedly the fragments of the Far Eastern Eye. If that's true, then the original diamond must have been considerably larger than the Koh-i-noor.”

  “Hmm,” Burton grunted. “The Naga. I've encountered references to them. They equate to the Devanagari of Hindu mythology; seven-headed reptilian beings who established an underground civilisation long before Darwin's apes learned how to walk upright.”

  “Ah, well, there you are,” Brundleweed commented, noncommittally.

  “I shall have to look into that,” Burton murmured thoughtfully. “What of the African and South American diamonds?”

  “Not a trace,” the dealer answered. “Although there are vague suggestions that, seventy years or so ago, an English aristocrat discovered an enormous black diamond in Chile. However, I very much doubt the veracity of the claim, for no such diamond has ever been seen, let alone cut and placed on the market.”

  “The aristocrat's name?”

  “I have no idea, Captain. As I said, it's the vaguest of rumours.”

  “Hmm. And what of Francois Garnier? Why did he decide to sell his collection?”

  Brundleweed snorted scornfully: “Believe it or not, he claimed that they emanate a deleterious influence. Tosh and piffle, of course!”

  “Did you have any prospective buyers?”

  “No, but my advertisement in the trade newspaper was only published a couple of days before the robbery. I received just a single enquiry, from a chap who came into the shop to confirm that I was putting the stones on the market, but he was one of those dandified Rake-ish sorts, and though he expressed an interest, he didn't leave a name or address, and I haven't heard from him since.”

  “I followed that up,” Detective Inspector Trounce put in, “but it's been impossible to trace the fellow.”

  Burton sipped his tea and gazed at the biscuit tin, his mind working.

  He looked up. “Is there any explanation for the sound the diamonds are reputed to make?”

  “Not that I know of. The sound is real, though. I heard it myself-the faintest of drones. I believe there's a Schuyler in the British Library, if you want to consult it. Maybe the author makes mention of the phenomenon.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brundleweed. One final question. You reported a ghost?”

  The diamond dealer looked embarrassed. He coughed and scratched his chin through his beard.

  “Um, to be frank, Captain Burton, I think I must have nodded off and dreamed it.”

  “Tell me, anyway.”

  “Very well, but please bear in mind that I was strangely out of sorts that afternoon. I don't know why. I developed a migraine and felt oddly nervous and jumpy. For some reason, I imagined that my lot in life was very unsatisfactory and I grew rather morose. I inherited this little business from my father and have never before or since considered that I might do anything else in life but run it. However, that afternoon I was suddenly filled with resentment toward it, feeling that it had prevented me from doing something more important.”

  “What, precisely?”

  “That's the thing of it! I have no idea! The suggestion that I might abandon the family business is absurd in the extreme! Anyway, I was in a thoroughly bad temper and, at four o'clock-I remember the time because the clock suddenly stopped ticking and I couldn't get it started again-I decided to pack it in for the day. The Francois Garnier Collection was already locked in my safe but, before leaving, I went to double check it. As I passed through into the workshop, the figure of a woman caught my eye. It made me jump out of my skin, I can tell you. She was standing in the corner, white and transparent. Then I blinked and she was gone. Believe me, after that I had a thorough case of the jitters and left the shop in a hurry, though not before locking up carefully. On the way home, the fresh air seemed to do me good and the migraine left me. I began to feel more like my old self. By the time I stepped through my front door, I was perfectly fine. I went to bed early and slept heavily. I didn't awake until the police knocked the next morning.”

  Burton looked at Trounce. “Some sort of gas?” he suggested. “Causing hallucinations?”

  “That was my thought,” the detective replied. “But we checked every inch of the floors, walls, and ceilings and found no residue and no indication of how gas might have been introduced. Certainly it didn't come up from the cellar. The tunnel from the underground river wasn't dug until hours later.”

  There was a long pause, then Burton said: “I apologise for imposing upon you, Mr. Brundleweed. Thank you for the tea and biscuits. I hope the diamonds are recovered.”

  “I suppose they'll surface eventually, Captain.”

  “And when they do,” Trounce offered, “I'll hear about it!”

  The men stood, exchanged handshakes, and Burton and Trounce took their leave.

  “What next?” the detective asked as they stepped out onto the street.

  “Well, Trounce old chap, this has piqued my curiosity, so I think I'm going to bury my head in books for the rest of the day to see what more I can dig up about the Naga, then on Wednesday I shall take my rotorchair out for a spin.”

  “Where to?”

  “Tichborne House. Much as I'd rather pursue this diamond affair, orders are orders, so I ought to have a chat with the soon-to-be-deposed baronet.”

  Burton spent an uncomfortable afternoon at the British Library consulting Matthijs Schuyler's De Mythen van Verloren Halfedelstenen, along with a number of other books and manuscripts.

  He became increasingly ill.

  Malaria is like an earthquake; after the initial devastating attack, a series of lesser aftershocks follow, and one of them crept over the king's agent as he studied.

  It be
gan with difficulty focusing his right eye. Then he began to perspire. By five o'clock he was trembling and feeling nauseous.

  He decided to go home to sleep it off.

  Sitting in a hansom, being bumped and jerked toward Montagu Place, he considered what he'd read.

  According to the occult text consulted by Schuyler, a continent named Kumari Kandam once existed in the Indian Ocean. It was home to the Naga kingdom, whose capital city spanned a great river, the Pahruli, which sprang from the spot where a black diamond had fallen from the sky.

  The Naga were reptilian, and were constantly warring with the land's human inhabitants, enslaving them, sacrificing them, and, it was hinted, eating them.

  However, the humans were growing in numbers, while the Naga were diminishing, so there came a time when the reptilian people had little choice but to seek a peaceful coexistence.

  The humans sent an emissary, a Brahmin named Kaundinya, and as a symbol of the peace accord, he was married to the Naga monarch's daughter.

  However, Kaundinya was not just an ambassador, he was also a spy. He discovered that while the Naga were a multitude, they were also one, for their minds were joined together through means of the black diamond.

  After a year living with the reptilian race, during which time he convincingly acted the loving husband, Kaundinya was granted the right to add his own presence to the great fusion of minds.

  He was taken before the gemstone, and watched without protest as a human slave was sacrificed to it. Then, with great ritual, pomp, and ceremony, he was sent into a trance and his mind was projected into the stone.

  What a mind he possessed!

  Trained since early childhood, Brahmin Kaundinya had achieved the absolute pinnacle of intellectual order and emotional discipline. For a year, the Naga had been covertly projecting their thoughts into his, and for a year, despite feeling them crawling around inside his skull, he'd appeared to be nothing but a simple goodwill ambassador when, in truth, he was a living weapon-and their nemesis.